pilage burn and loot!!!

[thomson_2001]

mayb e statingthe obvious but on my recent deity game i noticed more than ever the importance of pillaging!

as i was trying to make some big allies i would go to war whenever asked if only to pillage and build up some GG points (and the diplo bonus). pillaging a town down to the ground (town, village, hamlet, cottage,ground) can net you over 50 giold easy! now earlyish in the game this can DRIVE your science forward at an amazing pace....making furute loot raids ever easier (with tech advance on troops). a few small stacks of troops (minus the foreign troop cost) can get you near 150 gold a turn...thats massive. also taking away enemy bonuses and standing on the land around cities messes him over and will make him weaker for later when can wipe him out at will.


also tried out the early war tactic of declaring war and stealing a worker or two VERY early on with no intentions of taking cities. just some pillaging.
those extra workers are huge early on.

so give it a go. protect border towns and then war at almost any oppertunity to become rich

 

[jeffreyac]

yeah, though I play on lower levels primarily, I've noticed the huge advantage of worker bashing... Find your neighbor early, jump in and grab the worker, kill his scout, pillage a few tiles, and then peace - but at that point you've given yourself a great head start!

Just have to watch those civs that have cheap, early UU's...

 

[thomson_2001]

the hard part is NOT taking cities lol. actually can help you more having wars every now against wek enemy and then, (pillaging towns, generating GG points and stealing workers etc) thank taking cities which may be drain on economy. plus its kinda fun (thinking cat with wounded mouse lol)

 

[lutzj]

Kill his workers, pillage the living %$&# out of him, take one or two of his choicest cities, and then have him capitulate. Then abuse by demanding ungodly tributes, privateering, and using espionage. Big fun

 

[gunter]

Kill his workers, pillage the living %$&# out of him, take one or two of his choicest cities, and then have him capitulate. Then abuse by demanding ungodly tributes, privateering, and using espionage. Big fun

Agree 100%.

I always love to raze the AI capitol city first just to prove myself and....the AI I'm rocknroll player

Pillaging give me much fun,lot of money and also bring the enemy to ancient times

Constantly hitting the strongest enemy of the period give me an extra addictive factor...on Prince that is my last game level,sooner or later I will give Monarch a try....

The only ~ strange ~ thing is that my games depend on the start,if I manage to wipe out neighbhorods early on the game is pretty easy and boring even @ Prince,if I fail the game becomes quite difficult indeed.

 

[IronCrown]

If I wage an early war I pillage to weaken the enemy while I'm not strong enough to destroy him (usually because I've no catapults yet). Later I come back to finish him.

But in later wars developed towns are too valuable to destroy. It's not so important if you play small maps with few opponents or if the map is a pangaea-type. But if there are many other civs, on other continents, you need lots of developed land to compete with them. The war will have slowed you down in any case; if you do not even gain strong cities by it you will lose too much time and money while the peaceful rivals overseas prosper and out-tech you. It's a sure way to win a war and lose the game.

 

[thomson_2001]

yeah but with free speech towns can grow back quick so single pillaging from town to vilage can be quite nice (20 gold for relatively fast regrowth)

 

[Soneji]

I do not pilliage. I do any kind of rush I can, by the time cats come... and I try to raize every capitol around. Send my one SoD right through their territory until I can destroy the original settlement.

After that, with some extra cats to the stack, with the new xp's the stack is even more lethal to the next victim.

Rinse repeat until my economy can afford to engulf those empires.

 

[GIO888]

On pillaging towns -
I always stop when they are down to Hamlet, cos like Thomson 2001 says they grow back fast. Enslaving the other guys workers is a biggie early on too, I always start wars for that!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I feel that pillaging only pays of on deity. Anything less and you're better off trying to take a city with a stack of doom, even if it's only one city. Having an extra city beats any amount of pillaging.

The point of pillaging your neighbour is, actually:
- you're unable to take a single city due to massive tech disparity
- you need to keep your neighbours backwards so you can eventually take their land
- (modern age) deny them access to oil, with paratroopers and spies. This will turn the tables very quickly.

IN vanilla and warlords, deity also has insane city and unit upkeep, so you might not even be able to take a city or even wage a war. I'm not sure if that's absolutely necessary on BTS.