Leaders for learning warmongering

I'm working on learning warmongering, at Noble level, and plan to work through games with various suitable leaders (starting with Julius Caesar, whom I was told was likely the easiest). I'm initially working on "early rush" strategies, using Sisiutil's guide. My question is: when I'm done with Julius, who should I try next?
Edit: I figured I should try the leaders with Aggressive and Charismatic, and would try most on a small pangaea map, low water, with an extra AI, so the game would go a little faster. The possibilities seemed to be as follows:

• Shaka (Aggressive): the Impi are fast-moving spearmen-replacements and need bronze.
• Alexander (Aggressive): The phalanx are axemen-replacements with bonus against chariots.
• Boudica (Aggressive and Charismatic): The Gallic Warrior is a swordsman-replacement so needs iron working, just like Rome's praetorians, so this isn't quite as 'rushed' as some of the others. For her UU and UB to shine she needs a lot of hills, so I figured a highlands map would work best, with 2 extra AIs because it's basically all land.
• Montezuma (Aggressive): the jaguars are weaker swordsmen who start with Woodsman I and require no resources to build, and the altar makes recovery from whipping easier.

Are there other early-rush leaders I should try? I know about the Inca quechua, and that Noble isn't the best for them because the AIs don't start with archery, so maybe I'd best reserve them for when I'm brave enough for Prince or wherever it is.

Are there strategy guides for the leaders with later maceman-replacement UUs? I presume Ragnar and Tokugawa don't generally do early rushes, but Ragnar sounded like a good leader for beginning to learn about attacks over oceans (but I'd probably make it easier on myself by using archipelago).

Finally, once upon a time (possibly with the Rome always-war GOTM with raging barbarians) someone said the best way to learn to deal with barbs is play with one opponent on some fairly large-sized map with raging barbs turned on. Is this sensible advice, and if so, is there any particular leader to go with? A charismatic one, because of all the fighting? I presume the Great Wall would be a no-no since you wouldn't be learning how to stop pillaging.

If you are going to try to learn warmongering, my recommendation would be to start with India, and learn the basic principles with regular troops, then later discover the joys the unique units bring.

If you really want to go nuts with raging barbs, drop into world builder on Turn 1 and give your opponent the Great Wall....

dalamb said:

I'm working on learning warmongering, at Noble level, and plan to work through games with various suitable leaders (starting with Julius Caesar, whom I was told was likely the easiest). I'm initially working on "early rush" strategies, using Sisiutil's guide. My question is: when I'm done with Julius, who should I try next?

I figured I should try the leaders with Aggressive and Charismatic, and would try most on a small pangaea map, low water, with an extra AI, so the game would go a little faster. The possibilities seemed to be as follows:

• Shaka (Aggressive): the Impi are fast-moving spearmen-replacements and need bronze.
• Alexander (Aggressive): The phalanx are axemen-replacements with bonus against chariots.
• Boudica (Aggressive and Charismatic): The Gallic Warrior is a swordsman-replacement so needs iron, just like Rome's praetorians, so this isn't quite as 'rushed' as some of the others. For her UU and UB to shine she needs a lot of hills, so I figured a highlands map would work best, with 2 extra AIs because it's basically all land.
• Montezuma (Aggressive): the jaguars are weaker swordsmen who start with Woodsman I and require no resources to build, and the altar makes recovery from whipping easier.

Are there other early-rush leaders I should try? I know about the Inca quechua, and that Noble isn't the best for them because the AIs don't start with archery, so maybe I'd best reserve them for when I'm brave enough for Prince or wherever it is.

Are there strategy guides for the leaders with later maceman-replacement UUs? I presume Ragnar and Tokugawa don't generally do early rushes, but Ragnar sounded like a good leader for beginning to learn about attacks over oceans (but I'd probably make it easier on myself by using archipelago).

Finally, once upon a time (possibly with the Rome always-war GOTM with raging barbarians) someone said the best way to learn to deal with barbs is play with one opponent on some fairly large-sized map with raging barbs turned on. Is this sensible advice, and if so, is there any particular leader to go with? A charismatic one, because of all the fighting? I presume the Great Wall would be a no-no since you wouldn't be learning how to stop pillaging.

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Cyrus (Charismatic, Imperialistic) with Immortals is a good early rush warmonger.

Dalmab,

I gotta agree with VoU, start with Asoka or Gandhi and learn how to war with them.

Now out of the leaders that are best at early warring/rushes

Shaka (UB and UU)
Monty
Al
Both egyptians
Both Mongols
Cyrus
HC

But I have found one of the best at the early rush is really a protective leader, Sitting Bull. Resourceless axes are very dangerous, the UB allows highly promoted archers, and he starts with fishing/agriculture so he can get food real fast. In 4 techs (mining/BW/hunting/archery) you can have one of the best early/unstoppable armies arround.

Boudica is not really equipped to do an early rush well as she requires some teching to establish her empire and get military built.


If I had to put my money on one it would be Shaka.

Well there's a lot more to warmongering than early rushes you know. I think you'd have a blast with Ragnar on an archipelago map. It would probably be best to hold off until Berzerkers though, however this is usually pretty easy to do on Archipelago as you are often isolated, or semi-isolated-- in the sense that attacking someone early would just take too much time because of the distances involved and the tedium of watching Galleys move around these large snakey landmasses. Another favorite is the Mongols... I prefer Kublai Khan, but ghengis works too. Again, there is a slight delay here as horseback riding is an expensive tech to research, but the insane mobility of Keshiks allows you to make gains on the lost time, and IMO it's still rushing this early in the game. I also like the British and their Redcoats, assuming you can restrain yourself and wait till rifling to begin a major war. There's a lot of options, but of them all I'd say Ragnar/Archipelago is your best bet for something new and exciting, or perhaps Kublai Khan/Great Plains for an earlier rush to get some more practice. Profitable warfare is about speed-- so fast ships and fast troops make all the difference in the world when you're just learning the ropes.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

If you are going to try to learn warmongering, my recommendation would be to start with India, and learn the basic principles with regular troops, then later discover the joys the unique units bring.

If you really want to go nuts with raging barbs, drop into world builder on Turn 1 and give your opponent the Great Wall....

Click to expand...

Aye, nothing like warmongering with Ghandi. I agree this is the best way to learn war mongering and tactics since you can't rely on a UU to do the work for you.

ISTM I'd eventually want to learn to warmonger with somebody like Ghandi, but I want to take things gradually, start with the ones where it's easier, gradually work up to the harder. It is still very difficult for me, psychologically, to start a war; I need all the help I can get!

I'll think over the rest of the advice, and probably edit some of it into the initial post.

Xurr said:

Aye, nothing like warmongering with Ghandi. I agree this is the best way to learn war mongering and tactics since you can't rely on a UU to do the work for you.

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I actually prefer Asoka because of the ORG trait. Asoka is better if you keep the land, Gandhi is better if you do it later or raze everthing and run a SE.

madscientist said:

Boudica is not really equipped to do an early rush well as she requires some teching to establish her empire and get military built.

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I figured she might be an intermediate step between the good early-rushers and those with macemen-equivalent or later UUs like Ragnar and Tokugawa: she needs some tech setup, but less than those two.

Shaka is a good choice... his UU , in spite of being a ancient and marvelous one, it is not the kind of hard power one and it can teach you the noble art of pillaging ( GK is also good for that... ), whule the UB allows you to keep a little more of what you conquer....

Another option is Cyrus... not all the game warring options revolve aroud axe rush and Immortals are a good school to learn that

Hi

Persia can also be very nice for early rushing.

Immortals are fast, will crush most any ancient unit except spearmen. But even then it's not the end of the world if you take out the target's copper and they havent built too many. And unlike regular chariots or even war chariots Immortals get terrain/city defence bonuses they can garrison cities you keep and dont have to worry as much about being counter attacked by spears if they run to like a forrested hill or something. Really the only unit that can stop an Immortal rush plain cold is Mali if they get archery before you get to them. Skirmishers are evil even though Immortals do get bonus against archer class they are still very hard for even immortals to kill plus skirmishers are resourceless so unilike spearman there will ALWAYS be TONS of skirmishers to deal with.

Cyrus Imp/Char is fun war leader, Imp means a little faster settler out for when you beeline AH to go get the horseys and also means quicker GG generation. Char means quicker promotions for your units. Darius also has potential. Org/Fin means you can have chance get to AH a lil faster and your immortals can be off and running even sooner giving neighbors even less time to get to BW plus his traits means you can afford to keep even more cities you conquer.

Persia also starts with scout so you can search your nearest neighbors quicker. While his is searching beeline AH then wheel to find and hook up horseys then while cities cranking out immortals beelinie BW so you can see copper and know where to pillage if you have to. Mix your promotions and, especially if your cyrus and can get protions quicker have em wander and hunt barbies until you get a decent group to take out neighbor. Taking your first neighbor should be quick and you can keep his capitol. Second neighbor should go ok too and take that capitol too if it also close enough if not just raise it after that two choices consolidate and build up your empire or keep going.

third empire could be difficult sine by this time even on noble mostlikely they at least WILL have bw tech if not actually copper hooked up which means spears and maybe even walls. But a third is doable if they close and dont have too many and if you managed to get a nice well promoted stack of Immortals. and if you do get third then on standard map half the rivals gone and it not even AD yet hehe. by this point early war is definitely over and it time to focus on building up your empire for either second conquest push or other victory. You could call back your immortals to now be settler escorts, garrisons, fiog busters and barbie killers. OR you could send on to another neighbor and this time hit and run. Most likely that neighbor will be too far away so you wont need to worry about counter attack Most cities likely will be too tough to take but they would be too far to keep anyways. but any weak ones take and raze and ones too strong to take just army ant their empire so they have no improvments and those cities cant do much and their workers stay in cities instead of building and you can keep em in the stone age while your empire techs along.

As for any other civs left well either ignore em or make friends with em for trading partners and maybe even to get em to help out on neighbor you are choking either way by time you really HAVE to deal with them you will be so big and huge game will be over by that point hehe. Age of immortal only stacks will be long over but they let you kill off enough enemies so now you can send TONS of swords axes or maces and cats and trebs or whatever best units are at time when you want to go for final kill.

As for specific promotions you want a nice mix-- some Immortals you should want flanking 1 and 2 asap, the extra retreat chance means you want them going first on tough cities if they win yay if they lose well they hopefully will at least wound defender enough to be killed off by second immortal and IDEALLY they will weaken tuff defender then retreat and still be alive-- almost like little cats with no collateral damage but with plus 2 movement hehe. Other immortals should prioritize combat 1 qand 2 route to take out what the suicide flankers left out. And of course after they get their priorty promotions you then go anyway you want like after ur flanking immortals get flanking 2 start giving combat promotions and after your combat immortals get combat 2 start giving em flanking or maybe keep going up combat tree or other promotions you want. Make at least one immortal a prioity to get medic so stack can heal faster. After that just go crazy if you want hehe give one or two shock so they can help defend stack against spearmen conter attacks, give some mobilty to pillage faster or some with sentry for scouting and fogbusting duties so they are usefel long after their war mongering days are over.

Persia also very flexible civ because they can be easy to handle one thing I think it is important every good warmonger needs to know--what to do when warmongering goes bust. Maybe no horseys nearby maybe closest neighbors are too faraway or just have units/defenses immortals cant handle by time they get to em. Both Persia's leaders, and the UB make it so it not the end of the world and you can switch to different strategy if you need to and still do ok and not just have to restart game and when warmonger learns how to handle when war goes bust then you will be not just good warmonger but good player

Hope this helps

Kaytie

i'd also point at Maya ... true ... Holkan is not a typical rush unit, but it have two big pluses, first it doesn't need metals (so you can rush even without metal around you which in turn saves you the hassle of building a settler for getting it), secondly it is immune to first strikes which is a nice bonus towards early sparly promoted archers ... specially if they for some reason jumps the Drill path ... just played a prince game where i managed to Holkan rush the two closest enemies (and would prehaps even have been able to take the thrid if i bothered) without any big problem ... okay ... i got a random event which gave all melees cover but still ... the first attack on China was before they got archers)

Personally, I prefer a better economy to better units. Frederick is my favourite leader for hardcore warmongering, Gandhi for a more balanced approach.

On the other hand, playing a few games without economic benefits is a good exercise; Cyrus gives you a strong rush and elite troops without shoehorning you into a particular unit type like AGG or PRO leaders do.

I'm currently playing with Sitting Bull.

He's an interesting rush, and brutally fast as Mad Scientist pointed out. Get BW and you can hit your enemy. He also gets a warrior to start with, so you can worker-steal if the Random Number Gods are kind.

What I'm currently trying to figure out is how hard I should push for Feudalism. It's a pain in the a$$ to get early, the best technique I have yet tried is to Oracle it while self-researching Monarchy and Writing. But that's not exactly what I'd call "early".

I invariably pick up a prophet for Theology, so I can't sing the praises of 10 XP Longbows out of the gate loudly enough. The extra +3 XP for the totem pole is the key, added to +3 for barracks and theocracy and vassalage for another +4. Altogether you can field Drill IV Longbows right after build. It's nasty, for a while.

Philosophical guarantees the prophet, and scientists, or whatever. Run yourself a right vicious SE. Your neighbors won't thank you.

-abs

Boudica of Rome on tiny map with 15 civs.

That's how i learned how to warmonger.

TheLastOne36 said:

Boudica of Rome on tiny map with 15 civs.

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Can you even fit 15 civs on a tiny map?

Washington is underrated for warmongering IMO. Expansive is helpful earlygame with the cheap settlers and granary (they health later on doesn't hurt either), while charismatic not only helps your early pop cap slightly, but also boosts promotions without locking you into using a particular unit. That is, of course, unless you've teched to industrialism. If you're really warmongering though, the SEALS are typically going to be on cleanup duty, if you haven't won before even getting them.

Still, running the right civics and settling some GG's allow you to get 3 or even 4 promos immediately with charismatic leaders, and Washington has a good start. Also good for the suggested "non-uu practice" here, because as a warmonger you'll want to start WAY sooner than SEALS..

Cyrus has a huge "fun factor"....Just forgetting immortals for a minute (they have been discussed thouroghly and you might not get horses early)

What I enjoy is the fact that playing him is fairly focussed....If you are not building settlers or fighting you are probably doing something wrong

With no help on the economic front after war mongering , he also teaches you how to deal with crippling costs.

But what I like most is loading as many GG`s into my military city as possible because a GG to a charismatic leader is a better GG (more promos per xp).

Just remember to build a few big kick ass cities using the extra happiness and the apothacary......really helps economy

I've summarized the replies in a "spoiler" in the first message.

One thing to watch out for for an early rush is fortified city archers on hills. They have a ridiculous 8 str and it takes 3 axes to even take one out.