warmongering and turtling

[SenhorDaGuerra]

I am curious as to how people in general play the game. i find turtling really rather boring, and get itchy feet if i havent set myself a military goal, thus most of my wins tend to be conquest or domination.

But i read on here that a lot of people like to play peaceful games and build more wonders etc, and maybe only go to war when war has been declared on you.

in my opinion i find this type of game fairly dull, and also i find that its a lot harder to win via this type of play.

so how do most of you guys play the game? and how fun do you find it?

 

[Xhaine]

I'll take out one or two opponents in the early game (before Rifling).
Maximize building, raze any less than ideal cities, and never vassalize anyone.
After that I build strong defences and get lots of defensive pacts to deal with late game wars.
If an enemy is getting close to winning i'll use espionage to deal with them.
Usually i'll wonder spam, so my power rating is quite high and not many people declare war.
If i know i'm going to win anyway i might mobilize my defences and take out a pesky civilization

 

[TommyTankRush]

I'm with you. If I haven't expanded my empire for 50 turns-or-so, I feel I am being wasteful and passing up opportunities to conquer - especially when I have a tech lead.

Paradoxically, the part of the game I most enjoy is consolidating a newly-captured region or continent, building huge cities and having happy productive people. I find the fighting itself pretty tedious (too many units).

I always disable any type of victory except conquest / domination - just because otherwise the game suddenly ends with a general anticlimactic feeling of .... Mhhheh - best expressed thusly:



Hmmm - I'm starting to get heavily 'into' these emoticons. Having taken a first in English literature at Uni, you'd think I might know some words that would help out.

 

[Matty R]

I like to fully develop small empires, usually no more than 8 cities. I'm very much into developing culture and taking as many wonders as possible. I like to watch how other civs develop and interact aswell, sometimes staying out of the actual fighting but providing units, money or resources to allies so they can reduce damage to their empire.

I start with a military that can defend if someone declares on me, but later in the game I develop my military so it could cause huge damage to another civ if they even implied that they didn't like my closest ally.

Revenge is best served with a pointy stick.

 

[CivMonger]

My current game I took out the Japanese quickly, buddied up with the Frederick of the Germans on my other side, and built up my lands. Around trebuchet/knight time I invaded Korea to take over the entire flank of the continent. After consolidating my lands, I'm now in the tech lead, though I trail in the power graph by a fair margin.

Conquest has ground to a halt though, I'm building a LOT of buildings in nearly every city while I wait to go from Calvary and cannons to artillery.

So my playstyle is generally an expansion through a civ or two to aquire the lands I need, and after that I'll turtle for a while, building my buildings, wonders, and spreading a lot of religion throughout my empire.

Once that is done though, and I have a good base of operations, its pretty much full on warfare one nation at a time until I've ground the world under my heel. Saladin of the Arabs is my next victim. Surprise naval invasion that razed Tokyo to the ground... oh, there will be repercussions.

 

[JavalTigar]

the non violent victories are more difficult because while your striving for a peaceful solution all the other warmongers are drooling over your territory.

I typically have 1 or 2 small wars to clear the space around me in the early eras, so I have a good resource base. then once I get to a point where I have met all rivals and get a feel for the world scene, thats when I decide what victory I will shoot for.

 

[jackdog]

I think builders are in the minority as particularly at higher levels early wars are very usefull. I usually play continents and after taking or vassalising every civ on the continent as the whole mobilise and ship averseas is such a pain I usually then go diplo via UN or space race if my pop isn't big enough or can't get other to vote for me.

 

[AfterShafter]

Depends on who I'm playing... If I flip Shaka, I go nuts on my neighbour. If I flip Wang Kon, I expand aggressively, bee-line for vassalage, and put a "do not disturb sign" on the door. I'd say I *slightly* favour turtling, but at least 3 of my guys demand some old fashioned ass whuppin'.

 

[L4zXX0r]

I enjoy both aspects of the game. I find that you really cannot turtle well, if you havn't already shown off your military might. That being said, I'm quite aggressive early game, I slow it down towards the end of the classical, build up in the early medeval, and then late middle ages, I start taking it to whoever is my chief rival. I take a break again in the rennasaince, and then build up for the industrial era. If I get rifling before any of my opponents get anywhere close, I conquer indiscriminately. I only vassalize if I want to send my troops to some place more important.

 

[BENdage]

I'm generally quite aggressive early game, take out my nearest rivals to guarantee some expansion space. I normally play marathon speed so normally by the time I can vassalise surrounding Civs I'll stop bneing aggressive. Then I'll pretty much turtle until I've industialised. I normally have decent tech lead by then so I then become really aggressive and conquer my enemies with vast numbers of infantry

 

[azzaman333]

With Monty, Shaka or Ragnar as a neighbour, I will go on a killing spree since I'll build a lot of units to kill them and then they have nothing to do otherwise, so it's best to just keep going!

However, my most recent game had me confused on how to proceed when, playing as Rome I shared a floodplain soaked continent with Sitting Bull and Monty. If I attacked Monty pre-emptively, I would have a large army against masses of CG III Drill I Archers and Dog Soldiers, but if I left him and tried to trade with Sitting Bull, Monty would hate both of us. Coupled with that, I was stuck on a little peninsular with Monty having a good chance to block me off. Fortunately Monty made my decision for me when he founded both Hinduism and Judaism, allowing my Praets to only have to kill 5 Aztec Archers in total. (unfortunately, due to Sitting Bull hating me I'm so far behind the rest of the world in tech. One continent was swimming in gold resources, and had 3 civs on it to trade their way a loooong way ahead...)

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I usually have around 5 very good cities. About 3 defenders (CG3) per sity, as well as a small group of state of the art offensive units for counterstrikes/pillaging. I've never got the fun from war, but rather building such grand metropolises that all 5 are the top 5 cities.

 

[JJ Boston]

I have a tendency to be more of a builder, but I'm trying to change my style a little. Before, I wanted every city to be perfect with as many buildings as possible but now, I realize you don't need everything in every city.

I do find the empire building aspect satisfying, but pulling off a satisfying military campaign is an even more satisfying feeling, especially when I'm able to completely wipe someone out.

 

[Mesix]

I like to war monger early. I build three to five cities and make sure that three of them are are culture centers (that way I always have the option of going for a cultural victory). I typically build up my war mahine in the early game with an early objective of getting the Oracle. I always use the Oracle to get the slingshot to longbowmen. Once I have a few longbowmen (with at least CG2) I don't have to worry about a counter attack from the early units of my rivals. I typically send in stacks with swordsmen and axemen with a couple spearmen and longbowmen mixed in as defenders/healers. Once my main force gets rolling, I build horse archers to back them up since the extra movement allows them to reach the front lines fast. I always walk past cities with high defenses, and wait for a second wave that includes catipults to take them out.

Once I take out a few rivals and have room to expand, I have one of two game plans for the mid game. If I have a good tech lead, I bee line rifeling so that my swordsmen and macemen with CR3 can be upgraded into a dominating force and I continue my war mongering. In this case, I go for a domination or conquest victory. If other civs are even with me in tech, I go for more economic techs and expansion techs. I try to build Broadway, Rock & Roll, and Hollywood in my three culture centers to ensure that they can reach legendary status. I go for a cultural victory in this situation.

I have not achieved a space ship victory in BTS yet. If I reach the end of time and get a score victory, I consider it a loss.

 

[Milk]

I could not imagine having to manage enough cities to do an efficient Conquest or Domination victory. I much prefer the small empires, and I usually even play on small maps so I only have to manage 3 or 4 cities, maybe up to 8 or 10 if I feel like conquering a few civs that are vulnerable and close enough to me. (I always play a small map with 18 civs. Most civs get 2 to 4 cities before running out of room.)

 

[dragodon64]

I'm a hybrid (though some would call me a builder). I have never had a domination victory above a quick-speed, small world because I always find war to be to much of a hassle and I resort to the AP/UN around 10-20% short of necessary land.

In one of my current games, I am trying to win by conquest. I'm Genghis Khan (Noble) on a quick, small Great Plains (7 civs). Its 500 AD and I'm about 2-4 techs behind #1 techer (Shi Huangdi). I'm razing frequently, but am still so big that I'm running 0% and losing ~10 /turn. My lack of all luxuries but one means that my cities can't get above 6 or 7. I have a religious shrine (+10pt) and a couple of cottages/hamlets and a ton of rivers (I'm along the Missouri). I have a feeling that I need to beeline to CoL, but with 0% , that could take a while. I killed Victoria an?d have teamed up with Tokugawa to take out Shaka, and am halfway through killing him (his Impi are really a pain in the butt for my Keshiks). I'm worried that by the time I kill Shaka and say Suleiman (whose pretty weak), I'll be facing longbows and that will be the end of my Keshik/Ax army. Any suggestions of what to do?

 

[Mesix]

I'm a hybrid (though some would call me a builder). I have never had a domination victory above a quick-speed, small world because I always find war to be to much of a hassle and I resort to the AP/UN around 10-20% short of necessary land.

In one of my current games, I am trying to win by conquest. I'm Genghis Khan (Noble) on a quick, small Great Plains (7 civs). Its 500 AD and I'm about 2-4 techs behind #1 techer (Shi Huangdi). I'm razing frequently, but am still so big that I'm running 0% and losing ~10 /turn. My lack of all luxuries but one means that my cities can't get above 6 or 7. I have a religious shrine (+10pt) and a couple of cottages/hamlets and a ton of rivers (I'm along the Missouri). I have a feeling that I need to beeline to CoL, but with 0% , that could take a while. I killed Victoria an?d have teamed up with Tokugawa to take out Shaka, and am halfway through killing him (his Impi are really a pain in the butt for my Keshiks). I'm worried that by the time I kill Shaka and say Suleiman (whose pretty weak), I'll be facing longbows and that will be the end of my Keshik/Ax army. Any suggestions of what to do?

If you post a save game, I'll take a look.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

I LIKE building but I not only like nice big cities I like nice big empires. I like looking on the map and seeing the color of whatever civ I happen to be playing stretching from coast to coast and pole to pole . At the very least having a continent where only color on it is mine . And in those borders I like lots of big healthy happy cities. But lots of big healthy happy cities need room to grow and resources to get that way and I really hate having to depend on trade for resources so love it when I can make my empire big emough to have at least one of each resource on its on.

BUT getting THAT big usually means war since the dumb AI's INSIST on putting stuff on my land before I can get there. So most of my wins are either conquest or domination. Wars get get bogged down a bit at times and I dont always like it when it interupts me from building but it can be lots of fun when at the end of a big long war I win and can then get to spend time building up all the fresh new additions to kaytieland

And the other victories get kinds of tedious too. Like just few minutes ago I got my VERY first cultural win ever . I didnt even know there was a movie for that kind of victory hehe. But actually the most fun was when Monty and Nappy Decalred on me and I had to smack em around a lil bit hehe. The war and battles and micromanaging to deal with war weariness and keeping up the military could get a lil tedious at time well it felt like work but work with a purpose. After it was over and nothing in the way to stop me from getting the cultural victory it got tedious again but this time in a purposeless way. There was NO point in building any more I ebdd up just setting my cities on wealth and hitting shift return for the last 20 turns or so.

I find that point gets reached lots with spaceship after you launch it or when you set up so you KNOW you have the votes for AP or UN win and you just spin your wheels hitting shift return and doing NOTHING until the vote comes up or your ship reaches alpha centuri or your third city gets legendary or whatever. And I think THAT gets more tedious and boring than a long drawn out war.

Kaytie

 

[Tecibbar]

I like big cities, instead of huge empires as well. Managing more than 7 cities gives me a headach. And I get the feeling that all my micromanagement doesn't real matters.

 

[AfterShafter]

I like big cities, instead of huge empires as well. Managing more than 7 cities gives me a headach. And I get the feeling that all my micromanagement doesn't real matters.

Sucks to be you for building Forbidden Palace/Wall Street/Oxford University then