Warmonger Strategy to Victory

[pluk]

I have been a civilization fan for years ever since Civ 1, but since I have played Civ 4, I have been unable to achieve a conquest victory. I'm not sure if I know how to use an effective warmongering strategy to win the game(i am playing on BTS). Does anyone have basic tips on that? I see threads devoted to specific eras, but not to a war strategy throughout a whole game. I often am an builder primarily, but I am wondering how to crush my enemies into the dust (making Montezuma bite the dust is rather nice...) I could some tips on how to attain hegemony over the whole world. War is fun...short of nuking 'em all, what is a viable finessed warfare strategy as opposed to crude, brute force? Not that brute force isn't necessary at times...
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pluk

 

[CerberusAlpha]

well the basic idea is to not build u seless wonders and buildings but instead build an army and whenever it gets big enough, and the political/technological situation is ripe, you strike at your neighbours and friends. make little gains off everybody or annex a neighbour quickly to achieve the means for domination.

heres a few typical attack paths:
1. early rush. pick a strategic resource and hook it up immediately. Spam units and crush your neighbour. forest chopping and slavery help. this is bronze working, animal husbandry, etc.

2. Later you can attack after u get catapults, lots and lots of catapults. A huge seige stack can take any city... but try to attack b4 longbowmen show up. Bombard and collateral kills everything in your path. and then later you can work on getting maces and trebs and knights and trying again. But if u can get war elephants at the same time as cats, you HAVE to attack somebody.

2.5 Also a good idea is selecting a civ that has a unique unit in this era of the game or earlier that will give u a huge advantage, and then you focus on getting that unit before all else.

3. If youre the first one to any of the later military techs, like cannons or curassiers or infantry, you should attack someone. Keep a large army around. Skip all sorts of techs to focus on production increase. As a side note, if u can get astronomy and chemistry first, consider a naval war that could pillage and starve somebody.

4. Industrial and Modern warefare is its own affair, where tanks demand a rush and then nukes settle everything afterwards.

my only real advice then is to keep reaching for a military advantage, and let wonders go.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

The basic strategy for war is to tech until you get a significant military advantage:

Eg:

- Axes when your opponent has only warriors and archers
- Catapults when your opponent has none
- War elephents when your opponent doesn't yet have longbows
- Curaissers before any opponent has pikemen
- Rifles / Cannon before an opponent has them
- Unique unit that is game changing in its time like immortals, praetorians, samurai etc

Then go all out - make nothing but units in every city. Chop them, whip them, draft them. Then throw them en-masse at the enemy to destroy the enemy as quickly as possible. Successful wars are not finessed or elegant - they are brutal with high casualties but quick. If you are in a slow war of attrition then you didn't bring a big enough army - sue for peace and repeat when you are ready.

If you are going for conquest then brute force wins. No finesse. A really big stack (or stacks later) that can absorb anything the enemy can throw at it and which has enough seige to take down the defenses of the time quickly.

The army will have some stack defenders and some specialist city raiders, but generally it doesn't matter too much - size is key. A big stack can just shrug off the enemy seige attacks (its worth including even obsolete units just to bulk up your stacks - they are still good for mopups).

 

[AbsoluteZero]

I warmonger consistently on immortal diff using the following strategy:

1. Pick a nice warmonger civ ( my favorite is Cyrus ).

2. If you can research archery right off the bat you should. If not research bronze working or animal husbandry and hope for nearby horses / copper.

3. If you have archery make 2 archers and send them to the nearest civ, declar war and plant them on a hill where you can block workers from improving tiles. This should slow your target down until you can send your real force in. If your going to do this you should do it no later then 2500 bc, otherwise wait till you get stronger units.

4. When you get chariots / axemen make one quickly and send it over to pillage the target civ's improvements. Be EXTRA sure you pillage any iron / copper / horses. You can spot iron / copper mines if there is a mine on flatland, or if it produces 1 more hammer then it should and it's on a hill. Horses look like a cow pasture with no cows. This is if you don't yet have the tech to spot these normally.

5. Send out about 3-4 more troops to keep the AI holed up in his cities and make sure he doesn't have the resources to get anything better then archers.

6. Now you can focus on expansion and take the land the AI would have taken.

7. When you're good and ready you should build up an army of 10-15 troops and start taking the AI's cities. They should still only have archers so it should be simple.

As for avoiding the economy problems with early expansion:

1. Research pottery early. A good time is right after you research the resource tech for your attack unit. Spam cottages on all river tiles.

2. After you get pottery research writing. Build a library and run 2 scientists until you get a great scientist. Save him for bulbing something like philosophy when you can later, which will enable you to trade and catch up on a bunch of tech's.

3. Research Currency asap if you think you won't be able to trade for it.

4. Pillage the AI's cottages / improvements for gold.

5. Capturing cities also gives a good amount of gold that can keep you afloat.


Just make sure you don't take on anyone who can make troops without resources, like pacal II or sitting bull.

Also beware of the AI getting resources from a friend. If this happens pillage all roads. Sometimes however the AI will be getting the resources by sea route, and really there is nothing you can do unless you have a navy ( which is unlikely ) so either take the coastal towns, or sue for peace and pick another target ( or you can ask his trading partner to cut off trade but that rarely works ).

This works great on Immortal but I am still having trouble finding a good early rush strat for Diety. The AI produces so many troops on Diety it can actually break free of your suppression by mass suiciding its archers on your 4-5 suppression troops.

 

[mayday]

I recommend having alot of troops like the other person posted above. If you keep cities you need to make sure to have at least 5 defenders in that city. Something else you might want to try to hog as much resources as you can keep them as small as possible and dont open borders.

 

[Fluroscent]

If your goal is conquest, you should just play the start position to gain as strong a position as possible. Sometimes this involves a rush, but not necessarily. From there, you should go to war as soon as you can win one comprehensively. This requires some planning.

For instance, say, it is a bit crowded, so you decide to gain a strong position by means of an early rush. This could be anything from ultra early chariots or axes, or catapults+axe/sword, or HA's. Obviously, if you have a power UU, this is a good time to use it. Or if it is not crowded, you could just do some proper REX and gain a land advantage that way.

Now, with a proper power base, you will want to plan what your next military advantage to take advantage of will be. There are many options: treb/mace/xbow/pike that can slowly and efficiently grind down smaller empires on your own continent while you tech towards astronomy (if you need it). Steel beeline->cannon/musket which will decimate any AI without rifling. Or a Rifling beeline, which works similarly except you rely on attacking with a huge strength advantage rather than with collateral. Cuirassier spam, with a few spy revolts can quickly roll an unprepared enemy. Or straight up cavalry spam, preferably utilizing Kremlin whipping or rush-buying to amass huge numbers can quickly overpower the AI.

Once you are the most powerful nation, you should be able to make the AI's capitulate in rapid succession to finish the conquest.

 

[drlake]

If you are going for conquest in particular, you want to avoid achieving domination along the way. To do that, either turn off that option (play a custom game) or vassal your foes rather than take them out completely, and liberate most of the cities you take to avoid hitting the domination limits.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The basic strategy for war is to tech until you get a significant military advantage:

There are multiple points in the game where an advantage is less meaningful, though of course if you can get one go for it.

Eg:

- Catapults when your opponent has none

Catapults are barely a threat from the AI should it have them. No reason to stop a war upon seeing cats or to avoid building up because you think the opponent will get them. Longbows and especially castles/protective are the anti-cats.

- War elephents when your opponent doesn't yet have longbows

Capable of easily taking combat II for 9.6 base str, even marginal collateral puts longbows behind elephants. This troop combo doesn't die until engineering, which walls the cat bombardment and offers a strong counter unit, with more problems around the corner.

- Curaissers before any opponent has pikemen

Pikes win hammer for hammer, but curis win straight up and have excellent mobility. Realistically curis are pretty good until they start pushing rifles.

- Rifles / Cannon before an opponent has them

Cannons obviously prefer fighting pre-rifles, but CR II cannon vs rifle isn't exactly murderer's row. Try to deny horse though or bring more rifles.

- Unique unit that is game changing in its time like immortals, praetorians, samurai etc

War chariots are superior offensive units to immortals, but both are quite good. Quechas, Janissaries, Oromos, Keshiks, Cho Ko Nus, Cataphracts, Conquistadors, and vultures are all worth a strong look too.

Then go all out - make nothing but units in every city. Chop them, whip them, draft them. Then throw them en-masse at the enemy to destroy the enemy as quickly as possible. Successful wars are not finessed or elegant - they are brutal with high casualties but quick. If you are in a slow war of attrition then you didn't bring a big enough army - sue for peace and repeat when you are ready.

This is one way to play it and viable. It is not the only way...not on any difficulty. Building up units over time with the expectation of mass upgrade is perfectly viable. City specialization where several cities do not build units is fine. A slow, 30-40 turn medieval slog is fine too as long as you deal critical damage within the first 10-15 turns such that only 1 or at most 2 cities can easily handle your side of the attrition (doing this allows you 5:1 kills/deaths and easy cities and the window before rifles is large). Later in the game, brute force things like infantry/arty (a personal favorite) competes with excessively powerful finesse moves like amphibious attack + fighter support, or the brutal but tactical use of nuclear arms.

If you are going for conquest then brute force wins. No finesse. A really big stack (or stacks later) that can absorb anything the enemy can throw at it and which has enough seige to take down the defenses of the time quickly.

This ignores 100% mounted charges which combine some elements of brute force and finesse. Doing that forces you to move tactically and take care when - and how - you engage opposing forces, but the result can be a fast war with minimal chance for the AI to stop it.

The army will have some stack defenders and some specialist city raiders, but generally it doesn't matter too much - size is key. A big stack can just shrug off the enemy seige attacks (its worth including even obsolete units just to bulk up your stacks - they are still good for mopups).

Don't get me wrong though. I understand the value of stack bulk quite well and also advocate using older units for mopping up, holding to use city capture gold for upgrades (or tech sale/extortion), or as post-conquest vassal garrison to keep city revolt chance at 0% while you build a shinier army to continue the beatdown on other civs. However, profitable parity war is doable at most points in the game!

1. Ancient - massed axe/spear (more so axes) using chops to focus hammers to temporarily trump AI bonuses and non-military focus early on. Chariots are arguably even better than axes when rushing.
2. Classical - if the target is not protective, there really aren't many pre-longbow defenders that do very well vs catapults, so losses won't be bad. Getting enough #'s here is hard though. Elephants get a gold star here - nothing safely attacks elephant + axe with winning odds until muskets.
3. Medieval - Tricky. Resource denial starts to matter the most here until the era of oil and uranium. Deny horse or iron and you don't see knights. Use longbows + a hill city and the AI will likely suicide its entire offensive stack while you DEFEND for a change, and with a heavy advantage in doing so. Without knights, not much can effectively flank or defend against trebs for long. Slow as these are, continuing with infra mid-war isn't hard and you have 50+ turns from declaration until the AI gets anything worrisome, probably more since you *will* cripple its tech. In a recent game I attacked spain in this era and did better than a lot of other players because I denied metal and killed units before they upgraded...notably choking off iron = no UU.
4. Renaissance - Tried and true. Cannon, cavalry, and rifles all work. Cuirassers are popular too. Take your pick. In tech parity, however, only rifle + cannons shine. But boy, do they shine. Airships can help keep cannon loss down btw.
5. Industrial - Infantry and arty are solid attackers and difficult to counter before, say, advance flight (!). Nothing defends particularly well vs CR II arty. Not tanks, not infantry, definitely not machine guns (they ignore collateral but are terrible straight-up). Big window for minimal losses even at parity.
6. Modern - Tanks + bomber time! Or nuke/para. Or marines + fighters. Or some other combo. War at tech parity in this era is very, very easy vs the AI and won't feel much like parity at all.
7. Future - Very similar to modern...any semblance of tactics will leave the AI helpless unless you are vastly undersized relative to it.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

You can always have more siege till nukes.