I've read the threads about the quecha rush and early axemen.

I come from heavy warmongering on civ 3 (I dont like to win any other way honestly) I'm VERY fond of playing chinese and doing a super early archer rush to cripple a civ and take their techs..

my questions are:

suggestions for best warmongering leader?

is mining as a starting tech crucial to make sure that you have bronze working available to research while training the first worker?

other than rushing to BW and chop or pop rushing.. how viable is the horse archer or keshik?

I've been trying on noble but can't seem to gain offensive momentum.. I guess I've been wasting time with other things.

I do understand the BO of worker worker settle near copper start massing axes..

do you toss up a barracks in one or both towns before you mass axemen to get the first promotion?

do you aim to strike before they settle other towns or wait to specifically sack their first or second settled town to stop them from gaining cultural defense.. (and give time to mass?)

thoughts for midgame units to focus on?

any help would be great

NaZ

I just get to axeman quick,k train about five of them and then regardless of how many cities hes got I plow to his capitol and then burn it to the ground. If I have enough foces left just keep moving from city to city burning(or keeping them if you can afford it), sometimes you can ever wipe out a whole this way, although I rarely do.

Good early war civs: Egyptians, Romans, Persians, Inca, Mali. In about that order.

Egyptians: Their UU arrives very early and is incredibly cheap. The War Chariot is as powerful as an Axeman, but costs only 25 hammers instead of 35 and has a double move.

Individually, War Chariots are good, but not quite as good as Praetorians or Cossacks. What makes them fantastic is the cheapness. Build a bunch quickly, then go and kill your neighbors. They won't know what hit them.

Egypt's Spiritual trait is also very handy (it's either the best or second-best trait), while Creative is also good for early war -- it makes your city borders expand without building anything.

Rome: The Praetorian is the ultimate early UU. People argue about whether it's the very best (Cossacks and Redcoats are the competition) but there's no question it's the best UU of the early game. It kills everything until Macemen arrive. Unlike its weaker cousin the Swordsman, the Praet has no fear of axes. Beeline straight to Iron Working, build a bunch of Praets, and go kick ass.

Rome is also the only good early-mongering civ to start with Mining. This means you can chop-rush right away, and you're just two techs away from your UU.

Caesar's traits (Organized and Expansive) are okay. (Organized reduces maintenance costs, letting you grab a bigger empire sooner without going bankrupt.) If he were Spiritual or Aggressive, nobody would ever play anyone else.

Incas -- Aggressive and Financial, two good traits for mongering. The AI does not recognize the menace of Quechuas and will stupidly build lots of Archers just like it always does. Quechuas are dirt cheap and eat archers like popcorn. Great for early war. NOTE: this does not work against human players! Humans who see Inca nearby will sensibly build other, non-archer defensive units, making the Quechua totally useless. So, don't choose Inca in multiplayer games.

Mali -- Okay UU, not great. But has two best traits combined (Spiritual and Financial) and also starts with Mining. If the UU was really good Mali would be totally overpowered. As is, it's good for early warring, and then all-around good for the rest of the game too.


Waldo

You put way too much faith in spiritual. It's useless in the early game, so has absolutely no value whatsoever for early warmongering. If you warmonger early, you may very well end up with a winning position before spiritual even comes into play. For early warmongers, spiritual is one of the weakest traits in the game. Mali is one of the worst civs for early warmongering. A chariot does a better job than their UU for the same price, and an axeman is miles ahead. And one of their 2 traits is useless for this task.

Save a turn when you get a religion.

Save a turn when you switch to Slavery.

Save a turn when you switch to either Organized Religion or Hereditary Rule. (You might do both, but never mind.)

That's 3 turns in the first 50 = a 6% edge in production, both commerce and shields, over your opponents.

Also, you'll very probably build a temple or two in the early game. Cheap temples = more time and hammers saved.

Of the eight traits, only three give you cheap buildings in the early game: Aggressive (Barracks), Expansive (Granary) and Spiritual (Temple). (Cheap Banks and Universities are nice but they don't help much in those first 50 turns.) Even the most ferocious early warmonger will find cheap granaries and temples useful -- bigger cities build more units faster.

Is spiritual a great trait for early mongering? No. Aggressive, Organized and Financial are better. But it's far from useless. Philosophical is useless. (For early war. It's a decent trait otherwise.) Spiritual is okay for early war, and excellent afterwards.


Waldo

For axemen rushes i will suggest Mongols whit Kublai Khan. You will take advantage of aggressive trait with the free combat 1 promotion and you don't have to worry of expanfind your borders cause of creative trait.
Keshik is'nt a great UU for conquering cities but it is fast so you can use some as medic unit or for pillaging.
However while you're giong on with the game Kublay probably won't research as fast as other civs :(

horse archers suck.

axes are where it's at.

aggressive civs do it better.

mining-bronze first. settle copper. barracks. start pumping (chop/pop rushing) axes. city raider promotions. when you get a 1/2 dozen, go attack. if enemy is close enough keep cities, if not then raze. don't stop til you've crippled the civ to the point where retaliation is highly improbable.

at that point judge if axes are still viable. if so, attack next neighbour. if not proceed to iron working. will a few swords mixed in be enough to do it? if so, go to war. if not, go for maces.

mongols suck. exp/cre suck as traits and the keshik sux. archery and hbriding? no! bronze all the way. chop-pop rushing plus copper revealed.

horse archers suck.

axes are where it's at.

aggressive civs do it better.

mining-bronze first. settle copper. barracks. start pumping (chop/pop rushing) axes. city raider promotions. when you get a 1/2 dozen, go attack. if enemy is close enough keep cities, if not then raze. don't stop til you've crippled the civ to the point where retaliation is highly improbable.

at that point judge if axes are still viable. if so, attack next neighbour. if not proceed to iron working. will a few swords mixed in be enough to do it? if so, go to war. if not, go for maces.

mongols suck. exp/cre suck as traits and the keshik sux. archery and hbriding? no! bronze all the way. chop-pop rushing plus copper revealed.

I pretty much agree. Regarding Aggressive: If you have to research mining before BW then that delays the axe rush, but you get the free promotion, which is critical for your axemen. Obviously, you believe the free promotion is more important than starting with mining. Is that the consensus?

I hardly ever research Horseback Riding (I trade for it if the price isn't too high.) I just finished a game as Kublai Khan, and I wouldn't say that the keshik "sux". It's a very nice unit to have, too bad the associated tech is so damned expensive.

the reason keshik "sux" is cuz of the required techs (archery + hbriding). plus why are you raiding the ai? you should be taking their cities! axes do a much better job of this. and vs humans they'll be smart enough to have spears/elephants and roads = dead keshiks.

i would say that the free promotion is more valuable than going bronze first. it doesn't take that long to research mining and if you go bronze first you would have to go worker first to take advantage of going bronze first (chopping asap), but then your city doesn't grow which means you can't take full advantage of bronze (pop rushing). so while your city grows to at least size two you researching mining.

instead of having mining first, better to have agriculture and the wheel. they're more expensive. they're the prereqs for pottery. ag is prereq for ah which means you'll be able to get your food resources up and running fast, which is important for poprushing, etc. etc. put this all together and napoleon is looking pretty good.

Although Axemem rushs are effective, I prefer either War Chariots or Immortals for the quick strike. All you need for them is Wheel and AH, which is much cheaper than BW and IW. Immortals and War Chariots and also better for pillaging if you have bad odds.

I had played a game as catherine (russia) last night and that went fairly well.

researched BW while spitting out worker
chop rushed a 2nd
chop rushed a settler

FOUND NO DAMN COPPER

researched iron working
settled near iron

massed swordsman, wiped out montazuma in a few turns

any input on her as a leader for creative/financial? I found it helpful but not having aggressive does kinda suck.

NaZ

The main point of early game warmongering is to gain an advantage. If you can steal a worker or capture a city near an important resource, this will go a long way toward achieving victory. If you just sit and build you also allow the AI time to sit and build. If you are playing on Prince or higher they will often out build you because of their advantages. It gets worse when you lack an important resource and your rivals have access to it. Most early game warmongering usually involves stacks of Catapults and Axemen. If you have access to Ivory, War Elephants are also great early game units.

Use the Praetorian rush.

And the best map for a Praetorian rush is Tiny Islands. :)

Keshik's are very viable, in my opinion, mostly because I prefer the Settle-Build-Conquer to the Conquer-Settle-Build. The extra move is quite useful unless you are making life easy by plaing on Marathon, and they're more comfortable to whip. The problem is, Agressive and Keshik synergizes so badly it makes me cringe.

(I won an Emperor, Pangea, Small, Normal with no Bronze or Iron before I had wiped of Elizabeth. Keshiks are better than Archers.)

I also like Keshik's especially playing on a jungle game.

However even if going for an early war-its sometimes not advisable to make a beeline for bronzeworking, some techs such as agri/AH can prove crucial as to whether your 2nd attack will succeed following the first rush.

Of all the leaders I've played, I ultimately prefer Catherine above anyone else. The financial and creative, with mining as well, allows for extremely quick expansion. I usually chop settlers/workers/units, build a city near more forest, and keep chopping sets/workers in there. I've managed to become the largest civ around without even having to declare war several times. After mass expansion, I fix my economy and the advantage is mine already.

It does of course, depend on circumstance. If you start close to the sea, or surrounded by A.I. all your cities end up miles away from your capital, giving you more maintenance for less cities, weakening the advantage. If you start in a position where you can expand easily, Catherine dominates, but if you have no space to work with, you’re better off just conquering your nearby enemies, and even though Cath can do that with mining, she doesn't do it as well as other aggressive or early UU civs. I'm actually quite fond of the creative feat, but probably because I tend to very rarely raze cities. When you cap a city, enemy cultural will sweep around it, so it can't use its tiles and the pop will starve very quickly, especially in large cities. With +2 culture and fast theatres, it helps to alleviate this problem a great deal, allowing you to keep much more of the population you capture. Financial is financial as always.

If you pursue war with the intention of razing most cities you take, creative is useless. If you pursue war with the intention of keeping every city you find, creative is almost essential. Financial also helps in holding a large empire. The UU is worth using as well.

magi thanks for the input.. care to weigh in on my other post?? this game is actually frustrating me right now I may go back to civ 3.. tech advancement is soo fast that midgame warmongering is wierd to say the least. on normal speed I went from macemen to riflemen in less than 20 turns.. had a city producing like 200 beakers per turn almost and so its like by the time my units take a city they're already obsolete compared to whats being spawned.. i dunno but check out my other post for a more detailed explanation

NaZ

I keep hearing tactics, but what year do you typically attack? It takes a long time to build up even a small army early in the game, so I don't see how attacking someone with 5 axemen will succeed- just a couple entrenched archers in a city, and they are all dead.

well if your agressive that takes away the archer worry.

drop a barracks in your city designated to spawn your military
(ideally your capitol and the city founded to cover bronze)

as your axemen spawn they get 1st the combat 1 promotion (10% str)
then your barracks gives them the exp for another.. since they have combat 1 that opens up the 25% bonus against archers promotion.. you slap that on em and there you go ;).

NaZ

I keep hearing tactics, but what year do you typically attack? It takes a long time to build up even a small army early in the game, so I don't see how attacking someone with 5 axemen will succeed- just a couple entrenched archers in a city, and they are all dead.

Having axemen with at least one promotion (city raider) will limit your losses to fairly low levels, usually. Taking a city located on a hill exacts a higher price.

I have limited experience with the axeman rush - I'm just now trying to go to war earlier than I have in the past. My main doubt about the axeman rush is how (or if) it works when you have less than the standard number of Civs for your map size (i.e. your closest target is not so close). If the closest AI city is 30 squares away, I would think that would introduce many complicating factors (e.g. delaying your attack, making any cities you take less valuable because of city maintenance costs, etc.) I wonder how many people who use the axeman rush use more than the default number of Civs on their map.

(No, I am not criticizing that holy grail of strategies, the axeman rush. I'm just wondering.)

Horse archer rush is quite viable against AI. For example, you can see some of the higher level domination wins in game of the month and HOF.

would playing the mongols then for the keshik be a good choice if you were going to horse archer rush? I use horse archers already to take out enemy axemen and the mongols are just a few techs away from their UU..

if not what tech path/bo do you personally use to do a horse archer rush?

NaZ

It has been discussed many times that horse archers are not a good investment for warmongering.

Horse archers are so bad that even playing as mongols, i wouldn't research the tech.

I have limited experience with the axeman rush - I'm just now trying to go to war earlier than I have in the past. My main doubt about the axeman rush is how (or if) it works when you have less than the standard number of Civs for your map size (i.e. your closest target is not so close). If the closest AI city is 30 squares away, I would think that would introduce many complicating factors (e.g. delaying your attack, making any cities you take less valuable because of city maintenance costs, etc.) I wonder how many people who use the axeman rush use more than the default number of Civs on their map.

(No, I am not criticizing that holy grail of strategies, the axeman rush. I'm just wondering.)
In general you are right - the less civs you have put in the map (and the bigger the distances between civs are), the harder it is to attack early (IMO, in many cases that makes the game somewhat tricky, especially in higher levels where your expansion is limited for financial reasons). On the other hand, there is one other parameter that balances this: the barbarians.

What happens is that these empty areas get quickly filled with barbarian cities - from the point of view of expansion they are just cities for you to capture, but generally they are far EASIER ones than the ordinary AI cities (no culture). That means you can send your axemen against these cities and eventually prepare a whole horde of City Raider 3 units (if you play an Agg civ). Eventually these same experienced units will attack the next civ in the second "stage" (usually after you will upgrade them to maces).

Of course, issues like terrain and game speed affect this, but my experiences from such scenarios are generally that barbarians become the target of the axemen rush and that you don't make very early wars with other civs. I have posted before such an example, with a large pangea map with 5 opponent civs.

In general you are right - the less civs you have put in the map (and the bigger the distances between civs are), the harder it is to attack early (IMO, in many cases that makes the game somewhat tricky, especially in higher levels where your expansion is limited for financial reasons). On the other hand, there is one other parameter that balances this: the barbarians.

What happens is that these empty areas get quickly filled with barbarian cities - from the point of view of expansion they are just cities for you to capture, but generally they are far EASIER ones than the ordinary AI cities (no culture). That means you can send your axemen against these cities and eventually prepare a whole horde of City Raider 3 units (if you play an Agg civ). Eventually these same experienced units will attack the next civ in the second "stage" (usually after you will upgrade them to maces).

Of course, issues like terrain and game speed affect this, but my experiences from such scenarios are generally that barbarians become the target of the axemen rush and that you don't make very early wars with other civs. I have posted before such an example, with a large pangea map with 5 opponent civs.

Excellent information. This might actually make a loosely packed map easier. My assumption here is that the AI isn't as aggressive or effective at taking barbarian cities. Is that your experience?

Excellent information. This might actually make a loosely packed map easier. My assumption here is that the AI isn't as aggressive or effective at taking barbarian cities. Is that your experience?
It's difficult to say "easier", because there are many parameters (like the relative distance, etc.) My general observation was that AI wasn't playing for a really "quick and early" rush - it prefered to build first his own cities, having units all over the place to clear the fog. On the other hand, I always play for an early axemen rush and so it is understandable that I usually got the lion's share of the close-by Barbarian cities.

Add to that the usual AI stupidity in battles - for example, you can understand that AI attacks in cities he can't conquer, just preparing the ground for my axes - and you can imagine the result. But (and this is a serious but) even though you can get expansion that way, AI is also well expanded; given AI's bonuses in higher levels, you can see that this initial stage is never enough by itself. You must be prepared for many more battles to really get an edge.

and eventually prepare a whole horde of City Raider 3 units (if you play an Agg civ).

Doesn't matter if you're aggressive or not, city raider doesn't require combat I.

Doesn't matter if you're aggressive or not, city raider doesn't require combat I.

That's true. With Aggressive, you can have units with 4 upgrades at exp10 (the most exp. you can get from barb units). Exp. 5 is the limit only for the animals...