Pretend there's an Empire before you that you know you can destroy and conquer easily, but due to having a large map or an enemy with strange city placement, the cities are scattered widely with plenty of room between them. What will probably happen in this case if you'll take all the cities, but due to resistance and a destroyed culture rating there'll be plenty of room between your cities, and even fog of war.

What does the neutral and expansive AI like doing in this case? Why that annoying bugger will plant a settler in any space it can find. You'll end up having cities right in the middle, or on the edges of your conquered territory, and that will be a nusiance.

I prevent this by bringing along one great artist that I've saved through time. He's always escorted by numerous troops behind the main invading army, and I always place him in the city that will be most influencal in closing up any huge 'gaps' this new territory may have, or even right next to another AI's territory. I do a great work in that city, stop all resistance in that city, and rapidly expand my borders to claim the territory I rightfully fought for.

Using this I have had very few instances of the annoying AI planting a city right in the middle of my conquered territory, and I also get a resistance free city right off the bat to develope and pump out defenders or heal.

I know this won't be useful all the time, but in truth it's uses will pop up for the warmonger enough times to warrant it as a technique. It may even allow you to launch right into another war much quicker without worrying about resistance holding back your conquered nation--that resistance free city can have many uses.

Awesome - why didn't I think of it before?

How often do you happen to have a Great Artist hanging around though? Especially in the early game, before you research Drama. I'm lucky to get 2 or 3 in a game and I'm certainly not going to breed them at the expense of other Great People.

Personally, I wouldn't waste a great leader on that. Once resistance is over, don't the borders expand back to their pre-conquered levels? Usually, that only takes 5 turns max, so I wouldn't waste the effort- use the great person for something else.

Personally, I wouldn't waste a great leader on that. Once resistance is over, don't the borders expand back to their pre-conquered levels? Usually, that only takes 5 turns max, so I wouldn't waste the effort- use the great person for something else.

No, with a conquered city you start from scratch when it comes to culture. You have to expand the borders with culture of your own.

Even better, you can BUILD a new city of your own as close to the middle of enemy territory as possible, and culture bomb it. This is especially powerful in MP, where you can effectively destroy all growth in enemy cities near your culture bomb, and you can road right up to them for easy domination.

i find that when big gaps open up and AI places a stupid city in the middle, i push up my culture in the concerned cities with libraries and etc and it is not long when their youthful city is turned over to my civ, this might be the case because i am only playing on noble but i am sure the theory will apply to most all levels.....

I prevent this by bringing along one great artist that I've saved through time. He's always escorted by numerous troops behind the main invading army, and I always place him in the city that will be most influencal in closing up any huge 'gaps' this new territory may have, or even right next to another AI's territory. I do a great work in that city, stop all resistance in that city, and rapidly expand my borders to claim the territory I rightfully fought for.

I'm slightly dubious about this. Your argument would make sense if you conquered an entire empire within the space of 3-4 turns and therefore found yourself with eg. 8 cities simultaneously in resistance. But I've never fought a war like that. More likely I take one city (at most two cities if my forces are so overwhelming that I can safely split them). Then it's several turns for my damaged units to heal sufficiently before they can head for the next city, veeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly since they are inside the enemy's land and can't use roads. That means I almost never have more than one or two cities at a time in resistance and with zero cultural borders. By the time the cities in the middle of the empire have gone, the ones I took first are happily expanding their borders quite nicely without any help from a great artist thank you very much :-)

Besides in my experience using a great artist gives pretty disappointing results. Sure, it takes the city out of resistance, but until you've taken the neighbouring cities too, the 4K culture isn't a match for the centuries of accumulated enemy culture and your borders stay small.

And plus - I can't recall ever destroying an entire empire in a single war. At best I might take half of it, and by then my economy is so badly suffering and my forces sufficiently stretched that I have to accept peace for a while.

The thing I do always try to take along is missionaries (if appropriate) and a settler (in case I end up razing a city for any reason - usually because the city is only size 1-2 or it's in a particularly stupid place and I'm fairly sure it hasn't got any world wonders in it)

I'm slightly dubious about this. Your argument would make sense if you conquered an entire empire within the space of 3-4 turns and therefore found yourself with eg. 8 cities simultaneously in resistance. But I've never fought a war like that. More likely I take one city (at most two cities if my forces are so overwhelming that I can safely split them). Then it's several turns for my damaged units to heal sufficiently before they can head for the next city, veeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly since they are inside the enemy's land and can't use roads. That means I almost never have more than one or two cities at a time in resistance and with zero cultural borders. By the time the cities in the middle of the empire have gone, the ones I took first are happily expanding their borders quite nicely without any help from a great artist thank you very much :-)

Besides in my experience using a great artist gives pretty disappointing results. Sure, it takes the city out of resistance, but until you've taken the neighbouring cities too, the 4K culture isn't a match for the centuries of accumulated enemy culture and your borders stay small.

And plus - I can't recall ever destroying an entire empire in a single war. At best I might take half of it, and by then my economy is so badly suffering and my forces sufficiently stretched that I have to accept peace for a while.

The thing I do always try to take along is missionaries (if appropriate) and a settler (in case I end up razing a city for any reason - usually because the city is only size 1-2 or it's in a particularly stupid place and I'm fairly sure it hasn't got any world wonders in it)

Ah well this works better for me then since I have a tendency to blitz, even with ancient units. I usually open up three or four fronts at once, take most of the enemies cities within the first 5 turns, and finish them off in about 5 more--unless the empire is super huge, on average it takes me 10 turns to finish off an entire enemy. This requires a lot of planning (Sometimes up to 50 turns), and also gives me a lot of resistance, so I've found bringing along a great artist a huge benefit on my part. I try to have one city churning great artists out, and usually I get 5 per game, more than enough to help me in my conquests. In my eyes it isn't worth going to war unless you can take out the entire enemy in one mighty blow, so this technique works for me in establishing a stable conquered territory quickly and easily.

I posted essentially the same thing a while back here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=155101.

The effect of this is devastating well into midgame. If you directly attack the core of an enemy empire, and pop this guy right in the middle, you've almost certainly won the war. The advantages this gives you are too many to name in full, but a few are:
1) Immediate production, commerce, research in city--don't underestimate how big a difference five turns can make!
2) Complete view and control of the surrounding area
3) Enemy may not quickly counterattack because he can't use roads
4) Your forces will be more mobile due to owning the roads, meaning you can quickly reinforce and quickly advance to the next city--at this point it will practically be "clean up"
5) Trade routes and connections in his empire will hopefully be disrupted, possibly aborting production of military units in his cities. If you're not that lucky, theres still a good chance you'll push him into unhappiness, slowing further production.
6) You can put the workers to work immediately, possibly accelerating access to a resource by several turns

As I see it, popping the great artist is essentially hitting a huge "I win" button, making victory possible with far fewer resources than would normally be necessary. It also generally makes the war go much quicker.

I don't see this being too effective as I usually don't have great artists just sitting around.

Interesting tactic, although it would be much better used in the earlier game, when 4k culture at once is a very big deal.

how about bringing a settler along ?
raze cities and plant settlers instead ? no lost, except pop.

Ah well this works better for me then since I have a tendency to blitz, even with ancient units. I usually open up three or four fronts at once, take most of the enemies cities within the first 5 turns, and finish them off in about 5 more--unless the empire is super huge, on average it takes me 10 turns to finish off an entire enemy. This requires a lot of planning (Sometimes up to 50 turns), and also gives me a lot of resistance, so I've found bringing along a great artist a huge benefit on my part. I try to have one city churning great artists out, and usually I get 5 per game, more than enough to help me in my conquests. In my eyes it isn't worth going to war unless you can take out the entire enemy in one mighty blow, so this technique works for me in establishing a stable conquered territory quickly and easily.

Interesting, obviously you have somewhat different tactics to me. I can certainly see how the 3 fronts at once could be very effective if the opponent hasn't had the advance warning to prepare for war.

How do you cope with that after 50 turns, presumably the units you were building at the start of your planning are starting to get out of date? And economically with the large influx of new cities in such a short interval (I'm guessing the fact that they are established cities, already generating a lot of trade etc., helps)

(Monarch level). I use the great artist trick whenever can when I warmonger and I do breed GAs specifically for the task. My games normally finish by industrialisation in domination or conquest, can't risk UN going to some pally pally civ like Mansa, and find war a suitable tactic for keeping the AI leaders in check and not racing away in the early and medieval ages.

As a tactic it is overwhelming, those that have never used it have never experienced blitz warfare. Possibly the single best use for a GP I have found in the game.

Interesting, obviously you have somewhat different tactics to me. I can certainly see how the 3 fronts at once could be very effective if the opponent hasn't had the advance warning to prepare for war.

How do you cope with that after 50 turns, presumably the units you were building at the start of your planning are starting to get out of date? And economically with the large influx of new cities in such a short interval (I'm guessing the fact that they are established cities, already generating a lot of trade etc., helps)

I always play on epic or marathon, and I always go for military techs first and then I research on infrastructure and peaceful techs as I plan for the war and during the war, so this gives me plenty of time to plan for my conquest while not having my units go obsolete. As for the new cities... you don't pay maintence until the resistance stops, so this gives me some spare time to open up connections again and plan for when the cities stop resisting.

I posted essentially the same thing a while back here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=155101.

The effect of this is devastating well into midgame. If you directly attack the core of an enemy empire, and pop this guy right in the middle, you've almost certainly won the war. The advantages this gives you are too many to name in full, but a few are:
1) Immediate production, commerce, research in city--don't underestimate how big a difference five turns can make!
2) Complete view and control of the surrounding area
3) Enemy may not quickly counterattack because he can't use roads
4) Your forces will be more mobile due to owning the roads, meaning you can quickly reinforce and quickly advance to the next city--at this point it will practically be "clean up"
5) Trade routes and connections in his empire will hopefully be disrupted, possibly aborting production of military units in his cities. If you're not that lucky, theres still a good chance you'll push him into unhappiness, slowing further production.
6) You can put the workers to work immediately, possibly accelerating access to a resource by several turns

As I see it, popping the great artist is essentially hitting a huge "I win" button, making victory possible with far fewer resources than would normally be necessary. It also generally makes the war go much quicker.

And thanks for clearing that up that this has been thought of before. Personally I was wondering why I never seen a post on this before seeing that this technique has been so helpful to me. :)

I don't see this being too effective as I usually don't have great artists just sitting around.
Is it just me or is that exactly his point. He's saying you have to save a GA or two for this.

Wodan

1. i hardly raze cities to put a new settler down and rebuild, loses all the building which survived the capture, lost a few pop even 1 makes a difference on marathon/epic.
yeah i also generally use a ga in my conquests if i have one available, i never waste them on city specialists unless im going for culture win(i never have got more then one city over legendary :p) they are nice for securing newly conquered cities, from other ai's borders, if i goto war i aim to wipe them out, as we want to join the motherland is annoying!!
Also if you want border expansion use castle system and put a great artist up, its so useful, especially big cities, being choked by borders that would normally starve to 2/3 pop

I think it is a good tactic when the city you capture is further away from your culture borders and the city is a nice sized city or has a religion founded in it. I like getting those cities up and running quickly in additition to the military benefits.

Is it just me or is that exactly his point. He's saying you have to save a GA or two for this.


It's not that uncommon to get one by accident. Accidental early great artists most often happen to me due to building the Parthenon, which is great for the very significant GPP bonus it provides.