Here are some of my thoughts:

Recognizing the rush. If the enemy is both late getting to classical AND late making a second city (based on either scouting or territory score), you can assume he's doing an ancient rush. If you're playing conquest victory only (territory score are not shown), scout the enemy early enough (~2:00) so that you can get a sense for whether he's expanded or not. I wouldn't count on finding his barracks. A good rusher won't have the barracks near his town. He'll want it closer to his borders and it could be easy to miss.

Stopping the rush. If you get a sense that he's rushing you (see above), but no hard evidence (i.e., no sign of troops yet), I'd go ahead and research MIL1 and then build a barracks or a stable. I generally don't bother with a tower that early - they are slow to build and level 1 attrition won't save your capital. If you elect NOT to build a barracks, I'd keep a timber reserve of 120 on hand so you can plop one down in a hurry, but this is risky. A good rusher will bring slingers and even maybe an archer to deal with villagers making defenses. It can be tough to get a building up quickly if he catches you in the act, and a few seconds delay can be the difference between winning and losing.

Once you've gotten a barracks up, you should be pretty safe from an out right loss. You'll have a bigger economy and you'll be able to make counters for his troops, so you can eliminate the attacking force and recover any cities he's managed to capture.

Another trick is to use your villagers to make sure the captured cities stay reduced so you can quickly recapture them if you have more troops or if he wanders off to the next city.

Winning the rest of the game. If he doesn't get your capital, then you should still have a better economy, even despite the disruption to your production. Winning should be fairly straightforward. One option might be to queue up some HI of your own and send them with your other troops to his (soon to be made) second city, or even his capital.

If he did manage to sack your capital (and you recaptured), then he might have more immediate resources than you do, but he'll still be behind in production. Focus on getting back on track and replacing any villager losses you incurred. He'll use that +500 bonus to ramp up very quickly, so you won't have much of an advantage, if any. The key here is to get back into your rhythm and recover as quickly as possible.

Dude are you being serious? What level of play do you participate in online?

you dont need to be prepared for the rush... you find it then you find it... you don't see it til he has a whopping 3 (yes count three) heavy infantry, probalby one slinger and one archer... oh no! what would should I do!

I think I wrote an entire article about this probably 3 months ago, so it's so ridiculous that I even have to cover the most basic points of the defense...

Once the units are visible in your territory, research military one and build a barracks behind your capital.

Hell, you could even think about garrisoning a citizen or two!! OMG!

Then, you know what I do next while I build an archer or two to kill the entire rush? I use my other citizens to attack his archers and slingers.... and his heavy infantry if hes dumb enough to let me wack at them.

OMG, he turned to attack my citizens with his heavy infantry!! Wow... this is where a little micro'ing comes in hand and where you move them seperately, but so the archers just can't sit back picking you off.

Citizens>> ARCHERS+SLINGERS

Omg, then in 10 seconds, Ill have my 2 archers garrisoned behind my cap, i let them out and they rape the heavy infantry.. if anything gets close, regarrison and pop out on the other side.

Stop being sick, this rush sucks and if he tries throwing 2 heavy infantry on your second city, then fcking kill them with citizens..

Not even going to bother with any more then this.. bye

Hey, If a person doesn't know how to defend, he is a newb, or rook, but don't make his sound like an idiot. By the way. Good suggestions, lol.

attack them with villies eh?

never tried that but I shall try wut the great Myst suggests(dont want em to get that pissed at me! lol)

anyways, just by jumping in and out of your town center with a couple archers you can stop the 3 min. rush.

but what about the 8 min. rush? they usually have 7-8 Inf., couple siege, few cav.

do you build a barracks as soon as you see thiers or do you wait until they get to your territory?

do you build a tower?

are your villies useful against this later rush?

your thoughts?

wp

Citizens can kick alot of butt. Its one of the reasons booming is so successful. They can win a battle for you in ancient or classical for sure. I've seen Myst have zero miitary and all but stop a rush with villies alone. Its smart play, but it seems a little too easy to boom away and defend with villies and 1-2 military units...the defender has so many advantages already, especially garrisoning. Maybe decrease citizen attack power so that you are punished more for not having any military in the early game.

[This message has been edited by half_lotus (edited 09-16-2003 @ 03:41 AM).]

If someone goes quick classical (less than 5 minutes) they are either going to raid you, rush you, or something crazy Thats why when I see early classical, get towers up in both cities, get a barracks, maybe even garrison a few archers (in case of raids) get to classical ASAP and then reasearch attrition,
thats how you stop 8 minutes rush

the only way you can "stop" a good microed early ha raid is with light cav. archers are to slow vs good micro which players like grunt have. some good placed towers are important too.
a player that does very heavy raiding is hotbreak, he uses all he has for raiding, if youre not prepared for that or a uber micro god, youre in big trouble. but this type of raid is very expensive for the raider too and vs mayans its tough to do. hotbreak claims that he can do it vs mayans with no prob...

most good players pick maya, china or korea in 1vs1 rated, so hi rushing isnt an option for obvious reasons.

later on hc raiding comes in, at this point you should have attrition and some hc too (attrition wont stop a raid but it helps a little).
but imo best thing is to force the other player to react instead of leaving him the action.

Myst, you may have written something equally dismissive 3 months ago, but you can be rest assured that many of the players playing today have seriously problems fending off good rushes. Maybe they are "average" players or "non-expert" but surely they deserve to learn some of this as well. Or are these forums only for "experts" who don't play anymore? And if your experience with rushing is players chasing your villies with heavy infantry or fighting villagers with slingers, then you haven't been rushed by players who knew what they were doing.

It takes about 45 sec for a normal capital to fall (even with a temple). If you're not researching mil1 till they're attacking you, then you're going to lose your capital. Meanwhile, you have to research mil1, build a barracks, and then train archers, then the archers have to get into position to attack. That takes too long to save the first city. And when you lose your city, you're going to lose some buildings when he starts razing everything. Losing those buildings plus the sack bonus can be enough to equalize resources for the rusher.

Hmm... not much to add here, except...

Again, I have to stress scouting. In my ladder match last night, my opponent (Rengar) picked Japan. I was playing Korea so wasn't too worried, but I decided to scout him early instead of going after the corners (which I did with vils anyway). Did the standard Sci 1, Civ 1, Com 1, saw that he wasn't building a military and continued my boom. If I saw a barraks, I wouldn've gone Mil 1. End of rush threat.

Oh, in case you think you miss out on a lot of ruins by scouting your enemy first, if you pick a wide sweeping path, you can find plenty in the middle of the map, even those in your enemy's territory, cuz he'll be sweeping the edges. Meanwhile, release 1-2 vils to your own corners and you'll likely end up ahead in ruins bonuses anyway.

That's a good strategy if you can completely scout his territory to make sure he doesn't have a barracks up. That's always a good thing to do, particularly if you are playing an econ civ and want to do a big boom.

Because I build the barracks far from the town, I've had people scout me, but miss the barracks. And I've even had people scout the barracks who DIDN'T research MIL1 right away.

On ruins, however, the rusher will be sending his troops on different paths and will be scooping up a lot of ruins in the middle, too.

Not to disagree (well, too much), but maybe we should write a bit more in depth about what to look for when scouting.

I do want to point out, if you sweep the middle immediately, you'll pick up the ruins before the enemy rax is even up. Don't zig-zag, but use staggered sweeping lines towards your enemy.

(Edit: I tried to draw an ascii diagram of a scouting pattern, but the board's formatting doesn't permit it.)

The key is to look at the minimap while working on your initial econ. From where you see the enemy's borders, you can approximate a lot about what's going on with their expansion. If you see their territory pushing towards you, you know there's a 2nd city up and the odds of an ancient rush are pretty slim, and you'll have plenty of time to research Mil 1 and get a rax up.

OtoH, if you don't see a 2nd city, that's almost a dead giveaway they're going for an ancient rush. W/o Civ 1, their territory will be fairly small and easy to scout out. Verify they have a rax up, research Mil 1, lay down a barraks and contine to boom. When they attack, build 2 archers and the rush is dead.

[This message has been edited by davepy (edited 09-16-2003 @ 12:22 PM).]

out_4_blood you may lose you capital in a HI rush but if u do like these guys are trying to tell you, you will have it back seconds later. well before it can assimilate and they can begin razing your buildings.

use the villies to distract them so they cant kill your cap in the first place.

if they turn to attack your villy, run him away and they chase him while your city attacks them(and your archers finish completing.)I tried this after reading this post and it works great.

davepy - we agree totally. That was my comment above in the second post. Scout them out to see what they are up to, then respond accordingly. Unfortunately, some people believe you don't even need to worry about it, because you can just research mil1 even after they've started banging on your capital.

There is an article on the Infidels site. It is very detailed and does not contain some of the bull I have read here. The thread question is a very valid one. People (including myst) do not know how to defend a good 3 min rush.

Most people only know half the details. Myst is right in that you can defend by reacting (research military then barracks) but the rest is rubbish.

For instance, forget attacking HI with villagers as 4-5 villagers (about the most you can get around a HI take about 1 minute to kill it. You are better off working with them and getting 100 resource for 5 villagers in 1 minute.

4 HI will take a little over 1 minute to take the capital down and that is quicker than you can research military, build a barracks and bring an archer to fire.

1 villager does not fire out of a city you need two. Any more than 2 does not add to the attack until you get 6 villagers in and then you are at maximum city strength. The chinese large city requires 3 villagers to shoot and 7 to get to level 2 damage and can get to level 3 damage with 12 (definately not worth it).

Out_4_Blood is correct, if you lose your capital then the loot means the attacker has caught you up, probably overtaken you so recapturing the capital means you are still losing. Any buildings razed by the rusher will put you further behind.

Archers are the key but you have to watch out as the rusher will have a slinger and if you lose your archer(s) then it is doubtful if you will ever get your capital back as villagers can't do the job and rush reinforcements (from loot) will arrive soon.

For best defense, build a temple but only if you have wood also for the barracks when mil 1 is researched. The temple will add 300 Hp to your city and grant you a 20 second stay of execution (the 4 hoplites get shot down to 3 by the end). Put 2 citizens in your capital to shoot the rest work. Kill slingers on-site. Do NOT repair your city unless you are korean, it's too weak an effect and you lose economy. 2 korean repairers can keep the city up fine.

Read the article and learn the facts.

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Archers are the key, and they arent going to to die because your citizens will destroy his slingers and archers, then its a matter of 1-2 archers popping in and out of your rax to take out all of his HI.

That said, it is true that a good rush will work against all but the most expert of unprepared defenders.
But at high levels of play it is very possible to to delay military research until you actually see the rush in your front yard.

Whoever the guy is trying to snap like he knows shit and just copies strategies from MFO and puts them on his site needs to just keel over and die.

1) If i kill all of his slingers and archers with my vils, of course I'm going to bash away at his fcking HI.. You think 20 SECONDS of attacking is going to kill your economy? Hell... Ill even give you the "60 seconds" you said it takes to kill one HI with 5 vils!

Someone is not going to let you just beat on their army, they will either react by running away or fighting back. Of course you're going to say they'll stay on the capital, and then thats when you use 1 or 2 archers.

2) Even if your cap is sacked, there is no way an evenly matched set of players that the rusher will be able to catch up with +500 of all resources.

First reason: you ruined your entire economy early with wasting all of these resources on army, military building, military tech, and not getting sci upgrade for ruins (if you're dumb enough to go mil 1 first)

Second reason: most rushers think they need a defense after they sack the cap, then lose their army. They like wasting the resources they went out of the way to get to put back into a military they don't need

Third reason: You are DOWN in the most important library techs.. sci/civic/commerce. Not only do you not have a 2nd city, but you have 2 library techs! You will be trying to catch up the whole game.

To another poster: I'm speaking merely from the HI rush... I'm not talking about a delayed 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 minute rush... I'm speaking about a 3 minute rush. I'm not talking about a mongol rush or a turkish rush. I'm talking about a heavy infantry rush containing probably 3 or 4 HI, 1 slinger, 1 archer.

I'm sure there are more points that I just haven't covered and I'm definitely not speaking from a rookie or intermediate level of play, o4b.

If you like doing this rush and think you can win with it, then by all means go with it... but don't start another topic about it when everything has been covered many many many times.

Ciao

Myst this isn't the place for that kind of talk. i was just commenting on your general good attitude with some other mods, now you start with the bad talking things.

i don't mean to be a thorn but this is not the place for that.

TGE

Sorry if I sounded critical of you Myst, it wasn't really meant to be, I agreed with your main point that you can wait and react. But if you do, you have to be good against an equally skilled rusher.

To your point 1 about killing slingers, that is exactly what I advocate, but a good rusher also knows this and uses his slingers to scout for the barracks and keeps them well out of city fire/villager combat then waits for the archers to pop out.

To your point2. First (and third) the rush economy isn't so ruined as you think. When I rush I will typically attack before 3 mins but have sci researched by 3:30 and civic by 3:45 then begin building a second city at 4 mins BEFORE I sack the capital at about 4:45ish (ie, I now have 3 cities) and also have commerce. Second doesn't apply to rushers that know what they are doing, of course you can waste 500 of each res dead easy, if you don't know the strat. The 500 res IS enough for a good rusher to catch up, especially if you waste all your citizens garrisoned or trying to beat up a hoplite. Any buidings razed by the rusher puts him further ahead.

Quote:

I don't go to MFO, seems to be full of people that like to flame rather than discuss the game

I also don't copy peoples strategy, if you look on our site your will see original content there and also LINKS to other peoples strategy posts.

The rush article on our site is the most in depth I have
seen, please tell me if you have seen a more detailed one (I still have to add civ specific stuff in). I didn't write that stuff for my own pleasure but to help people who ask these questions.

The content I have posted on our site is original content, I did not read any strat guides, I was playing around with this rush when I was on the beta program.

Also, there is new content there that I haven't seen posted before. Like:
- a single citizen not shooting
- needing 2 or 6 citizens to reach the attack levels of a city
- citizens ineffectivness against HI (no real benefit over garrisoning 6)
- repairing not being at all effective
- a temple delaying the sack of a capital by around 20 seconds.
- Ensuring you keep your food boyand in the rush window timeframe (you need 108 food for mil 1, you don;t want to have to wait 40 seconds before you can begin)

I discovered this information myself by testing various scenarios and doing the legwork myself.

I will give credit to some posts by Carch regarding the development of an economy in conjunction with a 3 min rush, this is very important for a rusher as without this skill your assertions about a ruined economy are correct.

Myst is a known and respected expert but other people know what they are talking about too, especially when they have put the effort in to actually find out by testing this stuff.

For anyone interested here is a reasonably recent example game of a successful rush (2 actually).

Just trying to help

Respect

I_War

Quote:

I know. That's the problem. You're probably good enough to stop just about anyone's rush. But 99% of the other players are NOT. THEY are the ones that need the help. Not you. But your posting on how to stop it MIGHT help them. Saying it doesn't work at all, however, is not the right answer.

Quote:

Personally, I don't really care for it that much. But it's so darn effective, I can't help myself. Even against players rated above 1850. Rushing them works. Could I have beaten them without rushing? Well, since they died to a "stupid" rush, probably so, but then I'd rather not waste my time with them anyway. What I'd like is for people to learn how to DEFEND it. Even guys that manage to retake their capital are SO FUDDLED that I just blow by them.

But listen to what you are saying:

Quote:

That's not an argument for not rushing. That's an argument for not being stupid. Stupid players are going to lose regardless of their strategies.

But a good player will begin investing in his economy as soon as he's got enough to take your capital, but also realizes he's not going to be able to hold it. A good player will research sci1 and com1 before he even gets that +500 bonus, putting him well on the path to catching up and even passing you. A good player will raze your most critical econ buildings, putting you even further behind economically. A good player will conserve his army and pull out before he loses everything to archers and use them for scouting the rest of the map for ruins.

Teaching the "average" player how to respond in that situation would be pretty useful.

War, I think myst was referring to O4B "offical stratgey website" that he could copied crap from everyone else

All I know is this:

if everyone Ive played in rated tried a HI rush on me, my rating would be like 2500.

you dont have to be as good as HM, or even an expert, to block this rush and own em 10 minutes later in medieval.

you guys asked how to defend against it, and you were told.

a few days after i started playing the game, I thought I could just HI rush everyone(and i was very good at it). When I started playing better players, I started losing (after a failed rush) all the time.

I suppose this is because I dont know how to do the 3 min. HI rush.

plz

I haven't played online, so I'm not sure how relavent this is against a human player, but against the toughest AI, you can tell if the AI is rushing or not by the score. Usually the rusher's score is much lower than the boomer.

most people play with score invisible, at least all players rated over 1900.

like i said before, the whole discussion isnt relevant for rated play at all, cause rated is 70% maya, 10 chinese, 15% korea, 5% mongols...

there some out who play rm rated, maybe they need excuses^^

Myst -

1) You seem to really know how to play this game well.

2) I have seen you post about the value and importance of giving back to this community (mostly on another board - MFO? In your "goodbye" thread?).

I find it odd that someone with such valuable insight into the game and such an eye for generousity in the community would be so caustic when posting suggestions or countering another's opinions and suggestions. This is especially true when from what I can tell the original intent of this post was to get people to eloborate on defending a rush for non-selfish purposes (i.e. the thread author doesn't seem to be seeking the advice for his/her own good). It makes it hard to take you seriously. As a fairly new player that hurts my ability to learn from you, which I don't really care about but it counters #2 above. Just food for thought...

FWIW this post is only w/r/t/ this specific thread. I'm not trying to say you go around firing people up everywhere you go...

-E

[This message has been edited by Eric Fuller (edited 09-17-2003 @ 08:54 AM).]

Raven, you're either deceitfully malicious or unable to read. I'm not sure which. But either way, what you said is a lie.

Quote:

First, I haven't copied anything from anyone. I am LINKING to them. That's what blogging is all about: linking to things that you find interesting. Any additional text is mine, unless I quote a sentence from someone. Second, you're quoting "offical stratgey website" when nowhere does it purport to be official. Another lie. Finally, if you read Myst's comments, he made reference to what War said in his post. So he probably was talking about the Infidels' website.

Besides, it's STRATEGY, not stratgey. Instead of lying, why don't you just grow up.

[This message has been edited by Out_4_Blood (edited 09-17-2003 @ 10:08 AM).]