BarbarianHunter
King
Much has been said about the gross early power of a Hungarian city state levy rush. I am not going to address that strategy but instead a describe a strategy for a cultural victory with a hybrid pillage-liberation warmongering strategy. The base of the strategy is a fairly straightforward: Early game war with your neighbor, annex as much of the land as possible, then build up for a CV. I think the trick for this to be successful is to let the AI declare on you then keep the war going as long as possible without allowing the AI to stand down, regroup, and most importantly lower the 100+ grievances it acquired by DOW’ing you. This will get you:
1) Lots of experience for your units. Let the AI come to you until you reach Black Army coursers.
2) Beeline natural history for the Thermal Bath (+2 amenities for each city within 6 tiles and +2 production as well).
Once you get Black Army coursers, quickly annex as many cities as grievances will allow then stand down. You could perhaps annex one more than you should so long as you can liberate a CS shortly thereafter to lower the grievances. Take out the civ or not, it is of little matter. Leaving the civ alive will give more tourism as well as more chances to be DOW’ed later on in the game, so perhaps keep them around. Either way is fine.
Using the Pearl of the Danube, build lots of theatre squares and commercial hubs across the river from your city centers for the 50% production bonus to districts and buildings. This is equal to the Greek production bonus for theatre squares; For Hungary, however, it applies to ALL DISTRICTS AND BUILDINGS! Build high adjacency campus districts where appropriate. Get a research alliance with a neighbor ASAP and run your trade routes there. Accumulate envoys and deploy where applicable. You will want to bank a fair number of envoys for opportunities should they arise.
Make as many alliances as possible. I maintained 5 for most of the game from the early-mid game on. That makes the Huszár’s melee strength 80 (65 base and +15 for 5 alliances). Throw in x2 flanking and +1 movement and you’re good to go. You can essentially slaughter non-corps standard cav and earlier era units (even armies) by surrounding them with non-corps Huszárs. Add +10 for corps (90 STR) and +20 for army (100). Add in 1 or 2 industrial era great generals and your Huszár armies fight at 105 melee strength (before the x2 flanking bonus).
Let the AI do its thing. Sooner or later someone should declare on you. As long as you don’t take any cities and just pillage the offender back to the stone age, everyone will still love you. Let your +2 amenity Thermal Baths do their job. No hurry, just pillage as much as you can while you have 100+ grievances against an aggressive AI. Don’t take any cities. Liberate city states wherever possible. Do the war thing. Oh yeah, play the Raid or Total War card for double rewards. You can work up quite a war chest this way! You can also make up for a mediocre (parity) science score due to a theatre square focus. I had no trouble what-so-ever buying a great many of my museums and most of my archeologists with pillaged gold. Come to think of it, I was able to acquire 6 or 7 great works with pillaged gold as well. Sooner or later you’ll want to declare peace.
Look around for another target. In the game I played, I saw that my ally Cleopatra and the Inca were engaged in a long running war with Hattusa. I had like 20 envoys on hand. I dropped the 11 necessary to suz Hattusa and looked to declare on the Inca (who had already denounced me). A turn passed, my armies move to Incan borders and when I tried to declare I noted he stood down and made peace with Hattusa. This was disappointing as the Protectorate War would cost me zero grievances. Oh well. I also noted that he had conquered a few city states in close proximity to my borders (Kabul, Bologna, and Hong Kong). I declared anyway and liberated them 1, 2, 3 before any of my allies could become agitated for my warmongering. Here’s how:
My 105 melee strength 7 movement Huszár armies travelling with 2 industrial era great generals made short work of the defenders. Now, normally you might say warmongering is easy (and it is)…so long as you’ve conquered multiple targets and are snowballing way out in front of your opponents in tech and culture. In this game with Hungary I hadn’t even conquered a single civ completely, and instead built out my empire via organic settler growth. I was still able to have my way with the AI’s empires because of the peaceful alliances I was able to maintain while pursuing a cultural victory synergized with my Huszárs by adding +15 to their base 65 melee strength (80 after alliances). This is essentially the same as a helicopter but available considerably sooner!
The Territorial Expansion Casus Belli cost me nothing so far as world opinion went either. I generated 75 grievances for declaring. 32 grievances were removed for each CS I liberated. By the time the 2nd CS was liberated like 6 turns after the war began, the grievances were down from 75 to 11. Then off to Hong Kong which zeroed the grievance total out. From then on out IT WAS A PILLAGING FESTIVAL!!! Deity AI’s build ALLOT of districts and improvements (all pillagable).
At this point it is probably just best to sit back and let the turns pass, collect tourism, create rock bands, manage the empire in broad terms AND AVOID WARRING. The pillaging was going so well for me though, I wanted to see how far I could take it.
VARIATIONS OF A THEME --- The Late Game Betrayal Emergency Shuffle
I was playing a large map and hadn’t eliminated any of the other 9 civs. I noted that my long time ally Cleopatra had been at war with Hattusa for quite some time. I was nearing the tail end of a pillaging war (see previous Incan PILLAGING FESTIVAL) and when the alliance with Cleopatra came up for renewal I opted out and instead denounced her. I soon thereafter declared a Protectorate War with the intent of pillaging her pristine empire for another 20,000 gold & faith, as well as 10K or so science & culture. The problem is that all of my former game long allies became upset and joined her in a Betrayal Emergency. Ghaad!!! I thought. But it wasn’t all that bad. I retreated my Huszárs, upgraded to Helicopters, and carried on. I knew the CV would drag on for longer than it otherwise might (being at war with 5 civs precludes an open borders agreement/trade routes) but that could be some fun as well. I immediately allied with 4 of the 9 other civs that had not declared on me. Here’s the trick I missed:
With all the gold I had amassed from pillaging 1st the Khmer and then the Inca, I missed an opportunity to levy ALL THE CITY STATES in the entirety of the world, upgrade their units and use them to pillage 5 of the 9 other civs at once! Due to my culture heavy focus I had a bunch of envoys and had also reached the Cold War civic. That unlocked the containment policy card (which gives x2 envoys if the suzerain has a different government than you). Levying ALL THE CS’s would have yielded quite allot of “stuff” (gold/faith/science/culture). In fact, without doing that I was still able to create enough rock bands to send forth and win the CV even while at war with over half the AI civs (5 of the 9 AI’s). Using CS’s to pillage even more holy site districts and improvements would have allowed me to create even more rock bands! The CS’s you liberate from earlier wars now snowball into even more than the already GLORIOUSLY bonused free envoys by providing available freely upgradable units in close proximity to enemy districts that may be some ways off from your main army (think pillaging).
Would it have been more efficient to just sit back and win after the 2nd pillage war? Probably. I could have sent trade routes to the AI's and received the +50% bonus from the policy card in addition to open borders bonus. My point here is that even if you find yourself at war with more than half the world, with Hungary all is not lost.
1) Lots of experience for your units. Let the AI come to you until you reach Black Army coursers.
2) Beeline natural history for the Thermal Bath (+2 amenities for each city within 6 tiles and +2 production as well).
Once you get Black Army coursers, quickly annex as many cities as grievances will allow then stand down. You could perhaps annex one more than you should so long as you can liberate a CS shortly thereafter to lower the grievances. Take out the civ or not, it is of little matter. Leaving the civ alive will give more tourism as well as more chances to be DOW’ed later on in the game, so perhaps keep them around. Either way is fine.
Using the Pearl of the Danube, build lots of theatre squares and commercial hubs across the river from your city centers for the 50% production bonus to districts and buildings. This is equal to the Greek production bonus for theatre squares; For Hungary, however, it applies to ALL DISTRICTS AND BUILDINGS! Build high adjacency campus districts where appropriate. Get a research alliance with a neighbor ASAP and run your trade routes there. Accumulate envoys and deploy where applicable. You will want to bank a fair number of envoys for opportunities should they arise.
Make as many alliances as possible. I maintained 5 for most of the game from the early-mid game on. That makes the Huszár’s melee strength 80 (65 base and +15 for 5 alliances). Throw in x2 flanking and +1 movement and you’re good to go. You can essentially slaughter non-corps standard cav and earlier era units (even armies) by surrounding them with non-corps Huszárs. Add +10 for corps (90 STR) and +20 for army (100). Add in 1 or 2 industrial era great generals and your Huszár armies fight at 105 melee strength (before the x2 flanking bonus).
Let the AI do its thing. Sooner or later someone should declare on you. As long as you don’t take any cities and just pillage the offender back to the stone age, everyone will still love you. Let your +2 amenity Thermal Baths do their job. No hurry, just pillage as much as you can while you have 100+ grievances against an aggressive AI. Don’t take any cities. Liberate city states wherever possible. Do the war thing. Oh yeah, play the Raid or Total War card for double rewards. You can work up quite a war chest this way! You can also make up for a mediocre (parity) science score due to a theatre square focus. I had no trouble what-so-ever buying a great many of my museums and most of my archeologists with pillaged gold. Come to think of it, I was able to acquire 6 or 7 great works with pillaged gold as well. Sooner or later you’ll want to declare peace.
Look around for another target. In the game I played, I saw that my ally Cleopatra and the Inca were engaged in a long running war with Hattusa. I had like 20 envoys on hand. I dropped the 11 necessary to suz Hattusa and looked to declare on the Inca (who had already denounced me). A turn passed, my armies move to Incan borders and when I tried to declare I noted he stood down and made peace with Hattusa. This was disappointing as the Protectorate War would cost me zero grievances. Oh well. I also noted that he had conquered a few city states in close proximity to my borders (Kabul, Bologna, and Hong Kong). I declared anyway and liberated them 1, 2, 3 before any of my allies could become agitated for my warmongering. Here’s how:
My 105 melee strength 7 movement Huszár armies travelling with 2 industrial era great generals made short work of the defenders. Now, normally you might say warmongering is easy (and it is)…so long as you’ve conquered multiple targets and are snowballing way out in front of your opponents in tech and culture. In this game with Hungary I hadn’t even conquered a single civ completely, and instead built out my empire via organic settler growth. I was still able to have my way with the AI’s empires because of the peaceful alliances I was able to maintain while pursuing a cultural victory synergized with my Huszárs by adding +15 to their base 65 melee strength (80 after alliances). This is essentially the same as a helicopter but available considerably sooner!
The Territorial Expansion Casus Belli cost me nothing so far as world opinion went either. I generated 75 grievances for declaring. 32 grievances were removed for each CS I liberated. By the time the 2nd CS was liberated like 6 turns after the war began, the grievances were down from 75 to 11. Then off to Hong Kong which zeroed the grievance total out. From then on out IT WAS A PILLAGING FESTIVAL!!! Deity AI’s build ALLOT of districts and improvements (all pillagable).
At this point it is probably just best to sit back and let the turns pass, collect tourism, create rock bands, manage the empire in broad terms AND AVOID WARRING. The pillaging was going so well for me though, I wanted to see how far I could take it.
VARIATIONS OF A THEME --- The Late Game Betrayal Emergency Shuffle
I was playing a large map and hadn’t eliminated any of the other 9 civs. I noted that my long time ally Cleopatra had been at war with Hattusa for quite some time. I was nearing the tail end of a pillaging war (see previous Incan PILLAGING FESTIVAL) and when the alliance with Cleopatra came up for renewal I opted out and instead denounced her. I soon thereafter declared a Protectorate War with the intent of pillaging her pristine empire for another 20,000 gold & faith, as well as 10K or so science & culture. The problem is that all of my former game long allies became upset and joined her in a Betrayal Emergency. Ghaad!!! I thought. But it wasn’t all that bad. I retreated my Huszárs, upgraded to Helicopters, and carried on. I knew the CV would drag on for longer than it otherwise might (being at war with 5 civs precludes an open borders agreement/trade routes) but that could be some fun as well. I immediately allied with 4 of the 9 other civs that had not declared on me. Here’s the trick I missed:
With all the gold I had amassed from pillaging 1st the Khmer and then the Inca, I missed an opportunity to levy ALL THE CITY STATES in the entirety of the world, upgrade their units and use them to pillage 5 of the 9 other civs at once! Due to my culture heavy focus I had a bunch of envoys and had also reached the Cold War civic. That unlocked the containment policy card (which gives x2 envoys if the suzerain has a different government than you). Levying ALL THE CS’s would have yielded quite allot of “stuff” (gold/faith/science/culture). In fact, without doing that I was still able to create enough rock bands to send forth and win the CV even while at war with over half the AI civs (5 of the 9 AI’s). Using CS’s to pillage even more holy site districts and improvements would have allowed me to create even more rock bands! The CS’s you liberate from earlier wars now snowball into even more than the already GLORIOUSLY bonused free envoys by providing available freely upgradable units in close proximity to enemy districts that may be some ways off from your main army (think pillaging).
Would it have been more efficient to just sit back and win after the 2nd pillage war? Probably. I could have sent trade routes to the AI's and received the +50% bonus from the policy card in addition to open borders bonus. My point here is that even if you find yourself at war with more than half the world, with Hungary all is not lost.
Last edited:
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