Warfare: For fun and Profit. <WIP>

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War Never Changes:
Or does it? Welcome to this compendium of what I know about waging war. Here I'll tell you how to wage war effectively, and profitably. Why? because Gentlemen, I love var!

Wars are fought not only to go for Domination. It could get you ahead of the curve in your chosen VC if you choose your battles wisely. Also, this is in no way complete. If you guys can contribute, it would be much appreciated!!!

This is NOT a guide on HOW to fight your war. This is a guide on how to maximize your economy during war time. Getting a boat load of unique luxes for instant happiness that the AI aren't willing to let go of is quite a huge boon no matter which way you cut it. And that's nice.

Reasons for going to War:
You may sometimes want to instigate a war when you want a particular piece of land the enemy holds. Usually, that block of land contains a resource (be it lux or strategic) or a Natural Wonder that you want. Other times it's just a prime city location that you can't pass up (a river, with a Hill near a mountain with a lot of Floodplains and Desert Sheep). However, most of the time, it would be to extort the AI of everything they have and then some for 30 turns. That kind of advantage, cemented early and often, will help you out quite a bit. No matter which Victory Condition you ultimately choose.

However, what you can do to your enemy, they can do to you. Some AI's will sometimes DOW you from out of nowhere even while they're friendly. Which is gonna suck for you if you're not prepared. Luckily you have this thread, so you wan't have to be caught with your pants down ever again!

War and Diplomacy
Having people declare war on you can be easily seen as accumulating enough negative diplo hits to enemy civilizations. These are colored RED in the diplo screen. The darker the tint, the graver the offense. Here are some examples of these diplomacy hits:

Coveting lands you own: This comes from settling too closely to an AI city. I think this is within 10 tiles of those cities. Often, the civ will call you out on it and you will be given two choices: promise to not settle near them, or settle anywhere as you please. If you see no value in the immediate vicinity of the city you just settled, then take the first option. You will now enter a sort of promise for a certain period of time (I think 30 turns or so) where you have to "keep your promise". This will appear as a notification on the right side of your screen. Breaking that promise will make you a PROMISE BREAKING JERKWAD to everyone else, so keep that in mind. Choosing the second option will make you suffer a penalty with that particular civ. Pretty nice if you plan to bully him anyway.

Not Looking the other way: This happens when you pledge of protection to a CS. Enemy civs will sometimes bully CSes and sometimes those CSes are under your protection. The one who did the bullying will approach you and tell you about the deed. If you forgive them, you revoke your pledge and suffer a 20 influence penalty with the CS. If you choose not to, you will suffer a diplo hit with that civ, which adds to the collection if you want him to declare on you.

Warmongering Menace: If you declare war on people willy-nilly, you won't suffer much of a hit. The moment you take a city, this could appear. This can appear even if you're fighting a war you didn't start. A defensive war is only defensive as long as you fight within your borders. As soon as you start fires on your aggressor's cities, that's no longer a defensive war. Razing cities ensures that this appears. Eliminating a civilization (GENOCIDER - not an in-game turn, btw) will make sure that EVERYONE ELSE will view you like this. Yes, even Attila. BTW, this also appears if you for some reason declare war on a Protected CS (you will be notified before doing so, so you won't get caught unawares). The most likely reason for doing so is Worker Stealing. It's either that, or you're a jerk who wants to farm unit experience on a CS.

Being friends with their enemies: This means you have an active DOF with one of their enemies. Not as severe as the above, but you have to be extra careful with this one. Remember that you need DOF's for RA's. So pay extra attention to DIPLOMACY.

Prisoners of War: AI units get captured by Barbs rather often. If it's a CS worker, you can return it to get easy influence. If it's an AI settler/worker, you'll cultivate relations if you return those units to them. If you don't you can make them angry. Worth noting that captured settlers turn into Workers if you don't return them.

There are many more. These are just the more common ones I see.

Diplomacy is fluid and not permanent. Alliances change as time goes on. Friends turn on each other, and bitter enemies in the Renaissance are suddenly cooperating wholeheartedly in the Industrial and onwards. This is why it's a great idea to take a feel of who's friends with who, who denounced who, and intrigue (Renaissance onwards). In the early to mid game, doing this allows you to see who's the prime target for bullying: the Pariah. This is the guy everyone loves to hate. Denounce him, and watch the world go knocking at your door just to tell how much they agree with you. Declaring war on him ensures that you get a diplo hit with a lot less people.

Meet THE BULLY
It is important to note that "Bullying" basically means declaring war (or getting declared on) and getting a peace deal that is favorable to you. Note that sometimes, it is YOU who have to initiate the negotiations. There are two types of peace deals:

White Peace
This is typical. If you really need to defuse war, go for it when it is offered. This basically means a stalemate.

Capitulation
Either side will offer everything they have plus the kitchen sink just to make peace with you. This happens when you completely trounce the AI. They will offer rather large sum of their resources (luxes, all of your gold and gpt) just to make peace. Often, this happens in the early game (pre-turn 100) when it's easier to defend against and CB's utterly eviscerate nearly every unit thrown their way. The basic gist is that the AI sees you as a very big threat that they're willing to do everything to get on your good side, just to end the war.

Most of the time, you can turn a white peace offer into a capitulation with a little more nudging. You'll often see that they will retreat their units. At the start of your next turn, pay them a visit and negotiate. If they offer white peace, go out and kill the stragglers. Sometimes, it just takes one more dead archer to make them more afraid of you. Capitulation gets harder and harder as the game goes on and as the difficulty goes up.

The Great Worker Heist of the Ancient Era
Another good way to set another civ back is to worker steal. You can do this to CSes and enemy civs. It's just much safer to do with CSes since you can take the worker and make peace on the same turn. This can save you a LOT of hammers early on and gives your cities a much needed headstart in buildings and units.

Getting Around Capitulation Deals that Aren't on Your Favor
You've seen this happen quite a lot. Your army of four Crossbows behind the river just destroyed all of Germany's Landsknecht carpet with no one else in sight. You approach Bismarck, and he's not willing to cut you some slack and offer a white peace. No, he wants your complete capitulation. Why does this happen? It's highly probable that he still has an Army on the other side of the world, fighting another war that's still larger in strength than your paltry four crossbows. So how do you return peace to the lands? Here's how:

1. Negotiate with him and look at the stuff he wants. Usually it's all your gold and a significant, if not all of your GPT. He will also want luxes you have that he doesn't.
2. Go to other civs and offload all your stuff. Trade all of your GPT and luxes to get a large lumpsum of gold.
3. Use the gold to rush buy stuff at your empire. Buy buildings or units. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the money was spent.
4. Go back to the aggressor and sue peace.
5. Go back to empire building.

Capitulation deals mean that they will want/offer everything you/they have for peace. And that's literally everything. 10000 gold or 10 gold mean jack squat to them as long as your treasury becomes zero. Keep this in mind. Note that there are times that the AI will capitulate even if there were no shots fired, and you didn't even come close to seeing a unit from them. I was playing the Aztecs once and for kicks, I declared war on Austria the moment I met them. A dozen turns later, Maria Theresa came a knockin' offering me all her gold and GPT. It's pretty rare, but it happens. I've also had Attila and Dido declare war on me on the same turn (probably a Defensive Pact), and a few turns later, they both capitulated. And I never saw even a measly scout near my borders before that happened!

Leader Personalities
Another thing that affects the likeliness of war with your neighbors is their personality. This determines how they play and how they view you. For example, you can expect Alexander to always be a jerk and Napoleon to DOW you from out of the blue. Having DOF's with them will reduce the likeliness of this happening. They also view CSes differently, so you taking a CS could very likely escalate to war if they value CS relations. Especially if the CS you took was under their protection.

 

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War Preparedness Considerations
Here are the stuff you should take into consideration ESPECIALLY if you foresee a war or plan on starting one.

Defensible Terrain
Settle on a Hill. I cannot stress this enough. Settling on a hill gives the city a Combat strength bonus. This, in addition to having its attackers suffer a rough terrain penalty. Surrounding terrain should contain rough terrain as well. Compound this by settling behind a river. Attackers will then get the Attacking over River penalty, on top of the terrain penalty. Also, get WALLS. These buildings will beef up your cities.

Also, as said above, what you can do to the enemy, the enemy can do to you. Never go into Aztec territory that has a lot of jungles. That's a death wish. If you encounter a well-defended city by terrain, pass up on it and go conquer something else.

Technology
Archery for a second/third tech is the best. Heck, it's even a great first option if you want to get a Temple of Artemis (extra food early on, for the rest of the game is extremely valuable). As you go higher in difficulty, the need to prepare for defense becomes more and more paramount. Emperor and below, you will survive with four. Any higher and you will need more. After getting your archers, go Construction for CB's. This will tide you over until you get attacked with pikes. By then you need Crossbows.

Also, get rid of your Wonderlust. The Pyramids, for example, costs as much as 4 Archers. Well enough to put on guard duty and barb busting duties until the war comes.

If you survive the early rush, remember that if you want to attack someone for conquest, it is best to have the tech advantage. Personally, I just turtle up until I get Dynamite (because three-range, Indirect Firing siege weapons are dabomb!) Usually, you can use those same CB's until the Medieval Era.

Wonders
Why am I mentioning this when I said to forget your Wonderlust just above? Simple: get rid of your Wonderlust ONLY for the early wonders (Emperor and below you can try getting BOTH SH and GL, but that's rare. King and below you can get all, including ToA, but that's even rarer and you'll probably need a Skilldorardo to get a leg up on that one). Imagine getting a Barracks, Armory, Military Base, Heroic Epic, Brandenbug Gate, Neuchswanstein Castle AND Alhambra on one city! All melee units you train are effectively supersoldiers! If you are the Swedes, you can have Drill 3, Blitz-Marching deathmachines. Fire up Sabaton's Carolus Rex album for maximum effect!

Policies
This goes without saying, but HONOR is THE warmonger's SP Tree. But take note that these aren't all that necessary for successful wars. It just aids you very much. Plus, if you can take all of it, you can have a war-time economy. This is insane for the Aztecs, since each enemy you kill will give you culture and gold! Also, this is what gives Tabarnak's Tradition 4-Cities opener some flexibility. It is in Tradition where you get the policy for stronger City Bombard and strength addition if there's a garrison (if you go that route, you will probably incur the anger of your neighbors because of land envy).

AUTOCRACY only gives combat bonuses as the finisher, and only for 50 turns. However, it will lower unit maintenance, allowing you to field a larger army. Combine this with some wonders (Big Ben, Pentagon and the like) and COMMERCE and you can get a lot of Gold while being able to carry out "Military Exercises" in other lands or to defend yourself. More money is never a bad thing.

Also, Diplomacy turns quite messy in the Indutrial Era onwards if you're not the runaway. Civs will hate you if you don't select the same type of Governmental policy as them. Note that this modifier will not appear until you yourself choose a policy, so you can take a peek at the global overview and set yourself up to find the best allies.

Economy
Having extra gold is always a plus. Gold will allow you to rushbuy walls and archers early on, and it will allow you to upgrade your soldiers to something more timely. That said, upgrading is usually more economical. For example, Archers are worth 200 gold and upgrading them to CB's cost 80 gold. CB's by themselves are worth 320 gold. That, and it takes longer to train them, so keep that in mind.

If going for conquest, always take note of your happiness. Going into very unhappy will make all your units 33% weaker. Also take note of available resources. It is not really a good idea to make 8 swordsmen when you only have 2 native iron and the 6 is coming from a CS or another civ. What if the CS gets conquered or you aren't allies anymore? What if the civs backstab you? You'll find the units you used those resources on are 50% weaker. So be careful.

Religion
The only beliefs that benefit war directly are all Pantheons. All religious beliefs aid in the other aspects above (especially in the Economy). Out of all Pantheons, two stand out: Faith Healers and Goddess of Protection. The former healing units in friendly territory for 30 HP, while the latter increases City Bombard power. That said, any belief that gives you Gold and/or Happiness are good for the Warmonger. Holy warriors are also good if you play a Civ with Pre-Industrial UU's you plan on using.

 

[Gort]

Eliminating a civilization (GENOCIDER - not an in-game turn, btw) will make sure that EVERYONE ELSE will view you like this. Yes, even Attila.

This is important to know. I see a lot of players say stuff like, "Genghis Khan attacked me, so I conquered his civilisation, now everyone says I'm a warmonger!" While it is kinda dumb that you get punished for winning a war in this fashion, it's easily avoided by sleaving Genghis with one crappy city instead of knocking him out of the game. Capitals tend to be the most valuable cities most civs have anyway.

 

[IAmOzymandias]

I can see both sides of this coin. I totally agree that it's stupid that the AI declares war on you, gets their butt kicked out of your territory, and then the game expects you to be like "oh no worries country X, I know you tried to sneak attack me and will do so again in 40 turns once you build up your army again, of course i won't destroy you for your insolence now that you have most of your arms depleted."

seriously though, it does make the most sense to hit them as a coup fourré because all but a few basic defenders will be destroyed. If they sent an army to crush you, you know the AI didn't hold anything back. when the AI goes to war they total war every time.

Flip side, of course, is that in real life if the (theoretical) iranians declared war on israel, and israel fought back, nuked iranian cities into oblivion and then captured and razed the majority of them, that would probably put a few other countries on edge, needless to say.

 

[LostInTime]

This seems more about diplomacy than war though. Get more practical advice about hill cities and ranged overpoweredness into it ^^

Real warmongerers don't care about diplomacy

 

[Petiscator]

About the diplomacy hits colours, I really thought the lighter it is, the graver it is. I mean, using positive modifiers as an example. When the other player has an embassy in your capital, you get a dark green modifier, but when you declare friendship, you get a light green modifier. Now as a "bad" example: sometimes I "didn't look away to the bullying of a city state" and a dark red modifier appear, but when I denounce them, a light green modifier appear.

I'm confused

I like the thread, BTW, it was a nice reading

 

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This seems more about diplomacy than war though. Get more practical advice about hill cities and ranged overpoweredness into it ^^

Real warmongerers don't care about diplomacy

I just got tired of seeing "I WAS DOWED ON WHEN I WASN'T PREPARED AND IT'S UNFAIR!!!!" So the first part is about what makes people tick. The next part I'm working on is the more general stuff on how to properly arm/defend yourself at wartime.

 

[Golem of Prague]

Is it possible to add a chapter on how to goad the AI into DoWing you first?

 

[Callonia]

if you're unprepared for a war, its your own fault, countries in real life attempt to prepare for war everywhere on earth, why should you be any different.

 

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Is it possible to add a chapter on how to goad the AI into DoWing you first?

Just read the War and Diplomacy section. Doing this to a leader that's near you and have a predisposition for war can yield funny results.

 

[Terakahn]

Just read the War and Diplomacy section. Doing this to a leader that's near you and have a predisposition for war can yield funny results.

I never have a problem with that. I forward settle like a badass.
I get DoWed more often than I pick social policies.

 

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Added part two. Will add general tips some time in the future.

 

[Crafty Bison]

There's also the pantheon that gets you faith when you win, as well as the two +20% enhancers. The just war in particular can be used as a bonus by the byzantine while the enhancer spread the religion. I've only had limited success with this idea, but am sure it can be done if it's done right. +20% is bigger than china's GG modifier bonus, not to be sniffed at.

Also in reasons for war, bear in mind civ specific abilities (i.e. Aztecs and Sweden) who are incentivized to war for wars sake alone, just to kill units, or just to generate great people.