ECONOMIC BLOODLUST: The ULTIMATE WAR CIV

[dn78]

ECONOMIC BLOODLUST

HIAWATHA's "THE Great Warpath"

by DN78




FORWARD:

I write this article to enlighten and educate many civ players who are looking to improve their game. This is an avanced article involving many veteran

concepts. There are no pictures and very few hard concrete numbers. My statemnt is simple HIAWATHA is the best MILITARY CIV that is often overlooked or

brushed to the side in multiplayer CIV5. My strategy that is well tested and proven and can be replicated is detailed below. Basically it is an economic

ICS model focusing on perma-warfare for hardcore domination victories. Enjoy!!!!!





The core concepts are easy to understand. But before that let me review settings:

Tiny or Small World
0-2 City States
Quick
Legendary Start or Standard
Pangaea, Oval, 4 Corners
Ancient Start
Normal Sea Level, Temp, etc...
Start Bias Active
Normal Barbs






PHASE ONE: CITY PLANNING AND BASIC DEFENSE


Starting Tech Order---Animal Husbandry, then Wheel. (This is a must for economic reasons)

On turn 1, I build a scout which takes 4 turns and explore the nearby woods with my warrior. My goal is to find a spot with 2 connecting forest tiles to my

capital (even if I have to waste a turn moving settler) so that I may take advantage of Hiawatha's special ability which is "The Great Warpath". Optimumly

you want to pack about 5-6 plus cities (sometimes 6-8) depending on hapiness resources available, ideally all these cities are conected via forest. These

cities should be placed directly on top of ALL hapiness resources.


On turn 4, after building a scout, build another scout. Keep your original warrior 2-3 turns from your capital in case you have to fight barbs or an early

HARASS by another player (for example an enemy spear upgraded via ancient ruins). You can and should explore with your warrior, just don't go too far away.

Many people do not view the scout as a military unit. Think of your scout as LIGHT MOBILE SPECIAL FORCES. Scouts combined with "The Great Warpath" equals a

unit that can move throughout your empire via road/forest that can kill wounded enemy units before they pillage or interfere with settler movement. Keep one

scout and your original warrior close to home, they will be doing double duty defending your empire and finding good places to settle.






PHASE TWO: EARLY EXPANSION/TRADE ROUTE DEVELOPMENT/HAPPINESS MANAGMENT


On turn 7-8, build your 1st settler, this should take about 8 turns. Immediatly start building another settler in your Capital (it should be about every 6

turns now). From this point on your capital is basically spamming settlers. Before you settle your 2nd city make sure you unlock the LIBERTY SOCIAL POLICY,

even if you have to waste a turn. Take care to gaurd your settler from enemy scouts/warrior/spears/barbs. The AI will not usually attack, but a human

player sees an unprotected settler/worker as open and fair game. You do not want to cripple yourself and help your opponents. Plan your warrior's 2nd

mission well, SETTLER ESCORT.

Secondary Tech Order---Mining---Bronze----Iron

After you found your 2nd city which should be connected to capital via forest, you will notice that a trade route is formed. If you've planned well you can

potentially have serval cities connected to your capital all without building a worker and you will not have to pay maintance for roads. Keep settling and

exploring. Try to place cities on top of happiness resources that way when you do finally research calendar/masonry/trapping you will recieve happiness

without having to build a worker and wait for him to improve land. If you have to buy some land to make it work do it. You should be rolling in dough.

In your second or third city start building a worker. All new cities should produce warriors or spears if available. The worker is for improving happiness

resources in your capital as well as for connecting cities that do not have apprpriate forest tiles. At this stage do not build any buildings or wonders.

So, by the time you tech iron working you should have 4-5 cities already. You should have an amazing economy producing over 20 gold per turn. This is the

DUALALITY of "The Great Warpath". It is an economic trait that lets you establish trade routes by forgoing road maintence, unit maintence for the workers

used to build roads, and time spent building the roads. "The Great Warpath" is also a military tait allowing units in forrested territory to move as if it

were on a road. So HIAWATHA, actually gets 2 special abilities if you view it this way.

When Iron is finally researched, send your prebuilt settler to settle directly on top of an iron resource. If this is not possible, get that worker on it

immediatly and fortify a warrior or spear for defense. Since you have already settled 4-5 cities already, iron should be nearby. Becasue of the vast

amount of territory, you most likely already have iron inside your cultural borders. Also, do not be content with a mere 6 iron, try and get a 2nd iron city,

or mine iron resouces alreadly in your borders. It is very common for me to have 12+ iron.

After researching iron, tech trapping/masonry/sailing/calendar. Priortize those techs that will allow you to recieve the benifits of the resources you

settled on top of. Your happiness should now be slighly positive. Your goal is to have 5+ happiness, so that you can invade freely without worrying about

the combat penalty which is HUGE. If your in the middle of a fight and you happiness drops to -10 or lower, you will not be able to attack efficvly.





PHASE THREEE: MILITARY DEVELOPMENT


Just to be perfectly clear, your building maintence should be zero. Do not build a single building or wonder. I cannot stress this enough. Your capital

makes settlers and the rest make 1-2 workers, spears, and enough warriors to upgrade to MOHAWRK WARRIORS. At this time you should have discovered a nieghbor

or two. Immidelty send spears on hills to look out along with scouts, map your targets. Do not leave yourself blind in any direction. If you discover he

has a small army send in your spears to pillage or steal a worker or to block expansion. Basically harrass if your opponent is weak. If he is strong and

has many cities (4 or more) then take time to position your spears on his flank or rear.

Upgrade all your warriors to Mohawk Warriors. Build more warriors and upgrade and maybe build a few from scratch. Remember your MW (Mohawk Warriors) have a

50% combat bonus in woods or jungle as well as attacking into the forest. Use the land to protect your MWs and attack your opponent from multiple vectors.

Do not be a NEWB and stage a full frontal assult. Your goal is to allow your MW to be promototed to DRILL 2. So 50% in the woods and another 40% for rough

terrian. I don't know exact numbers, but that is formitable. No other unit has this amount of power at this point in the game. MW have a great synergy

with "The Great Warpath". Defense will be easy because you have lookouts covering your blind side, a few MWs can defend your huge empire because of the

forest roads.

After all your iron is used for MWs. Start building chariot archers to follow behind your main forces. A few players will relieze your +50% combat bonus in

the woods and they will try aviod them. Show no mercy, bomard those units with your chariots to let them know they are completly powerless and vulnerable

oin all terrian. Use overwhelming force and plan on sending reinforcements before you attack.

Start prebuilding roads to your future puppets states as you march towards war, not after you've conquered. Remember mobility is your greatest weapon. Keep

an eye out for your happiness and keep extra warriors around so that when one does die you can replace him immedialty. After your happiness techs are

covered start beelining STEEL.




PHASE FOUR: MILITARY DOMINATION


So your early rush can probably takeout one or two opponents. Or maybe they called you cheater and left or maybe they quit in disgust. However, there is

usually one guy that knows his civ5. If he is an attacker, he will most likely fail due to your clever city placement and outright exploitation of your

Unique Unit. Your Flank and Rear are covered via scouts/lookouts and each city is a unit spamming machine. After your horses and iron are all done just

build spears and use them as bait to draw out opponets stronger units and bombard or attack from the woods. Also use spears to draw a city's bombard attack

and then move in your MWs.

If the remaining player or players are good defenders, you made need to employ "LIGHTING STRIKE". But first let me dicuss the player who build 3-4 cities

tops and always seems to have you covered. You attack his spear on the hill after bombarding and you get hit with archers, catapults, chariots, etc... He

has 4-6 ranged units and maybe he did a Civil Service Slingshot with Great Library and has pikes (most likely) with a strong economy. His rear and sides are

covered and he is dug in. He has a knight or horseman just waiting on his flank to kill your units. Anyone who plays Civ5 MP knows what I am talking about.

That player that just builds and defends, and makes your life hell despite having a 4-1 troop advantage. Also he builds things like Great Wall, Oligarcy SP,

Hijjemi, etc...

So if there are forests just outside his capital leading to his city, just settle that land buy some forested tiles right up to his border, send your troops

in via Great Warpath, you will lose a few units, but you will be able to take him out in a turn or two if he doesnt see it coming. My personal favorite is

to time this with Steel: Settle city, upgrade MWs to Longswords same turn, then attack on 3 fronts. Bye-bye fortress city. "Lighting Strike" is only used

in extreme sitations because an extra city at this point will kill hapiness. When you have his fort city, you can gift your attack city to another civ to

get rid of unhappiness.


Also use F2 to look at economic screen during game. Helps to visually see when your units will be made. Lots of useful info on this screen


Also press F9 throughout the game to check for troop levels. Yours should be number 1 the whole game except for maybe a few turns in the beggining.


If players are still alive at this point (doubtful if you were ruthless enough), they have probably formed a world wide allaince against you, which is

extremmly unfair for them because your civ is super-uber. If all the players have not quit or been killed, keep the pressure up. When you feel muskets are

coming and shortly afterwards rifles or maybe China Chus. Do an all out rush with every unit you have before rifles. Expect heavy causilties and pillage

along the way for gold. It was down to me and other guy in late game pre-rifles. He was China and had 4-5 Chus, an archer, and several pikes. I sent in

about 30 pikes wave after wave. They all died, but allowed my upgradded MWs (Longswords) to march right besides Bejing and eventually take it. Afterwards,

I had like 20 more GPT. He atually helped my economy by killing my outdated units.





AFTERTHOUGHTS:


So I used to be a builder first, then a warmonger second. My typical start on prince was: choose Napelon, beeline Stonhenge, and then Civil Service

Slingshot, Nat Library and then Ironworks, GA to produce 1 musketeer every turn spam cities and rule the world. However, these gamble strategies are not

that effective in CIV5 multiplayer. Ever since I became a warmonger, I enjoy Civilization more. It equates to a good game of chess. I also have modified

econmic warfare model for other civs as well such as China, Germany, and Napleon, and Rome. Maybe more on these if everyone likes my HIAWATHA strategy.

But, they are not as lethal or effective as "The Great Warpath".

So logging in at over 900 hours of single player at prince level and over 160 hours of multiplayer, I have come to relieze that "The Great Warpath" is the

most UBER-CIV in MP. It is also one of the most least played civs because people dont understand the syneries that come with the Iraquios. Their special

trait is actually two traits. One being economic and the other being mobile warfare. Their UU is one of the most powerful in the game and is most powerful

in any forest tile which are all to common. Liberty as a social policy define "The Great Warpath". Economy and gold are the limiting factors in supporting

any army. However it is HIAWATHA's Mohawk Warriors, the ability to move settlers and units faster through the forest, coupled with an insta-trade/insta-

infastructure which requires no prequisites other than the wheel tech and the land, that make HIAWATHA "THE TOP TIER CIV" in a class of its own.

So after perfecting "The Great Warpath" and my patented "Lighting Strike" in multiplayer games. I decided to finally try a diffficulty level (in singe

player) higher than prince. I decided to start at Diety, and to drop a level each time I got my butt kicked, just to see how this strategy works against an

uber-AI with many hapiness, gold, and production bonuses. First try, Domination Victory in 59 turns, too easy. My first time playing in single player above

prince, wooo-hooo.

I have been a hardcore CIV addict for many years. I played CIV3 MP (2 years of my ife gone) and CIV5 MP. I do not belong in any league or club. I play for

fun and I enjoy it when I get my butt kicked cause its when I learn the most. This is also my 1st post on CIVFANATICS as well as my 1st strategy article on

any game. I would appreicate comments, feedback, and tested counter-stragies against my methpdology.

 

[Smote]

Sounds like a good warmonger strat. Seems like it will face substantial problems if opponent is on a different continent, due to lack of NC.

I also don't think the goal should necessarily be "Get Drill 2", but rather "Don't lose Mohawks." Frontal assault strategy can work well if it turns into a 3sword vs 1city situation [after using some sword/spear to kill opponent army]. I fully advocate use of instant heals to make invasion go faster. It is key not to get "emotionally-attached" to any units, but rather just regard them as tools in order to achieve victory.

This strategy is very similar to my Liberty spam-rush strategies. Its very effective in duel of vs multiple nearby neighbors w/ no chokepoint. Cannons or rifles will stop your invasion flat if someone gets them, and this is manageable by turn 90 usually on quick. The walking time to get to your opponent is what allows this to be achievable by him.

The Great Warpath is a great moneymaker to fund an early sword rush. I highly approve!

France swordrush will still be faster and more deadly, if in close proximity though [faster liberty, and no need for AH or Wheel]. It is less dependable though, since you need a little luck to get enough gold. This is likely one of the best sword-rushes, and the great warpath might even save you a few turns in travel time [which is huge!].

I would advise an NC rush instead if nearest opponent capital is more than 15 hexes from you.

 

[MasterMishi]

Sounds good. I went through a phase of loving iro. I usually random now as I dont like to rely on a strategy/ civ.

A very fast sword rush from nearby opponent may set the strat back a bit as you go animal and wheel first. This will be exacerbated if you dont have many forests. Prob best if you are the one to attack first and you have only one neighbour nearby.

The extra scout may cost you the settler spam race. But I agree the scout doubled with warrior is good military team to kill an unlucky enemy scouting unit.

Going happiness techs after iron before steel may cost you the longsword race too. This may stall the advance significantly. Have you tested steel then happiness techs with lower pop?

I liberty rushed my continent with arabia on emporer as a test recently in SP and was only held up briefly by songhai's UU and cats, in the hands of a human this prob would have been a lot more problematic.

I got few forests with iro many times, even with the start bias enabled. This would reduce the uber-ness

Mid to late game the longhouse production bonus helps with the all out spam charge too.

 

[Tabarnak]

Good read. Can i have some timeframes?

Because a MWs rush can be stopped with a sword rush. At which turn can you usually put this rush?

When do you discover steel?

If opponent have a good choke point, it's always hard for the rusher. But this applies for everything.

 

[Smote]

I am guessing ~turn 42 MW rush, and turn ~65 steel rush if MW rush successful, turn ~70 if not successful.

Am I right?

 

[Tabarnak]

Yes after turn 65 it's hard to push MWs against longswords. If someone do a rifle rush and survive until then, maybe a detour to education after steel is needed since you may defend with few LS only(Oligarchy should be picked) and try to out-teching the long run with many captured cities with universities(great scientists activated to teleport to replacable parts) and get Infantry faster. If your military is huge, 2x LS can do the job against some riflemen and going right through rifles may be better.

The first strikes will tell what to do for middle to long game strategies.

 

[MasterMishi]

If your military is huge, 2x LS can do the job against some riflemen and going right through rifles may be better.

What do you mean?

 

[Tabarnak]

What do you mean?

Early riflemen may result in few units available when it's the time for upgrades because you need some non military stuff in most cases and enough money. Im talking here for an under 105 turns rush. A ''rush'' for me is before turn 110.

Let's elaborate for turn 100 :

Player 1(warpath guy) : successful rush, lot of puppets, have in his possession at least 8 longswordmen.

Player 2 (riflerush guy) : got 3-4 units for upgrade, got rifles and no longswordmen.

8 LS > 4 rifles under same conditions.

Also, the MWs rusher have technically a better position because he will get rifles sooner or later and he can both play offensively or defensively.

If the initial rush is not well successful, other things must be considerated.

 

[KM]

Good read. The thing is. I am that guy he is talking about. the one who know s his civ 5 (400h about 300 of them MP). and sometimes dig in, especially on 4 corners. I have been up against this (against france thought but very similar strat) and lost. And I didn t loose at the first assoult with MW. I didn t loose to the longswords, I lost in modern era.

The thing that finally killed me was that my oponent had a load of puppets (probably less buildings) and therefore much more cashflow In the end he was able to upgrade, and/or spam more modern era units than me and I got simply overrunned.

My strat depends on map. But on 4 corners I fit the profile of the player he is describing. Against the not top swordrushers I do win. A lot of times someone rish two of tghe players, then rush me, fail and quit. But the really good players rush me, see that they will fail, pull back and use the advantage of map control and more cities to overrun me in the long term even if it takes them nukes to do it.

My starting strat varies. But this is one I usually use on four corners:

civ: egypt.
1. Depending on terrain/settings (ancient ruins on/off) scout or worker. beeline calender. scout nearby surroundings with the worrior.
2. when my capital hit size 2 (even if the worker isn t finished I switch to settler)
3. Settler will finish at the same time of calender (a bit earlier with good tiles)
4. Settle second city on good spot not to faar from capital while building Stonehedge in capital. Beeiline ironworking. Use the second city to pump worriors. and start scouting the opponents.
5. When stonhedge finish switch to finish the worker if u didn t have time to do it before SH then produce worriors in capital and switch to settler to have one finished with ironworing.
6. Settle on iron/improve iron tile. and upgrade all the worriors to swords.

If there is a weak opponent to my left or right I rush them with the goal to make them ragequit before they loose all cities. Make peace with the AI of they do for some nice cash.

Since I play egypt and build SH a lot players will take me for a wonderwhore and scout me for easy grabs. But As soon as I get the swords (and quite a lot of them, they usually decide for an other victim for the initial rush)

Now this strategy normally leave me weak to a pure swordrush about 10-12 turns to someone who beeline ironworking from scratch (or france with g8 libr)

Also Since I usually after my intitial 5-6 swords switch back to an expanding phase building 2 more settlers and some workers and not go all out warmonger if I dont have a weak opponent nearby an all out warmonger might kill them off and get full map control. Against the strategy described abowe that would most probably be the case and I would in the end get overrun.

 

[Tabarnak]

From my experience, building NC before turn 70 is needed to stay alive in the tech race. After iron working beeline, building libraries then NC are necessary to keep you at least alive in the tech race, or simply get away and make profit of better techs first.

NC first is excellent for a very early longswordmen rush but can be hard to do on some maps. Since MWs special ability is transfered in the LS, this strategy is even more powerful, but always risky.

 

[Smote]

My strat depends on map. But on 4 corners I fit the profile of the player he is describing. Against the not top swordrushers I do win. A lot of times someone rish two of tghe players, then rush me, fail and quit. But the really good players rush me, see that they will fail, pull back and use the advantage of map control and more cities to overrun me in the long term even if it takes them nukes to do it.

My starting strat varies. But this is one I usually use on four corners:

civ: egypt.
1. Depending on terrain/settings (ancient ruins on/off) scout or worker. beeline calender. scout nearby surroundings with the worrior.
2. when my capital hit size 2 (even if the worker isn t finished I switch to settler)
3. Settler will finish at the same time of calender (a bit earlier with good tiles)
4. Settle second city on good spot not to faar from capital while building Stonehedge in capital. Beeiline ironworking. Use the second city to pump worriors. and start scouting the opponents.
5. When stonhedge finish switch to finish the worker if u didn t have time to do it before SH then produce worriors in capital and switch to settler to have one finished with ironworing.
6. Settle on iron/improve iron tile. and upgrade all the worriors to swords.

It sounds like you delay NC a lot in favor of swords. Does anyone ever longsword rush you? Or do you hold them off with oligarchy+swords if they try?

Also, what do you do after IW? NC, then tech to education? Or Steel?

 

[Smote]

Early riflemen may result in few units available when it's the time for upgrades because you need some non military stuff in most cases and enough money. Im talking here for an under 105 turns rush. A ''rush'' for me is before turn 110.

Yeah, I frequently hit riflemen around turn 95 when I am going for them. Sometimes as early as 85 or as late as 105, depending on land and events. I don't consider it a rush unless i use 2 great scientist to get to it.

I tend to do 3city -> NC -> swords -> longswords -> education -> cannons or rifles or both -> modern age

It is strong when it gets longswords [~turn 60 usually]. It allows for rifles if you are production-heavy, or cannons if not [might need to build some extra roads if you go cannons]. Rifles are recommended if you have a good army already that needs upgrades.

 

[MasterMishi]

Tried the Iro strat the other day. Started in grasslands with a few forest surrounding. Ruined the trade route aspect.

I planted a city right up to London, robbing his iron, which was in forest and upgraded to hold his warriors and archer off untill my army arrived and he made it crash.

Would have failed miserably against a fellow liberty sword rusher. He went 2 cities tradition.

 

[Smote]

Tried the Iro strat the other day. Started in grasslands with a few forest surrounding. Ruined the trade route aspect.

I planted a city right up to London, robbing his iron, which was in forest and upgraded to hold his warriors and archer off untill my army arrived and he made it crash.

Would have failed miserably against a fellow liberty sword rusher. He went 2 cities tradition.

Sounds like the UA was wasted, because of bad start location. Beeline iron working, or AH -> iron working is likely better in this instance.