indian ele raid => fast republic/3rd city

Here's a strat I've been working on with Indians. Play normal 1/1/1/1 and make a fast stable and 1 ele and 1 lc. Send the raiders to your opponent and add a 2nd ele. This isn't as hard as it sounds because you don't need to spend 100 food on mil2 (that pays for 1 ele). While you're raiding, get civ2 and republic. Use the senator for raid defense--he probably won't get to raid you with much because the 2 eles will consume his army (as 1 ele kills every unit in the game, so he has to have more units at home than you if you bother microing).Get 15 farms asap. You don't need metal--just get food. You can get the metal later. Go III asap and keep raiding with the ranged eles which are much harder to stop. Then go IV and make your big ass ele army.

The keys to this strat are
1) You don't need a barracks or mil2 early, so you save 120 wood and 100 food/100 metal that you can use towards your raid and republic.
2) You aren't building too many HC or HI early so you don't need metal that early.
3) You can get +180 food (at least) fast with 15 farms and 3 cities.
4) 2 eles/1 lc is hard to take down without an army with a few archers, so you can mess up his early econ to support your early 3rd city/republic.

Here are two example games, 1 win and 1 loss. I already posted the team game before, so I won't bother commenting on it again. In the game vs bird I have the upper hand early on but squander it because I forget to steal his TCA.

I think u should go Despot for the perpetual 15% reduction in mili research cost because for this to work I think you need to race your ass off to V (not IV) and those cheap mili techs are needed for that.
Civ 3 is a critical target to reach here also for a 4th city (Indians can spam out a temple, uni, market, + 2 other blds in each one better than any nation - pushing your borders and boosting ur tax income easily to 200) [bd28502ca23]and most importantly Vassalage[/bd28502ca23] which ur gonna need for the ele spam and the 14-18 scholars.
Once u hit V all u need is to spam cannons(T/M) and eles(F/W) (a nice resource fit) and i think if u move fast for a total kill it's hard to stop.
I dunno 'bout these eles though...they are slow, expensive, require careful protection by scouts from spies, and if u dont get the job done before VI they are easily countered by snipers.
It'll be interesting to see how you refine this Indian strategy Sims...

Why would you want despot? That's the whole point, you aren't building any rax units, and the -15% on mil3/mil4 isn't that huge anyway--you can make up the knowledge with an extra scholar or two (which you can afford since you'll be hitting +180 food fast). You also don't save any knowledge at all with despot if you're heading for IV (which is what you're aiming for), because while you would need com3 to get +200 econ with despot, and if you have a +150 econ you're not going to be able to spam eles for a long time.

I fail to see why vassalage is so important, Indians can easily get +150 wealth at the very least from just 3 caravans (with free spice) and 3 large cities and 3 markets.

If anything waiting til V is the absolute worst tihng to do (when I lose, it's usually cuz of that), because eles are powerful even in early IV for Indians, and you should use that advantage before your opponent can build 10 spies or 20 LIs to counter you.

I'll take ur word on waiting for V being bad - just thought that if u could have freely upgraded V-eles hitting a IV opponent u'd be obtaining the maximum benefit from the pachyderms. If it's an early IV hit ur going for, u r prolly right about despot/republic since u'll prolly only research mili2&3 before the attack. As for Vassalage, I suppose 150 without (maybe) certainly not 200, though? You'll prolly need it that high if ur spamming eles, getting the "extra few scholars", and researching monarchy all at IV though, won't u?

I dunno but i think 1 archer + 1 ha + 1 hi > 1 eli + 1 lc

Also you use senator as raid defense problem is that if he attacks you with a small raid army your senator is dead anyways, the army will slaughter him before he even gets close to bribing a unit =/

So for the 2nd eli you actually only need like 1 fa sitting in the city and popping out =/

Anyways could work at times i guess =)

Well just watch the games. I don't see how your opponent can army raid you unless he goes classic much faster (possible cuz Indian is slow out of ancient) or ancient raids you. That's because he needs the army at home. You can't defend an ele and an lc with just one archer unless you (the attacker) is a moron. And even if you don't kill any vills, you really just want to tie him up at home so you can buy time for a 3rd city and 15 farms and 180 food.

Just think about it. When is the fastest time you can army raid with a decent amount of troops (enough to kill a senator)? You need mil2, a rax, a stable, and a despot. Meanwhile I am trying to tie you up at home with just mil1 and a stable and a senator. The time and amount of research needed favors me. The only thing that doesn't is that Indians have a slow ancient and are vulnerable to ancient raids.

You don't really need 200 wealth to spam eles/hcs as long as you have monarch, just a good amount. Certainly 150+ is good enough. What you really need is food. Going for the early 180-200 food is what helps you spam.

dance

I watched the games (and others) and I played a few sandbox runs to see the logistics of a fast IV-ele/siege spam with priority to the LC/ELE/Senator raid at II. A couple of observations...

1. U r absolutely right - 150+ W is easy with 3 cities pumped up with 3 routes but u DO need vassalage to hit 200 W and I found it easily affordable so why not?

2. The raid at II is terribly inneffective - the LC and ELE take SO long to kill caravans and villies. I'd be afraid of a defender who completely ignores his villie casualties (i.e. does not panic and ring the bell) and instead focuses on killing that ele and senator with archer/TC/tower fire. Combined with some attrit, u'll have to pull the ele/lc/senator out before doing much damage.

I know that early mili 2 is not in ur plans but if it could be worked in so that a CA could join the raid it might turn into a better raid.

[quoted3f7f8993b="Sims"]The only thing that doesn't is that Indians have a slow ancient and are vulnerable to ancient raids. [/quoted3f7f8993b]
Wow - I dont' get it! Slow ancient??? Indians make all farms for 40T, all woodcutters camps at 50F, all temples and markets for 80T. Combine that with the 15% caravan bonus and it seems to me you can easily set up a 2 city fortress with 100F/100T & better W income and easily be able to afford the archers or whatever rax units u need to counter an ancient raid.

Here's one that doesnt go so well. Problem with the attack is it comes too late and the eles suck at rushing to save flanks - too slow! Yah and I forgot a scout so i lost a couple of eles but it was over by then.

lol sims

you aren't trying to show these peasants something new are you. I tried showing them a wheel and half em still waiting for the witchdoctor.

[quotec350a941e7="KBS_Gladiator"]
Wow - I dont' get it! Slow ancient??? Indians make all farms for 40T, all woodcutters camps at 50F, all temples and markets for 80T. Combine that with the 15% caravan bonus and it seems to me you can easily set up a 2 city fortress with 100F/100T & better W income and easily be able to afford the archers or whatever rax units u need to counter an ancient raid.[/quotec350a941e7]

Well 40 farms per is a nice bonus but when you really think about it, their ancient is pretty much the same as Maya, and you would never think Maya has a fast ancient, right? At least not compared to civs like Romans, Japs, Germans, Mongols, Iroq, Aztec, Persians, Koreans, hell even Russia is probably faster--basically all food bonus civs are faster to classic. You do save resources going to classic which helps once you get there, but in terms of actually getting to classic they're no better than Mayans are (which is still better than Inca or Americans, but not as good as any of the aforementioned "fast" civs).

Germans fast sims? Bit 'o extra food from cities but how do you get to II quicker w/ them other than that?

I like the strat btw. It should have worked vs. bird in large part b/c of your 3rd city location advantage I thought. His terra cotta was h4x tho. 26 free LI!

Germans have +10food/10wood from 2 cities = save food for building 2 vils less and 6x wood for a farm. Germans have completion bonus too.

Lawl Gladiator tried it out against me yesterday, i just kinda ignored it and kept on raiding and attacking devilz... Meanwhile i did put two fa and 1 ha to my city to defend, them ellies kill nothing fast enough =/

Extracting teeth is easier D

I tried the strat. 8)

58. Your age times are noob, good thing 4Stars went for fast civ2 instead of fast mil2->raid. Pyramids helps u a bit. lol. GG