Warmonger and Wonder compatibility

[Fire.Soul]

I've been trying to enhance my military capabilities, as I used to use other methods to win (mainly culture or space race). But now I'm facing a (potentially) serious problem: turning into a warmonger has reduced my wonder construction nearly to zero!

I specialise a couple of cities (the ones with most hammers) in military production through Barracks and/or Stable plus Military Instructor/Military Academy if suitable. When I'm in a war however, and although I have those specialised cities, I have the tendency to get all my cities to support military production, reinforcing defences and giving greater strength to my offensives. This means that I hardly ever have time to build any Wonders, and when I do they usually go into a fairly poor city in terms of hammers, which means I don't get to finish most of them.

Is this a normal issue in military strategies? Do you think I should work harder on specialising or should I opt to build a global military production network?

Moreover, what are the Wonders that fit best these warmonger purposes? I tend to go for the ones that provide Great Merchants or Prophets to use them as specialists in order to boost my wealth (I play as Huayna Capac, Fin/Ind, so it sure is significant, especially to Research and unit maintenance). This Wonder issue stresses me out because, all things considered, I'm throwing away the potential of my leader and the power of the industrious trait.

Any suggestions? What do you warmongers recommend?

 

[manu-fan]

Well, I'm a Warmonger and here's what I do.

I try and be fairly balanced, even though my goal is Domination, wiping out several other races.

Early one, when developing the cities, I don't neglect culture, or Wonder building. This is a period of growth and exploration, where you need to be balanced. Meanwhile, you're scoping out which neighbor is going to be your first victim.

It's usually when I get Swordsmen (and build tons of them), or wait for catapults, that I'll attack a neighbor and destroy it (or almost).

Then there's another peiod of peace and building before deciding on the next victim. You can be building wonders in a city or 2 during this period too.

Then, just repeat the war, build, war, build process to ulitmate victory.

Now, I am only playing on vanilla Noble, but I must say that this strategy is paying great dividends for me currently.

Cheers.

 

[Sisiutil]

I've been trying to enhance my military capabilities, as I used to use other methods to win (mainly culture or space race). But now I'm facing a (potentially) serious problem: turning into a warmonger has reduced my wonder construction nearly to zero!

I specialize a couple of cities (the ones with most hammers) in military production through Barracks and/or Stable plus Military Instructor/Military Academy if suitable. When I'm in a war however, and although I have those specialised cities, I have the tendency to get all my cities to support military production, reinforcing defences and giving greater strength to my offensives. This means that I hardly ever have time to build any Wonders, and when I do they usually go into a fairly poor city in terms of hammers, which means I don't get to finish most of them.

Is this a normal issue in military strategies? Do you think I should work harder on specialising or should I opt to build a global military production network?

Moreover, what are the Wonders that fit best these warmonger purposes? I tend to go for the ones that provide Great Merchants or Prophets to use them as specialists in order to boost my wealth (I play as Huayna Capac, Fin/Ind, so it sure is significant, especially to Research and unit maintenance). This Wonder issue stresses me out because, all things considered, I'm throwing away the potential of my leader and the power of the industrious trait.

Any suggestions? What do you warmongers recommend?

If you're winning without wonders, more power to you. However, wonders are a fun part of the game, and as someone who wars fairly often (I still can't consider myself a "warmonger", though I probably am), I still likes my wonders and find many of them useful.

Remember that another benefit of Industrious is cheap forges. So for an industrious leader, a Metal Casting slingshot from the Oracle is very attractive. If you have copper (and how can you be a warmonger without it?) and several coastal cities working seafood tiles, that should lead you to the Colossus for a bit of a commerce boost and maybe a Great Merchant--especially if you team it with the Great Lighthouse. Sending a mid-game GM on a trade mission provides you with funds to upgrade your veterans.

I also like Stonehenge because it's cheap and it means you don't have to worry about founding a religion or building monuments to pop your borders. That means you can have more flexibility with your city placement, and you can build barracks and units instead of monuments.

Even if you're a warmonger, you can't let your economy and research lag. It's no use attacking Riflemen with nothing but Axemen and Chariots. The Great Library is a terrific research booster, both from the 2 free scientists and from the Great Scientists it will generate.

Music is a military tech! Sort of. You can use the free Great Artist (if you're there first) for a culture bomb in a just-captured city; it leads to Military Tradition (West Point and Cavalry); and you can build Notre Dame to help deal with war weariness.

Later in the game, if you're still warmongering towards a domination win, you'll definitely want to build the Pentagon so your cities can produce level 3 units out of the gate without running the "war civics" (Theocracy and Vassalage).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well what I find is the Warmonger combo is

Military Super City (for producing Heavy Combat Units for city Cracking)

GP-Gold City (National Epic and Wall Street in a Shrine City... run Priests or Merchants for Settling or Shrines and the Gold that they themselves produce) otherwise a standard GP Farm

Wonder City, your Second High Production city for getting Wonders like Sisiutil mentioned.

All other Cities fall into either Production or Commerce Categories, Commerce ones provide the Science at hopefully close to 100%, and Production ones produce Bombers or Stack Defenders or City Defenders.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

My longer answer was eaten by network gremlins, but....

I'm wondering if you are seeing symptoms of inefficient war mongering. I'd be tempted to look at the kill ratios - are you war mongering by pouring lots of hammers on the opposition, or are you war mongering by tuning your troops to your needs? There are lots of combinations of promotions available - how many of them are you taking advantage of? Do you usually war with lots of units that have a couple promotions, or fewer units with many promotions?

A pair of drills I would consider.

1) roll up a land based map with always war enabled and a stupidly hard difficulty assigned, as in the Ironman Challenge or

2) Play your usual game, but add the variant rule that you may designate only three cities as "military" cities, and military units may not be built anywhere else. Can you make do? In other words, do you really need to turn your entire civ's production capasity to military?


There's also some question in my mind as to warmongering with a leader with traits that scream builder. At the very least, you should be considering where on the tech tree you want to be war mongering - running up the economic vector first, then turning on the hammers, may turn out to be more effective than throwing down the gauntlet immediately (this depends on your own goals/fun in the game).


As far as wonders go, it's hard to top the Big Stone Trophy for getting a fast 25% production boost and cutting the war weariness in half - though it's a lousy investment if you are warring in the ancient era. Oracle for the tech boost. Sistine Chapel for border pops - Stonehenge serves a similar role in an earlier era.

From there to the Pentagon, I'm not sure there's anything important for a war economy - in so far as most wonders area just as effective to capture as build - the question being how many civs do you have to cut through to get to them?


But I'm a builder though, so a considered skepticism should be applied to the advice above.

 

[Phrederick]

Remember that when you're capturing a lot of cities, that means that you will have more chances to capture wonders built by other players. You'll obviously have less control over where they are built, but it does provide some level of benefit.

Other than that, you don't have to war all the time. I'll often alternate warring for an era with rebuilding economically for an era. Also, do you have to build wonders to win? There isn't any necessary wonders that you need to have to win the game (UN excepted), perhaps playing a few games without building any wonders at all will build your skills in other areas.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

What I *really* need to learn is how to warmonger before you get code of laws. After I get around 6 cities, my city and unit maintenance costs empty my coffers and my units go on strike and disband before I could get there.

 

[cabert]

What I *really* need to learn is how to warmonger before you get code of laws. After I get around 6 cities, my city and unit maintenance costs empty my coffers and my units go on strike and disband before I could get there.

play on a lower level

6 cities before CoL is overkill
I can't afford more than 4 to sustain an above 0 tech rate.

 

[lilnev]

What I *really* need to learn is how to warmonger before you get code of laws. After I get around 6 cities, my city and unit maintenance costs empty my coffers and my units go on strike and disband before I could get there.

Play on an overcrowded map. When the AI beats you to your third city site, that axe-rush will look mighty appealing.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Play on an overcrowded map. When the AI beats you to your third city site, that axe-rush will look mighty appealing.

peace,
lilnev

That works for me. I seem to rush much better when I only have a couple cities.

 

[futurehermit]

pretty standard warmongerer strategy:

1) Build 2 settlers, one of them claiming an early military resource, preferably bronze, but horses will do.

2) Connect the dots with roads

3) Chop/whip 6-12 units

4) Attack, starting with outer, lightly defended cities

5) Keep any that are close enough that distance costs won't cripple your econ, raise the rest

6) When your attack tapers off or when you've done enough damage, sue for peace getting as much tech/$$$ as you can

7) Prioritize alphabet and military/econ techs (***COL***, currency, IW, construction, etc.)

The wonders you get are the ones your enemies build

Honestly, if you're a warmongerer, wonders shouldn't be too high on your priority list.

Though expensive, if you have stone, pyramid is VERY nice for the warmongerer. It opens police state which lets you pump out an army faster and deal with WW and it gives you representation which lets you run a food-heavy SE that allows you to keep up in tech and also whip MUCH more successfully than with a CE.

If you happen to be industrious then you can target your wonders based on what resources are available. Industrious + resource = pretty cheap wonder, so it won't slow down your attack much. Got stone? **Pyramids**, GLH, etc. Got marble? ToA, Parth, **GL**, etc. Got copper? Colossus, etc.

 

[gunkulator]

Don't forget Stonehenge. It's dirt cheap, especially if you have stone. There's nothing more annoying than grabbing one civ's cities only to have some other civ mosey on in and claim the land between the gaps.

 

[futurehermit]

Imo stonehenge is a waste. Monuments are easily 1-pop rushed when the city hits size 2 and tiles are still being developed. Some cities also can make do without border expansion prior to libraries.

 

[gunkulator]

Monuments cost 30 hammers each. Stonehendge with stone costs 60, less if you chop it. I'd rather burn population on barracks or a new axeman.

 

[Sisiutil]

Monuments cost 30 hammers each. Stonehendge with stone costs 60, less if you chop it. I'd rather burn population on barracks or a new axeman.

Even without stone (which I rarely have hooked up by the time I start Stonehenge) it's still a very cheap wonder and worthwhile for the reasons you mention. It gives you flexibility in your early city site placement, which is invaluable. And let's not forget the Great Prophet you'll generate from it. I don't always build it--I'll usually skip it if I'm playing as a Creative leader or I've founded an early religion--but when I have, I've never regretted it.

 

[futurehermit]

You wait to have stone hooked up before building stonehenge? Imo that is only possible if you have stone in your capital and even then you have to prioritize masonry and the wheel earlier than I would prefer to do so. Not to mention if I had stone in my capital I wouldn't be building stonehenge, I'd be building pyramids asap after 1st settler is chop/popped out.

Axes you aren't going to be poprushing until copper is hooked up and in my experience I will often need borders to pop to hook up copper with 2nd city. Plus pop-rushing rax is not easy to do without growth unless you're aggressive.

When I build a new city, I'll grow to size 2 asap with first priority improving a food tile. 1pop rush monument. Grow back quickly with improved food tile.

Considering that I only build 2 settlers on average, getting them out a-s-a-p, and calendar comes on board so early in the game, I never waste crucial early hammers on Stonehenge.

But, hey, to each his own

 

[cabert]

I noticed that the AIs don't prioritize stonehenge at all.
You can often connect the stone and chop/whip the thing quite late.

 

[Sisiutil]

I noticed that the AIs don't prioritize stonehenge at all.
You can often connect the stone and chop/whip the thing quite late.

The thing is, though, that I usually want Stonehenge as early as possible, so I don't have to build monuments or even (at the time) very expensive libraries in my first few cities, and so that I can place the cities in optimal locations even if their resources aren't in the first ring.

I've had several occasions where I've built Stonehenge in my 2nd city and its borders have popped to claim horses or copper just as the first few barb Warriors started entering my borders.

Besides, Stonehenge becomes obsolete very quickly, with Calendar--a very desirable tech. So the longer you delay it, the less useful it's likely to be. I suppose if all you want it for is GPP, that's okay.

 

[cabert]

The thing is, though, that I usually want Stonehenge as early as possible, so I don't have to build monuments or even (at the time) very expensive libraries in my first few cities, and so that I can place the cities in optimal locations even if their resources aren't in the first ring.

I've had several occasions where I've built Stonehenge in my 2nd city and its borders have popped to claim horses or copper just as the first few barb Warriors started entering my borders.

Besides, Stonehenge becomes obsolete very quickly, with Calendar--a very desirable tech. So the longer you delay it, the less useful it's likely to be. I suppose if all you want it for is GPP, that's okay.

different styles...
I usually build stonehenge in the second or third city...
Why?
Because the palace gives enough culture.
So stonehenge in the second city will give this second city better culture than just the poor monument.

 

[Sisiutil]

different styles...
I usually build stonehenge in the second or third city...
Why?
Because the palace gives enough culture.
So stonehenge in the second city will give this second city better culture than just the poor monument.

In that regard we play the same. I usually have my capital pegged as the science city. To keep its GPP from being "polluted", I prefer to not build Great Prophet-generating wonders there, such as Stonehenge and the Oracle. So I almost always build them in my second city instead. That means the 2nd city has to have a decent production resource in its first ring, however.

If the map doesn't lend itself to this, I'll do a switcheroo--build Stonehenge and the Oracle in the capital and select a different city for science.