Hun starting strategy?

[pezz29]

So I saw someone on Reddit comment that their starting Hunnic warrior had found a unit upgrade ruin on turn 4, and conquered Hong Kong on turn 6. That seemed silly, so I decided to rush bronzeworking, production focus (stagnated my capital at 2 citizens 20 turns in), rush a ram, and conquer a city state. It's fun having a conquered city in under 30 turns with absolutely no luck with ruins, but it seemed pretty pointless. Being on turn 30 without writing, a worker, any improved tiles, more than two citizens, or happiness seems like a poor start, giggle-inducing or no.

But the basic idea of a really early really aggressive rush is appealing. So my question is, how do you, as the Huns, do something similar to what I did while still taking the game fairly seriously? I'm used to turtle-ish, defensive cultural victories so it's a big paradigm shift for me. At some point you have to stop working on your own civ to produce the Ram(s) and its escort, but I don't know when.

If it helps answer the question, I play on level 6 (Emperor IIRC? I never seem to remember the names).

 

[Browd]

Check out the game-in-progress and after-action reports from GOTM 43 for descriptions of different Hun strategies that submitters pursued (sometimes wildly successfully, and other times less so, but I think you learn as much from others' struggles as you do from some folks' (seemingly effortless) romps):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=474287 and http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=474286

 

[Moriarte]

This is what you can do for total domination. Grow your capital to about 5. Build order - Scout, monument, worker (or steal it), granary. Pick liberty settler and plop a city at some useful spot. (luxes, strategics, production). Tech for Pottery, Bronze Working, the Wheel, Writing. Build/buy 2-3 Rams and 5 Horse Archers. At this point you can go and kill a couple of civs.

Build a library after you finish your first army, so that you can upgrade rams to trebuchets at some point.

After a library create a similar army, so that you can conquer another half of the world. Add units as needed. I' ll attach a screenshot to give you an idea.

Also, you can take a huge loan and DoW couple of civs, just before building an army. At emperor they will come back to you with reparations by the time you finish your army, so you can make your force even stronger.

Basically, Huns are so powerful that you should be winning standard Pangaea in well below 150 turns.

 

[pezz29]

You have a Pantheon in that screenshot, but it looks like all your faith is coming from the friendship with La Venta. Is it not worth going for religion if you don't get lucky like that?

 

[Moriarte]

With this particular strat. - i don't think so. Maybe you can throw in a shrine, while you steal a worker, so that you can pick up some minor bonus.

 

[slapshot2119]

I'm used to turtle-ish, defensive cultural victories so it's a big paradigm shift for me.

Attila seems to almost demand immediate aggressive tactics, granted he does have one of the best production advantages, which lasts the whole game and a free technology is always a nice thing to have. If you're used to turtling and building up the empire a while, I'd suggest breaking in to the warmongering arena with Genghis first. While Attila must hit the floor guns a blazin', Genghis is also designed for combat, but excels in late medieval-early renaissance warfare, allowing the first 100 turns or so to focus on creating the infrastructure to construct and re-supply your war machine.

 

[Icaria909]

The Huns can do amazingly well with early action, but it's not strictly necessary. The battering ram remains useful through a good portion of the early game and the horse archer's extra movement and cheap cost means it retains some great advantages for a while. Rushing so quickly can be a bit of a gamble, so I think you can wait a while before going on your rampage. However, as others have pointed out, the Mongols are far better for mid game warfare and better suited for that strategy than the Huns.

 

[slapshot2119]

Does upgrading a ram to a treb produce a treb with a 300% city multiplier or a 200% city multiplier? If the latter I wouldn't upgrade until at least cannons, probably artillery (though the Attila game probably shouldn't last until artillery...)

 

[Moriarte]

On emperor, 14 Horse Archers and 4-6 rams seems enough to cleanse the whole map without a chance, granted you don't do anything silly in the process.

Just did a 'Hun Run'. Lost 4 horse archers in the process. Nevermind. Also built Statue of Zeus for some unknown reason, instead of just spamming HA's to the limit.

Attila is the ultimate war machine.. Yeah, and no library.

 

[Liegence]

The only time I tried a Hun domination game I was on a westward extending penninsula in desert terrain. Just as you exited the penninsula, which was large enough for two cities, Persia was off the coast directly north. By the time I had my 4th horse archer he was already marching a carpet of Immortals towards my capital. I managed to kill some and he retreated and I sued for peace to build a bigger attack force. When i went to attack, i found his nation was basically nothing but jungle, rivers and hills (oh, and another carpet of Immortals)... he forced me to declare when he saw my units coming off the penninsula and I had no luck getting through his stupid rough terrain and waves of unique spears. To make matters worst, there were no other close targets even if I got through compass to mobilize elsewhere. Such a bad experience I've not tried him again

 

[Browd]

Try the Huns on a great plains map (I think that is what it's called). Plays to the Huns' strength and is just a lot of fun. Great way to get a feel for the Huns.

 

[Socrates99]

One thing I always have a hard time deciding is whether or not to build barracks and stables before I start cranking out horse archers and rams. With a barracks you could start your horse archers with accuracy level 2 which will get them logistics sooner and logistics gives them the ability to move after attacking. That makes horse archers really powerful. I know stables don't give their production bonus to mounted ranged units but as the Huns you should be working as many pastures as possible and those extra hammers add up so building a stables means you can crank out a lot of units faster. The only problem is if you delay long enough to build those two buildings you can risk losing valuable turns when your UUs are still going to be effective against the AI.

Do you guys think the benefit of having those buildings before churning out units is worth it or not?

 

[Smote]

Multiplayer as huns: Take 5+ horse archers and attack their capital. Use shiftclick-> move + warrior/scout for the cap.

Vs AI: Take 1 battering ram w city power < 10. Take 1 battering ram and 1 warrior/horse archer to attack an undefended city with power >10. Add horse archers as appropriate to kill city defenders outside the city.

In multiplayer games, I frequently conquer CSs before turn 20 if my warrior gets upgraded to a battering ram. It can solo a city that is not on a hill. It is not honesty that advantageous though- it does cause happiness issues and doesn't help much.