A Rush is one of three basic strategies in RTS games like Empire Earth. Goal of a Rush is to strike the opponent early in the game with military units. Those military strikes do not necessarily have the goal of total annihilation as early military units often lack the power to do so. Most rushes consist of small groups of military units, which are sent to the opponents base to kill Citizens and/or destroy resource drop-offs.
Basic Strategy[]
To rush an opponent, several key elements come into play:
- Early scouting: To rush an opponent, you have to know where he is and where his Citizens are, so early scouting is needed. The downside is, that if the opponent sees your scouting unit, it might tip him off to expect a rush.
- Weakened economy: A rushing player will have to make compromises in terms of his economic buildup. While it is best to invest in food and wood gathering to start up the economy, a rushing player has to divert gatherers to iron or gold gathering early, because these are required for military units.
- Since military units are scarce in the early games, a rusher might find himself rushed by another opponent, unable to react due to the weakened economy.
Rushes in Empire Earth[]
Due to the exaggeratedly cheating AI, rushing can not be applied by human players against the AI in random map games. The AI players, however, will usually rush the human player. Rushes can be employed in Multiplayer games or against the AI in scenarios, if the AI cheating has been disabled in those.