The best Warmonger?

[Bigv32]

I have been playing around with Toko (Japan) lately, and I have come to think of him as the best person to warmonger with. I played Earth 18 civs with him and somewhat hurried to get samuria. I then invaded china and Mongolia and had an easy time. The only trouble I had was running out of seight equipment. Who are your top choices for a warmonger.

For me it is Toko or shaka, but I am leaning to Toko because of his UU and traits. Do not forget rome though.

Normal speed noble to monarch

 

[michmbk]

This has been asked a few times, and I'm sure the usual answers will include Boudica, JC for their traits and units.

Some of my best warmonger games have been with the ORG trait - four of my five highest scores have all been with org traits, Darius, JC, Asoka, and Nappy. The fifth was Boudica. Personally, I love Asoka as a warmonger - he's probably my favorite. In terms of the level of fun I have, either Mongolian leader would be up there too.

If I had to put a top five based on the joy I get from warring with them, it's this list:

Asoka
Genghis
Boudica
Kublai
JC

 

[popejubal]

I'll agree with the ORG comment above. It's great to be able to win wars, but being able to actually keep your empire once you've taken it from the cold, dead hands of your neighbors is anther story.

I will give Toku a lot of respect as a warmonger, though. I'm not a fan of Protective, but he does get some pretty good use out of it and Samurai are absolutely amazing. You also have the added benefit of being guaranteed to not start next to Toku on your map when you are playing him, too.

My money is on Vanilla Julius Caesar. Praetorians plus his traits amde him a real powerhouse. Additionally, the very limited options for extra XP for freshly built troops made Aggressive much more attractive in Vanilla games.

 

[monolith94]

Julius wasn't aggressive in vanilla.

 

[Shurdus]

I think early game Aztec is solid too. monty is aggresive and spiritual. his UB allows for massive whipping. He can build a huge army in no time. Spiritual really helps in setting things up as well sinc you can switch to whatever civic is needed without any trouble.

 

[Crusher1]

JC, Hatshepsut (my favorite), Giglamesh. Creative is a top tier warmonger trait. The best imo, by far. Quick border pops to get resource hooked up to make units and cheap buildings to keep what you take and manage ww, not to mention ease of use with specialist.

 

[azzaman333]

Monty, followed by daylight.

Although back in the day, I was a big fan of Augustus, when he was Cre/Org.

 

[Kesshi]

Bigv32,

If you think Toku has a nice UU, wait until you play as Qin and can mass an army of Cho-Ko-Nus pre 0AD. Qin is probably one of the best "one-trick pony" leaders in the game. While Qin may not have the aggressive trait, you certionaly won't need it with a single unit which can attack, defend, and cause collateral damage. The idea is to get Machinery up fast enough that no mixing of units needed, just spam Cho-Ko-Nus as fast as possible and take over the known world with them. In my opinion this is vastly superior to anything you can do with the Samurai due to the overpowered Chinese UU.

 

[UncleJJ]

Toku's real warmongering ability comes with drafting gunpowder troops. It is usually better to forget getting samurai early on and beeline Nationalism from the Liberalism race, then research Gunpowder for drafted Toku muskets. They rule the middle game on a cost effectiveness basis. Trade for Machinery and Engineering and whip out trebuchets, pikemen and a few samurai (for the CR promotions). Conquer the world ...

Stay in Nationhood, Slavery and Theocracy, and continue to draft and whip an army as soon as the unhappiness wears off, while researching to Steel for cannons and then Rifling for better drafted troops. That's real warmongering and you'll never have more or better troops under your command. Toku doesn't have a strong economy and won't usually be ahead of his opponents in military technology but his troops are so much better he can grind his way through. All you need is determination and sufficient production (drafting really helps a lot here) and you can beat everyone up. The AIs won't like you but they will fear you.

Make war and then capture a few cities, ask for a cease fire for another city or a technology, wait for the WW to wear off and declare again. Or just move on to another target for a while and come back for a second bite at the cherry.

 

[Gwynnja]

either persian, Shaka, either celt, Zara, Hatty, either Khan, Hannibal, Asoka, Monty, Raggy, and Justinian are all A BLAST to war with. CRE/CHA/ORG/SPI combo's are lethal.

 

[DMOC]

I have been playing around with Toko (Japan) lately, and I have come to think of him as the best person to warmonger with. I played Earth 18 civs with him and somewhat hurried to get samuria. I then invaded china and Mongolia and had an easy time. The only trouble I had was running out of seight equipment. Who are your top choices for a warmonger.

For me it is Toko or shaka, but I am leaning to Toko because of his UU and traits. Do not forget rome though.

Normal speed noble to monarch

In my opinion, it's someone like Hannibal, Napoleon, etc. Anyone with the Charismatic trait combined with an economic one (so they can catapult ahead in tech and use that tech lead to their advantage) is best in my books.

 

[obsolete]

In my opinion this is vastly superior to anything you can do with the Samurai due to the overpowered Chinese UU.

LOL, another OVERPOWERED claim again...

 

[DMOC]

So this week I have now learned that Praets, Immortals, WC, Vultures, AND Chu no Kus are overpowered....

 

[Ian Kognitow]

JC, Hatshepsut (my favorite), Giglamesh. Creative is a top tier warmonger trait. The best imo, by far. Quick border pops to get resource hooked up to make units and cheap buildings to keep what you take and manage ww, not to mention ease of use with specialist.

Earth 18 was made for creative. France starts with marble and stone in BFC, while being IND/CRE. I was able to flip London and Berlin (on Monarch, anyway) and probably could have done the same with Rome if I were more patient (easy surprise attack instead, having had culture border going right up to city). With Western Europe secured in BCs (Spain was also easy victim of early rush) the rest of the game was pretty much a walkover given the relative land value.

 

[Iranon]

My favourite trait for warmongering is Organised (solves the economic woes of a large empire and, unlike FIN, is in full effect if I focus on hammers).

Next in line is SPI: getting from warmongering to recovery mode or back at the drop of a hat, with vastly easier diplomacy. It also synergises quite well with ORG - things like Vassalage and Police State are useful civics to dip into if the change is free.

As such, my favourite warmongers are Asoka and Julius... I prefer Asoka's traits for a military game but Julius' aren't bad at all and Praetorians are a very long-lived military edge.

Recently, I had a lot of fun with Wang Kong: Elephants and Hwacha is a brutal combination, and the combination of FIN and PRO overflow tricks gives one a reasonable economic edge.

 

[Kesshi]

LOL, another OVERPOWERED claim again...

obsolete,

Have you ever done the Oracle->MC Slingshot with a GE Bulb to Machinery? Done properly, you can easily have a dozen (or more) 3 experience Cho-Ko-Nus before 1ad. This is easily as powerful as a Praetorian rush, but takes a bit longer to tech into.

 

[mirthadir]

Yes and no its more powerful, CKNs have collateral damage, but Prats are earlier by far. While you can catch an AI without metal with prats without too much headache, it is almost impossible with CKN (unless the AI just plain doesn't have metal in their ground). Once you take metal offline, prats own CKN on a cost/return basis. Once you get to prats/pults (not hard with an AI buying 10 turns of life for boatloads of tech) CKN lose out.

 

[obsolete]

Have you ever done the Oracle->MC Slingshot with a GE Bulb to Machinery?

God no, what a waste! Oracle --> MC Slingshot with a GE always goes toward rushing Mids.

 

[mirthadir]

God no, what a waste! Oracle --> MC Slingshot with a GE always goes toward rushing Mids.

On slower speeds it is massively overpowered; very close to prats being overpowered on those speeds. Until the AI hits LBs you just send in cover CKN and own. Perhaps against a few very strong archers/HA you need to mix up your promos but you can run wild with hoards of the suckers as long as the AI can't tech out to feudalism.

Even on normal there are times I'd take early CKN over the mids, like say handing my stone to Louis and letting him build them for me.

 

[popejubal]

On slower speeds it is massively overpowered; very close to prats being overpowered on those speeds. Until the AI hits LBs you just send in cover CKN and own. Perhaps against a few very strong archers/HA you need to mix up your promos but you can run wild with hoards of the suckers as long as the AI can't tech out to feudalism.

Even on normal there are times I'd take early CKN over the mids, like say handing my stone to Louis and letting him build them for me.

I'm going to say that getting Republic is still more important to Obsolete's game because even an Early ChoKoNu isn't going to compare to the extra 3 and 3 beakers per turn from each of his umpty-zillion settled great people. That's obviously not going to be optimal on larger maps, but individual cities with lots of settled Great People is kind of Obsolete's theme (and a very effective strategy in the right circumstances).