Conquest Tactics

[Nightfang]

Ok, I am trying my first conquest game. I am finding it very hard to maintain a balance of technology and warfare. I want to be able to stay ahead in techs, but I need to keep cranking out military to get my conquest machine rolling.

What is the best way to approach conquest? Build minimal city improvements except the ones that keep your peeps happy and improvements that help your military? Just crank out the best units you can and just go for it? What about wonders? Should I even bother?

I am usually able to win by diplomacy or space race, and a few times by domination, but I really want to wipe out the world this time, since everyone has been total jerks to me.

I am on a standard sized pangea map, French, Monarch level.

 

[Charis]

Alas, no, you can't complete ignore infrastructure. But you will probably do well to have periods of building and periods of conquest interspersed. If you can do well with the military, ignore researching things yourself and use the "pointy-stick" method -- crush your foes down to a city or two left, demand all their tech for peace, then eliminate them 20 turns later. It's such a shame not to get anything by conquering them in one step instead of two.

So you can (if you want) ignore libraries and universities, but you will definitely still want marketplaces and banks, and in some spots granaries, courthouses, aqueducts, etc., and workers should not be ignored unless you're capturing a lot of foreigners.

If you see foes that are ahead in tech but lack a key resource or have a weak military, that's the one to go after with this approach.

Good luck,
Charis

 

[Moulton]

I find the production capacity essential for conquest. I have never played for early quick conquest, so can't speak to that scenario.
You ignore tech at your peril... once they get tech levels that give them better military ...
I like to go for democracy, for production, and built factories, power source (Hoover dam is a great boost) and large cities. They have to be managed for happiness, so market place and luxuries are essential. banks for the cash flow.
At this time (1290AD) with japan on the Kitten world, I have 16 cities that can produce most units in one or two turns -- 3 for a battleship. I have conquered India and CHina, half of Persia. By taking strategic locations first, I have all 8 luxuries, and don't have to depend on their obnoxions trading practices. My plan is to roll through Persia, then roll accross Africa. Then Germany, maybe. Most of Germany is in Siberia, and not useful, except for the territory count.
Meanwhile I have a stack of settlers to send over to South Ameica, but I need to free up some infantry to remove the hostiles first.
My pattern has been to conquer a country as fast as possible, then rest for a generation, building wealth and essential infrastructure. beefing up the remote cities, and pacifying the newly conquered cities. then after 20 turns or so, take the next country. That gives the democracy a chance to rest between, and helps with war weariness.
I tried communism, and did not like it. no production, rampant corruption.
If necessary, I drop back to Republican.

Tech takes 7-8 turns, and I am far ahead.
By contrast, when I last did this map, I was Germany -- won by UN vote (14-1) and by Space race.
Once I had education and universities in every city, I did every tech in 4 turns. But Ihad to take the Ruissian, Rome and Greek and France territories to have a large enough base to support that. Once the panzers rolled, nothing stook in my way. I could have conquered the world, if I wanted to wait through enough war.

 

[BillChin]

It's been a while, but I think my article on opening strategies is still somewhere in the War Academy section. In case it isn't here are the basics:
1) Warrior Gambit - for Monarch and below. Send first two warriors together and attack first enemy capital or settler.

2) Swordsmen Conquest - Emperor and below, best on Standard Size maps. Research Iron Working. Turn down research after getting Iron Working to save gold for upgrades. Build 4 to 6 cities. Claim Iron but do not hook it up. Build warriors, hook up the iron and upgrade the warriors to swordsmen. Attack with 10+ swordsmen. Crush the enemy.

3) Horsemen Conquest (or combined arms) - Emperor and below, good on large maps. Build 10 to 15 cities. Build an attack force of about 20 units. Emphasize horsemen if the enemy is far away. Attack in force, crush the enemy.

4) Knight Crusade - not for novice players because of the long build time, but extremely powerful. Get to Chivalry as cheaply as possible. Build 15 to 30 cities, depending on terrain and map size. Build lots of chariots and Horsemen. Save gold for massive upgrade to Knights. Attack with 30+ Knights and crush all enemies. None can stand before you on Monarch level if you execute this properly.

A player can theoretically execute all four of these conquest strategies in a single game, going from Warrior Gambit, to Swordsmen Conquest, to Horsemen Conquest, capping with a Knight Crusade and victory.

There is also
1a) Archer Conquest, attacking with about five archers.

+ Bill

 

[Txurce]

When playing for a domination win at emperor level or below, on any map except archipelago (and particularly on pangaea!), I build only barracks, with the occasional aqueduct in a core city or temple for happiness or border expansion. This approach is based on an intuition that more early horsemen (thanks to almost no infrastructure) will capture more cities quickly, and these additional cities become my high-quantity, low-quality version of infrastructure... while at the same time reducing the AI's production core.

After building four or five cities, with horseback riding researched, I put the slider at zero and pretty much just crank out horsemen. That initial force is enough to take my weakest neighbor, and accomplishing this usually makes me the biggest civ on the planet. By the time the next guy falls, I can buy and extort my way out of the ancient era technologically. I continue attacking methodically, with ever-increasing bands of horsemen. By the end, they start to encounter pikemen, and slow down.

This is when I can buy or extort the two medieval techs that allow me to research chivalry, which doesn't take long, given the size of my civ. After that, I crank out knights (best version: riders), upgrade my horsemen, and the wave picks up size and speed. On a pangaea map, I never need to research beyond chivalry. On maps where some civs are across deep water, I need to reach astronomy or navigation, and sometimes military tradition. (MT is needed more often if playing conquest rather than domination.) When possible I'll extort the techs, and otherwise research them.

In the current Mac GOTM (emperor) game, I used this approach to conquer my continent, research navigation, and find the last two civs by 740AD. I'm now in the process of transporting dozens of riders via caravel, and will face only pikes. (The two civs were isolated, and haven't researched chivalry yet.)

Coincidentally, I was going to ask for opinions on this approach before discovering this thread. I'm curious as to whether others beleive there is a faster/more efficient way of winning a domination/conquest game.

 

[Nightfang]

Thanks all for your responses. I am very familiar with the "pointy-stick" method of scientific research (points to title under his forum name).

I have other questions, now.

So, my conquest engine hit full steam last night. Germany was nearing Motorized Transport, so I decided it was prudent to eliminate them first, to prevent them from getting Panzers. That would be very difficult to crack until I got MA, and I plan on being close to done by the time I get MA. So, I secured a RoP with England, and prepared to invade.

My cavalry rolled into their territory, with workers and infantry bringing up the rear to secure borders and to lay down rails if needed, and maybe some colonies on key resources. In eight turns, the German empire was reduced to rubble, even the island that became their capital was destroyed. Tanks started to take the field by the end of the war. My cities were cranking out at least four or five tanks per turn.

War ends, and I start looking for my next target. England is looking good, and would get my borders free of any influences. However, as I am letting my war weary people rest (and waiting for some of England's MPPs to expire), I notice everyone is sending settlers to get to the now empty lands!

The American settler group (2 settler and 2 infantry) went through my land. Using slave workers (German) I box the group in. They are now unable to move. I took my tanks, cavalry, and infantry and closed off the borders to the empty lands. I fortified infantry on my colonies to fend off the barbarians. However, several empires are sending ships over to make cities!

This poses a problem, because my only source of oil is in a colony on this cleared land.

How do I keep this land free of other empires? Do I need to block off the shoreline? Or do I just let them do as they will, and destroy them the first opportunity I get when war happens?

I am finding this fun. Steamrolling an empire in 8 turns is pretty exciting. I can imagine, though, that this could be tedious on a larger than standard map.

 

[Moulton]

It can be fun, and sometimes eerily real... When I threaten Persia, he replied, "I wonld not give your insignificant culture the time of day." So I steamreolled him in 5 turns.
Next question: I sent troops to eliminate the barbs from Australia-- did not share maps, and began to put cities on the coastline as soon as practicable. As soon as the land was cleared, the rest came running..... block the coastline if you want to keep it. Two got past me, A Persian city on the coast (sesert coast), which is now mine, and a Zulu city in the middleof the outback...
Whil my democracy is resting, I will gear up for the next conquest.
England and Egypt are at my tech level -- but do not have my power base. I probably should be a modern Ghengis Khan -- sewwp acroiss Babylonia, then Germany and France, clearing a path to England. It needs to be done before the spacerace starts.

 

[troytheface]

i think people tend to overreact to settlers in their territory.
lots of options not the least of which is to let them go ahead and build. Curious tho, don't u send settlers with ur invasion force?
whats the point of lots of unused land when pnts are accumulated in large part by territory controlled? any newly built ai cities should be easy to destroy or culturally flip, and u should have the remenants of ur invasion force around in case....

 

[Nightfang]

When conquesting, some people build their empire, then just destroy anything else. In my case, I wiped out the Germans, razing everything and leaving a huge part of the map barren. I want to block it off so the other civs will not colonize it. Sure, I could destroy any city down there, but I want to concentrate my forces on the empire's main land holdings, not their satellite cities on land I already cleared. I built a ton of colonies in the empty land area, colonies easily dispersed by a settler dropping a city next to it.

My french empire was strong, about twenty cities, and cranking out tons of tanks every turn. I did not want to be burdened by having to spend money on new cities and having to deal with a bunch of corrupt cities that produce one shield per turn.

The only time I send settlers with my invasion force is if I plan on extending borders or razing cities. It is very rare when I build settlers beyond the land grab phase of the game, unless I am trying to beef up another city's population.

I finally gave up, tired of the current game. I built the UN, buttered everyone up, and won by diplomacy. If the vote had been indecisive, I had already decided to go to war with those who voted against me, but it never happened.

Besides, I needed to get started on the GOTM.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Nightfang
My french empire was strong, about twenty cities, and cranking out tons of tanks every turn. I did not want to be burdened by having to spend money on new cities and having to deal with a bunch of corrupt cities that produce one shield per turn.

I think you have overlooked the benefit of those corrupted cities. By building a lot of cities, you would be able to increase your over all score and gold income per turn. For example: If a city is so corrupted and produce only 1 shield, I just don't build any improvement there, except the market (because one way or another, I always have control of the Adam Smith Trading Company, I don't have to pay any upkeep for the market), and set it to produce wealth. In this case, each city would add at least 1 extra gold to my treasury.

If I decide to build an aqueduct (or may be even hospital) down the road, I would simply convert those extra citizens to tax collectors. Each tax collector would add 1 extra gold to my treasury.

In summary, corrupted cities are almost maintenance free; just set them to produce wealth and forget about them. An extremely corrupted city of size 12 usually generate an average of 5 extra gold per turn for your empire. If you have 100 extreme corrupted cities, that would yield at least another 500 gold per turn right there.

 

[Hellfire]

300 gold per turn, give or take how you feel about defending your empire.

I like to have at least 2 defensive units in all cities, even if they are deep in the center of my empire. That's 200 less gold

 

[Justinian II]

Well in my conquest games......I try to establish myself and just play defense. That is unless there isn't someone weak next to me. I also try to make friends and sell techs.....this makes others more friendly toward you throughout the game.....and then finally once I have a lot of Techs.....(I usually don't start conquest until I have modern armor unless I'm Rome), then I just mass my army to huge sizes and litterally destroy a civ in one turn......it's so great to see a huge enemy disapper in only one turn lol...

Justinian II

 

[planetfall]

N-Fang,

Conquest wins take time, time, time. They can be much fun, but rarely come quickly.

A conquest win requires a tremondous infrastructure of shield generation, happiness generation and unit support. Yes, there is a price to be paid for all that fun. I also had to quickly finish a fun game this week so I had some time for GOTM.

Things I have noticed new conquest players forget:
-- conquered cities can often provide more benefits than starting over
-- razed land always Great Land rushes
-- sometimes it is ok to let a couple scattered cities do the grunt work of getting a city from size 0 to size 7 for you.

Ok, how do I play? when I started playing and reading the forums I recall Vel saying that the best strategy was Ying-Yang. Not his phrase, but that was the idea. Hit a few cities, get peace, repeat as needed.

When playing conquest games there seem to be three stages for me:

1- initial war for a strategic resource
2- years and years of alternating war-peace. Not going for the jugular, but just a small gain at a time.
3- final crushing roll.

I still follow those stages but tactics are still up in the air. Below monarch it was build tanks/MA/factories/nuclear power and then go for the final roll. Now I don't always wait for NPower or factories, as it is easier. The final roll can come anytime after about 1500ad. The empire at 1300 is the maximum size for war production. Any expansion after that point may help in game points, but will not be useful for conquest.

Build preferences during the stages:
initial war-- all military just before and during
alternating war-- about 1/4th military and the rest for improvements. May try one or two wonders each era.
final war-- about 3/4th military and rest for improvements delayed.

Only if a city is severly corrupted do I bother razing it.

There may be other approaches that work for other players. This has worked for me up to Monarch. However, I expect it will have to be adjusted twice more, once for Emperor and once for Diety.

== PF

 

[Trev]

When I play I usually keep about 90% of captured cities and raze the odd city only, the cities I raze will usually be a larger city that a gain in a war, which will only weaken an opponent but not destroy him, because full conquest cannot take place before WW occurs

I always build a library and temple in each city because their cost is relatively low and it adds substantially to my cultural strength, a factor that is useful in preventing CF against you and getting CF for you

I have won wars against opponents by gaining strategically important cities in CF