posted 08-09-99 09:12 PM ET     

I keep reading that the 'rush' tactic is the way to play because it is supposed to be unstoppable. As I understand it, there are 2 (or 4 if you count the Spartan's rovers as seperate) flavors of this strategy - the Impact rush, and the Weenie rush. I would like to propose a couple counter strategies for the TI crowd to analyse and try out. Note - these are not intended for asteroid sized planets. Anyone who pursues a Builder strategy on less than a standard map deserves what happens to them.

General stategy:
"Hence the wise general sees to it that his troops feed on the enemy, for one bushel of the enemy's provisions is equivilent to twenty of his; one hundredweight of enemy fodder to twenty hundredweight of his."
- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

As soon as you recognise the rush starting, you are in big trouble and should know it. Toss conventional wisdom out the window. You are fighting for your life, and those of your people. Pull no punches. Zoom out a bit to look for a natural line of defense. Your closest base (or 2) will probably be lost. Don't even try to save them. Use them as bait to lure him into a battle to damage his attacking force, maybe even kill a unit or 2. However, before he takes these bases, be SURE to destroy them yourself. This deprives the attacker of the repair and production facilities near your important bases. Make this a very expensive war for the attacker. Make sure he gets *nothing* from you. This way even if you are defeated, the attacker will also lose the game, thus giving you vengeance if not victory.
If you are not the Hive, do not defend against the attack in cities. + 25% don't cut it. Instead, block his advance in a fungus or rocky square for + 50%. This will inflict more damage on the enemy, and if it's a defending scout rover vs infanty, you will disengage before you are destroyed. This last is what I call RopeaDope.

Davy Jones' Locker -
"That the army is certain to sustain the enemy's attack without suffering defeat is due to operations of the Ch'i (extraordinary) and the Cheng (normal) forces. ... Generally, use the Cheng forces to engage, the Ch'i to win."
- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
This works best with the Gaians for obvious reasons. The Weenie rush comes too early for this to be too effective, but you can use the RopeaDope tactic (and your fish bait er... mind worms) described above to gain time.
Research:
1: Centuri Ecology (Why the Gaians are best with this one)
2. Doctrine: Mobility
3. Doctrine Flexibility
4. Whatever you want - Industrial Base for synthmetal, or Applied Physics for Lasers.
Strategy:
Immediately after building a defender and former in your first base, start on the Weather Paradigm. Use alien artifacts if you have to. Your second base should be located on the shore. Here, you build a defender, a former, and colony pods. As soon as you research Doc: Flex, build a few sea formers (3 if you can). With the Weather Paradigm in hand, sea formers are now slow motion Planet Busters. You have 2 choices. If your HQ looks like it's in trouble, build a Pressure Dome, and sink it with your formers. If you have time, you can move your sea formers next to his cities, and lower terrain. If the enemy does not have Doc:Flex, there is *nothing* he can do to stop you. With 3 of these puppies, even if he has the required tech, it will do no good unless he has a gunship already made, and in position to attack your flotilla. Use your Cheng (conventional) forces to slow him, the Ch'i (sea formers) to attack his bases. If you can, it might do to cut his access to your territory, but don't count on this. Hit him where it hurts.

Bark Here, Bite There -
"When the enemy is at ease, be able to weary him; when well fed, to starve him; when at rest, to make him move."
- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
Anyone but the Hive (Does anyone actually rush the Hive under Human control? I have a hard time believing this, but I'll take your word for it.) and Believers can use this one, but is best with the UoP and Morgans. The former's early research just sucks.
Research:
First a few words for the UoP Players. SCREW SECRETS OF THE HUMAN BRAIN!!! So what if you get Advanced Centuri Basketweaving for free? How will that help you in a fight to the death? If you suspect you may be near a rusher, follow this path.
1. Industrial base
2. Information systems
3. ##Polymorphic Software##
4. Whatever you feel like. I would go for Centuri Ecology for the boost to production and sensors formers can give you. A strong case can also be made for Applied Physics for Laser artillery. If you simply must, this is when you should go for SotHB.

Strategy:
Build lots and lots of scout (or laser) artillery. Stick them behind a screen of fungus with a synthmetal garrison in front (that +50% again). Make them suffer. Do not allow them to conduct field repairs. Set up an ambush on his route to a Monolith, cuz that's his only recourse for repair. If you can take one (or more) of them to 90%, belly up to them, and self destruct for the collateral damage. Their stuff costs more than yours, and has to travel to your land. You score a military victory if successful.
Once the initial assault is broken, take your time, and grow toward the enemy like a cancer. Never give him a chance to breathe. Also, never trust him. He tried to kill you. Extermination is the option you should give him to surrender.

Run Like H*** - Simple survival. Research Doc: Flex, build a Transport and colony pod, and get to an island. The Poles are good for this. Pray for help from other factions. It's a losing proposition, but might be your only hope.

The main impediment to these strategies is the fact the defender cannot destroy Monoliths (Argh!). The attackers can use these to repair his units. These are the places the defender has to fight his pitched battles, because the attacker's units will most likely be damaged. Kill as many as you can.
I'd like for you TI folks to try these strategies out to see their utility in defeating the early rush tactic. In theory, they should give the defender a chance, but they are untested to my knowlege. Comments?

posted 08-10-99 07:50 AM ET            

I'm currently beating the rush by playing with a modified alpha.txt in which every terraforming operation except building roads takes one (1) turn, all easily researched weapons are scaled down, all armor is strengthened (plasma is 6, silksteel is 10), changing production has no penalties, and units travel twice as fast on roads. I've also upped base defence to +100%, sensors to +100%, and given +20% for downhill and -20% for downhill attacks.

Notice that you can define your own map sizes which popup when you start a new game.

In my current game with these changes on a "Larger" map (between Large and Huge), things are happening much faster than usual: it's just after 2100, the world is mostly settled, the AI factions have been competing better than usual for SPs (from my POV that's an unexpected downside ), all the builder factions have been holding their own (only Morgan lost an early base to the Hive, which I've recovered), and research is the key to victory.

For a long time I beat down the Hive while in Democracy/Free Market/Wealth.

Then I was earning good credits and researching almost as fast (2 techs per turn) as Police State/Green/Knowledge.

Now that I have the +2Support and +2Police SPs, I've switched back to Democracy, the Hive is submissive (reduced to two seabases)

Miriam may have lots of 3-1-1 units, but they're ineffective against my 12-10-2 elite rovers, so I just plop my units around her bases and dare her to waste her forces attacking me.

One concern that has been voiced about making armor so strong is that enemies can easily occupy your land. But I'm finding that the Builder factions can exploit this stratagem better than the Conquerors: early in the game you can easily afford to buy out enemy units, and soon your superior research and building lets you deploy enough cheap armored units that the conquerors cannot enter your land anyway.

Builders can replace any damaged improvements (such as farms, mines, echelon mirrors) in one turn with one ordinary former, and with so many terrain improvements around all their bases they research tech so fast that the conquerors fall increasingly behind in the arms race.

I have Spoils Of War on, but the Conquerors are still getting nowhere, because they're not strong enough to take a base - for that matter, they have to really gang up with a major army to take out one armored Builder unit. Even formers withstand three attacks from needlejets, and a sustained assault from the ground before succumbing.

But the Builders can (at least I can) take a Conqueror's best-protected base by destroying Sensors, sabotaging the Perimeter Defence, destroying the mines, occupying energy producing squares, starving the population, and sending in the almost invulnerable Shock Troops. (For once, the boast "practically invincible" applies.) Crushing the Hive was like sending Superman (times twenty) against Hitler's Bunker: amusingly ironic, considering the propaganda about the bad guy's vaunted military superiority.

Another change I'm considering is to boost the weaker builder factions, such as Morgan, in order to give the conquerors a much tougher time (as if I haven't pulled their teeth and nails already). For example, I might give Morgan Impunity to Free Market, or Immunity to Police negatives (prosperous traders scarcely need police ), or give him (say Two Percent) Interest on his Energy Reserves.

Rush? What rush?