I have a problem, I've played civilization for a very long time but I seem to be hopeless as a warmonger! Every time I play the game, I usually pick America or Germany and I play on the noble or war chief difficulty setting. My problem is, I usually (that is, always) start brutal territory wars. Once a nation starts to get bold and encroaches around my borders it always makes me feel territorial and I cant help but start a war. I amass what I can, usually archers, then swordsman and axemen, and charge them towards the closest city. I dont know why, but I always lose. Always. Then I quit the game.

It's annoying, I want to win a war but I just cant seem to do it. 5 swords men with double city attack get absolutely pwned by 2 archers, which usually ends up with me having a bunch of rival swordsmen / axemen / jaguars (I seem to fight Monty a lot) that end up stomping me into submission.

Can someone help me? Tell me some mistakes that i'm probably making?

This is similar to a question I was about to pose regarding early warfare. I'm not great at any era of warfare, especially late. I'm playing on noble now but I always read about folks rushing or taking out neighbor civs early. While ultimately I succeed in doing this, I have to amass a lot of units and end up in a war of attrition for some time before taking out the rival. Added to that is still keeping up with you research and expansion What's the best way to effectively take out a neighbor pre cats and aslo pre HAs.

A lot of what I read makes it sound so easy without going into detail.

Another note: It amazes me how a rival civ can quickly produce units in their cities even after I've held their land at ransom and destroyed all improvements. I know they are whipping, but geez.

You have asked a question which has hundreds of answers.

1. Attack eariler. Also watch out for city cultural defenses. Those will kill you unless you have a lot of units or seige.

2. Do not attack at all. You seem to be warring when you should be building. Just because you share borders with an ai does not mean attack then.

You sound like you are attacking without the economy to fund a war. Try to wait like in number 2 and get a strong economy.

Look at the war acadamy here in this site, but do not only look at the war tactics. Look at the economic side to the game.

Finally, if you are still having trouble with your economy and getting it ready for war, focus on your economy building. Try a few games with always peace option on. This will help you get a better economy. Then traslate those lessons into a war map.

PS Seige is king in this game. If you are not using seige or just a few, build more. In a long war you can never have enough seige.

Anyone else have other ideas?

@Big

1. Attack eariler. Also watch out for city cultural defenses. Those will kill you unless you have a lot of units or seige.

what exactly does that mean other than moving slowly in their territory?

Finally, if you are still having trouble with your economy and getting it ready for war, focus on your economy building. Try a few games with always peace option on. This will help you get a better economy. Then traslate those lessons into a war map.

good idea. i've never consider that option before. could be a good teaching tool

well how do you use seige properly? Also, to me it just seems silly that swords men who have +50% city attack and another +20% city attack are getting moped up by 3 strength archers.

Lymond, when I say city culture defenses I mean the extra defense that a unit gets when it is in a city with a large enough culture. This is shown on the map by the percentage number on the enemy city bar. I may not be calling it by the right name.

That percentage number is the number that goes down when your seige units bombard and enemy city instead of attacking the units.

Hasanwithgod, To use seige you need them for two-three reasons.

1. When a seige is sitting directly next to an enemy city, and the city has any cultural defense, it has the option to bombard that city instead of attacking. This will slowly lower the city culture defenses. More siege means this goes faster.

Note: you do not have to get the percentage all the way to 0. If it is lower than 10% I usually just quit and attack. It is a judgement call really, but usually lower is better.

2. After, or before, the city culure defense is gone, use the siege units to attack the units in the city. Most of them will usually die, so these are suicide units. This is okay because the power of siege is in their ability to cause colateral damage. This will hurt a lot of units and thus make the next attacks easier.

3. Along the lines of 2, use seige to attack enemy stacks attacking you. This will hurt more units and help defeat those stacks monty is sending at you.

The only problem with seige is they come a little late for your early wars.

Finally, Do you know about the combat odds? If not hold down the right mouse button over the enemy when you have selected the unit you wish to attack with. Look at the numbers and you will see what each side has.

To answer you last question about the archer vs swordsman comment. Look at everything from promotions to tile defense to city culture defense. You will find that your units will probably be out classed.

I see. I always that "cultural" defense had something to do with the expanse of their borders and how slow you move into them. Also, other things go into that % such as walls, castles, wonders, etc.

Yep, I pretty much get siege equipment. Just curious how these guys talk about rushing so early. Generally, it seems to take a lot of units and unless I'm just doing something wrong entirely, it seems to come at quite an expense to tech and expansion - although one is expanding through conquest essentially.

One thing I've noticed is that I lose units a lot even at extremely high favorable odds - like 80 to 90% plus. man, that pisses me off the most.

I want to add my two cents:

1. To arouse the warmongerer in you, I suggest you to use Roman leaders because Praetorians rule!! Once you master the Roman leaders, you can change leaders.

2. Here is what I usually do: I basically set up three cities. Three production cities that can hook up health/happiness resources. So your initial build order in your capital would be: worker>settler>settler>stonehenge>warrior>barracks>Praets!! You can found a fourth city if you want (especially if you dont have iron or Bronze in your cultural boundary). On your two other cities, build a worker first.

You will have BW before your first worker pops out, so let him chop and chop wood until you get stonehenge. Chopping wood would basically speed up the production of your settler and Stonehenge (and guess what, both Roman leaders are Imperialistic so you will get those settlers really fast!)

3. Since you have mining already (if you are going with Roman), your tech order would be: BW>Wheel>Agriculture>Iron Working. Once you have Iron Working, you can research whatever you want. But before your 1st major war, be sure that you are researching CoL so that you can build your courthouses.

4. Try to hook up Iron ASAP. Once you have it, produce praets and axemen (and some spearmen). Then go in a rampage.

5. Try to attack the civ that have the following: Ivory (so you can build Elephants once your enemies have longbowmen), Pyramid, and shrine cities,

6. If your enemies already have longbowmen, counter it with praets/War Elephants/CATAPULTS!! combo. If you have musketmen, add lots of it to wipe out the last few remaining civs.

7. Enjoy!

Just thought I'd send in my two pence, im not a prolific warmonger, however I do conduct good wars. Im just writing a post on war tactics. However, I'm one who goes to war for a specific reason. The easiest thing to do is have the right army and the right tactics. For starters having an army that consists of roughly 12 infantry, 4 seige and a couple of mounted to attack a city. First let your seige take out the defensive bonus and then send in the infantry, the mounted units can mop up anyone trying to re-enforce the area.

Also think more about your tactics. Are you denying the enemy of resources. Try sending in some troops that's sole responsibility is to destroy improvements that give them resources such as copper and iron. This should stem their useful production of good units.

Thirdly think about what you are going to attack and when. ones on your border first and then key resource cities. You'll soon see the enemy loose the will to fight if you capture their wine facilities.

More comments on the early catapult use. If they are being produced from barracks, set up 3-5 with the bombard upgrade, and put city raider on the ones that attack the city. You have significantly higher retreat odds and often only lose one catapult per stack vs. city attack.

Manage your early infantry well, get fast upgrades and spam the catapults. Build your main SoD with strong upgraded units and your later wars will be easier too.

Something not mentioned here, but worth pointing out: don't be afraid to crowd your early cities together. When playing a peaceful strategy, I tend not to do this. When warmongering, I consider resource sharing (particularly high-food yield tiles) essential. One of the keys of an early chariot/axe/praet rush is having several cities at the happiness cap ready to produce (usually with the aid of a whip) a bunch of units fairly quickly. having several cities which can produce (whether whipping corn or working iron/bronze/horses) units quickly also means they should be economically viable too (to pay upkeep on the army they're about to build), and close quarters help there as well.