I just picked up civ this last week and the last 3 days I played a noble game to see what I've lost. I played a SE w/ Lincon and I was surprised at just how well I did.
But thats not the point. What I really want is to be capable of utter destruction of a civ with ease. Someone pisses me off and it means their death. Now that I think about it, this is what I've always wanted.

So what I really want is some kind of strategy that someone has that might have completely changed the way they play this game. A way of controlling a big empire compared to my usually small intellectual civs. I know it has to do with more then just (however important) raw military, so don't just give me that.

I'm trying to make this seem like I'm not just taking a shot in the dark but I really am, it's late and I'm tired.

I know it has to do with more then just (however important) raw military, so don't just give me that.

Nope. That's it.



That and a tech advantage.

You need military and the economy to sustain it. Pretty much after currency/CoL you can go on a warpath as long as you have better units.

Favorite unit production methods are whipping, drafting, or using a combination of guilds/caste/workshops to churn out raw hammers quickly (once you have chemistry, even better for that).

Make tons of siege. I've found I do better when it's MORE than half my army lately. You can either use a tech advantage or a mass of troops, and it actually doesn't matter all that much believe it or not. The most important thing is diplomacy so that you don't get backstabbed by multiple civs. Once you grow you get stronger so it matters less and less.

I'm in the minority but I prefer medieval warfare to other periods. Engineering + guilds is all you need (you can make trebs, xbows, knights, and pikes with those techs or their pre-reqs). This troop mix dominates or holds parity all the way up through gunpowder (knights beat muskets in the field). You don't really run into trouble until the AI gets rifling or military science with such a troop mix, and that's a nice, big window to work with. It's likely you'll be able to trade for CS, which is the only remaining tech needed for maces in such a scenario also. CR maces, especially if they get to CR III, are pretty silly and can overwhelm most city defenders. While unpromoted rifles are rare, it's worth pointing out that a CR III maceman has more than a 50% chance vs them when they're in cities :lol:. Basically, this means that the right civics and a GG or two let you make units that can attack for a long time. The other stuff is just to protect the stack.

The above is of course assuming you have nearby neighbors. If not, do your "small, intellectual" civ thing, grab a tech lead, and use it to take a bunch of land with rifles or grenades/cannons once you have astronomy. However, be wary as the window of opportunity for this attack is smaller than the middle ages (although it seems more effective, which is why most other people who play on emperor+ seem to prefer it).

Alternatively, you can wait for infantry, which are pretty much on par or superior to everything until tanks start showing up (thanks to inherent bonus vs gunpowder they even beat marines/paratroopers!). That's a huge window, and infantry supported by air (or even just guided missiles, a personal favorite) is viable for a very, very long time. IMO there's a reason there's no infantry UU.

Past that, I don't know what you want. Tech well early, get the military techs you need to attack (will vary by game), take cities and keep the economy afloat. That's pretty much all you need for a big empire.

This is all good up to/through emperor...I've not yet braved immortal (outside a bad failed attempt at it before I could even win on emperor, that is :p).

You need to look into beelining nationhood and utilizing the draft mechanic. Other than that I don't really know how you can cheat traditional production out of the equation. Well of course, early armies can be chopped.

So what I really want is some kind of strategy that someone has that might have completely changed the way they play this game. A way of controlling a big empire compared to my usually small intellectual civs.
You don't make it very clear what aspect of the game you need help on: the military or the economic. As far as conquests go, TheMe has given excellent advice already.

Maybe you wanted to know how to run a large empire successfully and not just how to capture a lot of cities. Somebody has suggested to me to start an Earth scenario as India, with Domination victory disabled, then see how far one can go without collapsing. I actually forgot who gave me that suggestion, but that person did some impressive things, one of which was specializing one single city completely on gold (not commerce!) production, and that one city alone was capable to finance the entire empire (which was HUGE at that point, mind you). I think the city produced around 750 gold per turn, if I recall the screenshot correctly.

You asked about a strategy that "completely changed" things for me. I'm not sure what that would be, but some strategies that are overseen easily by non-experts include drafting (and maximizing that aspect, for example by abusing the Globe Theatre city) and niche strategies, such as trade economies on naval maps, super heavy espionage use etc.

I like these, thanks for working through my broadness. I'll try these methods.