The purpose of this guide is to to make you strong enough to end the game by Turn 15. Rushing is a very stressful yet effective strategy on medium to smaller maps, especially in 1v1 situations. All advice presented here will be taken under the assumption of normal settings and the current patch 1.2.

There are a couple basic mechanics that need to be close to perfect to make this work as smoothly as possible.

The first one is Auto-Battles. You need to be able to lose next to no units from Auto-Battles, while at the same time gain Exp and Resources. The easiest way to start is to know each Units strengths and weaknesses. There is a sort of Rock-Paper-Scissors present in AoW3, generally speaking it goes:

Pike>Horses
Horses>Archers
Infantry>Pike

This is not always true, as different Races/Classes/Tiers have different Abilities but read your Abilities and know what is strong and what is weak in any given situation. Also on that note, Cavalry in general are very dumb in Auto-Battle, as they will out run Pikes and Infantry and can get killed very easily, BE VERY CAREFUL WITH YOUR STARTING CAVALRY(S).

Scouting is key to winning a Rush. I'll examine 1v1 in the scenario. Say you spawn roughly north west portion of the map, your enemy is by default in the opposite direction generally. So your first course of action is to locate your enemy before he finds you, send at least 3 Scouts in roughly the direction of your foe spread out to cover area quickly.

Not all are created equal when it comes to Rushing. Here I'll highlight what stands out and what is viable for this strategy.

Draconian and Dwarves are the best Rushing Races for different reasons, I give the nod to Dwarf but its personal preference really.

Draconian Cavalry have 36 move as opposed to 32 which is a big plus to map exploration, they have a ranged AoE Fire Bomb in the Flamers, Fire Res in general which is great, a great T3 Flying unit and Fast Healing which lets you clear more camps faster. BUT. They have Frost Weakness, which is the Achilles Heal and why I chose Dwarf. Vengeful Frost is the easiest Spell to spam and there aren't many Resistances to it.

Dwarf units get Armoured, a game changing T3 Infantry with 100% Fire Res, a better Support with a minor Heal, Mountaineering which is a must for traversing half the map in 15 turns, they are generally more sturdy than the Draconian and more consistent with no real weaknesses.

The other Races aren't worth mentioning for Rushing in the current game state.

Dreadnought and Rogue are my two choices for Class, with the edge going to Dreadnought.

Dreadnought have a 30 mana cost Scout which is the main reason for choosing them, the Leader gets a Musket as well which is very lethal early game. Dreadnought have good level up choices for the Leader such as Forge Aprons and are very sturdy.

Rogue have great Spells such as Quick Dash and Blind, a strong Scout and like the Dreadnought have good level up selections for the Leader.

The only other Class worth mentioning for Rushing is Theocrat as your Leader gets Heal.

Fire, Water and Creation are the Specializations I chose, for namely:
Vengeful Frost
Fireball
Summon Hellhound
Heal
Bless

Earth and Air aren't bad selections, just make sure it complements your Race/Class and don't take any Masteries or the Expander/Explorer ones.

Turn 1: Buy Hero, start building Shrine, Research your Scout (if you already have it Research CP) clear the Structures within your Domain Range before you leave, send Scouts to look for Pick Ups, start building a Scout if possible, start sending your main army toward the area your opponent is.

Turns 2-5: Once you have Shrine built, set production to Mana and leave that way for the rest of the game. Keeping pumping Scouts and if you can Hellhounds. clear easy Camps/Structures on the way and let Enemies run when possible, unless it would be a very easy win, even without losing Units waiting for Health to Regen can be just as bad. Try to leave 1-2 Irregulars or Ranged units at your Throne with a basic Wall (which if you don't have one build it) do not buy any more Heroes that want to join you.

Turns 6-10: A couple of things have (hopefully) happened by now or will. Your Hero should have leveled up by now and you should level his CP up (unless he is Theo take Heal and Ranged Strength) you've found at least one Inn by now, buy whatever you can, clear it out if you can afford to. You've found your enemy or evidence of his presence (cleared Structure, Item on the ground, etc) CP should be 30-40 depending on what you've researched and you should have a damage Spell (Vengeful Frost/Fireball) should have or exceed 2 6 Stacks of Units or be close to it.

Turns 11-15: Overrun your opponent. Position yourself. Do not fear loses. If you take his Throne and his Leader isn't there Raze it and then hunt him. If you find his Leader before the Throne just kill him and take it to win. You will outgun him, you should have 3 or more full Stacks of 6 at this point.

My personal best win is Turn 6 in a 1v1 on a medium map. If your Rush fails, or you have any kind of setback you've likely lost. This is an all-in strategy but very deadly when executed correctly. If your opponent Rushes you while you Rush him trade Thrones and then abandon the strategy and look to mid-game as you've lost all momentum, but he has as well so nothing is really lost here. Just remember this is a guide but its flexible and in game events will alter the actions you must take, the best thing you can do is be able to adjust and react.