The art of efficiently ruthless warmongering

Hi everyone, long time lurker (several years) and first time poster here. I'd like to first thank all of you regulars and many of you non-regulars as well for being so informative; I started playing Civ 5 back in late 2011 and Civ 4 shortly after (love them both to death, and they're both different enough that I play them both interchangeably) and without the countless insightful threads and articles here on civfanatics, I would've been completely lost.

I'm currently playing through Civ 5 BNW with every civ on King (random map, random size/number of civs, random AI personalities) before moving up to Emperor just to kind of practice and really solidify my strategies before moving up the ladder, though my win rate on King is pretty close to 100% by now. My question is this: one major area of weakness for me is effective warmongering. I can certainly defeat my foes, but I can't seem to pull off some of the crazy rushes some of you guys mention (conquering an enemy capital in the ancient/classical era for example) without seriously crashing my economy and diplomatic relations, not to mention happiness.

My current game springs to mind. I'm playing Japan on a Huge (12 civ) Pangaea map where I spawned right next to France, but fairly far away from everyone else. I started with Liberty with the objective of going wide through conquest if possible. I ended up capturing Paris in the Medieval Age with little difficulty and leaving his two remaining mediocre cities be, and while I managed to keep the rest of the world content so far, I know if I went on a further rampage against my more distant neighbors to the south (Aztecs, Byzantium) or the far east (Indonesia) I would likely become a pariah and be unable to manage happiness due to lack of luxury trading.

I find a common problem I encounter when I start with Liberty is that I simply can't settle or conquer enough cities to make it more worthwhile than Tradition, my typical starting policy tree. Right now I'm in the Industrial Age with 5 cities and am planning an invasion of Indonesia once I have Infantry and Artillery. Thing is, Tradition would have likely been better for me in every respect with such a small number of cities; Liberty seems to really shine with 6-8+ cities as far as I can tell.

In the future, should I basically just focus on military right from the beginning and make up for the lack of tech progress through conquering weaker foes earlier on? Is diplomacy really that critical if you are a military superpower? I understand the typical way to teach players is to have them post their games in the forums and I will gladly do so in the future. Until then, any advice or general words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry for the length of this post, they won't always be so ponderous. Glad to be here and I look forward to being a regular from here on out.

For rushes and decent warmongering, Huge maps are not well-suited. My fastest DomV was on Immortal, T159, Standard/Standard with Greece.

Also, the higher difficulty levels actually allow for faster finish times because you can tech faster - shared tech info, tech steals, leech from caravan, etc.

Watch these -- takes a long time, but very entertaining. The audacity of it all left me open-mouthed, but it also taught me a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvDosx_OQs0

I certainly think you could classify it as "efficiently ruthless warmongering"!

What is the purpose of your war?

If it is to achieve a domination victory then you do not need good relations with everyone. All you really need is one or two good war buddies, guys who join in the fight with you and don't mind the fact that you capture cities.

If I am going for domination I'd just as soon eradicate a civ rather than leave it crippled to continuously denounce me and spy on me. Especially if it is early in the game now that there are reduced warmonger ratings based on the age.

Anyone you eradicate before meeting a civ does not get held against you, but breaking a promise that your troops are just passing through will curse you for the entire game.

To maintain happiness burn down any city that does not give you a new resource. Court houses take a lot of hammers and cost 3 or 4 gold per turn. In many situations it is better to sell off all the buildings while you burn it down and re-settle in the same place.

Conquest is all about leveraging your strengths. If you have some awesome UU then beeline for it and use it for all it's worth. If not then go for primarily ranged units and focus fire. Getting the ranged promo puts you safely out of retaliation range and greatly increases your survivability to achieve logistics which doubles your attacks and makes you equal to two units. Enough of these units and you can conquer without casualties.

mbbcam said:

Watch these -- takes a long time, but very entertaining. The audacity of it all left me open-mouthed, but it also taught me a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvDosx_OQs0

I certainly think you could classify it as "efficiently ruthless warmongering"!

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I need help with warmongering as well.. Anyone else have some helpful vids? I play immortal

KmDubya said:

What is the purpose of your war?

If it is to achieve a domination victory then you do not need good relations with everyone. All you really need is one or two good war buddies, guys who join in the fight with you and don't mind the fact that you capture cities.

If I am going for domination I'd just as soon eradicate a civ rather than leave it crippled to continuously denounce me and spy on me. Especially if it is early in the game now that there are reduced warmonger ratings based on the age.

Anyone you eradicate before meeting a civ does not get held against you, but breaking a promise that your troops are just passing through will curse you for the entire game.

To maintain happiness burn down any city that does not give you a new resource. Court houses take a lot of hammers and cost 3 or 4 gold per turn. In many situations it is better to sell off all the buildings while you burn it down and re-settle in the same place.

Conquest is all about leveraging your strengths. If you have some awesome UU then beeline for it and use it for all it's worth. If not then go for primarily ranged units and focus fire. Getting the ranged promo puts you safely out of retaliation range and greatly increases your survivability to achieve logistics which doubles your attacks and makes you equal to two units. Enough of these units and you can conquer without casualties.

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Very good points, all of them. I suppose in this game I'm going for a tech victory (domination seems to lose something on larger maps I agree, unless you're specifically going for points or going domination for fun) with some wars of conquest to expand my empire. France was dealt with due to his extremely close proximity (Paris just a few tiles away from my westernmost city) and now I'm at war with Indonesia. The pretext was to stop him from sending his damn prophets to disrupt my desert folklore boosted religion, but I also intend to capture Jakarta and seize all those beautiful world wonders he has (like 10-12) and take some new luxuries. With Indo out of the way I can transition to a peacetime economy and go for the tech win.

Good point about eliminating a civ entirely as well; I usually avoid this for the obvious reasons but there are times when I should do this more, specifically to squash any delegates they might possess and, like you said, remove their ability to denounce etc. I think I'm too passive in a lot of my games and will actively work to change this.

That video a few posts up was very helpful, I'm on Part 4 so far and the constant manipulation of war (paying civs to DOW each other etc.), worker stealing and general badassery leaves me much inspired. Thank you all for the replies so far, I learn more with every passing day. Soon I will consume entire nations.

Yes, you hurt your economy by rushing, but there are economic rewards for it: your neighbor doesn't breathe down your neck, and you get a nice capital.

VirgilTheMad said:

Very good points, all of them. I suppose in this game I'm going for a tech victory (domination seems to lose something on larger maps I agree, unless you're specifically going for points or going domination for fun) with some wars of conquest to expand my empire. France was dealt with due to his extremely close proximity (Paris just a few tiles away from my westernmost city) and now I'm at war with Indonesia. The pretext was to stop him from sending his damn prophets to disrupt my desert folklore boosted religion, but I also intend to capture Jakarta and seize all those beautiful world wonders he has (like 10-12) and take some new luxuries. With Indo out of the way I can transition to a peacetime economy and go for the tech win.

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Do you mean Science Victory? I think “tech win” can mean anytime you are so far ahead in technology that it hands you whatever VC you want. SV you can win without ever capturing a city, so if you are dominating hard like this, a domination-assisted cultural victory might be fewer turns and much more satisfying.

beetle said:

Do you mean Science Victory? I think “tech win” can mean anytime you are so far ahead in technology that it hands you whatever VC you want. SV you can win without ever capturing a city, so if you are dominating hard like this, a domination-assisted cultural victory might be fewer turns and much more satisfying.

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Yep, I meant science victory. Oops. "Tech win" is pretty vague and you're right, being that far ahead in tech lets you pursue whatever VC your heart is longing for.

As per your sound advice I have adjusted my strategy to go for a "conquest assisted cultural victory." This makes Indonesia an even more tempting prize as their cultural buildup is pretty impressive, thanks in large part to their massive wonderwhoring. I have managed to diplomatically isolate Indonesia with a decisive denouncement (with the Aztecs being pulled into the 'outcast' category with him) and am now friends with just about everyone else, save poor emaciated France.

Once the Indo threat is neutralized I will beeline Internet and build the hotels, airports and National Visitor Center as they become available. With no coal (even from allied city-states!) and very little aluminum in my lands, I think this is for the best.

As an aside, I have absolutely been loving Bushido. Seeing severely wounded units routinely eliminate healthy opponents is pretty satisfying and encouraging.

If you are going with conquest fueled culture victory, give a hard look at autocracy. The 50% boost from cult of personality is per war. It is not that hard to get the middle of the pack culture civs tied up in at least one war. The culture leader gets eradicated and you loot all his stuff.

Three promo troops at creation are also amazing. Range frigates can shell without taking fire, planes with air repair never need to stop, or my favorite the triple wolfpack promo sub that can oneshot most ships.

Autocracy also has the most available happiness and the best ideology wonder with Prora. Order is great when you are weak and need to fit in with the herd to survive, autocracy is great when you are strong enough to ram it down their throats

VirgilTheMad said:

That video a few posts up was very helpful, I'm on Part 4 so far and the constant manipulation of war (paying civs to DOW each other etc.), worker stealing and general badassery leaves me much inspired.

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Wait until you see him fighting Songhai. It's extraordinary! Waves and waves of UU cavalry picked off calmly (despite repeated interjections of "Holy crap!" as the next wave appears). It's actually quite funny. I wish I could understand how he does it. I would just get swamped.

I, too, am not aggressive enough. But I usually find that when I am aggressive, I get stamped on. The trick seems to be weighting your aggression the right amount, and at the right time. I'm no good at that.

It's not just the general strategy that is important, though. As an experiment, I fought a war against an opponent three times (starting from the same pre-war save), to see if I could improve. I won convincingly the first time, and lost on the next two occasions! And I've no idea why -- though I think I'm bad at assessing what the opponent may do next. Napoleon, basing himself on Bourcet, was of the opinion that you should think through all the possible scenarios, even the most unlikely, so that you would never be caught out. He was one of the few who could do it, however.

consentient said:

My fastest DomV was on Immortal, T159, Standard/Standard with Greece.
Also, the higher difficulty levels actually allow for faster finish times because you can tech faster - shared tech info, tech steals, leech from caravan, etc.

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I don't believe what I read - faster DOMINATION victory on higher difficulty levels :facepalm

IronfighterXXX said:

I don't believe what I read - faster DOMINATION victory on higher difficulty levels :facepalm

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I don't believe what I read - someone who misunderstands a post and makes no effort to ask questions.

well obviously lower difficulty levels will allow you to win faster..

for example my fastest domination win on chieftain is turn 56, that would be very hard to do on deity.

morario84 said:

I need help with warmongering as well.. Anyone else have some helpful vids? I play immortal

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What kind of help do you need? Peddroelm's Netherlands is good and check out Marbozir's Japan and Mongol LPs those two are constant war ones.

klaskeren said:

well obviously lower difficulty levels will allow you to win faster..

for example my fastest domination win on chieftain is turn 56, that would be very hard to do on deity.

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lol play a duel map, get ruins to upgrade warrior to ram. Flat terrain allows ram to find enemy capitol.
Bash enemy capitol which has nothing twice. Enemy warriors went after barb camp. Win.

kb27787 said:

lol play a duel map, get ruins to upgrade warrior to ram. Flat terrain allows ram to find enemy capitol.
Bash enemy capitol which has nothing twice. Enemy warriors went after barb camp. Win.

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on standard map with zulu

morario84 said:

I need help with warmongering as well.. Anyone else have some helpful vids? I play immortal

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Not sure if there's a particular aspect of dom games that you're seeking help with, but if it is domination-game diplomacy, I highly recommend Marbozir's LPs. He's so good at the diplomacy game that he has enabled himself to have expectations of trade that I find laughably audacious considering what he has done in the game. Things like expecting full gold value for luxury trades after having conquered three other civ capitals, or having the nerve to sign a research agreement after conquering a few cities. Almost seems arrogant, except the research agreement actually finishes! crazy jealous

KmDubya said:

Conquest is all about leveraging your strengths. If you have some awesome UU then beeline for it and use it for all it's worth. If not then go for primarily ranged units and focus fire.

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I think this is probably the best advice. Find where you will/might have an advantage and exploit it. For example, a small group of Mongolian horseman and keshiks can totally tearup a civ or two early on when armies are quite small. Even without UUs, there are a couple points on the tech tree where it is pretty advantageous. If you can get to crossbows early, they are quite a bit better than the previous units. Artillery (or units with improved +1 Range) are also a big advantage. On water maps, getting to frigates is a big advantage which can be leveraged if you get there first.

Same here, I just cannot pull a really early rush. The earliest would be with a swarm of Composite Bowmen and 3-4 own cities up. This is not the definition of "early" I guess (i.e. Compared to an Axemen rush in 4).

In most of my games, I am able to beat the first opponent way into the game with catas/trebuchets and then wait until I get Dynamite. That's where everybody else dies immediately. Playing on Emperor by the way.

I have no idea how to change that. Unless you are the Huns, conquering a city without siege units is a pain in the A and as soon as the city has a bad landcape (i.e. Hills surrounding it) it's next to impossible to conquer it early on.