Best times to go to war?

[Elmorell]

Obviously when your unique unit is dominant, but are there any other times when a slight tech lead over an opponent would give you a huge advantage in troop strength?

 

[Urederra]

The sooner the better, IMHO. Build three cities, seek for iron, build a bunch of swordmen, seek for a civ that doesn't have iron and go for it.

 

[gdgrimm]

Obviously when your unique unit is dominant, but are there any other times when a slight tech lead over an opponent would give you a huge advantage in troop strength?

As Urederra mentioned, resource inadequacies of an enemy is a good time for a war.

Any time when your tech lead gives you access to a unit before it's counter is discovered by the enemey.

For example, you just started building Knights, but your enemy hasn't discovered Engineering yet (or has, but has no Iron). Your Knights won't have to worry about any Pikemen, so you'll be able to pillage without loss. Taking a city that has Longbowmen may be a bit difficult, but still very doable, especially with a few suicide Cats.

Or you can build Macemen, but your enemy can't build Crossbowmen or Macemen.

Another big one is you having Cavalry before your enemy has Grenadiers or Riflemen. Neither Musketmen nor Pikemen are an adequate counter to Cav.

 

[Armorydave]

As soon as you get a clear shot to enslave a worker from your closest rivals.

Any time you can keep your neighbor from hooking up key military resources that you have access too (copper, iron and horses being the leading examples)

Whenever you have a military tech lead that provides a substantial disparity between your primary offensive units and their primary defensive units.

Whenever an unfriendly neighbor that does not have a significant military tech lead gets caught up in a bruising war with another neighbor.

When you are at 30% higher or more on the power graph when compared to an unfriendly neighbor.

Whenever you can grab a neighboring city that controls key resources.

Lots of other good reasons but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. Playing at Monarch I find that my best games (for fun and score) are the ones where I go to war very early and don't let up until the flag gets planted.

 

[CivDude86]

compared to an unfriendly neighbor

You shouldn't discriminate between neighbors, any of them will do. Unless you mean by unfriendly is in not friendly but only pleased.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^^ If you're in a game for domination or conquest, who cares what your relations are. In fact, I say, the more powerful a friendly neighbor becomes, the more likely i'm gonna screw him(her) up and earlier. In my most recent game, Cyrus was my neighbor and we were extremely friendly up until 1300s. He was starting to gain on me in score, power, tech, and had vassalized someone. (In my last game, I had a big problem with Roosevelt being an ally and vassalizing 3 civs => he won by score!) Monty ended up declaring on Cyrus, and I saw a great opportunity to reduce him in size,score,tech, and power. I also stole his vassal from him ;-)

 

[jimbob27]

Beelining to cavalry is probably one of the most powerful tactics. If you do a good job, then everyone else will be defending with longbows, and cavalry get 50-80% odds against city defender longbows, without even bombarding the defences. It means you can create a huge stack of nothing but 2 movement units, which can take cities with ease. You can time the Taj mahal's completion so that you can build a very big stack of cavalry very quickly.

 

[ElJojo]

Beelining to cavalry is probably one of the most powerful tactics. If you do a good job, then everyone else will be defending with longbows, and cavalry get 50-80% odds against city defender longbows, without even bombarding the defences. It means you can create a huge stack of nothing but 2 movement units, which can take cities with ease. You can time the Taj mahal's completion so that you can build a very big stack of cavalry very quickly.

mounted units are globally very interesting if you beeline. You can get horse archers when the AI only defend with archers. No need to bombard and war goes much quicker. You may lose a few units because of spearmen but most of the time the AI uses one spearman per city (and sometimes none).
Knights are more tricky to use because your opponent will have longbows so they're useless for city-taking. sometimes I go from horse archers to cavalry, skipping guilds and knights.
If you're aiming early domination you need to use mounted units.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^I don't really like mounted units as much for city attacking as for pillaging and fog-of-war busting. I like to lead my army with a few horsearchers to clear the way for my stack of cityraider swordsmen(often praets for me),axemen, and chariots (for very early wars). I also beeline ironworking, tho, so it's all a matter of strategy. I just enjoy warring that way.

 

[binhthuy71]

If you're neighbors with Monty, now would be a good time.

 

[PraetorianSteve]

Correction: If you have Monty as a neighbour, strike no later than yesterday.

I had that sorry little Aztec for a neighbour, and I thought we had a thing going, he was pleased, I was pleased. Then all of a sudden the ______ declares war on me and grabs half of my cities!

 

[SkippyT]

When your Inca: Turn 1!
Hmm..yes, before Feudalism because without Trebutchets to fight Longbows - you have to wait until Macemen for a war.. I think Trebutchets are a blessing for Medieval war because in Vanilla Longbows were just hyper

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^I'll go to war against longbows with cats. I don't see a problem as long as you bring enough suicide cats and city raider upgraded swordsmen. As long as you have either CHM or AGG leader, you should do alright. The AI usually doesn't have more than 1 Longbow in their cities (besides capital and maybe 1 other) until many turns beyond getting Fuedalism. I've noticed 1 Longbow and usually 2 archers in most AI cities at this point of the game.

EDIT: Altho, I def agree that trebuchets are incredible units and combined with macemen, you can dominate the medival era.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

When the odds are on your side!

 

[Andorim]

Catapults are a good time to start a war. Cannons and artilery are also good. I love siege engines.