The benefits of warring without mongering

[Xiao Xiong]

In my last game (immortal) I ran into Songhai early, we were the only two civs on a continent with some pretty nice spots to settle a city. I wanted them!

I lucked out and had one scout upgrade to an archer, pumped out one more archer, and sent the two of them plus my warrier to his capital. Declared war. Proceeded to terrorize him for the next 100 turns or so. Never really had any opportunity to capture his capital, in fact, most of the time I wasn't even able to keep units within the first 2 tiles of his city--after awhile he had an archer there and a couple of defenders. I added a couple more archers over time as well. Just sat there, at the edge of his city limits, pillaging and attacking the units he sent out.

It was a huge success!

Why? Because he only got two settlers out. I captured one of them, the other settled in the opposite direction from my city. Without rushing, developing properly in my capital, I was able to get out three settlers, all purchased with gold, and settle all the good spots on the continent. When I finally settled with him, he offered me his 2nd city! But instead, I took the cash prize, all his gold per turn. I also wound up with some elite units, seriously levelled up from sniping his guys from the city limits. Eventually when I made peace, they went on to be really great city defenders, nicely leveled up.

By the time I made peace I had expanded as much as I needed to, met the other nearby civs with triremes, and eventually went on to win a cultural victory without any further warring for the whole game. No war monger penalty. Songhai even eventually got to like me, and didn't have much animosity other than coveting my land.

But he was also weak the whole game -- ALL the other civs quickly surpassed him, meaning that he was effectively not a threat at all from there on, and I was able to build up reasonable defenses before I was open to any potential naval threat.

All in all, quite a successful war!

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Warfare espacially early game can be used not to take cities but to cripple other Civs which can basicly put them out of the game while making your stronger (more spots to settle).

Because you go for war early one dosen't mean you have to take cities, dominating the map is maybe the easist way to win right now because ai is at it weakest at warfare.

 

[chazzycat]

yep if you're going to go to war early, that's the way to do it. steal workers, pillage, kill their units, but don't capture cities. The DOWing penalty is not bad at all compared to city-capturing penalty.

 

[budweiser]

I call this strategy The Trojan War, you fight in antiquity for ever but never take the city. Can also be used vs CS. Probably a key strategy to victory.

 

[Aristos]

... and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do it.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It would be fun if the ai played smart and workersteal from players and raid us think how much harder the game could really be if they used early war to cripple us.

 

[Scarpa]

This strategy can also sometimes result in a city gifted to you in a peace deal, which as far as I can tell does not give you the warmonger penalty with other civs.

 

[phillipwyllie]

This strategy can also sometimes result in a city gifted to you in a peace deal, which as far as I can tell does not give you the warmonger penalty with other civs.

It doesn't. Nice strategy from OP there. I might try it in my next game.

 

[reddishrecue]

That's a good strategy, no penalty from capturing a city but still attacking.

 

[milk steak]

After peace, they'll usually want to be your friends too.

 

[Barghaest]

Yep, this is the strategy I usually employ. I don't like sacrificing units to actually take a city so I end up sieging them for multiple turns until I've done enough damage to cripple AI or had them capitulate and give me whatever it was I desired that began the whole mess.

It's not til late Medieval I actually start conquering cities (usually Minor penalty by then) and I do that mainly to raze and make way for my new settlements.

 

[GhostSalsa]

This is a good strategy, especially just like this example when you start a game in extreme territory competition.

But another way to ensure a weak AI opponent is to... set the difficulty down. I dislike the 'warring without mongering' tag as if this is the solution to the excessive penalties on conquering.

The game should allow capturing cities too. That should be the actual point of war, not just point-clicking the incredibly stupid AI's units and tiles to death for 100 turns.

 

[Barghaest]

The game should allow capturing cities too. That should be the actual point of war, not just point-clicking the incredibly stupid AI's units and tiles to death for 100 turns.

Conquest is only one of the goals of war. The actual point of war is to get your way by using force... whether this is raiding for gold, keeping the AI from settling your direction, slaughtering missionaries, or seizing choice cities by force all are valid goals. Claiming war is purely for conquest is as narrow a view-point as believing you should only ever acquire non-capital cities through peace treaties.

 

[shaglio]

yep if you're going to go to war early, that's the way to do it. steal workers, pillage, kill their units, but don't capture cities. The DOWing penalty is not bad at all compared to city-capturing penalty.

Which leads me to wonder what the point of the Battering Ram and Siege Tower is. Both units can only attack cities, not other units, but they come along early in the game when you don't want to be capturing cities. In later eras, when you might want to start conquering cities, they're obsolete and will either be useless to use or need to be upgraded to Trebuchets (and thus lose their "Uniqueness").

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

Which leads me to wonder what the point of the Battering Ram and Siege Tower is. Both units can only attack cities, not other units, but they come along early in the game when you don't want to be capturing cities. In later eras, when you might want to start conquering cities, they're obsolete and will either be useless to use or need to be upgraded to Trebuchets (and thus lose their "Uniqueness").

Sometimes you just don't care about the penalty. That's really the only good answer. You're capturing cities to raze them for your own expansion. A large enough warmonger just doesn't need to worry about other civs invading. Another idea is to just eliminate the civ before you meet others and then they won't know about your sins.

I usually go for cover and medic on them. Having trebuchets and cannons that can heal your infantry in place is really nice.

 

[shaglio]

I usually go for cover and medic on them. Having trebuchets and cannons that can heal your infantry in place is really nice.

I never thought of putting Medic on siege units. Don't they have to be fortified (and not firing) to give the extra healing?

Do you need Cover as a prereq for Medic? Because there was a thread floating around recently that determined that siege and ranged units don't benefit from Cover.

 

[reddishrecue]

Do you need Cover as a prereq for Medic? Because there was a thread floating around recently that determined that siege and ranged units don't benefit from Cover.

All units don't benefit from cover when it comes to being attacked by the city range attack. Cover only works when attacked by ranged units but not the city range attack.

 

[redwings1340]

You can kind of see an example of this on my most recent Aztec game (funday monday #2 in my signature), and I agree with you completely. It is very possible to warmonger without crippling diplo penalties. Choose who you hate, choose who you like, and be consistent throughout. Do nice things to people you like (give them your religion if you have one and they don't, trade with them, have them join in your wars), and be consistently awful to the people you don't like. If you can get the people you like to denounce and hate the people you don't like, and then take cities in peace deals, the diplo losses will only extend to the group you decided you already hate. This is very workable, and requires active participation in world diplomacy, but is extremely effective in taking cities without suffering much of a penalty.

If you don't take cities, then just take luxury resources and money in peace deals. This more than pays off for the investment you put in to the army at the start of the game.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

It would be fun if the ai played smart and workersteal from players and raid us think how much harder the game could really be if they used early war to cripple us.

Hell, even just making it so their scouts stole our workers (something I've never, ever seen, instead they just sit there, fortified).

 

[Barghaest]

All units don't benefit from cover when it comes to being attacked by the city range attack. Cover only works when attacked by ranged units but not the city range attack.

That's inaccurate. Cover does indeed protect against City Attack (and Air Strikes); however, it appeared to be glitched if the defending unit is a ranged unit (meaning Siege like Catapult) in which case it wasn't applying to ANY range defense (even vs units like archers).

As for the Medic questions from another poster, no do you not have to be fortified to gain the benefits, but you do have to be healing (so if the unit possesses March it will benefit from an adjacent Medic - in the unmodified game Medic doesn't help the unit that possesses it and Medic II only increases that units healing by 5).