Rushing

What is a rush?

You could say a rush is any attack that comes when you don't want it to. But for most purposes, the rush happens as early in the game as it is feasible. For RoN, this generally means an attack in the first 3-5 minutes. At this time, people are just getting to terms with what nation they are, where their scout is, messaging their team mates as to what the map style is, and checking on how much beer is left to hand. Suddenly, they are being attacked!

How feasible is rushing in RoN?

The rush can work very effectively, but it can also fail disastrously, and various levels of success and failure in between. In short, it depends on the relative skills of the two players involved, how well the rush is executed and how well it is defended. Either way, it's a viable strategy though not overpowered. So long as you know how to do it then you should not be in too bad a position if you fail, however, a failure to defend adequately can lead to certain defeat.

The HI Rush

There are several forms of early attack that people call a rush, but this article will concentrate on the 3 minute first age heavy infantry rush.

The Simple Rush

You start by researching military at the library, build a couple of citizens, send your scout around your immediate and then off to the enemy's land, build a couple of farms and a forward barracks, and attempt to fill your wood pile. Then queue up about four hoplites and a slinger and attack the enemy capital. It is very important that you attack the enemy capital for several reasons. When (if) you take it, you gain 500 of each resource in loot. You really need this, because without your few army units, you are about as well developed as you were 1 minute into the game, except that the time is now at the 4-5 minute mark. Attacking the enemy capital is also the best way to damage his economy, and this is just as critical to a successful rush. Your chief weapon in the attack is the hoplite as it is the only unit in the game capable of significantly damaging the enemy city at this time. As such, any enemy defence will consist of archers, for they are the best way to kill your heavies. Micro-management of slingers onto any counter archers is critical. As your slingers are your hoplite protection, it is also important to protect them too, so keep them away from city fire and tower fire. Keep moving your slingers to harass any civilians left outside, and to detect and prevent any tower and barracks building. To this end, you will also need your scout in the area. If you see an enemy barracks going up, you need to kill it (or the builders if it is feasible), but never stop your attack on the enemy capital.

You should take the enemy capital, and you are banking on this, for you need that loot to recover. A good defender should be able to regain their capital, and you will often lose your attack force in trying to hold it, but if you fail to get that economy boost then you have not lost. Any advantage you have will be marginal at best, and there is no point in pulling out. After you have captured the enemy city, the first thing you should do is spend the money. Upgrade in your usual fashion at your library, and build a market. You will also need to get to the next age, and you should have looted enough food to do this. You also need to make a decision on whether or not you can hold the enemy capital, or even if you can press on to attack the second city. If you think you can do either of these then you should make some more troops, but do not eat into your new-found wealth as you need that to get your economy back on track. Of course, you could be confident that you can win the game right there (unlikely but possible if the defence was poor), but that is a decision for you to make.

So, to recap:

This is all very easy and most people can do this, however, there is a lot more to it than that and most of these attempts will fail to a decent defender.

The Real Rush

Okay, so you can do that easy 3 min rush now that you have practiced it against the computer on toughest and you can win. Easy, isn't it? Yep. You're going to own in gamespy? Nope. How come? Two reasons, firstly, the AI is rubbish at handling rushes, because as soon as you attack it will bell up and have no economy to defend with. The second reason is that it is very easy to defend against that rush, even if you are booming (as explained later). So you need a better rush.

But all is not lost, because a 3 minute rush can still be viable, even against someone who is expecting it with some defences up. However, to be successful you have to adapt it so that you don't have to kill them to win, or even sack their capital. If you can sack the capital then great, but if you can't, you can still make your rush effective.

First off is speed, the faster you get going the less you have to make up. One time waster is unit travel, the nearer your barracks are to the enemy the less they have to walk so build the barracks forward. But don't replace military walking with citizen walking, get your nearest (to the enemy) citizen walking tot he build site before you research military so that you don't waste this time. Try to build the barracks as far forward as possible but try to avoid obvious scouting lanes for the enemy. Build as soon as military is researched so that the citizen can return to work faster.

A word on scouting. It is the best defense an enemy has against your rush so try to conceal it. Build your barracks off centre so it is less likely to be discovered and garrison your units inside so they don't whack an enemy scout wandering past, many players will miss their scout's discovery for a while but are unlikely to miss an attack alarm. If you notice the enemy scout discovering you then it is best to launch an attack now and rely in later units to catch up. Your own scouting is also very important. Most rushers scout the enemy capital to locate it. Do not do this, the enemy capital is always opposite to you with very little variation, your troops will find it if you order them to the area, all this will do is alert the enemy that you are probably rushing. Instead, scout a route to your enemy, pathing in RoN into unknown territory can cause your troops to get stuck around mountains and forests, this delay is disasterous so find a path for them.

You have lauched your attack at around 3 minutes, and you have 4 hoplites and 1 slingers. At this point your economy is at best 60/60/0 on food/timber/wealth, and the next hoplite will cost you 80-90 food and wood. It will take you about 45 seconds to afford another unit. Your rush will succeed or fail in the next 90 seconds, and during that time you will only be able to send 2-3 more units in to battle from the original 5, and the last 2 may well arrive too late to have any inpact anyhow.

Rather than invest anymore economy in the attack, it is better to get your own economy going again. Your economic development is 2-3 minutes down on your opponent, your rush has to damage his economy by the same amount for you to be on top. If you sack his capital then that is great as the resource boost gets you an efective refund of 2 minutes, though your infrastructure will still be behind for 1 minute. But you can't rely on this.

Your 5-6 unit rush is going to be 90% as good as a 7-8 unit rush, but each extra unit build at this point costs you another 45 seconds overdrawn in the time bank. It is far better to not build the next unit and then wait another 15 seconds. This will get you about 120 food and wood. Get your economy going now and upgrade science followed by civic. By the time those two are up, you can build a 2nd city, so do this immediately before you sack your opponent's capital or you won't be able to build it, watch the time and resources as if things go too well or wood is slow you may not have time to fit the science upgrade in, it is vital to get that second city started before the sack. You can also get commerce now and you will need to because the 2nd city will make your 60/60 economy max out at 70/70. One important thing to consider with this progression is that if you build an archer for your rush then you will not be able to afford the science research due to lack of gold, unless of course your scout picks some up.

If you thought things were frantic before, then this extra economy management will double it. Don't forget to keep checking your attack, remembering that you have to look out for barracks building and to keep your slingers away from city fire and kill any archers. If you can afford it, you may want to send another hoplite into battle, but you have to make an assessment on whether this will guarantee the capital sack, it's a tough call as it's annoying to fail when the capital is only on 10hp, or worse, and to actually reduce the city but not have the military presence to capture it. But remember, your economy is on a knife-edge.

Remember, the object of this rush is to damage your opponent more than you have sacrificed. If there are no enemy troops around then harass those citizens with your slingers. This is where that archer comes in handy too to kill citizens. Watch out for the citizens fighting back, they won't hurt your HI much but they will kill your slingers very quickly. Also watch out for buildings going up, barracks, tower and temple. Divert a minimum force (the single weakest unit) to attack either the builder of the building to delay or prevent it.

If you have sacked the capital then you are in great shape. You can afford to boom your economy more and can send a few more units to try to hold the captial if you think this is possible. It can be very useful to send a citizen to repair the newly captured capital. Enemy archers are very poor at capturing cities, so this will buy you time to assimilate and reinforce the city.

Raze. This is the killer, if you don't think you can hold the city, start destroying everything. You can only delete one building at a time so start with the lumber camp followed by the farms as these go quickest and inflict the most damage.

However, if your rush has failed, you have to concentrate on your economy full time and hope that you have damaged his economy enough to gain an advantage. Make a note of the troops he has, and if it's all slingers and archers then you have a very tempting target for light cavalry raiding in the next 2 minutes to keep the pressure on. Try to save any military you can and garrison it back in your barracks to heal because there may be a counter-attack. If you can't save them, just run them off to various places as this will keep him concentrating on them. They can also harrass his economy more and buy you a little more time to recover.

An improved summary:

Defending Against A Rush

Before a rush hits

Scout. This is your best defence against a rush. If you spot an enemy barracks before 2 minutes you are in great shape to take an advantage as you have had a couple of minutes pure booming and you have plenty of time to be ready for his limited attack. Always scout your enemy borders to spot the rush. If you see a barracks you have him, if you see a second city being built you know you are safe for now, he is not going to rush you in the next few minutes or if you see larger borders then you know he has taken the civic upgrade. But be very suspicious and scout him further if you see stating borders by two minutes.

When the rush hits

Don't panic! You have a job to do now, first off, what type of rush is it? What units are attacking? What is your current military capability? If it's a HI rush, you know that his economy is very poor, so stop the rush cheaply and you win the game.

The rusher should have a majority of hoplites with a couple of slingers, and this means that you need to counter him with archers as it is the hoplites that you have to stop. They are the only units that can take your city.

If you have some military capability like a barracks or a tower then you are in great shape. Chances are, though, that unless you spotted the enemy barracks earlier then you haven't even got the first level military researched. Do this now, immediately, and if you haven’t got the food then cancel any queued citizens. You need that military now.

Now to defence. Do not ring the town bell, because this is disaster for your economy. Instead, place 2 or 6 citizen (3 or 7 if you are Chinese) into your city. A single citizen (2 Chinese) will not fire out of a city, and there is no further benefit until you have 6 (7 Chinese) inside when your city strength will increase from 1 to 2. Chinese can get a strength of 3, but this requires 12 citizens and is not worth it. I would recommend just the 2 citizens to maximise your economy. Target your city fire on a single attacker, if you don't then your fire may be spread around. Your city fire will probably only account for 1 attacking unit so this alone will not save you. Kill any slingers as a priority as they die easily.

Unless you are Korean, do not repair your city. It is a slight drain on your resources, takes citizens to do it, and gives virtually no benefit in delaying city capture. Korerans should always repair with 2 citizens.

Once you have started research on military, your next task will be to make a barracks. You need 120 wood for this so check you have it. You will also need wood to make your archers, so make sure that you have your woodies up, re-allocate farmers if need be. Don't build your barracks in a risky place where his slingers can attack the builders, or it's game over. You may consider building a tower next to your city if you can afford it, while your builders will probably be attacked that will draw attack from your city. If you get a tower up, don't bother with attrition. It will not have any significant impact. If possible, build a temple, this adds 300 hp to your capital and delays any sack by about 20 seconds, this is a very nice extension.

Garrison your citizens (individually) if they come under heavy fire and release a healthy one. Use your citizens to kill any slingers. If your citizens are attacked individually by HI then just run them away and try to draw the HI away from the battle. Don't fight the HI, they are too tough for citizens, and even 5/6 to 1 will take about 1 min to kill.

When your archers start coming out, target the hoplites. Once you kill these, you have won. If there are too many slingers about, you have to make a judgement on if it's worth swapping an archer for a hoplite. It probably isn't, and he may have more hoplites arriving so garrison in the city. They will heal and fire out from there. You can also pop them out away from the slingers and resume killing HI, never garrison them in the barracks prior to the city sack, they are a useless waste there,

Four HI will take your capital in just over 1 minute, and your city fire will most likely kill just one enemy and damage another.

Even with good defence, you may still lose the city. Don't worry because this is common. He should not be able to hold it; remember, his economy is still rubbish. Don't suicide any units into a futile attempt to take it back in a hurry, but keep fighting selectively. If you are out-gunned, amass a force first, because you have plenty of time before the city is assimilated. If you have the resources, build another city, because if you take your original city back you can profit from this. You should still have a small economic advantage if you have kept your citizens working.

Don't bother with attrition. Attrition will not save you, it's far too slow. All it will do is cap the total number of units that he can send to you from about 7 down to maybe 5, which is still plenty for him to beat you. Also, because he has less units on the map at any one time, it means his replacement units are more affordable for his weak economy, reducing the benefits of the attrition further. If you are Russian, don't rely on on your free attrition as it's a very minor effect.

Take the battle back to him. If you defeat the rush then immediatley raid with your remaining units, the longer you supress his economy the bigger your advantage, force him tomake more military with his weak economy. If you are in classical, get raiders out immediately, they can inflict major damage on him as he is still in ancient and has no answer to a horse archer other than to build a tower and archers, neither of which he can afford.

So, to recap:

How to prepare for a rush.

You can build your Second City sideways or behind your capital, because this will delay a fast attack on it by about 30 seconds. However, it is your capital that is the target, so placing it as far forward as possible will get you an extra 30 seconds of warning.

Your economy is your lifeblood, as you can not always rely on your citizens uninterrupted work, so get as much free economy as possible. Merchants are invaluable here, because they tend to get twice the resources of a working citizen, so get as many collecting as possible. Use fishing boats where possible. The worse thing that can happen is that you are attacked when you have zero food, because you will have to wait to research military. While an optimum boom will spend your resources the instant you can, it is worth keeping your food buoyant to no less that 50-60 in the time frame of 2:30 to 3:30. This is when rushing units will become visible to you, so you will only have a few seconds at most to wait for the military research.

Scouting can save you in two ways, first you can get advanced warning if you spot his barracks or accumulating troops, so get that military upgrade immediately. Secondly, a scout can go around picking up the ruins for extra resource, especially from around the rusher's base. You don’t want him picking these up.

You can pretty much guarantee a successful defence if you have your own barracks up early. However, this will cost a lot of wood and food in the first couple of minutes, so that will put you behind for a regular boom.

Building a tower early is also a very negative strategy and one that is probably doomed, as the economic hit is just too great if your enemy doesn’t rush, and you will still need a barracks if he does.

Building a temple early in your capital is very good. You will want one early anyhow, and it increases the strength of your buildings. A temple will add 300 hp to your capital and delay it's fall to a 4 HI rush by about 20 seconds.

Game settings

Sudden death capital elimination

Games rules such as Assassin are very tempting to rush on. As soon as you have taken his capital then that is it, game over for him. You still have to assimilate it, but the instant he loses possession of his capital then he is out of the game.

Sudden Death

This is rushers heaven, in sudden death you are eliminated if ANY of your cities are captured. As your expansion city is very weak then it will be wise to build up defences anyhow or it will be a very quick game for you indeed.

No rush rules

If you are going to set no rush rules, then make sure they are effective. Some players set no rush until classical. This is a rusher's paradise. Safe in the knowledge that they can't be rushed, the average player will boom away, right up until you hit him with a 5 min attack 2 seconds after you have gone to classical. Even peace until medieval cannot guarantee you peace of mind, as Mongols can hit you hard with HA rushes by about 8-mins, and a good player can also launch a more conventional attack by that time. A no rush setting is not licence to boom.

Map

A water map will stop a 3-min rusher but will do little to restrict a 5-min rusher. The rusher will have already researched commerce, and a dock is cheap. You can't rely on patrolling ships to stop landings at 5-mins.

Larger maps than standard will slow a rush down and make it less viable.

Nations

The nation you chose (or got from random choice) can have a big impact. Check out the bonuses that each nation gets, and see if you can adapt them to your rush or rush defence. Look for economy bonuses, repair benefits, and special units. For example, the Chinese start with large cities, which gives you a lot more time to kill the attackers before your capital is captured. Egyptians and French have better capital economies due to the extra slots and resource buildings. Spanish are great rushers and rush defenders because of the two scouts and map information. Spanish free exploration is more useful later on, but the ability to see ruins in your land, coupled with two scouts and ruins bonus, is a massive economy lift at the start. Germans, Romans, and Japanese all get good military bonuses that make them good rushers, and the German economy and units makes it especially useful. The Aztec free Atl-Atls add speed to their rush.

Of particular note are Mayans and Koreans. Do not rush them for you will lose. Mayans have tougher buildings and better firing cities, which makes defence very easy. Koreans are tougher due to the free temple but especially with the ability to repair. 4 HI can not take a repairing city down.

Rushing in team games

With good team work from both sides, a rushed team game can be on of the most thrilling rollercoaster rides.

If you are the teammate of someone being rushed, there is probably very little you can do as it will seriously hamper your own economy to help. You can certainly send a couple of horses over to the rusher's capital, but apart from that, your teammate pretty much has to rescue himself. That is not to say you shouldn't bother, because those couple of units can make the difference between life and death. Just don't cripple your own economy doing it.

A very nasty tactic you can try in a 2v2 is to double rush. Each player on the rushing team takes one of the enemies' cities, effectively turning the game into sudden death capital elimination by knocking one player out the instant the second city falls, rather than having to hold on for the capital elimination. What is likely to happen is that the other player will resign, though this may be premature as he will be much bigger than either of the other two, and with a quick boom he could certainly overpower one before the other gets back on track. If you are the double rushing team, don't assume you have won just because you are 2v1, you're only half way there. Also, remember that the player who rushes the second city is very weak as he has not received the 500 resource bonus. However, to offset this he should only need 3 HI units to do the job so can work on his economy sooner.

If it is your teammate that is doing the rushing then there are a number of strategic opportunities that will present themselves to you. If the enemy teammate is helping to defend, then you can either support the rush (i.e. a double) or you can prepare a fast attack of your own, effectively turning the game into two 1v1s. In both of these circumstances you will need to have more mobile troops than normal, as there may well be plenty of opportunities to make cheap gains. All 3 cav lines can be very valuable, even if not upgraded, but you will have to rely on your micro skills to manage the correct counters.

The other option open to you is the boom. You have to keep a really close eye on what is happening to your teammate, as someone who is doubled is more likely to just jack it in. Communicate with him and keep him playing. There is nothing more powerful in RoN than an unopposed boomer. The longer your rushing ally can stay viable, the stronger you become. Consider throwing some resource over to the rusher, because while this will restrict you boom a little, the longer his attack continues to hamper two then the stronger you will be.

Useful Rushing Facts

Cities have an attack strength which affects their rate of fire, only garrison enough citizens to reach the next level. The critical numbers are 2 and 6 citizens (3, 7 and 12 for Chinese large cities).

Four HI capture a standard capital in just over 1 minute

Six citizens attacking a hoplite do similar damage to a city firing.

A single citizen will nearly kill a slinger unit 1v1

Units that lose figures also lose attack value, so a damaged 3 man hoplite unit is worth attacking to reduce to a 2 man unit.

And Finally, The Craic

Even if you decide that rushing is not for you, you have to try it. It's easy to practice against the computer, and the first time you try it on-line against a human opponent I guarantee you a heart pounding adrenaline pumping experience.