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LDiCesare said:
As for Fir bolgs, it should be noted they cost 13 gold, which is still a bit expensive for what they are worth. With the cost of Tuathas, fielding an army of any size is quite hard imo, and research is poor.
I believe a surprise attack with sneaky leaders can be nice, particularly if you coordinate a lot of attacks at once, but I can't see how you can build enough units and research to get it to work without being attacked by someone first. You certainly need to be good/lucky in diplomacy to be able to pull this out.
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I find that the best way to counter a very early rush is to merely expand at a reasonable rate. Rushers are generally going to pick an easier target first, if you're expanding relatively rapidly they'll often pick on somebody else. At any rate rushing in the first year is obviously going to be a bit weak out of necessity and I think such fears are largely overblown - I think in all my MP games I've been attacked in the first year maybe once. At any rate I urge you to give Fir Bolgs a try, I also didn't appreciate them just looking at their stats, but the slight edge in defense, attack, and strength really does make them fairly effective at indie expansion. Besides, with nothing but alt-3 researched you've got your blessing, barkskin and mistform - you should be able to counter-raid even the most aggressive rush.
As to needing good luck and diplomacy, while this is always true I don't think you're appreciating how much this is a rush tactic. I can give you a concrete example of how it played out in the Epic Heroes II game I'm in. I don't remember the exact turn numbers, but right around the time all the indies were claimed and everyone really started sizing up their neighbors I started infiltrating one of my neighbors - Man who was ever so slightly larger than me. 3 or 4 turns later, between my stealth troops and cloud trapeze I hit 7 or 8 provinces and took every one. After turn 2 of the war the only thing Man held were two sieged castles. 3 turns later, while my Fir Bolg armies (very shortly supported by thunder strike) descended to crack Man's castles my Sidhe Lords had infiltrated Man's neighbor Abyssia (slightly smaller than me now that I had eaten man), and fresh thugs cloud trapezed in so I hit 10 or so my first turn. 3 turns later the only things Abyssia held were sieged castles and the province containing his SC pretender. This all happened in year 2.
FWIW I made several strategic mistakes in that game and am currently on the ropes, but the rush was rock solid.