Rushing

A "rush" refers to pushing out an early attack, especially in a two player game. In some games, this is at heavy expense to the mid and late game or even crippling your economy in the hope of an uncontested victory; for example the "three-pool rush" (or even worker rush) in Starcraft, or a "Guardian rush" in Dawn of War, both of which will lose you the game if unsuccessful. This is not necessarily the case with TA however, though if the player on the recieving end of the rush can successfully repel it they [i]can[/i] come out with an advantage.

In the original TA rushing was conducted by using assist-build to pump out a number of flashes to masticate an uprepared enemy base.

A succesful rush has to be planned from the first second of the game. You should have more than one unit moving to attack before the end of the first minute. If you choose slightly stronger of faster units, an attack that starts before two minutes might be successful.

Watch your units and watch your economy. Attack from multiple directions to divide you enemy's defensive strength. Focus on metal extractors, wind if you see it, and power. Keep solar collectors closed to starve your enemy of energy.

And when your first ends, have another on the way.

For example: in OTA I rush a vehicle plant with 2 solars and a mex, build 3 weasels, move towards the enemy base (almost always opposite my start position) divide weasels into 3 attacks grouping each one 1,2 or 3 whilst my comm starts expanding. I then micro the weasels :) works well enough.

If you are on the receiving end of a rush the way you can gain an advantage is by reclaiming the metal from the attacking units. However, one of the biggest dangers of being on the receiving end of the rush is the amount of time you spend handling it. To this end a quick thing to do is to set a constuction unit on patrol around your base to suck up the metal - this will also repair partially damaged buildings etc. If you end up microing your con-unit, any advantage you get from reclaiming metal will be gone - the next attack will arrive before you've had any advantage from the metal you reclaimed.

See Glossary

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