What's the best time to conquer?

[BalbanesBeoulve]

My favorite method for domination is beeline to liberalism, get nationalism free. Beeline to Rifling, trading the stuff you got from the beeline liberalism to get caught up on guilds/machinery/banking, etc. Once you get rifling, draft a big army. If you do it right, you should have Rifles vs longbows.

At this point your economy will be developed enough that you can take on a bunch of extra cities without your economy tanking.

 

[vicawoo]

Conquering gets better at certain techs. basically, you want a decent time window so that stalling your tech doesn't backfire.

warrior: marathon. capital or bust, can give a huge advantage.
archer: not so great, early, resourceless.
axe: fairly strong
chariot: decent with numbers
swords/horse archers: average. later enough that there's defenses, but hopefully not too much. basically when axes just aren't strong enough.
catapults: very strong, enough can take down just about anything. conquest endgame tech, somewhat weaker vs longbows

skipping _bows

macemen: cr2 and catapults effective at taking out anything medieval, although it's slow
knights: you could have gotten cavalry by now. decent vs medieval

muskets: only because you can draft them in huge numbers
grenadiers: crushes anything medieval
cavalry: crushes anything medieval and fast, in numbers ok vs its era
riflemen: crushes + draftable.

infantry+cannon:rifles::macemen+cats:longbows
tanks: crushes rifles, beats infantry
heavy armor+artillery/bombers: guess it beats anything except:
nuclear weapons

 

[cabert]

Cabert - I almost always target on domination but I still prefer to wait for win/loss ratio improvements before elimination of nearest neigbor. My early UU is one possible factor, wonders/shrine built by AI - another one, lack of space for REX-ing - third etc etc. For 90% of *average* starts with random leader, early REX-ing option if available is almost always better option than axe rush.

I don't know if it matters, but usually I play Emperor/Fractal/Large or Huge. Fractal / Huge combination means that in ancient/classis age I usually don't know how many continents the world has / how many trade partners is available before Astronomy and this uncertainty is a little but important factor against early axe-rush.

1) your settings+goal are certainly amongst the toughest. (not only the level, but also the map type and size)
2) with large or huge maps, it's rare that you have an enemy near enough for an axe rush. Or better said, it's rarely beneficial to rush your neighbour, since his cities are so far from yours, and there are loads of good cities you could settle for more profit before attacking.
3) targeting domination, you don't want to raze loads of cities. Meaning that you're better off teching to currency + code of laws before attacking. By this time, you won't have teched to construction, but you'll be one or 2 techs away. I almost always attack when I have catapults. In BtS they don't kill the enemy units, but if you bring the enemy units to 4 or 5 hps, (= less than 10% of their base strength) even archers can take them out.

 

[alex sword]

Or better said, it's rarely beneficial to rush your neighbour, since his cities are so far from yours, and there are loads of good cities you could settle for more profit before attacking.

Cabert, are you saying that maintenance distance cost is not adjusted with world size? I was under impression before that there is adjustment. Hmm... If not, it looks like that making a choice between axe rushing and REX-ing, playing larger worlds we have an additional reason to prioritize REX-ing over axeman rushing.

I even did not consider that before.

 

[UncleJJ]

Conquering gets better at certain techs. basically, you want a decent time window so that stalling your tech doesn't backfire.

warrior: marathon. capital or bust, can give a huge advantage.
archer: not so great, early, resourceless.
axe: fairly strong
chariot: decent with numbers
swords/horse archers: average. later enough that there's defenses, but hopefully not too much. basically when axes just aren't strong enough.
catapults: very strong, enough can take down just about anything. conquest endgame tech, somewhat weaker vs longbows

skipping _bows

macemen: cr2 and catapults effective at taking out anything medieval, although it's slow
knights: you could have gotten cavalry by now. decent vs medieval

muskets: only because you can draft them in huge numbers
grenadiers: crushes anything medieval
cavalry: crushes anything medieval and fast, in numbers ok vs its era
riflemen: crushes + draftable.

infantry+cannon:rifles::macemen+cats:longbows
tanks: crushes rifles, beats infantry
heavy armor+artillery/bombers: guess it beats anything except:
nuclear weapons

A good summary of the various combinations of military techs that can be used to make effective offensive war and conquests You should include Trebuchets, I'd say they are more effective against longbows than macemen and are a crucial medieval tech replacing catapults in sieges although they still are useful in field warfare. Airships and fighters make a powerful combination with rifles and cannons, especially against medieval troops in castles.

On the naval side I find galleons are important for island hopping and colonisation. Later on; transports, destroyers and carriers are particularly powerful on archipleago maps.

 

[cabert]

Cabert, are you saying that maintenance distance cost is not adjusted with world size? I was under impression before that there is adjustment. Hmm... If not, it looks like that making a choice between axe rushing and REX-ing, playing larger worlds we have an additional reason to prioritize REX-ing over axeman rushing.

I even did not consider that before.

distance maintenance does scale,
but on small maps, you can't get good city sites between your part of the world and the next AI. On large maps you have all the room you need.
Rushing is getting costly because of the distance for 2 reasons :
- the cities you get aren't worth it
- the trip there is sooo long that they have time to reinforce largely before you reach them

 

[alex sword]

On large maps you have all the room you need.

Actually, if you do not perform some actions to prevent AI expansion - no, you don't have all the room you need. Yes, it is possible to establish relatively more cities in good locations than on normal maps but, in the same time, you need *more* cities. If I blocked AI expansion effectively, I am able to perform not two waves of settlers expansions but *three*, which I believe is not possible on normal map. By that time usually I have currency and CoL, and this is a real good time to start thinking about Construction and military expansion. Not sure though how it would work on Immportal+.

However I 100% agree that units relocation takes longer time and so this is an additional factor against very early axe-rush. Maybe, this factor is not major one, but still should be considered.

 

[cabert]

However I 100% agree that units relocation takes longer time and so this is an additional factor against very early axe-rush. Maybe, this factor is not major one, but still should be considered.

On large map, I use chariots and Horse archers.
No way I'm waiting 20 turns before I reach my neighbour