Early game stomps

[andersw]

I've been struggling quite a bit with recent versions but got some inspiration from some of the write ups.
I play authority/king/epic, just swapping from left to the right side of authority helped a lot.

My two recent games also had some seriously op units.
Mandekalu cav, going for early military theory a 2-3 warriors and 2 Mcav took almost out poland peaced out, build 2 more took out and denmark and then back to kill poland.
The no penalty vs cities and high stats makes mince meat even of spearmen.
Tabya helps with buildings.

My second game with Denmark I went Glib ->sailing and then Metal casting.
Runestones are so rediculous when going wide everything gets built everywhere in no time.
And berserkers, oh my they are strong, I upgraded a few to tercios but most of them stays as berserkers, that seems better for the extra movement.

(Both games would of course look different if I had run into a wall of higher difficulties.)

I know it is a luxury the times when you have a lot of options for beliefs.
In the first game I missed on god of war but went for god of protection had early fountain of youth and took defender of the faith.

The vikings went god of war -> holy law+inspiration -> tithe/clericalism -> crusader spirit.
I was surprised that I got really fast reformation without building cathedral of StB.

Is Zelotry good?
I usually I don't really need that many more units, do the Zelotry recruited get full exp?
Does the strategic resource bonus make me get monopolies easier? then it's looking better.

What about Hero worship?
Looks useful for combination with zelotry or why not jesuit education.
Or maybe best reserved for civs that benefit from golden ages like Persia for example?

Any other civs that makes for good early wars.
Inca looks sort of ok but mostly for upgrade -> later game op ranged.
I've failed with Persia and should probably try again, immortals are so annoying to fight against but I wasn't able to push it well enough.
Boudicca and Zulu should probably be on the list as well.

 

[bigcat88]

Yes, Zealotry get full xp. Resources counted toward global monopolies, but better get Russia for strategic monopolies.
Persia during GA has the strongest naval units(only Venice have the same with arsenale UB)
But imho the only civ that don't depend on map\victory\terrain conditions is Poland.

And don't bless berserkers or in next patch they will be nerfed.

 

[ElliotS]

Greece and Rome are two other favorite warmongers.

 

[CrazyG]

Is Zelotry good?
I usually I don't really need that many more units, do the Zelotry recruited get full exp?
Does the strategic resource bonus make me get monopolies easier? then it's looking better.

Zealotry is very good, however it does eat up your faith. So for example, if you take zealotry and a faith building, like synagogues, it can be difficult to buy synagogues.

 

[sSs1897]

be some faith civ like Spain or Byzantium with zealotry lol

also Sweden is a good warmonger

 

[sanah]

Greece and Rome are two other favorite warmongers.

Just out of curiosity, how do you usually open with Rome? I feel like sometimes its a bit clunky with early game techs to get to legions in good time while also hitting other techs? Maybe I'm just overthinking it and should rush to iron working.

 

[andersw]

Just out of curiosity, how do you usually open with Rome? I feel like sometimes its a bit clunky with early game techs to get to legions in good time while also hitting other techs? Maybe I'm just overthinking it and should rush to iron working.

I agree, I don't think rome is very good at all, the unit is sort of strong but cant do much on their own and have no extra movement.
I feel that not only does swordsmen fill that function just as well (and usually even spearmen) they also loose the pilum function at upgrade.
The UA would have been good if it included ALL buildings, now it just include all VALID buildings which is sort of meh and you'll likely raze and resettle anyway.

 

[andersw]

be some faith civ like Spain or Byzantium with zealotry lol

also Sweden is a good warmonger

Yes with spain I drown in faith and Byzantines arent far behind.
Sweden have interesting combat bonuses, the UB comes too late for me, Carolean looks really strong, high strength with march which is a good promo.

 

[CrazyG]

With Rome you'll still probably want to take pottery, but other than that you can consider rushing towards iron working. Statue of Zeus gives you an option to get a barracks without researching military theory.

It can be a strong start on mining luxuries, build a forge quickly and then you'll have production to spam legions for a while. Let your neighbors build the cities for you.

If you find that spearmen (?) do the same things as legions you are doing something wrong.

 

[ElliotS]

Just out of curiosity, how do you usually open with Rome? I feel like sometimes its a bit clunky with early game techs to get to legions in good time while also hitting other techs? Maybe I'm just overthinking it and should rush to iron working.

Yeah opening Rome is a bit clunky. The nice thing about them is that they have a lot of options. Peace isn't great, but 15% production in satellite cities is enough to stay afloat. A war where you just grind your neighbors units isn't as good as it is for Greece, but it's certainly not bad and should be your second favorite place to be.

Your favorite place to be though is taking cities. Don't bother taking or keeping tiny useless cities. Let the AI's massive production bonus get them nice and full for you. Take the big powerful cities and profit. The combined value of the buildings you keep can add up to thousands of production when taking a city, and when you factor in that you can build other stuff instead of building broken buildings it's a really great steroid.

As for opening yeah, pottery and iron working are best. If you need to research Fishing or Calendar to improve your resources you might want to plan for a medieval conquering spree and mostly ignore the legion power peak. (Still get in wars whenever you can kill tons of units and lose few as soon as you get the UB, and probably before. Getting your neighbor to waste their production on units makes them easier to beat later, but also means they have less buildings to take.)

 

[andersw]

With Rome you'll still probably want to take pottery, but other than that you can consider rushing towards iron working. Statue of Zeus gives you an option to get a barracks without researching military theory.

It can be a strong start on mining luxuries, build a forge quickly and then you'll have production to spam legions for a while. Let your neighbors build the cities for you.

If you find that spearmen (?) do the same things as legions you are doing something wrong.

What I mean is that its hard to capture cities with legions (well it is for me) and then you need siege and then legions fill a similar role as spearmen, ie guarding line infront of the siege.
With enough preparation, weak opponents with poor defensive starting locations things are of course different, I'm trying to find these holes but I struggle.

I upped difficulty to emperor and went for The Celts, ditched the first game where I got in between a good defensive start Dido and Shaka nearby, and in the second had Brazil as neighbour.
Went mining with monument -> pictish and got a really early pantheon on turn 42 (epic speed).

Anyone read up on celt beliefs?
Morrigan, Harbinger of Strife looks interesting but tested and rewards seems very low, or does it scale well enough to be worth?
Rhiannon, Goddess of Sovereignty looks very nice, +1g+1p on resources is quite a bit and scales very nice with wide.

Also does pictish warriors keep the faith/kill on upgrade?

 

[sanah]

Yeah opening Rome is a bit clunky. The nice thing about them is that they have a lot of options. Peace isn't great, but 15% production in satellite cities is enough to stay afloat. A war where you just grind your neighbors units isn't as good as it is for Greece, but it's certainly not bad and should be your second favorite place to be.

Your favorite place to be though is taking cities. Don't bother taking or keeping tiny useless cities. Let the AI's massive production bonus get them nice and full for you. Take the big powerful cities and profit. The combined value of the buildings you keep can add up to thousands of production when taking a city, and when you factor in that you can build other stuff instead of building broken buildings it's a really great steroid.

As for opening yeah, pottery and iron working are best. If you need to research Fishing or Calendar to improve your resources you might want to plan for a medieval conquering spree and mostly ignore the legion power peak. (Still get in wars whenever you can kill tons of units and lose few as soon as you get the UB, and probably before. Getting your neighbor to waste their production on units makes them easier to beat later, but also means they have less buildings to take.)

Thanks for the response makes sense to me. So let's say you have a lot of room around your capital for a few cities say for 3-4 additional cities and enough luxuries etc to keep happiness afloat would you expand and then go for a big push during medieval? It makes sense as an idea but seems so odd to skip such a good UU in the legion. Obviously can still use legions to connect cities etc. Rome is my favorite civ but the clunkiness had made openings really challenging.

 

[CrazyG]

I know what you mean by clunky. If you go straight for iron working without upgrading your science, it seems to take forever and you aren't really doing anything in that time period. You feel like you shouldn't build spears because you are about to get legions.

What I should have mentioned is pantheons. A pantheon that gives science will help this out a lot, especially God of All Creation. Its works great with Rome, who can make his plan for religion to just take someone's holy city.

What I mean is that its hard to capture cities with legions (well it is for me) and then you need siege and then legions fill a similar role as spearmen, ie guarding line infront of the siege.
With enough preparation, weak opponents with poor defensive starting locations things are of course different, I'm trying to find these holes but I struggle.

Statue of Zeus would up their damage to cities. You might need catapults for capital cities still. The thing is, cities aren't going to hurt legions very much, if at all. You can walk around and let their cities or archers take as many shots as they want. So pillage, capture workers, kill units, gain experience. You can make gains without taking their capital. Newer cities should fall pretty easily to a group of legions. Three should be able to take an unwalled city with an archer inside very quickly, even if you take shock instead of drill.

Also does pictish warriors keep the faith/kill on upgrade?

Nope.

Morrigan's yields aren't that high. You need to do a lot of killing for it to be worthwhile. Rhiannon isn't bad for big empires.

 

[Rafs]

Something to keep in mind with rome too is when they capture cities they keep all buildings except the palace, ikanda, walls of babilon, mission and dojo I think (can't keep defense / military buildings, at least last time I played), so that means they can keep most UBs, making them good to prey on neighbors with good ubs, like greece, byzanthium or the aztecs (I don't recommend denmark because their berserker will carry them for a long time, but if you can you'll keep their ub which is fantastic), and the city with the courthouse built won't be a drag to you. I think their power relies on taking full advatange of the conquests they make compared to other civs.

 

[ElliotS]

What I mean is that its hard to capture cities with legions (well it is for me)

It's a common mistake by players to avoid hitting cities with melee units. They're extremely potent. Even when the city isn't blockaded they can make taking cities magnitudes quicker.

I suggest practicing. Denmark is a great civ to start with, but soon you'll be ramming longswordsmen into full health cities with full confidence.

 

[andersw]

It's a common mistake by players to avoid hitting cities with melee units. They're extremely potent. Even when the city isn't blockaded they can make taking cities magnitudes quicker.

I suggest practicing. Denmark is a great civ to start with, but soon you'll be ramming longswordsmen into full health cities with full confidence.

It's been going better with more varied promotions and more cover promotions.
Amazed how well current emperor game is going.

 

[neo_arcadia]

Any other civs that makes for good early wars.
Inca looks sort of ok but mostly for upgrade -> later game op ranged.
I've failed with Persia and should probably try again, immortals are so annoying to fight against but I wasn't able to push it well enough.
Boudicca and Zulu should probably be on the list as well.

Inca was my favorite civ until yields from mountain got nerfed lol. I think their strength came from defense. For me, playing Inca means being bro with everyone; well, except neighbors because I want to have plenty of cities and they will find it annoying. Being surrounded by mountains is one of the unique way to go hard on infrastructure and spent a little as possible on units. People will find it hard to conquer your cities because of combination of slingers and mountains. While Shoshone's defense comes from their UA and encampment, Inca defense comes from nature. So yeah, I think if you are being aggressive while using Inca it is not impossible but it makes me want to hear your story

And for Persia, it is very pleasing civ. Last week I conquered half continent simply because I was swimming in happiness. 100+ happiness was an overkill so I'm using it to simultaneously capture multiple 25pop cities of Morocco in Industrial. Anyway, in the early game, you will be hunting barbarians as usual as Authority-pickers do. You could get an extra boost by demanding tribute from city-state, again, as usual as Authority-pickers do. After that, these things are something I discovered about Persia:

-Buy a lot of Immortal before they go obsolete. In the right situation, Immortal really are, immortal. They can't be killed without huge amount of commitment.

-I suggest prioritize extra movement promotion. This comes from someone who prefers Shock to get march ASAP though. 3-tile movement for foot soldier that comes from Persia UA is huge. Combined with extra movement it opens up unthinkable movement compared to other civ. Your upgraded immortal suddenly able to catch that pesky cuirassier or low health lancers.

-Satrap's court is awesome for its extra happiness and money but it takes really long to build in your original cities. It simply because normally, you build courthouse discounted. With Persia, suddenly you have UB that costs big amount of production in its era. Compared to other civ, I find myself not in favor of prioritizing this UB because of that. Maybe after I build monument and granary and council and water mill and stoneworks and forge I build Satrap court in my new city.

-To keep your Golden Age rolling, go Artistry and Chichen Itza. Completed Artistry branch will give you enough amount of GAP and combined with Chichen Itza you wont have Golden Age anymore but Gap Age. It is that five or so turns between two consecutive Golden Age. Use GA (Great Artist) to eliminate GA (Gap Age) between GA (Golden Age). Playing Persia was the first time I saw "NEGATIVE 21 turn before a new Golden Age" It was awesome.

-Regarding Golden Age and Religion (and also third social policy), I suggest you to balance between two things. One is the source of Golden Age Points and two is anything that benefit you from Golden Age. To remind you a bit, yields that affected by Golden Age are Culture (20% extra), Production (20% extra), Gold (1 extra each tile), and Science+Growth (for Rationalism). Maybe experiment a bit whether to pick Hero Worship or Divine Inheritance. Maybe experiment a bit whether to pick Stupa,mastery or Cathedral,Mosque,Diligent,Scholarship. Maybe experiment a bit whether to pick Industry (for Gold and Production) or Rationalism (for Science and Growth).

All right, that's my write up about Persian experiment. Go try it, Darius will bless you with Golds.

 

[andersw]

It's a common mistake by players to avoid hitting cities with melee units. They're extremely potent. Even when the city isn't blockaded they can make taking cities magnitudes quicker.

I suggest practicing. Denmark is a great civ to start with, but soon you'll be ramming longswordsmen into full health cities with full confidence.

Yes, but by hitting cities the units get hurt and will possibly need to retreat to heal up so a lot more units are needed to swap out injured ones.
This time I went in hit some, retreated to heal up back in again while increasing military and trying to pick off a unit here and there and getting exp.
The risky part is hidden archers can pick off units and suddenly if you lose 2 units thats a big investment down the drain.

 

[XplosiveLun]

It's a common mistake by players to avoid hitting cities with melee units. They're extremely potent. Even when the city isn't blockaded they can make taking cities magnitudes quicker.

I suggest practicing. Denmark is a great civ to start with, but soon you'll be ramming longswordsmen into full health cities with full confidence.

Melee units are indeed extremely potent in siege. Though, you might prefer using resource-specific units as they deal more damage and also receive less. Melee cavalry is also very good at sacking cities. Despite having reduced strength against city, they are still strong thanks to their speed and drill promotions. They are even more exceptional when against satellite cities.

 

[admfischer]

I once tried Authority Inca and it was glorious. I spammed Slingers and spammed only Slingers, and early AIs couldn't do anything about it, those Horsemen I just ate them alive as they couldn't attack Inca mountain goats. Bring up Catapults to mountains, bomb all those cities from there, and you just broke the game.