Sacrafice infrastructure for Army?

Chemical Toilet · Feb 22, 2014

So I just picked up Civ again after a long break. I've usually always played tall and won peaceful victories but that feels sort of boring now and I want to go on a genocidal conquest.

My question is, if I plan on playing a domination game right away, do I ignore my infrastructure in favor of producing units (Assume I am taking the honor tree)? I'm used to thinking buildings like the Monument, Shrine, and Granary are absolutely necessary... But this always leads me to feel like 90% of the buildings are necessary, and I never really have time to produce units. Are there certain buildings I absolutely need and some I should stay away from?

I already know to stay away from wonders for the most part. Although I usually try to grab the Oracle or Colossus/Petra.

I play on Quick King

troublmaker · Feb 22, 2014

A lot of the really early units (Warriors, Archers, and Catapults) will just bring down your gold per turn... and these are really not the units you're going to be conquering people with. You're best to make a couple of units to deal with barbs (and of course a scout) and work on your infrastructure until you get the tech to do damage.

Once you have that tech and a few cities up you can mass produce a very powerful army to crush your opponents with relative ease.

Chemical Toilet · Feb 22, 2014

Around which technologies should I be building this army? Gunpowder? Medieval?

joncnunn · Feb 22, 2014

If you have G&K or BNW; and your target mostly has coastal cities; skip the army entirely. (Other than the ranged units to defend your cities)
Instead have one designated naval unit production city pre build 4 Frigates as your first naval ranged unit and 4 Privateers (for the later build Armory first). When you get the tech for Frigates, upgrade your ranged naval units and you now have a force that can easily one by one take all your opponents coastal cities. This is much easier than the traditional army route.

mclericp · Feb 22, 2014

dont forget artillery! Research dynamite then rule the world.
*and oh, the AI almost never research dynamite before the rest of the era's techs*

Bechhold · Feb 22, 2014

Butter before Guns. Build your economy before you conquer.

troublmaker · Feb 22, 2014

Chemical Toilet said:
Around which technologies should I be building this army? Gunpowder? Medieval?

It's pretty situational and dependent on your difficulty as well. If you're playing on archipeligo maybe your "go" point will be when you unlock the gaelass and can siege from the ocean. Cavalry units are your "hit and runners" so maybe you'll want to wait for knight or even later cavalry so you can abuse their mobility. A lot of people will even wait as far as getting a Range-3 artillery so that they can stack them, destroy the enemy's army without taking any losses and then taking the capitol.

Sid Simelia · Feb 23, 2014

If going for domination I like to build an army, go honor and just rush everyone from the start. Build a couple scouts, a spearman, and 5-6 archers while you grow and then work on buildings and wonders later. Just keep your guys alive, upgrade them and work on happiness and keep conquering. By never resting your army you don't have to worry about the unit maintenance you can just get rich through the spoils of war.
This probably isn't the easiest way, but it can be a lot of fun.

Vitruvius · Feb 23, 2014

Depends on your civ. Some civs have UUs which dominate an era and you really need to time your conquest during that period of time or just make alot of those UUs so you can retain their promotions after upgrade. At that point, you might have to sacrifice infrastructure. But dont sacrifice infrastructure building units that are just gonna sit around or too weak to really conduct a proper conquest.

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lithium97 · Feb 24, 2014

Another thing you can do is do side quests for militarisic CS's. If you get 2 of these as allies, they'll give you a decent army so you can focus on infrastructure

One easy way is to find and destroy barb camps.

GoStu · Feb 25, 2014

Generally, unless you're going all-out aggression early for some reason you'll stick to approximately a ranged unit per city, with an infantry or two to hold the line. Large standing armies are an opportunity cost in production and a drain only our money to maintain, plus cost a leg to upgrade later (especially if you're not running much of a surplus).

It's better to focus on infrastructure for the most part, building your production capacity so you can later generate an army if you need it.

soprof · Feb 25, 2014

Game would be boring if there was an answer.

Think carefully before building buildings which consume GPT.

Around which technologies should I be building this army? Gunpowder? Medieval?

Archers of all kinds, esp. crossbows.

Like we love to joke with our friends: brasilian crossbowmen are the best crossbowmen.

danaphanous · Feb 25, 2014

joncnunn said:
If you have G&K or BNW; and your target mostly has coastal cities; skip the army entirely. (Other than the ranged units to defend your cities)
Instead have one designated naval unit production city pre build 4 Frigates as your first naval ranged unit and 4 Privateers (for the later build Armory first). When you get the tech for Frigates, upgrade your ranged naval units and you now have a force that can easily one by one take all your opponents coastal cities. This is much easier than the traditional army route.

THIS. And I would say start building before frigates. Galleas's upgrade into them and you can get some experience fighting barb boats. triremes go to caravels and become instant exploring machines--later: destroyers. the beauty of starting with boats, as he said is hit and run is super easy with a fleet, land units can't touch you, and if you start with privateers, the special promo allows you to capture enemy ships and add them to your fleet allowing for quick growth of your navy. This capture ability upgrades to destroyers making the perfect assault fleet full of great exp from the medieval era.

danaphanous · Feb 25, 2014

Land wars are fun too, but having sea support makes it way more fun and tends to be quicker/cost less. Cities are difficult to take without siege units so start when you get your first ones and keep going from there. Cavalry units are great for scouting/flanking/harassing support/pillaging resources. Remember the enemy gets a large combat penalty if you destroy the resources they need to support their army: (horses, iron, oil)

Callonia · Feb 26, 2014

There's a way to gain GPT as well, when I have fully researched the tech tree, I start selling off every single Library, university, Labs, etc. Because they are useless when tech tree is finished, other than researching the future tech for silly score increase xD

Sacrafice infrastructure for Army?

Chemical Toilet

Chieftain

troublmaker

Warlord

Chemical Toilet

Chieftain

joncnunn

Senior Java Wizard

mclericp

Warlord

Bechhold

King

troublmaker

Warlord

Sid Simelia

Warlord

Vitruvius

King

lithium97

Chieftain

GoStu

King

soprof

Warlord

danaphanous

religious fanatic

danaphanous

religious fanatic

Callonia

Deity

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