How do I Beat Back Rush Tactics?

[Baalz]

CUnknown said:
If you're talking about positive scales across the board, then yeah, I agree with you. But, I'm not sure if you'd get any arguement about positive scales across the board being a bad idea like 99% of the time. I mean, I don't think Baalz is arguing for that kind of scale setup. Are you Baalz?

Yeah, actually I am. Take LA Arco for instance. Compare a fairly standard awake combat pretender setup:
Dom 10 Awake Prince of Death
Order -3 Misfortune -2 sloth -1 magic -1
Level 5 death magic

VS an extreme scales setup:
Dominion 7 Imprisoned Oracle
Order -3, Productivity -3, Growth -3, Luck � 3, Magic � 1
Level 5 astral magic


The first one you've got the obvious benefits of your awake pretender. With the second one you gain:
14% more gold plus the growth over time from growth/productivity
Some substantial amount more gold from the 5 level luck shift, I'd guess on the order of about 15% once you count gold loss from barbarian attacks, temple loss, etc. shifting from Misfortutune -2. Obviously I'm pulling this number out of thin air, but whatever it is it's substantial.
Despite the equality of the magic scales you'll be dropping castles faster due to your extra gold so your research will be faster.
60% more resources - this means 60% more of those 62 resource elephants for your initial expansion (and defense), 60% more heavy infantry later on for your meatshields.
Plus the more minor benefits like supply and national heroes
Plus all the other benefits of luck - gems, items, free chaff, etc.

Now the primary drawback, obviously, is the case of a strong rush (which as with Llamabeast, I very seldom see). Ignoring this possibility for a second the good scales version is clearly superior assuming you're expanding with elephants as fast as possible and sending out expansion parties every 1-3 turns. The 60% bonus in resources is critical in the first few turns (not to mention the ~30% gold bonus) as you'll get out your first few expansion parties a turn or two earlier thus roughly equalizing the indie territories you can grab on the first year or so compared to using the PoD. At this point you're clearly better off with the good scales as all that extra gold income compounds into castles and research, gems flow in from your luck scales and you land a couple national heroes.

So, back to the question of can you defend against a strong rush? Obviously you're more vulnerable than if you have an awake combat pretender, but by the time you're realistically looking at a rush attacking your capital (around the end of year one) you should have alt-3 done which gives you body ethereal and earth meld to back up those impressive elephants and good infantry, or evo-3 and thaum-1 so the guy trying to hit your capital can suck on a 10 person fireball flinging communion while trying to hack through your fairly tough heavy infantry and decent PD. You'll also be pulling in more than 50% more gold than somebody of a similar size who took crappy scales to support a bless rush and not many people are going to be able to keep up with your initial elephant expansion. More vulnerable than having a PoD? Yes. Helpless in the face of a rush? Hardly. The benefit to me is more than the cost - particularly in the very common case that I don't have to defend against an early rush.

Again, not saying this is clearly superior, just that it's a viable choice in some circumstances.