Early wars

Previously, when going for a domination victory, I'd focus on science, gold, and production with a few tall cities in the early and mid game before using my tech advantage and production advantage to win. I'd be able to snag a few wonders too and basically all would go well.

Now I'm trying to do some conquering early with civs like japan, persia, and the zulus. 4 problems have come up. Emperor and immortal difficulty.

1. In order to take over neighbours I need a sizeable force. This means sacrificing building things like libraries and markets in order to quickly get an army. This leads to a tech disadvantage where i'm frequently at the bottom of the list.

2. The lack of trading routes and gold buildings coupled with high unit maintenance cripples my economy.

3. Units become obsolete very fast. I conquer my neighbour with samurai and when I turn to spain they already have tercios and cities with arsenals. I have a large offensive army yet I cannot conquer my next target because of the tech disadvantage.

4. Diplomacy. EVERYONE denounces me, refuses to trade with me, and eventually declares war on me. Like in one turn every trade route I have collapses, I lose several imported luxuries tanking my happiness, and basically diplomacy shuts down.

I can deal with 1-3 but #4 is what kills me. Even civs like the huns who apparently tolerate warmongerers denounce me once I declare war on my second civ. It's annoying as hell because Civ V has focused more and more on diplomacy with things like trade routes for your gold and RAs requiring DOFs yet the other leaders have the personality of spiteful and whiny girls.

civIII said:

Previously, when going for a domination victory, I'd focus on science, gold, and production with a few tall cities in the early and mid game before using my tech advantage and production advantage to win. I'd be able to snag a few wonders too and basically all would go well.

Now I'm trying to do some conquering early with civs like japan, persia, and the zulus. 4 problems have come up. Emperor and immortal difficulty.

4. Diplomacy. EVERYONE denounces me, refuses to trade with me, and eventually declares war on me. Like in one turn every trade route I have collapses, I lose several imported luxuries tanking my happiness, and basically diplomacy shuts down.

I can deal with 1-3 but #4 is what kills me. Even civs like the huns who apparently tolerate warmongerers denounce me once I declare war on my second civ. It's annoying as hell because Civ V has focused more and more on diplomacy with things like trade routes for your gold and RAs requiring DOFs yet the other leaders have the personality of spiteful and whiny girls.

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I've never played Brave New World, but I have had some success with early warring in vanilla.

The biggest difference that I can see in early warring between BNW and vanilla is the loss of international trade routes when the AI unilaterally denounces you across the board.

When you go aconquering, do you wipe out every single city of an enemy?

If you do, perhaps Firaxis still hasn't fixed the AI loophole where the AI diplomacy is more lenient with warmongers that allow a Civ to surrender with one or two meager cities than it is to warmongers that simply finish Civs off.

mintcandy said:

If you do, perhaps Firaxis still hasn't fixed the AI loophole where the AI diplomacy is more lenient with warmongers that allow a Civ to surrender with one or two meager cities than it is to warmongers that simply finish Civs off.

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Nope the warmonger penalty is now based on the percentage of cities taken, which combined with the reduction in AI expansion means you generally end up with huge penalties in early game.

SicklyAlbatross said:

Nope the warmonger penalty is now based on the percentage of cities taken, which combined with the reduction in AI expansion means you generally end up with huge penalties in early game.

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Huh, go fig. :: shrugs ::

The theoretical part of me is wondering "Percentage of what? Total number of cities conquered that were founded by Civ X/total number of cities founded by Civ X? Total number of cities conquered/total number of cities founded by everyone?"

However, the cynic in me goes back to the main economic difference in warring early betwixt BNW and vanilla...namely, the income from international trade routes being cut off abruptly.

Vanilla had no such game mechanic, which means that early war in vanilla should have been impossible. Yet, early war in vanilla is more than possible, which leads me to believe that I'm either missing something significant or that the OP is too dependent on international trade income.

Or perhaps Firaxis got rid of the gold reward after successfully capturing a city? I can see how getting rid of that reward AND international trade abruptly going away could make early total conquest impossible.

I still don't understand why people expect other civs to be chums with them when you're going for conquest. If they think you're going for a domination victory, they know that you're going after them eventually; what benefit does it provide them to help you out and give you the cash to fund your wars?

Just remember you can still trade with city-states. You won't get the beakers but at least you'll be able to stay positive in gpt.

mintcandy said:

Huh, go fig. :: shrugs ::

The theoretical part of me is wondering "Percentage of what? Total number of cities conquered that were founded by Civ X/total number of cities founded by Civ X? Total number of cities conquered/total number of cities founded by everyone?"

However, the cynic in me goes back to the main economic difference in warring early betwixt BNW and vanilla...namely, the income from international trade routes being cut off abruptly.

Vanilla had no such game mechanic, which means that early war in vanilla should have been impossible. Yet, early war in vanilla is more than possible, which leads me to believe that I'm either missing something significant or that the OP is too dependent on international trade income.

Or perhaps Firaxis got rid of the gold reward after successfully capturing a city? I can see how getting rid of that reward AND international trade abruptly going away could make early total conquest impossible.

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Uh... No, gold from plundering is still there. What vanilla had that BNW doesn't is gold from tiles; a conquered city in vanilla could be immediately profitable if there's a river running somewhere. BNW cities run at zero gold without any trade routes going to or from them.

To me, this makes early warmongering undo-able also. It's a real shame that the AI just spend their time teaming up on the human player rather than stopping that crazy runaway *cough* Sweden. Futhermore, they're all buddy-buddy with that AI. The initial score lead you may get seem crazy, but by the early industrial era (on emperor, which is challenge-mode for me) my empire is lying in ruins.

I've actually seen the opposite of that. Whenever I end up in the corner of the map it becomes very easy for me to play the runaways against each other; I get to watch the world burn as I coast to a more peaceful victory uninhibited.

Arachnofiend said:

Uh... No, gold from plundering is still there. What vanilla had that BNW doesn't is gold from tiles; a conquered city in vanilla could be immediately profitable if there's a river running somewhere. BNW cities run at zero gold without any trade routes going to or from them.

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Hmmm...that's a bit vague to me.

Let me see if I really understand what was just said.

Cities in BNW do not generate gold unless they are connected to the capital, right? I'm fairly confident you weren't talking about international trade routes, after all.

Furthermore, in BNW, tiles adjacent to rivers do not have the +1 gold production that they did in vanilla and Gods and Kings? Or is it that it is flat out impossible to work tiles for gold in BNW?

If it's the latter, it makes a few subpar World Wonders (Colossus, I'm looking at you) even more worthless, but somehow I think it's the former.

If it IS the former....I can see how that would slow the rate at which early war can be conducted, due to the expense of maintaining prebuilt roads to an invasion target BEFORE invading, but I don't see how it would make early war grind to a halt.

Eh, maybe this concept on top of having less leeway to warmonger before no one trades with you is what causes negative cash flow before coming close to victory? I dunno, I figured that pillaging would make up for that shortfall.