What era do you declare war in?

[corruptionsucks]

It seems like all the battles I've initiated seem to involve either calvary, or tanks. Any other era, I lose too many units to make war impractical.

I've played 5 games so far, one at Noble, one at Prince, and 3 at Monarch.

In all instances, I've only declared war when I've gotten calvary or tanks. Every other time, it was futile for me to declare in the early stages of the game, even with knights or war elephants. Longbowmen, then rifleman basically demand that my units be much stronger, or that I invade with an overwhelming force. Since at monarch I have to pick my battles wisely, losing 4 swordsman to defeat 1 longbowman is too much for my economy to handle. So essentially I try to get military tradition (calvary) or industrialism (tanks) before whoever I want to fight gets it.

I guess my question is, is anyone else doing battle in the other eras successfully?

It's getting a bit tedious when my battles all involve the same preparation (build up bombers, tanks, artillery, invade city).

One good point however, is that the AI also has difficulty waging war in the pre-industrial eras. I've been declared on many times, but those longbowmen are great defenders for at least 1000 game-years.

 

[Adam7Eight]

I was the same way in Civ3. I always avoided war as much as possible until I could build Cavalry. Once I could build Cavalry, I didn't care about going to war and often looked forward to it. It will probably be the same way with Civ4. Don't know though, I've only go that far once since I've been testing a lot of stuff out.

I think the biggest reason I avoid any wars early on is because I like to build up culture and infrastructure instead of wasting a lot of production on units with only a couple of cities capable of producing them. Not to mention it takes forever to reach another Civ's cities on a larger map with foot soldiers and no roads so early in the game...

 

[Viperace]

I suspect that a very early war with chariot or horse archer is viable.

 

[Dida]

No, very early war with Axemen and Macemen are the best. I usually rule my continent by the time I have calvary.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

In my current game, I have already had two massive conflicts with Rome in the late BC early AD period-all with LBM, archers, spearmen and chariots/horsearchers-it was MASSIVE!!! War DOES take more thought in Civ4 though, I have found.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Dagoth Ur]

When I get cavalry. Usually, the AI still has several cities with non-upgraded longbows or even spearmen still in them. I always hit those first. Easy to take with a few cavs.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I was thinking about writing a strategy article about this, "the 4 Ages of War."

Main city attackers:
1. Swords / +a few cover defenders of each defensive type. This usually goes for all eras.
2. Macemen / +Catapults if the civ you are attacking is strong. Use artillary from now on.
3. Riflemen / +Cavalry if the civ you are attacking is backwards.
4. Tanks / I usually have the world conquered by now, so I need to move up a difficulty level...haven't really used tanks yet.

There are many inbetween levels of what attackers to use, but you get the basic idea that war can be successfully waged through every era - just have enough of the right kinds of units with good promotions.

 

[alvinthegreat]

Tanks are quiet useless if you don't bring ALOT of artillary. They can't take a Machine Gun in 1v1 in a defended city....sad

 

[Nestorius]

Ancient age is all I have down for warfare. All you need is two or three suicide catapults per city and your army will be untouched.

 

[Dragonlor]

I declare wars whenever it is in my best interest. It doesn't matter what era it is. They are all enjoyable.

 

[weasel77066]

Any age I can fully exploit a weakness, or the first damn time I see a lone settler. Heck sometimes Im easy and just go for a worker,

 

[banffBug]

war can come at any time, but your purpose should be clearcut. why take this city and not that one? can both be taken at once? even a war that only involves pillaging and unit combat, no city razing attempts, can benefit you with unit exp and weaken your opponent's economy so their threat to your future success is minimallized. Harrassment can net you workers too! get some fast units for this, ones that can heal while moving mixed with good defenders on hills and you will rule the battlefield. it's easy to defend a citytile, but harder to defend all 21 and then some. a city cant even work a tile occupied by an enemy, so move in. destroy roads, eliminate their movement bonus that you don't get anymore. era doesn't matter, you'll know the right time to invade and pump out some units.

no pointless wars on close neibours w/ large shared borders. they should be your trading partner. I find i leave the weaker civs alone instead of conquering, trying to position myself wisely against the stronger civs, on prince anyway loads of variables thou. how many neibours? what maptype? what resourses/position will war provide?

i began my first successful prince level game a few days ago, a stnd lakes map, rocky terrain. my first war was accident (hit yes instead when moving into a unit) against china, but took one border city choked between a large lake and the tundra plains, 4 or 5 squares from beijing. declared peace asap, had my capital pushing for a great artist to plop down in my new city so it wouldn't revolt. attacking for his capital would have invited eager neibours to my back door with pitchforks. instead china is guarenteed 4th place at best due to their military development/minimal expanision efforts in the timeframe of our war.

this was a battle of my many inferior chariots (4 str w/ 6 exp) and catapults against archers, axemen, and swordsmen. my units surrounded his city, pillaged all improvement squares they could get to, and stole the city easy after suicide catapaults.

my second war was soon after (half the chariots in the conquered city rushed out to my new front), and i researched horsearcher (6 str) tech, building new units, but still needed iron. aztecs asked me to war egypt, who just settled my potential iron city during the rather drawn out siege. i agreed and quickly took a key egypt city and called peace again as i saw egypts score plummet from my minor attack. i really wanted to press the attack to a second city, however the game has been intense and tight (not used to prince) and i'm enjoying the results of sound strategy in this game.

baby steps

back to civ 4

 

[corruptionsucks]

What level are you guys playing at?

On noble, even prince, I had the game well in hand by the time I had calvary. On monarch, I've had to play till the bitter end (either space or diplomacy) because I couldn't fight any prolonged war, and come out ahead.

Last game, I was the score leader by double, and had 50% land and population, but the other civs were dug in with the mechs and stealth fighters so I couldn't engage them in a winning war, just one to irritate them enough so they didn't build the spaceship.

I've yet to fight a prolonged modern war where both sides have equal technology. That would be something to behold (or fear!) It's always better, of course, to have better weapons, but when you are on equal footing, military tactics such as baiting and luring the enemy are essential.

 

[Mythrl]

ancient era wars...on noble and prince i found axemen and swordsmen combo works well and just use cats to soften up the cities first.

I'm in the middle on my first monarch game and I've been at war for most of the game...not by choice but the aztecs keep attacking me. I've been using spearmen to hold off their horse archers and now I'm moving on their cities with the aformentioned swordsmen/axemen/cats no problem so far except I'm falling behind mansu in the tech race pretty badly. Oh and I have no horses, can't find anyone who has to trade, and I'm the russians so i'm hoping i find some before i get cossacks.

 

[Dairuka]

The moment I get Construction. I declare war.

The moment I get Steel. I declare war.

The moment I get Artillery. I declare war.

The moment I get Flight. I declare war.

 

[Alphidius]

The moment I get Construction. I declare war.

The moment I get Steel. I declare war.

The moment I get Artillery. I declare war.

The moment I get Flight. I declare war.

Cool!!
Best post regarding war so far
I totally agree with at least Construction for Catapults!
End game wars are just too laggy IMHO.

 

[deleted_scenes]

I tend to go on my first war of expansion once I get macemen and xbows. I usually have a slight tech lead by then, and a couple city raider promotions (from barracks and theocracy) make macemen really nasty.

 

[warpstorm]

The moment I get Horses hooked up.
The moment I get Iron hooked up.
The moment I get Steel.
etc.

 

[baboon]

My biggest problem is usually to build the troups in time. Suicide catapults are great, but you need to build new ones after that. And I was screwing up with trying to kill horse archers by horse archers. Pikemen are a lot better at it.

 

[Edward The Big]

I've found, playing as the Romans...That War Elephants are nearly unstoppable in the early part of the game....I completely wiped out the Aztecs simply with a blitzkrieg of War Elephants....