Early aggression

[Heinz_Guderian]

Yo guys. I really really love the early game in this game, and I have just recently started playing on deity as I don't want mr Panzer to be ashamed of me bearing his name.

No but I really like early warfare, and I just wondered how high level players go about it. The problem I have is with the pacing/timings, where there is one timing that comes before your neighbours get walls. That early aggression means that you dont have courthouses, however, and issues with happiness often ensues as a result of that. A second timing would then naturally be when you do have courthouses, and at that point you have siege weapons as a kind of counter to the walled cities. I often feel like I am reeling and undecisive between these timings though, and I just wondered if anyone wanted to share how they do early aggression. And yeah obviously it depends on what unique units your civ has.

 

[stii]

I think attacking before walls is just too hard to do and so not worth the effort. The issue with early game wars is the on deity the AIs advantage is biggest there so you need a good reason to attack so early. So you go deeper into the game it is much easier to beeline military techs and get an advantage over the AI through upgrading a large number of units, you don't need a tech lead you just need to be more selective than the AI.

There is also an issue with courthouses and vassalage with early wars, you really need access to them before the war ends and doing a comp bow rush is pushing it. While you can rush even the deity AI super early it isn't worth it if it cripples your early game to gain a few cities.

Crossbows are a lot better and you can set yourself up beforehand to have a lot of comp bows to upgrade into them. Early siege units are pretty bad so I'd rather just have a swarm of ranged units and a few others to buffer for them.

I generally wait for cannons and musketmen as you can generally use those to win a war pretty easily, but that isn't really an early war anymore.

So for an early war I'd probably want to be a civ with good abilities/units for early war. For this I like Assyria best as they have an early game tech boost, a unit the helps attack and a benefit from conquest.

 

[MIS]

Milae prefers to wait for Medieval to win wars, so he can vassalize them. I agree walls make things very difficult, but even before that taking a city can lead to unhappiness, and increases tech/policy costs. And if you raze them, you get a bad warmonger score which can make things more difficult later on.

If I go authority, I try to get Terracotta Army, and then kill units/pillage. Putting them at a big disadvantage early can make it easier later.

 

[Stalker0]

I feel like tributes + taking CS is the best way to early war.

you get the double whammy of tribute resources + a nice solid city. And even with walls because CS don’t have the army stream of a regular civ they are still takeable.

then going into medieval you’ll also have a nice veteran army that you can use for regular warring.

generally when I attack an early civ it’s mainly to slow them down. I’ll pillage with my scout, snipe workers if I can, Getting a settler is of course the greatest prize, play defense to ensure they don’t do the same. My goal is not to take any cities, just weaken them enough that it’s easier to hit them later on.

provably the only time I attack early with the intention of city taking is due to a forward settle that I cannot abide...though even then it’s sometimes better to wait till later just depends on timing

 

[stii]

Yeah I forgot about tribute as it doesn't fall under the narrow definition of early war. It is a much better use of your early units than trying to fight an AI. It is a bit fiddly to shuffle your units around but the yields are huge early game.

 

[Mad Madigan]

My early war strategy is nearly identical to Stalker0. I don't actually go to war to capture cities until after I have Courthouses and siege weapons, but I DO go to war early to harass my neighbors, stealing as many workers/settlers as I can, pillaging tiles, and generally slowing them down as much as I can. That way, if I went Authority and intend to win the game through domination, I am essentially "farming" the AI in the Ancient/Classical era for yields until I am strong enough and they are far enough behind that I can conquer and vassalize them as soon as I hit the Medieval Era without too much difficulty. Setting that all up to go as smoothly as possible creates the early catapult that allows for later conquests against stronger AI more manageable.

 

[MIS]

I feel like tributes + taking CS is the best way to early war.

you get the double whammy of tribute resources + a nice solid city. And even with walls because CS don’t have the army stream of a regular civ they are still takeable.

then going into medieval you’ll also have a nice veteran army that you can use for regular warring.

generally when I attack an early civ it’s mainly to slow them down. I’ll pillage with my scout, snipe workers if I can, Getting a settler is of course the greatest prize, play defense to ensure they don’t do the same. My goal is not to take any cities, just weaken them enough that it’s easier to hit them later on.

provably the only time I attack early with the intention of city taking is due to a forward settle that I cannot abide...though even then it’s sometimes better to wait till later just depends on timing

If you take the CS for yourself, do you find the unhappiness hurts you?

 

[looorg]

For early wars I rarely capture (and keep) things, but I do burn and pillage. But it's very game dependent. But if I have a unique unit, authority and some poor civ next to me does not then some sort of archer+scout rush will probably happen to just knock them out of the game. Which is a lot easier to do the slower the game speed you are on -- totally viable even on deity if you just run marathon speed.

The drawback is as noted that you'll be stuck with a city which is a giant happiness dump for a long time which could lead to a lot of issues. That said you can usually carry one capital for a bit cause it's going to have several luxuries etc so their drag on your happiness can be countered.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Unless I have an early unique unit, I don't go for early conquest (with the exception of a CS that has fallen to barbarians), instead I beeline for Steel or Chivalry and go ham on an AI, there's usually at least one neighbour that didn't rush them and has older units. But I do love to settle my cities in very easily defensible positions so that when the AI DoWs me, I'll harvest the incoming hostile units for XP even after being offered a peace treaty, so that by the time I reach the medieval era, I'm close to having composite bowmen and catapults with range, which then makes conquest much much easier.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

Thanks for your feedback guys. I managed to take Romes capital super early on with spearmen and a scout with medic 2. I am still not sure it is a good idea, but as long as you can manage the unhappiness it should give you a huge advantage seeing as his capital was super close to me and would have settled some good spots otherwise. It also pretty much guarantees that you will get a monopoly for at least 2 resources, which is pretty awesome too. Still going to experiment with what fits my playstyle and what seems like optimal play.

 

[Stalker0]

If you take the CS for yourself, do you find the unhappiness hurts you?

I will always puppet until courthouses are available. I don’t generally find the unhappiness worse than if I had my own city I had to maintain.

 

[CrazyG]

I will always puppet until courthouses are available. I don’t generally find the unhappiness worse than if I had my own city I had to maintain.

I agree, but a good exception can be faith. I'll happily give up a few happiness to get faith sometimes, especially if the city has a natural wonder.

 

[MIS]

I agree, but a good exception can be faith. I'll happily give up a few happiness to get faith sometimes, especially if the city has a natural wonder.

Is this only when you are going for a religion?

 

[CrazyG]

Is this only when you are going for a religion?

Yea