What is the most balanced warmonger civ?

Infiltrator

Warlord
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I can't help but warmongering. Even when I try to do SV, CV, go tall or wide, somehow, I always end up destroying my opponents anyway.

I've just gotten BNW and wasnt there for the fall patch. What is, in your opinion, a civ that can wreck a continent FAST and continue to steamroll on the next one (thats what I mean with balanced) ? A lot of civs are one or the other, but I haven't tried the new civs much.
 
I've just gotten BNW and wasnt there for the fall patch. What is, in your opinion, a civ that can wreck a continent FAST and continue to steamroll on the next one (thats what I mean with balanced) ? A lot of civs are one or the other, but I haven't tried the new civs much.

My favorite are the Zulu - their 50% reduction in melee unit costs really allows you to field a lot more troops. Note, this doesn't apply too siege, archers, or horse. Combined with their special Barracks you get a unique upgrade path on pre-gunpowder units that makes them have awesome flanking bonuses, bombardment resistance, extra strength, defense, +1 movement...etc.

I usually have my first rush with spearmen as they upgrade directly into the impi. These should be enough to finish 1 or 2 civs depending on number of cities before you get unhappiness. Then settle back, build infrastructure and make sure you are not falling behind on tech.
Then rush again when you have impi. Since the Impi already throw their spears prior to attack you get a free bombardment anyway which reduces the need for backup archers or siege. Until mid-medieval you can probably field an army of all melee and still be crushing through everyone's cities. I didn't make any siege until walls and 13+ pop cities started appearing...impi were fine against anything before that. My standard practice is to surround the city with melee then attack all at once. I'll move the siege up behind (if I have any) after the first attack as the city will then attack the weakened impi. Luckily their bombard resistance makes it so they can take 3 hits before death so you rarely lose them. The impi will reduce capitols to dust in about 2 rounds.
You should be fine continuing to steamroll with the continually upgrading impi which will get a nice +50% vs. cities, march, etc. making them incredibly hard to kill. They will go head-to-head against musketmen too. They don't really obsolete until cannnons and riflemen. Luckily they upgrade into riflemen
3rd rush: awesome formerly impi riflemen with upped movement, resistance, flanking bonuses, etc. Continue to steamroll. If you're playing standard size you might kill everyone before artillery...which is good because this is where tech parity starts to get you if you've fallen behind in tech.
 
^^I guess that is one of the good warmongering civilizations. All military units are cheaper and are promoted faster.
 
^^I guess that is one of the good warmongering civilizations. All military units are cheaper and are promoted faster.

right, forgot to mention, the melee get a +30% boost to exp gathering rates too. reddishrecue is right
 
Zulu are hardly the most balanced warmongers. I'd go England (IMO the MOST balanced warmonger civ) - Comp. bow rush your enemies then upgrade to Longbows once cities become absurd. Ships of the Line to start knocking down the other continent(s).

My problem is that I try to get it all. I get the Great Lighthouse in every game, then the National College and only after do I go to war. Sometimes I also get Stonehenge, and then I have a religion so I try to get the Hagia Sofia/Borbadour/Grand Temple once I get to Theology.

But if you ignore religion you can go to war immediately after the NC. If you have a lot of land neighbors, get Bronze Working (to get a barracks and reveal iron) and then beeline for longbows. If you have just the one, then try to take them on with comp. bowmen while you get to Renaissance via the tech which gives Ships of the Line.

Another balanced warmonger civ is China, it plays similar to England sans the great navy but with a bit more early game gold.

Also you should consider Arabia as a balanced warmonger since their UU can conquer cities in the middle ages without netting in losses, yet all their other bonuses are considered good for playing something other than a rabid warmonger (a privilege the Zulus do NOT have)
 
Zulu are hardly the most balanced warmongers. I'd go England (IMO the MOST balanced warmonger civ) - Comp. bow rush your enemies then upgrade to Longbows once cities become absurd. Ships of the Line to start knocking down the other continent(s).

My problem is that I try to get it all. I get the Great Lighthouse in every game, then the National College and only after do I go to war. Sometimes I also get Stonehenge, and then I have a religion so I try to get the Hagia Sofia/Borbadour/Grand Temple once I get to Theology.

But if you ignore religion you can go to war immediately after the NC. If you have a lot of land neighbors, get Bronze Working (to get a barracks and reveal iron) and then beeline for longbows. If you have just the one, then try to take them on with comp. bowmen while you get to Renaissance via the tech which gives Ships of the Line.

Another balanced warmonger civ is China, it plays similar to England sans the great navy but with a bit more early game gold.

Also you should consider Arabia as a balanced warmonger since their UU can conquer cities in the middle ages without netting in losses, yet all their other bonuses are considered good for playing something other than a rabid warmonger (a privilege the Zulus do NOT have)

I don't agree with England. Longbows and Sotl are too close on tech tree that you can't use them one after another. By the time you finish up one continent with longbows people on the other continent already have subs. I think any civ that can dominate one continent as quickly as possible and then build up for another continent fits the OP's requirement. Therefore Hun's, Assyria, Rome come to mind.

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Assyria- their UA allows you to beeline military techs without falling behind in other areas. Even if you don't capitalize on their UU, Assyria is still a very good warmonger because of their ability to stay at tech parity even while dumping a lot of beakers into the bottom of the tree.

Germany- their maintenance reduction applies to all land units instead of just melee, it doesn't take much math skills to figure out that the typical civ V army is going to cost less for Bismarck than it does for Shaka. The barb conversion allows you to war early while not sacrificing your early build queue. The Hanse gives you extra hammers to build more buildings and troops. Basically extra gold and hammers that can allow you to take a less focused approach allowing you to have a backup VC lined up.

Arabia- The UU is one of the best in the game. The bazaar gives you extra trade gold. The UA gives extra oil which means more late game units.

Poland- Eh, they're good at anything, period. Hammers and Sopols can translate into anything. I'd like the winged hussars better if they didn't have such a stupid long wait for an upgrade. They're awesome in the Renaissance, ok in the industrial then just a drag on your economy for almost 2 eras. Worst aspect of Poland imo, luckily their UB and UA are both awesome.

Inca- The hill movement makes logistics a lot easier, the UI is good for growth and production and the reduced tile maintenance saves money and allows you to build roads to move troops that you probably wouldn't have built otherwise

Those would be my top 5 for a balanced warmonger approach (I assume you mean being able to warmonger and do something else as well) but any civ with production or science bonuses would be good for "balanced" warmongering imo since those are the two commodities that really translate into anything. I'd say gold but I find the larger you get the smaller the impact of gold purchases and warmongering generally means you get big. Better to have extra hammers in all of your cities than the ability to gold purchase in a few of them.

As far as wrecking a continent fast goes, no one beats the Huns, no one. Rush the wheel and bronze working and go crazy. You can worry about other stuff later. By the time you meet the civs on the other continent you can say "Yeah, it was weird, I started over here all by myself. Those cities? Yep I founded them all myself. I believe in peaceful prosperity and love of my fellow man :mischief:" They do have the added benefit of a few extra hammers from the UA which does help them in other areas too.
 
I love China. Papermakers make money as you catch up in tech, and when you upgrade your archers to cho0ku-nos, you in effect instantly double the size of your ranged army without added upkeep cost. Add in superior GGs out the wazoo.

The only trouble is you have to start transitioning from cho-ku-nos over to trebuchets, or you stall out. Once I start rolling, I don't like to stop as long as I keep happiness +.
 
Zulu are hardly the most balanced warmongers. I'd go England (IMO the MOST balanced warmonger civ) - Comp. bow rush your enemies then upgrade to Longbows once cities become absurd. Ships of the Line to start knocking down the other .

But if you ignore religion you can go to war immediately after the NC. If you have a lot of land neighbors, get Bronze Working (to get a barracks and reveal iron) and then beeline for longbows. If you have just the one, then try to take them on with comp. bowmen while you get to Renaissance via the tech which gives Ships of the Line.

Another balanced warmonger civ is China, it plays similar to England sans the great navy but with a bit more early game gold.

Also you should consider Arabia as a balanced warmonger since their UU can conquer cities in the middle ages without netting in losses, yet all their other bonuses are considered good for playing something other than a rabid warmonger (a privilege the Zulus do NOT have)

I also have to agree with this one because longbowmen start with the range promotion, making them invincible to enemy cities that are in flat ground or any other units that are in range. With the starting range promotion, longbowmen can inflict damage only if the land is smooth. If you get the longbowmen on top of hills, you don't need indirect fire to target opponents.
 
Ottomans are good for this. Build a swarm of triremes and hunker down in the early game. Then rush to gunpowder and caravels to explode onto the scene. Jannisaries own, and the naval epidemic rocks if you get early caravels. The only must-have wonder is Great Lighthouse, but you can often grab that early since most others will be aiming for Great Library first.
 
ill throw a vote in for russia..strategic resources for frigates, longswords, horses etc and once you get cossacks it gets insane...tanks upgraded from cossacks are ridiculously powerful with the 66% stacking charge bonus
 
I'd like to put up a vote for Germany, simply because getting free units from Encampments is HUGE in terms of avoiding a lot of opportunity cost. Instead of building that extra Archer or Swordsman, you can use your production for a Granary, or a Monument, or some other building you wouldn't otherwise have at that time.

This means you can be more adaptable; your build order isn't suffering. Also, you pay less to maintain that army.
 
England is the most balanced Warring Civ ;2 top tier UU for continents style play. 2 spys help you reach parity while you venture to machinery.
 
I really like America for a generic warmonger civ. Generally I'll try and get into war around the time I can first get mustketmen online (having already picked up education) and go slow at first, getting xp for my units and depleting the opponents army to replacement levels, all the while teching towards artillery. Cannons will absolutely destroy a poorly upgraded city. It's totally fine to end up with a 2 front war at this point, more xp for me and more targets for later. Then once artillery come online the blitz begins. I'll have a great defensive line that can get into strong defensive positions and retreat easily with upgraded muskets. Combine that with like 5 artillery pounding on a single city you will take that thing down in no time. Later on, the B-17 is a great UU to just spam to infinity. Its free upgrades mean that in a developed city it can pick up things like air repair out of the box. It's not a strong UA, but the extra visibility is useful for warmongering throughout the game.

What difficulty you're playing at is really going to matter. On higher difficulties there's a period in late classical/medieval where you're going to be behind on tech no matter how well you played, which can make it hard to wage war, but that also happens to be where a lot of the most ridiculously OP UUs are located. On middle difficulties its more practical to rush into those UUs and get to use them against some equal or more backwards armies early on, which makes a big difference.
 
China is my option. The general bonuses are also applied to Great admirals. Papermakers make things MUCH easier on a domination game, and you don't have to deviate at all as is already a top priority building. Chu-ko-nu is one of the best UUs in the game.

Zulu is a great warmonger, but doesn't cut it out (as balanced warmonger). Melee units are a minority in any human army so the maintenance discount is not that great. You get insane promotions, but to do so, you need specific play-styles. Specific doesn't get along well with Balanced.
 
^^^ What he said. The only issue is transitioning from x-bows/cho-ku-nos to trebuchets/cannons. The CKNs are much better than a trebuchet for knocking down cities, but you have to start building trebs them before you use them. If not, when you upgrade to GGs, you will have no firepower (unless you get range promotion).
 
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