Early Warring on Immortal+

[Stalker0]

I could use some advice as I get used to warring on Immortal.

I am playing Assyria, and so going for Tradition, but I still want to take cities to make use early tech steal. So the consistent pattern for me after several failed attempts is:

1) I can take the first city no problem.

2) After the first city my Anti-Warmonger is generally between 30-49% depending on the severity of the city taking (I assume, I've seen this variance when I take the first city but I don't know what causes it, most of the time it goes right to 49 after so often I've seen 30ish).

3) After that, my troops have a much harder time, and will often die to 2 hits from enemy units, so I have to play very carefully.

4) Either I mess up and loss too many units, or the battles take too long. And often the AI gets to Knights while I've been focused less on science and more on units. With knights they then just crush me all the way back to my cities.


So first question, is this just a failing of attempting with this with Tradition as opposed to Authority (which would makes sense, Authority is the war tree after all). Also, is my ambition too high about taking several cities, should I just accept the one city, and then sue for peace/hold defense?

 

[andersw]

I've had this experience with authority on emperor and one reason I haven't upped difficulty yet.
As tradition on immortal, I would assume peace out when anti-warmonger kicks in, but I'm not sure how long it stays after peace.

 

[amateurgamer88]

This is what I've observed from my limited experience on Immortal. The timing is incredibly important and you don't have a large window to work with in the early and mid game. These are the timings I've found to be decent to work with and they will vary depending on other factors like terrain, proximity of the enemy and such. I've done it with Progress as well and you don't get the same sort of production boost to your capital like Tradition.

Early game war can be very effective in removing the enemy before they really get ahead of you. Archers and a single Warrior/Pathfinder can do wonders if you can get them up soon enough. If you choose to ignore Wonders and instead use the Justice policy in Tradition for military production, then you can have a strong military that can potentially let you cripple enemies like taking their second city or even wipe them out altogether. This requires you to move quickly and can be thwarted if your enemy has Spearmen/Horsemen. Note that this does mean you might not get a religion so that's the risky bit.

The next window of opportunity is mid-Medieval era when you possess largely the same tools as your neighbor since you will be focusing on your military and rely on conquering cities to fill in rest of the techs. This approach does let you go after a few Wonders but you are mostly aiming to keep up in tech with your neighbors in preparation for war. This scenario will help you avoid the scenario where enemy Knights destroy everything you have.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

My experience with warring on Deity is that, unless I'm playing as one of the best warmongering civs (Sweden, Zulus, Inca,...), I'm better off being patient, picking progress or tradition and then spending the first 150-250 turns on the defensive, grinding out experience points for my units, especially my ranged units. Once my ranged units gain the range promotion (and later on indirect fire), then the party can really start and I go on the offensive. I use my non-heavily-promoted melee units as defensive shields between the enemy units/cities and my ranged units, while my ranged units slowly but unstoppably destroy the enemy units and eventually clear enough area around the city to take it and keep. After that, I move onto the next city. Even with anti-warmongering penalties, my ranged units can consistently whittle down an enemy civ. Eventually the ranged units will be so well promoted you'll go through enemies very efficiently.

 

[ridjack]

Do people typically play Assyria as tradition? I haven't looked at his kit in so long I've actually forgotten what he does, but he was always Authority if I wanted to be aggressive from the start or Progress if I wanted to slow roll it and let his UA catch me up later. Warmongering as Tradition feels akin to cooking a steak by throwing it on top of your car's engine: sure, you CAN do it, but it's going to be slow, messy and taste of gasoline. (This metaphor might be perfect.) I feel like you'd want to war early to rack up benefits of his UA, but then everyone hates you, your unit supply is craptacular, your cities suck and you're not getting any help from policies until you can open up Imperialism. If you can survive until then, you're probably set, but it all sounds so... Messy.

Maybe I don't know what I'm on about. I need to revisit his kit and see why Tradition might be good.

 

[Stalker0]

Do people typically play Assyria as tradition? I haven't looked at his kit in so long I've actually forgotten what he does, but he was always Authority if I wanted to be aggressive from the start or Progress if I wanted to slow roll it and let his UA catch me up later. Warmongering as Tradition feels akin to cooking a steak by throwing it on top of your car's engine: sure, you CAN do it, but it's going to be slow, messy and taste of gasoline. (This metaphor might be perfect.) I feel like you'd want to war early to rack up benefits of his UA, but then everyone hates you, your unit supply is craptacular, your cities suck and you're not getting any help from policies until you can open up Imperialism. If you can survive until then, you're probably set, but it all sounds so... Messy.

Maybe I don't know what I'm on about. I need to revisit his kit and see why Tradition might be good.

What makes tradition is good is that Great Works give +3 science, and Great Works of Writing grant +5 XP to new units (up to +45 XP). So they get a LOT of value out of powering Great Works

 

[ridjack]

What makes tradition is good is that Great Works give +3 science, and Great Works of Writing grant +5 XP to new units (up to +45 XP). So they get a LOT of value out of powering Great Works

Yeah, I see it after pulling him up again. I can see an argument for Tradition, but I still think he'd feel better as Progress or Authority; something wide, anyway.

Though I suppose you don't HAVE to use his Towers early game, in which case you can play peacefully until Imperialism comes online and then go nuts. A lot more difficult to manage the captured cities, but I suppose it's doable?