How to succeed at early war?

[SnideBorwell]

Hey all,

I'm trying my hand at warring in the ancient and early classical eras and haven't had a lot of success. I think I spend too much time building up to the attack that when I go to war, my opponent is well prepared and it becomes long and drawn out. Even if I take a capital, I've fallen too far behind in other key ways. I usually play on King/Emperor. If anyone could answer these questions or provide some general tips, I'd appreciate it.

1) When you launch an attack on a neighbouring civ, how many units will you usually have? What types of units (assuming a civ has no early UUs, because they would obviously be a priority)?

2) How many settlers will you build before attacking?

3) Will you try to build any wonders if planning an early war?

Thank you!

 

[Matutin]

Good questions. Would love to know the answers as well!

 

[Moi Magnus]

Hey all,

I'm trying my hand at warring in the ancient and early classical eras and haven't had a lot of success. I think I spend too much time building up to the attack that when I go to war, my opponent is well prepared and it becomes long and drawn out. Even if I take a capital, I've fallen too far behind in other key ways. I usually play on King/Emperor. If anyone could answer these questions or provide some general tips, I'd appreciate it.

1) When you launch an attack on a neighbouring civ, how many units will you usually have? What types of units (assuming a civ has no early UUs, because they would obviously be a priority)?

2) How many settlers will you build before attacking?

3) Will you try to build any wonders if planning an early war?

Thank you!

I'm not usually an early warmonger, but here is some answer :

+The most important point of early war is to capture the city before the wall are constructed. There is a little windows where you have strong units and the AI does not have wall. Once the AI have walls, you will need to focus yourself too much on the war to be able to capture an interesting city, and it is usually not worth it (there is exceptions, as always).
-> I deduce from the evolution of tech costs, and the number of tech of Civ which civ is about to have walls or not.

+I do not try wonders when going early warmonger. Making more settler is useful. And having both an early navy and a land army cost a lot of hammers.

 

[tu_79]

In Ancient, I wouldn't go for capitals. If you want that path, build 4-6 units to begin with, don't bother with buildings, even barracks is delaying your hit. Keep producing some units after you declare war. With your first units you try to tear down the enemy army first, later with your reinforcements you can deal with the cities.

With 6 units you might be able to surround a non coastal city, thus dealing far more damage, even lacking ranged units you can capture any land locked city. At least in King, if you ignore buildings for a while and build units instead, you will have the upper hand when fighting any AI, except those with an unique ancient unit. Authority will cover your advancement if you keep fighting.

Early warring is usually about taking neighbours terrain, slowing them down, capturing workers and/or preventing them to settle near you. Perhaps a secondary city if it has something interesting, but they are not worth it that early. You want workers, tough, for grabbing horses and iron mostly, but also to improve the life of your city workers (that don't enjoy many buildings). You want settlers too (one is provided by Authority), to increase your supply limit and gold income. Happiness being your limiting factor.

Beware that you'll be severely underdeveloped, so you need to make the most out of your army. Be a bully, steal workers, pillage tiles. Let them rebuild and pillage again.

To your questions:
1. 3 spearsmen, 1 horseman to declare war, 4 spearsmen 2 horseman, maybe 1 catapult, for any attempt at capturing cities. I will produce more units during the fight if needs be.
2. Depends on how close they are. I usually settle 1-2 cities before engagement, using the last city as an outpost for the fight. If there is too much empty espace I would have taken Progress instead, and avoid fighting for a while. For aggressive Tradition, you can declare war just with your capital, Venice style (you'll need some extra gold for that, though).
3. Usually not. But once your army is big enough and you can put your cities to develop, there's a couple of useful wonders for the would be warmonger: Statue of Zeus (free forge, +15% vs city) and Terracotta Army (1 copy of each unit type, +1 supply per city).

It can be argued that it doesn't pay to be that aggressive in Ancient and rather wait till your civ bonuses matter, or wait until classical so you can take profitable cities like Holy Cities, and them being more populated, so they don't drag your culture. But, hell, it's fun!

 

[Legen]

Hey all,

I'm trying my hand at warring in the ancient and early classical eras and haven't had a lot of success. I think I spend too much time building up to the attack that when I go to war, my opponent is well prepared and it becomes long and drawn out. Even if I take a capital, I've fallen too far behind in other key ways. I usually play on King/Emperor. If anyone could answer these questions or provide some general tips, I'd appreciate it.

1) When you launch an attack on a neighbouring civ, how many units will you usually have? What types of units (assuming a civ has no early UUs, because they would obviously be a priority)?

2) How many settlers will you build before attacking?

3) Will you try to build any wonders if planning an early war?

Thank you!

I usually start wars in Ancient with Japan, despite their military uniques coming only on Medieval.

1) I might start an attack even with only 5 units, because it's usually to capture a settler while it is in route. I often leave a few military units (any type, even recon) ahead in positions where I want to settle and deny those positions from the AI. If I spot a settler coming in any of these positions, I group my forward units in the settler's direction (assuming it's scouted) and start a war to capture it. The rest of the war then goes as usual, with a future city capture being likely simply because the next enemy city won't have the time to set up defenses (population, walls) as that first city from the captured settler would have. In this case, a few spearmen are enough.

I rarely go for early war to eliminate a civ, it's mostly to ensure I'm in a position of strength for when I'm transitioning to Medieval by taking their sattelite cities that would otherwise restrict me. This is particularly important vs civs that have a chance to snowball due to their economic bonuses if left unmolested, like China and Brazil. If I'm going to eliminate a civ prior to Medieval, it's only because that civ ended really crippled somehow. Also, it's not uncommon to go for war against different civs (one at a time) during Ancient-Classical, as I try to establish enough territory for my empire; it depends on how much they try to forward settle next to me.

Terrain considerations matter a lot; you can't rely much on catapults if a city is enveloped with hills and forest/jungle tiles. Try to prevent your opponents from settling in places like that, and especially on a hill (extra city strength). Against some civs, it's unavoidable due to their starting bias (like jungle bias for Brazil, or hills for the Incas); for those that aren't, pay attention.

2) My settlers' timing usually match that of the AI, so I'm likely starting a war at the same time my first settler is finished and moving to its destination.

3) Sometimes. If I do, it's usually Temple of Zeus or Terracota Army, as they are both useful for warmongers and refund most of the the production spent: Temple of Zeus (185 , standard speed) gives a free forge (150 , plus early access to its 1 engineer specialist and additional production on mines, Iron and Copper), while Terracota Army (200 ) refunds more than you would spend in unit production if you get at least three units from it.