Help me be a better Warmonger

[mudphud]

That's just it, though. I couldn't have fought off Kublai. I had maybe 2 units in each city (longbows) and that was about it. Plus, Kublai's ahead of me in tech as well. Most civs are, although prior to the second round of warfare, I was catching up quickly.

Just wanted to say that I almost never build longbows because they are only good at defending a city but they do little to stop a pillaging force which can really hurt your economy. Cats are a great weapon - I recommend you build more. Even if you are not attacking a city they can weaken an entire stack that is invading your territory allowing you to clean up the rest of the units that have been sent and they have a withdraw chance so you might not even lose it.

When you say you are behind on tech - how far behind? It can be nice to beat up someone that has a few techs you want and then make them give them to you for piece. Now if you enemy has calvary and you have macemen then you are pretty screwed. How are you choosing what techs to research and are you trading techs? Like I mentioned earlier try to beeline a military tech right before lanching your invasion. Your enemy has longbows in his cities? Try to push up to gunpowder and maybe chemistry to grab some grenades. If you are playing a warmonger make sure your research reflects that.

 

[futurehermit]

Grens/Cav > Longbows. CR3 maces, trebs also do well after being softened up a bit with suicide catas.

 

[mudphud]

Grens/Cav > Longbows. CR3 maces, trebs also do well after being softened up a bit with suicide catas.

CR3 maces with some trebs and cats can certainly take down longbows. My point was simply that even if you are behind in research you can push the military techs to give yourself a military advantage. This doesn't mean that being on equal tech level precludes the possibility of invading your neighbor if your war machine is ready to go. If you are planning an invasion don't just build whatever units you happen to have available to you if you can put a few turns of research in and get a nice boost to your army.

If you can push a tier ahead of your neighbor militarily (ie cats while he still is defending with archers or even macemen against his archers or pushing to gunpowder to deal with those pesky longbows) it can make for a short sweet war.

And if your opponent has too many defenders in his city you can still slow him down by wagging a war of pillage. Small stacks to pillage (have at least one mounted unit so you can move and pillage on the same turn and another unit or two so the mounted unit can't be easily countered) can make a bit of coin and slow down his economy so you have a chance to catch up even if you can't take any cities. Those longbows that are so difficult to take out of a city are wimpy attackers so he will have trouble dealing with your pillagers. The PC doesn't wage war well - it often sends stacks of a single unit type that can be easily countered and isn't overly aggressive.

 

[futurehermit]

There's two ways to war: tech advantage or numbers advantage. Both work. If you are behind on tech, you're going to need more numbers, with a heavy focus on collateral dmg (e.g., catapults). If you're ahead on tech, you can mop up quickly and efficiently. I prefer cav or grens vs. medieval units.

 

[Solo4114]

Yeah, I think my initial problem was not building up my axe force fast enough to take out Washington initially.

Using war as "diplomacy by other means" with Shaka is something I hadn't considered. Mostly I view guys like Shaka as unpredictable psychos, so why help him? Even if I play nice, he'll still go nuts on me even if he's got positive relations with me. Plus, in the last round, he really DID take out most of Washington's cities. He had riflemen going up against longbows. I hadn't even discovered Guilds yet, much less gunpowder. Now, I could've caught up, and quickly (I was starting to trade a lot more and research stuff the AI didn't have, plus I got Liberalism first), but I didn't have enough time in that game.


I think my start was a bit slow. Copper and iron were far from my cities when I settled, which screwed me early on (by far, I mean something like 4-5 squares). That meant I had to wait for my borders to expande 3-4 times before I could get it in my resource box. Numidian cavalry is great for racing around and crippling AI economies, but it sucks for taking cities (-10% to city attack).

So the timing of my ability to do an axe rush was off -- I had the tech, but I couldn't build the units until I hooked it up with my cities, which put me behind schedule for building up troops.

The rest of the advice has been really helpful, though. Keep it comin' guys!

 

[mudphud]

Yeah, I think my initial problem was not building up my axe force fast enough to take out Washington initially.

I think my start was a bit slow. Copper and iron were far from my cities when I settled, which screwed me early on (by far, I mean something like 4-5 squares). That meant I had to wait for my borders to expande 3-4 times before I could get it in my resource box. Numidian cavalry is great for racing around and crippling AI economies, but it sucks for taking cities (-10% to city attack).

So the timing of my ability to do an axe rush was off -- I had the tech, but I couldn't build the units until I hooked it up with my cities, which put me behind schedule for building up troops.

The rest of the advice has been really helpful, though. Keep it comin' guys!

When are you researching bronze working? Most people make that an early tech so that they can see bronze by the time they found their second or third city to be sure they have copper if no copper is present research animal husbandry and at least get horses (if neither is close by then you might have to research iron working or just be peaceful for a while - though you may need archery to fend off the barbs). Don't forget bronze working also lets you chop forests and which are both very valuable.

How are you upgrading your num calvary? Don't overlook giving them flanking II (they start with flanking I). Combined with their 20% withdrawal chance they can be useful attacking a city to soften it up because the have a good chance of surviving. Flanking I and II add 30% to withdrawal chance so you have 50% chance! They are also immune to first strike which archers have (usual AI city defender). If you get a warlord to make a medic III unit (I recommend one of your calvary) you can heal them up quickly after taking down the city. I used to consider flanking fairly useless because I want to win the fights not run away but it is actually a great promotion to be able to soften up a city's defenders without as many loses.

 

[Solo4114]

ASAP. Like, first thing, if I start with mining. If not, I go mining, then BW, then The Wheel (if I don't otherwise have it).

For my Numidians, I give them Flanking II, and the extra movement one, although sometimes I'll go with Combat I or Sentry.

My big trouble on this one map was that I had Horses some 15 squares away (and in a Barb city's zone), and copper something like 5 away. Iron was also about five away from my capital. I ended up expanding into it, but my initial placement wasn't fantastic. I think I started my first war with Washington when I only had about two cities. Maybe three or four (I think I took one or two barb cities that were well placed).


I mean, I get the basic concept of the axe rush. Hook up bronze ASAP, and then start cranking out axemen, ideally when you have a barracks, but not necessarily. Catch the AI off guard when it's got not much more than 2 archers and no walls, and you're set. Free cities and/or cash. Do it early enough and you can wipe out an enemy civ while simultaneously grabbing some good land.

I think I need to get that started sooner or at least do my buildup in preparation for that sooner. I may need to do it right when I have 3-4 cities after my early settler rush with, say, 3-4 pop a piece, and a barracks in at least one or two of them. By that point I should be able to crank out enough troops to overwhelm the enemy, but the problem may be that they'll already be building up themselves. Plus, I'll miss out on some useful early wonders like Stoneheng and/or Pyramids (both of which I dearly love).

 

[mudphud]

Plus, I'll miss out on some useful early wonders like Stoneheng and/or Pyramids (both of which I dearly love).

Those are both nice wonder no question but you often do have to choose if you want to focus on early wonders or early war. My favorite is when my next door neighbor builds some nice wonders and leaves his cities (relatively) undefended. Stonehenge is fairly cheap but honestly not really all that needed unless you are going to have quite a few cities (say a relatively isolated start) or if you are charismatic. Pyramids on the other hand are very sweet but very expensive. I'm not saying that building these wonders are exclusive with doing the ax rush just consider the cost and decide if you really need them in particular game.

PS Sounds like you have the idea down just practice some for fine tuning.

 

[uncarved block]

Several little bits of input, from someone else who plays on Noble.

1. If you want to work on just the logistics of warmongering, you might try playing a few games on the Great Plains map, standard size. Resources aren't usually a problem, and unless you get the one isolated starting spot, your neighbors will all be close at hand. Yeah, it's kind of rigging the results a bit, but the lessons you pick up here can be adjusted for later. (Pangaea is also a good map for this, but sometimes the resources are still a problem.)

2. It sound as if you have the axe rush part down cold, but are having trouble consolidating your gains. I've found, in every Civ game I've played, that Markets were one of the "hidden" buildings in the game, in that they aren't much alone, but a couple of them are what give you the flexibility to look past the initial land rush. One Market in a commerce heavy city can pay for two or three smaller cities, until those smaller cities grow enough to break even.

3. I've started to think of war and peace as a matter of tempo, or as the black and white in the yin-yang. Too much warring is as bad as too much building, unless you're planning on financing an empire solely on plunder. (I can't do it, but it sounds as if others can.) Now, learning how to do this ain't easy; it took me six months to get the hang of it, after I started warring earlier and earlier but not having as much to show for it as I should. (To put it another way, I've learned how to add that fifth and sixth cities sooner than I had before.) Early use of the whip and the chop helped, but learning when it's time to grow core cities as big as possible has helped me more.

4. One thing I've noticed as well is that the AI, especially after the new Warlords patch, will only start building a lot of units after they've run out of buildings, or after they've been attacked. (Monty is the exception to the rule, as in so many other ways.) I've gotten burned too many times thinking I'd done well by taking a city or two from an AI who attacked, only to have them show up with a massive force twenty+ turns later. If an AI has been attacked by a neighbor, they're usually off my top target list until (or if) I've got some kind of advantage via tech. The late game is a different story, but this general advice should work up through Macemen and Trebuchets at the very least.

Hope my two cents helps a little.

 

[Sjaramei]

Several little bits of input, from someone else who plays on Noble.

3. I've started to think of war and peace as a matter of tempo, or as the black and white in the yin-yang. Too much warring is as bad as too much building, unless you're planning on financing an empire solely on plunder. (I can't do it, but it sounds as if others can.) Now, learning how to do this ain't easy; it took me six months to get the hang of it, after I started warring earlier and earlier but not having as much to show for it as I should. (To put it another way, I've learned how to add that fifth and sixth cities sooner than I had before.) Early use of the whip and the chop helped, but learning when it's time to grow core cities as big as possible has helped me more.

You have a good point about tempo
I've been greedy a few times and had to go nuts with ocean squares/financial to pay for my cities. (12 cities before CoL wasn't a very good idea... )

So yes you shouldn't capture too many cities with the initial axe/chariot rush. (if you wait until you have catas, you should have CoL ready) 5-6 Cities without CoL works if you can specialize most of the cities into gold for a while. When you get Code of Laws it's a whole new game , just take as many cities as you can get and whip courthouses in all cities. (Organized is awesome for this, 2-3 pop courthouses is fantastic)

After you've gained a lot of land (usually after a 2nd AI dead) just start cottaging and getting important buildings(Granaries,Libraries etc. you know the deal) everywhere.

For me the best warmongers isn't Tokugawa or Churchill (they both shine with gunpowder and get very good units) It's more the balanced ones with one military trait and one financial trait. Hannibal, Napoleon, Ragnar and Shaka is in my opinion the best ones (Shaka because of the mini courthouse, it works as a "mini-trait" )

Philosophical/spiritual can work very good with warmongering too, but i feel they are not as straightforward as the four above. (And you know when you pick one of the four above you get in the right mood for war! )

(The Romans are of course among the best warmongers cause of Praets/organized, but they are a bit too cheesy for me usually)