War mongering

So, new player to Civ 5 here, but long veteran of the franchise. I won my first game on Civ5 on prince, cultural victory. For my second game I'm bumping it up to emperor and going to try a warmongering strategy.

I'm used to Civ 4, where early war could be very profitable so long as you had enough commerce to keep from going into the red and the war went well, as in you won most battles.

I get the impression this isn't so in Civ 5, or at least that early war is far less profitable. I'm not even sure if conquering city states is ever really worth it.

Another thing in Civ 4 was you could get vassal states, which was very useful for a conquest victory.

I'm guessing in Civ 5 conquering cities for the sake of conquering cities is only really worth it if you take a very developed city, like a capital, and/or you take important wonders or luxury resources. I'm guessing that many cities should be razed.
For this game I'll try out Rome. It may not be the best warring nation, but I like the Romans and want to give them at try.

Any tips on early warmongering and a warlike game in general?

You are right about profitability and razing cities.
Only keep cities in great locations and ones with wonders.

Rome is good for early war, strong Unique Units.

Ranged>Melee.
Fortify melee units and tank hits with them while ranged units dish out the damage. Ranged units are also good for killing cities.

Wow, the barbarians in this game are really annoying. In Civ 4 even on high difficulty levels I did not have 2 barb galleys and 2 barb warriors invading my land on turn 36, which is what is happening to me this game. Turn 36... all I've built so far is a fishing boat, a scout, and a worker, and I had to rush-buy a warrior since mine died in the forest after being surrounded by other barbs, and I can't build a galley in time to protect my fish if that barb galley is about to kill it. Geeez... the barbs get started really early in Civ5

Correct, it's an extremely rare instance in which killing a city-state is worth it... out of my hundreds and hundreds of games, I went on the offensive against a city-state only as Spain (maybe twice for the natural wonder yields) and Germany once (only because the city-state was at an incredibly strategic geographic location). They are there to befriend, not kill.

I'm currently playing an early conquest game with Rome and contrary to what others might say, early war can be very profitable. I try to clear my continent before hitting astronomy in order to avoid diplomatic penalties from civs on the other continent. I prefer to play differently than the general recommended cookie-cutter tradition strategy, so I often cash-rush units (especially early unique units) instead of settlers or libraries (I prefer to grab the Great Library if possible and slingshot to a quick one city National College before bothering with any settlers until afterward). In my current game, my scout upgraded to archer from ruins, I bought three archers and upgraded to composite bowmen (it's cheaper that way), upgraded my warrior to a legion, bought a ballista and built another and proceeded to plow through Spain, France and the Huns with ease. By settling fewer cities at this point, it's easier to absorb the happiness hit when swallowing rival empires. Surely there are more efficient ways to do things, but that's what I find fun and entertaining.

How do you not go bankrupt early game and how do you have enough gold for all those rush-buys? I guess not expanding helps keep costs down.

Early war can be hard. I would pick the Monguls or the Zulus or England but the war has to wait till they get their unique units. I would also try Assyria who has a nice advantage or the Huns.
But money and happiness will be a problem and what you have to work out. You need to raise cites for sure. And have lots of workers to connect the ones you keep
If you have no trade route options you can sell a captured city to a civ that you are not going to attack right away to establish trade with that city. You will not get a lot for the city but the trade can save you.

And at a high level the other civs will be able to tech fast so you also have to keep up on science or they will have riflemen when you get to them with your arrows . I would build libraries and the national college before really going all out war.

I would plunder a lot. Set up trade with city states (and never attack them)
I would try to prioritize capturing the cities that build the money wonders first if I can, Petra, Colossus, Machu Picchu.

First off, welcome to Civ 5! I can't really comment on how it compares to past games in the franchise as Civ 5 was my first Civilization game, but I have played it pretty extensively

In regards to early war, I would say that, if done correctly, it's profitable; if done incorrectly, it's crippling. It also depends on the game you're playing. On Vanilla and G&K, early war was a little more forgiving; BNW, however, made it a little harder. The focus in BNW shifted to a more alliance based game.

In regards to City States, it is rarely worth it to conquer them. The AI really dislikes it and will make the rest of the game much more difficult. The only time I've ever done it is when they're allied with a Civ that declares war on me and I need to go through them to get to that Civ.

The whole "raze vs keep" thing is really just down to happiness and utility. If you can support the unhappiness hit and the city gives you something (coastal access, new luxury, strategic resources, etc), keep the city. I only raze if I definitely can't support it - the extra land is usually a huge benefit in my opinion.

Rome is a pretty solid civilization. Their benefits lean a bit more towards the warmonger side, but the UA is great regardless. It'll help the puppets get up and running a bit quicker, which is always nice. I'm also fond of China if we're talking Vanilla Civs for conquest. The extra Great Generals and double shot Chos run through other Civs. If you have BNW, Assyria is pretty good when playing on a higher difficulty as you can generally catch up on Tech pretty quickly with their UA. If you really want early war, the Huns are probably the best at it, though anyone with early UUs will do well (Aztecs, Egypt, etc)

Good luck!

noto2 said:

How do you not go bankrupt early game and how do you have enough gold for all those rush-buys? I guess not expanding helps keep costs down.

Click to expand...

I had a number of luxuries and strategic resources and traded them to the AI for heaps of gold, I found some gold from ruins and was the first to discover a number of city-states at 30 gold per pop so it can add up. But yeah, it didn't hurt that Spain found a couple of natural wonders first, had a treasury of 1000 gold and I was able to quickly befriend them and trade my luxuries for 240 each, that definitely helped. I did go into the red while conquesting but plundering gold from cities kept me afloat.

noto2 said:

How do you not go bankrupt early game and how do you have enough gold for all those rush-buys? I guess not expanding helps keep costs down.

Click to expand...

I am still struggling with cash flow early game, but it seems to getting a little easier. As compared to GnK, mostly I had to ease up on the roads and make trade routes a higher priority. Rush buying units is only for when I am really desperate. I have be trying to get better at saving up for library in last expo before NC and/or settlers. Most games it is hard enough just not going into the red!

Do you do tradition?
I play wargames for the most part and I expand but I always work to make my capital a pretty good city with a high population.