Help with total military

[maegi]

I am new to civ games and 4 is my first one, never played I-III. Been having fun and I guess I'm learning by playing. I just don't feel like I use the right build orders or make the right choices all the time. I've won games by space victory once, time victory (ran out of time and was on top) and once as UN leader with most votes. Usually I just lose.

What I want to know is a way to go strong military , waging wars to win by conquest. I guess I am asking how you'd start building for this and what civ to pick to use. I assume Mongols or Montezuma, one that is aggressive? Maybe I need a walk thru, like on move 1 build barracks, go this route to achive UU unit the fastest etc. I never seem to get UU units for any race till they are obsolete by gunpowder or other techs.

 

[Penitent]

Its very difficult to conquer the world in a normal game's time-span if that's what you mean. I'm a warmonger myself, I start wars with an objective in mind though, to capture some resources, take prize cities on my border etc ti increase my power and culture. Junk cities are more hassle than their worth to conquer I'm beginning to think.

I have learned the hard way not to make enemies of everyone though, I end up running back and forth through my empire fending off one invasion after another.

 

[maegi]

Penitent,
Thanks for your reply. I agree that it seems damn near impossible to just be a warmonger, which is sad because Genghis Khan and Attilla the Hun, yeah I know he isn't in this game, but Khan is and so is Napolean, were all known warmongers. It seems like if I try to play that style I fall way behind in techs and the defensive bonuses others get by staying in cities means I"m going to have to throw a lot of men at them to break them down, even if I use catapults or artillery later in the game to drop defenses to 0.

I guess I want to know if there are good choices to get the UU units the fastest way possible. For instance there is another thread here discussing how the Chinese UU is awesome and if you get em early to go ahead and start a war. I'd love to! By the time I could build one though, the other dudes already had rifles or muskets. Seemed kinda silly to start a war with Chinese crossbowmen at that point.

 

[Penitent]

What I like to do, is to hunt for stone and get stonehenge quickly, for free culture, then I can build barracks in peace (heh). I like horse archers for taking early cities. I like to get pyramids and stonehenge if possible, the prophets improve your economy with shrines while the great engineers let you have free wonders, you can do without them but if your warmongerinf you want to build wonders that free up time for military production.

The best thing about warmongering is that if you plan properly, you can take the good cities and have way more luxuries etc than everybody else.

 

[maegi]

Rather than post another thread , I have another question I thought I"d add to this. When I have founded say Buddhism and later say Judaism and/or Christianity, is there a way to pick one to make the people under my control have it as their main religion? Basically, I have seen others post that they either start a religion or adopt the most common one in the world. How is this done?

 

[Penitent]

You can change your state religion by clicking on the religion icon (praying hands) in the top right menu and then clicking on the logo of the religion you want and revolting, to spread a particular religion you need to build missionaries. You want great prophets to build shrines for gold income.

 

[Joh]

Penitent,
Thanks for your reply. I agree that it seems damn near impossible to just be a warmonger, which is sad because Genghis Khan and Attilla the Hun, yeah I know he isn't in this game, but Khan is and so is Napolean, were all known warmongers.

But remember the civilpedia description of napolean:

"But in the end, he just couldn't beat everybody"

Though people like Kahn, Napolean, and Ceasar were rather keen on war, remember that they didn't conquer the entire world. Playing the British, I am usually in constant warfare from 1750 to 1900 in this game, and the territory I get from that is the core cities of two civilisaitons, which is enough for me.

 

[MSTK]

Warmongering was much, much easier in Civ III. But I kind of like the balance they added in Civ IV. Now, war isn't the only answer.

 

[Sayounara]

Waging war has become unrealistic as far as I'm concerned. Wars are conducted and concluded much faster in the real world. Troops movements are especially too slow. Why does calvary and settler have the same movement rate? Stupid!! Pisses me off.

 

[anton_z1]

Thanks for your reply. I agree that it seems damn near impossible to just be a warmonger, which is sad because Genghis Khan and Attilla the Hun, yeah I know he isn't in this game, but Khan is and so is Napolean, were all known warmongers. It seems like if I try to play that style I fall way behind in techs and the defensive bonuses others get by staying in cities means I"m going to have to throw a lot of men at them to break them down, even if I use catapults or artillery later in the game to drop defenses to 0.

I guess I want to know if there are good choices to get the UU units the fastest way possible. For instance there is another thread here discussing how the Chinese UU is awesome and if you get em early to go ahead and start a war. I'd love to! By the time I could build one though, the other dudes already had rifles or muskets. Seemed kinda silly to start a war with Chinese crossbowmen at that point.

You can be a warmonger (I usually play on conquest and i win). However you should note that if you are not financial, i wish you good luck.

Also getting to war before getting swordsmen is suicide. Horses doesnt have a chance agaisnt spearmens .

If your most powerful unit is your chinese UU, while other got rifles, i wish you good luck to win the game as conquest .

Waging war has become unrealistic as far as I'm concerned. Wars are conducted and concluded much faster in the real world. Troops movements are especially too slow. Why does calvary and settler have the same movement rate? Stupid!! Pisses me off.

The reason is that you must planify very carefully what you are doing.
Forget the 10-20 turns civilization kill .

You must know where the ennemy resources are and what cities you want to get. Attack small cities first to incrase your units city raiding (With city raiding 3 swordsmen can take out a longbowman with 40% city defense !!!!).

Using allies is a good thing too.

War wearness is not a big deal, thus who cares how much time a war takes ?

Finally the movements are adjusted to balance the game. I woul not like my settler having 1 movement point on a Huge map, or a mongolian Keshnik having more then 2 movement points.

If you wish check the XML file, change some variables and look what this gets

 

[Sayounara]

You can be a warmonger (I usually play on conquest and i win). However you should note that if you are not financial, i wish you good luck.

Also getting to war before getting swordsmen is suicide. Horses doesnt have a chance agaisnt spearmens .

If your most powerful unit is your chinese UU, while other got rifles, i wish you good luck to win the game as conquest .



The reason is that you must planify very carefully what you are doing.
Forget the 10-20 turns civilization kill .

You must know where the ennemy resources are and what cities you want to get. Attack small cities first to incrase your units city raiding (With city raiding 3 swordsmen can take out a longbowman with 40% city defense !!!!).

Using allies is a good thing too.

War wearness is not a big deal, thus who cares how much time a war takes ?

Finally the movements are adjusted to balance the game. I woul not like my settler having 1 movement point on a Huge map, or a mongolian Keshnik having more then 2 movement points.

If you wish check the XML file, change some variables and look what this gets

I'll be looking for it, going to make a mod that'll double all unit movements.

And how else am I suppose to win conquests on Deity Huge map but with 10-20 turn civ kills? I have less then 400 turns to win on epic before some civ wins spacerace, and even less on faster games...

 

[anton_z1]

I'll be looking for it, going to make a mod that'll double all unit movements.

And how else am I suppose to win conquests on Deity Huge map but with 10-20 turn civ kills? I have less then 400 turns to win on epic before some civ wins spacerace, and even less on faster games...

1) You are not supposed to win on diety (especially on huge maps !!!!)
2) Space race ends all the games 80% of the time.

the answers is
1) Dont play diety
2) remove space race as winning option. (And cultural too)

 

[cckerberos]

I've only won through war a few times as the Japanese, Mongolians, and Romans (though I come close often... space victories tend to snatch victory away). It takes practice to learn how to fight wars in Civ IV, and make it so you can take a city rather quickly. Others know more and are more experienced than I, but here are some tips (hopefully, they'll be of some use):

- Before attacking, know what the tech level of your opponent is, and if possible where important military resources are located in his territory. I never go to war unless I have a tech advantage or a serious numerical advantage. Make sure you bring a few spearmen if your opponent has lots of mounted troops, and try to destroy the enemies infrastructure as much as possible. The Sun Tzu quote "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win" is very accurate in Civ IV. I usually try to conduct my first wars with Swordsmen/Macemen/Samurai, then my second group with Riflemen. I generally ignore Knights and Muskets.

- You have to get catapults as quickly as possible (I noticed you mentioned them in the sense of "later in the game"), and once you have them, you should bring many of them with your armies. As you mentioned, defensive bonuses in cities are tough, but you shouldn't be losing a lot of troops when you attack cities, because you shouldn't be attacking if you're not going to win. Bombard the defenses to 0, throw "suicide" siege units to soften up the defenders (I usually give them bonuses to collateral damage), and then attack. I often give my melee troops bonuses against ranged troops in the beginning, then for city attack next.

- You'll fall behind whenever you're at war (in the early game at least), since you're building troops instead of anything productive. And taking a lot of enemy cities is just as bad as for your economy as building them yourself. Tough it out and try to make up for it during peacetime.

- When I'm playing as a warmonger I usually don't go for a religion, hoping to steal one from a neighbor. It makes the tech tree a little easier in the beginning, though you can get unlucky.

- Having a good UU is nice, but not necessary. I've done well with civs whose UU I largely ignored, or came too late in the game to make much of a difference.

- (This might go without saying, but) I don't engage in limited wars. In my experience, a lot of times taking all 6 or 7 of a civ's cities isn't much harder than taking 3, and saves you the hassle of culture problems (plus you're going to have to take him out later, anyway.) If you run out of steam, you can always offer peace, regroup, and hit him again, after all.

- Everything's dependent on a good starting position, both in terms of starting resources and nearby enemies. Sure, you can overcome not having convenient sources of copper or iron, but that's a strike against you from the start. I don't like to have early contact with more than 3 civs, as that becomes hard to manage.

 

[Tremo]

A little tip; USE DIPLOMACY!

Get friendly with a big nation and seduce them in attacking your target. While they wage war, you build up your force. Once either side wins or they declare peace, you should have 1 big or 2 small, but ripe targets since they'd be weakened from the war. If one side wins, he'll be spread very thin accross the board aloowing for easy victories. If it's a stalemate, they'll most likely have exhausted most units and you can invade at your leisure with the force you've been building up.

Why fight when someone else can fight for you?

 

[Wanderer]

You can be a warmonger (I usually play on conquest and i win). However you should note that if you are not financial, i wish you good luck.

I agree - finance has been the basis of my 2 games so far.

The reason is that you must planify very carefully what you are doing.
Forget the 10-20 turns civilization kill .

Not entirely true. I'm close to finishing my second game :
the first was on Chieftain level, and I defeated 2 civ's in about 15 turns, using Modern armor, Stealth Bombers, destroyers and battleships...
the second is on Noble, and while it "looks" like I will win with domination, I'm not going to say for certain, yet. But I have destroyed 2 civ's in approximately 20-30 (for both) using catapults, conquistadors, cavalry and cannon just at the end...

The key (imho) has been overwhelming force - I attack with +- 10 units if there are 5 defenders... and having the money (refer the earlier comment about finance) I make sure I have upgraded units as much as possible.

You must know where the ennemy resources are and what cities you want to get. Attack small cities first to incrase your units city raiding (With city raiding 3 swordsmen can take out a longbowman with 40% city defense !!!!).

good info ! I haven't done any early warring, but that makes sense...

Well, off to the wars ... my naval forces are building the fleet now that the continent has been subdued...

 

[Rhymes]

Warmongering is not as hard as it seems.

there are key strategies to it though.

1- You have to make war before long bowmens or after you discover gunpowder.

2- When you wage war, change your civics so that your cities build units with as much exp as they can and give your units the city raider promotions. In my game with the roman, I produce units that start with 12 exp points, meaning 3 promotions at once, I give my tanks and cavalry city raider 1 2 and 3 menaing that they have a 75% bonus against cities. Of course I always have a couple of them with the healing promotions.

3- Always capture a city in a single turn, bring enough artillery to reduce the defence of the city to 0, and enough units so that you dont have to retreat and come back later.

4- When you prepare for war or wage war, forget almost every other city improvements, just focus on units, and dont stop producing them until the war is over.

5- I usually start the game with a scientific goal, and wait to attack when I discover a good unit before the country I intend to invade.

6- Use spies to see how many units are in enemy cities so you can predict what kind of troops to bring.

7- When bombers are available, they are the key to a fast conquest, you dont have to drag that slow artillery anymore.


Good luck!