Ancient Domination with Horses

[slowrider]

Have really enjoyed using this strategy playing on the Noble level. It keeps the game short and straighforward (usually only about 100 turns long finishing in BC or sometimes a bit longer in early AD). Have improved by sending out the first few chariots to as many civs as possible to “bash and dash”, stealing workers and pillaging improvements. They will create another worker so you get two workers per civ and that accelerates the snowball effect of this approach. Once the war machine starts rolling I’ve also been successful making demands for technology…I can usually get at least one per civ. Of coarse I’m not popular but I am surprised to usually find that after declaring a war, stealing a worker, destorying a couple of mines, a pasture and some roads then disappearing within 10-15 turns we’ve made peace…then a few turns later I demand a tech and after all of that they are sometimes just “Annoyed” with me. Another thing that I found to be really helpful is the Creative trait as conquered cities quickly expand to 10 and 100 with the free 2 culture points providing more lumber, better hammer production tiles and not to mention, score. It’s hard to replicate this expansion benefit without seriously getting off the pure military track with building an Oblisk (which is OK for the 10 milestone but won’t get you to the 100 threshold before the game is over) or maybe a Monistary if religon is present but it usually isn’t this early.

My question is...without the Creative trait and assuming you want to stay in a mad military rush mode as much as possible...what is the best strategy to give conquered cities enough culture growth to expand, preferably to the 100 mark in a reasonable timeframe (i.e., before the game is over in 100-150 turns)?

I've also toyed with a couple of other ideas but haven’t tried them yet such as (1) chop rush graneries in cities with 4 or more growth potential (to their pop ceiling). With Expansive and only 30 granery cost the granery seems to generate a significantly positive hammer return as long as there is 4 or more growth potential. A granery would also make pop rushing fairly lucurative. Also (2) I wonder if it would be possible to get a great artist early enough and without slowing down the war machine for a culture bomb. Getting to Drama may be possible without too much pain but money is tight with this strategy. Maybe one library and one theater can hash out one great scientist and one artist, then use the scientist to pop Music. Two well placed culture bombs could lead to a very early domination win without having to conquer the last civ…would be a big score boost too.

 

[mutax2003]

On the culture front, I would typically chop-rush the stonehenge wonder after I have three cities, it is quite handy since it acts as an oblisk in every one of your cities. Then I get every city to build two archers, then barracks, and start spamming swordsman/axeman if the enemies are close, or chariots if they are far away, and always remember to park an axeman on top of your strategic resources (i.e. iron, copper, horse) so they don't get pillaged.

Mutax2003

 

[cleverhandle]

@Vizzini -- Nice! Worker-Bait ... I usually get the AI's capital SO CHOKED up with chariots that it ACTUALLY sends two archers and a settler out of the city to expand its economic future ... but all that does is take out two of his capital's defenders ...

LOL, I just saw this in a War Chariot rush I was inflicting upon Cathy. She pulled two garrison-promoted archers out of Moscow to escort a Settler right next to a stack of my Chariots. Truly a bad move, giving me a free worker and a much easier fight to take the city. But I think that this is actually an advantage (though perhaps a cheesy one) of the chariot rush - it's highly likely that an enemy capital will be producing a settler by the time your chariots reach it, and the AI's stupidity in escorting makes your conquest easier.

 

[paceybaby]

I really like your strategy- doesn't seem like your getting enough praise for your inventive and aggressive policy. it also seems like u know what ur talking about with this one- well done

if i was playing against you this would seriously mess me up!!

 

[blueinf]

Started yesterday in an emperor game next to horses. Didn't have time to finish my game but it was total pwnage on my continent, wiped out the persians very quickly, then the greeks with more difficulties, they had a copper source next to their major town. And nearly finished with the spanish. After that I will have to build a fleet and conquer the next continent .

I was playing the english which is not even the best civ for this.

The most important in this strat is to pillage the enemy resources as you want him to have mostly archers for defense.

 

[Adderax]

There is a big advantage in declaring war on everyone early and catching their units 'on the move'. You get to kill unfortified archers, AND, you will see that the AI switch to building army units/settlers. I had games where it gets close to 1AD, and I'm the first one to FINALLY build stonehenge. So this solves the whole 'what if I don't have a creative leader problem'. Still priority is copper/iron. Denying that to the AI is sticking them to archers/longbowmen/catapults, until they hit gunpowder...which is a LOOONG time. Oh and a nice thing to do is to send in units and pillage ALL their city tiles, to make up the needed money to keep your crap economy going while it plays catchup to your conquest nature ;p. Make sure you leave his borders afterwards though, otherwise the comp won't rebuild to let you raze again .