Warlord suggestions.

[Zwief]

So I've probably played this game as a kid since it came out but it took me a while to get a hang of it. never really ventured beyond chieftain. Going to give warlord a shot. Came back to this game while waiting for some fixes for V like the A.I and crappy optimization.
any suggestions? I have tried warlord once before but I get beaten in pretty much everything. The a.i has more money, more cities and way higher up tech wise. and I find it hard to when I'm losing money due to paying for units , buildings and tech. and lowering tech to get a little bit of revenue sets me back too. btw , could someone explain seeds? never really messed with that. is that the amount of resources on the map?

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Welcome!

Seeds are the numbers that define the map. If you know the seed, you can replay the map later with different difficulty or civs.

Looking through the forums, the same themes for improvement come up: road a lot (gives gold), make enough workers and use them efficiently (working unimproved tiles wastes potential wealth, food and shields), build improvements you can really use to avoid wasting shields and maintenance costs (do I really need that colliseum in the size 2 city that is totally corrupt?), limit wonder building (to quote a smarter player than me, "I'd rather spend the 300 shields on 10 swordsmen and take the hanging gardens than to build it")

Check out the lessons on the War Academy too, full of great tips!

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Decide how you want to win before you start playing; in Chieftain, you can lollygag around until 1500 before deciding whether you want to kill everything with fire or send up a spaceship. At the other difficulty levels, you need to decide how you're going to win early on, and aggressively pursue a course that will benefit that end.

Take your time. Civ is a turn-based game, so there's no need to rush through; look at everything you can do in a given turn before you actually do anything. Whether a turn takes 10 seconds or 30 minutes doesn't matter in the long run.

Expand aggressively, early, and quickly. One of your first two or three cities should basically turn out a Settler whenever it's physically able to, and you should build cities like mad until there's no space.

In general - take the fight to the AI. Your standing military should consist of Attackers more than Defenders, and any wars that break out should take place on their territory, not yours. Similarly, dogpile any civ you go to war with.

 

[vmxa]

I put a roadmap for Warlord and a tutorial for Regent up in the Strategy forum that is more or less a turnby turn log.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

choose a Civ your good with, and be very agressive, its survival of the fitest and the weak must be eliminated

 

[Raliuven]

In general - take the fight to the AI. Your standing military should consist of Attackers more than Defenders, and any wars that break out should take place on their territory, not yours. Similarly, dogpile any civ you go to war with.

One thing to add to this - sometimes it is a good idea to stage the opening fights in your territory, particulary if they declare on you and you are not yet ready to invade. Often you can set up a kill zone in your own territory - you can use the roads, they cannot. You can use your cities to heal, they have to retreat out of your boards to do so (until later with Battlefield Medicine). After you blunt their opening attack wave, you can then move into their lands with more freedom. If you are dogpiled, you can generally hold off a large number of invading AIs by holding your boarder. The AI doesn't vary its tactics much - once it 'gives away' its primary targets and objectives in your territory, it is pretty easy to reduce endless waves of units in your kill zones. Continue to build your army and once the waves stop, then push out your boarders. In warlord, once the AI has spent its first attack, it is usually done for, units will straggle in a little at a time, easily defeated in detail by massed defenders (but defenders are OFFENSIVE units waiting to attack the moment the invader sets foot in your lands and awaiting their turn to invade in concentrated stacks). After this, the AI cities are lightly defended and a concentrated stack of swords or horses will take city after city. Just make sure you concentrate enough to kill all the defenders in a city each round - count on 2 defenders and maybe one offensive unit in each city. In the early game, 5 swords or horses (maybe a few more horses) are usually enough to take most objectives (consider city size, terrain, walls, and type of defender, of course). I am overly cautious, though. Some players might suggest a small mix will get the job done. The RNG hates me, so I am a little shy on this topic.

Of course, if you have already have a concentrated military or superior units, running roughshod over the enemy is a good thing too. Once the AI starts to lose cities, even at the boarder, it crumbles quickly.

 

[Volcanon]

Spam cities. In the ancient age you should have cities packed in as close as possible, since they aren't going to limit each other by resources anyway. It means you need 1 square for roads instead of 4 too.

Oh, and if iron isnt nearby, make a bee-line for the closest iron and archer anybody who gets in the way.

 

[Smellincoffee]

A few things that got me from Chieftan through Warlord:
- get out of despotism as soon as you can. Monarchy is probably your best option if you're going to be going to war a lot. Republics are most viable when you have larger cities with a good trade network.

- manage your workers. Automated workers do silly things. Check in with your cities on a regular basis, make sure the best tiles are being worked, and make sure those tiles are improved. You'll want to check your city at least every time it grows. Gang your workers together to improve tiles more efficiently.

- don't worry so much about collecting every Wonder. My game improved dramatically after I read an article here on Wonder Addiction. Even if you're going after a Cultural Victory, only a few Wonders are must-haves. Not every Wonder is useful in every game.

- short "shake down" wars are preferred to long-drawn out combats. Invest some time in building up your forces, deal the enemy a few serious losses, and then go for peace. You can do this repeatedly to whittle down your opponents without having to build a massive army.

 

[EvilConqueror]

I have tried warlord once before but I get beaten in pretty much everything. The a.i has more money, more cities and way higher up tech wise.

I would say that the key at that level is to expand quickly. Soon, you'll simply out produce any AI.

If any AI has more cities than you, you didn't expand fast enough. You're probably being overly cautious because it's your first time at this new level. Experience will give you a better idea of what you can get away with.

Also, it took me a few games to get used to managing my money when I moved up to Warlord. You'll get the hang of it too with more experience.

 

[darski]

Check out the Iroquois domination strategy. Play a small or tiny map and you can wipe out the competition quickly. The Iro traits are really good ones to play in most games

 

[Lord Emsworth]

- short "shake down" wars are preferred to long-drawn out combats. Invest some time in building up your forces, deal the enemy a few serious losses, and then go for peace. You can do this repeatedly to whittle down your opponents without having to build a massive army.

Totally disagree with this. It would be very unwise to my mind to just let a civ go, if you have them by the scruff of their necks. And holding an AI civ by the scruff of their necks is what you are doing if you have dealt this AI civ a few serious losses. Don't just let go. Finish them off.

 

[Raliuven]

Totally disagree with this. It would be very unwise to my mind to just let a civ go, if you have them by the scruff of their necks. And holding an AI civ by the scruff of their necks is what you are doing if you have dealt this AI civ a few serious losses. Don't just let go. Finish them off.

I agree with LE in principle. If you have an AI down, finish them off. If you are in Monarchy, there is rarely a reason to make a peace deal unless you are shaking the AI down for techs or gold, etc (but once you start to improve your game, you will probably have all the techs and gold anyway).

You might seek peace if they have a distant city and you just don't care to pursue them anymore and/or if you are in a representative governmet and want to get rid of some WW. Better yet, bribe a nearby Civ to join your war and let them hunt the defeated Civ down. They do a better job of finding those annoying settlers in a boat too.

 

[Lanzelot]

- short "shake down" wars are preferred to long-drawn out combats. Invest some time in building up your forces, deal the enemy a few serious losses, and then go for peace. You can do this repeatedly to whittle down your opponents without having to build a massive army.

I think this is a very valid strategy on the higher difficulty levels. Here you usually don't have the necessary forces to finish them off (and sometimes not even to deal them serious losses...), so you make a quick and hard strike, gain some limited objective and then make peace before their counter-attack gets into full swing and drags you into a long war that binds and depletes all your resources.
(If they are willing to make peace, that is... )

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Figure out how to create a settler factory. That's the key to expansion. Once you can take a start with a wheat or a cow and fresh water, and expand to 10 or 12 cities by 1000 BC, you'll beat every warlord AI there is.