Conquest Pointers Needed

[bovinespy]

Hello all. Recovering builder here, starting to really enjoy the war aspects of cIV. After my last space ship victory, I said to myself: "OK - Now I've seen the Space Ship, Cultural, and Domination Victory movies several times (especially the Space Ship one - rather lame), but there's one I haven't seen yet. The Conquest Victory!" So, after reading the boards and doing some thinking, I decided to take Napoleon's France out for a test drive.

I usually play on Prince level, Large Fractal/Continents/Terra, with all victory conditions enabled. (I always play on Epic speed.) Just to have a little fun, though, I dropped down to Noble, took a Pangea, and disabled the Domination Victory. My AI opponents were default for that size (9? I think).

I don't want to turn this into an AAR, but just to give as brief of a game recap as possible. After Paris, I quickly settled three other cities on the southern end of the land mass. Was able to get most early wonders (marble was nearby), including SH, Oracle, GL, Parth, HG. Built National Epic in Paris (where SH, Oracle, and GL were), so with 32 GPP/turn, quickly popped GP's (used to grab Theology, most of Civil Service, build Christian Shrine) and GS's (used for Academy and super-specialist). With decent tech edge, went into Theocracy and overwhelmed my Arab neighbor, who conveniently had built both the Pyramids and the Hindu Shrine. Got 5 nice cities off him, only having to raze one crappy site. All cities were near my homeland and were quickly cottaged (as was Paris, which in Bureaucracy was pulling close to 100 beakers/turn), so my economy was still doing OK (80% science about 4-5 techs ahead of closest competitor). Now things get interesting...

I beelined for Gunpowder (1st time I'd ever done that in cIV), pausing slightly to pick up Feudalism, and starting around 1100AD, I began cranking out 8XP Musketeers (even faster being in Police State - thanks for the Pyramids, Sal!) to augment my already swollen armies. I then launched my French Blitzkrieg about 1180AD on two neighbors simultaneously, Alexander and Montezuma (also the 1st time in cIV I've ever launched 2 wars at the same time). Seeing as how the best my enemies had were axes/spears/archers, my advance was rapid. This is where the Musketeer really shines, IMHO. Most of the time, they were able to take walled cities by storm, not even having to wait for the bulk of my army to catch up. If you get them early enough, the Musketeer is almost like a medieval tank!

But this is where my troubles started. You see, I never really let go of my builder mindset. I had captured all these cities, and instead of putting them to my torch, I said: "Hmm... this one has cows and stone. Gotta keep that one. Ooh - and that one has wheat, horse, and spice? Can't raze that one." Long story somewhat shorter, I ended up keeping every one of the cities I conquered (about 6 now), and my research has fallen from 80%, to 70%, and now down to 60%. I'm beelining for Communism and State Property, but that's going to take a while, even if I don't keep anything else I take. Meanwhile, the window of opportunity for my Musketeers is closing fast, as my more distant and advanced enemies are already switching over to Longbows. I think I made a mess of a good situation by not fully committing to the "Conquest mindset". Could some of you Conquest pros help me out?

1. How do you know what to keep and what to raze?

2. How do you not fall too far behind in research, but still maintain good production for military units?

3. Do you have lengthy conslidation/infrastructure periods?

4. What's the fastest you got it done (Conquest Victory) on Large/Epic?

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

[NuWorld]

1. Keep the one that can sustain culture pressure from neighbours, of course if it's some crap city raze it by all means. Sometimes even conquered capitol will flip in few turns to a neighbour, I usually go for neighbours first and spread my culture along. If it's an early war you might keep all you conquer, but after 1000AD I wouldn't keep a city if it's going to be choked by 3rd party culture.

2. Actually, 60% is not bad at all, when you drop below 30% you start worrying. You will drop, always, organized trait can offset this by alot on higher difficulties. You need your wars to be swift and leave no witness, once you're after a civ, finish it off or you'll regret it later.

3. In new cities I always rush only courthouses, other improvements are build as needed, as I just found those cities. Granaries have priority. Depending on military losses, I usually take 30-40 turns before next assault.

4. I always get domination before conquest. I play standard/marathon/pangaea/18 civs, conquest is next to impossible in such setup, keeping cities gets you domination, if you raze other civs will resettle in few turns.

Get/raze what you can with muskets, rebuild and wait for grenadiers/cavalry before next campaign.

[Pantastic]

In general, 60% is my target science rate, if it goes higher then it's a sign I need to conquer somebody. It's the total number of beakers that affect your tech level, not the percentage. This is especially true if you're running lots of specialists (mmm, representation), I've stayed tech leader as Alexander while running at a 20% science rate.

[IglooDude]

3 - Yes, you need to take a breather sometimes, to heal, upgrade, and reposition your army; to let captured cities push out borders; and to let war weariness die down.

[Krikkitone]

Well if you are going for conquest Raze ALL cities unless
1. Holy*
2. Have a Good Wonder in them
3. Beachhead
4. give access to a Strategic Military resource (Iron, Copper, horses, Ivory, Oil..Uranium, Aluminum)

5. If the city is within your 'Core' area (~20-40% of the map)

*Some Holy Cities should be razed if they have no Shrine, and few Followers to get mad at you.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally Posted by NuWorld

1. Keep the one that can sustain culture pressure from neighbours

If you zoom out to the strategy layer, you get get a sense of where the real cultural boundaries are. It helps plan your ambitions appropriately.

Example

[pigswill]

Well I ain't no conquest pro (strictly amateur in all victories) but I'd largely agree with Krikkitone. Think in terms of additionality (what does the city give that you haven't already got (wonders,shrines,resources)), internal trade routes (keeping your cities linked up so they get to share all resources) and resource denial (obviously depending on how far along you are, later game you may not bother with copper but you might bother with oil).

[NuWorld]

Originally Posted by VoiceOfUnreason

If you zoom out to the strategy layer, you get get a sense of where the real cultural boundaries are. It helps plan your ambitions appropriately.

I see your point, sometimes I split conquest in 2 steps: take citiest nearest to your territory, wait 4-5 turns to replenish the culture and then move on. I pretty much run free speech and caste while conquering, that way I can expand my culture quickly in just few turns (30/300 culture breakpoints on marathon, after that I move on with conquest).

Map, from your link, tells alot. Rostov is suffocated, must raze. Yaroslavl, potential keeper (though dunno what lays south). Novgorod, I would raze with pleasure, can't really keep because it's close to Edo and it's "stealing" tiles from Yekaterinburg and Yaroslavl. St.Petersburg and Yekaterinburg might hold of Berlin with backup culture from Moscow. In given situation I would capture Moscow, raze Rostov and Novgorod, try to keep Yaroslavl. Stop. Build defense on that river west and south of Moscow to hold off any counterattacks from St.Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. When new borders settle, go for St.Pete & Yekaterinburg and keep them both, IMHO none of those 2 would be able to survive on their own, together they might have a chance. If you raze them you give up so much land to Germans/Indians, not acceptable. Defensively, they're in excellent position, those 2 rivers that run north and east of Berlin are god given. Were you able to hold on to St.Petersburg in that game of yours?

[cabert]

i'm by all means no conquest pro (can't remember a conquest win )
but it seems obvious that it's easier to whip a 3 city civ than a 30 city civ.

And you don't need those cities. Just be sure to leave no room for others = going forward, razing everything except (see krikkitone) and planning ahead (no, you shall not kill saladin and leave lizzy alone to take the land : kill both or start by saladin's cities at the opposite of lizzy's side).

If you keep a city, be sure to whip as much troops out of it as you can. You don't need the population (keep only useful people = those working high value tiles for a start). Whipping a granary first is the best move, then a forge when available, then troops forever. Some culture can be useful.


My plan would be :
- axe rush ASAP, killing of as many neigbours as possible, keeping only VERY good cities (production cities are best)
- consolidation while researching construction (you need roads everywhere, travel time is sooo long for your troops)
- cat rush (some spears can come along, best available between swords/mace/elephants too) until there is no one left
- captured workers are useful for chop rushing around your last captured cities and for road building. Improving comes after that (exception : lacking iron/copper/ivory/horses and maybe some other ressources, like gold or silver)

edit : i didn't put any consolidation after cat rush, and i mean you don't need any consolidation since there is no "after cat rush".

General fact : it's easier to conquer small maps.
You would have guessed alone, but if you want to see the movie, try a tiny or even duel map.

[ese-aSH]

- dont keep a city captured after 1500, it will be too long to make it efficient (eventually keep good wonders, thats all)
- never leave a 1 city civ, that guy will hate you and bribe the others
- try to make 1 good ally that will help you in all wars (and be the last target for your army)
- prefer blitzkrieg : attack someone far behind in tech so you wont loose your unit (and still gain experience that will be usefull). use a large amout of siege machine (8 catapults are necessary to totally break down a city defenses in 1 turn, then sacrifice 2 or 3 of them). assuming you capture a city each 5-10 turns you will never have to worry much about your science rate (capturing cities gives cash )
- never engage yourself in long term siege, units in ennemy territory cost much, you better use a few fast moving unit (commando promotion is great there) to pillage the land (keep roads, they will be usefull later).
- if a city is to be kept, clear the area before taking it to be sure your cultural influence will allow it to work all tiles.
- stop wars a few turns before reaching a tech that will allow an important upgrade for your units : regroup on your territory and prepare cash for the upgrade
- never stop unit production (specially siege weapons that do not need special promotions and can be produced everywhere), if you think you have too many units, send them to war (if your next target is overwhelming you in tech you must have 5-8 siege weapon to sacrifice on each city)

[ChicagoCubs]

When I am in the Conquest mindset, I'll use the following for keeping/razing cities...

1. Since I am a shrine freak, I will keep all of the Holy Cities for the various religions.

2. Plan out your "Path of War". I position cities along the way as resting and reinforcements locations. For a two move unit, I plan on having the cities about six road tiles apart. This allows you to keep leap-frogging units once you are rolling. It also gives you an "Alamo" if the fit hits the shan.

3. With #2 in mind, are there any resources that you are missing?

I am a recovering builder also. Just remember if you have 1 cow already, the second cow doesn't do you much good. Also, since we are in Conquest mode here, you'll eventually lose all of your trading partners; therefore, excess resources do not benefit you.

[ownedbyakorat]

A 60% science slider tells me I still have a good deal of expansion to do, if I can. Only when it gets below 30-40% do I go into retrench-the-economy mode. Ideally my games are repeating cycles of expansion and consolidation.

If I am planning to conquer an opponent, I generally have decided which cities I will keep and which will be razed before I invade. Obviously capital city sites and shrine/wonder sites are a good deal more valuable than the average city and in general should be kept. For the most part, everything else should be razed unless there is a military reason not to do so (e.g., airbasing, key strategic position). Most especially I seek to raze cities near other civs' cultural borders, those cities will be an uphill fight to keep even if they are prime due to the nearby civ's culture eating up all your city production squares.