The necessity of pre AD wars

[frob2900]

(The arguments that follow don't apply as much when distances between starting civs are very large, since rapid settler expansion can often work in that case)

I've recently managed to polish up my Monarch level game so that I'm winning consistently enough to start doing emperor. However, one thing that bugs me is the apparently absolute necessity of doing an early(ish) war-driven expansion. It has become the cornerstone of my gaming style (on prince I was a dedicated builder)


As far as I can see there are three possibilities for such expansions (without considering civilizations with fantastic UUs such as Inca, Rome or Persia etc.):

1) Chariot rush. Strike early, strike fast. Useless when AIs become entrenched enough to start throwing up spears in most cities.

2) The axeman rush. Simplicity itself. Perhaps put a few spears and chariots in the horde for good measure, but pretty much axes do the trick. Works like a charm up until ca 500 BC-1 AD (Longbows..). Swords can be added after IW but the basic formula remains.

3) The post-construction catapult rush. Axes, swords etc. are backup. Works up until the appearance of crossbows, maces (ca 500-800 AD). However, if Ivory is available then this becomes a perfectly viable strategy up until engineering.


I mostly use 2) and 3) and almost all my games become an early rampaging spree while I beeline to currency/CoL in order to get my finances in order (more often than not there are stretches of 0-20% research with scientists helping out).

While this loses me the tech lead, it doesnt really matter, since I always have a high power graph and end up with lots and lots of land. Currency/CoL then shapes up finances in no time and the game is often in the bag after that... Most of the time I still get Liberalism first by growing Great Scientists for the Phil/Paper/Education slingshot (IMHO a somewhat overpowered trio of bulbable techs since the AI chokes on education for ages...).

Then again, when I don't do an early Attila, I can still often win, but it takes much longer and almost always involves a protracted series of late (post rifling or even assembly line) wars, since I have less land and need post-medieval tech to win. Given the bonuses to the Monarch+ AI any tech lead one gets from turtling vanishes around engineering/chemistry due to rapid AI research (from their huge chunks of land) and ridiculosly frivolous trading between AIs...

I'd take 5-10 extra cities over liberalism any day.

As a final note, I'm not against warmongering at all, I find it fun, but its more balanced in the later game when one controls a lot of land and really can choose between really fast teching or a possibly costly war (due to WW and large AI stacks) of expansion. In the early game the AI is such a pathetic pushover (2-3 archers per city, perhaps 5+2 melee in capital) that war seems like such a given conclusion...


The arguments apply to any victory conditions, since dead AIs dont launch or vote in the UN..

 

[wioneo]

I'm just going to assume that you mean Pre AD wars are a necessity, which they are not. No wars are "necessary," and I'm pretty sure that longbows pop up in the ADs, but that is really just a slightly educated guess.

 

[mice]

frob2900, I agree with the whole post. Leaving wars of expansion to later in the game mean big big hammer cost for the resulting land.

It seems there isn't an early strat that pays off better for builder or warmonger then early war for land.

If there is I'd like to hear about it.

Also just to pillage and cripple is still a good strat. Especially against Wang or Mansa. Just cripple them and they become managable. And pillaging can finance that tech push.

 

[frob2900]

Heh, yeah "pre AD" that is [changed thread title]

Just saying they are "not" necessary and that wars in general are "not" necessary is not much of an argument, but in order to clarify; you can equate "necessary" to "leads to an incredibly much stronger position, game-wise".

Longbows can appear suddenly in any war that starts from 500 BC onward, but, yeah in general around 300-500 AD, I've noticed. Still its a good idea to hedge your bets and get going before 500 BC. A post AD axerush without catapults is only for the very, very brave..

I'm just going to assume that you mean Pre AD wars are a necessity, which they are not. No wars are "necessary," and I'm pretty sure that longbows pop up in the ADs, but that is really just a slightly educated guess.

 

[JoeBlade]

frob, perhaps I misunderstood but you're essentially saying the need for an early rush at higher levels bothers you?

If so, I would recommend:
- Stick to prince but tweak your games a bit to make them more of a challenge. E.g.: choose nothing but aggressive leaders while playing a peacenik yourself or play against financial civs only, things like that. You could impose a few additional rules on yourself to make it extra interesting, see the succession games and stories forums for some ideas.
- Increase your map size to large or even huge. Alternatively, play standard-size maps but with fewer civs. This should increase the grace period before war becomes an absolute necessity.
Do note that lowering the number of civs on a standard size map will obviously decrease trading as well. Larger maps OTOH make wonders and religion races far more difficult due to added competition.
- Try a few of the less common map types such as islands. When expansion is not simply a matter of building settlers the AIs seems to be less of a REXing bunch even at higher levels.
- Mod the game such that AIs don't have all the benefits they do now on higher levels, or at least shift them around. For example, remove the free worker/settler and production bonuses on higher levels, but increase the financial & technology benefits.
- Wait for Beyond the Sword, apparently that expansion should offer more viable, peaceful alternatives... or so I read.


But otherwise patch v2.08 (and esp. warlords) + standard settings + higher difficulty levels = early rushes and much warmongering. Nothing one can do about that.

 

[frob2900]

Well, its a long time since I seriously played Prince and since getting used to Monarch I'd now say its even worse on prince since you can actually perform a warrior rush on that level. Emphasize: A Warrior rush!

In tests I was able to get one (or even two) capitals by building lots of warriors (settle on a plains hill preferably with marble or stone for extra hammers) and any prince builder strategy will be incredibly enhanced by such early gravy. On the flip side, by deciding on a self-imposed 5 city limit pure builder game on prince I got clobbered by a 20+ city Shaka who would have been an early target #1 if I was playing to win..

A builder-only prince game is therefore not optimal gameplay and essentially the problem remains on all difficulty levels.

I must point out, however, that there is some improvement when using Better AI (the AI counters early rushes marginally better), but like to play with the "out of the box" Warlords 2.08 rules..

I do agree that larger map sizes (large and above) change the early game a lot, since long-distance warmongering and conquests is often a poorer idea than settler spam, but unfortunately large maps choke my computer around the late renaissance...

Also, I may point out that there is very little reward for more sophisticated warmonger openings compared to axe rushes. As an anecdotal example, was playing Qin Shi Huang on Monarch and I decided to go for a Cho-Ko-Nu rush. So I got pyramids and oracle->metal casting. Popped an early engineer and bulbed machinery. In the mean time I had 4 cities that all had barracks+forges and I had researched construction.

I was done around 1000 BC and the AI still had archers in its cities at that point. After switching to police state and spamming my early Cho-Ko-Nu/catapult/spearman horde (500 BC) I attacked my eastern neighbor (Shaka). I conquered 6 cities+capital which built barracks+courthouses. This was finished around 300 AD.

After a while I was attacked by montezuma (my western neighbor). He came with lots of war elephants+horse archers+macemen. This wasn't a huge problem since in the meantime I'd gotten another engineer who bulbed engineering, so I countered him with pikemen+chokonus+catapults and then started my campaign against him with newly built mace+chok+treb stacks.

All in all fun medieval combat, however, and this is the point, I could see that I was essentially in a much weaker position than if i'd ignored forges+police state+choks and just murdered Shaka with an axerush and crippled montezuma with a sword/catapult rush. But thats what I would do with ANY other civ despite the UU and the Industrial trait..

So it was more interesting but I did less well compared to a standard rush, which is somewhat depressing since I exactly leveraged all of Qin Shi Huang/chinas traits:

-Industrious for oracle->metal casting->cheap forges.
-Industrious for Pyramids->Police State
-Engineers from pyramids/forge to get machinery/engineering
-Cho Ko Nus (collateral dmg+protective drill)

To be clear, this wasn't a gripe against China but perhaps more against the fact that by dedicatedly beelining medieval tech like crossbows/maces I was in effect penalized compared to the much easier strategy of just Alt-Clicking all of my cities and chosing "build Axeman", then waiting a turn and then Alt-Clicking all cities and whipping. Rinse and repeat.

Something like axes -10% city attack would change the face of the game completely..

frob, perhaps I misunderstood but you're essentially saying the need for an early rush at higher levels bothers you?

If so, I would recommend:
- Stick to prince but tweak your games a bit to make them more of a challenge. E.g.: choose nothing but aggressive leaders while playing a peacenik yourself or play against financial civs only, things like that. You could impose a few additional rules on yourself to make it extra interesting, see the succession games and stories forums for some ideas.
- Increase your map size to large or even huge. Alternatively, play standard-size maps but with fewer civs. This should increase the grace period before war becomes an absolute necessity.
Do note that lowering the number of civs on a standard size map will obviously decrease trading as well. Larger maps OTOH make wonders and religion races far more difficult due to added competition.
- Try a few of the less common map types such as islands. When expansion is not simply a matter of building settlers the AIs seems to be less of a REXing bunch even at higher levels.
- Mod the game such that AIs don't have all the benefits they do now on higher levels, or at least shift them around. For example, remove the free worker/settler and production bonuses on higher levels, but increase the financial & technology benefits.
- Wait for Beyond the Sword, apparently that expansion should offer more viable, peaceful alternatives... or so I read.


But otherwise patch v2.08 (and esp. warlords) + standard settings + higher difficulty levels = early rushes and much warmongering. Nothing one can do about that.

 

[futurehermit]

Completely peaceful deity games have been one, so pre-AD wars are not necessary.

They are usually the best strategy though. Why? Because of how the game works at the higher levels. The AIs get such insane bonuses, especially in terms of expansion which becomes cummulative over time, that you get blown away if you try to compete with them on these terms. What you do when you do an early war is you turn their advantage into YOUR advantage--cheap cities and the ability to add them at a fast pace through warfare. They build 'em for you, you use their fast-building as your fast-building.

Otherwise, it's like trying to box someone when they have 4 hands to your 2 (think Goro from Mortal Combat). But if you can take their 4 hands and add them to your 2 and go beat the next guy's 4 hands with your 6 then it puts you at the advantage...

 

[JoeBlade]

@frob: I hear you. The lack of alternatives - equally effective ones that is - to warmongering seems to have become a pet peeve among cIV players in fact.
We can only hope that BtS will remedy this situation but as it stands gunning for domination or conquest and ignoring all other factors is indeed nearly always the optimal strategy.

I must admit I too hear the "I could build a whole lot of units for that amount of hammers" mantra in the back of my head whenever I consider constructing a wonder or building in my cities. Ignoring it makes my games feel artificially stretched because builing units instead would have achieved victory sooner in all but a few exceptional cases, taking away much of the enjoyment
Solitary starts are probably the main exception but they tend to be dreadfully dull until caravels.

 

[LuckyAC]

I don't have any problem playing peacefully up through emperor (not to say it wouldn't probably still be optimal to fight a war), but, for me, on immortal it starts to become hard to expand reasonably without ganking someone.

 

[Solo4114]

I have trouble with this even at Noble level, although I tend to play on Huge maps, rather than Standard ones.

Even with a warmongering civ (IE: Tokugawa), this makes war a lot harder early on and in general because enemy civs have managed to build up a nice infrastructure and expand their cultural boundaries to the point where actually GETTING to the enemy city is a pain in and of itself. And while you can take out the smaller border cities (a) they're tiny so they don't really help you much, and (b) taking them out only marginally helps in terms of actually being able to get to the enemy.