The perfect plan

[pesoloco]

Forgive me if anyone has posted a similar strategy.

Here's a strategy I use for a conquest victory that works very well. Research up to Literature, then build up your military. Establish embassies with everyone else. Then make right-of-passage agreements with everyone. Now, move heavy amounts of troops into your enemy territories and surround their cities. When you feel the time is right, attack. You have to make the right-of-passage agreements with everyone first because once you sneak attack, no one will want to make such an agreement with you.:crazyeyes

 

[BillChin]

A few questions about your strategy:
What difficulty?
What map size?
How many opponents?
What kind of units do you attack with?
How do you look yourself in the mirror the next morning

 

[Salvor]

I have no problem with the mirror thing (it's only a game, after all). But I don't get the Literature thing. Do you need the GL or something for this to work? Or did he mean Writing so you could get embassies?

I'd have to assume Warlord or Chieftan for difficulty, relatively small map and few enemies since he can get so many troops to surround every enemy city without worrying about what the other guy's troops are doing. And he'd have to have quite a tech lead very early on if he thinks he can prevent anyone from getting an alliance against him. Does he know he loses his ROP with anyone who declares war on him?

 

[Troyens]

You can't successfully attack all civs simultaneously.

Even a single civ that sees huge numbers of offensive units near its cities might have a change of opinion.

Once the attack begins reinforcing your units becomes difficult given the distance from your borders.

They may have troops inside your borders - you can be strong everywhere. Once you sneak attack they will attack you, and/or start pillaging you land.

Every civ not conquered will be Furious with you.

 

[pesoloco]

you were right about the chieftan & warlard diff. levels. This is a very difficult thing to pull off at higher levels, I've tried and failed.

Map Size - normal or small

Yeah. i made a mistake. i meant writing - for embassies.
that way you can make right-of-passage agreements

I think i was misunderstood. When I said attack, i did not mean attack everyone at the same time. I usually pick on the smaller guys first.
About reinforcement troops, i usually stock up enough in their territory that i dont need any. I usually dont occupy all the cities. mostly just burn em down and re-settle the area myself(my own personal pref. you can do what you like) , so I dont need as many troops to defend them once I take them.

You do need to have a sharp edge on technology. Build up the military as soon as possible.

As far as other countries allying against you, before the attack, make mutual protection agreements with your stronger enemies. Once you attack, those countries will usually help you to defend your home cities while you fight off your foe. That way you dont have to worry about them fighting you right away. When you are ready, you can then turn and attack them too.

I usually dont worry too much about their defenders in my territory because chances are their civilization will be gone in a few turns, taking all of these units off the map.

I have successfully used this strategy to wipe entire civilizations off the map in a single turn.

Dont get me wrong. This is not my preferred strategy. I actually tend to be more passive, but if your looking for some sneaky fun - this strategy is great.

 

[pesoloco]

About the reputations, (everyone is furius)
A few maps, luxuries every now and then fixes
that

thats why you make the right-of-passage with everyone first. I'm not sure about higher diff levels, but at lower levels, if you break one right-of-passage, the other nations that you have righht-of-passage agreements with still keep this agreement active.

I usually dont worry too much what the others think about me
Unless I'm going for UN Victory, but like I said before, this is a Conquest Victory strategy.

 

[Headmaster]

Civs get furious if you break a ROP agreement. But what if you sign a ROP, send your troops to the enemy cities, wait for 20 turns, break the ROP and attack at the same turn?

 

[Salvor]

I still think this will break down after one or two conquests. For one thing, you can't get MPPs until you research Nationalism. Even at Chieftan difficulty, there's no way you can get Nationalism before your opponents get Writing. If they have writing, they can form alliances against you. And if your reputation is poor, they'll ally against you. What seems to be working for you is not that you have ROPs/MPPs, but that you have vastly superior military, which scares them into submission.

If it's late enough in the game for Nationalism, one tactic I use is to go for Steam Power instead (which is on the path to replaceable parts, arguably the best single advance in the game along with electronics, which is on the same path). Then I build RRs along my advance. Hopefully, he has roads networking his cities. When I take one city, I build the RR out as far as I can to his new border, then send cavalry to the next city and repeat the process. Sometimes I can wipe an entire civ in one or two turns if he's all on one continent and he doesn't have many 1000+ culture cities.

 

[pesoloco]

yes i do use railroads. lots of them. i capture workers and even create my own (towards the end of the game i usually have about 20-30 workers on auto, but this does tend to slow down gameplay) and just have them run around building roads and RRs. I generally play with pangea worlds so I can move my military more efficiently to my enemies. As far as nationalism, I got it, and use the riflemen to defend my own cities. i get that first then go for replaceable parts. the riflemen do well enough until infantry comes into play. Perhaps it is my strong military that makes them scared of allying against me, but there is nothing wrong with that! Either way I still end up conquering the world!

 

[Salvor]

It's a good strategy, but from your first post I got the impression you were going for an early-game conquest, not waiting around for things like railroads and infantrymen. It sounded like you didn't worry about research once you got your embassies, but just rushed out a bunch of military units and took everyone out in the ancient age. That's why I was so skeptical of it at first. Now that I know more about it, I'd say it was a sound conquest strategy, but I still wouldn't call it "perfect".

 

[pesoloco]

yeah. "perfect" is kind of a stretch, but it gets people to read my post.

 

[Cerryl]

I was thrown into a war with a civ I had a right of passage agreement with via a MPP, after it was done, every civ around wouldn't trust me because they think I backstabbed the civ.

So, if you do this, do it right, because you'll never get a right of passage, at least cheaply, again.