Starting warfare

[peewee69]

I am having difficulty understanding at what point you should start your first war? I feel that I'm not making enough headway to be able to achieve anything by starting to war too early. In my most recent game I am up to 820AD and still no where near starting a war, the AI's are all more powerful than me!

I am playing on Emperor and really want to expand, but in every game I try I always fall behind in the arms race.

What are your thoughts on starting a war? What is a good benchmark date? How can you build enough military to do so while still settling your own cities and not falling behind in the tech race?

I am trying to achieve a hybrid economy, so generally have only one early production city, one GS farm, the capital (jack of all trades) and 4-5 cottaged cities. I am trying to get a good site for my GM farm, hoping to snag a shrine city from my neighbours, but without getting enough military or even a tech advantage, this goal is totally elusive to me!

Moderator Action: Moved to the main forum as this is where questions usually go.

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[Seraiel]

Wrong forum.

Good benchmarks are 1500 BC 10 HA, or 500 BC 10 Elephants + 5 Catapults.

 

[Ringo Kid]

How can you build enough military to do so while still settling your own cities and not falling behind in the tech race?

You should take your neighbors cities early, in effect using your hammers twice. So they do double duty; your hammers build soldiers, and the soldiers take the cities the other guy built with his hammers.

 

[Seraiel]

When you go for an early war, you also don't usually build many cities. Probably 2 for HA-rush and 3 for Elepult, but that's Deity-advice.

 

[peewee69]

Thanks for the advice, I do want to reach deity level one day, so I'd like to get into good habits now!

I now see where I have been going wrong, I usually REX to 6-7 cities which is why I never manage to get a good enough military lead.

I suppose I need to read the map better to decide whether or not to early war based upon what sites are available for me to settle? The problem is that I fall behind the tech race if I REX too much. After reading Seraiel's guide to city placement more carefully I believe I have been choosing some poor sites.

I will try yet again with your advice in mind!

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[Kallikrates]

If you fall seriously behind on a average/decent map on Emperor your weakness is not warfare.

I think the easiest warfare is with cuirassiers. Early warfare is harder, unless you have war chariots
In any case you are much more likely to fall back and ruin your economy if you mess up your early campaign.

For a cuirassier campaign you first build a solid empire with 6-9 cities or so until ca. 0 AD. Avoid war except against barbs, especially if you have iron and horses (if you lack one you can try to trade for it).
Set up a decent capital with cottages and a GP farm, in any case get a few scientists for an academy and philosophy and education bulbs. If convenient, build a few wonders (depending on map etc.) The Great library is very useful, also GLH and oracle.
Depending on how strong the AI is teching you liberate either Nationalism or you research Nationalism and liberate Military tradition (you should have researched gunpowder). If you have marble or a great engineer you can get the golden age from the Taj to prepare for war. Build baracks and stables in your cities. Build/whip a bunch (10-12 can be enough for starting) of cuirassiers. Depending on map and skill it should be around 1000 AD but that's not so important. Earlier is better but you will probably face some pikemen anyway. Still, cuirs have decent odds against them and also withdrawal chance. Scout the enemies territory in peacetime and later with spies. Huge stacks can be a problem but often the opponent only has outdated units or not so many of them. The point with cuirs is that you want to be the one attacking. If you are attacked the AI can (and will sometimes) wear you down with catapults and kill the cuirs with pikes and/or elephants. But if you are lucky, there are no elephants, after all ivory is not that common. Build or draft a few muskets for defending the conquered cities.

There are probably some more elaborate guides somewhere. In any case, I find this easier than early warfare when you need a decent start because time is of the essence, you need a reasonably close and preferably neither creative nor protective neighbor and you have to be good at whipping to get 10 HAs from 2-3 cities before 1000 or even earlier. With the bulbing towards lib and comparably early cuirassiers you can be ahead of your enemy for quite a long time (muskets are not better than pikes against them, the most annoying might be Pro Longbows in hill cities) and your cuirs ignore the walls/castles the AI loves.

 

[Seraiel]

That is very good advice from Kallikrates there. The only thing I'd change would be to "only whip Barracks, no Stables, get yourself the missing 2 XP from Theocracy or Vassalage" .

 

[Kallikrates]

I agree, although I have to admit that I sometimes cannot get theocracy early enough. There are probably more elaborate and better guides for lib race + cuirassier war on the forum.

My main point was that this is really *considerably* easier than the BC rushes (maybe not elephants/catapults, I have to admit that I never really did this one, but I remember several almost botched with HAs even on lvls below Emperor)
The threadstarter says he often cannot keep up with AI research until 800 AD (on Emperor) so I think he has "deeper" deficits than warfare and the early warfare requires *much better* micro and focus on essentials to get the HAs at 1000-1200 BC (1500 needs a good starting position, I'd say). One also has to get currency during or quickly after the war to avoid an economy breakdown etc., so overall far more difficult.

With cuirassiers one has much more time and is not that dependent on good 2-3 early cities. There is also the leverage/advantage through bulbing techs and trading that allows the human player (especially on Emperor or below) to get considerably ahead so that cuirassiers will rule the field for a long time (and usually the human player will also be earliest to rifling and continue ruling with cavalry). The further advantage ist that the AI might get muskets during the cuir warfare but this doesn't matter at all because muskets are not better than pikes or phants against cuirs and often also weaker in city defense than promoted longbows, I think.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

To me, it sounds like you're too focused on your city management and not enough on what your Empire is doing.
It's fine to specialize cities, mind you, but cities don't find their purpose within themselves : the Empire gives them a purpose.

One can try and do a little bit of everything, all at once (I often do), but that isn't the preferred way.
It is a lot easier and can be more efficient to act in sequences (many players better than I do), where all your cities push forward in the same direction (expansion, research, war) and switch to another focus when the time is right (threshold attained).

Expansion, research, war, all of those areas are commitments.
Emphasizing one will hurt the others, at least short term.

If you want to war, you need to sacrifice some research.
If you want to research, you don't need to produce military.
If you want to expand, you'll take a maintenance hit that will only be made up for when the new cities are developed, you also won't be producing military for the cost of the settler (so a sacrifice is made).


One can war pretty much whenever he wants. But will, precisely, is the key.
One has to commit. Workers chop troops & cities whip troops during a military build-up.
Just having research cities researching and production cities producing will typically take one to the late game, without ever a military advantage and with a decreasing tech lead.

So, targetting for a tech and then commiting to production is a good way to force the opportunity (hence how reliable Cuirassiers can be).

 

[Ringo Kid]

Also helps if your civ has a strong early war unique unit or trait like Roman Praetorian or any aggressive leader.

 

[Ringo Kid]

http://www.civfanatics.com/files/Early Rush.pdf

Guide to an early rush.

 

[Windsor]

http://www.civfanatics.com/files/Early Rush.pdf

Guide to an early rush.

I'm not a big fan of the old war academy guides. This one recommends starting with a warrior first to grow to size 2 before building a worker. A terrible advice. And how many players still do axe-rushes? For me it's almost completely gone.

 

[Kallikrates]

axe rush is probably still an option on prince/monarch and/or slow speeds. Rushes with the better early UUs are very much a live option on immortal.
Growing on a warrior is nonsense, though...

To re-iterate my point: If the thread starter does not (by 800 AD) out-tech the AI on Emperor without early wars (i.e. when he could have put a focus on research), he does not have to learn BC era wars but to set up a strong empire of 8 cities in the BCs to become faster than the AI and lib Nationalism or MT around 1000 (and if it's 1200, that's still o.k. on Emperor).
It's much harder to combine an early (or late BC) rush with setting up a decent empire or getting back quickly to decent research after a quick early expansion.

 

[Ringo Kid]

I'm not a big fan of the old war academy guides. This one recommends starting with a warrior first to grow to size 2 before building a worker. A terrible advice. And how many players still do axe-rushes? For me it's almost completely gone.

Not the best move in an ordinary game, but since the warrior is used for recon or to steal a worker according to this plan it may actually make sense.

Axe rush, even if not "optimal" is always fun. Who cares what other players do?

 

[tijup]

I would add an other advice to all those good ones (note that I play only at marathon speed):
You should always have, at least, one city which is pumping units for the whole game.

Find a good spot for a production city, build/whip a granary and a baracks, then keep building your best available unit (axemen, swordmen, archers, longbows, etc.) in that city.
Occasionaly stop to build/whip stable and/or factory, and resume to unit building.

 

[Tatran]

If the thread starter does not (by 800 AD) out-tech the AI on Emperor without early wars, he does not have to learn BC era wars but to set up a strong empire of 8 cities in the BCs to become faster than the AI and lib Nationalism or MT around 1000 (and if it's 1200, that's still o.k. on Emperor).

Maybe, it's the game settings, but I've a very hard time at Emperor to stay at the same tech level as the AI.
Prioritizing Alphabet + Currency and skipping all kind of useless techs and other stuff don't work.
Only with a FIN or ORG civ, I manage to generate enough commerce or reduce expansion costs to keep on researching.
One of the biggest problems is the lack of early happiness for city growth and incense + whales are the worst happy sources.
When isolated or semi-isolated (only 1 neighbour) and no religion to improve relations to friendly you will fall behind in tech.
You can't compete in tech against tech trading and intercontinental commerce trading. (Hemispheres maps have a chance of early coastal connection)

 

[Kallikrates]

Of course, isolation and/or not enough happiness is pretty bad. But these are not typical conditions. (Neither is Pangaea with a HoF 2 gems 3 food starting position although some people apparently play such maps most of the time). And if you are isolated early warfare is moot anyway. (The LHC isolation maps are often pretty tough and I really struggled on immortal there and usually tried a cultural victory but also gave up several games. But some of these maps seem to be picked for poor resources on top of isolation anti-synergy of leader traits and map)

I usually play standard/fractal/normal speed 7 civs and I moved to immortal a few months ago because I started winning almost all emperor games I played. I admit that I sometimes re-roll starting positions but only if the starts are really bad, not to get HoF conditions. I also replay sometimes longer portions of the game because I find this a better way to learn than to start a new game.

Sure, you can be out-teched on Emperor if many factors are against you (and/or the good AI techers have favorable conditions). If you have only incense and/or whales I'd say this is a very bad map. On an average map, you'd get one hunting/mining happiness resource relatively early. And usually wine or calendar resources as well in the BCs or you can trade for them. Unless isolated you will usually also get a religion in the BCs and you can either get the pyramids (only recommended in certain conditions) which solves most happiness problems for a long time, or (more common) switch to monarchy/HR
And as you are expanding anyway for most of the BCs most of your cities will not be bigger than 4-5 pop because you need to build/whip settlers/workers and a few units and important buildings.

Again, my point is not that Emperor cannot be quite tricky and one can fall behind. But that early warfare makes it even more difficult if you have not mastered the tricks for setting up a decent empire because early warfare will often tend to delay key techs like currency or CS. Early warfare "trades" building units for building settlers and gives more space to expand in the longer run. It does not at all help with faster teching, on the contrary because you might have more maintenance cost (and more unit costs).

With cuirassier warfare you have more time to negotiate the drawbacks of non-HoF-maps. You are also better at tech trading than the AI. But the real key is to ignore unimportant techs and bulbing (bulbing is almost irrelevant for BC warfare because HBR and construction are not on the obvious bulbing paths and in any case you need them often before you get the first Scientist). Sometimes also to have a monopoly on Alpha for many turns so you can "backfill" and keep the AI from trading.
This is what gets you ahead not overall in tech but in the key techs you want, namely the ones for the lib race and gunpowder and music. You will often ignore many religious techs, sometimes also hunting/archery as well as feudalism and guilds, optics etc. You basically skip most medieval units. You keep peace by diplo and if you need a barb city get it early with swords or so. In the preparation phase by building/whipping a dozen cuirs and maybe a few muskets you go from weakest in arms to a middle strength position within 10 turns or so.

 

[2pt0]

I am having difficulty understanding at what point you should start your first war?

I now see where I have been going wrong, I usually REX to 6-7 cities which is why I never manage to get a good enough military lead.

Use your first war as part of the REX.