Under the Hoofbeat of Conquerors

[jackelgull]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/your-best-civilization.548329/#post-13843074

I remember a while back I argued the Hittites were possibly one of the strongest civilizations in the game - an early Classical era advantage with their amazing UU, combined with extra food from their iron forge and extra health. Well I just wanted to show a snapshot of my current game so far. Every single dead civ is because of me. I personally put an axe to 11 civs on the terra map. It wasn't quite as much a steamroll as the others time I did it, the AI researched archery earlier, but city raider IV + -60% penalty from surround and destroy made shortwork of all of my opposition. That's another benefit of the "no movement penalty from terrain" I never considered - it lets me surround for the full -60% benefit while still having all 10 chariots with 1 movement left for attacking.

I'm probably gonna stop after I wrap up a couple of wars, because I don't actually want to wipe off all the civs from the map, I wanna get to the late game and use all the cool future tech toys. But I think I've probably made it more likely civilizations will pop up in the New World now (I'm on a terra map) which is not ideal, but I'm sure I'll have fun being a conquistador. I've now burned a bloody swath of destruction through half of the old world

 

[<Nexus>]

Any Human controlled civ is powerful with Surround&Destroy option properly used since the AI has no idea about it.
S&D is like you have an extra Unique Ability while the AIs don't.

 

[Samson]

I am not convinced the Hittite chariot is that powerful. Without surround and destroy the advantage over the normal chariot is not that great, esp. compared to the Korean 2 move catapult and the 2 move elephant, both of which get the bonus vs. mellee (I cannot remember what they are called). I think the chariot is a bit overpowered, with the production bonus the the wheelwright they are a really cheap strength 5 unit really early. However, with revolutions I find you cannot do much conquering early without collapsing.

However what make the Hittites the strongest civ IMO is the 10% food from iron forge. This is earlier than any other food multiplyer, and stays through most of the game. This is an enormous benefit, however you play.

 

[jackelgull]

I am not convinced the Hittite chariot is that powerful. Without surround and destroy the advantage over the normal chariot is not that great, esp. compared to the Korean 2 move catapult and the 2 move elephant, both of which get the bonus vs. mellee (I cannot remember what they are called). I think the chariot is a bit overpowered, with the production bonus the the wheelwright they are a really cheap strength 5 unit really early. However, with revolutions I find you cannot do much conquering early without collapsing.

However what make the Hittites the strongest civ IMO is the 10% food from iron forge. This is earlier than any other food multiplyer, and stays through most of the game. This is an enormous benefit, however you play.

The Chariot comes earlier than those two, and who says anything about conquering? You don't need to conquer cities to get an early advantage. Just burn what you can't keep, you still get cash and maybe free specialists . I've kept my economy running at 100% for most of the classical era off the gold made from burning cities.

Also I think the lack of -25% malus on taking cities and lack of terrain movement penalties is a significant upgrade to normal chariots.

 

[Samson]

The Chariot comes earlier than those two, and who says anything about conquering? You don't need to conquer cities to get an early advantage. Just burn what you can't keep, you still get cash and maybe free specialists . I've kept my economy running at 100% for most of the classical era off the gold made from burning cities.

Also I think the lack of -25% malus on taking cities and lack of terrain movement penalties is a significant upgrade to normal chariots.

That is a strategy I had not considered, and I can see how it would be very powerful.