LifeOfBrian
King
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
- Messages
- 757
Hello.
Most of my aggressive gering civs, so I don't pick the likes of Songhai, Sweden, Persia,..., but instead I pick Portugal, Germany, Moroccoames on Deity are played with non-warmong, so the civs where you can't rely on your UU or UA to overwhelm the AI militarily, but you have to have technological superiority or better promoted units, or simply better tactics.
In this case, I picked Rome, but I manually reduced Legion's pilum promotion from dealing 10HP damage when fortified to only 1HP damage, because otherwise Legions are just too strong against the AI.
Having noticed I had Sweden to my east and Askia to my north, I saw that I'd eventually be getting attacked by them, so I went Tradition and settled only two cities (Rome and Athens) and buckled down for a long game of warfare. I researched Mining and built the Pyramids, settling Athens in a spot with lots of Iron. I always play with "Strategic Balance" option enabled so I'll always have some horses and iron around my cities. I rushed Iron Working and Masonry (for Terracota army, a must wonder for warmonger games, especially here where I'd have trouble with supply in the early game), then I beelined for Steel so I could get armories and Longswordsmen.
Anyway, here's turn 185. A while ago I captured Turku from Sweden and fended off the counterattack, eventually settling for a white peace, then I immediately started preparing for a second war with Sweden.
Also, here's proof that it's on Deity.
As you can see, Sweden settled Uppsala very close to my capital, so I made sure to buy the Gems tile asap. Later on I used a great general on the tile to gain immediate access to Uppsala, building a road to Uppsala and creating a pasture on the tile adjacent to Uppsala (important because when pillaging, the first movement point will be expended on pillaging the improvement, the second one on the road, so sometimes the AI will only be able to pillage the improvement and not the road). If it were a forested hill and not a sheep hill, I would have left the forest unchopped and built a lumber mill on it because it would be even harder for the AI to pillage it.
In this case, I then used my army of skirmishers to wreak havoc on Uppsala, little by little, turn by turn, and used my Citadel to station my artillery units (so they could gain the range promotion). My skirmishers quickly got promoted and I went for the Parthian tactic, giving them 5 movement points, making it even easier to rotate them to, each coming from afar to fire at Uppsala and then move back. As you can see, I created a network of roads near Rome to facilitate the rotation of Skirmishers. Also, this strategy is also good for mounted melee units (knights/lancers) because they could have attacked Uppsala and still retreated to safety each turn, gaining 5xp each turn.
After around 8 turns after this screenshot, Uppsala fell to zero HP and I spent a few more turns picking off Swedish units until the AI decided to withdraw all units nearby. At that point I had two artilleries with range promotion, making it even easier to pick off Swedish units.
I then used the same principle against the Songhai capital on the borders north of Rome, whittling it down very quickly, killing a huge amount of Songhai units. After that my units were so well promoted I blitzed to get 3 more Songhai cities, gaining a 6-city Songhai vassal (Songhai had previously conquered all of Russia). After that I DoWed and conquered Arabia to the West. The Zulu in the far East swallowed Carthage and parts of Sweden, but I never got DoWed by them. After that, I went to war with Poland, conquering it and eventually winning a SV victory.
The above mentioned strategy with rotating your units through a network off roads in owned territory works for offensive and defensive purposes. I usually use it firstly for defensive purposes when the AI declares war on me early on in the game, and I'm content to sit back and kill off invading units while my units get promoted and I get more great generals. After I have clawed back a bit tech-wise (I usually beeline for Steel, Gunpowder and Metallurgy), I start going on the offensive. It's remarkable how quickly the AI starts to crumble even on Deity when faced with a well promoted Skirmish/Range/Siege army supported by some cheap melee infantry and one or two scout units promoted to medics, so you really don't need to hurry when warmongering on Deity. If you get Terracota army, you'll get oodles of culture just from killing units before you've captured your first city, and if you get Orders in your cities, you'll also get lots of faith. So you don't have to pick Authority to profit a lot from warmongering.
This basic principle also works if you settle a few more cities at the beginning, but I usually limit myself to around 5 cities, because after that, the new cities become a huge drawback for a long time, so I rather focus on fewer cities, because in any case I'll do a lot of conquering so I won't be lacking cities. In this game I decided from the get go to stay with 2 cities because I knew Songhai and Sweden were extra aggressive, so I picked God of all creation as my pantheon. If I started next to Germany, Siam and Portugal, I would have been a bit more aggressive in settling, going for 5 cities and a religion (on Deity, I think the best bet for founding is going for God of the Sun, because 3 faith from granaries is just overpowered), picking Orders if I can.
Anyway, that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed it, feel free to ask anything
Most of my aggressive gering civs, so I don't pick the likes of Songhai, Sweden, Persia,..., but instead I pick Portugal, Germany, Moroccoames on Deity are played with non-warmong, so the civs where you can't rely on your UU or UA to overwhelm the AI militarily, but you have to have technological superiority or better promoted units, or simply better tactics.
In this case, I picked Rome, but I manually reduced Legion's pilum promotion from dealing 10HP damage when fortified to only 1HP damage, because otherwise Legions are just too strong against the AI.
Having noticed I had Sweden to my east and Askia to my north, I saw that I'd eventually be getting attacked by them, so I went Tradition and settled only two cities (Rome and Athens) and buckled down for a long game of warfare. I researched Mining and built the Pyramids, settling Athens in a spot with lots of Iron. I always play with "Strategic Balance" option enabled so I'll always have some horses and iron around my cities. I rushed Iron Working and Masonry (for Terracota army, a must wonder for warmonger games, especially here where I'd have trouble with supply in the early game), then I beelined for Steel so I could get armories and Longswordsmen.
Anyway, here's turn 185. A while ago I captured Turku from Sweden and fended off the counterattack, eventually settling for a white peace, then I immediately started preparing for a second war with Sweden.
Spoiler Turn185 :
Also, here's proof that it's on Deity.
Spoiler Deity :
As you can see, Sweden settled Uppsala very close to my capital, so I made sure to buy the Gems tile asap. Later on I used a great general on the tile to gain immediate access to Uppsala, building a road to Uppsala and creating a pasture on the tile adjacent to Uppsala (important because when pillaging, the first movement point will be expended on pillaging the improvement, the second one on the road, so sometimes the AI will only be able to pillage the improvement and not the road). If it were a forested hill and not a sheep hill, I would have left the forest unchopped and built a lumber mill on it because it would be even harder for the AI to pillage it.
In this case, I then used my army of skirmishers to wreak havoc on Uppsala, little by little, turn by turn, and used my Citadel to station my artillery units (so they could gain the range promotion). My skirmishers quickly got promoted and I went for the Parthian tactic, giving them 5 movement points, making it even easier to rotate them to, each coming from afar to fire at Uppsala and then move back. As you can see, I created a network of roads near Rome to facilitate the rotation of Skirmishers. Also, this strategy is also good for mounted melee units (knights/lancers) because they could have attacked Uppsala and still retreated to safety each turn, gaining 5xp each turn.
After around 8 turns after this screenshot, Uppsala fell to zero HP and I spent a few more turns picking off Swedish units until the AI decided to withdraw all units nearby. At that point I had two artilleries with range promotion, making it even easier to pick off Swedish units.
I then used the same principle against the Songhai capital on the borders north of Rome, whittling it down very quickly, killing a huge amount of Songhai units. After that my units were so well promoted I blitzed to get 3 more Songhai cities, gaining a 6-city Songhai vassal (Songhai had previously conquered all of Russia). After that I DoWed and conquered Arabia to the West. The Zulu in the far East swallowed Carthage and parts of Sweden, but I never got DoWed by them. After that, I went to war with Poland, conquering it and eventually winning a SV victory.
The above mentioned strategy with rotating your units through a network off roads in owned territory works for offensive and defensive purposes. I usually use it firstly for defensive purposes when the AI declares war on me early on in the game, and I'm content to sit back and kill off invading units while my units get promoted and I get more great generals. After I have clawed back a bit tech-wise (I usually beeline for Steel, Gunpowder and Metallurgy), I start going on the offensive. It's remarkable how quickly the AI starts to crumble even on Deity when faced with a well promoted Skirmish/Range/Siege army supported by some cheap melee infantry and one or two scout units promoted to medics, so you really don't need to hurry when warmongering on Deity. If you get Terracota army, you'll get oodles of culture just from killing units before you've captured your first city, and if you get Orders in your cities, you'll also get lots of faith. So you don't have to pick Authority to profit a lot from warmongering.
This basic principle also works if you settle a few more cities at the beginning, but I usually limit myself to around 5 cities, because after that, the new cities become a huge drawback for a long time, so I rather focus on fewer cities, because in any case I'll do a lot of conquering so I won't be lacking cities. In this game I decided from the get go to stay with 2 cities because I knew Songhai and Sweden were extra aggressive, so I picked God of all creation as my pantheon. If I started next to Germany, Siam and Portugal, I would have been a bit more aggressive in settling, going for 5 cities and a religion (on Deity, I think the best bet for founding is going for God of the Sun, because 3 faith from granaries is just overpowered), picking Orders if I can.
Anyway, that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed it, feel free to ask anything
