China Super Army Potential - but do I want to use it?

I'm playing a game as China right now (Emperor difficulty), and it's around 30 AD, marathon length, huge map, 22 civs. My second city is located on Mt Kilimanjaro, so all my military units can get altitude training, and there is a militaristic city state nearby that can give me longbowmen. As soon as I get machinery, I can get an army of longbowmen and Chu-Ko-Nu with altitude training, and I feel as though it would be such a waste to not use it, but I feel like that's actually not the best idea at the moment.

I currently have 4 heavily populated cities (7-9 pop each), a good economy (60ish gpt), slightly ahead in culture, about even in science, and a good amount of happiness, so long as I keep city state friendships up and don't conquer things. Despite this amazing army potential, I can't help but feel like using my culture on more patronage trees (filled out liberty and gotten the patronage opener so far, but my culture is doing better now than earlier in the game) and just starting to buy up the city states is a better use of my money. Nobody around me is all that threatening, and with machinery coming pretty soon, I can fight any defensive wars pretty easily.

So, what should I do? Invest in this army immediately after I get machinery and start conquering, or wait and try to get city state friendships first, because I have enough money to get and maintain them right now, as long as I don't build up my army. Perhaps once all the city states on this continent are secure and I have a bit more happiness I can start conquering? This army will be pretty good for more than a thousand years probably, so I may not need to start immediately.

War doesn't have to be a money losing proposition, nor does it necessarily destroy happiness. If I were you, I would absolutely take advantage of your military situation. I never waste CKNs, and LB+CKN+elevation training is way too sweet to ignore.

If you don't feel like trashing your reputation, happiness, or gold, perhaps you could choose your closest rival (preferably one who doesn't give you much trade) and trash their land without engaging in too much actual conquest. Only take their best cities with unique luxes. Pillage to pay for your army, take workers, murder religious units, and generally make it impossible for them to be a threat in the future. In the meantime, CKNs generate insane XP and GG points just by standing around shooting at cities. Use the war to train your CKNs to get range, and your LB to get logistics.

Depends what's for taking next door. If you have a highly competitive civ like alex, it might be a good idea to take him out before he starts snagging CS's and attacking you eventually.

Also, if you have a wonderspammer right next to you, it would be a good idea as well.

Wu Zetian is a warmonger, but if you feel like your economy is good, a diplo victory takes sooo much less effort than trying to warmonger your way through. Also, the penalty won't sit too well with others.

arand86 said:

Depends what's for taking next door. If you have a highly competitive civ like alex, it might be a good idea to take him out before he starts snagging CS's and attacking you eventually.

Also, if you have a wonderspammer right next to you, it would be a good idea as well.

Wu Zetian is a warmonger, but if you feel like your economy is good, a diplo victory takes sooo much less effort than trying to warmonger your way through. Also, the penalty won't sit too well with others.

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Declaring war incurs very little warmonger penalty, and the penalty goes away quickly. As long as you don't take too many cities (or rather too high a percentage of a civ's cities) your reputation will be fine.

Hmm, so declare war on someone, pillage their lands, get a nice peace treaty, spend the money from this on city states to avoid losing my momentum here, repeat with someone else? That does sound pretty tempting. As long as I divert my trade routes away from said player, I can probably avoid getting in over my head too. I tend to think of war in terms of cities, and I've never been able to make good use of pillaging. I always think that it's kind of useless if I'm going to have to repair that area as soon as I take their cities. I'm still a couple hundred years away from machinery, so I don't need to make the decisions immediately. I'm just going to need to be careful, because this is way too awesome a scenario to waste.

Yeah, you can do SO much damage to another civ, even to the point of crippling their chances of winning, without ever taking a single city. Decimate their field armies, pillage everything within sight, capture those trade routes, and steal those workers, all while accruing xp and generating GGs. The civ(s) will fall behind in every department, and depending on how long you keep it up, they may never recover to a point of competitiveness with other civs.

Your setup makes this an ideal scenario. Depending on your border length & terrain type, and the civs in question, you may not even need to launch into full war production to accomplish it. CKNs and Longbowmen able to traverse hills with ease make border patrol and hit-and-run tactics a cinch.