Guide to Celt Heavy Rax (2-5) Rushing - Examples

Updated 25/01/20 version:

Hey guys, just wanted to share with you a really fun build order for ending you opponents if they don't open with either an immediate rax spear rally, or the appropriate delayed/greedy counter of range rax on persia and babylon or double rax range (and in both cases, still taking the defensive tc) on the other civs.

What you gotta do is get on your 1st hunt storehouse and woodline storehouses, and queue up hunting dogs immediately, following up with 2 barracks, then your house. From here you can take your next hunt, and either your 3rd hunt or berries and another barracks (and throw down another 2-3 houses) and completely overwhelm your opponent off spearmen alone, or slightly delay the 3rd rax, age up, and mass longswords to hit an opponent that's overproduced spearmen.

No doubt this play is risky, and like any double storehouse before rax play, reliant on opponent not asap rax spear rallying, but in any other early game situation, you won't be slowed down before you hit, and so unless your opponent defends perfectly, you either win off the first push, or a second after remaxing with a huge production advantage.

here is a video of me doing it in 1v1

and one of me doing it 2v2 to defend against a delayed 2 vs 1 push in age 1 (pardon the crappy ending!)


So the build order looks something like
3 on berries
1st food storehouse with 4th villager
1st wood storehouse with 5th, all 3 berries vills to hunt, hunting dogs off finished SH, 6th villager onwards onto wood (for now)
1 worker on 1st rax (start pumping spears out ASAP)
1 worker on 2nd rax (Start pumping spears out ASAP)
house
take 2nd and 3rd hunt storehouses, take 3 workers off wood and put them on one of these hunts, and take 2 workers off your first hunt and move them to the other
Push by now, if not a little bit before
Add the 3rd rax during the push or the rally back.
more houses as you need (depends a bit on if you start losing spears/vilagers from here out)
Keep prioritizing food so you can age or continuously make 3 spears at a time. Remember to add houses quickly too.
If it looks like you can push to win from here with spears alone, do it. If not....

In Norse/Celt/Egyptian (No Age 2 Bowman Civs):
Take age 2 asap and cut spear production as soon as safe to do so in favour of longswordsmen* and take both your starting and second gold storehouses. Add a 4th rax. Take your 4th hunt if there is one, and again, if there is a 5th, clear the deer now, if not, get on 2 sets of berries with pickers gloves as soon as you can. Add a 5th rax. Get ready to rely on overwhelming with counter infantry before the opponent has enough to hold under 2TCs or with his own raxes. Adding an armory from here as soon as you can, given the nature of your army being only longs, or longs and spears, is really worthwhile for melee damage or melee armor upgrades.

*if he's getting a stables as his 2nd or 3rd production facility as N/E, make some spearmen, please.

Vs Greek/Persian/Babylonian (Age 2 Bowman civs):
These civs will play more around stables or range units from the get-go (and even look at skipping rax on both mid and large sized maps. The other civs are largely restricted to always going rax first or tc first [followed with rax] except on arabia/inland), so you can't rely on well-timed infantry-only age 2 floods to win. Add another 2 production facilities in similar fashion as above, but remember to go range for range (yes, you either should still have scout alive, or use a pair of spears to keep scouting!) instead of just throwing down another barracks. And if your opponent of these goes with stables, remember to make spearmen rather than just longs! Adding in the armory is probably more cruical here for ranged armor.

Using this, it should be pretty easy to deal enough initial damage with the spearman advantage, and use it to hit 140 population off villagers + any or all of longswordsmen/spearmen/slingers and push somewhat early into age 2, and have such a unit count advantage that even against a small(er) numbers of counters and double tc, you can push to win, after lulling your opponent into a false sense of eco up.
GLHF!

Original Version - 6/11/19
Hey folks,
Just wanted to do a thread on some basics for Celt spear rushing.

The idea behind playing like this on celts is the fact they have a great mass spearman all-in opportunity early against every civ. In fact, all civs can largely seize the opportunity early on, off an underdefending, or underscouting opponent. Celt Spearmen cost 40 food, and only train slower than babylonian and empowered-rax egyptian spears, to my knowledge. They get a nice upgrade in age 2 which increases cavalry and building damage. Meaning that you can play round gold-less and low-gold based rushes on the Celts and work in teching to age 2.

My favourite/settled on approach these days is to start by taking wood with a worker and your hunt's storehouse with another, leaving 3rd on berries til storehouse done ASAP and throwing down the barracks with 4th vil, just like the meta early barracks play right now, but following up getting on 2 barracks quite quickly, sneaking in hunting dogs if I don't get raided at this point, or pickers if I do, and mass spears up to the mid teens or a little more, then move out, throw down the 3rd barracks, and age, or if I've already had the chance to age, take spear and eco upgrades. Remember to prioritize killing archers > killing workers > denying or sniping ranges > units > tc (pull out and remass if you got kills but can't overwhelm, surrender if you just lose everything ). KEEP MAKING SPEARS. ONLY WORRY ABOUT TECHING TO SLINGERS OFF 2-4RAX/2RANGE CAUSE ANYTHING ELSE IS GG TERRITORY ANYWAY lol
Here are some example videos:
1. Vs Persians on Equal Footing
2. Vs Greeks on Arabia
3. Vs Babylonian on Great Lake
Alternative for messy games - doing it off delayed rax with quick eco techs and being spear raided yourself:
4. Vs Celts on Equal Footing
Another thing to take into account is the map. On larger maps with real long rush distance, I will opt to try proxy them
5. Vs Greeks on Watering Hole

 

Yeah? Good to hear! People seem to always be worried about their viability, but I think it's because they tend to rely on aggression so much (No a2 cavalry, the civ most reliant on infantry pressure). So in PvP at least, you need to shut down opponent's booming and freedom to move and raid in order to take a safe age 3, if not just kill them early

They do seem to be good in the late age 3/age 4 in both modes, but their a2/early a3 midgame vs other civs head to head often is a struggle. At least greeks get saris (not asking for changes, just a shot at the Greek mains )