Warmongering - which ability?

[Margie Thatcher]

Ramesses = Industrious + Spiritual

This is a great combination for Cultural Victory. Don't forget that I can not only build wonders 50% but also build Forge twice as fast, which adds even more production speed in my cities. At any level below Emperor, Stonehenge and Pyramids often possible without great defensive risk. Being Spirualist is great with Pyraminds because you can shift civics on the fly without anarchy. For cutural victory, the speed of Temple building is very useful, because, for example, with 3 religions and 9 cities, you're building 27 temples. Overall, I think that Spiritual is better than Financial for cultural victory strategy, but most people disagree with me on that.

Too bad Cultural ain't exactly warmongering, eh? Personally, I find Fin to be of more use than Spiritual because it means craptons of money when I have all sliders at 0 (buying temples with Universal Suffrage) and it means more commerce is converted into culture when you eventually slide your culture up to 100%. Spiritual's anarchy-less civic changes are nice though, personally, Mansa is one of my faves for cultural victories.

I second Ghpstage's suggestion of looking at Spiritual, it makes for seamless civics changes dependent on what circumstances you're playing under (easy changes to Universal Suffrage for rush-buying, Police State, Nationhood, etc.). Charismatic and Agg are good traits for warmongering too; Monty is good if you're looking to try out Spi/Agg (his UB is <3), and Brennus /would/ be a good warmonger had he not been the leader of the Celts.

 

[*Svart*]

uuuh i love also monty... he's agressive (free promo and cheap barracks), spiritual (can swap in slavery and other warmongering civ without problems) and have the allmighty sacrificial altar. Also jagz are not so bad if there is a lot of forest/jungle. Monty is insane. Monty is a really bad dude. Use him! Remember, sacrificial altar! whip the crap out of your citizen, they will be happy to die for your numberless armies

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I think Organised is the best for warmongering, cheaper civics and half price courthouses.

Is anyone Cha/Org? EDIT: Yep, Napoleon. Hmm.

 

[DreamworK]

cyrus is fun to play if you are going all out for super promoted troops. if your style likes to build wonders, you could try a cyrus great wall strat where you focus on early wars inside your borders (extremely fast GGs), then use espionage and highly promoted mounted units in a later war to quickly and efficiently take out a couple of civs.

with imperialistic, you are not also getting another boost to your GG pool, but you are guaranteed easier access to those important early strategic resources (think stone/iron/copper/horse). of course these traits don't necessarily help your economy (besides the happiness from cha) , but a good player knows how to balance an empire's economy regardless of his traits.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

if I`m feeling like a challenge and play immortal or diety I`ll take AGG , especially on marathon . Units are far better value on marathon due to the scaling (buildings take relatively longer) so hammerwise it pays to have a number of cities making them and cheap barracks become excellent value.

Barbs are such a pain that even combat 1 on your warriors cansave you from getting wiped out and researching Archery if your starting techs are unhelpful can you put you waaaaaay behind .

definitely the best early game warmomgering trait and if you do pull off an early rush then lots of cheap barracks making quality units is important as you do need to garrison your cities proplerly on marathon .

then finally when Nationhood becomes available you`ll be glad you built those barracks .

I really think this applies mostly on marathon though . On other speed I`ll take CHA

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Too bad Cultural ain't exactly warmongering, eh? Personally, I find Fin to be of more use than Spiritual because it means craptons of money when I have all sliders at 0 (buying temples with Universal Suffrage) and it means more commerce is converted into culture when you eventually slide your culture up to 100%. Spiritual's anarchy-less civic changes are nice though, personally, Mansa is one of my faves for cultural victories. :

Early warmongering via Chariot rush is often part of my cultural victory strategy, but if I were aiming for a Domination victory, I would not choose a Spirtualist leader for my civilization. Once in awhile I play Ragnar. I think he's very strong for military if warmongering is your game. Try him for a deadly amphibious assault.

I totally agree about Mansa. He is usually my worst enemy. I try to mess him up every chance I get right from the start of the game.

You make the standard argument for Financial. My son plays Elizabeth all the time and swears by it, too. I'll have to try it sometime and see how it goes.

 

[Czacki]

I ended up playing Hannibal a lot. Fun, and the Numidian Cavalry doesn't get much love, but I found them excellent. Since they start with withdraval I get for my cavalry anyway, they are like 1 free promotion ahead of horse archers, which helps to reduce their lower strength problems vs. archers (still 5 STR +C1 is worse than pure 6 STR but at least not by much)

 

[Iranon]

I rather like Spiritual and Organised for warmongering.

Spiritual is good for a lot of dirty diplomatic tricks and may mean the difference between making an ally do all of the heavy lifting before swooping in to reap the rewards and a battle of attrition that alienates everyone else.
It also enables you to switch from warmonger to recovery mode and back at the drop of a hat.

Organised is great if you stretch your economy to the breaking point in order to crank out more troops and take more cities. Other economy traits require you to use a large-ish amount of your population for non-military stuff; ORG is in full effect if you stave off eventual collapse with pillaging, conquest cash and extortion.
Production/Military-centered civics also tend to be fairly expensive, making ORG count for more, and you also get some nice building discounts.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Let me put it this way:

Stonehenge+Pyramids, full price @ normal speed = 620. Granted with IND it is more like 310, but for the full price cost you could have built a barracks and 16 axes (or 19 chariots). Even at half price you could have built rax + 7 axes or 8 chariots. Tell me if your friend, Mr. Also-Wonder-Whore, will be able to fend those off whilst building his precious Pyramids? If you use a little bit of whip in the process of building those units you can crank them out in no time as well. Just a thought

 

[Czacki]

We're playing large map usually - and usually he's on another continent, we're taking "fractal" map usually which ends in like 90% games when we're on different side of the map.

I don't like axes or axe rushing anyway, fails too often. Regular war 50-100 turns later (on epic) nets you the same (I pretty much never lost such a war) plus the infrastructure kindly built by the AI. Which means massing axes at that point wouldn't do me any real good, only quicken the death of AI, say 50 turns earlier (which means I'd capture a smaller city, had to colonize the terrain myself AND get much lower science faster due to strained economy). I also want to get a GG through my first war, and that means the AI has to have some defense )

Which means, I would not rush anyway and I don't need to overly expand with my plans for a war in 150th-200th turn on epic.

 

[*Svart*]

I'm not agree... Early rush is incredibly powerful. If you go to war with 10 charriot in 2000 AC It's really difficult you can fail. Maybe your economy will be crippled by such a rapid expansion, but consider... more city more power. After a slow start you won't regret that war in the future, you will be the big boy.

 

[Czacki]

Thing is, I will get those cities anyway, and improved, 50 turns later - meaning less workers needed, more wonders possible to snatch instead of building axes... Idk, I guess that's a newb's mistake to delay war, but I find it much more fun and comfortable to build first and conquer later.

 

[*Svart*]

yes.... but you can't get all the buildings inside those cities, if you get those cities first, first they will be powerful and useful. If you get 3 cities 50 turn first, you will have 50 turns of production/research more. There are some investments to do (more workers, less research slider, less wonders) but the total benefits are greater. And remember, all the wonder (except the horacle and the taj mahal) are perfectly usable even if you capture the city of the builder

 

[Ataxerxes]

Thing is, I will get those cities anyway, and improved, 50 turns later - meaning less workers needed, more wonders possible to snatch instead of building axes... Idk, I guess that's a newb's mistake to delay war, but I find it much more fun and comfortable to build first and conquer later.

It depends. I actually find it more comfortable to rush first and then build later. After you build up your army, you can then get settlers out to get the land. Also, if you wait, the enemy will have time to build up their military and the cultural defenses will go up. You might then need siege, which will mean more than 50 turns. Also, the forces you use for the early rush will be your military in the early part of the game, if someone else decides they don't like you.

The best early builds are often more cities, your own or someone elses. Land is Power.

Iranon said he prefers Spiritual and Organized, both good. That's Asoka, who also has the fast worker and starts with mining. Other people have mentioned that Asoka makes a very good warmonger. With mining, you can get Bronze Working earlier, very valuable for Axes, chopping, Slavery. Don't dismiss the fast worker as a force for war, especially on the faster speeds (such as Normal).

Finally, settings will influence rushing chances. More Civs for a map size, more chances to rush.

 

[Czacki]

Thing is, I really hate axemen. They seem to be owned by everything - archers, other axemen, chariots. The only thing they can easily kill are warriors, and I can see a point of rushing someone with warriors, but against AI, it doesn't happen anyway on monarch and above.

Axemen just plain suck whenever I use them. CR2 Cover axemen in the force of 10 bounced off THREE archers and killed 1 of them. On the other hand, while using horse archers and CR swordsmen, it was a pie. Horse archers withdrawing a lot while weakening the enemy, swordsmen finishing them with ease. It's like playing settler with horsearchers+swordsmen, diety when rushing with axes.

Idk, I just never seem to pull the axemen rush successfully. And even if I did once, my economy was starined horribly, all I got was a well placed city with the size of 1 and nearly no improvements (which pretty much equals building a settler and expanding to a good spot..) - and a MONSTROUS tech disadvantage, I was getting writing while AIs were getting philosophy, not to mention my friend who was even further.

 

[Absolute Zero]

Thing is, I really hate axemen. They seem to be owned by everything - archers, other axemen, chariots. The only thing they can easily kill are warriors, and I can see a point of rushing someone with warriors, but against AI, it doesn't happen anyway on monarch and above.

That's why you bring overwhelming numbers, and suicide a lot of them. The hard part is to build a large number of axemen, but still early enough to catch the enemy with few defenders and a small empire. To do that, you have to chop and whip.

Axemen just plain suck whenever I use them. CR2 Cover axemen in the force of 10 bounced off THREE archers and killed 1 of them.

That must have been very bad luck. 10 CR2 Cover axemen should be able to take out 3 archers easily.

I just set up a scenario in WorldBuilder, giving myself 10 CR2 Cover axes vs. 3 archers fortified in a 20% culture city. I even gave all the archers CG1. I still was getting around 80% odds with the axes, and took the city with only one loss.

Idk, I just never seem to pull the axemen rush successfully. And even if I did once, my economy was starined horribly, all I got was a well placed city with the size of 1 and nearly no improvements (which pretty much equals building a settler and expanding to a good spot..) - and a MONSTROUS tech disadvantage, I was getting writing while AIs were getting philosophy, not to mention my friend who was even further.

Maybe you did it too late? Because I honestly can't imagine how anyone, even Deity AI, could be getting Philosophy within the timeframe of an axe rush.

 

[*Svart*]

yeah, timing is important. You could also try an immortal rush using persia, it's so easy that it's like cheating

 

[Czacki]

I just set up a scenario in WorldBuilder, giving myself 10 CR2 Cover axes vs. 3 archers fortified in a 20% culture city. I even gave all the archers CG1. I still was getting around 80% odds with the axes, and took the city with only one loss.

Well, to be specific: it was 40% culture, I believe it also was a hill city (not sure). And only a few of my axes that were lucky enough to snipe some barbs along the way were CR2. The rest was CR1 and Cover, which I have gotten from an event.

Maybe you did it too late? Because I honestly can't imagine how anyone, even Deity AI, could be getting Philosophy within the timeframe of an axe rush.

Possibly. I struggled with a HORRIBLE start and extremely bad terrain, most of which was tundra. Even though I chopped/whipped the axes, the build speed was horrible (the city had a big problem to repopulate itself due to sterile lands and after whipping, the production took forever)

Also, it took about 20 turns to reach the enemy with my army. He wasn't exactly "next door".


Immortal rush sounds awesome though. Maybe I'll give up on hannibal and try it. I'm too attached to my never-failing horse archers army though, and hannibal's UU suits the withdrawal tactic well.

 

[Sian]

actually ... math have proved that War Chariots outpreform Immortals in all but fairly specific encounters (memory says archer defenders getting between 75-85% from fortification/cuture/hill/whatever)

sounds like you seriously need to learn to rush then ... my guideline is not to rush if theres room for more than 2 tight cities between us ... 3 if chariot rushing

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, to be specific: it was 40% culture, I believe it also was a hill city (not sure). And only a few of my axes that were lucky enough to snipe some barbs along the way were CR2. The rest was CR1 and Cover, which I have gotten from an event.



Possibly. I struggled with a HORRIBLE start and extremely bad terrain, most of which was tundra. Even though I chopped/whipped the axes, the build speed was horrible (the city had a big problem to repopulate itself due to sterile lands and after whipping, the production took forever)

Also, it took about 20 turns to reach the enemy with my army. He wasn't exactly "next door".


Immortal rush sounds awesome though. Maybe I'll give up on hannibal and try it. I'm too attached to my never-failing horse archers army though, and hannibal's UU suits the withdrawal tactic well.

Numidian Cavalry are worse vs more city defenders than horse archers. War chariots and immortals are WAY better than NC.

Anyway it all comes down to 1) your friend can't build every wonder and 2) wonders trade away alternatives, so they have to be in the right situation to give a net benefit.

Once in a while you get beaten to a wonder that gives you both a net benefit. Usually, however, it isn't game breaking.