How do I Beat Back Rush Tactics?

[Sawyer]

Search a bit on this board, there was a thread not too long ago that had a big-ish list on spells that counter elephants. I thiiiink putting "counter elephants" in the search engine should bring it up, but no promises.

Edit: Naturally, at least some of the list will be useful to you, whatever's stomping you.

[Dedas]

Here is the list:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...=&fpart=1&vc=1

[Velusion]

Sounds like you need to build your nation focusing more on immediate short-term power rather than hoping for long term scales.

IMHO a heavy scales dependent nation (aka investing in really good scales) is the biggest shortfall of most MP players. Sometimes it does work out - but the vast majority of the time you will be eliminated quickly.

So my first recommendation is if you aren't running a good bless you need an awake combat pretender - or just cross your fingers and hope for a lucky break.

The second recommendation is to find your neighbors and immediately start researching in area's to counter their national strength.

The third recommendation is to pick stronger nations rather than weaker nations. Some nations are just better in MP than others. So if you go with MA Abysia or MA Ulm rather than a nation like MA Vanheim or MA Pythium you are automatically putting yourself in the hole. Of course it can be very satisfying to win with an underdog nation - but don't fool yourself into thinking all nations are created equal.

[Zeldor]

Velusion:

From my experience, even with good scales when you survive till mid or late game you probably have much less territory, thus less income and gem income and research than someone that used bless or rush tactic and got much more land in the beginning.

[Baalz]

I have to disagree regarding going with good scales. I think it's just like going with an uber bless - makes sense with some nations but you'll get destroyed if you don't have the right units to back it up. Going with good scales can be a very viable strategy if you are playing a nation with strong non-holy units. MA/LA Arcoscephale for instance is a great candidate for strong scales. Pangea is another. If you can build an expansion army at least every other turn who takes few losses an expansion pretender doesn't make that much difference. If you've got a strong dominion you don't need to worry too much about enemy SC pretenders attacking you, and if you've got some good combat mages to back up your stout troops you can most certainly hold off small uber blessed squads with very low level magic. With good scales and strong research mind burn and earth meld very quickly turns into destruction and soul slay if you're well motivated to focus on them.

As with everything it's no silver bullet, but it can certainly be a viable strategy if played right.

[Baalz]

To answer the original question though, since you aren't asking about a particular rush it's impossible to suggest a particular counter, but there are a couple things you've got going for you when you're being rushed. First, the enemy is (hopefully) inside your dominion so they'll have a moral penalty. Next, you've got the flexibility of levying PD in provinces you expect to be attacked - the usefulness of this varies immensely depending on the nation you're playing but for some nations just unexpectedly strong PD can thwart an initial rush. In most cases you'll have greater maneuverability working inside your territories. Finally, rushers often make mistakes in being too aggressive and storming straight to your capital, or at least deep into your territory to try and quickly cripple you. Combine these facts and you've got all the ingredients for catastrophic route pie if you can out-anticipate your enemy.

One of my favorite things to do to somebody who's rushing in too aggressively is to cut off his retreat by attacking the province he's moving from, then jack up the PD in the one he's moving to while moving several mages in to support the PD - hopefully with spells like panic or terror, in addition to whatever you need to specifically counter what's rushing you (earth meld, etc). If you do this right when they're moving out of a wasteland or low population mountain province hopefully some of them will be starving. Pull this off correctly and the enemy will route and be totally destroyed while you have absolutely no losses and turn the rush around on him as you move your army back offensively.

At least...in theory.

[Dedas]

Baalz said:
One of my favorite things to do to somebody who's rushing in too aggressively is to cut off his retreat by attacking the province he's moving from, then jack up the PD in the one he's moving to while moving several mages in to support the PD - hopefully with spells like panic or terror, in addition to whatever you need to specifically counter what's rushing you (earth meld, etc). If you do this right when they're moving out of a wasteland or low population mountain province hopefully some of them will be starving. Pull this off correctly and the enemy will route and be totally destroyed while you have absolutely no losses and turn the rush around on him as you move your army back offensively.

At least...in theory.

I've actually pulled this of against a pretty good opponent once. Two turns later he gave up. That was fun.

[Velusion]

Baalz said:
Going with good scales can be a very viable strategy if you are playing a nation with strong non-holy units.

It's viable but more risky in the short run than going for an immediate strength bump like an awake combat pretender or a good bless.

...and if you've got some good combat mages to back up your stout troops you can most certainly hold off small uber blessed squads with very low level magic.

I don't agree with this... IMHO it takes more than the really early magic to hold back really good bless rushers. It also means you have to commit the bulk of your mages to fighting - which in the research scramble you'll fall behind.

I will agree that for some nations (Pan, Arco, Pythium) you can formulate a decent strategy around really good scales. However - when it comes to scaring away or stopping determined early bless rushers or elephants a combat pretender or counter bless will heavily strengthen a hand that would only otherwise have to rely on early magic.

Good scales can work well - but you're betting that your neighbors didn't invest their points into an early rush strategy or that you can avoid/counter it either through diplomacy or alliances... or that you can simply out play them.

[CUnknown]

It seems like there are enough points out there so that you can have an awake combat pretender or a lvl-9 bless while still pulling good scales.

Sure you might have to take sloth or misfortune or something, but doesn't everyone do that?

Order + magic + one of either production or luck (while selling off the other), you can normally afford an awake pretender with at least a little magic and not a horrible dominion.

Or do you mean like... -good- scales. Like -really good- scales?

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?

To me, good scales means like: Order-3, Sloth-2, Misfortune-1, Magic-3. That is not that hard to afford.

Do people actually try to pull off scales like: Order-3, Production-1, Growth-2, Magic-3? Does it ever work for anyone?