Talk about your first conquest victory

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hello everyone; it's been a while.

I put down the game after I got hooked on Medieval 2 Total war again. Came back and got the Gold edition/Warlords package and re-installed it. I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure I got mostly space race, cultural, and diplomatic victories. I tried to do some conquests and just found the peaceful methods easier and more intuitive. I think most especially what threw me off was how difficult an early conquest is if you don't carry around a load of catapults and you don't go directly for the throat. Often times my early attempts at war were thwarted by losing the science races and swinging macemen at nations filled with riflemen and cavalry. My timing was all off and my technique needed much improvement. Then, this week, I finally had a breakthrough. It's a breakthrough I'm sure most or all of you already had, and maybe you can't remember it anymore.

Playing as Augustus Caesar of the Romans, large map, epic speed, Noble I think 7 opponents, I can't remember. Custom continents, 4 continents. I had just played a couple of campaigns where I had defeated several AI in a row, but got surprised by a naval invasion while I was busy fighting someone else, and I had neglected my home front. Here, I got stuck on the northwest corner of a very strange, lake-filled continent which had a bizarre landscape and my scout detected that it seemed to go on and on forever... just one AI faction after another.

I typically preferred only one AI faction at a time, being the peacenik that I am, on the continent I started on. I was getting familiar with the stack of doom concept, as well as using artillery and specialized units effectively against the enemy, as well as using the perfectly timed peace treaty just when my units needed a couple of turns of healing and I needed to defend recently captured territory and my homelands were getting war weariness. So, basics under my belt, I focused on a military bent in my strategy from turn one. I focused on rapid expansion so I could get iron and copper and plenty of viable cities with barracks, and focused on military technologies. I produced plenty of units and waited until I got the ability to make catapults, and by then I had a mass of Praetorians and axemen and archers respectable enough to declare war with and not worry about the war stagnating halfway through due to unit loss. I spat out a mass of catapults and took on my neighbor, which I believe was the Persians. The first couple cities fell easily because they were the newer cities, and I didn't lose too many troops. When I got to the bigger ones, I wanted to ensure my kick-butt Praetorians weren't the first to die. So with my mass of catapults I reduced the defenses to zero and then collateral damaged them down to nothing, losing several cats in the process. But then I didn't lose a single non-catapult unit and took the city. Same thing for their capital... and I reduced them to a single city I think, just in time for vassalage and I asked them to capitulate. Being high on the hog and loaded with cash, and my army was still in good spirits and I was churning out elephants and stuff now... I decided to declare on the Greeks who were behind them. Halfway through that war I got knights and trebuchets and I turned Ravenna into my main military unit producer... I built the heroic epic there I think and I settled all my great generals and kept spitting out hordes and hordes of elephants and catapults... I didn't really need to replace too many Praetorians. I figured out that I could keep up on the science race by trading with my non-warlike distant neighbors and focusing just on military techs... and with the constant stream of income and my ever expanding empire even low science rates would be enough. Augustus' traits made it easy to spit out courthouses and I grabbed forums and banks as soon as they became available.

With a couple of nations under my control, I was able to focus just on economic matters at home and let the outer provinces command the war effort. By then my score was double what my closest rival was... and it just got simpler and more tedious at that point. By the end of the game I had over 6000 for the score and I had the AI pushed back down to the early 1000's. I devoured the Germans and the Egyptians and the Celts... and headed for Ottoman lands with 5 or 6 vassals under my control. I hadn't done that before, and I had what had to be 100 or so settlements under my control with State Property. Sending battleships after the Ottomans who had riflemen at best was actually kind of sad and I got the domination victory shortly after that.

Obviously I've got to crank up the difficulty now, but that was the first time I experienced the full power of the game's military conquest, and I must admit it was a heady rush. I didn't do anything special or impressive, for sure, but finally getting it right with the military aspect of the game was delightful.

I was thinking I would just expand until I could win the science race outright, or focus on military defense and go for the usual culture victory, while keeping the space race an option. But when I saw I had half of the AI opponents defeated and I'd reached an empire size (100 million people) I never reached before... I decided to go all-out.

So, no big revelations here, and I am but a mortal walking among the gods who do this sort of thing on the non-kiddie levels like Emperor and Immortal, but I still feel happy knowing that I am no longer totally worthless with an army in this game, which was unusual given how I always went for expansion/conquest in Civ II, and any other war-strategy game. I almost feel like cultural victories are cheating, because of how simple they are to accomplish. And it just feels boring hitting the end turn button and ordering the build queue for culture-heavy buildings and defense only.

First Domination Victory: Can you still remember yours, or like me, are you basically a noob at them and just had one recently?

If you are having trouble (like I did, admittedly) then turn to some of the better strategy guides I've ever seen in Sisiutil's signature. If I might comment on what I found useful as the Romans:

Praetorian/catapult spam is all you need for the first third of the game. Axemen are good, but you can toss in a chariot or a Praetorian with the versus melee upgrade and it works fine against axemen. A stack large enough can handle the occasional axeman against you. Mostly you'll be dealing with capturing cities... over and over and over again... which means city raider, plus collateral damage, plus versus archer (cover) promotions and the occasional healer. Elephants are surprisingly good against most things, even knights, so spamming them and focusing on military tends to slow down the game and make the AI also focus on military and that extends their usefulness until Cavalry rolls around, and by then you're rich and powerful and can just upgrade them into Cavalry anyway. I didn't end up using the Knights I tried to spam, I found the elephants were better and cheaper, though not quite as powerful, they were better against melee and cavalry than other Knights. Trebuchets should replace yoru cats as soon as they become available... but cats are still useful for bombardment and collateral damage. Use the trebuchets with maximum city raider to annihilate everything in the city without even sending in your infantry. The Praetorians/axemen/swordsmen whatever your infantry is, will end up being useful only on the big capital cities and so on, and for defense and non-city offense. They are good when you run out of catapults and you're still waiting for reinforcements. They are great for taking those stubborn cities where your trebuchets alone don't do the trick.

Eventually you start running into Riflemen. Musketmen don't even stand up to good trebuchet stacks with city raider, but Riflemen get tricky. By then you need your own riflemen to counter them. Use trebuchets/cannons to collateral damage, and then use city raider riflemen (your old praetorians.... all with city raider... all upgraded ) until you run into Artillery.

By the time you get Artillery, it almost doesn't matter what unit you have, you have hundreds of them so any city is just a matter of persistance. But as usual, you have two units to worry about: Infantry and artillery. Artys soften up the resistance, infantry wipes it out. Cavalry comes in handy as bulk units you can use against counterattackers, or to pillage and destroy roads, or to defend your other units with. The big bonus with cavalry is that your distant, homeland cities can recruit them and with the road movement upgrade (engineering?) and they can join in the frontline battle pretty quickly.

The next big things are machine guns which replace any kind of defender unit, and infantry/SAM infantry/Marines for offensive infantry. I like marines so you can use the amphibious ability against cities. Artillery plus marines on transports... spam them and conquer everything that has a coastline. Drop off some machine guns or SAM infantry and keep moving. Frigate or better, spammed, will reduce the city defenses. Your basic naval strategy, after you conquer your home continent and anything massive nearby that doesn't require much naval power.

Keep plenty of defenders at home. Don't neglect the home defense. even the weakest infantry, properly upgraded of course, and spammed en masse, can make a huge difference in the late game. Spammed warriors and axemen or even archers, made in your Great General city, full of city raider upgrades or medic upgrades, can be converted using gold into a huge sudden stack of riflemen or better yet, something much more potent and modern. But that takes untold thousands of gold. You need a massive empire full of banks and several turns at little science research, but you can turn a collection of 50 ancient warriors and spearmen into the last army you will ever need.

If you haven't beaten the world to a bloody pulp by then, you will have to watch out for airborne counterstrikes. Bombers, fighters, etc... there is a time and a place to discuss what to do by then, but hopefully you have the world beaten by then, and although I have some idea of what to do it's not my forte just yet and others have much better advice.

I find that rolling up the world at the late, late stage where everyone has modern technology or huge, vast empires and science research facilities... you can suddenly find yourself with outdated arms fighting a war of attrition while a peaceful enemy builds a spaceship and beats you to it. But I find gunships invaluable as well as tanks, artillery, bombers, and fighters for defense, as you probably agree.

Ok there's only so much a "Noble" player like me can say that's useful, but I would still like to hear from you guys if you can remember the moment you cracked the Domination victory on a larger map with several computer opponents, or discovered some strategy which greatly improved your game in a way you didn't expect.

 

[VexTheSane]

I've had more conquest victories than domination. I tend to play marauders more than overlords when I'm in the mood for war. Aside from my initial 3-4 cities, if its not a capital, a critical resource, a religious seat, or a wonder I care about...it burns. Sometimes I burn those depending on what sort of counter attack is coming my way, sending them back to reinforce the remaining cities.

But I'm responding because I just finished a conquest fractal game with Boudica. It was only on noble, because I never really used her before. She's like economic cancer, albeit ruthlessly effective at warfare.

I oracled to iron working fast and lucked out with a random event that gave me tower shields (free cover for melee units.) This was handy, since the Babylonians were one of my immediate neighbors.

I cranked out several Gaelic stacks o' doom and focused on guerilla 3, then city raider 3, then combat 2. (I basically never got any further) It was...ugly. I rolled out the war machine 600 BC-ish, after doing some basic hammer, road, and food prep.

The Ottomans were gone by 800 BC with no casualties, also earning a GG for a super medic. Babylon was gone by 100 AD with slight losses. Sitting Bull went by 500 AD, but he managed to put up a good fight, despite his small amount of territory. And Isabella's Longbows got pulverized by Gaellic macemen in 800 AD. Apparantly she and Sitting Bull had been feuding before I showed up over whether Hinduism or Buddhism was the one true faith. Boudica's Judaism was the correct answer, it turns out. Either that, or this game's god had a sick sense of humor.

I wish the game had stretched a bit longer, actually. CR3 Gunpowder units with a 50% withdrawal rate seems fun. Unfortunately, I'd have either gone broke long before getting there or would have had to dismantle my elite army, save for a handful of veterans.

The obvious downside? In order to keep the machine running smoothly, the economy was in the tank. Fortunately, aggressive plundering kept me at a profit despite losing 60 to 100 gold per turn. Once I got my macemen, I just cut the tech slider to 0 and the losses weren't so bad, but still. The Army was moving faster than I could get cottages built.

I ended up just automating the workers because she was like a tidal wave on that map. The 50% withdrawal was letting her chop through culture defense more reliably than even Caesar's Legions let me. I didn't even have catapults until Sitting Bull's capital. Never did build a spy or engage in any diplomacy....

And yes, I'm well aware just how helpful that free cover promotion was.

It was a weird game. No micromanagement at all. She just cut through the other civs like a hot knife through butter. Even the copper for the Gaelics spawned under my Cap.

It was meant to be. But a fun game, nonetheless. Its given me cause to learn how to play her as a proper civ instead of as a super barbarian.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Interesting, I had also applied the strategy of burning everything that I don't need. But there's a hurdle somewhere when you expand enough to have a core territory of just economic settlements pumping out gold, and still keeping up on the science races at 10 or 20% of the slider. When you reach that threshold, one of your older cities produces enough gold to cover 3-4 new cities until they have enough gold to cover 3-4 more, and so on. At that point, I was a dozen techs ahead of my nearest neighbor who couldn't keep up anyway because they had to draft and whip units to defend themselves and couldn't focus on science. Meanwhile I was spending my 2000 gold per turn on universities and laboratories and finishing wonders.

I use the analogy of stellar fusion: you get a civilization big enough and you don't have to slowly burn to death and turn into a dwarf. You go supernova and continue gobbling up the world at an ever faster and faster rate. I had stacks of like 50 artillery on transports that I had sent towards my final opponent, who was destroyed by the time I managed to load them onto transports and float them over there. By then I had whole new stacks of marines and tanks and they got there first.

I was actually getting to the point where I didn't have much to spend money on in most of my empire, and I didn't want to increase the science slider any more because it was only taking a few turns to gain the next technology and I wanted to fight with WWI level technology for a while. There was no need to get bombers or stealth fighters when you're still knocking down riflemen with ease. And I liked watching all the satisfying artillery and machine gun animations. It was nice being on the attacking side of that equation for once.

I find that every little town, provided it isn't encased in a wall of ice, once your civ develops to the point that it can support it, can quickly blossom (with hordes of workers) into another settlement with banks and courthouses generating gold, science, and units. However, it's like two totally different games... until you reach that "richer than God" threshold, every little town you come across gets pillaged for the gold that you desperately need. My how things change once you own about 30 provinces churning out the cash.

Have you done that strategy of absorbing their cities rather than destroying them? Sure, at the beginning it is a waste, but... the investment paid off for me. Compared to all my previous runs, I was teching about 10 times faster, my empire was 10 times larger, and I was wasting gold almost deliberately. Oh look, I see I can pop out another tank. Might as well spend the gold...

Thank you for sharing, Vex. What difficulty did you say you were playing, what speed, and what size map?

For my Roman run, I barely focused on the economy. Pumped out more soldiers than I knew what to do with, after making sure to get forums and banks and grocers asap. After that... out of sheer ease of playing the game, I automatically accepted just about any building suggestion the computer made if it was and economy booster or happiness booster or hammer booster, etc.

There were brief periods at the start of each era of warfare where I would ask a bunch of my cities to pump out a specific unit (elephants, cavalry, tanks, artillery, marines...) but a turn or two later it was back to nearly automatic economic focus and having fun stomping the AI with my horde.

Now, if I can do that a couple more times consistently, I'll crank up the difficulty to Prince and actually feel like I've accomplished something in this game for once. Yay I'm learning!

 

[VexTheSane]

Yeah, usually I play a more diplomatic game than that. Wars are to be avoided if they are going to be costly, and I retaliate or attack with the intent of needed expansion or diffusing an imminent threat when talks break down.

As a pure barbarian game, my only goal is conquest as rapidly as possible, rendering the long term economic consequences less important as long as you can field enough to get started. Mainly because the conquest movie is my favorite. Funny, but that's the ultimate motivator when I'm feeling aggressive.

I usually play Prince, but knocked it back since I had never used Boudica or the Gaelic Warrior before and just wanted to play test it a bit.

It was a random sized fractal map (pangea end result) and probably somewhere on the largish size of a Small map if I had to estimate. A concentrated land mass really seems to be her thing, allowing for rapid advancement without needing to construct many reinforcements.

So, unfortunately I've never had a modern era war that wasn't completely one sided. Bombers and Tanks versus Riflemen, for instance. Any game that lasts that long, is usually because I've made mutually beneficial friends and am more interested in going to space.

I've been toying with starting a pure crime based economy that focuses on diplomacy, espionage, hostile trading, and privateers. The probability of this resulting in some kind of retaliation will likely lead to an interesting war story.

I've been wondering whether or not to actually encourage a declaration of war with hostile diplomacy coupled with:

1) Amassing tons of gold, while fielding a force of cheap / weak units.
2) Upgrading them en masse after a declaration of war, taking full advantage of the Great Wall's GG bonus.

It seems risky, but could be fun. The tech leads from espionage alone could make this worthwhile, and avoiding conflict until an advanced era would crank out Great Generals like nobody's business in a Great Wall Siege.

In theory anyway. I've never really attempted to bait and trap a hostile force in game before. I've just noticed that they unerringly target the border cities with the weakest units, regardless of the actual economic or strategic value of the city.

As applies to the original thread, this may be a means to reliably steer invaders to a location or choke point you can more comfortably defend, safely removed from vital resources. Intentionally garrison your preferred battlefield (a low value border town ideally) with promoted, but low tech holdovers. Promote once the enemy is in too deep.

Keep a reserve force within a move or two for reinforcements or a counter invasion, but far enough away to let the AI think it has an easy target. Then promote the low tech defenders to your current era, and try to flank them or mount an invasion with your reserve force. This would likely work even better with Drafting, but only during times of peace, since the AI seems to feel honor bound to declare war before attacking.

Just an idea. I was going to noodle with it a bit today.

 

[VexTheSane]

Well, the "criminal empire" works better in theory than in practice, with the BTS espionage system. The English (me) ended up being about as feared as the care bears, despite having the financial and technological means to turn into Mr Hyde if I chose.

I played Elizabeth and had Portugal and Washington next door, so it seemed like the perfect test. (Normal Continents, Noble) Everything standard for testing purposes, to see the system as it is. Both leaders were expansive, Port was Imperialistic, and Washington charismatic. I figured they'd eventually get tired of me on their island. I figured wrong.

I wasn't able to mass produce junk units with any experience beyond 1 promotion from a barracks, and as soon as I got alphabet, things went downhill (for the sake of the test).

Despite having only 2 flourishing cities, 2 struggling low production coastal shanties, and being in dead last place, I was the undisputed world research leader by several techs by 20 AD.

By hook or crook, I had managed to hit the middle ages with basically 2 contributing research cities while the other two were refusing to trade me their new fangled iron working tech. So I stole it.

Judging by the wonder messages being displayed, the undiscovered continent was around Theocracy as I was just beginning to send caravels overseas, having prioritized the ability to first turn junk units into Longbows and Macemen. That was a mistake. Both of those tech trees are AI favorites, and I could have just stolen most of the groundwork as I prepared for an invasion.

Both Portugal and the US adopted Confucianism, and become adoring fans. 1) because I was small and weak (despite having about 5000 gold in reserve to modernize if they irked me) and 2) Because I just gave them techs after awhile because they'd run out of anything to steal.

I should have prioritized inflitrating the other continent with my spies and missionaries. Wasn't thinking smart.

A foreign continent would be more susceptible to a trap, since they'd be REALLY committed to the trip. Especially if I cut off their rides home with privateers (or any naval unit, really - since the goal is to get them to attack me in the Great Wall's GG boost radius.)

Ah well, live and learn.

I'll try again later and see if I can start with some more aggressive neighbors to see if they take the bait. Portugal and the US, while expansive, are essentially friendly AI's, and as such, are more or less sane.

Due to how well we all got along, I was unable to determine if the AI recognizes hoarded wealth as useful for building armies, or just as an incentive to demand tributes. Usually, I maintain at least a small garrison, even under Pacifism. This time I only had an archer and a warrior in the 2 main cities, an archer in the coastal cities, and 2 archers and 3 warriors parked in a fort in the middle. Each city had prebuilt (just short of completion) 1 of every land unit available to me, to get ready for a massive production run if anyone took the bait. Each city had a spy stationed there, though there were no enemy spies until the early AD's.

Oddly, the Portuguese demanded some cash early after catching one of my spies in the act and I told him to pike off. He never dropped from cautious, and eventually moved to pleased, before even hitting code of laws. It was weird. Also, Washington was highly resistant to espionage long before he researched alphabet. Portugal only caught me once in their capital. No idea if this was dumb luck or related to happiness, health, science, or what have you.

So, despite all of that, nothing solid to note just yet. Just that the BTS espionage system is slightly overpowered (assuming you're not popped next to Montezuma before you can set the trap).

Philosophical, Pacifism, Great Wall, Courthouse, Cottage Economy, Financial, Slavery, Scottland Yard, and many settled Great Spies worked out to enormous cash reserves that just kept getting larger. Unfortunately, Both Portugal and America were broke, so I couldn't gift them cash for future hostile trading. Not like I needed the money at that point.

As of 400 AD, London only had a population of 8. It was my largest city. York had 7. The two scrub towns by the sea were 3 and 4. And I still had a massive financial and technological lead. About 8000 in the bank alternating between 100% research for priorities, 100% espionage when I wanted something that wasn't mine, and 0% everything to just hoard gold and twiddle my thumbs pointlessly hoping for a fight.

I had almost no resources. Iron popped under London, I had a field of corn, a fishing boat that I never bothered replacing after I got tired of barbarian pillagers, a single gold mine, and a sheep.

I don't like doing testing on higher levels, since the AI has to cheat to toughen it up. But for noble difficulty and lower, espionage is a game wrecker if you can keep the peace. Given the inevitable tech lead, you may have no choice but be a likeable rogue since your economy is dependent on theft.

Oh well, I suppose I could always start poisoning their water supplies when I'm bored, or spread culture. But there was something appealing about having 4 podunk cities, with a big wall around them, and being ludicrously ahead in money and R&D.

Portugal undoubtedly ruled our continent. But I ruled Portugal. Strange little game.

Well, apologies for the wall of text. It just seems that some Civs are too good natured for their own good, or that the noble AI is savvier than I'm willing to give it credit.

Test 1 of "Helpless" Warfare was a miserable failure (or fiscal and technological marvel depending on your point of view).

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

No, don't apologize I like hearing stories from others. I don't have BTS, just Warlords (hence the thread tag) but from what I understand there's a lot of new espionage stuff in that version. Sounds nifty; I'm just getting used to great generals.

 

[VexTheSane]

I was using the espionage to try to get a decisive example of ensaring the enemy. In other words, being able to rapidly promote a hopelessly outmatched force into a technologically overwhelming one in a single turn.

I was just trying to think of some means of battlefield control vs the computer. Inviting the battles in the places most beneficial to me, rather than always being on the offensive, or chasing pillage stacks.

The use of espionage was just to pad the likelihood of success if the AI took the bait, for sake of the test. Sadly, they didn't.

Without aggressive neighbors, I pretty much ruined things by founding a religion. After they joined the holy cause, I couldn't get them angry. Washington never even registered a negative reaction after catching 4 spies in a row.

I'm going to try it again with an aggressive neighbor on a custom game. I'll throw Monty in the mix, and see if I can not only provoke him by feigning weakness on his front, but steer him to attack locations of my choosing.

That's IF I can get some cash stored up before he pounces. But early game, a decent stack of archers usually keeps him deterred.

I'll askthepizzaguy...

Have you had any success with atypical warfare?

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler :

I was using the espionage to try to get a decisive example of ensaring the enemy. In other words, being able to rapidly promote a hopelessly outmatched force into a technologically overwhelming one in a single turn.

I was just trying to think of some means of battlefield control vs the computer. Inviting the battles in the places most beneficial to me, rather than always being on the offensive, or chasing pillage stacks.

The use of espionage was just to pad the likelihood of success if the AI took the bait, for sake of the test. Sadly, they didn't.

Without aggressive neighbors, I pretty much ruined things by founding a religion. After they joined the holy cause, I couldn't get them angry. Washington never even registered a negative reaction after catching 4 spies in a row.

I'm going to try it again with an aggressive neighbor on a custom game. I'll throw Monty in the mix, and see if I can not only provoke him by feigning weakness on his front, but steer him to attack locations of my choosing.

That's IF I can get some cash stored up before he pounces. But early game, a decent stack of archers usually keeps him deterred.

I'll askthepizzaguy...

Have you had any success with atypical warfare?

Hmmm... using settlers and great artists and the culture slider allows cultural flipping, which you're all aware of. I consider that a form of warfare, for sure.

I would imagine you could always just get a group of ten or so units together, pikemen, macemen, (infantry...) elephants, knights, (cavalry...) a medic or two, (support...) and some catapults (artillery...) and don't bother taking any enemy city. Just destroy any units that you see, pillage all roads, all cottages, all resources, capture all workers, and utterly cripple their economy, and use pillaging to fund your army itself, as well as prepare another batch of forces to attack another nation.

Sort of pillage-only warfare. See how that would work out.

 

[VexTheSane]

I've never played a pure pillage (no subsequent conquest) strategy outside of the early game. A handful of chariots with no intention of taking cities can effectively freeze the development of your early rivals at the beginning.

In Warlords, I think Montezuma fields the only advanced early era unit with no resource requirement. The chariots can either gang up on any archers that come your way, or just outrun them.

The challenge of the pillage economy is the need to balance your aggression, I would think. So as not to weaken any one neighbor to the point that a stronger neighbor sweeps in and gets too dangerous.

It could be a pretty reliable way to establish a siege game, where your civ plays an endurance wargame with the rest of the world.

Take care, and talk later!

 

[VexTheSane]

Hmmm... using settlers and great artists and the culture slider allows cultural flipping, which you're all aware of. I consider that a form of warfare, for sure.

Absolutely. Saving great people to accelerate development of subjugated or frontier cities could be brutally effective in the early game, when they pop quickly and have a lesser technical payout.

They'd be immensely useful in late game, but tend to show up so slowly by then. A shame. But you're absolutely right. Culture bombs for stealing critical resources never lose their effectiveness.

Its a pretty reliable way in my experience to get Tokugawa to attack on my terms.

 

[theskibum]

Pillage warfare is pretty effective against the AI in this game. I've had good luck with it on Noble and tried on Prince. I find its best against PRO leaders that you just can't crack easily until you get Construction.

A good example I just played was as Catherine, I had no copper and no iron, but did get horses for chariots and HA. Wang was my neighbor and I needed his land to expand, but his protective archers are difficult to kill. He also had iron and was building axes. As I teched toward construction (figured I would use cats, chariots and HA to take his cities). I declared war a few times and used my chariots to pillage everything in his empire. Kept his iron disconnected as much as possible, pillaged his cottages to keep his economy from booming and pillaged his happy resources to keep his cities from vertical growth.

I found this tactic not only effective at keeping his military limited (he only built 4 axes because of how often I pillaged his iron), but I kept my research slider at 90% the whole time running a large deficit since I got gold every time I pillaged something. My espionage showed that he didn't complete a single tech by the time I had construction and machinery. I stomped him with cats and xbows with HA for support.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Pillage warfare is pretty effective against the AI in this game. I've had good luck with it on Noble and tried on Prince. I find its best against PRO leaders that you just can't crack easily until you get Construction.

A good example I just played was as Catherine, I had no copper and no iron, but did get horses for chariots and HA. Wang was my neighbor and I needed his land to expand, but his protective archers are difficult to kill. He also had iron and was building axes. As I teched toward construction (figured I would use cats, chariots and HA to take his cities). I declared war a few times and used my chariots to pillage everything in his empire. Kept his iron disconnected as much as possible, pillaged his cottages to keep his economy from booming and pillaged his happy resources to keep his cities from vertical growth.

I found this tactic not only effective at keeping his military limited (he only built 4 axes because of how often I pillaged his iron), but I kept my research slider at 90% the whole time running a large deficit since I got gold every time I pillaged something. My espionage showed that he didn't complete a single tech by the time I had construction and machinery. I stomped him with cats and xbows with HA for support.

Aside from getting extra bonuses/cheating to make the game challenging, the AI does do some things which can mess up your game, like pillaging all your resources, and suddenly striking an exposed section of your empire with a stack of artillery, cavalry, and infantry by sea. Anytime they go on a massive sacking and pillaging spree, it's very painful and difficult to get back to where you were, let alone win the game.

Anytime they did something which was crushingly effective, you take note, and try to do it to them first next time.

I had personally neglected my cities' vertical development in most of my games to date... once I hit the happy cap I tend to not bother with aqueducts and expanding upwards, I build the necessary buildings for gold and science and then I continue whipping the next buildings, build units, or build wealth. But I notice that under monarchy, your happy cap disappears due to putting as many units as you want in a city. As such I find that even better than all the other forms of government I can access early with Pyramids, Monarchy is just game-beating until the very late game when I have no need for additional happy citizens, and it's more useful to me to have a different government.

I've also figured out how to, on Noble anyway, just keep expanding and expanding. You fellows probably already know this, so it's just a milestone for me; but I tend to REX and get to currency as fast as possible, and then start building markets and grocers and beeline banking so I can get banks. Once you have cities with those buildings, adding another 4 settlements to your empire is as simple as switching one of your core cities to wealth production. Helps if you have good hammer production, by the way.

I've been weaned off of my wonder addiction now, too. I find it's much more useful to double the size of your empire and start building a world-class military than to have the Sistine Chapel, for example, as awesome as it may be. Focus on the basics... it's sad to say... food and hammers and cities that boost your gold and science per turn. Pump out a military to defend or go on the offensive.

I miss my wonders, but it's much more satisfying to have an empire 10 times the size of my usual one, with research at 10% and still winning the tech race. I started another run as Augustus on a larger map with a LOT more enemies, and I own the larger of the two continents almost totally, and I have a couple of powerful vassals which are tiny by comparison to me. Now I'm invading the other continent, and I even got everyone on that continent to declare war on one another. Now everyone in the game is at war with everyone, basically, and I'm mopping them up and am about to make tanks and marines again at 1774 AD, while I'm barely running into riflemen. Seems to be about the same as my previous game.

Ok, feel free to check out my somewhat inept (but still learning) bloodthirsty conquering. This is a record of my second run as Augustus. Huge map size, Epic speed, lots of civs, Noble difficulty, Warlords.

Pay no attention to the difference in the file names. I had saved so often that it was getting tiresome typing in "Rome". I never reloaded, though.


Edit: notes on my progress-

665AD- as you can see, I've REX'ed to become one of, if not the, largest empires. My economy is suffering at this time, but now is the time to stop focusing on settling and start focusing on military might.

1238AD- Saladin must have gotten a bad start... encased in ice, practically. He's the first to fall. Capitulation, as I grow weary of conquering his impoverished cities.

1346AD- The war machine is steamrolling forward. My religion has made me some powerful friends, and my Praetorians and War Elephants make a large empire, Hannibal, crumble. His empire was very worthy of conquering... frankly it was as good as my core territories.

1472AD- Hannibal has cities everywhere. He's nearly crippled but since he's so massive, this takes time. I probably could have divided my forces and done it quicker, but... we conquer, we learn.

1580AD- North of Niani, my knights and war elephants, and now pikemen to counter other people's knights, if any, marches on my weakest, peaceful neighbor, Mansa Musa. He left a gap in his home territories... I'm heading for the space outside his cultural borders just north of his own capital. Surprise, Moose.

1685AD- Moose capitulates, due to me smashing his capital on the first few turns of the war, and gobbling up his priority cities before he could muster proper defenses. Now, with 3 vassals and most of the continent, I am off to pick a fight with Wang Kon and annoy Roosevelt at the same time.

1774AD- Wang Kon is in a bad way, as I march on his third or fourth successive capital. He should capitulate after a couple more cities fall. In the meantime, Roosevelt has half his territories taken, and he's at war with various idiots. I declared war on Elizabeth just so I could destroy some of her pesky ships. She doesn't frighten me and since she has no religion, no one cares about her. Only difficulty at present is moving my army to the other continent... transports should take care of that mess. Moose broke his vassal oath to me, but since he's such a pathetic waste of space (only one island territory?) I am just going to harass him with a couple of ships and then land a machine gun or two and wait for the war with Wang Kon to end to eliminate him. He's hardly a priority. Mehmed II is my closest rival, well over 1000 points below me, and he's actually been rather useful to me, declaring wars on all his neighbors. He reminds me of me. I'll kill him last. Maybe.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Ok, above post finally updated. I only edited it about 20 times.