Medieval/Renaissance Warmonger Strategies?

[Nikodemus Ratty]

I've read a billion threads about Ancient/Classical Era strategies, but I've found almost nothing on what to do once you hit Medieval.

--What is your favorite order of techs/builds for a Medieval/Renaissance warmonger?
--What tech do you use to enter Medieval? To enter Renaissance?
--What is your ideal number of cities to maintain at each of these stages?
--What troops do you favor in Medieval/Renaissance?

 

[Ghpstage]

Wow, lots of views and no replies

I've read a billion threads about Ancient/Classical Era strategies, but I've found almost nothing on what to do once you hit Medieval.

--What is your favorite order of techs/builds for a Medieval/Renaissance warmonger?
--What tech do you use to enter Medieval? To enter Renaissance?
--What is your ideal number of cities to maintain at each of these stages?
--What troops do you favor in Medieval/Renaissance?

Theres a lot on Renaissance war on thes forums. They are often split into 3 methods, Cuirassier/Cavalry, Rifles or Cannons. All are more than capable of laying waste to vast areas, but each has its own advantages.

-Cuirassiers are particularly popular due to their speed, and they come earlier than the other 2 plus they transition nicely to Cavalry. They stop being very effective when the AI gets Rifling, though Cavalry can still work with either weight of numbers or Airsips.
Pre building armies of War Elephants, Horse Archers and Knights is common for a mass upgrade to Cuirassiers when the techs are aquired.
-Rifles are easily produced in huge quantities via drafting, (30 in ten turns from drafting alone on a standard size map!)
-Cannons are the latest of the three (I think they are technically early Industrial!), but are by far the most effective when fighting from tech equality or even behind, and are quite possibly the most cost effective anyway.
If sed before the AI gets Rifles you can send just abot anything and everything you have left over to mop up after these be they Muskets/Maces/Swords/Longbows, even Axes! Mass upgrades from Trebs/Cats are popular here too. Drafted Muskets are great for mopping up too

Sometimes a lack of resources or other factors may force you to go one direction, but any of these work nicely, and any can be done a a break out from a relatively small empire during the midgame.


Medieval war on the other hand tends to get avoided by many due to the difficulties involved in attacking Castles and Longbows (I know I tend to neglect them). XBow rushes from bulbed/Oracled Machinery have been known to be effective as have early bulbed Engineering for Trebs, I have heard about early Knights working too (but I would wait for Cuirassiers personally), if you really have to force it then Maces with Cats/trebs will work too.
Unless you get a early medieval war tech I wouldn't expect to conquer vast amounts of land, being opportuistic and joining existing wars, or bribing allies into your wars may be the best policy.

 

[strijder20]

I have heard about early Knights working too

Getting Cataphracts before Castles (or even Longbows) is great fun. It's like getting Cuirassiers 500 years too soon.

 

[cseanny]

What tech do you use to enter Medieval? and What is your favorite order of techs/builds for a Medieval

Most common for me would be Alpha or Math (trade for the one you didn't get) > Currency > CoL > CS > MC > Machinery > Eng. You can almost always trade for Constr and quite often MC. W/out fishing you can always make a few bulbs.

To enter Renaissance? and Renaissance warmonger?

Once again, Alpha or Math (trade for the other you didn't 'get) > Currency > Aesth > Lit > Music > Philo (bulb) > Nationalism > Paper > Edu (bulb/s) > Compass (trade bait + allows you to bulb Lib) > Lib (bulb + free tech MT) > GP > Start Whipping Cuirs. Techs not mentioned like Calendar, Sailing, Med, MC, etc........are all traded for.

What is your ideal number of cities to maintain at each of these stages?

Every game will be different depending on your land and neighbors. Here are some nifty little tips/facts that most people overlook: Take a look at the attachment below. 1 city. 2 workers. 2 pre chopped forest. 1 farmed FP or any other +2F improved tile. 1 Missionary. If you don't have a +2F source already farmed bring extra workers to finish the food in 1-2 turns.

Spread the Religion (you already in ORG Rel), chop 2 forest, improve the other food resources. Ideally you want 2 improved tiles that offer +4F. This could like like 2 improved food plains...or 1 improved wet wheat + 1 grassland farm, etc. This allows you to grow from 2 pop to 3 pop in 2t. Likewise, at size 3 all you need to do is work a 3rd tile with +1F which is easy with irrigation. Just farm a grassland. This allows you to grow from 3 pop to 4 pop in 2ts. Working a 4th tile with +1F likewise allows you to grow from 4 to 5pop in 2ts.

After you've chopped your granary you improve the remaining food (4tiles is enough) and at size 6 whip the forge. The very next turn you have your first Unit Qued up (turn 15), and at turn 16 you can whip. Keep whipping and in 30t from founding this late city you'll have 5 Macemen. If you found this city at 1AD you'll have your first unit finished at 400 AD and by 680 AD you'd have just whipped your 5th Macemen.

If you settled 3 cities with this set-up at 1AD that's 15 Mace at 680 AD. And we're talking just those 3 cities. Similarly, if you were going to Cuirs route you would do the same thing. The difference is you'd get more time until you reached the Cuir tech so you'd also be able to whip out a barracks. So with whipping Cuirs, any city you found at 1AD will take 37t to get a granary, forge, barracks, and whip 4 Cuirs (start whipping around the 500-550 range). If you won't reach Cuirs til after that then adjust the 37t to coincide with your projected MT/GP completion date.

Exp leaders only need 1 Tree to get the ball rolling while IND leaders will have the additional time to whip a barracks in the first scenario and whip a stable in the second.......or keep the same infrastructure but start cities a little later. So keeping some space for some seemingly horrible cities who need nothing more than 4 modest tiles to be worked will pay off huge dividends via the whip later on.

So the point of all this rambling is don't be concerned with an exact amount of cities. If you've got room to expand and good sources of commerce then good! But if you don't, don't stress. You can still keep your empire smaller in a pinch and with some good planning get 2-3 filler cities placed down at 1AD and do some serious damage with some unimpressive cities.

What troops do you favor in Medieval/Renaissance?

Medieval: Mostly Mace/Treb with some Phant/Pike mixed in for anti Horse units. Renaissance: Cuirs will always be the first choice, followed by Cannons supported by anything. Plus this keeps us on the bottom of the tech path which is better imo, seeing how you're probably continuing a war from the Engineering path anyways.

 

[qazq2]

For medieval shock war elephants if you have it combined with cats (don't attack unless your enemy is behind in tech, these are active defense armies) For renaissance, as already mentioned, you should use cuirs/cav cannons or riflemen. Also treat this as the war to end all wars. (maybe show a little more restraint if on a continents map, but at least unify your continent under your rule)


For medieval era, you should have as many cities as you could conquer during the classical era as well as any you built after the initial rush. Basically, as many as possible provided they are decent, whippable cities and not crap/tundra

 

[Sisiutil]

I've read a billion threads about Ancient/Classical Era strategies, but I've found almost nothing on what to do once you hit Medieval.

--What is your favorite order of techs/builds for a Medieval/Renaissance warmonger?
--What tech do you use to enter Medieval? To enter Renaissance?
--What is your ideal number of cities to maintain at each of these stages?
--What troops do you favor in Medieval/Renaissance?

Everyone else covered Renaissance, so I'll stick to Medieval.

• Techs: I like to go after Machinery, Civil Service, Feudalism, Engineering, and Guilds, roughly in that order. I'm often pursuing the Liberalism free tech, so I usually go after CS as soon as I can to snag Paper and then Education. I can often trade for the other techs.
• Cities: I almost always have an ancient-era war of conquest (sometimes more than one). I try to have a mimimum of 6 cities by this era, but more (9-12) is better, especially once Currency and Code of Laws (courthouses) make them more affordable.
• Troops: The wonderful thing about the Medieval era is the variety of troops available. This lends itself to one of my favourite strategies: pre-Golden Age Build Queue Stacking. I try to get Nationalism early (sometimes free from Liberalism), start building the Taj Mahal, and as it gets near completion I start piling up units in my cities' build queues, all of them 1 turn away from completion. Like I said, the variety of medieval era units means that in my best production cities I'll have a large stack of units ready to go (e.g.: Catapult, Trebuchet, Longbowman, Pikeman, Maceman, Knight, Crossbowman, Musketman (if I have Gunpowder), War Elephant (if I have Ivory), plus naval units for a coastal city. When the Taj is complete, I do a GA civic switch to Vassalage and Theocracy for the bonus XPs (and Police State if I have the Pyramids), then start churning out all those units. I'll chop any leftover forests and use the whip to produce as many units during that GA as I can. When the GA is one turn from ending, I'll swap back to economically more viable civics and go to war with a huge stack of units.