Rushing Strategies

Ancient Age Rushing (aka Hard Rush)

The goal of this rush is to sweep through your opponent before he's had any chance to prepare at all. This rush generally reaches the opponent at around the 5-6 minute mark.

• 1. Immediately research Military I.
  
  
• 2. Fill up your starting woodcutter's camp with workers.
  
  
• 3. When Military I finishes researching, construct a Barracks.
  
  
• 4. Train 5 Hoplites.
  
  
• 5. Gather your soldiers together and attack!
  
  
• 6. Train 2 Slingers and have them join your army to provide cover against enemy Archers.

Why this rush is effective:

This rush has the advantage of striking before most opponents are ready. It's a no-nonsense all-or-nothing strategy designed to either take out the opposing nation entirely or set him back considerably. While attacking, you'll want the 5 Hoplites to act as your anti-building attackers. The 2 Slingers should sit back outside of the range of the City. Only bring these Slingers in if the opposing nation counters your rush with Archers.

If you don't mind a little micromanagement, try sending each military unit you create on a separate scouting mission through the center of the map towards your opponent. With 5 separate units weaving 5 paths through the center of the map, you'll find a lot of extra ruins. When your forces get closed to their destination, be sure to bunch them up again for the attack.

How to counter this rush:

Countering this rush is a simple matter of garrisoning your citizens, constructing a Barracks quickly, and producing a few Archers. Your primary worry is those Hoplites, since they can reduce your Cities very rapidly. Use your Archers to take down the Hoplites and garrison them in the City to heal them as necessary. It's also a good idea to tell your city to attack any Slingers, since Cities do more damage to Slingers than to Hoplites.

After beating back the enemy Hoplites, remember to keep in mind that your opponent's economy is very weak (though it's likely your economy has suffered slightly as well). Use this knowledge to decide whether you want to continue exploiting your economic advantage or press a counter attack against his weak nation.

Classical Age Rushing

This strategy is more an early attack than a rush, since the player gets to Classical Age prior to worrying about military. The important thing here is massing up a significantly larger army than the 6-7 units you'd be able to field in Ancient Age.

• 1. Your first priorities should be constructing a 2nd City, getting Food/Timber gather rates to +100 or higher, and constructing at least one Market and establishing your first trade route.
  
  
• 2. Your order of Library research should be Science, Civic, Commerce, Classical Age, and then Military.
  
  
• 3. As soon as you hit Classical Age, get about 6 citizens gathering Metal.
  
  
• 4. Construct 2 Universities. If you don't plan on making any Archers in your eventual army, go ahead and spend all of your wealth training Scholars - they'll give you some very helpful Knowledge income which will help keep your technology advances progressing steadily.
  
  
• 5. Continue to gradually increase gather rates for Foot/Timber to around +130 while constructing military buildings appropriate to the type of troops you want to field. Here are some good army combinations, though you can certainly create your own as well:

Heavy Infantry with Light Infantry support

Pros: This army concentrates on Heavy Infantry and doesn't require siege to rapidly take buildings down. It only requires a couple Barracks to quickly train a good-sized army that is about 2/3rds Heavy Infantry and 1/3rd Light Infantry. It's definitely vital to use your Light Infantry to intercept any Archers, since Heavy Infantry are quite vulnerable to Archers.

This combination doesn't use any Wealth, so you're free to spend Wealth on Scholars, technologies, or perhaps to buy extra Food.

This strategy also doesn't use much Timber. This is particularly helpful for the Romans, who can amass a large amount of Legions by building additional Barracks. Remember that costs increase as you create more units, so it's a good idea to place 2 Barracks and create a bunch of units at lower cost before placing 2-3 additional Barracks to gain the free units. Other players simply place 3-4 Barracks and immediately attack with the resulting Legions.

Cons: This army will tend to be weak against Archers, especially if your opponent uses a small force of cavalry units to flank and destroy your Light Infantry before your Heavy Infantry can protect them. Make sure to keep your army close together so the Light Infantry don't wander too far away from the welcome protection of those sharp Pikes.

Another disadvantage is that Heavy and Light Infantry both cost food and this will slow your ability to make new Citizens while training the army.

Heavy Infantry are slow, so using this army defensively can have less than favorable results if your opponent keeps moving around to attack different points. If you can force a direct fight, you'll probably win.

Heavy Cavalry with Archer and Siege support

Pros: Heavy Cavalry crushes most other units in the game, and the Archers can be used to strike down any slow-moving Heavy Infantry that try to engage the cavalry. Again, you'll probably want to train more Heavy Cavalry than Archers since you'll want more brute force behind your units.

This combination doesn't cost Food, so you're free to create more Citizens for your economy while training your army. Alternatively, you can use this extra food to train some Light Cavalry to provide extra support for your army.

Heavy Cavalry are fast, allowing them to separate from their archer and siege support to chase fleeing units or to raid lightly defended areas. If you encounter Heavy Infantry, you'll be able to avoid them until you can bring some Archers into that area.

Cons: This army is expensive! Wealth will be in dire need with this army composition, since both Archers and Heavy Cavalry require Wealth to train. Getting a 3rd City and establishing more Cities (and building more Markets) will certainly help. Also, the Incans in particular are able to overcome the Wealth problem admirably since they receive wealth from mining mountains!

Heavy Cavalry and Archers aren't very good at taking down buildings, so this army must rely on vulnerable, slow-moving siege units to effectively capture Cities. While Heavy Cavalry takes very little damage from City arrows, they're not very good at damaging Cities so it will take a long time.

Players using this army type will often be forced to build a few extra buildings, specifically the Siege Factory. Armies using Heavy Infantry are often able to forego Siege Factories until later in the game.

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