3 War stages in the game

[Arturo]

I have noticed in most of my games that there seems to be 3 stages at which it is best to go to war.
The first stage is shortly after Iron Working and thus Swordsmen are on the scene. I am able (at least on Regent) to get I.W. pretty soon after, if not at the same time or before, the AI's through trading. Also, by this time, I should have developed my cities with a few road/mine combos and barracks to be able to churn out swordsmen pretty quick in the core cities. Faster than the AI can as the AI has usually neglected city development except for a few irrigated tiles. This allows me to wage a short but successful war to take 3 or so cities, thus crippling the AI just enough to remove it as a serious threat for a while and simultaneously boost my own empire (I, of course, attack for resources and lux's, so if a lux is badly placed in relation to my palace or FP I will let an AI settle there and develope it a bit and then take it away later on)

The second stage is Cavalry. Like the swordsman, the cavalry is a huge step up in attack strength (not to mention movement) from anything else around at the time. In my opinion Knights don't come close, being only slightly better than swordsmen. (In fact I would rate a veteran swordsman about equal to a regular knight...well...almost!). At this stage, war can either be aimed at grabbing more strategic land, or just crippling your strong neighbours. Both the first stage and second stage I prefer to keep the wars short and get back on decent terms with the AI's ASAP. I'm usually at cavalry (Military Tradition) about 8 turns or so after the top AI civs (the AI seems very reluctant to trade MT; something to do with my stage one foray perchance??), but the AI still seems unable to build a big or effective (veterans and a few defenders) army.

The third stage is from tanks onwards. By now I should (remember, this is only Regent) be ahead of all but the top AI Civ in Tech so my poorer neighbours are defending against my tanks with Cavalry or musketmen/riflemen. At this stage I start churning out huge amounts of tanks and quite a few mech. inf. aswell and demolish a few weaker civs, grab their land and expand. Keeping in mind that the top civ is my unltimate enemy I make sure that my economy is still growing. Then, when I get Modern Armour, which should be before even the top civ if I'm careful (the AI seems to regard Synth. Fibers as quite a low priority), it's all on! This stage's war is long and bloody. ..and bloody good fun (when I'm about the put my long-conceived war plan into first gear my heart starts beating faster!)

Also, in my last game, I tried something which someone else had suggested: cut off and lay siege to the enemy capital. Take over all their cities around the capital, and destroy all improvements around the capital, but don't attack the capital (unless it's with planes or artillery so you don't capture it). This means that their Palace is effectively kept prisoner and there are no cities to take advantage of the Palace benefits. With a stack of 5 or so Mech Inf and a few Mod armor hanging around, anything the capital builds and sends out is dispatched without so much as a twitch. It worked really well.

Basically, when I first get Swordsmen and then Cavalry I start beating the war drums and looking for a likely foe. (When I say "likely foe" I don't mean something honourable like an enemy who will put up a decent fight. I mean someone weak and pathetic that I can attack without fear of spilling my wine. )

 

[dreamdeferred]

I try to go to war around Replacable parts. I generally fight at least one war with infantry and cavalry and arty. That's the best time to go to war, because your strategic advantage is greatest because the AI doesn't know how to use them.

 

[kb2tvl]

On the note of swordsmen. If you can get 6 or so swords to an opponents capitol, you can probably take it. This will so cripple him. I guess this gets away from the topic but cash upgrading to swords and having about 6 with an early sneak attack can completely devastate your opponent.

You can also prebuild warriors and build leo's. OR build horse and build leo's. Then you can upgrade to knights.

Similarly, I like to cash rush factories and coal plants. This gives a huge boost in shields. Then fight a cav war against rifle or even infantry. Once you get to radar, cav gets just too expensive.

 

[Black Waltz]

A great time to go to war can be as soon as you find another Civ. I started an Regent game with Island Chain map type as the Vikings and I found the Egyptians to the South of my Island... Well I noticed that their capital was only defended by a warrior... I declared war and moved into their territory, but by that time they had a spearman... Anyway, there was a good ending. I pillaged all their improvments and basically crippled the Egyptians. I had fortified one warrior opposite a river right next to their capital and the ammount of offensive units I killed... But with this stratagy I kept the enemy from expanding. I went for peace after simply to get his smaller techs I hadn't bothered researching then went to war 20 turns later to wipe him out. By the time I did that he only had 2 cities thanks to my earlier invasion.

The moral of this story - don't miss out on VERY early war.

 

[JustBen]

Really any time you've got yourself a big collection of the offensive units is a good time to go to war. What we find is that it's not so much a matter of there being especially good times to go to war, but there are exceptionally bad times to go to war.

If the world is getting close to a new breakthrough in defensive technology (Musketmen, Mech Infantry spring to mind) you may want to consider holding off till your next big offensive advance. You've probably noticed how sweet it is to rush in with Cavalry before Nationalism makes its way around to all the civs. Ask Napoleon Bonaparte how that worked out for him.

Sometimes the discovery of a new resource is a major impetus to go to war. Ironworking seems to incite wars more than anything because if you have Iron, you can crank out Swordsmen (or dare I say Immortals?) and walk over anyone. If you don't have it, it'll still provoke a war since you're probably willing to fight to take Iron.

Swordsmen seem to be an excellent offensive unit because they're just so much stronger than Spearmen, and Pikemen are so far away technologically. You can get Swordsmen as a 2nd-tier Ancient tech, but the entire rest of the Age has to pass before anyone can upgrade their defenses. (Incidentally, it's this that lets you really exploit their power, since you can easily catch up an Age's worth of techs by building them instead of Libraries.) Cavalry are positively awesome against Mustketmen, but when you start flinging them against Infantry they become a lot less fun (Artillery notwithstanding).

And of course, there's the 3-move factor. It's just a whole lot easier to storm cities when your units move 3 -- that's why the Chinese Riders are just so :soldier: :arrow: even though they're no stronger than Knights. Getting Cavalry and Modern Armor each represent a dramatic shift of power to the offensive, and having access to Riders, Ansar Warriors, or Panzers gives you an extra opportunity to capitalize on this. The more I play, the less I like Tanks because of their weak movement of 2. I've found that I'd usually rather bring in the Artillery stacks and use my Cavalry to crack through with heavy losses before I'd wait the extra turn for Tanks to get there (of course, I never bulid "Combat Settlers", which may be part of my problem here).

But I suppose all of our expositions here are just overly elaborate ways of asserting the most obvious principle of all: Go to war when you can win.

 

[handy900]

Some of this depends on the map size. I've played alot of regent, monarch games where the strategy below works. Diety is another story!

On small & regular maps I've always won by domination before I ever get a chance to research replacable parts. Cav + railroads are hard to beat. The key of course is the early game. I play as Persia mostly whch is a huge edge on a small / regular map. Unless I'm unusually unlucky I can eliminate my nearest neighbor with Immortals, build the FP in his old capital with a leader and presto have my second ring of core cities on line while still in depotism. Unfortunatly it triggers a golden age, but you can pump out a lot if Immortals in an ancient GA. After conquest #1, I usually control 4 luxuries so happiness never is a problem again on regent. From then on I build nothing but Horesemen with the expectation to upgrade to Knights. I've found knights to be hugely effective for me because they are so mobile. In the early phase of a knight war I focus on pillaging my next target's mine, luxuries, and especially Iron resources. Moving Stacks of knights you can cover alot of ground and if you plan well can usually end your turns stacked on a hill to increase the knights defense. Take away a few imprived tiles and his cities majically reduce below size 6 as you starve the citizens After you ruin your neighbor's economy, you can take his cities with ease. At this point you will controll 3/5ths of a smallmap so domination is not far away. Upgrade knights to cavalry & presto, domination is your on small of medium maps (Pangaea). Continents will take longer for sure.

On Large & Huge maps you will have more ground to cover so you will be able to build artillery which IMHO is the most useful piece of equipment you can have. The AI cannot withstand a well corrdinated Railroad supported Cav + Artillery war. If I can build tanks before I dominate a Large Pangaea map, I consider it a failure unless I'm going for some victory other than domination (like 20k culture in my current game - boy has that been boring).

 

[Mano3]

My war stages:

Ancient - when I get horsemen

Middle Ages - if I get knights, then cavalry

Industrial - when I get tanks

Modern - when I get modern armor


I see a pattern here - horses.............

 

[warmonger]

My first war starts with the archer - just use at least two veterans for each spearman - except against the greeks.

Archers are replaced in the attack force by horsemen - except against the greeks

swordsmen help things along a lot but have a limited range on larger maps - and you can now take on the greeks

knights mean you own your island /continent

Calvary+ arty+railroad = you own the world.

This has worked for me all the way up to Monarch. Seems I naturally play a "always at war" style of game.

Only ever used tanks once - the game is usually over before I get them. But then I have only ever won by conquest or domination.

 

[Plug]

Great way of looking at the game Arturo. I applaud your identification of stages in an aspect of the game. Seems more like a social science theory than an analysis of a game!

I almost agree with you. Totally agree with your three stages as MAJOR stages (except I would add an extra MAJOR stage) but would add the concept of MINOR stages as well.

The extra MAJOR Stage I would identify is:

1. The Modern Armour Stage. Mech Infantry starts to hold off the tanks so they must be later replaced by Modern Armour.

The three minor stages I would identify are:

1. Aztec Jaguar Warrior Stage. For Aztecs only. A very fast attack that can aim at getting opponents cities when they have only warriors to defend them.

2. Knight Stage. I think that Knights can be used well but the amount of time they really dominate is shorter than that of the major stages since they do not go up so well against Musketman.

3. Japanese Samurai Warrior Stage. Same period as Knights but I consider the Samuai Warriors to be more useful and different to the Knights.

Here is the list of stages I propose:

1. MIN. Aztec Jaguar Warrior Stage. Aztecs only.
2. MAJ. Swordsmen Stage.
3. -MIN. Knights Stage.
-MIN. Japanese Samurai Warrior Stage. Japanese only.
4. MAJ. Cavalry Stage.
5. MAJ. Tanks Stage.
6. MAJ. Modern Armour Stage.

Note that I do not believ that these are not the only times a player can go to war. Nor do I believe they are always the best time to go to war since LOCAL CONDITIONS MUST ALWAYS BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT. What I am suggesting is that, IN GENERAL (not in every specific game), these are the stages at which war are generally fought.

A more comprehensive article can look at the Attack unit breakthrough - Defence unit breakthrough mechanism that lies behind these stages. Example: Tanks are most useful until Mech Infantry breakthrough; Swordsmen most useful until Pikemen breakthrough; Cavalry most useful until Infantry breakthrough.

It might also be useful to do another Stage theory for naval units (and possibly air units).

Also, maybe other people could fill in the gaps in my theory by adding other MINOR stages that correspond to the UU for particular civs. The Japanese and the Aztecs seem the most obvious to me that do not also correspond with MAJOR stages (they both are MINOR stages seperate from MAJOR stages). Romes Legionaries would be a MINOR stage that corresponds with a MAJOR stage. So would Germanies Panzers.

Maybe you disagree with my theory. If so, then tell us why. I'm sure we can improve on it or even create a new theory for stages of war ifmy refinement of Arturo's theory is found to be wanting.

 

[JustBen]

Your ideas have a nice ring to them, Pug. I think you expressed more clearly what I was trying to get at.

Any unit with a move of 3 counts as a major stage. That's Cavalry and Modern Armor for you mere mortals, but Ansar Warriors, Riders, and Panzers if you like to play with the best UUs.

Sipahi and Immortals are each strong enough to warrant "major" designation. Since I'd call Cavalry and Swordsmen worthy of that designation already, they fall into a class of their own. (I'm holding out on judgement for the dubiously priced Gallic Sworsdmen; I haven't tried them yet.)

Mounted Warriors are wicked cool. They should probably count as a major warmaking stage (have you seen these freaks in action?). I don't think any other unit warrants this honor by virtue of an improved offense value.

I dunno about Jaguar Warriors, but surely any virtue they have is mirrored by the Zulu Impi. And I don't know that I would give them any special attention. As a general rule, you're going to want to try to go to war with your UU (my condolences to America and Korea), so you might as well tack a "minor" label onto any UU by default.

I don't want to claim that we're "on to something" here, but it's a fun little idea to toss around. Isn't brainstorming fun?

 

[Plug]

The benefit of Aztec Warriors over Impi, I believe, is that the Impi require Bronze Working while the Aztec Warriors are available from the beginning. Once other civs have had enough time to develop Bronze Working it seems that Impi have lost the attacking edge that Aztec Warriors have.

Also, I think a further division should be put into my earlier schema. This is between MAJOR and MINOR stages of war and UU stages of war that run parralell to the MAJOR and MINOR stages of war. I make this division in order to make more clear the difference between MAJOR and MINOR stages of war available to everyone and those available only to certain Civs. It may also be possible to make divisions within the UU stages (depending on the usefulness of the UU.)

My new schema would be:

Common Stages / UU Stages

/ 1. Aztec Jaguar Warrior Stage.
1. MAJ. Swordsmen Stage./ 2. Roman Legionairres Stage.
2. MIN. Knights Stage./ 3. Japanese Samurai Stage.
3. MAJ. Cavalry Stage.
4. MAJ. Tanks Stage./ 4. German Panzer Stage.
5. MAJ. Modern Armour Stage.

Despite playing every Civ from vanilla and PTW3 times, and almost half of them 4 times (I play them in order) I still do not feel I have a good enopugh knowledge of the UU's to attempt a complete list of all of the UU stages. I would place the Berserkers next to Knights and Gallic Warriors next to swordsmen.

I do not think ALL of the UU would be given a stage of war since I consider some of the UU to be defensive units. Of course, in another sense I completly agree with Justben that it is best to always go to war with UU's since they trigger the GA. This issue needs a little clearing up. What do you think JustBen? Should defensive UU's also be placed into a stage of war?

Maybe defensive UU's should be placed in a MINOR UU Stage of War while attacking UU's should be placed in a MAJOR Stage of War. Would anyone like to make an atte mpt at completing a list of the UU Stages of War in order of their appearance? Possibly with a MAJOR/MINOR division within them. This could then be placed alongside the Common Stages of War. Could you do it JustBen??

 

[Belisar]

On lower levels, early war is quite effective
Check out our AW game where we conquered the world with legions and a few horses.

5CC AW game

On deity, its much more difficult because of the superior AI production and the quick tech pace. Nonetheless, if you haven't enough land to settle, a limited war is absolutely necessary to get enough productive cities.
The best time for offensive wars is the industrial age. Artillery gives a huge advantage and dramatically increases the kill-ratio of your units.