Please help a wannabe warmonger NOOB!

Hello everyone, this is my first post and am thankful I found a community dedicated to this game! I will admit I am a total noob to Civ5, honestly last Civ game I played was CivI back in '92 in High School (please commence laughing a pointing now!). So needless to say I am what you veterans call a NOOB. I know nothing of this game except for the concepts and the diffirent victory conditions. With that being said I was hoping someone could either maybe explain a little or point me in the direction of where or what would be a "cookie cutter" way to start warmongering Pre-Classic to Classic Era. I know all civs have their own unique abilities and alot of it depends on what civ I pick. Not necessarily looking for a way to go about it per civ type, just a way most people play with a few changes here and there. My problem is I want to start owning, but as soon as I get ready to start building force I look at my Tree and think to myself...hmmm maybe I should wait until I get that Tech, what can I say I like shiny things ha...before I know it Im in Ren Era with no military to speak of when I get a DoW or two...or three...

Im not looking to win by 0 B.C. or anything, just some advice on what to build, where to build cities, how many cities before starting to build Military, Is a Barracks and Armory a must before building Army, Basically the important stuff. I would like to be able to win on at least King (I know thats like chieftan to most on here).

I've tried to just warrior it up and go for it, but before I know it my warriors have commited suicide by rushing a capitol city and before I know it Im back to having no military, except now I have no gold to rebuild because I just spent it all on building/maintaning the army I just had.

I apologize for the obvious in most of this thread I just hope some can look past my udder blindness to the way the game is played and let the Holy Lord of
Civ come down and bless me with your wisdom, or at least a tiny part of it.

Once again thank you for your time and patience and let heads fly and bodies drop to our feet Sid Meier style!

Here are two REX (Rapid EXpansion) strategies I've used that are effective and set you up for whatever victory condition you'd like.

4-city Swords

Credit for this one to Tabarnak from this thread.
Capital build : scout-monument-warrior-settler-settler

Research : Animal husbandry-Iron working

Don't bother with luxuries yet. Pick Liberty and free settler. Get 4th city to reach iron or another good spot. Put cities with a hill ready to be worked(settling on a hill + working hill is best). You will be at -9 . Upgrade warriors to swordmen, research luxuries techs.

Buy worker as soon as you can. Get free one from Liberty as well. Steal one from cs. Build one from capital after 4th city.

You can get 4 cities and 4 worker before turn 45. From there, you can do what you want. You can destroy 1 or 2 neighbors before Steel. Your production will skyrocket. This easy and wonderless strat can let you beat Deity most of the time. King should be a breeze.

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4-city Archers

Credit for this one to bhavv from this thread.
For social policies, I always open with Tradition > Liberty > Citizenship > Collective Rule for the culture and free worker + settler.

During this time my capital works food tiles and builds a Monument > Granary > Archer > Archer > Archer.

Usually Collective rule is taken just a few turns after the second archer, and when the capital has grown to size 4-5 at which point I swap over to train two settlers before completing the third archer. This gives me a fast 4 city rex by 2000 BC with an archer garrison for the 2nd-4th cities, which makes them more than capable of defending themselves against early AI rushes (just move another archer to any city that is under attack, use them well and defensively and you should be immune to AI attacks on king difficulty).

After thats all done my capital starts wonder spamming while cities 2-4 build Monument > Granary > Library > Colosseum > Market > Temple (or university) > Workshop.

For workers I steal one from a city state, and make sure that I leave a barb encampment alive somewhere near a city state to capture me a third. If I dont find more than those three then I steal one from any AI (hopefully a warmonger that will get over it very quickly like monty or alexander). 4 workers + 4 cities as quickly as possible makes the rest of the game easy peasy on King difficulty.

You can decide after this point if you want to stick to your 4 cities and grow a tall empire, or go wide instead, but the initial 4 city rex with Collective Rule is very powerful.

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Scarpa said:

Here are two REX (Rapid EXpansion) strategies I've used that are effective and set you up for whatever victory condition you'd like.

4-city Swords


4-city Archers

Click to expand...

To be fair these strategies are really great and professional but I thinx a beginner would have a hard time for doing this and understanding

Thank you! I scoured through the forums here, and after about 10 pages of threads and not really finding what I was looking for I gave up. But one good thing about reading all that material, even though I am a noob I understand completely! Will try both of these out and see which one I like the best, seems to me the Archer way is to play defense, and the warrior/swords way is for offense, of which I was looking for the offensive way. Now off to slay and hopefully not be slayed! I will also watch the video, I have watched a few videos on youtube but they were all on diety and way over my head, I was finding myself trying to find the rewind button about ever two minutes because people that play on diety expect you to know the majority of it and they are just helping to refine it. So I would have to go back numerous amount of times trying to comprehend why they did this or why they did that and just hope the reason I selected was the right one (which in most cases my educated guess wasnt so educated ha)

I'm new to this game too, but I never had any problems on King. So I'll only provide some simple things I found out. YMMV.

I tried the 4-city swords strategy a few times. It's very difficult to get going. The lack of happiness will strangle you well beyond turn 45. And that's if you're able to get 4 cities and 4 workers by that turn.

The second strategy is what I normally play.

You can upgrade all your units (except scout I think), so feel free to build them. For killing enemy units early in the game, ranged weapons are best. The chariot archer is nice very early on. And if you can get the crossbow, that is quite an improvement. If you want to take over cities, you're gonna need different units that have both high defense and high attack. You need them for both visibility for your ranged weapons to come in, but also to take over the city. I find this difficult to achieve early in the game. I tend to look at the enemy town's defense and get three or four units with the same defense and attack if possible (bring your ranged units too). I find the trebuchet, cannon, etc. are great for taking over cities and killing enemy units.

Here's a nice trick I learned from the AI (USA). If you see an enemy force coming to take over one of your coastal cities, not only put a ranged weapon as garrison (one of archer, chariot archer, trebuchet, crossbow, cannon, etc.), but build a naval unit that can attack. They stack in your city with other units and can attack as well and hides behind the city. So pull your other ranged units behind your city (since they can attack at a range of 2) and watch your enemy die as they come in.

The biggest tip is probably to try to go to war with a general. Stick him in the city too if you're defending. He stacks as well. Otherwise, stack him with your army.

Go for buildings that help production and building units. I'd go for the library very early because you need tech. Then only research what you need to get your luxuries (though mining is nice). I tend to gun for civil service for the free food after that. I don't bother with barracks and whatnot too much on King though it can help. I do build walls on neighbouring cities if the enemy has units nearby.

If you can find a CS that gives you units, try to get enough money to friend it. It gives a lot of units. Or fulfill its requests early on, if any.

And don't neglect your culture. Try and keep it to 10-20 turns per policy maximum. Try and have each policy in fewer turns. Try going for a cultural victory sometimes. You may well find out that you can build big armies.

You should check out the LP sticky thread at the top of the forum where there are numerous youtube videos of live play.

You can see starts and what terms like steal a worker, etc. really mean and what are typical opening 20-25 moves. not much different on all difficulties.

As the difficulty ramps up, so does the warmongering. Civs get more aggressive and you have to place a little more priority on military no matter what.

To encourage war is easy. Just force borders closer. One thing about CiV i've found, war favors the prepared attack after the successful defense, both on the micro and macro level.

apocalypse105 said:

To be fair these strategies are really great and professional but I thinx a beginner would have a hard time for doing this and understanding

Click to expand...

True, and honestly I've never managed to replicate them quite as described. However, even executing these partially gives you a solid foundation for the rest of the game.

apocalypse105 said:

To be fair these strategies are really great and professional but I thinx a beginner would have a hard time for doing this and understanding

Click to expand...

Scarpa said:

True, and honestly I've never managed to replicate them quite as described. However, even executing these partially gives you a solid foundation for the rest of the game.

Click to expand...

I'm thinking about showing a detailled strategy of the 4 cities swords rush. Because details are what make a strategy appealing or not.

I will show this in next days depending of my schedule. Be awared that this strategy is valid and pretty strong for multiplayer games as well.

Tabarnak said:

I'm thinking about showing a detailled strategy of the 4 cities swords rush. Because details are what make a strategy appealing or not.

I will show this in next days depending of my schedule. Be awared that this strategy is valid and pretty strong for multiplayer games as well.

Click to expand...

Indeed, 4 cities is optimal.

Tabarnak said:

I'm thinking about showing a detailled strategy of the 4 cities swords rush. Because details are what make a strategy appealing or not.

I will show this in next days depending of my schedule. Be awared that this strategy is valid and pretty strong for multiplayer games as well.

Click to expand...

Thank you Tabernak for this strategy, Im using the four city sword rush now, I took out Denmark easily without losing a single unit. By turn 75 I am done with Denmark heading towards Sully. Only problem is my happiness is 16 in the red...Should I stop warmongering now or just keep the train moving? I puppeted the capitol city but razed the second city, if I should just keep going would you happen to have any tips on getting my happiness in a better shape?

Also for the domination victory when should I just slow down go peaceful for a little while and improve my units? If I just keep it going down hill from the get go I think I will get out tech'd eventually. Sorry for all the noob questions this plays alot different from the original Civ twenty years ago lol

secondsaber87 said:

Indeed, 4 cities is optimal.

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How do you think i sluggered Alistair?

I still prefer Crossbows for first attack, theres usually enough room so early rush isnt needed. 20 hammer and you make archers fast, build like 20 of them, then upgrade them to Crossbows and attack. Crossbows are excellent, usually you dont need even catapults or trebs, just build a road to the AI city and capture it with melee unit when its ready.

I really like to build Capital powerhouse and a few cities to feed it if its not possible I usually make cities very close to each other and farm everything. Thats ideal for me anyway. Then first AI Capital is usually science/specialist/second powerhouse city.

Tabarnak said:

I'm thinking about showing a detailled strategy of the 4 cities swords rush. Because details are what make a strategy appealing or not.

I will show this in next days depending of my schedule. Be awared that this strategy is valid and pretty strong for multiplayer games as well.

Click to expand...

(I've yet to win a deity pangea domination game before)

Right now I'm doing another pangea deity attempt with the Iroquois. [great synergy with the 4 city sword start - mohawk independence form iron allows to sell your Iron for a 30 turns - you will get it back by the time you need it for longsword upgrade ]

Started in the middle of the continent amidst (Alexander, Catherine,Wu, Augustus, Harun also is rather close (separated by some city states) ) with ENOUGH room to expand a bit - Would have just restarted the map before because I always got trashed in those situations ...

Got the 4 cities & 4 workers before T45 as advertised - as long as you have enough room to expand is not that difficult ...
(4 cotton, 2 pearls, 2 silk , 1 gems, 1 wine, +8 horses + 8 iron - decent early generators) -> some luxuries were on the third ring so took some time to get cultured

Also I've luckily secured a cultured and a maritime cultured state allies (wine, whales, +4 iron )...


Tech path wise after iron working : Calendar(granary,cotton,silk,wine), Philosophy (public school, temples) , Sailing (pearls) , Workshop (longhouse) , Education (CS first)

Policy wise (Liberty (pop GS for steel(longswords) ~T90) fallowed by piety (mostly for organized religion extra 2-3 /per city ) )

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The most important thing after settling the 4 cities is getting out to positive .That is why 4 max cities are used in the strategy -> you will run past -10 happiness with more cities early without mining luxuries ...Then secure enough iron & save enough cash to upgrade the warrior hordes to swords men - and cripple one AI before they run out of style

Worker priorities [PRODUCTION]:
-Mininig luxuries (you can usually sell them for the first 30 turns - before you get the tech to connect rest of the luxuries and get positive happiness)
-horses
-mines (forested hills are better)
-good food tiles in capital (wheat, river farms,...) to be used when the early unhappiness period is over
-iron when visible
-rest of the luxuries when the required tech becomes available

Buildings:

Monument
all settled cities start by building one {need them up to finish liberty-piety in a reasonable time-frame and will get better with piety}

Granary
When a city reaches 2 pop -> a granary allows both to work mines {even if unhappy and unable to grow}
With 3 pop and a maritime city state[+1 ] you have the option to work 3 production tiles as long as one of them provides 1 food (ex: 2 mines+ horses)

Public School
Most of your extra cities will be stuck with 1 pop during the unhappiness period. Add a public school in each city that reaches 4 -> will eventually open up the NC and universities ...

Temple
Population independent, will take a (long) while to research (after - iron working, luxury techs[MUST BE HAPPY to grow] with low pop ). Ideally will build those after opening piety for the production bonus. In practice I end up with them already built before opening piety ...
They add a lot of maintenance costs that coupled with high military inkeep can get you bankrupt quickly... Later on organized religion makes them economically viable by freeing up luxuries for sale ...Songhai & Egypt have it good with their temples costing no maintenance ...

Barracks
Can probably be skipped for the first wave of warriors to get more warriors and save on maintenance costs ...Would need one in all production cities eventually ..

Workshop
I tend to build those when they become available in all cities. Even higher priority for Iroquois and Rome ...

Circus
Build where available - during the going to positive happiness period (when luxuries techs make that possible)

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Back to my current attempt.

Had 6-7 Mohawks ~T64 when I war-decced on Alexander who was circling my capital with hoplites and archers ... He hesitated to declare on me after mass upgraded to Mohawks...
(thought I would quickly mop up his spread units and then move in on his capital - Athens - visible in accessible terrain). He kept spamming Hoplites and Companion Cav and managed to push me back a couple of times ..
...
got 11 longswords by T 90 - and they are battle hardened (a few promotions each) but again they were spread out around the map chasing hoplites and companion cav.
...
Currently I'm at turn 102.

Wu declared war on me - she is currently top dog with 6 or 7 completed wonders - I'm holding her off with 2 (former mohawk ) rough terrain specialist LS entrenched in a forrest ...

Caesar declared war on me not long a go also but did not show much military yet ...

Alexander is suing for peace offering some gold - I hope I'll be abbe to FINALLY get one of his weaker exposed cities and then his capital - I really need a favorable peace deal - (with 11 LS and 4 temples I'm running ~ -20 /pet turn deficit )

Harun is hostile...
Catherine is guarded ..

Tech wise I'm about to start researching Education ...Have one RA about to complete ...
Policy wise - 4 turns away from Organized Religion

(monuments, granaries, public schools, temples, longhouses up in every city )
NC about done in capital ...

=========================

I hope the game is still winnable [need to get Athens fast] - Tabarnak's opening is certainly very powerful - I blame my on tactical inexperience my failure to subdue Alexander - get the cash, the gold puppets and continue marching towards victory ...

As an update to the above

T113 - finished education - brought university for capital - up to 75

T123 - Conquered Athens - kept Argos - burned Mycenae

(got 476 45 /turn 2 horses Extra 1 gems 1 wine and 2 silk - no wonders )

Getting Athens (21 city strength) was tough as terrain and opposition did not allow for a surround and I didn't have any siege engines (mathematics was behind education in the tech plan... ). The saving grace was a March promoted LS with 2 Medics behind him that could keep attacking the city and get it low enough ...

Wu sued for a white peace a while ago - probably because Suleiman invaded while she was trying to conquer me (swear I didn't have anything to do with that...tho perhaps I should've ) ... Dumped a couple of luxuries on her - her loss if she decides to DOW me again...

Used the to buy two more Universities ( up to 100/turn )..[Not many trust worthy RA partners available and I don't have PT nor rationalism]

Monty and Harun keep themselves occupied in a corner so this leaves me some time to deal with Augustus who dared place some nice would be puppets in MY territory ...

Cathy is also a ticking bomb ...

I should begin to pull even economically wise after I tradepost the Greek cities and put up some markets in my core cities...

Next crucial techs down the line ... Chemistry Economics ...Rifling
Policy wise (have organized religion) and I'm thinking right side of Honor (more happy and upgrade discount looks mighty juicy)

This could be it - my very first pangea map deity win ...Thank you @Tabarnak

peddroelm said:

Tech path wise after iron working : Calendar(granary,cotton,silk,wine), Philosophy (public school, temples) , Sailing (pearls) , Workshop (longhouse) , Education (CS first)

Worker priorities [PRODUCTION]:
-Mininig luxuries (you can usually sell them for the first 30 turns - before you get the tech to connect rest of the luxuries and get positive happiness)
-horses
-mines (forested hills are better)
-good food tiles in capital (wheat, river farms,...) to be used when the early unhappiness period is over
-iron when visible
-rest of the luxuries when the required tech becomes available

=========


Had 6-7 Mohawks ~T64 when I war-decced on Alexander who was circling my capital with hoplites and archers ... He hesitated to declare on me after mass upgraded to Mohawks...

Click to expand...

Tech path after IW varies from what luxuries are surrounding. If you can catch 2 unique mining luxs, a beeline to writting is preferable. If you have 2 or more luxuries of a same tech, go get that tech before writting. What you want is to get out of unhappiness ''while'' you research writting and building libraries. More details in next days(probably tomorrow).

Worker priorities : perfect like that. Horses give you the searched and chopping forests are a priority to accelerate things. The good thing with this strat is you can build all necessary buildings pretty fast. When you get out of unhappiness and already built granaries, your grows fast.

Imagine if you can get these mohawks 20 turns earlier...Greece's capital would no longer exist.

Teching in general is slower than a standard 1 or 2 cities NC opening but and gain is much higher. If you tech philo around turn 65 and start RAs around turn 75-80, you should be fine. 1-2 RAs to get Education around turn 105 is always a good idea.

There is a gap somewhere where cities have built everything and have nothing to do(if we skip temples). I'm still searching what is best for this period of time(usually build more units in mp games). Going for markets before universities can be appealing(at least it does mp). But since you can get your gold by trades in sp mode, going for Edu first seems much stronger.

Tabarnak said:

Tech path after IW varies from what luxuries are surrounding. If you can catch 2 unique mining luxs, a beeline to writting is preferable. If you have 2 or more luxuries of a same tech, go get that tech before writting. What you want is to get out of unhappiness ''while'' you research writting and building libraries. More details in next days(probably tomorrow).

Click to expand...

This particular choice:

Tech path wise after iron working : Calendar(granary,cotton,silk,wine), Philosophy (public school, temples) , Sailing (pearls) , Workshop (longhouse) , Education (CS first)

Was influenced by the resources I had available in my current game :

(4 cotton, 2 pearls, 2 silk , 1 gems, 1 wine, +8 horses + 8 iron )

Calendar + some lux from CS was enough to get me to positive happiness -> then I went Writing -> Philosophy..

peddroelm said:

This particular choice:

Tech path wise after iron working : Calendar(granary,cotton,silk,wine), Philosophy (public school, temples) , Sailing (pearls) , Workshop (longhouse) , Education (CS first)

Was influenced by the resources I had available in my current game :

(4 cotton, 2 pearls, 2 silk , 1 gems, 1 wine, +8 horses + 8 iron )

Calendar + some lux from CS was enough to get me to positive happiness -> then I went Writing -> Philosophy..

Click to expand...

Yep it was the good thing to do. I only added some general tips. I read that you discovered workshops before universities. This can be another good alternative for markets. Probably way better for sp than mp games because of easy access to .

My question is : is it better to go directly for Education than to make a detour to Metal Casting or Currency? Deity teching pace is insane and you don't want to lose this pace. Since the tech pace is slower in the beginning, is it better to overcome this gap fastest as possible since you already have a decent production from 4 mature cities? Going for Steel right away is also a strong path without a doubt, especially on pangea maps. But for continent types of map, slowing down your opponents on your continent while going for Edu seems better. Swords and archers are enough to harrass 1 or 2 civs. Then you can catch in when you reach Astro.

Good luck for your deity pangea domination attempt

Thanks guys, this info is very useful, im absorbing all of it and putting it to use. I appreciate all the feedback on my original post. Is it to much to ask to keep it coming? heh

Not exactly pre-classic, but you could try a Chivalry attack. This works especially well with any knight based UU civ, such as mongolia, arabia, songhai or siam.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=433159

I'm derailing your thread into an after action report

I'm currently up to T 147 ...

Diplomatic status:
Me currently at War with Wu & Augustus

Cathy decced Augustus [time bomb finally exploded*]
Suleiman decced Augustus
Wu decced Augustus
Harun decced Augustus(?) {Augustus is holding - probably having something to do with getting the GREAT WALL something WU forgot to include in her insane wonder spam program}

*Cathy decced me initially {denounce cascade after getting Athens} and in-spite of my valiant efforts managed to snipe Grand River and caused me to reload{ not going to learn much if I restart the game every time I hit a bump }. Mediolanum placement prevented me from reinforcing in time ...After reload I build some walls in Grand River ...and Cathy decided to go after Augustus this time...


Western Front : (Rome & Russia)



Not much going on here atm - Augustus settled Mediolanum between Grand River and Onondaga a few turns before I could finish punching out a settler in Grand River ..A puppet in that location would serve the purpose even better. I need to secure Mediolanum ASAP because as soon as Cathy makes peace with Augustus she will turn towards me and I'll lose Grand River again without the possibility to reinforce . Problem was/is the securing the puppet because the area is very had to access from my territory (only got embarkation tech a few turns ago). Also Augustus managed to garrison a cannon in there making things more interesting. Ottoman and Russian troops swarming the area don't make things any easier ..
I have 4 LS a cannon and a great general (about half my army) near waiting for the right moment ..


N-Western Front: (Wu)


Poped the third great general for a GA and scrounged up the cash to ally Edinburgh (take that Harun !). The great prize in sight is Beijing for a real bonanza of Wonders(Great Library, Pyramids, Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Angkor Wat, Hagia Sophia, Chicken Itza, Sixtine Chapel, Taj Mahal, Big Ben, Temple of Artemis and Mausoleum of Halicarnassus)

Short plan is - grab Xian (gives direct access to Beijing) - pop GS for rifling [eta 5 turns] - upgrade some riflemen (might need to pop another GG for cash )... Hopefully 3 cannons and 4 promoted rifles should be enough to secure Beijing in a timely fashion ...

Capital finished building Ironworks and should be stuck pumping out military for a long time (barracks & academy already in place)...
Suleiman's troops are getting in the way - hope his peace treaty with Wu runs out soon so they do some more mutual troop reductions ...

All is quiet on the eastern front (Alexander)


Left a LS guarding Athens in case Alexander gets any funny ideas[hugging my borders with obsolete military] ...Should also get up a trade route to connect Athens and Argos - the 2 forest tiles should save some cost of that long road ...

===============

Culture wise - BEHIND -[full liberty - organized religion] 6 turns from second honor policy ...[military tradition is 6 turns + 2 policies away ]

Science wise - BEHIND - 140 /turn (4 manned universities up) -> some cities lack the necessary population and it eats into production and growth (especially during GA when I tend to also focus on good gold tiles). 5 turns away from popping rifling for Beijing ...Next definite target is Economy (2? RA in place ? low in cash and everybody hates me) [will further fall behind unless I get enough puppet population and gold to dump into some public schools when they become available ...also some surplus couldn't hurt to chance some more RA s ...]

Economy wise - BEHIND - no reserves to buy back allied CS in case they get stolen ... Mass riflemen upgrade around the corner ... Guess popping another GG is unavodable ...Need Economics and more trade-posted puppets

Military wise - on tech parity - cannon tech - maybe a bit ahead [rifling] - but lacking numbers ...Military inventory : 11 promoted LS (core army), 1 green crossbow , 2 cannons (2 more coming in 6 turns), 2 green triremes and 2 GG ...

============

Really need to get Beijing and the gazillion wonders to get back into the game ..