Challenge to warmongers

[SoxSexSax]

On Monarch, I would expect to win this with either HC, JC or Monty. I don't see the problem: what AI is going to out war me? None. So what stops me getting to be insurmountably big? Nothing. So the problem is...?

 

[mrt144]

Like I said and Vox De Villany said, try doing the same exact game as a peaceful builder...why are you ignoring the request?

 

[The Snug]

I don't think any strategy works on settings designed to stop it working.

I'd like to see you win a 'builder game' (whatever that is) surrounded by Montezuma, Shaka and the Khans.

I've done this many times. I just sit in my castled cities that are full of archers and longbows and watch the dummies pound their heads into my walls while I amass xp and GG's. While they suicide themselves, I nonchalantly continue building my infrastructure with a business as usual attitude. It's called turtling and is an oft used strategy in these forums.

Later, when I've got a military tech lead, I send my highly-promoted advanced units to hunt down their tribesman.

I can also use diplomacy to get Shaka to attack Montezuma. I might even declare war on Monty myself, and yet do nothing, just to get the diplo bonuses with Shaka.

 

[Dumanios]

I'm the guy who is a builder who will sit around and don't do S*** about what happens.

 

[The Snug]

When I get home, I'll post my 50 civ dll. It's 3.17, however, rather than 3.19

I don't see the need for 3.19 yet.

 

[Patak]

I've done this many times. I just sit in my castled cities that are full of archers and longbows and watch the dummies pound their heads into my walls while I amass xp and GG's. While they suicide themselves, I nonchalantly continue building my infrastructure with a business as usual attitude. It's called turtling and is an oft used strategy in these forums.

Later, when I've got a military tech lead, I send my highly-promoted advanced units to hunt down their tribesman.

I can also use diplomacy to get Shaka to attack Montezuma. I might even declare war on Monty myself, and yet do nothing, just to get the diplo bonuses with Shaka.

I dont understand how can you sit and wait in your city when in my previous game Mehmed showed up with 20 trabucet 20 maceman 10 pikeman and 20 knights in front of my walls. There is no defencive army that can counter this force. Only attack.

 

[The Snug]

I dont understand how can you sit and wait in your city when in my previous game Mehmed showed up with 20 trabucet 20 maceman 10 pikeman and 20 knights in front of my walls. There is no defencive army that can counter this force. Only attack.

I've faced plenty of stacks like that, and can break them with a moderate force of Cuirassiers. Besides, just bcz I'm turtling doesn't mean that I don't have my own defensive stack that would hit that stack with 8 cats and muskets.

 

[Panzeh]

One has to consider that if you're building up all those troops, why not try to parlay that advantage into more cities?

 

[IronCrown]

LOL, pangäa+overcrowded map+marathon are the easiest settings you can possibly imagine for a warmonger game

Ok, here's a real challenge for warmongers (not that I dislike them ): Huge Hemispheres map with 3 continents, only 7-9 civs, tech trading allowed, speed Quick .

I think that is unwinnable on Emperor+, maybe even at Monarch. Warmongering or otherwise. The AIs will grow to extremely huge empires quickly and unlike you they can afford it. There will also be AIs on a continent that share religions and will trade all their techs between them so they will have a massive tech lead. And because they are out of your reach until Astronomy you can't do anything about it.

Conquest or Domination is outright impossible on a huge map and quick speed because 1) your units will be outdated before they reach target and 2) you just don't have enough turns in the game to kill all AIs. Unit movement doesn't scale with game speed, that's why Marathon is the easiest speed for warmongers. As soon as you have a tech lead, you just build an army and conquer everything. You have plenty of time to move your armies around and they will still be superior – in fact they will only become ever stronger due to promotions. On Normal or Quick you can at best vanquish one powerful opponent before you have to upgrade your army or build a new one.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I don't think any strategy works on settings designed to stop it working.

I'd like to see you win a 'builder game' (whatever that is) surrounded by Montezuma, Shaka and the Khans.

The Snug may be an unorthodox player, but he's no slouch. He can win a Diety game without a whip. He can do that with a protective civ, too.

He sounded uncharictaristicly grouchy when he opened this thread, but he may have been talking trash to bait other posters on this board at the time into accepting his challenge and considering his premise.

ToThe Snug- It's good to see you back on these forums. If you ever go 3.19, take a look at Phungus 420's Legends of Revolution Mod. It allows barbs to become civs over time, and it allows captured cities and cities on other landmasses to seek independence. That results in more civs as the game goes on, increasing diplomatic challenges and the liklihood of being attacked. Maybe you're the guy who can beat the game at it's highest levels, so far nobody has.

 

[phungus420]

ToThe Snug- It's good to see you back on these forums. If you ever go 3.19, take a look at Phungus 420's Legends of Revolution Mod. It allows barbs to become civs over time, and it allows captured cities and cities on other landmasses to seek independence. That results in more civs as the game goes on, increasing diplomatic challenges and the liklihood of being attacked. Maybe you're the guy who can beat the game at it's highest levels, so far nobody has.

Other then stacking the deck by doing some cheese move like rushing a single AI on a duel map, I don't think it's possible to beat LoR on diety. The betterAI along with revolutions would just overwhelm a human player who was competing against a Deity AI's handicaps. At least I know the game plays 1-2 levels higher according to my own perceptions and based on feedback from others. Of course deity and immortal players are kind of in a whole different league, so I may be wrong. I've thought about reducing the AI bonuses at immortal and deity, but so far I haven't gotten any feedback from high level players to decide if that's necessary or not.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

LOL, pangäa+overcrowded map+marathon are the easiest settings you can possibly imagine for a warmonger game

Ok, here's a real challenge for warmongers (not that I dislike them ): Huge Hemispheres map with 3 continents, only 7-9 civs, tech trading allowed, speed Quick .

I think that is unwinnable on Emperor+, maybe even at Monarch. Warmongering or otherwise. The AIs will grow to extremely huge empires quickly and unlike you they can afford it. There will also be AIs on a continent that share religions and will trade all their techs between them so they will have a massive tech lead. And because they are out of your reach until Astronomy you can't do anything about it.

Conquest or Domination is outright impossible on a huge map and quick speed because 1) your units will be outdated before they reach target and 2) you just don't have enough turns in the game to kill all AIs. Unit movement doesn't scale with game speed, that's why Marathon is the easiest speed for warmongers. As soon as you have a tech lead, you just build an army and conquer everything. You have plenty of time to move your armies around and they will still be superior – in fact they will only become ever stronger due to promotions. On Normal or Quick you can at best vanquish one powerful opponent before you have to upgrade your army or build a new one.

Now THIS is more of a challenge. Huge/quick/high difficulty is probably one of the hardest things in the game.

I'm betting some elite players could win such a thing militarily by teching to the modern era ahead of the AIs and then chaining some vassals.

There was a prince G major a while back that required huge/quick/domination ...monarch would be a little tougher but I wonder by how much! Emp+ starts getting annoying though on quick.

There are two approaches that would probably still work with the settings you defined though: AP cheese (build it in a religion unique to you, spread it to people who like you, then spread it 1/city to those who don't and win) and culture.

Culture doesn't scale correctly on quick, taking 1/2 the legendary points of normal even though it's .67 the speed. Relative to other victory conditions on other speeds, culture is faster on quick (note that other speeds still get a faster finish date for other reasons). If one were to sell out on it early, culture would probably be doable on such settings, especially since there are so few AIs and so few turns for war/demand checks (diplo is easier). Hell, even UN might be possible in some instances.

 

[Gooblah]

Alright, here's a challenge to all of you unthinking, dimwitted warmongers. Play on a gigamap pangea or a huge great lakes (no oceans) map with 50 civs, no tech trading, raging barbarians, marathon setting, and either Monarch or Emperor level, and let's see how well your 'go-bonk-some-heads' strategy works.

I'll bet that most of you will get your ass kicked before rifles even appear; having become carrion for crows. For the vast majority of you, I predict the death of your civilization when Curassiers appear.

Now this challenge is for warmongers only (not for builders or for other sane types of civ players). I assert that the warmonger strategy is fundamentally flawed, and that these conditions will demonstrate that assertion.

When you only play with a handful of civs, taking 1 or 2 of them out early is significant. With 50 civs, taking 1 or 2 civs out early means nothing, and trying to take another couple out after religions spread is tantamount to suicide.

Good luck, you horde of stupid, uncontemplative, barbarian neanderthalls. I won't mourn your passing.

Would you mind terribly if I changed it to 18 Civs on, say, a Standard Pangaea? Oh, and if I used...I dunno. A crappy warring leader...Saladin? I mean, his Camel Archers are near-universally panned as crappy. And his UB doesn't help with warmongering. Oh, and if I fill the map with warmongers/military builders (Montezuma, Gilgamesh, Napoleon, etc)?

 

[The Snug]

The Snug may be an unorthodox player, but he's no slouch. He can win a Diety game without a whip. He can do that with a protective civ, too.

He sounded uncharictaristicly grouchy when he opened this thread, but he may have been talking trash to bait other posters on this board at the time into accepting his challenge and considering his premise.

ToThe Snug- It's good to see you back on these forums. If you ever go 3.19, take a look at Phungus 420's Legends of Revolution Mod. It allows barbs to become civs over time, and it allows captured cities and cities on other landmasses to seek independence. That results in more civs as the game goes on, increasing diplomatic challenges and the liklihood of being attacked. Maybe you're the guy who can beat the game at it's highest levels, so far nobody has.

Thanks for welcoming me back!

Indeed, if one wishes to evoke stimulating dscussion on this board, then one must provoke it with interesting bait.
My grumpiness, however, was really resulting more from the memories of playing such maps. I was remembering my previous tera-pangea map on Emperor, where the size of some of my opponent civs was staggering to behold, and my primary early war had been against the barbarians, of whom I'd killed over 1000 of them. I'd seen STACKS of barbarians 11 units deep coming from multiple directions. At one point in time I could see 50 barbarians within 2 squares of my cultural borders, and these were primarily in 4 stacks of 11 units that were lined up in succession heading towards my capital. Whoever said that raging barbarians was an easy setting, they aren't appreciating the differences that such a large map makes.

As to unorthodox play, I've begun thinking that one can win a game simply randomly picking which techs to research, provided you simply maximize the advantages of each tech. I play hotseat games now, and play 5 civs whom all take dramatically different paths, and it seems that no matter what I do, they all end up in the same place at the end. Or rather, more important than whatever tech path I took, was simply their geopolitical positioning on the map.

 

[oawiefga]

Who ever builds the great wall wins. On a map of this size a dozen civs will fall to the barbs before AD.

Why the hate for warmongers? When I play a win is a win. No one dictates my method and style and I could care less if anyone approves or not.

 

[mrt144]

Blind Research was such a great option in SMAC. One should mod it back into the game (and I might if I ever learn it, which I will have to eventually as a work requirement.)

 

[The Snug]

Here's a 50 civ dll for 3.19.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8298114#post8298114

Thanks to phungus420!

 

[6K Man]

I assert that the warmonger strategy is fundamentally flawed, and that these conditions will demonstrate that assertion.

I think you have a different idea of what 'fundamentally flawed' means than the rest of us.

If it were fundamentally flawed, it wouldn't work on the game's standard settings. If it takes a nonstandard mod with specific conditions to demonstrate your assertion, the assertion isn't worth much.

 

[Vulcans]

most good warmongers are actually really good players, warmongering to build a larger empire wich flows onto more ciries-more prod/research. Even when playing a builders game it is worthwhile doing some early axe rushes etc for the required land. warmongering doesnt make it unsustanable. i often warmonger to gain land, and probably keep more cities than i should (i see some GOTM warmongerers razing nearly everything), turning captured cities into productive cities may take some time, but the resulting huge teritory fuels even larger production and war mongering. upkeep may be a pain, but once the newly captured cities build their required buildings and their cottages level up then they also add to the productivity and tec research speed. thus all fueling a even larger army and more war mongering.

Warmongering->teritory
teritory->productive teritory after time
productive teritory->tec lead
tec lead->more war mongering.

in such a large map good players would be able to consolidate their captured lands while still continuing to expand. having the largest teritory flows into more power. on such a map setting a war monger would do MUCH better than a turteler just building. so how can you state that warmongering is flawed when it gives the necisary decicive advantage over the AI.

 

[Rockies]

As much as the OP was obviously trolling a bit, the idea does appeal to my warmonger side...I *just* played my first modded game, using the 40civ mod for 3.19 (34 civs actually in, of course...) and I still only play on noble, but...I think I'd like to give it a whirl...34 was great, why not 50? Nothing like having miningInc bringing 35+ hammers per turn per city, right?

So, for someone brand new to adding mods...I'd need 16 civs to round out the 50 for that challenge...are there that many good civs that are 3.19 compatabile? Any rec's on which 16? And rec's for a world generator to use? I used a huge global-highlander for my 34-civ game, how do I do the larger-than-huge size? And it was easy enough to run the 40-civ mod - to do *this* challenge, would I have to merge all those civs into a single mod with the 50-civ mod? That whole aspect of modding isn't clear to me yet...