Overall strategy for conquest

[KROL]

Okay, I've played a lot of games lately, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of empire-building, infrastructure, and economics. So I've formed up an overall strategy that I want to use for my next game.

I'm a warmonger, and I love to conquer, so my goal is a Conquest victory, or at least Domination. My plan is to play on a Standard Map, so that I don't have TOO huge of a land area to conquer, and I'll be playing on Marathon speed, since that gives me plenty of time to build and use armies. I know from previous experiences that I can have a good size army up and running by 3000 BC if I'm on marathon, and I can conquer two civilizations by 1500 BC if I'm quick about it. So marathon seems to be the way to go.

I'll probably play as Kubilai Kahn, but I'm going to take a closer look at the other Aggressive leaders to see which ones have the best starting techs. Keep in mind I don't have Warlords.

So if I'm Kublai, I'll build my first city, and start creating a worker. My scout will explore and grab huts. Once my worker is done, I'll switch production to a settler, then found my second city with it. In the meantime, I'll be beelining for bronze-working, and that'll allow me to chop rush the settler along with a barracks.

If I've got copper in my starting city, I'll start pumping out axemen. I figure a total of five or six, with the Cover promotion, will be sufficient. I'll probably also throw one spearman in there, in case of a chariot counterattack.

Depending on terrain, I'm going to be using more cottages and less farms. My problem used to be farm overuse. Recently, I've broken that habit. In my last game (on fast speed) I was able to get a booming commerce economy in my first and second cities by just farming/pasturing the food resources, then cottaging everything else (including floodplains). The cities grew just as quickly as otherwise, but the commerce was rolling in faster. So I was able to keep science at 100% for a LOONG time.

With that army, I'll start conquering. I'll keep the enemy cities until I have a total of four, then I'll just start razing. Hopefully, my army can just keep going and going and going, and I'll annihilate several of my opponents. If I start the campaign early (3000 BC), the first few cities will fall easily, and my guys will gain some mad promotions.

By limiting my empire size to four cities, it'll be easier to defend against barbarians, and my economy will stay in tip-top shape. Once I think I can afford it, I'll start expanding again, this time with settlers. With all that empty space left by my conquered enemies, I should be able to pick some choice spots.

That's my general strategy. Having access to copper is vital, so I'll make sure I get it early. I have to strike early and hard, so that I can take out three or four civs before they can build up REALLY strong defenses. I want to get plenty of use out of those axemen. After that, I'll return that army to my homeland, and just expand peacefully now that I have all that empty space.

I probably won't expand beyond five cities until I have code of laws and currency. My research will look something like: beeline to bronze-working, get all the other pertinent worker techs, then beeline to code of laws, then beeline to construction.

Hopefully, I'll have only two or three opponents left alive after 500 BC, and then I'll have over two thousand years to take them out slowly.

Does this sound like a solid strategy on Prince level? I know that I can conquer enemy cities that well in the early years, so I think it'll work. I'll let my axemen rest only long enough to recover their health, but otherwise, they'll just keep razing and razing and razing.

A benefit to that is the massive amount of gold I'll get from razing so many cities. I could probably keep science on 100% for an insanely long time, especially since I'll be building some really good commerce specialty cities.

 

[Nick53]

Sounds good! I tried rushing with chariots once but found that axes work better

So if I'm Kublai, I'll build my first city, and start creating a worker. My scout will explore and grab huts. Once my worker is done, I'll switch production to a settler, then found my second city with it. In the meantime, I'll be beelining for bronze-working, and that'll allow me to chop rush the settler along with a barracks.

Do you find it efficient to build a worker then settler with the City at 1 population? Or build warriors until size 2 then worker?

 

[KROL]

My view is that warriors are pretty much useless. I don't think I've ever trained one. You won't meet any barbarians that early in the game, so you can wait until bronze to train troops.

It's simply more efficient to build a worker first. With the worker (along with bronzeworking) you can then chop rush any other construction projects, so the overall time for all your early constructions is much shorter. Plus, that worker can improve your food resource tiles, so your city will grow much more quickly, anyway.

Makes sense to me.

 

[KROL]

I got home from work at 10:30 last night, and played CIV4 until 1:30 in the morning using the strategy I described above. To make a long story short, it looks like I'm really getting the hang of this game.

I started a new game as Kublai Kahn. Marathon speed, Pangaea, temperate, medium sea level, Standard size map. My starting city was in a bunch of floodplains, with a cow and a pig resource. No hills inside the fat cross.

Started by building worker, and researching mining/bronzeworking. Used worker to build some roads, and started building barracks while waiting for bronze to get researched. Once bronze was discovered, I built a mine on the copper resource nearby, and chop rushed the rest of the barracks. I then started building axemen, while I researched Animal Husbandry.

Once I had two axemen, I sent them west to find some enemies. I considered building a second city, but there wasn't any particularly good land nearby that I wanted to grab. My first city was great anyway, so I didn't build a settler.

My two first axemen reached the German city of Berlin. By this time, it was only 2800 BC or so, and Bismarck only had one archer and a warrior guarding the city. I slaughtered them, sacked the city, and left it in ruins. By this time I had two more axemen on the way, so I had everyone about-face and head back to my city (Karakorum).

I built a couple more axemen and sent them east. I found the Incas. I figured they would be a little more difficult. I attacked their capital, Cusco. It only had a couple archers. Buh-bye I then razed another of their cities, and saw that they still had one tiny city left, population one. I figured Huayna Capac was hopeless now, so I left him alone, with the intention of finishing him off later.

I gathered all seven of my remaining offensive axemen, healed them, and sent them farther east. They found the Chinese! I began the assault.

In the meantime, I'd finally built my second city, Beshbalik. I built it in the middle of a bunch of grassland, with a cow resource and copper resource. Not perfect, but it'll work great as a cottage-spam commerce city. It was positioned east of Karakorum, so it's sort of on-the-way to China. I had also actually kept the city of Cusco, because it had some good resources and already had a population of four or five.

So, I took out the Chinese (Mao Zedong) pretty easily. Beijing had access to TWO fur resources (plains) a sheep resource (plains hill) and a horse resource (grassland IIRC)!!! The rest was coast and grassland. I figured I owed it to myself to keep that city, so I did. Now I have four decent cities.

After destroying the other Chinese city, I let my axemen rest a few turns before sending them north. I ran into Saladin's Arabians, and started slamming them. They were surprisingly easy. All he had was two archers in each of his cities, and by this time my axemen all had MAD promotions.

I razed all of Saladin's cities, and headed west with my remaining four axemen. Around this time, I ran into a couple barbarian cities. I promptly razed those, too.

Mansa Musa and his Malinese were next. They proved to be very difficult, with their skirmishers and their city walls. In addition, their capital was ON A HILL!! Darn! So I only razed two of his smaller cities, but that dropped his score down significantly. I recovered my boys and sent them back home. The Inca had built another city, so I razed that real quick, and finally destroyed their last city. I then sent them east to crack some American skulls. They took New York without much trouble, but Washington has some archers, walls, and a 40% cultural defense bonus, so I'll have to wait until I have catapults. I'm about to make temporary peace with Roosevelt.

In the meantime, I've been able to keep my research at 100% for most of the game, with all that income from my conquests. Plus, I've built a lot of cottages, and some are almost villages already. I have four cities, I just recently discovered code of laws, and, as I recall, I just got done researching mathematics/construction. Now I want to discover Ironworking, and I'll be ready for the second major round of conquests.

It is only 800 or 900 BC, and I've already DESTROYED four civilizations. I have only two rivals left. My score is almost at 600, while my rivals are both floundering at 250-300. I have almost three thousand years left in the game to conquer those guys, so I'm pretty happy. lol

Tomorrow I'll post the saves, to see if I can get some critiques.

 

[Galileo44]

Wow, i understand why people like Marathon for Warring so much!

PS. What level is this on?

 

[KROL]

Prince level. Which would explain why those skirmishers JUST... WON'T.... DIE!!!!! lol

 

[KROL]

A few nights ago, I finished that game on Prince level. I just kept conquering and conquering.

The last one to fall were the Americans, in the city of Atlanta. My army of veteran swordsmen and catapults took them out easy.

I won the game at about 300 AD. I only had like four cities. My final score was somewhere around 47000. Augustus Caesar, ftw!

So anyway... I recently started a similar game on Monarch level. Standard game map, Marathon game speed. It's about 1800 BC, and I've already destroyed the Aztecs and the French. The Chinese are down to one city (which will fall soon), and I've already taken one of the German cities. I still haven't built my second city, but I plan to do so very soon.