Buildaholics Anonymous

[Crighton]

Former buildaholic, current war mongerer.

o yea one last thing. GET SISTINE CHAPEL. How annoying is it when you capture a city and it has 12 population but 3 tiles to work. WIth sistine chapel ( +2 culture per specialist) the revolting citizens count as specialists. So if you capture a 12 population city. 2 culture times 12 citizens times 12 turns, is 288 culture when it comes under your control . Push those dam cultural borders back biach.

Wow . . . just Wow.

Also, Representation gives +3 sci per specialist too, Woot woot.

Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women.

First, second and third Commandments of the War Mongerers.

My advice is to start as the Romans and go skull thumping with about 8-10 Praetorians. It's going to be a major problem for the enemy when team skullthump shows up. Eventually you'll need to build a couple of cats. And even further out you'll need to upgraded the now experienced Praetorians up to Macemen. This will carry you very very far.

Further unless a city has a wonder in it or is the enemy capital RAZE it to the ground it won't be worth it to you economically. And you can always repopulate the land once the capital becomes truly worthwhile. Don't forget to whip your new subjects to get things rebuilt and the new pop will be your civ not the conquered civs, so in time you can recycle enough to mostly your people.

Also, bring some missionaries along your adventure if possible to convert teh heathen and get that +25% production bonus for state religion.

And once the first expeditionary force gets into a good groove get a second one up and running. It may not be quite as effective as your more experienced first but it will create havoc in the enemies territory.

A task force of Knights can be an excellent third force to plunder land you don't want to conquer and further screw your enemy.

 

[Gumbolt]

Useful tips here.

Whats the view on walking wounded units? Retreat them to heal or attack to weaken defences? I tend to find if you dont start off with enough attacking units your attack slows while you rotate units to heal. Mind you I am still on my 4th or so Game. Part of me doesnt want to waste a level 3-4 unit. Perhaps i should be using the trained units to mop up after defences are weakened. Hmmmm. I think perhaps i am still getting to grips with what level of units you need for a war. (8-10 seems a good number)

Gum

 

[Rast]

Never waste units needlessly.

I always make sure a unit in my stack gets Medic I as quickly as possible. Injured units can take a few turns off. When I take a city, all the injured units rest up in the new city (also doubling as a garrison 'till the real garrison with City Garrison I gets there, they normally don't travel with my attack stack) and then move on.

If you're too pressed for time to adopt a slower approach that lets your units stay alive, play a slower game speed. The longer your units live, the more promotions they get, and few things can cause more havoc than a stack of lv. 5 and 6 units. Don't disband them either when they're obsolete, spend the money and upgrade them.

 

[1889]

I think the 1000AD scenario might help you embrace the warmonger within you. I used to be a dedicated builder, but a couple games as Arabia and now I really enjoy a good war. Actually I think this scenario is great for trying out all kinds of new strategies.

 

[Gumbolt]

I will have to have a look round forum for that.

Not downloaded anything from forum yet. Its always interesting to see games others have played as you can learn a lot about lots of things.

Gum

 

[mabellino]

I think the 1000AD scenario might help you embrace the warmonger within you. I used to be a dedicated builder, but a couple games as Arabia and now I really enjoy a good war. Actually I think this scenario is great for trying out all kinds of new strategies.

I haven't tried any of the scenarios yet
Is it like having raging barbs and no copper or iron?

 

[1889]

1000AD is one of the scenarios included with the game. The map is a little over loaded with resources so I've never had much trouble getting my hands on anything I needed. The barbs have a few large civilizations and will be tough. In fact Arabia starts at war with everybody. You may lose a city or two at first, but stick with it, its worth it.

 

[Crighton]

advice about my previous advice with the praetorian horde put all the promotions but one unit into city raiding that one remaining unit put into combat one so when it gets the next promotion you make him your team medic. Then conquer move everybody in including the medic heal up and move on or raze the city heal up then move on. Enjoy and Destroy.

 

[senwiz]

I tend to build until I can't anymore as well. But, ok... I can change this, as I have done the warmongering thing before.

But, it brings up a question for me. I was reading about the production versus culture thing, in terms of cities. I assuming, that I should try to surround my production cities with cultural ones, for protection sake, and if I lose a production city...Oh well. Or is my thinking wrong?

Great thread, BTW. I'm liking this one.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

I have a bit of a problem pre-rennasance wars as well, I just don't plain like them because of my tactical style(cavalry/armoured units), I find that regular unit cannot compare to the offensive capabilities of these "lightning" units. I find the ancient horse units completely useless because they don't have enough of an advantage or are obsolete too quickly. Take for example my game as spain, I never built a single conquisitor. any way I can adopt my style to ancient warfare?

 

[dutchfire]

play a pangea duel 8 civ game just settle on spot and build military all the time (Monty actually works because you won't need the iron)

 

[Leifmk]

Useful tips here.

Whats the view on walking wounded units? Retreat them to heal or attack to weaken defences? I tend to find if you dont start off with enough attacking units your attack slows while you rotate units to heal.

Never waste a unit; especially not one with experience. So never attack with a unit that is at less than full health (unless it's to finish off a similarly weakened opponent, e.g. your half-strength horse archer on its way back to friendly territory comes across a wounded enemy archer).

When sending units into hostile territory, try to make sure that nobody goes anywhere alone. Fast-moving pillagers should move in pairs; your heavy hitters should be larger stacks of mixed forces.

If you are trying to take cities without artillery, you're going to have to accept significant losses. Might still be worth it, though. After you get catapults, remember those units are cheap, and sacrificing a few to inflict collateral damage on stacks of city defenders lets your experienced melee units complete the job and survive. With even more experience.

After taking a city, make sure all units involved heal up before moving on. Also leave a strong defensive garrison; the AI will counterattack weak spots and may get his entire cultural radius back if he retakes a city soon enough.

In the early game, it is rarely a good idea to fight a war of conquest until the complete elimination of your enemy (unless it's very early and he only has a couple of cities anyway). Only keep as many cities as you can afford to pay for running, and if you choose to raze cities in an area where your own cultural radius doesn't reach you have no right to complain when some third civilization rushes its settlers into the new vacant lots. Usually a sharp war where you take one or a couple good cities on the border will allow you to reach an honorable peace; then you can conquer the rest of the (now weakened) enemy civ at some later point.

If you want to fight some very early wars of conquests, be the Incas and build a buttload of Quechua units. A large stack of those is cheap and can kill archers even in enemy capitals with only modest losses. If you want to make it ridiculously easy, play with more civs than the map size is meant for; by the time your Quechuas are obsolete you will have killed off several civs and have all their capital sites to develop.

 

[Dusty Monkey]

Noble level, Pangea, Random personalities

You may only build:

A) Barracks
B) Workers
C) Military Units

Thats it! Period!

If you want another city you have to capture it. Sorry! You will probably have to capture copper, iron, or horses so plan accordingly.

Thats part of the challenge!

Chopping is allowed. Infact, its encouraged!

There will come a time when you need a financial city to support your ever growing troops. Pick the best one , declare war , and capture it!

Seriously, you can have any of them!

Take the best stuff when you need it, burn something down when you have a surplus of power.

Diplomacy is fair game. Make some friends but you will probably have to backstab them at some point.

 

[Sansaish]

It seems like the lack of research would kill you in the end. And that eventually groups of people would be attacking you from all over.

 

[Saluki]

I like adding about 50% more Civs than the default for the map that I'm playing, and choosing aggressive AI. This often results in a crowded map, forcing me into wars of conquest. Because of the aggressive setting, the AI's are more prone to bicker with you and between each othe as well, which makes it a bit harder to play peacefully.