How can one counter early camel rush?

[Seleucids]

There is a strategy with camels that is very hard to counter unless you are an archer civ. The rusher does these:

1. Make a dozen camels before minute 5 or 6

2. Harass enemy woodlines and farms with them. Run around and waste their time.

 

At this point, the defender makes jav cav or melee cav to counter camels. Their cavs chase the camels. However, they are already delayed compared to a full boomer. 

 

3. Camels run towards ally woodline which is full of infantry. The allied infantry will kill the defender's cavalry. 

4. Shoot at the chasing enemy cav or inf safely from the woodlines. Typically, cavalry in P1 does not have enough speed to do significant damage to the camels before they escape to safety, especially as the border player. 

 

My question is: how can one defend against such a camel rush? 

[Deicide4u]

16 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

Camels run towards ally woodline which is full of infantry. The allied infantry will kill the defender's cavalry. 

And where is your ally and what's he/she doing?

The complaint is oddly specific. I don't think camels are any better for raids than any other cavalry.

In most cases like these, it comes down to micro, APM and resistance to pressure. People under pressure make more mistakes, that's another reason to rush. If the enemy is rushing, he isn't booming. So, it comes down to how much damage he can do to justify his military investment.

Edited Sunday at 14:58 by Deicide4u

[TheCJ]

8 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

And where is your ally and what's he/she doing?

In 1v1s, you dont have an ally. In teamgames, he has an ally aswell. If youur ally has to help you, the enemy ally has a boom advantage and their team wins.

10 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

I don't think camels are any better for raids than any other cavalry.

They are (one of?) the only cav archers in p1. Thats why they're better; they outrange your soldiers (except archers ofc).

 

26 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

how can one defend against such a camel rush? 

If you're an cs archer civ, just make more archers and a few towers

Making your own cav and going to his base (instead of chasing his cav archers) is also very good, if he loses his food eco he cant make any more cav.

With a civ with counter cav you can just rush him before he rushes you, this camel archer tactic is weak against very early pressure.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

49 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

My question is: how can one defend against such a camel rush? 

I'm not exactly top 10 material, but I think getting loom as soon as you notice them coming is important. Loom doubles the number of arrow hits to kill, so considering they miss quite a bit, your women won't go down nearly fast.

other than that, cavalry and towers.

[Seleucids]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

towers

Sadly, P1 towers have 0 impact on enemy camels. Camels outrange towers (because they have the additional launch height bonus so the range is more than 60m). The towers shoot too infrequently and too inaccurately to hurt a decent number of dancing camels. The limit of towers having to be 60m apart makes matters worse. Experiment shows that even P2 towers have 0 use on more than 10 camels.

Loom is a good idea for sure. 

TheCJ's counter rush is a good call, but a risky one. 

Now the question is, what can I do if I have a jav Cav civ with no archers?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 hours ago, Seleucids said:

The towers shoot too infrequently and too inaccurately to hurt a decent number of dancing camels.

well if the camels have to dance, that's time they can't spend killing ur women.

5 hours ago, Seleucids said:

Now the question is, what can I do if I have a jav Cav civ with no archers?

combine some of your other units like spearmen and try and kill one.

I mean there isn't a great counterplay always. Is this a 1v1 you are talking about, or a TG?

[ffm2]

• Stay compact. The outer wood line should be the only one direction to stretch for the first minutes
• Stay busy eco wise: If you need to abandon the outer wood line, use the small wood patch at the cc or gather at the mines although you don't need it atm.
• Try to intersect / sandwich the camels. Chase with inf while cav come from behind
• small towers are weak, expensive but sturdy. They need no apm, so you can focus more on eco. Your ally should sponsor them to get you out of this situation. But it's more a solution a weaker player can use to resist a better player.
• If you boomed with too many female it can be already too late. Some strategic decisions made in fow can already decide the game. I'd say: balanced pop > high cav; high cav > high fem; high fem > balanced pop (if not outplayed by skill)
• Some civs are just weaker than others

[Seleucids]

8 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

TG?

TG. If it's a 1v1, I would just grab all and push. My superior inf boom will destroy them. But in a TG, especially when I have a weaker ally, it's really difficult 

34 minutes ago, ffm2 said:

Try to intersect / sandwich the camels. Chase with inf while cav come from behind

I will try this

 

[MarcusAureliu#s]

21 hours ago, Seleucids said:

There is a strategy with camels that is very hard to counter unless you are an archer civ. The rusher does these:

1. Make a dozen camels before minute 5 or 6

2. Harass enemy woodlines and farms with them. Run around and waste their time.

 

At this point, the defender makes jav cav or melee cav to counter camels. Their cavs chase the camels. However, they are already delayed compared to a full boomer. 

 

3. Camels run towards ally woodline which is full of infantry. The allied infantry will kill the defender's cavalry. 

4. Shoot at the chasing enemy cav or inf safely from the woodlines. Typically, cavalry in P1 does not have enough speed to do significant damage to the camels before they escape to safety, especially as the border player. 

 

My question is: how can one defend against such a camel rush? 

In my opinion it depends on your civ. 

1. If you have an archer civ, you can make a sufficient amount of archers.

2. If you have a slinger civ, camels have better range, but currently it is incredibly hard to micro the camels well enough to avoid losses. Ofc you need a sufficient amount that is superior to the camels in pure fire power.

3. If you have a skirmisher civ, i recommend to first distract the camels with your infatry, while ur women make a tower, while the camels retreat from your infantry. Because towers are weak, i would still recommend to go for skirmisher cav, if you have at least some hunt available. If you make cavs later than your opponent, it will be less hurtfull to your economy compared to your opponents investment, especially if you have fields already. When chasing with skirm cav, it can help to fully catch up in distance, before you give an attack order, so the cavs dont stop to shoot. While u might not kill all, also your enemy wont do any damage, with an army more costly than the one u need to chase the camels.

4. If you have a civ that has melee cav availabe, just spam melee cav. The melee cav will win a fight, even if severy outnumbered ( with decent micro)

Ofc Ptolemies are an economic powerhouse, and they can come back from setbacks, with some training i believe, that camel rush isnt one of their best options currently.

[Seleucids]

1 hour ago, MarcusAureliu#s said:

The melee cav will win a fight, even if severy outnumbered ( with decent micro)

The issue is really to do with hiding behind ally woodlines. But I am tempted to try these ideas now! Thanks for the replies !

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Also depends on how many more you expect them to make. Some players will make 12 or even less and then stop there and some will continue to make them. If you don't have enough cav to stop them or deter them you may still be able to look at their base and spot stables or extra hunts they may yet take. 

Another option not previously mentioned is to make a new wood storehouse behind your barracks, so that the camels need to approach your barracks to range your woodline. If the camel player ever has to look at his eco, then you may have a chance to jump through the barracks and kill some camels. Iberians are pretty limited vs camel rush but one of the few nice aspects is that if you have wood against the edge of the map there's only 2 approaches for camels to hit the woodline, so this makes a big difference for iberians' case.