Going To War Early - Now An Advantage?

Hello Folks,

I apologize in advance if this has already been asked...

It appears that the AI is much less aggressive in early warring with others. Is it to your advantage to go to war early, or, at least be much more aggressive in your war efforts throughout the game to take advantage of the AIs seeming passivity?

Thanks,

Marc

Notin my experience ... Usually leaves you crippled by debt and unhappiness

Yes. Go to war in the first few turns ONLY to kidnap a worker. Sue for peace a few turns later with no warmonger penalties.

If you can manage to build a decent army without throwing your economy out of whack and have enough happiness to support your new conquests, then early warmongering can be productive. I would highly recommend razing cities and building new ones when you have the capacity to do so.

The nice thing about it is that the AI has a pretty poor military in the early game because they have the same money problems you do. It's just hard to do it without setting yourself back.

Completely situational.

Sometimes early war will only serve to harm your economy, happiness and relationships with the AI. Other times early war can be the difference between life and death of your civilization.

In my first BNW I went to war with the Byzantiams. Theodora settled 4 tiles away from my capital so that decided it. I declared war and took all three of her cities. Relationships with the other AI players were actually very good during and after the war. I think they new she was being a little aggressive.

In my current game I am currently planning a war with my neighbour, Austria. It's just me and them on my continent and I fancy it all for myself (plus Austria is one of those take-out-on-sight-civs).

Yes war hurts your trade/economy, some AI relationships and puts most things on hold for a while but in the mid-long term it can be very beneficial. If it is necessary/you fancy waging war then just take things slowly and prepare before setting off.

I have found it to be less than optimal. By waiting you get your core cities up quicker and the cities that you conquer are much more developed.

Otherwise you get some poor cities that have to be annexed to be of any use which results in happiness and gold issues compared to just building your own.

Going to war profitably is a lot harder, but the rewards can be good (especially if you're on a continent with only one or two rivals - clearing them out early gives you lots of room to sprawl)

The big thing is that BNW heavily rewards more balanced empires - you need culture to protect your happiness and earn policies, you need science to keep your army and cities advancing, you need gold... LOTS of gold for diplomatic reasons, you need happies and they're not as easy to come by anymore.

Early wars tend to rely on pushing your whole early game towards the military, focusing on it to the exclusion of other things to get a leg up on the opponent in an era where the difference in tech will only be a few points of strength and cities are still hard to take. It's a LOT easier to focus on growing your own empire until at least trebuchets become available and then go on a Medieval rampage

Which doesn't mean you CAN'T get a lot out of early war - I had a fantastic game as Attilla where I had scooped three countries (out of twelve) off the map by Medieval and had enough territory all to myself to go wide and carry on as I pleased.

I am of 2 minds on early war. I had taken Swedens Capitol very early and destroyed his other cities. He would not stop sending settlers towards me. Even though he had a nice cut off with room for more cities.

So, I stopped everything and built up a take over army. Worked out great on that end. But for ever after I was known as a Warmonger. It was about 1500 bc, it was 1782 AD before I got my one and only friend in that game. Now I think a lot more before going to war. Do not get me wrong, I will setup a picket line to keep my border clear of AI's. But now I just kill the Settlers and escorts and wait for peace.

Has anyone tried going to war just to starve/pillage cities? You get gold from pillaging tiles, free exp for your units (play it safe since you're not trying to take over a city), and halt an enemy AI's growth. This can be used to your benefit (of course it depends on the game situation). And you don't get warmonger penalty for taking cities.

BroOfTheSun said:

Has anyone tried going to war just to starve/pillage cities? You get gold from pillaging tiles, free exp for your units (play it safe since you're not trying to take over a city), and halt an enemy AI's growth. This can be used to your benefit (of course it depends on the game situation). And you don't get warmonger penalty for taking cities.

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I have read a few people who do this. Most of the time I will remove the offending AI's cities and place new ones. The capitol though is almost always worth keeping. I would much rather have trade partners. But once the AI goes in to settle mode, they just plain go nuts.

I have an England in my game who is on every damn island out there. Which in itself is awesome that England is doing this. But they just do not stop until there is no space left.

If the AI would not settle near you when they say they will stop, I would have a lot fewer wars.

Randall_Flagg said:

I have read a few people who do this. Most of the time I will remove the offending AI's cities and place new ones. The capitol though is almost always worth keeping. I would much rather have trade partners. But once the AI goes in to settle mode, they just plain go nuts.

I have an England in my game who is on every damn island out there. Which in itself is awesome that England is doing this. But they just do not stop until there is no space left.

If the AI would not settle near you when they say they will stop, I would have a lot fewer wars.

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I use the same strategy. Most of my wars are started from AI settling nearby, after I tell them to stop. In my previous post, I wanted to talk about using early warmongering to gain money and stop a neighbor AI's growth. Not by taking their cities, but by pillaging their lands (for gold) and starving their cities.

The advantages to this in the early game is that you do not need a large army to take cities (less maintenance), you get extra gold and exp (pillaging and some fighting), you weaken your neighbors, and stop their growth/city expansion. You also take less of a warmonger hit, since you aren't taking any cities.

Be more like vikings, and less like conquerors.

I'm playing Assyria at the moment, and I didn't really expect to be going to war before getting my Towers up and running, however I pretty much had to. You see, Korea marched a settler across the continent and put a city on my coastal side. I could not allow that to stand. So I took it and razed it with my ancient era units. I got Sailing for free for my efforts. All my neighbors have a warmongering modifier towards me now, but none denounced me or hate me for it. I didn't lose anything because I never altered my build order to pump out units. I wasn't trading with Korea, so I didn't lose money.

So in this case, I consider it a net gain for early warmongering. Korea has been duly punished for dropping cities across the continent. I do hope they recover. I'd like to farm techs from them again.