Cat Rush

[Mike H 31]

Ive been playing spain alot recently so i thought some advice on how to get a quicker cat rush would be appriciated. it seems to me that by the time i get a few vet cat armies and mabey a LA and a few archers. its already 4-600AD, which is normally just as fast as i can get bombers. want tips to speed it up some, help?

[BigStank]

Ive been playing spain alot recently so i thought some advice on how to get a quicker cat rush would be appriciated. it seems to me that by the time i get a few vet cat armies and mabey a LA and a few archers. its already 4-600AD, which is normally just as fast as i can get bombers. want tips to speed it up some, help?
Do you beeline to Math? Or are you shooting for unnecessary bonuses like irrigation, monarchy, etc? Also sounds like you might be building more units than you need. You're using Spain, you have galleons, you can see what units they are keeping in their cities. Most of the time all you will need to start taking cities is some legions and a cat army plus single archers if they have counters ready. You should have a good idea how their defenses are laid out before you go in, so get to cats ASAP, switch to gold and hit them where they're weak. If this is still taking too long to be effective I suggest you try legion rushing off the galleons, easier window for scouting/rushing.

[Pedal2Metal]

I agree w/BigStank. Irrigation can be helpful sometimes & Masonry is pre-req for Mathematics anyhow. Situational decision.

Also you're probably going hard expansion for a while but for a cat rush, you really only need 35 tech/turn as 2 turns for Mathematics is just fine. Even 24 tech/turn is fine as you can be pipelining barracks/production in parallel. So let's assume you have 3-pop cities. For 35 tech/turn, you need 6 cities. For 24 tech/turn, you need 4 cities. Now get whatever production cities you want (6 production is fine, I recommend 2-3 cities) & you're done. By the time I pop mathematics, I like to have 1 cat army already done. If you're first, this should be pretty simple. You build 1 more + archer & go kill something. Speed is essential to any rush strategy so streamlining your approach is critical.

I also recommend playing the Greeks w/cat rush strategy. They will force you to plan your empire carefully & execute your attack plan w/surgical precision. Once you get comfortable doing that, you can transfer that knowledge to other civs. You should be able to deliver 2 cat armies in the BCs reasonably often w/Greeks.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[Mike H 31]

im just kinda wondering now but do u think theres any way u pull off a anciet era cat rush? it would keep units cheaper. orginally was thinking spain but it might only be possible with china. spain it would be too slow avoiding going into midevil

[dukeblue1987]

im just kinda wondering now but do u think theres any way u pull off a anciet era cat rush? it would keep units cheaper. orginally was thinking spain but it might only be possible with china. spain it would be too slow avoiding going into midevil

Go legions if you want to do it in ancient.

Otherwise, you need to drop a few production cities (3 pop/3 forest) b/c rushing cats isn't the cheapest.

It's really a situational thing whether to use cats or build more settlers. Depends on the game, but the majority of the time settlers is better. Playing from behind? Go cats or legions.

You can't tell yourself you're going for a cat rush in 4000 BC or you are going to lose way more than you should.

[Zefelius]

It's really a situational thing whether to use cats or build more settlers. Depends on the game, but the majority of the time settlers is better. Playing from behind? Go cats or legions.



Playing from behind---definitely sell out on the rush. What if you're vastly ahead? I'd still sell out on the rush, attack, and try to close the deal. It's usually when I'm in a close game that I feel the most need to hyper-expand, because if I invest too much time or resources into a rush, and thereby fall behind on cities, I may end up taking a couple of cities but they'll soon have cruisers or bombers and turn the game back around with their superior teching and number of cities. At least that's my experience....

[Mike H 31]

Bump.........

[asmodeios]

Bump.........

Is this in response to the game we played the other day where I had cats in ancient? And to your doorstep in the later BCs? I have a thread entirely dedicated to this in the main forum.

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?111810-Catapults-in-Ancient.

You have 2 options. Alphabet-Writing-Math or Pottery-Masonry-Math

You have to tech jump. You have to have at least 9 beakers per turn for the first tech path or 10 for the second otherwise you can not select math.

China and France are the only 2 Civs that start with a technology that can tech BW and get Cats in Ancient as both start with prequisite techs in the 2 tech paths. All China has to do is have 9 beakers per turn before they can tech math. France has to tech Masonry first and have 10 beakers per turn.