Rush (video Gaming) - Strategy & Tactical Games

Strategy & Tactical Games

In strategy games, to perform a rush, the attacking player focuses on quickly building a large number of units early on in the game with the hopes of swarming the opponents before they can defend themselves, this is to catch them off-guard and often this IS to cripple the opponents economy structures. In the majority of cases, these units are fast and cheap to enable larger numbers and opportunistic attack strategies, but they may sometimes be chosen to exploit a particular weakness of the enemy. The player who rushes may sacrifice options such as long-term resource gathering, defense, or immediate research up the tech tree to opt instead for a quick strike, usually putting the rushing player at a severe disadvantage should the rush be unsuccessful.

A successful rush usually attempts to disrupt the resource gathering of the defending player or annihilate that player entirely. The rush is a risky tactic. If the rush is successful, then the player may have won the game or significantly set his or her opponent back; if the rush fails, then the rushing player may have lost valuable time and resources that would have been better spent on research, building defenses, and building more powerful units. A rush can also be considered a mass attack with primarily only one type of unit used, and depends on overwhelming numbers and force to succeed. The rush is often a suicidal attack (for the units involved); rushing units are often expected to die, but to nevertheless benefit the player initiating the rush by disrupting the opponent's operations.

The term "rush" is often preceded by a word describing the type of unit used in the rush, and falls broadly into the category of normal early attacks ("rushes") and all-in attacks ("cheese"). For example, in the game StarCraft, a Terran player may use a Marine rush (or in some cases an SCV rush), a Protoss player may use a Zealot rush, and a Zerg player may use the infamous Zergling rush. The units used were almost always cheap, easy to produce, and weak compared to other units.

Occasionally, the term is applied to the different, but related tactic epitomized by the Tank rush present in the Command & Conquer series since Command & Conquer: Red Alert. The tank rush differs in the units are neither cheap nor easily produced, but in a sufficient group they can be nigh unstoppable. Similar to the StarCraft etymology, the term is often altered according to the units involved, such as the Rhino tank rush of Red Alert 2, the Flash tank rush of Total Annihilation, the Samurai Ship rush of Total War: Shogun 2 and the Pitbull rush of Command & Conquer 3. This alternate application can also be found in many gaming communities. Some rushes rely on units that may not be cheap or quick to produce but have a particular advantage such as flight or invisibility that requires specialized defenses to counter. For example, a Protoss player may employ a Dark Templar rush, consisting of the perpetually cloaked Dark Templar unit, against an opponent with no units or structures that can detect cloaked units. In Red Alert 2, a tactic called a "Rocky Rush" where an Allied player, without the knowledge of their opponent, quickly amasses a large force of flying infantry called Rocketeers is a somewhat common rush. The strategy relies on the idea that just as many StarCraft players may forget early invisibility detection ability to defend against more conventional attacks, many Red Alert 2 players might not have built any anti-aircraft defenses early in the game in order to defend against tank and engineer rushes more effectively. If an opponent has sufficient warning of a Rocketeer Rush, it is easy for them to build a defense to counter the Rocketeer rush for a fraction of the cost of the Rocketeers, ensuring victory for the defending player, because the opponent will be left with little money and no way of stopping a ground assault with anti-aircraft support.