German tower rush

France Kaiserklein
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German tower rush

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Post by Kaiserklein »

I was bored, so I thought : why not waste my time explaining some nilla scrub strategy on esoc ?!

Seriously though, the tower rush is a strategy that you almost never see on tad, but can work in some cases. The reasons why it was popular on nilla and isn't on tad : you used to have a 9 bows shipment, bows were better (+2 attack and no multiplier vs cav, just slightly weaker vs HI but still), and TPs cost 250w which means it would slightly slow down a semi FF.

I adapted this strategy to tad meta (greedier builds and TP meta), because I wasn't satisfied with the nilla all-in no market no TP tower rush. It turns out that you can have a really decent eco when you tower rush, if you do it properly.

Let's cut the bs and talk about the build. I'm gonna explain a bit how it works in age 1 because a lot of people always seem to do the wrong stuff as ger. I put that part into spoilers as I realized that it is in fact pretty long (because I'm never able to explain things shortly), so feel free to jump to the next part of the build if you're comfortable with german age 1 macro. Though it is an extremely important part of the game, and can be a game-decider.

Starting crates

Build order

Transition to colonial

You of course clicked age up with the 400w politician. Then you have two possibilities :

- If you built an early market : keep your villagers on food, and get gang saw, then put most of your villagers to wood.
- If you didn't, then directly switch your vils to wood and build one. Then get the wood upgrade, and if you have some coin banked from treasures, also get hunt dogs. If you don't have the coin though, don't do it just now because you will probs be late to build the forward tower.

So now, as it is a tower rush, you obviously have to build a tower. Place it as close to enemy base as you can ; try to place it on a hunt, or at least on a gold mine (if you can find a spot with both those resources then it's ideal).

Important : don't try hard to get your tower up before you hit colonial ! It's not important. Even if your tower is less than halfway up when you hit colonial, you just stop building it and place barracks asap (because you want to start producing units asap) while shipping 8 bows upon age up. Then, once the barracks done, you can finish your tower and set the rally point to it, and it should be np.
This is the reason why you can actually build a market and get upgrades before tower, just like you do as russia when you don't hard rush.


So basically, you want to have a market up either way (don't get a TP though, it's too expansive). Obviously if you already had market in age 1, you will save some resources, which means you can rush harder. Either way, just before you age up, split all settlers on food and all SWs on wood. New vils will go to food or wood depending on what you need.


Colonial age

So here, you ship 8 bows, and sometimes you will have enough wood to directly build your barracks (which means faster rush), but if you had to build a market then you might not ; in this case first use a SW on 400w to get rax up. Then you need to build 2 houses really fast, to start producing in your rax. You need to scout if your opponent has a stable or a barracks up ; if he has a barracks then you can get a batch of 5 bows out (even though sometimes even when it's a rax you want to make pikes for siege power, mostly against slow civs), otherwise just make 5 pikes. Push when you get your military at fb, try to snipe vils with bows/uhlans and siege stuff with your pikes. Don't get too close to tc because of the minutemen threat.

Meanwhile :
- If you already have a TP (200w start), put some vils or SW on gold to get steel traps (can also do it before age up if you're confident).
- If you don't, then use some of the 400w age up to build one.
You can afford to do this while getting a batch of 5 bows/pikes, which is the most important part of the rush. It will just weaken a bit the next batch, but it's worth it.

Keep training vils, army, and building houses, and pressuring. If you didn't get steel traps after age up because you had to get a TP, put some vils on coin at some point when you feel safe, and get it.
Ship 3 SW next, you really don't want to skip that card, unless your opponent is already sieging under your tower in which case you will ship 3 dops in his face (but if he's already sieging your fb so early in the game then you really got a problem...).
Pro tip : ship them at your tower. That way, you will both have the 2 free uhlans faster (they can save your ass sometimes) and 3 SW next to your tower, to tank if needed. With the vil hp market in upgrade (that you should btw research at some point in the game), your 4 SWs will be worth a bit more than 2300 hp of tanking at range. It is absolutely huge. If you get pushed for example, you can garrison them in the tower, and then pop them out once your opponent is close to your tower, and use them for tanking/fighting a bit, and with good micro hide back the low hp SWs in the tower. It is really important. But it's of course a gamble, because if you lose your fb you might lose those SWs, but most of the time I still manage to escape them even in that situation.

Now you can basically do whatever you want, the most important part of the tower rush was done. However, I think the 2 best options that you have are as follows :

- 700w / 700g / 3 dops : this is what I do most of the time, it's a timing push with 3 dops. Basically when 700w comes on the floor, you remove all vils from wood and put them to food/gold (most of them on gold). From the wood crates you get a stable up and like another batch of 5 bows and 3 houses. Might need 1-2 more houses later for the 3 dops timing but you can buy/chop some wood. Start producing cav and dops, and when 700g comes on the floor you should be able to get big batches of those, which is the point of this build. Try to spend all your resources as efficiently as possible, and then push when 3 dops come in your tower. This should really surprise your opponent because it's a very smooth transition from what seems to be a hard rush, with bow/pikes, into a large mass of dop/cav with bows behind. Most people expect you to just keep on making bow/pike and later on add a stable, so the early bow/dop/cav thing should work pretty good, at least it did for me. Oh and it also seems like this timing is more or less the one when your opponent runs out of food on qs maps, which means he's going to try to push your fb and your 3 dops in tower will be golden (this happens like half my games when I tower rush).
Note : On some maps and in some match ups, you can also get some more TPs and stagecoach using 700w. For this you cut the 5 bows and build the stable a bit later, when you get a wood income from your TPs. It might be too greedy most of the time though.

- 700w / 700g into age up : Well here you basically just want to age up. You could skip 700w but I don't like it, because it means you don't have a stable up (which sucks even more when you know you will probs lose your fb when you age up, then you have no military building left), and you will need to chop obscene amounts of wood for houses. This is not the option I prefer, it's more or less a gamble that I do when I'm losing. It might work because your opponent will "waste" his time burning down your fb, so you should be able to mass a bit in your base and get a military shipment like 8 skirms to hold. But then you let your opponent get mapcontrol while you age, and possibly age himself or mass enough units to punish you. After all you invested in early 8 bows, a tower and a rax, so aging up kind of means that you waste all this. But it's still an option in some match ups, on some maps, if you feel like you're not going to hold your fb in colonial age anyway.
Note : Stagecoach boom from 700w in this case would definitely be too greedy, and would just mean that you give a free stagecoach line to your opponent. And even if you can afford it, it basically means you already won the game anyway, so it doesn't matter.

If the game goes longer, well up to you, you can ship 2 SW / upgrades / more crates in colonial (or age up in late colonial if your timing did enough damage, but usually at this point your opponent will be out of food so it's probs more efficient to just stay colonial and win), and first military units in fortress then 1000w / upgrades. Just adaptation here, changes every game.
Note : if you play on a no TP map (which tbh happens a lot when you tower rush, because on TP maps you might rather want to go for the standard (semi-)ff builds), you will just make a market instead of a TP on 200w start (first mine 50g then chop 50w with 3 SWs or use treasures, use new settlers to herd). And you will always get steel traps in early colonial, instead of the TP from 400w age up. You also might want to cut 700g and directly ship 3 dops, otherwise your timing could be too slow/you could get pushed when you have 700g and not 3 dops. Last thing, Aging up with 700g is not really an option on no TP map, because it will be slow and you probably won't have a shipment ready in fortress to hold the push.



Match ups

In which match ups can you use this build ? Don't do it against rush civs : otto, azzy, iro, russia, india. It's also pretty bad in german mirror because your opponent can just mirror your build without paying for the tower, and have defender's advantage, and snowball it into a win ; or even simply go dop/cav (+ 8 bows) and shit on your army. It's also not very good against spain because they hit fortress too fast and defend this kind of rush easily with tower + dogs + mm + pike pop and huss age up etc... And same against portuguese because of double towncenter, possibly even double CM shitting on you.
The one civ against which it works best is japan, for obvious reasons.
Against other civs that I didn't mention, you can do this build, especially on no tp maps.



That's all about tower rush, I hope I was clear and didn't write too much, and feel free to ask me anything about this build and I'll try to answer. If you want an autograph, it's only $10 and I write it on ANY part of your body
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Serbia sirmusket
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Re: German tower rush

Post by sirmusket »

nice write up!
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Brazil lemmings121
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Re: German tower rush

Post by lemmings121 »

nice write up! thanks!

the down side: xbow + pik + uhlan lose to pure musks.
also, it takes aproximatelly 84 xbow shots to kill a cdb.

other then that, nice bo, 2006 style. :P
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Poland pecelot
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Re: German tower rush

Post by pecelot »

Hey, great guide! I've updated the strategy wall thread :)
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Re: German tower rush

Post by princeofkabul »

Why didn't u just write build a tower with sw during transition and ship units to it and rush. Like that's basically this build.
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France Kaiserklein
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Kaiserklein »

Because that's all the point of the build, not to just ship units in the tower, because it's bad
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Re: German tower rush

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Post by princeofkabul »

Idk, I feel if you commit to rushing you shouldn't be shipping 3 sw after 8 bows, rather 700w 3sw. It's like rushing with one shipment and 5 pikes there to aid. which get's crushed pretty easily. So rather not tower rush at all if you want to play eco behind the tower pressure that much x )
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Kaiserklein »

3 SW is just too good of a shipment to be delayed imo. Especially when you take your TP a bit late like after age up, delaying it is painful. Also 8 bows + 2 uhlans gives you a solid military advantage early on, and I think if you don't overcommit it's enough to let you send 3 sw afterwards. Also as I said you ship 3 sw at the tower, which gives you 2 uhlans (after all it's half a military shipment of a normal civ) and 3 sw to tank really hard. And if i get pushed i just hold using the range of my xbows, and ship 3 dops at the tower.
The idea is to get your timing after the rush, when your opponent runs out of food. So 3 sw 700w 700g is the most logical build anyway. And I've never lost my tower early on because I shipped 3 sw, if i lose it it's when my opponent timing pushes to get the map, not at 6-7 min.
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LoOk_tOm wrote:I have something in particular against Kaisar (GERMANY NOOB mercenary LAMME FOREVER) And the other people (noobs) like suck kaiser ... just this ..
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Hazza54321 »

@optimusprime
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Re: German tower rush

Post by farran34 »

Kaiserklein wrote:3 SW is just too good of a shipment to be delayed imo. Especially when you take your TP a bit late like after age up, delaying it is painful. Also 8 bows + 2 uhlans gives you a solid military advantage early on, and I think if you don't overcommit it's enough to let you send 3 sw afterwards. Also as I said you ship 3 sw at the tower, which gives you 2 uhlans (after all it's half a military shipment of a normal civ) and 3 sw to tank really hard. And if i get pushed i just hold using the range of my xbows, and ship 3 dops at the tower.
The idea is to get your timing after the rush, when your opponent runs out of food. So 3 sw 700w 700g is the most logical build anyway. And I've never lost my tower early on because I shipped 3 sw, if i lose it it's when my opponent timing pushes to get the map, not at 6-7 min.

First off nice write up, will test the strat some for fun when I get back home after finals as I haven't done a tower rush in ages.

Do you not get housed when you ship 3SW? That would be my main concern of sending 3 sw before 700wd, seems like it would be easy to get housed and the 700wd would pay off a lot faster which is what you would want with an aggressive build. I haven't tested it like you though.
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Kaiserklein »

If you macro properly yo shouldn't really get housed. It ofc means you will get a bit less mass out because you need to chop for a house for your 3 sw but I'm pretty sure it's worth it
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LoOk_tOm wrote:I have something in particular against Kaisar (GERMANY NOOB mercenary LAMME FOREVER) And the other people (noobs) like suck kaiser ... just this ..
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Diarouga »

I don't think the tower is better than the TP, I would go TP a bow rush in most MUs eventhough it's 20sec slower.
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Kaiserklein »

If you don't make a tower then just don't ship 8 bows to rush it's absolutely useless. Also as I said I get either early TP or TP from 400w, which is like 1 min later than transition TP, so it's decent. And I also said that tower rush is most useful on no TP maps.
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LoOk_tOm wrote:I have something in particular against Kaisar (GERMANY NOOB mercenary LAMME FOREVER) And the other people (noobs) like suck kaiser ... just this ..
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Hazza54321 »

can we nerf tower rush? too pwo
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Re: German tower rush

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Post by jesus3 »

i recommend @OPTIMUS__PRIME as a tutor, great and clear advice will lead you to success - talk in english for the ultimate experience
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Kaiserklein »

From what I've seen he does the bad version of the build, nilla style
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LoOk_tOm wrote:I have something in particular against Kaisar (GERMANY NOOB mercenary LAMME FOREVER) And the other people (noobs) like suck kaiser ... just this ..
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Re: German tower rush

Post by jesus3 »

apparentely you haven't had the full experience ride, no chance of losing whatsoever if you striclty stick to the advice
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Re: German tower rush

Post by gh0st »

nice write up! I was wondering how to t-rush properly, as I hardly played nilla..!! gj
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Re: German tower rush

Post by optimusprime »

towerrush op cuz u can get a very aggresive early 3 unit Combo with a good eco in back Close to his tc
best Option is most of time 8xb 3 sw, 700w dont Need as 2nd Card cuz u wont fill Batches of 2nd Building so early and more tps is waste otherwise u Play Gl or smth
Kaiserklein wrote:From what I've seen he does the bad version of the build, nilla style

whats the nilla Version and tad Version sry dont know different just want to know
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Re: German tower rush

Post by Kaiserklein »

Well nilla version is the dirty one, where you don't really boom behind the rush, and don't add cav or dops so early, just like double rax bow pike or sth like this. I think it's bad in most cases, especially on tad
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Re: German tower rush

Post by KINGofOsmane »

Kaiserklein wrote:Well nilla version is the dirty one, where you don't really boom behind the rush, and don't add cav or dops so early, just like double rax bow pike or sth like this. I think it's bad in most cases, especially on tad

good old orba rush
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Re: German tower rush

Post by yurashic »

Very good guide.
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Re: German tower rush

Post by MaJoOorchEf_GaZa »

Very good guide
Do you know what kind of creature waits for its own slaughter?
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Re: German tower rush

Post by MaJoOorchEf_GaZa »

MaJoOorchEf_GaZa wrote:Very good guide

that was a very good guide but dear Kaiserklein can you please make a video on it there are some people who can't read this much text whenever you'll free just make a video on youtube or stream it
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Re: German tower rush

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

"this much text" lol, it's not that long, I'm sure you can read it

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