Chose Zulu; picked Honor; warmongered; now bankrupt

[El Caballerion]

So.... In most of our mutual experiences, BNW gives far too many incentives to be peaceful in the early eras. Since I've played a few turtling games (usually declaring my first war in the Renaissance), I decided to play a completely opposite game as a warmongering crazed Shaka Zulu.

For a while, everything was cool. I was on an island with Venice, Songhai, & Ethiopia (Immortal, Marathon). I went to war with my fellow African rivals, leaving Venice alone, but with the Zulu's maintenance bonuses, I found myself needing to pillage tons of barbarian camps to stay afloat. After capturing 2 Ethiopian cities and suing for peace with both, I'm now at a measly 0 gold and -9 every turn, heavily decreasing my science per turn. Plus, I have two trade caravans going back and forth for trade with Songhai and Ethiopia! Did I also mention that I'm 7 techs behind both?

Ok, now I know I shouldn't have capturing those two cities, and perhaps having 3 workers (maintenance costs) isn't such a good idea. I'm not here to ask for improvements to my strategy, but to implore WHY the game is soooo freakin' difficult to warmonger early in the game???? Ancient civilizations waged war on a major scale, but in BNW, you just get penalized for going this route. Does anyone else feel that this aspect of the game is a bit broken? Unless you're playing as Assyria, there's just no real reason to warmonger in the first two eras.

Any suggestions on how to make Ancient/Classical war more rewarding?

 

[Altisma]

So.... In most of our mutual experiences, BNW gives far too many incentives to be peaceful in the early eras. Since I've played a few turtling games (usually declaring my first war in the Renaissance), I decided to play a completely opposite game as a warmongering crazed Shaka Zulu.

For a while, everything was cool. I was on an island with Venice, Songhai, & Ethiopia (Immortal, Marathon). I went to war with my fellow African rivals, leaving Venice alone, but with the Zulu's maintenance bonuses, I found myself needing to pillage tons of barbarian camps to stay afloat. After capturing 2 Ethiopian cities and suing for peace with both, I'm now at a measly 0 gold and -9 every turn, heavily decreasing my science per turn. Plus, I have two trade caravans going back and forth for trade with Songhai and Ethiopia! Did I also mention that I'm 7 techs behind both?

Ok, now I know I shouldn't have capturing those two cities, and perhaps having 3 workers (maintenance costs) isn't such a good idea. I'm not here to ask for improvements to my strategy, but to implore WHY the game is soooo freakin' difficult to warmonger early in the game???? Ancient civilizations waged war on a major scale, but in BNW, you just get penalized for going this route. Does anyone else feel that this aspect of the game is a bit broken? Unless you're playing as Assyria, there's just no real reason to warmonger in the first two eras.

Any suggestions on how to make Ancient/Classical war more rewarding?

Well your going to get ridiculed a lot as being not a good player but early war is currently broken even if most players don't think so. Early trade routes do not give enough to cover a warmonger's maintenance cost in units, workers, and buildings. In multiplayer this is 100x worse since human players will be good enough to kill your units. If you walk into somebody's territory with a army you would use against a AI your going to lose that war due to attrition.

 

[El Caballerion]

I only have 4 units!

But yes, I know I could get ridiculed, but at the same time, the game is broken for warmongers in the first few ages. The only logical reason to build units is to defend yourself, but not to go to war. I think it needs to change.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

It's true, an early war is going to be difficult to bankroll!

You'll need to keep trade routes going to those you aren't at war with, you'll need to put roads in to connect cities as soon as it is profitable, you'll need to sell any lux you can for gpt.

Make sure you sack trade routes of the enemy when possible, pillage their land and steal and sell their civilians. Sell building in the cities you take if they are using maintenance and you don't need them yet.

Even with this, I'd say early game wars you can only take down a few cities then you have to build your economy before the 2nd round.

 

[Ayestes]

I think Honor is missing a few things right now. It should make a certain number of units free to maintain, also grant culture for non-barbarian kills, and it should eliminate the need for Courthouses until the Industrial Age as a Finisher. It will probably never be fully viable in comparison to Tradition or Liberty for their growth bonuses (primarily because your war could fail), but it should certainly allow you to wage an Ancient or Classical War without running into major gold or happiness issues.

Piety should also grant you Culture equal to the faith in Shrines and Temples with the opener, but I think that's a different discussion.

 

[evilcat]

You can post initial file, so forum scenerio brakers will find optimal aproach.
Having at least 1 worker per city is generally good, since working unimproved tiles is bad. (dat argumentacion)

Honor is generally horible, since it demands gold to run, but not gives gold itself. You may better start with liberty and expand till next expansion will be to others city. Also i hope you have not start war before Impis with Ikanda.

As for early wars: the first two eras fade so fast, that there is just no time to start proper war. My biggest conflict was burning a single city which was settled on my land.

 

[Snuffleupagus]

OK, I will try to actually answer your question: why is it so difficult to warmonger early?

Because in past version of Civ early warmongering was a completely dominant strategy, both for the human and for the AI.

The result was that competitive late game virtually never happened. In most of games I found myself artificially attempting to reach a competitive late game, by choosing to not warmonger. The result?

One: the AI would declare war on me and lose, leaving me to choose to just not take their cities and gain an insurmountable lead - no competitive late game

Two: an AI somewhere else in the world would warmonger, conquer it's closest 2 or 3 neighbors and run away with the game.


So the answer to your question as to why it is so difficult, I think, is that if it isn't difficult it is a dominant strategy to warmonger and have an empire 2-3 times bigger than anyone else by the mid eras.

Out of all the warmonger inclined civs, I think it actually hurts the Zulu the least, as they can just wait and warmonger at Impis, and that's late enough that it's actually viable.

[I would say this also applies to rapid city growth strategy, which can also be dominate, they made it much much more difficult to plop four cities as fast as possible - for similar reasons]

 

[ltccone]

Out of all the warmonger inclined civs, I think it actually hurts the Zulu the least, as they can just wait and warmonger at Impis, and that's late enough that it's actually viable.

The Zulus are tough. Impis upgrade to awesome riflemen once they become obsolete!

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Yes, I did the exact same thing. Honor first is a surefire way to bankruptcy, in my experience.

I think Honor in BNW occupies the (horrible) position that Piety did in G&K. It is only feasible after you go tradition or liberty, and even then it is difficult to justify plunking six policies into.

As per your question: To make early warring more rewarding under the current setup, you can try my strategy. I war early with a barebones army with a tech lead (e.g., 4 CBs as soon as construction comes online and they're all upgraded, 2 spears; 4 XBs as soon as machinery comes online, 2 pikes, 1 horse). Even then, if I can't grab the capital or at MINUMUM a city with multiple luxuries, it isn't worth it.

If you want changes to make early warring more rewarding there are two simple fixes. Give Honor a 6 units maintenance-free policy. Boom, there is +18 GPT and you can afford an army. If we want to get fancy, how about: All units next to a Great General are maintenance-free until Renaissance. Given the Great-Man theory of ancient warfare, this would be fantastic for role-playing.

 

[Spiral]

The only time I've been able to get honor to work was on a huge map with a massive empty jungle on one side of my civ. I ran negative GPT for a couple thousand years using barbarian loot to bankroll my army.

It also helped that I killed russia about the same time I finished honor, then 7 civs all declared war on me. I made a lot of money killing their stuff. This was only King difficulty but I think it would have worked on Emp given the same starting conditions.

Course after taking out a couple civs and razing every city along the way, I had several capital cities that were SO far apart and no spare happiness to fill in the gap. I didn't have city connections until 1500's or something.

At least in GnK you could get alot of happiness from a religeon, and a bunch more maintenance free by building walls/castles. But that's all gone.

 

[NyQuil]

Can you demand tribute from city states to keep it going early? Depends on the map, but there are usually 3 or 4 around.

Shaka was doing that against me in one game.

 

[Aristos]

So.... In most of our mutual experiences, BNW gives far too many incentives to be peaceful in the early eras. Since I've played a few turtling games (usually declaring my first war in the Renaissance), I decided to play a completely opposite game as a warmongering crazed Shaka Zulu.

For a while, everything was cool. I was on an island with Venice, Songhai, & Ethiopia (Immortal, Marathon). I went to war with my fellow African rivals, leaving Venice alone, but with the Zulu's maintenance bonuses, I found myself needing to pillage tons of barbarian camps to stay afloat. After capturing 2 Ethiopian cities and suing for peace with both, I'm now at a measly 0 gold and -9 every turn, heavily decreasing my science per turn. Plus, I have two trade caravans going back and forth for trade with Songhai and Ethiopia! Did I also mention that I'm 7 techs behind both?

Ok, now I know I shouldn't have capturing those two cities, and perhaps having 3 workers (maintenance costs) isn't such a good idea. I'm not here to ask for improvements to my strategy, but to implore WHY the game is soooo freakin' difficult to warmonger early in the game???? Ancient civilizations waged war on a major scale, but in BNW, you just get penalized for going this route. Does anyone else feel that this aspect of the game is a bit broken? Unless you're playing as Assyria, there's just no real reason to warmonger in the first two eras.

Any suggestions on how to make Ancient/Classical war more rewarding?

Ancient civilizations waged war on the shoulders of their population. If you want to model that, then Drafting should return (or enslaving); if not gold, early units should cost you population. It was not free.

As a "warmongering crazed Shaka Zulu" you would not care for gold NOR for the lives of your "subjects" (slaves may be a more appropriate word). You want an early army? You pay with gold or with blood.

Point is, early war should be difficult one way or the other. If anything, what may be missing is the option to forcefully "draft".

 

[bonafide11]

OK, I will try to actually answer your question: why is it so difficult to warmonger early?

Because in past version of Civ early warmongering was a completely dominant strategy, both for the human and for the AI.

The result was that competitive late game virtually never happened. In most of games I found myself artificially attempting to reach a competitive late game, by choosing to not warmonger. The result?

One: the AI would declare war on me and lose, leaving me to choose to just not take their cities and gain an insurmountable lead - no competitive late game

Two: an AI somewhere else in the world would warmonger, conquer it's closest 2 or 3 neighbors and run away with the game.


So the answer to your question as to why it is so difficult, I think, is that if it isn't difficult it is a dominant strategy to warmonger and have an empire 2-3 times bigger than anyone else by the mid eras.

Out of all the warmonger inclined civs, I think it actually hurts the Zulu the least, as they can just wait and warmonger at Impis, and that's late enough that it's actually viable.

[I would say this also applies to rapid city growth strategy, which can also be dominate, they made it much much more difficult to plop four cities as fast as possible - for similar reasons]

He hit the nail on the head here. Civ wanted to finally make a compelling late game, which they did for the most part (could use some improvements, especially with diplomatic victory). In order to make the late game interesting though, they needed to nerf rapid expansion in the early game, and this hurts the large classical empires (whether acquired through warmonger or settling).

 

[katfish]

Can you demand tribute from city states to keep it going early? Depends on the map, but there are usually 3 or 4 around.

Shaka was doing that against me in one game.

Once i played earth map and ended up alone in the middle of Africa with 5 CS nearby. Then i quickly put few warriors on the choke and literally moved around 4 warriors to constantly demand tribute. I bought settlers faster than if i had to construct them.

 

[HappyBuilder]

Had a similar problem with the Zulu; I was losing about 50 gold per turn. The only way to keep my economy going was to keep murdering for money. Since my Honor Tree was complete, every unit I killed paid out. I was able to go about 30 turns holding my economy steady through that mayhem...then I discovered I had a pillaged road which had cut off half of my empire's trade routes. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But in any event, it was proof positive that you can keep yourself going on blood and splendor.

HB

 

[Machiavelli24]

There are a couple of things you want to do to fight efficiently in the early game.

1) Don't overbuild your army (if your current forces are enough, don't build more)
2) Burn most cities (they won't be developed and you need the happiness for when you get their capital)
3) Don't take Honor (ironically the economic and happiness benefits of Tradition/Liberty are more useful)
4) Marathon is skewey (certain aspects of the game don't scale well)
-------------------

I think Honor is missing a few things right now. It should make a certain number of units free to maintain, also grant culture for non-barbarian kills...

Piety should also grant you Culture equal to the faith in Shrines and Temples with the opener, but I think that's a different discussion.

Give Honor a 6 units maintenance-free policy. ...All units next to a Great General are maintenance-free until Renaissance.

I've got a G&K social policy mod that I am in the process of updating for BNW that includes many of these ideas. Honor and Piety are getting some changes from the G&K version but if you want to play a game where honor has these ideas, take a look.

 

[GaelicWarrior]

Earthstrike and I are working on a mod ready for the fall patch that will fix the gold issues with early war mongering. There will be gold available down the Liberty policy tree route and more culture available through a variety of changes to civs/buildings and maps. Stay tuned.

 

[Kintara]

If you're going to change Honor to give it more gold, I prefer something that isn't a static bonus like free maintenance. So more gold from tributes, pillaging, razing, selling buildings, etc.. Another idea might be to reduce the penalties for unhappiness by a certain amount, or have a war eagerness grace period before unhappiness penalties kick in.

 

[bison21]

I just finished a game with Rome (Emperor, Standard, Pangaea) and I also went 2SPs into honor. I was outteching the AI throughout the entire game, I was culturally on top of the game- but I could not get my money under control. I had to accumulate culture to open and finish commerce first. It was a pain. I never went into the reds, but the fact that I was so crippled in my play meant post-350 SV~

+1 vote for free military buildings. At least the barracks, and possibly bonuses for having strategic resources. I would like to see more bonuses on strategic lux in general. Just playing Russia doesn't count

 

[Edgehopper]

Early warmongering is certainly much, much harder. But you can't warmonger your way to a static advantage anymore; you have to bite and claw for resources to make up for what you're not building. Beat up other civs and demand money and luxuries for peace; take your excess army and demand tribute from city states (preferably in a way that wins favor with other CSs), finish out Honor and get gold for kills. It's more challenging than just building to a victory with a Civ that excels in the mid-late game, but still should be doable and fun.