[Vanilla] Intermediate Questions about Conquering Cities and Amenities

[SteveJustSteve]

I've played a few games now at Prince, continents, and standard everything else. I'm struggling with a few decisions. Maybe I am just misunderstanding some game concepts. Pretty easy to win, but I'm sure I would struggle moving up some difficulty levels.

I had two recent games where I tried one as England and went for a cultural/domination strategy.

I'm struggling with the decision/concept of taking and keeping non-capital cities.

Context from my England game...

I took out Khmer quick. He was nearest my capital. I snagged his early builder, took out a unit or two, backed up to heal, then some barbarians came in from his flank and captured his settler. At that point he was done. His capital was my second city.

Macedon was my next nearest neighbor, he declared an early surprise war, but I had enough units from my early fight with Khmer and repelled him. We made peace and I started expanding. My plan was to go cultural with lots of gold to support a big redcoat army.

Once I got redcoats I figured now is the time to start REALLY fighting. I held a grudge against Macedon for killing some of my units in that early war with his Hetairoi so I started rolling through his civilization.

A Little More Context before Getting to the Questions...

I take a Macedon city, then a second, then a third. I kept all of those cities. I now own 10-12 cities. I could go north and take his capital and decided to do that. Now should I make peace? Indonesia is still further north of Macedon and Egypt is to the East. If I make peace it will make things difficult to fight these other civs since I will need to go through what Macedon has left. I notice I am starting to have trouble with amenities though. I decide the next few Macedon cities I am just going to raze. Of course I am getting massive warmonger penalties with the other civs. I take Macedon completely out of the game. I figure at this point the AI is going to hate me forever so no point in worrying about warmongering. I decide that I have the military dominance on my continent and I just keep moving. I take out Indonesia. I kept their capital and a couple cities that had Wonders. I settled a couple new cities for end game strategic resources. I'm up to 17 cities at this point. Now the only people left on my continent is Egypt. Everyone hates me. One of my conquered cities revolted some barbs, and most of my original cities are trying to do things that improve entertainment or great people trying to snag some more Amenities. My focus is all over the place once I started WAR.

Ok thanks for reading this far, but now the questions:

1) Should I have given Macedon cities back in a peace negotiation? That would have helped my amenity issue and allowed my "core" cities to not have to divert to entertainment. But then I end up with a city smack in the middle of potentially hostile territory that I need to keep a permanent army at.

2) Should I just raze cities? I won't have an amenity problem, but then I have these huge patches of open land that another civ will inevitably come in and settle on. Of course I could resettle these lands myself, but settlers get expensive.

3) Does warmonger penalties even really matter later in the game if you already have a military built?

4) How do you effectively handle conquest? By the time you are at mid game there are going to be probably 50+ cities on the map. If you go and "just" take the capitals then you are going to have to support a bunch of defensive units that you leave behind to defend those capitals from being taken back. I just don't know what to do with all the non-capital cities in your wake.

5) Can you support the cost of leaving defensive military all over the map?

Towards the end of the game you are probably going to have some pretty large population cities and unless you have a bunch of 3 pop cities all over the map that don't need amenities I'm just not understanding how to support conquest. These newly conquered cities can't quickly pop out entertainment districts and buildings and I'm not even sure if it would produce enough amenities anyway. I tried to set some of the conquered cities to "no food" to prevent them growing further at least.

I just feel like I'm missing another game concept here. Do you really just take some capitals and let the AI keep most of the rest of their cities? Should you just roll through and pillage everything to set the AI so far behind that you don't need to worry about them anymore? Can you make the AI not hate you again or do you just have to create such a large military that they are afraid of you?

I eventually won a cultural victory because my original cities kept pushing out enough great people and my culture snow ball that I started to get to red coats eventually is what actually won me the game.

 

[Disgustipated]

I find unless going for actual conquest victory, it's best just to stop conquering. I know it's like taking candy from a baby and difficult to stop. But if it's fun for you, I won't say don't do it. I find when I do my conquest victories (and I take every city, not just the capitals), low amenities are just part of the territory. It's not crippling like -10 happiness in Civ5 was. Your cities are less productive for sure, but you have so many of them you can do much more with less productive cities than the AI can do with less ecstatic cities. If you want to conquer so many cities you have to accept that it will be difficult to get them to happy and ecstatic. The best I can say is set goals for yourself based on your map set up. Decide how far you want to expand and go from there.

As for #3 warmonger penalties don't matter that much unless you value the diplomacy aspect of the game. If you want to form alliances and trade things with the AI then it matters, otherwise you can easily win the game with high warmonger penalties. War weariness is a separate issue and will spawn barbarians after a while (though I admit to being fuzzy on exactly when this happens).

For your last question I don't just take capitals. I play with Rise and Fall expansion, and loyalty is a major issue, and having a core of cities is important. and even without the expansion, it's just easier to have a core of cities as it will be easier to defend. Like I said above, set goals for yourself for how much you want to manage. Some people want huge empires, some are fine with smaller ones. Though for a standard size map I like to have a least 10 cities, but 15 is just better.

 

[liv]

Nice game story.
I'll try some answers. Hopefully I have not forgot how vanilla worked totally

1) When you war a lot you will get war weariness. It is better to take all the cities since that removes the war weariness. Do not give any back

2) I do not race cities. Keep them small and make sure to have luxuries done. Keep an eye on the war weariness. Make sure to have a casus belli since that lowers war wearniess. Build entertainment centre and teh colosseum

3)If I warmonger I do not care about the penalities. tehy will hate me and I deserve it

4) I take a lot of cites but this depends on where they are situated and how it goes. Sometimes I may just take the capital and sue for peace. They tend to give you quite a lot of money in a peace deal so that could be handy

5)I can support a large military but the AI does not attack often so just to have a defensive military is a bit wasteful

 

[SteveJustSteve]

Nice game story.
I'll try some answers. Hopefully I have not forgot how vanilla worked totally

1) When you war a lot you will get war weariness. It is better to take all the cities since that removes the war weariness. Do not give any back

2) I do not race cities. Keep them small and make sure to have luxuries done. Keep an eye on the war weariness. Make sure to have a casus belli since that lowers war weariness. Build entertainment center and the Colosseum

3)If I warmonger I do not care about the penalties. they will hate me and I deserve it

4) I take a lot of cites but this depends on where they are situated and how it goes. Sometimes I may just take the capital and sue for peace. They tend to give you quite a lot of money in a peace deal so that could be handy

5)I can support a large military but the AI does not attack often so just to have a defensive military is a bit wasteful

I didn't seem to have any war weariness, but maybe I didn't actually look. I wasn't losing any units once I started my red coat push. I was careful and would retreat to heal if needed. I thought I read that war weariness occurs worse if you are losing units and the fight is in your own territory. I could be wrong on that though. I'm trying to learn so many things all at once.

Eventually London got up to 17 population and even though I had an entertainment district with the coliseum within 6 tiles I still needed to chase envoys after the city states that gave bonus amenities. Maybe I need to read up more on amenities, but I thought each luxury resource only supplied a certain amount of cities with an amenity so eventually won't you have cities that are getting 0 amenities from luxury items? It seems like each map I have played on only has about 8 ish different luxury resources. It's like 4 or 5 per continent forcing you to trade or expand. I'm thinking even if you have all 8 and they provide amenities to 6 cities each (might be 4?) then if you have a few big cities you are going to run out of amenities pretty quick. Maybe I need to learn how to limit my population better, but big for more production seems like a good idea. I haven't figured out yet what level of population a city can get to if there are no luxury items to provide an amenity. The game seems to be unclear on how it applies the luxury resources. I assume if your capital needs it then your capital will get to use the luxury making your future cities harder to support.

I suppose my question about multiple platoons or military units left all over the map is because I figure as I ramp up the difficulty that the AI will attack more often and the AI will have some sort of inherent multipliers to make them better at everything. I figure if you keep a capital that is land locked by other cities and or multiple civs that eventually they are going to wage war and if you can't quickly bring in reinforcements that city is going to fall. Or maybe I am giving the AI too much credit. I hope not though. Would be boring to be able to take a capital and then abandon it without worry.

Heck even on King difficulty I had a game where 2 (or maybe 3) different barb camps with some horses all swarmed my capital I literally couldn't build a second unit or move. They didn't take my capital, but I had to restart. Maybe I could have recovered, but the amount of time that was wasting away seemed extreme.

 

[SteveJustSteve]

I will eventually buy R&F. I just wanted to make sure I understand the game better before adding even more to it.

 

[Disgustipated]

city states that gave bonus amenities

none give amenities unless you are playing with city states expanded mod. You seem to have a good grasp on the game mechanics, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Like I said, conquering many cities will produce amenity issues. Make sure to secure as many luxury resources as you can, build entertainment districts, get certain great merchants. Also if you have Zanzibar, Buenos Aires, and I believe it is Muscat Suzerains, that can help. A religion with certain beliefs can help as well.

 

[SteveJustSteve]

I find unless going for actual conquest victory, it's best just to stop conquering. I know it's like taking candy from a baby and difficult to stop. But if it's fun for you, I won't say don't do it. I find when I do my conquest victories (and I take every city, not just the capitals), low amenities are just part of the territory.

Maybe I should go watch some domination Let's Play videos. I am having a hard time envisioning a domination game where you go and take and keep only the capitals. That sounds like eventually having around 20 cities that are unconnected requiring troops all over the place, 8+ potential enemies once you consider allied city states, and feels like you are eventually going to be waging war on multiple fronts with cities that aren't super productive.

none give amenities unless you are playing with city states expanded mod. You seem to have a good grasp on the game mechanics, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Like I said, conquering many cities will produce amenity issues. Make sure to secure as many luxury resources as you can, build entertainment districts, get certain great merchants. Also if you have Zanzibar, Buenos Aires, and I believe it is Muscat Suzerains, that can help. A religion with certain beliefs can help as well.

I installed the UI mod, but none others. I did buy the deluxe version so some DLCs came with the game. My last game had Zanzibar, that's what I meant about the city states.

 

[liv]

I didn't seem to have any war weariness, but maybe I didn't actually look.

You will have to check under reports and city status to find war weariness. You will get war weariness for every attack or denfencive act so it can increase a lot and "foreign" cities in your own empire will suffer the most. The best thing to do is to keep them small till you have a handle on it

I thought each luxury resource only supplied a certain amount of cities with an amenity so eventually won't you have cities that are getting 0 amenities from luxury items?

Four aminites for a luxury and distrubuted but yees you can run out. However small cities do not need any so well small is good in this respect. You can use some policy cards for amenities as well.

I figure as I ramp up the difficulty that the AI will attack more often and the AI will have some sort of inherent multipliers to make them better at everything.

They get a bit more aggressive but not a lot unfortunately. Most of their agressiveness is in the very beginning of the game.

I figure if you keep a capital that is land locked by other cities and or multiple civs that eventually they are going to wage war and if you can't quickly bring in reinforcements that city is going to fall

Yeah that is not ideal and in the lastest version of the game it will not work since they introduced a new mechanism

eck even on King difficulty I had a game where 2 (or maybe 3) different barb camps with some horses all swarmed my capital I literally couldn't build a second unit or move. They didn't take my capita

Barb camps can be serious. You may have to focus on them to take them out. They will never take your capital but they can take other cities.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Maybe I should go watch some domination Let's Play videos. I am having a hard time envisioning a domination game where you go and take and keep only the capitals. That sounds like eventually having around 20 cities that are unconnected requiring troops all over the place, 8+ potential enemies once you consider allied city states, and feels like you are eventually going to be waging war on multiple fronts with cities that aren't super productive.

I don't do this much, but you don't really need troops everywhere. You can just raze everything and leave the capitals to the barbs. Your core empire is really all that matters. In the end, so long as you can afford the upkeep on your core military units and keep the barbs away from your core empire, who cares if the barbs pillage every improvement and district in a given capital. The only pain is when you reach steel, and you are constantly queried as to which of the barb horde you'd like to shoot at with the garrison city fire. Some games I wish I had an "I don't care let the barbs run wild here button" so the garrison wouldn't bother me. Or better yet, an autofire option, turning the garrison fire over to the AI.

In answer to your original questions...

1) Should I have given Macedon cities back in a peace negotiation? That would have helped my amenity issue and allowed my "core" cities to not have to divert to entertainment. But then I end up with a city smack in the middle of potentially hostile territory that I need to keep a permanent army at.

I suppose you could give back, or trade cities with high war weariness to the AI, then declare war and raze them. I’ve never done it, but it sounds like it could work. Other than that, I wouldn’t give the AI any cities and as Liv said, it’s best to take out the civ completely as it will eliminate all war weariness. But, if you are at war with multiple civs, you have to take out the civ you’ve been at war with the longest or war weariness will not reset.

2) Should I just raze cities? I won't have an amenity problem, but then I have these huge patches of open land that another civ will inevitably come in and settle on. Of course I could resettle these lands myself, but settlers get expensive.

The open land will breed barbs and cause you to garrison your interior. It’s best to pick your conquests based on the continent lens. Each continent has new amenities. If a civ is on your continent, don’t war with it. Go for the civ on another continent.

And yeah, if you intend to warmonger you will want to build the colosseum or found a religion early, spam holy sites and build lots of stupas for your top tier (T3) religious building.

3) Does warmonger penalties even really matter later in the game if you already have a military built?

If you’re warmongering, you need to have sufficient commercial hubs to support your empire, as the AI’s you have already met will not trade with you. If you meet a new civ, however, they will make quite equitable trade deals with you (so make them while you can).

4) How do you effectively handle conquest? By the time you are at mid game there are going to be probably 50+ cities on the map. If you go and "just" take the capitals then you are going to have to support a bunch of defensive units that you leave behind to defend those capitals from being taken back. I just don't know what to do with all the non-capital cities in your wake.

I prefer to take all the cities. Less of a mess relative to loyalty, barbs and razing. As the AI doesn’t chop much, find a central city, chop up some population with Magnus and then build an entertainment complex with a zoo or stadium.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and always have a Classical Republic government running when you complete your first tier government plaza building as the Repulican legacy card adds +1 amenity for any city with a district. It's the turn you complete the T1 building that will lock the legacy card. Feel free to have another government before or after, but have the Classical Republic running when you complete the T1 building. This is as key as anything else you could choose, perhaps moreso.

EDIT2: Whoops. I seem to have extended my analysis beyond vanilla. I don't think the legacy card will do you much good. Sorry about that.