Warmongers - How Do You Do It?

[CaptainCommando]

One thing about Conquest victories is half the time they end up as Domination victories because you control so much land.

Anyway, when i choose warmongering, i'm usually very peaceful through the Ancient Age, because all the unit's attack and defense values are so close, but once the Middle Ages start, and i have Knights and Pikemen and stuff, it's total war, and all that peace time in the ancient world spent building roads and marketplaces and stuff helps finance my war machine :soldier:
(This is also a great time for Golden Ages, Sun Tzu, Sistine Chapel, Bach's Cathedral, some of the best wonders in the game!)

Start by picking on weaker neighbors, preferably those without Iron or horses, or some other vital resource. Capture their cities, or if you don't care about your reputation, raze them and bring in your own settlers behind your armies to settle conquered territory so you dont have to deal with resistors.

Also, try to sign as many alliances as you can, both to make it harder for your victim, and to keep other Civs from getting angry at you for annhilating someone else

Usually by the late Middle Ages I'll discover the "other" continent (I always play with continents) and they'll all be relatively small empires sharing territory, while I own my entire continent, or most of it.

In the early Industrial ages, I usually go peaceful, build lots of hospitals and upgrade my units, and rush captured cities for improvements like temples and libraries to keep them happy. I don't go to war because Infantry are such a pain to kill until you get Bombers and Tanks, so as for military, spend this time building LOTS of transport ships and offensive naval units, these are seriousely underrated and can be very useful.

I usually build a massive Air Force of Bombers, and a ridiculous amount of tanks with factories in almost every city (These can be financed with all the spoils of war you've been winning since medieval times) Then load the Tanks into your transports, sail across the ocean and declare war. Don't forget to exploit old hatreds and rivalries by signing alliances with other civs on the continent, then, if you opted to go for a big air force, re-base your planes on the new continent and wreak havoc.

Of course, this is just the way I do things, and of course, it's not as if it always works, or i always stick to this one plan, sometimes someone will declare war on me in ancient times or early industrial and screw my plans all up

Anyway, what i intended to be a couple paragraphs turned into an essay, so i'll just conclude with I play on Monarch, and will soon be moving up because I can win almost everytime consistently, so maybe my old strategies will become useless once i hit higher difficulties. Anyhow good luck and happy conquering :tank:

 

[immortals84]

When you have alot of luxeries, its easy to go to war in a democracy.

 

[AdHHH]

I finally won a domination victory, as Japan. It was a tiny map with myself and the French on one continent, Iroquois and the Mayans on the other. I rushed the French with archers and took Paris, so i had the whole continent to myself very early on. When I met the Mayans, they and Iroquois were ahead in tech but I eventually caught them up. Anyway it was looking bad, they signed MPP and ROP with each other, but suddenly the weaker Iroquois attacked the Mayans, and started gettin whooped. I didnt have an army prepared, so I gave the Iroquois some spare resources and tech until i got myself ready. Having built 20-30 units i landed on their main continent, taking a city in a few turns and then quickly pushing through. After Id taken their smaller islands I hit their capital and finally pushed past the 66% land mark (I already had 50% population before the war). It was only on Warlord, but its a start. My only gripe was that i got no MGLs and no SGLs all game (although no surprise on the latter).
Thanks for the advice - might even move up to Prince now hehe

 

[Randy]

I like the Aztecs, attack first civ you find. Do jag rush

 

[explodin dog]

lately ive preferred ancient/middle ages war to industrial/modern war.. the latter seem to take a bit too long (not only getting to but sometimes you might not have as good production)
also the idea of rushing some barbaric civ with masses of archers and swords sounds so awesome

one of the most important things as far as what to do when you capture a city is..

raze every single last bloody city!!

no. it hurts your rep you say? we are war mongering, in the early game. looking for a win by 1000ad at the latest!!!
razing is also good in the case of that annoying resisting city that everyone captures now and then. also, it isnt any better than fortifying on plain neutral/friendly territory for regenning your units. so unless you want to go for a domination win, raze them cities of peasants! they had it coming for em, dont feel bad :soldier:

usually though, i would send out a settler to the site of the former city and make my next one there (if theres a nice resource or terrain or position there)

archer rushes work well if you have a close neighbor. if you get a good start position (a nice long river works well) and manage to get some hills around there, you can usually create 2-3 cities and then mass produce archers every 2-4 turns, then just rush em. i did this to the hittites and the iroquois. also the iroquois are nice for early war mongering. get a decent sized empire with about 3-5 cities that can produce a mounted warrior every 2-4 turns. i overwhelmed byzantium and zulu this way many times, somewheres along the line of 20-30 mounted warriors.

also rome is cool if you can get iron working quick, a source of iron, and cities that produce pretty well.

so basically to sum it up

1. start on a river or lake
2. get a decent early empire of 3-5 cities with good surrounding terrain
3. let them grow to about size 5-6
4. these should produce anywhere from 6-10 shields each turn if you do it right with hills around, yielding swords or mounted warriors or whatever early UU every 2-5 turns
5. commence neutralization of weaker CIVS! :die:

 

[AdHHH]

Im on a roll now, won as Zulu. It was a domination, on tiny pangea, but hey, at least Im winning Was about 5 techs ahead thanks to goody huts, rushed archers onto Japan and then took Scandanavia and eventually the Aztecs with newly acquired knights just as i won domination. It would have had to be conquest but I got an SGL with which i rushed ToA, which in turn made my borders fly outwards. The only scary thing was i usually play with raging barbarians - and this time they were raging! There were 2 stacks of 25 of barbarian horsemen just in the neutral pockets of my borders (which, even at Warlord would be enough to take 1 city). They were surprisingly organised too, they held a position i wanted to establish a city in and I was too focused on the war with the 'real' civs to fight them.
PS I was also impressed with the Zulu Impi as i could defend a worker and city thanks to the movement point.

 

[Norlamand]

There is a great article by Sir Pleb (I believe) that helped me greatly. There are others with great advice as well.
When warmongering I nearly always choose a militaristic civ for the obvious reasons, but it need not always be so. I prefer mobile units (horsemen) over slower units (archers, swordsmen). Rapid movement of troops to the right place and the ability to retreat (and thus live longer) both help.
Start early! Civs are easiest to kill when they are infants! If you are lucky you can attack your first civ, force them to give you all their gold and tech and still finish them off before any other civs meet them. Your reputation remains clean as dead men tell no tales.
The rest is up to you. Some prefer to use catapults and cannons, but I prefer masses of horsemen/knights. Use your generated Great Leaders to your advantage and rush any Wonders you can or build armies. Don't hold on to the leaders for long, you'll get more so spend them while you have them.