Two Minute Rush

Note: Due to an update the roman civ no longer receives a free HI so this is only possible with Japanese.

What is a Two Minute Rush?

A 2 minute rush is a faster than normal ancient HI rush. The two minutes refers to the time point at which the enemy sees your troops walking across his fields. A conventional HI rush sets off around the 2:45 mark and the enemy often doesn't realise that he is being rushed until well past the 3 minute mark. The aim of the two minute rush is to damage the enemy capital some time between 2:00 and 2:20.

How to do it

Differences to the Three Minute Rush

The trick to performing a two minute rush is to save every second possible, this is achieved in three ways.

Nationality

Only Romans and Japanese can do a two minute rush. The Japanese can do it because their units have a bonus against buildings so you can launch an attack with two and more to follow. The Romans can do this strategy due to the free HI unit they receive. Additionally, Roman units are built 2 seconds faster than Japanese units and are cheaper.

Light attack

Instead of the regular 4HI+1LI rush, the two minute rush starts with 2HI, the rest to follow. Move your first built HI to the border of your opponent, choose a route through unexplored land to give you a chance of picking up a ruin. Have the second unit, and subsequent units attack the city by targeting the barracks on it. When the second unit has reached the holding point of the first, order this unit to attack as well so they both hit at the same time. Sixteen seconds (fourteen for Roman) later they will be joined by a third and then a forth. You may decide not to build a slinger but if you do make sure it doesn't attack the city but instead looks out for enemy archers.

Citizen Management

The first few seconds of citizen orders are critical. Simply choosing the wrong citizen for a job can cost you 10 seconds or more. Your build orders are slightly different to a regular rush.

In the lag phase at the start of the game, assess your situation. If you have citizens on the enemy side of your capital, send the nearest one to your border. If all your citizens are onthe otherside then build one in your city and target it to move to your border. This citizen is know as your builder.

Second, increase your citizen build queue to 3

Third, research Military 1 at the library.

Fourth, Take your scout to your enemy capital. In a single player game this sill usually be directly opposite from you on the map. Use the minimap to imagine the enemy capital directly opposite from yours. In a team game, your nearest enely will be oposite your other side team mate, use his capital to assess where your foe is. Target your scout there on the minimap then hold the shift key down and queue move orders for the scout in a circle around this spot.

Next, build your barracks on your border with your builder. Reset the waypoint of your capital to wood at this point if your first built citizen is your builder.

Next, build a farm, but don't use your builder.

Now build more citizens. You need to have 5 on farms and 5 on wood, but remember, you have the builder that will return to work as soon as the barracks has finished. If you find you only have 3 wood slots do not worry as this rush suits a low wood environment, in this case, only build the 1 farm. This will save on the wood you do not have at this stage and also you will need 3 less villagers so your food will be buoyant.

Same as the Three Minute Rush

You now have a two minute rush going. Your progress now should be idientical to a standard three minute rush.

Militarily you are aiming to build 4HI to attack the enemy capital. Possibly with a slinger to help fend off archers though it is more feasable to skip this in a two minute rush as you cut off the enemies gold supply much earlier so he will most likely only be able to field one archer, possibly two.

Concentrate on accumulating 120 wood for the first science upgrade. Click for this and then for Civic 1 too.

An important target point in the rush is get your second city built before the fall of the enemy capital. This is very important, if you fail to do this you will seriously hamper your ability to boom between the 3 and 5 minute marks.

Nations

Romans

The Roman attack can be started 18 seconds faster than the Japanese due to the free unit and faster unit build. Individually the HI are not as effective but that is compensated for by the free unit you receive on constructing the barracks. However, the Roman Legions move more slowly than the Japanese HI so this will cost a few seconds.

The Roman HI is cheaper than the Japanese, the second Legion (the first is free) costs 46 food/35 wood compared with 50 food/37 wood for the first Japanese Ashigaru spear-men.

Japanese

The Japanese Ashigaru spearmen are the best at taking a city down fast.

Typically, two Japanese HI followed by two more, can take a city down in less than 60 seconds. Comparable with the time regular HI take if all four arrive at once. So the enemy has the same time to react but has to do it a lot earlier.

While the Ashigaru spearmen are more costly than the Roman Legion, the Japanese have a stronger economy due to their farmin bonus.

Mayan, Korean, Chinese

Do not plan on rushing these nations. However, if you plan a rush and your scout then finds the bad news about your enemies random nation all is not lost. By this time you will have the basis of a good rush but you need to adapt. Fortunately you have good rushing capabilities in Japanese and Roman. You just need to be stronger when you attack. Against Chinese, build up to 5 Japanese and 6 Roman HI, launching your attack when the forth built HI emerges. You will need a slinger in this case as there will be archers.

Mayan are like chinese except that you will take bigger losses. Build the same units as against Chinese but do not attack until they are all ready, you have to hit the Mayan hard and brutal or you will die.

Korean are a tough proposition. Their cities are slightly tougher due to the free temple but the real problem is the repairers that can keep a city up indefinately. Against a Korean you are unlikey to reduce the capital but you can tie up his economy for the duration of the rush so getting your economy built up can put you back on a level par.