Strategy:Rush

"Sometimes, the best defense is a good offense."

- Sun Tzu

Rush refers to a military strategy emphasizing rapid build-up as early as possible.

Overview
To implement this strategy, the player should focus almost exclusively on building troops to harass the enemy economy in the shortest possible amount of time. However, in order to build these troops some basic economic build up is required. It is commonly used to counter the Boom strategy or the Turtle strategy if the enemy is unable to get their towers and walls up in time although it should be noted that a successful turtle can easily repel rushes. Another variation of the rush strategy is Blitzkrieg, which is a far deadlier version and is more effective than other rushing techniques but is more costly.

A rushing player will typically have a weak economy in favor of a strong military, ideally most rushes are executed within the first seven minutes of gameplay (even less versus human opponents). The longer a match draws on without the rush inflicting significant damage, the more likely it is that a rushing player will not be able to seize victory due to their slower economy.

Age of Empires II
An effective rush requires rapid economic growth in the beginning of the game then focusing on the military. Gathering resources quickly allows for military units to be created early on.

In the Dark Age, Militia are the only military units available but should be created in order to create the basis for an army in later ages. A Militia raid in the Dark Age is known as a drush (Dark Age rush). Civilizations that can perform this kind of rush better than others include: Aztecs, Huns, Celts, Goths, and Incas.

In the Feudal Age (flush) more units are available and can begin harassing or killing enemy villagers to disrupt their economy. For rushing the focus should be on cheaper units so greater numbers can be created to overwhelm the enemy. Variations of the rush in Feudal Age include: tower rush (attack with Villagers and Watch Towers), Scout rush, infantry rush, archer rush.

By the Castle Age siege weapons become available as well as powerful upgrades and new units. This allows for the siege of enemy towns and the building of Castles, which if built near an enemy town can disrupt them even more by preventing Villagers from moving out to gather resources as well as allowing for the creation of a constant flow of units to attack the enemy. A Saracen rush version is a Castle Age rush of Monks due to their refund after death, this is known as a smush (Saracen Monk rush).

In maps like Archipelago and Islands  players can perform a pure Galley and Galleon rush (known as the gush), while the counter to a gush is a Fire Ship rush, a fire rush. If a player decides to gush or fire rush, it is recommended to target all docks before moving to attack inland. When gushing or fire rushing,  the players must always have some archers in transports to land after softening defenses.

The following list includes civilizations with great rush capability:
 * Aztecs
 * Goths
 * Huns
 * Mongols
 * Magyars (The Forgotten)
 * Incas (The Forgotten)

Age of Empires III
A good Rush deck typically consists of the basic villager cards and Discovery Age resource cards while possessing a heavy number of troop shipments and troop upgrade cards in the Colonial Age with little focus on economic cards. The Spanish are considered a strong Rush civilization due to their fast Home City shipments. The Russians are also good, as the Oprichnik is good at destroying buildings and crippling the enemy’s economy by killing enemy settlers. The Germans are also quite good at rushing, because they receive Uhlans most Home City shipments, which have a high attack, but low hitponts.

Galleon rush
This type of rush focuses on crossing water quickly to establish a foothold on the enemy beaches. It is available to any civilization capable of aging up to the Colonial Age with The Governor and sending a galleon soon afterward. Essentially the player uses the galleon to transport the Outpost Wagon to enemy shores, have it begin building while the galleon starts training units. The outpost can then serve as the home city drop off point for troop shipments and reinforce the galleon if the enemy pushes the rush force back to the beaches.

The Spanish perform the strategy very well due to their faster home city shipments. With practice the strategy will easily overwhelm AI opponents in the game.