How do you go about warmongering?

The reason I ask this, is because I seem to OCD about it and can not get myself to commit to war until I have built a very sizeable army. Enough to leave atleast one garrison for each city, with the ones on a front having an extra unit (or two) depending on whether I feel the opponent there is a threat or not. Then I also need two or three seige units, along with a good size force to be able to take damage and where I can have them retreat and bring in fresh units right behind them.


You guys start wars with fewer units and just pillage, or attack units as they come out, instead of getting too close to their cities?

1. Stay away from their cities and snipe their units.
2. Surround a city with 6 units and crush it.

I usually set up a killing field inside my own territory.
After the AI crushed there; move in mass to their closest city. Take it, rinse, repeat.

Put ranged units on hills between our empires and send small raiding parties to attack strategic resources once successfull head straight for interior specifically their cap

1. Get Irons
2. Get Steel and Mathematics
3. Build four longswordmen, two catapults, and two archers.
4. Profits!

Maintain Happiness with Liberty, Piety, Order.

I have the shortest answer :

1. Build units
2. Kill

It's all about speed and tech advantage. For machinery and above, ranged units can do a great job.

After that inital mass surge of the enemy units fade. I dip my toes into the water cautiously.

If it feels safe, I proceed to pummel the enemy, if not, I harass.

AI only good at making that initial huge wave of units at start, after they all die, AI don't know how to defend outnumbered. They see enemy unit, they must kill it with whatever they have available.

Or if you have technological superiority, enemy unit will just keep on retreating and retreating until you have them on their last ropes of the empire, only then they will start to fight back.

I once got an epic wave after wave of landsknecths challenging my longswordmen. When I thought they are all wiped out, more comes. This makes my battle with Germany longer. This is the first time I saw Germany do this: sending almost endless wave of landsknecths in quite good formations.

When I upgraded my longswordmen, musketmen, crossbowmen to riflemen I finally shut them up and take their cities.

Anyone wants to have a go with this city?

http://i.imgur.com/3MCW8.jpg

Anyone wants to have a go with this city?

http://i.imgur.com/3MCW8.jpg

You can get 4 catapults in place before declaring. It depends on how many units he's got - if there aren't many, two turns of bombarding should do.

You can get 4 catapults in place before declaring. It depends on how many units he's got - if there aren't many, two turns of bombarding should do.

5 catapults actually. Plus 3 melee units adjacent to the city, and 3 more ready to move in next turn.

How do you go about warmongering?

The reason I ask this, is because I seem to OCD about it and can not get myself to commit to war until I have built a very sizeable army. Enough to leave atleast one garrison for each city, with the ones on a front having an extra unit (or two) depending on whether I feel the opponent there is a threat or not. Then I also need two or three seige units, along with a good size force to be able to take damage and where I can have them retreat and bring in fresh units right behind them.


You guys start wars with fewer units and just pillage, or attack units as they come out, instead of getting too close to their cities?

Ya, you are getting carried away.
Don't garrison every city, its just a massive waste. A waste of production, waste of a unit, and a waste of gold per turn.
Roads are a far better investment.

It does not take much to capture an early city when defenses are below 20. Just bang on the walls with something stronger than a warrior. I don't usually bother with cat's or treb's, I avoid cannon as well when possible. Artillery is your friend, get 4 of those and use the heck out of them. Logistics arty with extra range is a win.

If you arc over chivalry, you can get 4 - 6 knights and rotate them in and out on a city to kill it. This will put you on a path for infantry, you can take a weak city with 1 or 2 infantry, and 5 or 6 will take almost anything in that era. I try to avoid taking a path through swords when possible - it delays getting good tech, and if you stall your push it can be hard to recover.

I recomend watching some of MadJinn's videos. He is a master of using seriously minimal armies.

Ya, you are getting carried away.
Don't garrison every city, its just a massive waste. A waste of production, waste of a unit, and a waste of gold per turn.

I recomend watching some of MadJinn's videos. He is a master of using seriously minimal armies.


1) I have free garrisons, therefore garrisoning cities with top of the line troops is never a waste. And Regional Defense goes up.

2) Why suffer for 100 turns when I could do a blitzkrieg and win a war in a single turn.

I don't usually bother with cat's or treb's, I avoid cannon as well when possible. Artillery is your friend, get 4 of those and use the heck out of them. Logistics arty with extra range is a win.
Promoted cannons become logistics artillery with extra range much faster than brand new artillery.

I try to avoid taking a path through swords when possible - it delays getting good tech, and if you stall your push it can be hard to recover.
True, but if you succeed it can be hard to stop steamrolling and lose. :)

1) I have free garrisons, therefore garrisoning cities with top of the line troops is never a waste. And Regional Defense goes up.
So in your case it's double waste - hammers wise and SP wise. ;)

I recomend watching some of MadJinn's videos. He is a master of using seriously minimal armies.

Hell yes. I was just watching his Korea OOC, and its kinda amazing how he held off Deity neighbor Germany... with a handful of Battleships and a Hwacha. I keep on doing this, but the best way to get logistics for your destroyers/Battleships is to NOT run over embarked units and just straight up blast them instead.

Make the Demographics screen your best friend. My trick is to position my units near (but not in range of) the city I plan to capture. Then I declare war, and let the enemy charge my fortified units (protip: crossbowmen can take care of themselves. Don't worry about protecting them with another unit). The enemy units all die, and when the demographics confirms that they have the least pointy sticks, attack. At that point they're helpless, and you can take their cities easily. And don't worry about garrisons! It's much more effective to rushbuy a unit in a city being attacked than to keep a unit stationed there at all times.

1) I have free garrisons, therefore garrisoning cities with top of the line troops is never a waste. And Regional Defense goes up.

2) Why suffer for 100 turns when I could do a blitzkrieg and win a war in a single turn.

The AI could care less about regional defense. If you take the SP for garrison, you should use scouts, otherwise you wasted a ton of hammers on a unit that is not being used. Eventually you will need to use the good unit elsewhere, and you will lose the benefit of a garrison. Usually by the time I take that SP (if I do at all), I can crank out a scout per turn in a couple of cities, and garrison the whole empire fairly fast.

Like I said, roads are a far better investment. I usually leave a unit in each region to defend against random enemy incursions, city states, and the like. With roads you can shuffle the units around quickly. I typically end up fighting a war on two borders on Pangaea, usually I only need two or three units to defend the rest of the empire.

Not sure what you mean by suffering vs winning the war in a single turn. I have never put together 7 armies sufficient to capture all 7 enemy capitols at the same time. Unless their capitols are on your border, you will not be able to capture them in a single turn even with SB's and MA's. Before the modern era, warmongering always involves some level of slogging forward,setting up range and ordering units, then capturing the capitol and any good cities for resources. It can easily turn into a long hard haul dealing with folks like Siam if you get to them after they start to run away.

Yeah that's my problem, I am just not aggressive enough. Was Bismarck and all I wanted was to use the panzer. I held off attacks with their other UU (cant ever remember how to spell it) and then I conquered Persia, and puppeted all their cities.

In the meantime I think my leiklldingers scared alex enough into not attacking me, probably helped that he was also fighting with persia; and with mongolia on his opposite front. To my northwest was Ghandi, he wasnt a problem all game, as to be expected. I kept good relations with Egypt but they were just booming with their wonders and they quickly got the lead, and then they ran away. They attacked me, I held them off, made a counter push toward their two cities, took them....puppeted the closer one, razed the other. Next turn, they assaulted with trebuchets and took back both cities. Having only a few units left now, and most of them injured, I retreated. Held off their next small push and then he finally accepted peace.

By the time the ten turns peace was up, he declared war again and had a major tech lead on me. Using rifelman and cannons against my longswords n knights. Then alex finally declared on me too, having gthe same tech lead on me.

Sounds like you've successfully rushed one civ but then stopped, and since there was no strong infrastructure (all efforts invested in early war), you ran into stagnation afterwards.

There are basically two ways to go. If you start with a rush, you don't stop after killing one neighbor, but keep pushing non stop, build units and bulb key military techs with great scientists. Science/growth buildings are less important. You still need to build few universities in core cities and generate scientists, but no more than that.
The second way - if you aim for late conquest (with panzers, for example), then prioritizing growth/science/production is crucial. Having additional population from puppets compensates for slower native science only so much. To avoid wasting the advantage you gained by early warring, you should put the all efforts into building up and growing. Science is the key here. Universities asap. Fill them with specialists. Sign as many research agreements as you can even if you lack PT/Rationalism. You don't need large army in Civ5, definitely not in defense, thus previously built units will be sufficient for keeping you safe for quite a while. And focusing on science will allow upgrades. If you pump science hard enough, you'll get to the point from where you can start conquering (artillery/panzers/nukes/stealth bombers etc) earlier than AI.

MadDjinn's videos already mentioned, in this context I'd recommend Rome game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuYp-u9cbSI). It's a good example of three phase play - early rush + build up + late domination.

Never underestimate pillaging. If you can manage to hold some armies around a strong city, you can pillage tiles around it and watch the city go from high and mighty defensive fort, to starving crumbling ruins. this especially is good if aided by ranged support, because if you're laying down fire it will crumble defenses without harming units. Although if they have things like granaries and a lot of defensive buildings this technique won't work. You also need to either kill/cripple their nearby military units so you don't have to deal with swatting off enemies while starving a city. Take a leaf from the Spartan strategy book. They blocked off Athens for months it worked pretty well. They may have needed to fling dead bodies of plague victims into the city to finally take it, but they didn't have the kind of time you do now do they.

The AI could care less about regional defense. If you take the SP for garrison, you should use scouts, otherwise you wasted a ton of hammers on a unit that is not being used. Eventually you will need to use the good unit elsewhere, and you will lose the benefit of a garrison. Usually by the time I take that SP (if I do at all), I can crank out a scout per turn in a couple of cities, and garrison the whole empire fairly fast.

Like I said, roads are a far better investment. I usually leave a unit in each region to defend against random enemy incursions, city states, and the like. With roads you can shuffle the units around quickly. I typically end up fighting a war on two borders on Pangaea, usually I only need two or three units to defend the rest of the empire.

Not sure what you mean by suffering vs winning the war in a single turn. I have never put together 7 armies sufficient to capture all 7 enemy capitols at the same time. Unless their capitols are on your border, you will not be able to capture them in a single turn even with SB's and MA's. Before the modern era, warmongering always involves some level of slogging forward,setting up range and ordering units, then capturing the capitol and any good cities for resources. It can easily turn into a long hard haul dealing with folks like Siam if you get to them after they start to run away.

Nope.

I would bushwhack your country really easily if all you have for defense is mere scouts. All dead to BLITZKRIEG!

Attack in one place, then send real forces in 2nd place and attack your vulnerable cities and all you have for defense is scouts.

And all the hammer you're freaking out that I'm wasting on is Warrior or spearman's worth of hammers. I upgrade my units. And doesn't matter, I always have spare production to keep on building units all the time. It's called manufactory.

Et Tu I have better military cohesive force than you do.

And I don't care if my unit have to leave the city to fight, it's doing it's purposes of providing regional defense. After killing whatever random straggler enemy unit, it protects the land from being pillaged and returns to the city to its garrison again.

And if enemy invade in force there, well, buncha of units is ready for response while my main army is fighting on other front.

I don't know about you but I'd rather be sending Mech Infantry to fight than Scouts out to fight in any another age than Stone age.

Late game, I can crank out a unit every 2 turns or so. And that's not even mentioning how cheap landsknechts is to build. I could build them in 1-2 turns during medieval era. Garrisoning cities isn't a problem whatsoever for me.

Civ 5 Tactics ----^


---------------------------------

Pull off a sneak attack? well good for you, now you have to deal with my regional defenses and pray you can overwhelm them before my reinforcements arrive.

------------------------------------


And winning a war in single turn would involve overwhelming a single nation in a single turn of blitzkrieg. Attack this one place and crush all the opposition there fast enough to make counterattack worthless unless they can form another wave to attack together. Sometimes I have bazillion units enough to attack tons of places at once.

And no, I don't do this thing calling capital sniping, I rather do it the old fashioned way ie all your bases are belong to me. Unless his capital is next to my capital then yes, that's an capital snipe I do. Couldn't be helped, he's too close to me and I wanted to club his head dead from all the demands he's making.


And you're forgetting one crucial important thing.

Garrisons = Free Maintenance. Say, i have 50 cities = I have 50 units on standby for free for when hits the fan. And I'd rather have 50 mech infantry than 50 scouts to fight off a sneak attack. And What's more, Mech infantry contribute more to military score than a scout does. Means extra deterrence to ward the Ai from sneak attacking you unless they're really really confident or deluded or super hates you.

50 units = two countries can be held off effectively at the current state of tactical AI.

Civ 4 Tactics ----v


I'm used to garrisoning cities with tons of units from civ 4. High production capital and several cities = sea of units in cities.

Town = 2-3 units.
City = 2-5 units
Metropolis = 5-25 units.
Super Metropolis = 25-50 and more.
And that isn't even mentioning the forts at all.

When you see on your border this happening... do not hesitate to strike first, or best - get the offending civ's lunch money as much as you can and then DOW for complete first strike.

http://i.imgur.com/OxfH8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/57XS7.jpg

Also, whenever you've taken a city from a runaway empire OR when that civ still has most of its military units out in the field, try to retreat your unit from the city a tile away instead of just garrison-heal. Unless you are able to spam units in 1-2 turns or are just plain willing to fight the Thirty-Sixth Battle for the Crossing of Guangzhou.

Pull off a sneak attack? well good for you, now you have to deal with my regional defenses and pray you can overwhelm them before my reinforcements arrive.
....
Say, i have 50 cities = I have 50 units on standby for free for when hits the fan. And I'd rather have 50 mech infantry than 50 scouts to fight off a sneak attack. And What's more, Mech infantry contribute more to military score than a scout does. Means extra deterrence to ward the Ai from sneak attacking you unless they're really really confident or deluded or super hates you.

50 cities and Tradition? I'll put my money on Josh. Don't know why... :lol:

50 units = two countries can be held off effectively at the current state of tactical AI.
:lol: Sorry mate, if it's SP you're taking about, I don't even know where to start. :crazyeye:

I like to have at least 4 large core cities, one being my capital. I leave the rest of the occupied cities as puppets. The only other town I’ll annex is a port city on the other conquered continent to buy a harbor to connect my trade markets. I like to focus on using GSs to quickly discover new techs that will aid me in my campaigns. I believe that having a scientific advantage over your opponent is paramount if you are seeking to conquer the world; a quality unit over quantity units is my policy. Six trained artillery units, with a GG, will crush a well defended city 3/4th through the game.

Even though I know I could just simply conquer cities with wonders, the fact that I keep a small, yet highly populated overlord state in my empire, (the 4 core cities among puppets) I find it is easy to dabble in achieving high culture. The extra social policies come in handy. I like to build wonders and leave a lot of the military recruiting to purchasing when I can.

Further,

Make sure you have your workers build trade posts on conquered soil. Do it everywhere, hills, over farms, over mines, over forest. Just don't build over special tile improvements, i.e. iron, marble, horses. This will give you your economic engine to support a larger army for more powerful foes. Back home in the overlord state, I like to mainly build farms, and mines on hills; they're the big cities that produce for me. (kind of seems like the opposite approach to real life, keeping my industrial centers at home, and my financial centers far away.)

Moreover, friend militaristic CS if you can. Their contribution of units are worth the money. You may get a luxury from the friendship, and few units over time. That is a better investment for a 1000 gold, than on just 2 units from purchasing.

Nope.
And winning a war in single turn would involve overwhelming a single nation in a single turn of blitzkrieg. Attack this one place and crush all the opposition there fast enough to make counterattack worthless unless they can form another wave to attack together. Sometimes I have bazillion units enough to attack tons of places at once.


Garrisons = Free Maintenance. Say, i have 50 cities = I have 50 units on standby for free for when hits the fan. And I'd rather have 50 mech infantry than 50 scouts to fight off a sneak attack. And What's more, Mech infantry contribute more to military score than a scout does. Means extra deterrence to ward the Ai from sneak attacking you unless they're really really confident or deluded or super hates you.

50 units = two countries can be held off effectively at the current state of tactical AI.


Just to be clear, we are playing Sid Meier's Civilization V correct? No mods that allow things like teleporting units deep behind enemy lines, or +20 range for artillery or anything like that? No mods that give +5 and +10 gold happiness for each citizen?

Clearly the value of Free garrison is lost on people.

Also..

Callonia has denounced joshua43214!

Clearly the value of Free garrison is lost on people.

Also..

Callonia has denounced joshua43214!

"I have spoken to the other leaders about you. They need to know that you are not to be trusted"

smallfish DENOUNCED Callonia

"I have spoken to the other leaders about you. They need to know that you are not to be trusted"

smallfish DENOUNCED Callonia

No problem.

I'll just let my soldiers tell you what I think of you.

Callonia has declared war on smallfish.

Warmongering for me, my usual path anyway, is pretty simple. I'm usually picking out a neighbor based on their resources and strength (some guys you gotta hit hard early). On the other hand if an unexpected neighbor declares war on me... i'm not going to turn down a free war.

General rules I use:

Always have enough units to at least make a good attempt to take a city on hand and ready to go.
Lay back a few turns and let them come to me if I know they've got a sizable force near my border so I can hit them on my own terms.
Attack with everything I've got if at all possible. I don't often leave many (if any) defenders lying around, each unit is too valuable.
If I've got enough units I'll throw a small group (or just one unit) off in some odd direction and poke around their territory to distract the AI / their units.
Catapults and such rule. ;)

Basic stuff really.

I'll pillage in some cases if I feel the war is dragging on but otherwise I want some early wins, a city here or there worth puppeting or even if just wiping out a lot of their units to justify the war. Otherwise I'm just wasting turns IMO. Long wars increase the chances of someone else joining in and if I don't cripple the opponent by the end of the war all I've done is made one nasty enemy.

Clearly the value of Free garrison is lost on people.

Also..

Callonia has denounced joshua43214!

"I have spoken to the other leaders about you. They need to know that you are not to be trusted"

smallfish DENOUNCED Callonia

No problem.

I'll just let my soldiers tell you what I think of you.

Callonia has declared war on smallfish.

:lol::goodjob:

No problem.

I'll just let my soldiers tell you what I think of you.

Callonia has declared war on smallfish.

[X] Haha. (http://i.imgur.com/Qwugn.jpg)
[_] You will pay for this in time.
[_] Very Well.

:lol::goodjob:

Friend-Tabarnak, my frustrations with Bismarck the Terrible Callonia has become too much to bear. Can I count you as an strong ally in this coming struggle?



edit: to not drag this entirely off-tangent, as previously noted by duxup, speed is of the essence. You don't want to wait till the AIs grow too large before you start trimming them down (not until SBs or nukes at least). If they are presenting a horrible meatgrinder front for your units, dig in for a long haul or get outside intervention asap (especially if target-civ is ringed by CSes who are allied with another player)

OP - It sounds like you assemble a force that can handle anything before you commit to battle. However, if you had scouts you would know what you are facing and would not need to prepare for all situations. You would end up being able to do more with less. Also once committed to battle, make sure you have a way to replace any losses and keep fresh troops moving forward.

1) While its really nice to have your own dependable source of strategic resources, sometimes (esp. on the higher levels) you just need to learn how to borrow.

2) Never be afraid to get the massive Domination-frenzy runaway to DOW everyone else but the kitchen sink (and you should, if its possible!). Especially when everyone else has nukes, are runaways of their own and are at war with everyone else. Chances are you will not only be able to make strong friends and allies with those who were previously encroaching into your own territories, but also cut a lot of slack off from your immediate fronts.

Clearly the value of Free garrison is lost on people.

Also..

Callonia has denounced joshua43214!

Free garrisons are nice, but depending on the difficulty level of a SP game (I'm assuming that you are talking about SP, not MP), you cannot afford to spend so much production on excess units when you could instead be doing things that lead you closer to victory. Basically, what you are doing is wasting huge amounts hammers, which is something I can't see anyone doing and still achieving victory at any difficulty level higher than King.
Sure, build lots of quality troops if you plan on a Domination victory, but don't keep them at home! Invade! Otherwise you are not making use of your investment.

HOWEVER
If you plan on puppeting a huge empire and have bunches of excess culture, then I can see taking tradition for the free garrison, which works nicely with Honor's happiness and culture for each garrisoned unit. That is a legitimate sub-strategy. Just building tons of units without offensive purpose isn't.

free garrisons are nice, but depending on the difficulty level of a sp game (i'm assuming that you are talking about sp, not mp), you cannot afford to spend so much production on excess units when you could instead be doing things that lead you closer to victory. Basically, what you are doing is wasting huge amounts hammers, which is something i can't see anyone doing and still achieving victory at any difficulty level higher than king.
Sure, build lots of quality troops if you plan on a domination victory, but don't keep them at home! Invade! Otherwise you are not making use of your investment.

However
if you plan on puppeting a huge empire and have bunches of excess culture, then i can see taking tradition for the free garrison, which works nicely with honor's happiness and culture for each garrisoned unit. That is a legitimate sub-strategy. Just building tons of units without offensive purpose isn't.

^^qft