As a rule when do you generally prefer to start your first war of conquest?

[TheMeInTeam]

Ancient, unless I don't meet anybody in time or they're too far to make it viable. Usually classical then.

 

[Savius]

Most games I try to mind my own buisness.. However I will go to war if my nearest opponent is to close or decide its a good idea to forward settle me..
I don't care about warmonger penalties if my neighbours want war.. I WILL give them one. The longer the game goes on I will simply just cripple their military and pillage and retreat. I don't capture cities or raze them except if they have done some bs and forward settled me and now complain about borders and what not.

 

[blasto]

I usually stay peaceful but when declared on I'll wipe them out. Usually at that point some AI or another will have declared on me too and I just start wiping them out.

Otherwise I'll declare when really annoyed with religious unit bombardments or at end of game when I'm just mopping up the remaining map.

 

[TomeTraveler]

Varies widely. Emperor is "normal" for me but King and Immortal are not unknown. Deity, some time in the future. By inclination I prefer peaceful games but AI proximity can lead to an early war and if so, I far prefer it in the ancient era. I will also shamelessly attack an undefended settler if opportunity presents early in the game. The only times I might consider going to war in late game is if I'm going for Domination and am waiting for sufficient tech lead, or to eliminate an AI threatening to achieve a victory condition. Or, I suppose, just 'cause I feel like it. But generally I don't.

 

[Stilgar08]

heavily depends - an early war to get rid of a nearby neighbour is really good at times. Sometimes I'm too busy with other stuff so I tend to pass on early warfare. Unguarded settler in ancient era usually means DOW, 75% on classical... Occasionally I get along fine without any DOW and wait for the AI to declare on me!

 

[Dale]

The earlier the better. I totally ignore AI diplomacy now as it is completely crap in this game. I usually play Rome so I beeline for iron working then use legions to wipe out whoever I want. Useful right up to modern era. Can even take out renaissance walled cities. Oh, and repair the damage they cause too.

I HATE AI religions. So I love when they send a missionary. Demand they stop converting your cities, then denounce them as soon as they break their promise and declare holy war a little later. Wipe them completely out.

 

[stormtrooper412]

As early as humanly possible. Pretty much as soon as I get 4-5 Archers and a few Chariots/Horses, it's go time

 

[Kougar7]

Only after my cities are production ready to sustain units, city/hex expansion, and build economy districts on the side to keep the GPT positive. Which varies wildly per game.

I don't usually do the domination route, even Deity level AI is too broken to defend its own capital. That said I'll attack anyone building cities up against or squishing them inside my borders, and will conquer aggressors that pick fights with me. But it's more fun to see how skimpy a military I can get away with, then force the AI to sue for peace after it loses its attacking force.

 

[Onii-chan]

Depends entirely on the map and the civ I'm playing. If I'm going for let's say a cultural victory as Kongo, I'm sure as hell not going to spend all my early resources on an ancient era war. In that case I would've just picked Sumeria or something

I mean yeah sure if you want to be as "effective" as possible then an early aggressive war is almost always the smartest because that'll give you an early lead and it should pretty much always work just because the AI isn't very good at warfare. But honestly that just sounds lame to me. The game is already easy enough as it is; I don't really want to feel that it's completely over within the first 50 turns

I very rarely attack anyone before the medieval/renaissance era at least, if at all. I like playing different civs like how they were meant to be played. Not just going all-out mindless warmongering from the start no matter what just because I can. Doing that would make Civ lose a ton of its charm points in my eyes. And honestly early game wars aren't even very fun even against a competent opponent since they're so simplistic still. Late game wars are much more interesting in that case due to how many more unit types there are and the kind of strategies you can pull off with them

 

[TheGreatSleepyOne]

I attack when I know that I will win without a doubt.
This point varies from game to game, but boils down to how far the enemy is from me and how good my gold income is.

 

[JosephC]

I usually start planning my wars just after I've done a bit of exploring to see which direction I should be expanding in, if there's anyone in the way.. well they gotta go. I usually try to time the first war around when I'm able to see iron, because that will often influences where my 3rd or 4th town goes.

 

[Darth Tribble]

I like Classical Era warfare because I enjoy playing as an ancient empire of the likes of Rome or Persia and ruling over foreign people's. Sometimes, I put it off until the Medieval or Renaissance eras if the game has been pretty peaceful so far.

I don't usually do modern warfare unless the AI starts it since it seems pointless as the game doesn't have the much longer.

 

[racha]

It varies wildly for me, but that's because I'm absolutely terrible at getting my act together. I don't tolerate settlers coming anywhere near my cities, though. That usually ends wiith as short a war as possible.

I'd try and be more consistent with early-ish wars, but given that you don't get the extra policy slots for caputuring the wonders that provide them, I tend to get caught up in building for the vast majority of the game.

 

[Jabulani]

As soon as possible. The game is insanely imbalanced and if you don't conquer at least one enemy in ancient era, it will be getting hairy. Also, 3 archers and a warrior is all you need to conquer the world.

Exactly, and cannons later on preferably with 5-6 promotions each coming from archers eras

 

[Mr. Shadows]

It might have made mote sense to vote "it varies wildly" because I DON'T always play the same way. Just the same I find myself going to war with archers and warriors <50% of the time so I voted Ancient. I'm currently playing on immortal and the more I play the less I expand before going on the offensive. I think I usually only have two, or maybe three cities when I attack.

 

[kingchris20]

On higher difficulties, I always aim to be the first to strike, on lower difficulties, I build and experiment city planning with no wars, just keeping a standing army to defend.

If you are next to Rome, always neuter them before they get to Legions

 

[Timothy001]

Since the patch, I've noticed a bit more space between me and other civs. It sometimes takes me to classical until I discover them.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I started a new game the other night: Immortal, Large map, Continents, random got me Egypt. I started on a strip of land sandwiched between the ocean and a long, long mountain range that cut me off almost completely from the rest of the continent. Kind of intriguing.

I scrunched in 6 cities and met England, the only other civ I could possibly meet before developing the naval techs. She and I are separated by such a narrow strip of land that neither of us can make any headway. There is literally a 2-hex doorway between us. We've fought 2 wars - she declared on me once, and I declared on her once - but I wasn't able to muscle through the door.

So I've been forced into a peaceful start, where my usual strategy of giving myself some space by knocking out my nearest neighbor early hasn't worked. Now London and Birmingham are big and well-defended, I'm starting to meet other civs, and I can no longer launch a war of conquest without warmonger penalties. I'm curious to see where this goes, whether failing to score an early win on the battlefield leaves me in a bad position.

 

[nitedemon]

When that juicy unprotected settler shows up at my doorstep?

 

[beorn]

It depends on the neighbors and how close they are. I like to play as Germany, and use the apparent map tendency to have neighboring city states not as conquest targets but as quick easy buffs to various yields. But if I run into a civ that starts conquering them, they have to be eliminated. And Gorgon, who will never co-exist with my plan.