Early warmongering?

[MyOtherName]

I've decided I'm going to get used to warmongering, starting with the very early game, and I'm going to keep picking Boudica on Pangaea on Monarch until I get it down pat! (And then I might branch out some)


My first few attempts, I built three cities, pump Gallic warriors, attack. I achieved victory each time, but I felt like my economic position was simply too bad. Since I'm specifically trying to avoid my builder tendancies, I made all three cities production cities; is that a mistake?



For my latest attempt, I only made two cities, and churned out about 7 axes and 3 Gallic warriors to go attakck Kublai Khan. I had to make peace after taking the first city (I lost 4 or 5 units, much more than I expected. And no Gallic warriors survived to become Guerilla 3. Should I not bother with that line?) I churned out a bunch more Gallic warriors, then finished the job against Kublai.

I kept three cities, and built one more afterwards -- each of them seemed right to keep. One has corn & pigs and will be a GP farm. Kublai's capital will be another production center. The other city has gems and a bunch of grassland. The city I just founded has some decent cottagable terrain and hills, and will be a hybrid city.

However, all of this means that my economy is worn thin. I have no hope of continuing a rampage, so I have to turn builder, the very thing I've been trying to avoid. In the end, it's 225 BC, I have 6 cities, alphabet/currency, and will research CoL in 10 turns. (I just raised the slider, but it's still under 20%!) A decent position to be sure, but I feel like I've been playing builder too long; worse, I probably need to wait for catapults before trying to conquer my second enemy!

I sort of expected to be spending most of my time either warring or building up to war; is a long period of playing pure builder something to be expected? Or am I doing something wrong?

 

[fed1943]

I did exactly what you are doing now.
The trick is not, at first, to win as warmonger, but to pay all heed to war things
until one loses.
Then,from both unbalanced (and wrong) styles one can begin to see the right
possible balances and ways.
Best regards,

 

[Heeringas]

You need workers and lots of them... make your new land productive and let cities grow fast... it won´t take too long and you´r up in 60-80% in research

 

[Leventis]

With regards to the OP, this is a very common problem people have when trying to war early for the first time. There are plenty of threads around the forum that can help you out in detail about how to prevent your economy from crashing, or at least how to recover it after the war. Check out the current ALC game as well since it's quite pertinent -- the research slider was at 0% after an early war, so take a look at how things were managed.

 

[UncleJJ]

I sort of expected to be spending most of my time either warring or building up to war; is a long period of playing pure builder something to be expected? Or am I doing something wrong?

To coin a phrase "It's all about the economy, stupid"

In order to expand successfully you have to pay proper regard to your economy and ensure you can finance the costs of the war and that you will have a viable economy soon after the war ends. That really means you need Currency and CoL or can get them both very soon afterwards. As you're discovering any large expansion before that is doomed to fail, the game has been designed that way or else it would be too simple to simply build troops and overrun everyone. Humans are so much better at war than the AI it is easy to beat them.

Building plenty of cottages and working them is one way out of the quagmire of higher costs and is probably the most reliable. After 30 turns your cottages will be villages giving 3 commerce a turn. But you also maintain a good research rate at that stage of the game by working a couple of scientists on a library. It's not the 7.5 beakers per turn that counts but the 6 GPPs which in 17 turns (non Philosophical) will pop out the first GS and you can use him anyway of several ways (academy, settle or lightbulb) to massively boost your economy. If you have 6 cities at least 2 of them can dedicate 4 food to run 2 scientists for 34 turns to get 2 GS.

There are several tricks I use in this situation to get over the tough times while the cottages and scientists are doing their long term job of extricating my economy. With Currency you can build wealth and the gold lets you raise the slider, you get 1 gold per hammer. If you have access to stone or marble and can build a wonder try part building it intentionally letting the AI beat you to it. That can give you 2 gold per hammer but you don't know when the money comes in. You can sell techs to the AI for gold and you can trade resources (perhaps captured in your attack) to other AIs for gold per turn.

So in summary the methods to use are:
1. Prepare the techs needed to control costs and raise gold. (CoL and Currency)
2. Set down cottages and scientists to grow long term.
3. Use some gold raising tricks to keep your head above water short term.

Once you have that in place you're free to make war to your hearts content.

 

[Hammurbabble]

Early warmongering is overrated, although situationally it's sometimes called for.

Here's the thing that limits it: no matter how you expand, be it with settlers or with conquering armies, there are only so many cities you can hold and keep a sound economy at any time, given your available tech. Without Courthouses or Markets, without Groceries or Banks, without the Forbidden Palace or State Property, you can only hold about 6-8 cities in ancient times. Go beyond that and your economy will nosedive, you'll fall way behind in tech, and you'll get stomped into the ground.

WHICH MEANS, that an early rush will NOT let you have a bigger empire! It will let you have the same size empire as if you expanded with settlers. You'll just be doing it differently, that's all. And there are advantages either way.

The advantages of an early rush are:

1) You get rid of one of your opponents.
2) You capture the capital, which is always a great city.
3) You may also capture wonders and/or a religious holy city.
4) You will promote some troops and maybe get a GG.

The disadvantages?

1) You build hardly any, probably no, wonders yourself.
2) It takes longer, allowing builder civs to pull into a lead.
3) It takes more of your production than settlers, which means you won't be building things like libraries that can help maintain tech parity.

Incidentally, I found a piece of advice in Sisiutl's guide to the early rush that I emphatically disagree with: the advice to raze most of the cities taken. There are several reasons why I disagree with him here (one of which may be BtS specific).

1) You won't be building cities with settlers, so there's no fear of overextension.
2) Your cities have to come from somewhere, and you won't be building them with settlers, so if you don't keep the ones you capture, where WILL you get them from? Waiting to build until after the war puts you too far behind.
3) Razing a city gives you a high (in my experience) chance for spawning those nasty partisan dudes that can stop your advance cold. (This may be BtS specific.)

So on the rare occasions when I do an early rush, which means when someone is really close by and has founded a religion, and I have copper readily available or am playing the Incas or Native Americans, I keep almost all of the cities. I only raze when a city completely sucks and I wonder what the AI was thinking.

At high difficulty levels there is simply no way to warmonger throughout the whole game. You will have to be at peace for a lot of the time. Being a warmonger in Civ means that, when you can afford to expand, you go to war and do it. Being a builder means that you give greater weight to being at peace and developing your empire.

 

[Catan_Settler]

I tend to agree with Hammurbabble on this one. An early rush is basically just another way to REX when you have an extremely close neighbour. You basically trade economic development for military development, in that you'll come out of the early rush with a well promoted military but with poor infrastructure all around. Unless you have AIs crowding you in and are in real danger of running out of land to settle, warmongering is best saved until the early classical age or later when you have construction (to deal with cultural defenses), currency and code of laws (to help absorb the captured cities into your economy).

 

[tuckerthecat]

I also think early rushes are way overrated! Unless I'm boxed in I prefer to just expand in peace. I find in most of my games I can peacefully expand w/o war. Usually by the time all the land is filled up I have 6-9 cities ( all the cities my economy can handle till courthouses ). The difference is I have whipped graneries, libraries etc instead of just troops if I was doing a rush.

To the OP, I've found Boudica to be lacking as a warmonger. Yes she has great traits for highly promoted troops but her lack of any economy traits & no economy UB leave her destined for the poorhouse if you warmonger early with her.

Oh I forgot to add, I rush Ghandi every single time he spawns near me. What the hell is with this guy, even if I play a creative leader & spam cultural buildings if I leave Ghandi alone near me I end up swamped in his culture.

 

[dankok8]

I sort of expected to be spending most of my time either warring or building up to war; is a long period of playing pure builder something to be expected? Or am I doing something wrong?

Just play "Always War". There won't be peace until you wipe your enemies out or they wipe you out.

 

[Wlauzon]

You would think that a leader such as Hannibal with + to financial & happy, or Pacal II, with + financial & health would be sure winners most of the time.

But I have not found it so, especially in the early game. It takes a while for financial to really get moving, and if you are plagued by warmongering neighbors in the early game, you get smooshed a lot

But I have tried playing leaders like Boudica, and we are just not compatible it seems, I have only played her in 4-5 games, but have never won. While on the face of it, you would think she would be the ideal warmonger - but every time I try, my economy and/or happy starts to collapse past the ancient era.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

I've had some success with Boudica on Monarch, small and tiny maps, marathon speed. I don't do an early rush. I start by beelining BW. I only start with two cities, insuring that one has bronze. I chop Stonehenge and Great Wall, tech pottery and writing, start building cottages and libraries and don't start the war until after Ironworking.

I definitely raze any cities that aren't real good. After you take on another 2 or 3 cities, your research slider will drop dramatically. The last thing you need is to have your units go on strike during a military campaign.

I use a lot of workers to build roads to the front lines and to tie together the new cities. Attacking stacks contain other units for protection, i.e. chariots, spearmen or even archers.

This war occurs early enough to not need catapults in the beginning. When catapults do come on line, I often won't barrage the city. It just gives the AI more time to load the city up with more defenders. By now, my attackers are well promoted veterans and can often beat longbowmen that have first been attacked by a stack of catapults. Sometimes it really pays to be bold.

I would call the strategy "early sustainable warmongering." Every so often it helps to have 10 turns of peace here or there to consolidate your holdings and maybe heal after a tough fight. But then get right back into it. It's possible to win before 1000AD.

 

[Xurr]

I tend to agree with Hammurbabble on this one. An early rush is basically just another way to REX when you have an extremely close neighbour. You basically trade economic development for military development, in that you'll come out of the early rush with a well promoted military but with poor infrastructure all around. Unless you have AIs crowding you in and are in real danger of running out of land to settle, warmongering is best saved until the early classical age or later when you have construction (to deal with cultural defenses), currency and code of laws (to help absorb the captured cities into your economy).

Not necessarily. Many times the AI will rex just as fast or faster than you can and box you in, especially on higher difficulties. So yes an early rush can net you a larger empire than rexing. It also does one other very important thing for you. It eliminates or hamstrings a civ right on your border. That is always a good thing.

 

[Gwynnja]

I tend to think that early warmongering definitely has it's place. I don't really see the point of having War Chariots, Immortals, Praetorians, Impis, Holkans, Vultures, Phalanx, Quechua, or any other ancient/classical UU sitting around scouting or guarding cities. I especially don't want monty, genghis, either celtic civ, any russian civ, shaka, or ragnar living long enough to become a pain in my backside. One of the best aspects of civ is the scope; if one wishes to build, one certainly can build. OTOH, if one wishes to war, one can war as well. The problem with building as I see it is that everyone wants all the wonders and if your cities are working on wonders or buildings, they can't at the same time be building units to protect them. there are certain buildings, granaries, courthouses, forges, and such that we all like to have in every city, and every one of those buildings takes away hammers that could be used to make one more axeman or archer. One of my favorite aspects of the early rush is stealing the AI workers when I capture their last city. Use those guys to chop out some courthouses and plant some cottages and your economy will be back on track in no time.

 

[MyOtherName]

Hrm. This has been useful. I think the two main things I should take away from this are:

(1) I'm overdoing my efforts to avoid playing builder.
(2) {2 production cities -> axe/sword rush -> keep cities} is simply too early to be sustainable.

 

[Hammurbabble]

Not necessarily. Many times the AI will rex just as fast or faster than you can and box you in, especially on higher difficulties. So yes an early rush can net you a larger empire than rexing.

IF you have an enemy close enough to you to do that, THEN -- situationally, once more -- an early rush CAN be the best option. That's especially true if your neighbor has founded a religion, and/or if there's no room to peacefully expand where your neighbor isn't.

I'm not sure what you're categorizing as "higher difficulty." I play on Monarch these days, and I have never once run out of space before I ran out of money. 6-8 cities are all you need to start with, and I have never been so boxed in that I couldn't found those cities peacefully, and that's including the times when I DID choose to do an early rush. (Although in those cases obviously I didn't expand peacefully.)

So -- in general, I'd have to disagree, unless this is something that appears for the first time at Emperor and higher. At least through Monarch, the limiting factor in the early game is economics, not available territory or competition from Rexing AI.

It also does one other very important thing for you. It eliminates or hamstrings a civ right on your border. That is always a good thing.

If it didn't carry a price tag, I'd agree. Also, you're assuming that said civilization IS "right on your border." 'Tain't necessarily so.

Eliminating or hamstringing that civilization means that in the crucial early turns, you are building military units, not a Library or Temple, and supporting military units rather than researching. This always sets you back and requires playing catch-up after the war is over.

Sometimes it's worth paying that price. Most of the time, though, it's not.

(2) {2 production cities -> axe/sword rush -> keep cities} is simply too early to be sustainable.

When I decide to do an early rush, I rarely build more than one city with a settler. Having one production city plus your capital cranking out units is good, also quite often you have to have that second city to obtain copper.

The main thing to remember, if you do this, is that you're conquering INSTEAD of doing anything else. I wouldn't say it's unsustainable, any more than building a bunch of cities with settlers. Same economic limits apply either way. And that early, the AI rarely has more than 4-6 cities anyway.

 

[MyOtherName]

When I decide to do an early rush, I rarely build more than one city with a settler. Having one production city plus your capital cranking out units is good, also quite often you have to have that second city to obtain copper.

I was counting the capital when I said "two production cities".

 

[The-Hawk]

Rather than spend time disagreeing with many of the points throughout this thread, I'll focus on this one quote...

Hrm. This has been useful. I think the two main things I should take away from this are:

(1) I'm overdoing my efforts to avoid playing builder.
(2) {2 production cities -> axe/sword rush -> keep cities} is simply too early to be sustainable.

This is the wrong conclusion. If you want a dom or conquest victory at the earliest possible date, then you should warmonger early and often. To be a good warmonger, you absolutely need to abandon builder tendencies. The worst possible thing to do is be wishy-washy. Take a builder approach (for example, to win by culture) or take a warmonger approach. Don't do both.

At high difficulty levels there is simply no way to warmonger throughout the whole game. You will have to be at peace for a lot of the time.

However, I need to respond to this one. With all due respect, this is completely inaccurate.

As I said in another recent thread on this topic. If you want to learn how to win conquest or dom, look at top games on the HOF or in GOTM. You need to completely rethink the way you go about warmongering.

 

[Ibian]

Hypothetical: Monarch, only room for 4 cities, none of them have copper, someone like, say, Ragnar is right next door and giving me a shifty look.

By the time i get to ironworking the AI will have a good mix of spears/axes/swords/horse archers by the time i build enough units to attack. This requires me to have the right mix of units to counter his mix or risk getting squished without a real chance.

Suppose i wanted to wait for crossbows before attacking. Thats a good chunk of research, but they eat axes/swords/spears and they match horse archers. The downside is that when i start building them he already has a lot of aforementioned units. He may or may not attack before i even finish researching it.

Which would be the better option? On one hand im looking at a semi-gamble as pertains to building the right units, on the other i risk going up against walled cities or being attacked before im ready.

 

[Gwynnja]

Hypothetical: Monarch, only room for 4 cities, none of them have copper, someone like, say, Ragnar is right next door and giving me a shifty look.

By the time i get to ironworking the AI will have a good mix of spears/axes/swords/horse archers by the time i build enough units to attack. This requires me to have the right mix of units to counter his mix or risk getting squished without a real chance.

Suppose i wanted to wait for crossbows before attacking. Thats a good chunk of research, but they eat axes/swords/spears and they match horse archers. The downside is that when i start building them he already has a lot of aforementioned units. He may or may not attack before i even finish researching it.

Which would be the better option? On one hand im looking at a semi-gamble as pertains to building the right units, on the other i risk going up against walled cities or being attacked before im ready.

I'm not clear as to whether you have Iron or not. If Raggy was breathing down my neck and I didn't get any copper hooked up, then I'd try to get iron asap.

 

[Ibian]

I'm not clear as to whether you have Iron or not.

I do. Hence the question of crossbows or not.