Need help with warmongering

[Mu'min]

Hi all,
Im trying to win all the different victories, with the Arabs, on fractual,noble,epic. at the moment im going for a domination or conquest victory. The trouble is im a natural builder and waging war on my neighbours doesn't come natural to me, and i feel im losing my way and foundering a bit. So can any experienced warmongers help me out with advice?
So far i have build four cities, i have expanded south to grab the nearest horses and west to grab copper and iron. The next city i am thinking of building is on the grassland due north of my capital(see dotmap), then one to my east on the green dot on the dotmap. I think i have met all my neighbours, which are all to my south and far west, there seems to be a lot of land to my north, which a worry as i haven't seen any civ up there, so by now its probably full of barbs.

The only statgergy i have at the moment is to produce some more archers and axemen, then two more settlers and send them north and east. then develop my cities while boosting up my army then attack the barbs and french. After that i don't know what to do. So any advice would be welcome.
Thanks

 

[Cam_H]

I'm not a warmonger 'at heart' myself, but despite your instincts and intent to go on the warpath - I would just forgo the military campaign and land-grab as much of the north as you can while keeping your economy in sound shape (after Alphabet, look towards Currency if not slingshot to Code of Laws / Civil Service).

It would be worthwhile to send your Chariot down into Mongolia and France for a better look at their land - but close borders if you see Settlers wanting to cross your borders and grab northern sites.

My gut feel is that the best path in this game is to press on as a builder, and go after France and Mongolia with Maces and Catapults once you've settled a massive empire up north. There's no natural enemy that's hemming you in or looking especially threatening (Germany would probably be it, but already Bismark is looking more like a life-long partner rather than an enemy if you can keep him Buddhist). You could be right that the Barbarians may already have settled a lot of their own cities, in which case you can look at capturing those cities, or razing for cash if maintenance becomes unwieldy.

Pyramids?

[Edit] I played on, albeit rather expediently to 1238AD. Thoughts in spoiler. [/Edit]

Spoiler :

Mu'min, with lots of available land, Stone, Marble in striking distance, a Philosophical leader, and Noble difficulty, you hardly need to consider 'donning the war paint', but can engineer a commanding position through the pursuit of advanced technologies by leveraging Wonders and Great People. For more blurb on my less than dazzling 'fluff around' with the game you can see the spoiler below, but best if you press on 'under your own steam'.

Spoiler :

Mu'min, your game is a Specialist Economy dream! I played on (disturbingly little micromanagement!) and was able to get access to Cavalry by 1238AD. The Pyramids, The Parthenon, The Sistine Chapel, The Great Library and The Hanging Gardens (for Great Engineer points) were all built thanks to having both Stone and Marble, and I got the Liberalism slingshot. Working on the Taj Mahal now which will be handy when it comes to pumping out Cav's. I played completely peacefully to this point, and while there has been some incursion by most other tribes into our patch (I was slow to sprawl, and there are still quite a few holes), Arabia's miles in front. Perhaps this isn't the warmonger's game you were hoping for! - although if you pick it up here it might be! Also we have no knowledge of land beyond our continent. Anyway - it might be of interest to you although I admit that my game was played without much care and we're as powerful as 'a damp tissue', but a few Cav's with wartime civics (Police State - Vassalage - Theocracy) should change the landscape in that department during your Golden Age (drop the specialists and work and tiles, avoid the whip prior to or during). Unfortunately no 'Heroic Epic' yet, but if you upgrade one of the Horse Archers to a Cavalry unit you can send him in against that last Barbarian city. Mecca should have had more Farmed Grassland tiles ages ago to promote growth and run more Specialist Scientists .

 

[Mu'min]

Thanks for the advice Cam H, sorry to everyone for taking soooo long to post a reply, im in the middle of taking exams for my biomedical science degree, and it is very gruelling.
As for checking out the neighbours, hmmm, the chariot is needed for defense, it has already countered several barb warriours coming up the west coast. But i do have a spare warriour in Ta'if thats not doing much, i will send him down the road to Berlin. I want to find out what the germans are up to and why budduism hasn't spread, and i haven't seen much of the other's units wandering around either . I will build a scout to send up north to see whats up there.
But as for building...nahh...I would normally love to build a utopia, but ever since civ1 ive been a builder, now i want to conquer by force instead , there is only so many spaceships you can send off to alpha centuri you know.
so what i will do for now is get the next two cities up, check what the others are up to, build an army and sharpen they swords on the barbs.

i will post the next round this weekend.

 

[Cam_H]

I'm pleased to see your reply ... and best of luck with the exams!

I guess that my (again - 'apologetically hurried') game has allowed Arabia to get to Cavalry without the distraction and cost of warfare. None of the AI tribes have got to runaway status (if I recall, none have Gunpowder), and I suspect that a switch to Cavalry production with wartime civics fuelled by a Taj Mahal Golden Age that the game will become anything but peaceful over the next 100-ish turns. That is, I worked towards a 'monster' unit, and should comfortably take the continent with 30+ of them.

If you were hemmed in from the start, I would certainly look at putting together a couple of SoDs of Axes and go for a rumble, but you've got a huge back yard; a gift map to out-tech the AI, allowing your rivals to build up cities for your capturing rather than razing them in the Classical Era because you can't afford to pay the maintenance.

Anyway, I guess I've proposed a slightly different approach to your warmonger game for your consideration. I'll be interested to see how you go.

 

[Morgrad]

Looks like Cam H has your strategy for this game down, but for a good way to bring out your inner warmonger (especially early-game warmongering), I recommend playing 4-5 (or 10!) duel map games with the goal of wiping out your one-and-only neighbor as soon as possible.

Also, read the ALC threads for some really good advice/discussion/demonstration of early whuppin'.

 

[JujuLautre]

Actually, one of the things that really helped me with warmongering is... building units

What I want to say is that early in the game, after the first few settlers/workers/defending units/scouts, you don't have so much buildings to build. Monuments, library, granary, barracks, and temples/monasteries if you grabbed a religion. And you will never have all these opportunities at the same time early in the game. Now let's consider:
- you don't always need monument asap, and it's cheap in any case
- building a library to add 1 or 2 beakers? Nothing better to do?
- granary is usefull, ok
- temples are generally useless in the very early game
- monasteries: same as library
- barracks: see after

Lots of time it's not worth building one of these buildings, just because you don't need it asap. So build units. And at one point, you will notice: hey, with just 3 or 4 more I can wipe out my neighbour, so you will build those 3-4 and begin to be a real warmonger

The same is true for later in the game in fact. Have a city with not so much commerce, 80% science (so produce juste a few gold), just a health problem, and I could build a market or a aqueduct. Do you really need them now? They can wait, just build units, so that when you need more of them, you will already have one part of the job done

 

[JimT]

I think Cam H has the right idea in having a peaceful early game - with a Northern Land Grab, turning to warmonger when you have got catapults, possibly maceman/trebuchet and definitely code of laws. The map has gifted you early expansion without the need for war. Early wars can limit your trading partners and here there is no need. Instead I would concentrate on getting GL before letting the megalomaniac run riot

Get a few cities up and running, two to three building catapults (I tend to wait until I border the cities then promote so you can choose between CR and colatteral depending on merits). When you go to a full war footing (say ten turns before declaring) switch to theocracy/vassalage and pump out other troops such as macemen. With a decent army you should be able to destroy civ after civ before choosing between the two main militaristic victory options.

With luck the meglomaniac can start an axe rush in the next game when you get copper near to your capital (although I never seem to on Fractal).

As an expansion on JujuLautre's thought processes.

After you have completed your full spread of victories. Try Inca on a relatively small map. Once you have the terrace you can forget about monuments etc. and concentrate on building your army. Then bleed your enemies for tech while putting libraries in the commerce cities.

James

 

[Mu'min]

OK, things got more interesting in that last round.
It looks like i will be following the main suggestion here to go for a early peaceful build then go warmongering in the mid game.
I started off by sending my warrior off to explore germany then mongolia, meanwhile it budduism spread to most of germany's cities and to the french too, while kublai and cyrus converted to confunism.
This is why a mid game war may be the way to go. Mongolia is surrounded by budduists, if i can keep the germans and french happy then they might just be persauded to go to war with kublai. I will have to time it just right though and have fast army's to move in quick, to grab cities, when the others knock down kublai's defenders.
In the northwest i found a barb city next to a ton of gold, with the french already nosing around it with a few warriors, to the northeast you can just see the fringes of another barb city, and i suspect there may be more further east, as i saw a barb galley hanging around my east coast.
With the north, i think, i will have to sit back for a while, build up the infrastructure in my cities, amassing two stacks, one for the east and one for the west, and put in a few more cities as and when my cash flow allows. I was thinking of one above the marble to my's capitals northwest and one on the coast next to the fishes to the west. Those cities would bring my borders closer to the barbs, make me less vulnerable in the west and allow me to start on a navy.
To the south, barb archers amassed in the city there, just before a wave of 4-5 barb archers came at me. Im pretty certain there must be another barb city down there to account for all the barbs i saw. Anyway, lucky for me i finished a worker just as the bards invaded so i set him chopping a horsearcher, who came just in time to see off a barb archer, while a chariot and german axeman killed of two more. After that the others turned tail and legged it back to they city. I think i will use this barb city to train up my future swordsmen, before i send them off north.
So for the next round it will be building up my cities, training up an army to take the north and getting my ecomeny in shape.

 

[Cam_H]

I think that it's important to address "getting my ecomeny in shape", and I would not delay Currency too much longer.

You probably still got a good shot at getting The Pyramids in Mecca or Makkah which will allow you to better leverage your Philosophical trait by running some Representation-bonus specialists. I usually wouldn't advocate 'Wonder addition'-oriented tactics, but you're particularly well poised to build this Wonder.

 

[Mu'min]

Interesting suggestion of build the pyramids. Makkah i think is out of the question, im planning to make that a science/commerce city. Mecca is a bit weak, i think, to put a wonder there, so how about Medina? the 'mids give you a great engineer, right? and i am going to make that a production city, so a GE would be perfect, plus there is more forests i want to chop there as well. But im not completely sold on the idea to be honest. Would it be worth the lost of units to build the 'mids? i would be left with only Makkah as the only decent production city and Mecca and Ta'if as semi decent ones, until it was finished. What does everyone think? Would the benefits out weigh the cost of building the pyramids?
I will carry on with the next round tomorrow afternoon, GMT time that is.

 

[Mu'min]

Well, in the end i decided not to build the pyramids, i looked up the benefits and in the end i though that it wasn't worth it - i didn't have any specialist to get the +3 bonus from and i was just about to get monarchy and bring some wineries online so the happiness bonus wasn't useful either. But as it turned out this was the best decision, firstly someone else built the pyramids a few turns later, and, more importantly, i was able to produce a few horsearchers and go on the war path!!! Yahoo!!!!
At this point the other civs has just started to fill in the gaps, with over sea settlers in galleys, so i was in panic mode churning out settlers and defending units, to settle the area to my NW to block Cyrus, and a few horse archers to grab the barb cities before someone else did. Just in time it turned out, becuz has i sent a swordsman and 2 horseacrchers north, to Gluzz, i saw a Mongolian swordsman heading in the same direction. The first to arrive at the barb city was a scout and horsearcher which lurked on the hills to the west of the city for a bit to have a look at what was in the city. Which turned out to be 2 unprompted archers and one promoted one, and no walls -phew- next to arrive was the Mongolian swordsman who hanged around doing nothing for a bit - no doubt he was waiting for me to kill off the defenders so he could sneak in and grab the city from under my nose, an other civ did this to me in a other game, which really annoyed me, so much so I went and declared war on him. Next to arrive was the last horsearcher, who join his mate poised to attack the city, while the swordsman got into position 1S of the city in some trees. The barbs must have been desperate, an archer threw himself at the swordsman and lost while I was waiting for my next turn, then the mogolian swordsman had a go and almost died killing the second one. This left me with just one unprompted archer to take out, which my swordsman happily did.
I was so happy with how easy it was to take the barb city I decided to take the next as well. To that end I sent the scout and two horsearchers west to come on the barb city from the north, while 2 more horsearchers and an axeman came at the city from the south. Again the scout was there first so he quickly darted in and out to see what was in the city, just 2 archers this time. So with just 2 horsearchers I took the city with ease, the axeman hadn’t even arrived yet! That was the last of the barb cities I can take at the moment I need to build some cats to take the last one as it has walls.
So at the end of this round I have taken the two barb cities to the north, and im rapidly trying to fill in the gaps to my north, even at the cost of my research, I can get two more cities in on the edge of the jungle, two more on the northern most coast and one more on my east coast and maybe one on that hilly jungle bit sticking out east. Cyrus is now my friend since his conversion to Buddhism while the French have converted to Confucius.
One thought I had was that we all heard of specialist economies, and specialist cities, and even specialist units, but what about a specialist army? I quite like the idea of an almost all mounted army, with maybe a few supporting units like cats and pikemen for besieging and taking down a city’s defences. Has anyone tried a specialist army with the same unit type promoted in different ways to perform different roles? What are everyone’s thoughts on this.

 

[Jerrymander]

I often, after getting Feudalism, have a bunch of Catapults/Swordsmen promoted with City Raider, and one or two Longbowmen promoted with either Woodsman I/II or Guerilla I/II, and plant my units on forest or hills, respectively. That way, when the AI tries to take out my stack, they meet the +50% defence longbowmen, not the cats and swords.
That's about as specialized as I get.

 

[Murky]

Fastest way to get good at warmongering is by studying the games in this forum and by studying the HOF game logs of the top players. Once you understand what they did, you can try to do something similar. By studying the games/hof logs for winning by conquest/domination, you'll find they're strictly focused on military during most of the game. Few wonders are built after the early game. The economy is important but you will eventually shutdown research and focus on war only when going for conq or dom. The idea is to win by conquering your rivals as efficiently as possible.

On noble and lower you can get away with doing lots of building and put off war until late in the game. You can also go with a rushing strategy. Each map is different. Smaller maps with few continents or pangea is best for rushing. If you have to cross a lot of water then I would go the builder route until astronomy.

When I'm playing just for fun I do a hybrid type of game where I build a strong economy, lots of wonders and a big army. I like using the late game units a lot in those games. One cool trick to use if there is a lot of water is to build marines and research up to robotics. The marines upgrade to Mech Infantry so you get amphibious Mech Infantry. They work great for taking big coastal cities on other the continents. You just use the navy to bombard the defenses down then launch the assault.

 

[Mu'min]

hi,
Sorry it has been so long this ive updated, i got busy with exams and stuff.
Anyway this last time i have played one more round. Didn't do much. I have finished settling the north and got all my cities connected and been busy spreading my state religion to get those borders popping. I also finished researching guilds so now i have access to my UU, which means i my building a army to take over the continent, starting with france. The question is what plan should i follow? i have outlined three plans below in the pics. They range from producing one mega stack to take the cities one by one, to producing lots of smaller stacks which just have the units they need to take their target cities, at the same time. I have had a look at france's cities, they are guarded by an axeman, an spearman, and a few archers each, except the one closest to me which has extra archers. So what are everyones thoughts.

 

[Mu'min]

Since no help as been forthcoming i went ahead and declared war on France anyway. the situation just before i attacked was that there was either a axeman or a spearman in each city with a few archers. The plan I had decided on was to send one stack to take Paris, which would take out his only iron too, then move east, while a second larger stack would take Lyons and move west. Nap. had transferred several archers from Lyons to Paris so i sent two extra camelarchers over to the stack of 3 cats, 3 horsearchers, 1 swordsman and 1 camel archer i had dispatched to take Paris. My other stack of 5 cats, 1 swordsman, 4 camel archers gathered on the border next to Lyons.
I then went to Nap. to see what i could get out of him. As it was all he had was 160 so i took it all. (pic is at the bottom)
then i declare war on him and move my first stack on to a hill next to Lyons and my faithful warrior on to his only copper mine, while my Paris stack approached Paris.
Next turn i pillaged his copper, for a pitiful 3 gold. Then I bombarded Lyons with my cats and the paris stack move on to the corn next to Paris.
My next turn came with only the loss of a scout. Again the cats bombarded Lyons, then a cat attacked and withdrew, then another attacked and died. Then the swordsman had ago, before the last defenders were killed by the camels. Over in Paris the cats spent the turn bombarding the city. The next turn came with the only French response was to kill my warrior who was by then back in Mongol land on a hill. The attack on Paris continued with the cats launching a other volley of fire at Paris. Then I went a bit crazy and decided to attack with my camels even though the defences weren’t completely down and all the defenders were at full health. Lucky all the attacks were a success, but then I noticed a cat in the city, so I moved the camels 2N of Paris, has I was worried that with the camels there it would make too a tempting target. The turn ended with one camel getting the medic promotion and the cat staying in the city. Next turn I attacked with a cat who reduced the defences to 0%, the next one attacked and died, then the swordsman and horsearchers had ago with the loss of one horse. By now Paris had only two injured archers and a cat left, so I went for broke and attacked with two of my still injured camels, taking out a cat and archer, then I sent in the last cat against an archer who had 0.1 str left and won, taking Paris with a cat. of all things!!!
With the cash from taking the two cities I upgraded the last two horses in Paris to camels, while two camels from Lyons moved towards the middle of French land to try and find out what was going on in the remaining cities.
Then I ended the round, leaving the French with no metal and me one turn from moving on to researching education having just lightbulbed it, after that I will go for liberalism.

des

Also the other continent finally made contact in the form of a Japanese caravel.
OK, I played the next round, and here is what happened.

My two stacks quickly took the next two cities, then all available healthy units plus reinforcements headed for Rheims, the last city, located on a hill with walls. After bomarding the defences to nothing i sent in the macemen to take out the mellee units then i took down the 4 archers that were left with a horde of camels. You can see a pic of the last acher dying under a hail of arrows below .
With the french empire no more i decided to target the mongolian empire next. the mongolians are a little more advanced that france and have a better mix of troops including lowg bows, so it will be interesting to see how my camels handle them. Lke the french though they only have two sources of metals, located away from cities and close to invasion routes, so i will make them my first targets. im curently putting together 3 stacks to invade, i is almost ready to go, just waiting for some drill II crossbows, and i will soon have a production city with that national wonder that gives plus100% military production, so that city will quickly churn out the units for the other two stacks.
Overseas i have two caravels exploring the second continents coast and have found 3 of the 4 other civs, Japan, spain, england, all hindu so they all hate me already. just gives me more excuse to invade .
closer to home im a few turns from discovering liberalism, so what tech should i go for? Enconomics, to give a great merchant, which will help finance the next war and upgrade a few units, or Optics for those overseas trade routes? Im not planning to build a navy anytime soon so oversea trade would be the advantage i would get out of it, but then enconomics will take 10 turns to research and Optics will take 17 turns. Im currently in the tech lead, and if i don't go for optics now, by the time i do will wil probably take less time to research.

Total losses in the war with france: 5 cats 1 horse archer, 1 scout, 1 warrior, 1 camelarcher
Gains: 5 cities
Will add the pics tomorrow, just relised they are not on this computer.

 

[Mu'min]

I am definitely learning from this warmongering! Im playing a second game elsewhere, in which im stuck on a small continent with washington, and im kicking his ass in the classical era(~2ndcenturyAD)! even though i had to wait for IW to get decent troops. He had copper, i had horse and ivory and no metals until IW.

 

[Mu'min]

just a quick update:

i have declared war on the mongols and sent in two stacks from the north, stack 1 shown below is going for the capital and stack 2 is going for a city to his capital's west, which is starving my new french cities with culture pressure . I also have pillage raiding parties going for his sources of metal. I have the base of a third stack parked in a city, which will probably only be ready to see action against Cyrus.

Also i have met the last civ in the game, who turned out to be monty and he is already annoyed with me, luckily he is behind me in tech, but i don't suppose that will stop him attacking me enventually will it? Anyway i have a great merchant wandering around the other continent exploring just like in Sisiutil's Princes of the universe story(a great read ) i will keep him exploring as long as i can.