Warring emperor player trying to get better

[Unique]

Hello!
Some time lurker, emperor player here trying to get better. I've read the forums, but here are early game issues that still trouble me most (follow-up on https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ion-5-lets-play-series-japan-immortal.657614/).
Tell what I'm not doing right! Thanks a lot!
I’ve decided to start by learning how to play a warring style and skip the “straightforward” unit-spamming civs (Shonghai, Mongol). Standard size, speed, pangea.

1) As a warring civ, I usually don't try to found a religion and rather conquer a Holy City later. Is it OK? May I skip shrines once I have my pantheon?
2) Authority or Progress? I usually take Authority, build max cap units right away, fight literally all the time and settle no more than 2 cities. But maybe better to take Progress, develop a bit more and then start fighting in the classical era.
3) What is the n°1 goal of pre-classical wars: capturing smaller AI cities, limiting their expansion to settle more of your own cities, crippling their economy and sniping units for XP?
4) What is the optimal pre-classical army composition? After the recent archer nerf I've tried going full melee with 6-7 warriors-spearmen, but I still have better success with 4 archers + 2/3 melee. I struggle with chariot archers: effective to cripple the AI at the beginning, but harder to transition to capturing cities in the classical era.
5) What is the earliest army composition required to capture capitals or holy cities with walls? Do I need catapults or are composite bowmen OK?
6) I tribute heavily, all the time. But did anyone do the math comparing tributing vs. CS bonuses over 100+ turns?
7) If I'm at war all the time, should I still care about wonders or are additional units always a better use of my hammers?

 

[andersw]

Just skimmed through the zero and 1 video to see setup and such.
Now I play emperor diff epic speed so keep that in mind since you play immortal.

1. It depends a bit what sort of warmongering game you want to have and what setup you use but yes its ok to skip religion if you find that it works for you.
With that said, Hero worship and orders is super strong as warmonger and great for founding and in particular as Japan and Sweden worth skipping a LOT of other early goals for.
(council of elders is also a strong warmonger option)
Some play on tighter maps which favours rush strats more and you're more likely to have a juicy religion to capture, but chances are that the best warmonger religion is built by Aztecs or another warmonger which may be more difficult to roll over (aztecs tend to found very early and loves to grab hero worship).
If you play with more room which typically leans towards a bit later agression and more expansion you will lose on opportunities from not having a religion.
I want to found in my games and usually go shrine first in non capital cities to achieve that.

2. I use authority but I also have epic speed, raging barbs and low sea (more room which prob increase barbs a bit), with less barbs authority drops a bit in use.
I like the free hammers and free units at size 10 even if I dont fight until trebs.

3. For me? exp, crippling neighbour and yields from kills.
(If I can roll over and delete a neighbour with spears I'm likely to abandon the game because I'm too far ahead.)

4. Drill promoted, Mandelkalu cav, Elephants, Jaguars and Spears.
But depends a bit on terrain, mostly spear and one horseman to snipe archers also works, (but I'm not a huge fan of the super early wars).
An AI capital on flatland with surrounding flatland terrain is particularly vulnerable, choose your target carefully.

6. Heavy tribute are so nerfed I only use it in the very early game when the yields are worth several turns of income.
If there are strong state craft AIs will try to conquer allied CS (if they are too close to me) before wars with said AI.
Otherwise I find the quest yields superior.

7. Wars hurt your happiness and you are likely not able to produce much units because of additional skyrocketing costs.
So in general lose as few units as possible and build infra structure, purchase reinforcements or build in short downtime periods when warweariness is lower.
If you try to play a unit trade war with the AI you are likely to dig yourself into a deep holy pretty quick.
No wonders are needed but Great wall is very very op, and you also deny it from the AI by building it, saving yourself a LOT of headache.
Terracotta is nice to have but not needed.
Everything else is optional, I mean mostly they are good if you're able to cram them in.

 

[tothePAIN]

Terracotta as a warmonger is must have. Worth rushing. Stronger than great wall even. The culture is the strongest culture wonder if you're warring constantly.

 

[Unique]

Thnks @andersw and @tothePAIN!

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Longtime Emperor player that pretty much wins every Emperor game but struggles a bit on Immortal here, not sure if my strategy is the best here but yo might find some of it useful.
1) As a warring civ, I usually don't try to found a religion and rather conquer a Holy City later. Is it OK? May I skip shrines once I have my pantheon?
Getting a religion tailored for your play style would make the game a lot easier and in my experience is worth prioritizing over other things including ancient era wars, i usually start waging wars on classical or early medieval if i'm competing for a key wonder or land.
Some beliefs would net you more hammers and get you most of your investment, Orders for a warmonger is like a free extra barracks giving all of your units Morale (+10%) and enough XP to get Drill or Shock II netting +20% CS .... Hero worship for Japan, Sweden or The Celts if you use 4th UC is more than a must ..... Divine Teaching let's you keep up in science without switching off your units production to build universities..... Zealotry is amazing if you intend to go Fealty and went wide enough.

2) Authority or Progress? I usually take Authority, build max cap units right away, fight literally all the time and settle no more than 2 cities. But maybe better to take Progress, develop a bit more and then start fighting in the classical era.
I'm not sure what's the consensus on this but i usually find progress much better and serves you as a warmonger much better on the long run especially after nerf to tributes.


3) What is the n°1 goal of pre-classical wars: capturing smaller AI cities, limiting their expansion to settle more of your own cities, crippling their economy and sniping units for XP?
The only time i go to war pre-classical is to snatch a settler or cripple a very close neighbor so the next time i actually go to war with them i'm at a better position to win.

4) What is the optimal pre-classical army composition? After the recent archer nerf I've tried going full melee with 6-7 warriors-spearmen, but I still have better success with 4 archers + 2/3 melee. I struggle with chariot archers: effective to cripple the AI at the beginning, but harder to transition to capturing cities in the classical era.
Spears and Spear replacements with drill are the way to go with one or two horse to snipe archers and chariots; chariots are very terrain dependent and stop being relevant once spears get online.
Archers are only considered few turns before researching mathematics if i have spare gold so i can instantly upgrade them into composites.

5) What is the earliest army composition required to capture capitals or holy cities with walls? Do I need catapults or are composite bowmen OK?
I dislike catapults and i think they really need somesort of a buff, composites and skirmishers do just fine .... I tend to go with 5 or 6 skirmishers,a couple of composites and a single horseman to deliver the final blow to the city and retreat if possible.

6) I tribute heavily, all the time. But did anyone do the math comparing tributing vs. CS bonuses over 100+ turns?
I have not done the math on this but i don't think it's worth it at all after the nerf; CS quests and yields are much more valuable IMO.

7) If I'm at war all the time, should I still care about wonders or are additional units always a better use of my hammers?
Key wonders make your life as a warmonger much easier; Terracotta army is something you always want to get if you intend to go to war .... the culture produced by it is more than enough to get you through most of medieval era without having to build amphitheaters or work the guilds so you can solely focus on producing units without falling behind -if not leading- in terms of policy count.

 

[DaniSciB]

1) As a warring civ, I usually don't try to found a religion and rather conquer a Holy City later. Is it OK? May I skip shrines once I have my pantheon?

If you're playing domination from the start, I honestly think it's better to forget about religion... Except when the stars align or you're playing with the Aztecs, the Celts or Spain.

To found a religion being so focused on the military is quite complicated, especially in high difficulty... Not to mention getting a decent religion since things like Hero Worship and Orders are quite desired by the AI for some reason.

I think it's better to get your pantheon and focus on conquering a Holy City.

2) Authority or Progress? I usually take Authority, build max cap units right away, fight literally all the time and settle no more than 2 cities. But maybe better to take Progress, develop a bit more and then start fighting in the classical era.

Authority is painfully inconsistent.

There are many things that can go wrong. Not finding a respectable number of barbarians, not having City States in convenient positions, not having neighbors nearby.

If you play on any other map than Pangaea in many instances you will find that opening Authority is not even an option.

However, Authority when played well gives you a great opportunity to wipe out everything in your path quite easily. High risk, high reward.

Progress is weak at first, but it gets stronger and stronger. The opposite of Authority.

Despite this, you can play Progress and focus on infrastructure during the Early Game and later on start the war machine during the mid game or even the end of the classic era. This strategy is surprisingly strong with Spain or Rome for example, as Spain practically assures you a religion if you keep expanding, gives you lots of hammers in early game and then during the Mid Game you will become a super power thanks to the conquistadors. And in the case of Rome, your UA becomes more powerful as time goes by and the legions are terrifying when they are decently promoted (A Legion with Drill 3, City Assault, Stelwart and Cover 2 is not a Legion... Is a God).

3) What is the n°1 goal of pre-classical wars: capturing smaller AI cities, limiting their expansion to settle more of your own cities, crippling their economy and sniping units for XP?

If I play Authority. Conquer cities and kill as many troops as possible. This means, Experience, Culture, Science and crippling my enemies.

If I play Progress. Experience, steal workers or settlers.

4) What is the optimal pre-classical army composition? After the recent archer nerf I've tried going full melee with 6-7 warriors-spearmen, but I still have better success with 4 archers + 2/3 melee. I struggle with chariot archers: effective to cripple the AI at the beginning, but harder to transition to capturing cities in the classical era.

Archers are very bad once cities get walls. That being the case, you want to get catapults as soon as possible and the Compos won't do a better job than catapults in that regard.

Focusing on getting experience for your infantry early is very good.

5) What is the earliest army composition required to capture capitals or holy cities with walls? Do I need catapults or are composite bowmen OK?

Infantry + Siege Machines.

4-6 Infantry

3-4 Capatults.

The infantry should have City Assault.

A couple of Horso Bois wouldn't be bad.

The trouble with Compos is: they're not as efficient as Catapults for sieging walled cities... And trust me... You want to be "Efficient" (I'm watching you... Tradition Capital)

Compos are more of a defensive troop than an offensive one, in my opinion. Chariots and Skirmirshers are not siege troops. They're troops that specialize in weakening enemy lines.

6) I tribute heavily, all the time. But did anyone do the math comparing tributing vs. CS bonuses over 100+ turns?

No idea.

7) If I'm at war all the time, should I still care about wonders or are additional units always a better use of my hammers?

Key Wonders. Statue of Zeus and Terracotta Army are excellent... The rest... You're going to conquer them.

 

[tothePAIN]

One thing I would add about warring - there are windows for war. You have to figure out how to have an advantage against the AI. One advantage is keeping units alive and getting them highly promoted, but this isn't enough at times. Another advantage is saving up gold, upgrading units right after getting a key military tech, and attacking. Or attacking when your unique unit comes online. Or before the enemy has a chance to build the current defenses, while your units are still strong relevant to their defenses.

I agree with DaniSciB - if you're warring at the higher levels as authority, just focus on war. If you don't succeed, you'll fall behind in techs and not snowball.