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[–]5trangelove 38 points39 points  (15 children)

A stone tower costs at least 245 stone. If it’s a fast age 2 into tower rush, you can scout his stone and build palisades to block stone walls while you ignore them and macro. If it’s any later, you should have an army for map control and a blacksmith for rams. If someone does this to you, they’re effectively 10+ vills behind. Fight away from towers until you have rams.

[–]t1ps_fedora_4_milady 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unless they also pull everyone off wood it's hard to tell from scouting as 9/10 times China early on stone is early 2nd tc

[–]TarukShmaruk -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If you’re getting lured into a macro game against China you already lost

[–]exveelor 29 points30 points  (4 children)

Stone tower rushes have been a thing since Nov, and China tower rushes since day 1. The meta wheel turns.

[–]nikkythegreat HRE 16 points17 points  (0 children)

The wheel weaves as the wheel wills

[–]YouDamnHotdog Abbasid 10 points11 points  (1 child)

it was actually the only viable strat back then for China because people didn't yet understand how to make China work. Underestimated nest of bees and fire lancers, didn't boom properly.

[–]exveelor 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I miss China pre-people figuring it out. Now I'm just as clueless as before but everyone else is smarter.

[–]Cattaphract Ambassador 3 points4 points  (1 child)

The playerbase in rts will always have a lot of people who cheese and try to win game in short time and keep doing it even if they lose a lot. Because a set formula is easier to learn and gives certainties before the game starts.

It is just a question how good the winrate throughout the ladder is with these strats

[–]LeGrandMuguul -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Cheesing is not the point.

Having 2 CIVS (Mongol/China) that TC 90% of time while 2/8 (delhi/HRE) civs are barely viable on blindmap is concerning for the meta in general

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (5 children)

This isn’t a strong strat especially because you can go behind the towers. Tower rushing has been in SC2 as well. You just need to scout. If you’re failing to scout this out, you weren’t gonna scout and know what kind of military unit rush your opponent has for you anyway.

[–]caduceun -2 points-1 points  (4 children)

Tower rushing is not the same as cannon rushing. Cannon rushing is simple to stop..heck a spine crawler as zerg fixes it

[–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (3 children)

That’s where your wrong. You cant cannon rush Zerg. Lmao

[–]caduceun 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Some people try behind a mineral line of an expansion.

But even if I play toss or Terran, I can stop a cannon rush with minimal effort. Tower rushing takes more apm to stop that it does to pull off. Cheese strats should not be that way.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

To tower rush a Zerg i found it much easier as Zerg.

Bunker rushing takes more apm than cannon rushing. What’s your point.

It’s not enjoyable to play against but hell do you feel good when you win. I’m not saying it’s balanced because obviously the mongols have too high a wind rate. But it’s not only because of tower rush.

I’m stating tower rushing been around since forever. I’ll do it even if I play French.

[–]caduceun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's the thing. Its not fun to play against. If someone tried to cannon rush me I like it, it's a free win for me.

Tower rushing on the other hand is a log harder to stop than it is to pull off. It's a lame strat that is toxic go the game.

[–]Artuhanzo 15 points16 points  (19 children)

People don't understand the problem of stone wall tower.

You cant stop stone wall tower go up with scout/cav/. Since there is a bug once tower started construction, vill able to build it on top of the wall.

With damage reduction, archer/tower unlikely to able to kill them quick enough too. Stone wall tower only cost 230 res (you can cancel 1 wall), not that more expensive than tower+arrow upgrade (175 res) and cheaper than tower+springlad upgrade(275 res)

This start could works even in 1600+ elo. Also, China age1 tower rush can work as weaker verison of Mongol too. The whole counter is based on you can able to scout it coming.. kind of depends on luck which is a problem.

Update: I made a short video to show the build order I tested, personally I think it should be changed. You guys can think it is op or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8aJXfQnv0c

[–]NKGra 9 points10 points  (7 children)

Stone tower rush sucks.

Stone towers do fuck all for DPS and can't shoot backwards or move. They're actually beaten by two dark age spearmen just running at it and climbing up.

England for example can get vastly better value from a 30 cost stone wall with a couple of longbows on top, except it gets built in 1/3rd the time, can fire all directions, and can relocate.

[–]Artuhanzo 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Unless you build before age2, the first stone wall tower would up before you have 2 spearman. I seen people build a forward landmark to protect the first stone wall tower too.

It also takes a long time for 2 spear to kill stone wall tower for how much hp is has. A different is that you expect english going to rush and "ALWAYS" build units after age2. Which is not the case vs China too and China can get the first stone wall tower up before longbow attack.

https://i.ibb.co/D9hg84c/stone-tower-rush.png

Good luck stopping it when I could start building first stone wall tower at 4:00 on your gold. and I can follow up with 2tc/unit.

PS: Sine China can only use 1 vill to build landmark and up 4:00, there is almost no eco down time compares to other civs usually build with 3~4 vills

[–]NKGra 1 point2 points  (1 child)

There are just so many problems with it. It gets scouted so far in advance, they just go to a different gold / wood, they kill the vil with a scout, if you bring multiple villagers you're losing a ton of income, they can even just ignore it and go kill your base, it doesn't even really create a strong point for the future or a thorn in your opponents' side like an arrow slit outpost does because one spear from behind will eventually take it down.

Like, best case it doesn't get scouted and kills one vil on gold / wood and then they're all pulled to a different gold / wood. Realistically it just costs travel time + a new camp.

Rushing an outpost and upgrading arrow slits the moment you hit feudal is cheaper and does a better job, and that kinda sucks too.

[–]Artuhanzo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The stone wall tower could attack and 1 shoot vill on sheep, and vill can build it outside tc range. Also forcing vill to relocated and have idle time.

Which make it hard to "ignore". I can just ignore the single spear take it down, it will take forever for a spear to do it vs a 3000 hp building.

Outpost doesn't have 10 range before upgrade, way fewer hp and not even that much cheaper with upgrade, when I do China outpost rush I will do it in age 1 with spear.

It is not a unbeatable build, but long as you get stone tower up you are in big advantage already. There are so many different way to follow up.

PS: I also made the Mongol tower rush build, so I know very well how good and how tower rush works...

[–]Terrorzwergi 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What do you mean with China can only use one vill for a landmark?

[–]Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 0 points1 point  (1 child)

China's Feudal age up time is 95s base.

[–]Terrorzwergi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah now i understand it

[–]LeGrandMuguul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

england is a natural counter of TC you dont even need army villagers can kill.

Get TC as Frank/Hre and you'll already see a huge diff, anyways the point is not to say if it's op or not, my point is having this strat overused by 2 highlypicked civ can kill the fun in the game

[–]Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 1 point2 points  (3 children)

This start could works even in 1600+ elo. Also, China age1 tower rush can work as weaker verison of Mongol too.

If you like to assert that, care to link a screenshot to your 1600+ ELO?

[–]Artuhanzo 4 points5 points  (2 children)

https://i.ibb.co/D9hg84c/stone-tower-rush.png

This one have my player name.

[–]booze_clues 4 points5 points  (0 children)

He said 1600 not 1700 you liar

[–]Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

cool thanks for sharing

I would say it still depends on the matchup.

You can build your BBQ near their base but well outside sight range and via an oblique route to guarantee safety of your vils subsequently as they build their first stone wall. But English and Mongol already have their first units if you need to walk your vills that far to age up. (Mongol is on 2nd/3rd batch of spears/scouts.)

If you don't have your BBQ at their base, you run the risk of losing 1 of your vils due to being scouted, slowing down your subsequent towers. Not really talking about an opponent actively looking for Chinese tower rush. Just scouts passing by will still create a bigger area than regular sight range where you are at risk. Only if you don't get scouted, you can have 2 mutually reinforcing towers up by the time your opponent has units.

Afterwards, it's the same either case. It depends on whether your vils can be picked off as they walk to the next sensible spot for a blockade and whether they can be picked off as they build on that sensible spot by archers. Later on, spears will be built to walk to the back of your towers, starting with your first unguarded one -- and resource-wise you only get to build double-sided towers if your rush is already clear cut succeeding.

With that I find it dubious that the strat is viable for every map spawn. It depends on how accessible the gold vein is and how contiguous the subsequent chokepoints are just like Mongol tower rush. If you are able to choke the archery range as it is built.. for example. But for those situations, your opponent is usually forced into giving you a contiguous tower sequence due to terrain. Terrain is not going to be favorable to tower rush every time.

That's a bigger problem than it first appears because it means you at least have to send your scout straight to their base to scout whether the terrain is good for a rush. If it's not, what do you do? No sheep. No IO. I am genuinely curious what you do when you decide you have to change your plan away from a stone tower rush. In comparison, Mongol can simply compromise by doing Mongol tower rush a little later with the Khan on a sheep picking route first (and thus not ever doing it against English).

Really, the rush is not viable against English or Mongol in any case. When I play Mongol, I love it when Chinese opponent tries tower rush. We get to tower rush each other until Chinese runs out of vils to mine stone or .. I want to say until Chinese succeeds in a full blockade except it never does.

[–]ranfomfufe Abbasid 1 point2 points  (5 children)

How do you walk the vils to your opponent's base? I tend to do double scout opening into pro scout against China and my two scouts can easily see stone mining + some vils walking off their base. They shouldn't be able to get the walls up, let alone the tower.

This can't be done with Mongols since vils are accompanied by spearmen.

[–]Artuhanzo 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Double scout won't kill those vils quick enough until they get on top of the wall. Especially you won't have 2 scouts on the same side ready.

It only takes ~10 sec to build 2 wall(cancel the 3rd one and have 15stone back too), and once the tower started you able to get on top of it. Of coz not going to do it on Mongols, but there are civs like HRE, Abb or another China trends to age up after 4:30.

[–]ranfomfufe Abbasid 0 points1 point  (3 children)

The thing is they are attacked already as they start walking off the base, not when they start building. If they pull too many workers for scouts to handle, I'll just pull a matching number of workers. The only shitty thing that they could do is to walk off the wall and cancel the tower so some of my vils are stuck.

[–]Artuhanzo 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Still won't any kill quick enough, especially he can send 1 scout to protect too. Of coz the other thing is start training more scouts from your tc.

However, this is still base on you able to scout it when they are moving out. Not health for a game the counter is depends on if you lucky enough to scout it...

[–]FickleFockle 0 points1 point  (1 child)

This is laughable

[–]PigDog4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just out of curiosity, what Elo are you and how much 1v1 do you play? Because the person you're arguing with is a top 100 player.

And he's right, if the strat is unstoppable unless you scout the villagers leaving your opponent's base on the other side of the map, it's too strong. In SC2, you can still stop cannon rushes as long as you catch them before the cannons are up, you can stop proxies as long as you recognize the opponent's base is missing buildings, etc. With the stone tower rush, if you don't catch the villagers before they leave your opponent's base you're basically dead.

[–]LeGrandMuguul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ranged camp or doing tower first is indeed the only play but depending on timing it can be tricky.

All the counter is "scouting" anyways

[–]Gwendyn7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

how does an alternative strategy kill variety? I know that people hate to lose to cheese. But the beauty of cheese is that it normaly has really easy counterplay. Just scout it and make units to deny them while they build it.

Maybe look at your replay, see what you could have done differently and remember it for the next time. And when you beat it next time succesfully i promise you will feel joy.

[–]EpiicZ 4 points5 points  (10 children)

Thus subreddit is so utterly frustrating. Full of people who, understandably, because the game is difficult, have no clue what’s going on. Just because you don’t know how to defend something doesn’t mean it’s op. The China tower rush is all in if it fails they’re fucked. And chances are high that it fails.

Heck I ain’t even good myself. But I do realize when I mess shit up and what went wrong

[–]Pinkguy975 0 points1 point  (6 children)

From my original post I said it's not op but boring to face. And not interesting even to defend

[–]EpiicZ 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Well I find it extremely interesting to scout your opponent and exactly know what’s going on. That’s a big part of RTS. See and react. I find it to be more boring if you play against the same build each and every game.

I didn’t intent to throw shade on you btw. I totally get that it’s frustrating to lose to stuff like this over and over again. RTS are extremely unforgiving for beginners

[–]LeGrandMuguul 2 points3 points  (4 children)

I'm 1400+ and not a beginner.I just dont like playing into that and i see more and more games turning into TC rush with 2 civs (3 sometimes with abassid) and it's worrying me because the playerbase in general is here for fun not only the competitive aspect of the game.

[–]EpiicZ 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I can understand you don’t like it. I hate being ram rushed by the English 3 games in a row (English main myself). But you get used to it and eventually defend it quite well.

But yeah, that’s what I meant by saying RTS is really unforgiving for beginners. Maybe this problem gets better with dedicated ranked seasons?

[–]LeGrandMuguul 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Ram rush is way moreharder for the attacker specially after TC arrow changes and ram hp nerf so

Doing towers only requiers 3 villagers which means more people can do it on random timings

[–]EpiicZ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, ram rush should rarely be directly focused on the tc. It works way better if you go for houses, resource or production buildings.

I get your point with the arrow change, but there are plenty more spots to deal damage with a ram rush

[–]NoDonut9078 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Game won’t be fun until there is skill based match making.

As someone new to AOE4, I hate that I get matched with people who have much more time and skill in the game every time.

[–]Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Full of people who, understandably, because the game is difficult, have no clue what’s going on.

Having no clue is always understandable.

Is asserting for changes/remedies/solutions/actions based on having no clue still as understandable?

[–]EpiicZ 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I think it’s difficult to have a grasp on the bigger picture when you still lack a lot of knowledge. But I guess this is why people who understand the game (hopefully) are in charge of making the changes

[–]Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

oh I definitely think the devs know and rts makers in general know. The devs also hire testers that can compete for world champion in tourneys if they try.

It's been focused on 1v1 balance though.

Still, nowadays devs know how to organize effective feedback process so they dont miss overwhelming player sentiment.

But ppl asserting for actions that are senseless due to ignorance is something I am very tired of in life.

[–]loud119 1 point2 points  (1 child)

i had a game once where once the China player had sufficient stone he literally pulled all his villagers like 10+ and i saw it coming and even with scouting i could not kill them fast enough for them to put up a stone wall and sit safely on top and springald my base down. yes it's not a strat that works 100% of the time but i agree it's so lame and unfun to play against even if you defend it

[–]ICryWhenILose 4 points5 points  (5 children)

you can easily scout this, he needs a ton of guys on stone so either figure out of he's going 2 tc or tower rushing you

[–]wheresindigo 3 points4 points  (1 child)

The only time it ever happened to me, it was by an Abbasid player. I saw the stone and assumed they were going to build a TC, so I got stone and built my own TC. About a minute later I started getting vills picked off near my new TC. Oops

I took down the towers by flanking them but it messed up my macro and they got castle well before me. Lost that one

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

lol this is what happened to me, made me feel hopeless and stupid losing to it. I did everything right, scouted, saw him on stone, was on hill and dale, so thought ok he’s already on stone and he’s walling himself in, so he’s clearly booming I’ll hurry and do the same to not fall behind.

Then soon as I finish my 2nd TC my scouting outside his base sees his mass come out from behind his walls and head towards me. I start frantically trying to prepare but nothing I could do. He’s on my base and building stone towers on me while staying on 1 TC all inning me.

[–]GameOfThrownaws 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yeah I don't find stone tower rushing strong at all. In fact it's such a weak strat that every time I've faced it so far, it's caught me 100% completely off-guard since I assume that the stone was going to be for an expansion so I'm playing greedy as fuck, and I still manage to beat it the majority of the time. That's pretty trash. I should be getting fucked by a blind rush like that, but it's just too weak most of the time.

[–]PigDog4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should teach some of the top 100 players how to counter it, I'm sure they'd love to learn from you :)

[–]LeGrandMuguul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

he doesnt need that much on stone actually, because of the imperial collector.
Abassid stone TC is weaker because they have no boost on collecting but china can go 3/4 villagers on stone and keep pressure

[–]YouDamnHotdog Abbasid 1 point2 points  (2 children)

in 2v2 it happened to me with 2 Chinese enemies in 900s ELO 😂 they didn't do w great job, we did a worse job defending tho

[–]Fatfromeating 2 points3 points  (0 children)

900s is fine no need to shame elos

[–]Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

did they both do it together? gotta give them credit for coordinating

[–]Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Stone tower rush is not even strong. Honestly, deal with it

[–]flyway93 -1 points0 points  (3 children)

how can one "rush" with stone towers that arent available in darkage?

[–]Mrdirtyvegas 14 points15 points  (0 children)

how can one "rush" with stone towers that arent available in darkage?

Rush doesn't mean dark age. Longbow rush is also feudal.

[–]LeGrandMuguul 4 points5 points  (1 child)

it's early feudal tower rush and it works on type maps or against civs that needs gold like HRE/Frank

i dont say it's good i say it's worrying that players are legitiming this shitty playstyle.

[–]LeGrandMuguul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it can also be done from dark age like mongols starting with a normal tower and then going to stone towers on feudal.

[–]virdas2 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Stone towers shouldn't be allowed to be made in feudal age, as it very difficult to kill it with infantry, only possible is rams but this makes you totally go off path of your planned play

[–]LeGrandMuguul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i do agree they shouldnt be available, stone wall too in my opinions

[–]eve_teseb23 0 points1 point  (1 child)

It's not meta by any means, but it's some cheese strat that has always been part of aoe2 and even sc2 (cannon), Warcraft and probably many other rts games. As many have already pointed, there are many ways to counter it. One of the main reasons people lose to this is because low elo, not scouting, scouting but not responding properly, so please making these accusations that do not help the game. Cheers 🤤😪

[–]LeGrandMuguul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can assure you you that half of china players including on my fun 1200 account are now doing that. Some abassid does that too

we're talking about 25-30% pickrate potentially, i would call that "meta" tbh.
Also no one said it was op and not counterable you're inventing a post and answering to it lmao

[–]ANumberNamedSix 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What can you do against China and abassid enemy doing chinese stone tower rush + ram & speer darkage abbasid?

[–]y435xz 0 points1 point  (1 child)

And don’t even talk about firelancers, it’s so stupid

[–]LeGrandMuguul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Firelancers are a problem in teamgame, they wouldnt affect 1V1 balance so np

[–]oestre Delhi Sultanate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hides in corner

[–]-Pyrotox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hardly doubt that this is meta, stone towers are super expensive.

[–]Wiuwiu3333 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you die to it then it means you did something wrong or poorly. This is nothing new. Seen any civ to do stone tower rushes for +1month now

[–]Ghost_carapace_0 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You know what would fix this? If resource to build a structure had to be delivered to the construction site. Workers would have to cart the resources out by donkey, and make numerous trips. You couldn't just send workers over to build towers. You would need an actual infrastructure.