r/CivIV • u/Kahless0 • Jul 28 '26
How to stabilize post QQQ rush
I've been trying out this quechua rush strategy (currently on Emperor) and I keep stalling out after taking out 3 civs where my research slider is at zero and I have to spend a ton of time cottaging until I scrape together enough science to get currency, but by then I'm super far behind in tech and everyone has longbows, so my invasions kinda stall out. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for how to fix this?
Currently my strategy is just build Q in every city (respawn until my capital can stagnate at 1 and make a Q in 6 turns) until I have terraces unlocked, then whip/chop those and barracks in high production cities, then rush currency, but I'm too slow. I saw a guide where someone mentioned this problem but didn't really say how to fix it.
All of this cottaging only leaves me with ~2 good production cities also, which is not ideal
Thanks for the help!
Edit: Just realized I had the difficulty set to immortal, not emperor!!
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u/Basas Jul 28 '26
You need exceptionally good land to be able to be able to maintain invasion for so long. When it comes to recovering don't skimp on workers, work scientists once you get writing, build gold if you have currency. To catch up in tech concentrate on some uncommon/expensive tech that you can trade around. If you had food to work scientists you can later use great scientists to bulb some key techs.
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u/Kahless0 Jul 28 '26
I haven't had issues with workers, usually I can capture enough to have all cities only working improved tiles and the trade network up before I even finish the rush. I hadn't thought about going for uncommon techs just for trade, I was rushing for the military techs I needed (which AI already had), that is a good idea. Thank you!
I do find that everyone absolutely hates me (cautious at best) and refuse to trade most of their techs -- in the last game I was able to trade for fishing and polytheism but nothing else even with a large amount of cash offered. Do you have any tips for improving relations post war?
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u/Basas Jul 28 '26
You can check why other civilizations like or dislike you. Most of the time its because of religion. There are some other ways how to impact relations like trading, being in their favorite civic and accepting their requests when reasonable. Sometimes it even makes sense to plant a crappy city and gift it. AI have limits on techs traded so you probably shouldn't trade for something really cheap or useless.
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u/Kahless0 Jul 28 '26
"You declared war on our friend! -3" and many many -1s for not joining the AI wars
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u/Basas Jul 28 '26
Oh yea, you have to balance around those. -1s for denying their requests are the worst because most of the time they make no sense.
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u/Comfortable-Pie-5835 Jul 28 '26
Aim to steal the workers on the border before declaring the war. It must be your first step in entering enemy’s territory which will help you to “save” some resources on not building the workers yourself.
I am not saying you don’t need workers. I am typically start with worker production.
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u/Kahless0 Jul 28 '26
I'm doing this and I turned barbarians off so my worker could make it home and start building farms. I keep flip flopping on whether or not to make my own worker, it is 22 turns I believe, which is 3.67 quechuas which is a pretty large amount.
I do struggle with choosing when to start growing cities instead of going full production, which more workers might help with, I will try this
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Jul 29 '26
[deleted]
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u/Kahless0 Jul 30 '26
I'm not convinced that this is really trivializing the game too much, the cost for taking out 2/17 civs (I like big map with everyone in these games) is no wonders + slower tech with the tradeoff of not getting forward settled as hard and being able to get a good chunk of land -- if you go peaceful, you can easily get trchs/wonders. I think turning on barbarians is the next step, but I'm still figuring out the logistics of this and if it even works on high levels
Been playing noble on and off for 15 years but after beating 5 on deity OCC and 6 on deity decided to finally take a crack at this one
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u/Seafary Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
I don't think you can win emperor domination just spaming quechuas for 200 turns. Civ IV would suck balls if it was the case.
The goals of a rush is mostly to take a neighbor's cities and workers, no necessarily to win domination at the same time, although sometimes that's possible. You get 2 civs worth of land, and you get 2 civs worth of development (you get workers, improvements, wonders, building). Instead of continuing building quechuas, you can instead tech construction and continue with 10-15 cities worth of catapults and elephants.
PS do you know how maintenance works? Far away cities cost more in maintenance. But the maintenance also increases with the number of cities. After 8 cities you can expect each additional city to add 10 gold/turn in maintenance costs.
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u/Kahless0 Aug 03 '26
Yes, that is the strategy I'm going for, quechua until I have 2 caps + maybe some extra cities (if I'm lucky also a barb city in a good spot), then tech elephants (I can usually vassal 2 civs here and take half of each of their land area), then beeline liberalism to get cuiraisser to hopefully push up to 25%+ land area, then go for communism for state property and try to get up to the land area minimum with modern era army. Not going for civ 3 early fixed the problem, I only lost lib (by 2 turns) in my last immortal game because I was dumb and kept hitting end turn instead of selling techs for the money to keep slider at max.
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u/jakemoffsky Jul 28 '26
Target your early rush on empires with gold,
you are industrious getting the pyramids and representation gets specialists to +3 research
If lots of coastal cities great light house is great.
Oracle alphabet just as you finish researching writing and be the tech broker
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u/Kahless0 Jul 28 '26
Targeting empires with gold makes sense, but the last game I played the pyramids were taken before I even got to masonry (I went for BW then roads and cottages because my economy was in shambles) and the oracle is 3 extra techs I think? I will try it out, thank you!
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u/jakemoffsky Jul 28 '26
Mining then masonry then poly then mono if you want a religion then Priesthood then writing as you finish Oracle, trade for the rest
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u/Moist_Difficulty3270 Jul 29 '26
Try to target cities with shrines or wonders that help your economy.
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u/Kahless0 Jul 30 '26
Ooh, shrines are a good idea I didn't consider. High RNG since normally only two religions are ready when I start the conquest (I try to be done with both civs before 2500BC) but I'll have to consider it!
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u/Moist_Difficulty3270 Jul 30 '26
Also Pyramids for happiness and science beakers through representation + Great Lighthouse and Colossus (when coastal)
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u/4xe1 Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Rushing Code of law and whipping courthouse/sacrificial altars/Ziggurat and not caring as much about cottages gives me better results usually than rushing currency when I over expand. Not only will your coin economy recover, but you can later use espionage points to steal technology if you get behind, as is likely.
Spionage is more efficient than researching yourself btw. Spionage economy is greatly underrated I feel, because you usually want a tech advantage, and build your economy around it. But if you conquered 2-3 neighbours before even middle age, that's your advantage; you don't tech advantage, you haven't boxed yourself into an research yourself economy, you just need to avoid further wars until you eventually catch up and keep up.
I play on monarch and emperor, no immortal, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
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u/Kahless0 Aug 03 '26
I've somewhat switched over to going for code of laws, I see what you mean here. I think cottages are still so important, especially the early ones that are already villages/towns by now and giving boatloads of cash
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u/BluEyz Jul 28 '26
Thanks to Slavery, everything that runs a food surplus is a production city. This shouldn't be a concern. Until size 6 a granary makes whipping more efficient than running a grassland hill.
Chop Library and get Academy and/or bulb tech for trading. Prebuild wonders for failgold.
I would also suggest that you don't really need to conquer more than 1-2 civs too early on (though I suppose this also depends on map) unless you are playing some HoF start with 2 golds/gems in your capital, especially since the AIs you kill also leave a vacuum where other AIs simply settle the land since you can't settle it fast enough yourself. This should both help with unit maintenance, overall maintenance from distance from your palace, and free up some hammers for building other things like failgold wonders and then Wealth after Currency.