How do I Beat Back Rush Tactics?

[AlgaeNymph]

Mammoths, minotaurs, double-blessed Chalice knights, and all manner or large, swift, and deadly units. When they invade, how can I prevent getting slaughtered?

[Sombre]

An awake combat pretender such as a wyrm of Prince of Death with minimal equipment can do wonders.

[Twan]

With magic...

Most big tramplers have very low MR so against mammoths/elephants use control spells (or rage, confusion etc). One revolted mammoth may make all the squad useless as the other units will attack him with their weak trunk attack. Paralyzation, slaying, blindness etc... are also good.

Against human units like knights who don't have an insane strength, earth meld can be used to stop them (they will be at range at the end of round one, so cast it fast), then chaff in attack cavalry can arrives before they kill valuable units.

[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.