when is the best time to attack

[chisox1976]

Just wanted some input on when is the best time to attack. I play vanilla and noble, I dont attack other civs til about 1100 AD. Am I waiting too long.I usually get machinary and then have my macemen take out a civ next to me. Preferably with a religion. Sometimes I wait til calvary with a liberalism slingshot. Just wondering if I should attack sooner or not.

 

[manu-fan]

Yes, you should attack sooner!

After Bronze-working, if you can hook up Copper, get a bunch of Axemen and take out your nearest rival.

If no copper, get Iron and get a bunch of Swordsmen/Axemen and take out your nearest rival.

Then, I usually wait until Catapults to go on the offensive again against someone else.

So, for my wars, it's usually:

1. Axe or Sword/Axe
2. Sword/Axe with Catapults
3. Macemen with Catapults
4. Grenadiers with Catapults
5. Grenadiers with Cannons

etc etc.

That's if you want to play a real warmongering style.

Cheers.

 

[DigitalBoy]

You can attack civs much earlier than that if you wanted to. If you set your mind to it, an effective war before 1AD is not at all unfeasible. In fact, I find that the hardest part of waging early wars is not the actual war itself but paying maintenance for newly conquered territory.

If you want to wage early wars, you'll want at least one production heavy city in your first three cities. Not all of them need to production cities; in fact, you'll need some well developed commerce cities to help pay maintenance. Slavery is useful for fast hammers too, but be careful how you use it.

Swordsmen and axemen are staple city raiders. Catapults are useful too, but you only really need them for enemy capitals as their border cities are typically lightly garrisoned with low culture defense. Waiting for catapults (they're pretty high up on the tech tree compared to your basic melee units) may not be advisable if you want to use speed to get the jump on an undefended opponent.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Speed is a lot more important than brute force. If a chariot rush is fast enough, you may be facing only warriors or a couple of archers, with at most 40% cultural defense. Nothing, I mean nothing, is better than taking an enemy capital, for boasting your empire's development, if you could do it.

 

[gettingfat]

When I see my neighbour fairly close and I get access to copper, I'll plan for an early war. I understand if my neighbour does not suffer early enough, I'll suffer later.

When I can build chariot UU (immortals or war chariots) before 1500 BC, I'll go for a chariot rush.

No copper, no horse but I find iron later: it depends. If my neighbour is not too far away a CR swordman/axes/spears combo are useful, but if my targeted neighbour is sort of far and teching well good chance is he will get feudalism and build longbows very early. I'll wait till the discovery of construction if that's the case. This is especially true if I see elephants. The elephant/cats/axes combo will do the job well.

Once after everybody gets feudalism, it's better to wait till the discovery of gunpowder and go either grenadiers or cavalry. The exception is when I play Isabella. I'll beeline engineering and crank out the CR2 (and even CR3) seige weapons like no tomorrow.

Early wars are usually better than late wars. The accumulated culture of your enemies is a real nuisance

 

[Kietharr]

On noble or below, 6 axemen with CR1 are an acceptable force for an early war verses a close neighbor. The faster you strike the less time they have to prepare. At this point in the game most AI are focused on expansion and setting up their economy rather than pumping out archers. You should be facing no more than 6 unpromoted archers and maybe a couple of spearmen and axemen if you strike ASAP.

 

[chisox1976]

what is cr1 or cr2

 

[Hero]

cr= City Raider = the +% city attack promotion

 

[Kietharr]

Yup, the second reason for starting very early wars (other than allowing yourself more room to expand and more land, higher score ect.) is you will get lots of swordsmen and axemen with CR 2-3 which can be promoted to riflemen, infantry, and mech infantry with city raider which is very useful, as the promotion is unavailable to them normally. I have 3 grenadiers with CR3 in my current game, and combined with a few suicide cannons they take a city as quickly as a stack of 10 combat 1/pinch grenadiers. An early war really only backfires by carrying it on too long or being too successful and overexpanding, although overexpansion isn't a trouble if you've got a couple of great cities running a specialist economy.

 

[Infantry#14]

one trick i find out in one of my games is that if I know I cant take the city (too many defenders) and there is a settler there, I leave the city. I wait 2-3 turns to let the settler go out. The AI usullly escort the settler with at least 2-3 archers. Then I quickly race back to the enemy city and finish off what I started. Works great with the chariot rush as I can kill the escorting archers and take the city.

 

[axident]

I just finished my fastest rush game ever but don't want to type the whole story out again; the full story is at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=212219

Basically if you really want to be a pain in the ass to someone, 1100 AD is way late. You can park a warrior on a forested hilltop in someone's fat cross and run them over with axemen ASAP and then declare peace. Let the AI found a second city; you don't want it, you want the CAPITAL city. By the time their 2nd city--and now ONLY city since you took their capital--becomes a threat, you will have more than enough troops to deal with it. In the meantime, you can screw over yet another neighbor with your surviving axemen, if you want to.

 

[Stumpy123]

Hitting the enemy early, fast, and hard can cripple them permanently. I played a Prince game as Julius Caesar, and nailed the Zulu before they got iron or copper, and therefore Impi. I managed to kill off some of their early cities before they really got dug in, as well as some of their settlers as well. Naturally, their economy was crippled, I got a few workers out of the deal, and it isolated their capital, making it much easier to finish them off. This is one of the best lessons I learned in my Civ III days, and is generally mandatory for survival the higher up you go. Overcoming the reservations of early warfare is arguably the most important thing to learn; your chances are often better to attack now rather than waiting.

 

[BCLG100]

I normally aim to have someone killed by the AD's which often ends up with someone being dead about 100-200AD.

 

[Disgustipated]

Yes, you should attack sooner!

After Bronze-working, if you can hook up Copper, get a bunch of Axemen and take out your nearest rival.

If no copper, get Iron and get a bunch of Swordsmen/Axemen and take out your nearest rival.

Then, I usually wait until Catapults to go on the offensive again against someone else.

So, for my wars, it's usually:

1. Axe or Sword/Axe
2. Sword/Axe with Catapults
3. Macemen with Catapults
4. Grenadiers with Catapults
5. Grenadiers with Cannons

etc etc.

That's if you want to play a real warmongering style.

Cheers.

that seems too much. How do you control maintenance costs?

I attack after iron working usually. then again after cavalry. Then again after tanks.

 

[Leifmk]

Hell, you can fight effective wars at the very beginning. Unless you've got a good early-game UU you probably won't be taking cities, but simple Warriors suffice to steal workers, pillage terrain improvements, and keep the enemy cooped up inside their cities for a while. This can cripple your neighbours and give you an advantage in early growth which you can leverage into whatever you please later.

 

[Leveler]

that seems too much. How do you control maintenance costs?

Raze & pillage. Capture only best cities and don't get tempted to capture cities only to grab land.

 

[Andraeianus I]

It really depends what a good time is to attack. I am playing on emperor and then in a game there are only a few moments in a game that you are on par in military terms. In my last game I started on a continent with two other civs. Montezuma was closest and I took him by surprise by an attack with properly promoted archers(!) I was playing Churchill, so you can promote archers to cover with just barracks. My attack with 4 warriors and 4 cover promoted archers was good enough to conquer a vital city, which was defended by two archers. Eventually I conquered all his lands and in the end after destroying him I abandoned my offensive army in order not to go bankrupt. Although I cottaged a lot and emphasized all my cities on commerce it took some time to get the economy going again. Eventually I lost the game because on the other continent Cyrus was so much technologically ahead that he won the space race. After my first conquest I never had the chance to play an offensive war again (in fact it was my only war). I was too much behind technologically. I had longbowmen, they had riflemen. I had redcoats, they had infantry. I had infantry they had mech infantry...) But to be honest: a second war wasn't advisable, as this would put me only farther behind and I had the biggest landmass anyway.

Maybe I shouldn't have disbanded my army and should I have destroyed the Celts who where the other civ on my continent. Or at least have hurt them significantly. But this wouldn't have solved the problem of the faraway leading civ. And a good trading neighbour (open borders!) is a good way to grow economically pre-astronomy.

So in general: a good moment to attack is when you are at least equal in military technology. The good person to attack is someone who is disliked a lot as this won't give you diplomatic penalties or this friendly -but annoying- neighbour of yours...

 

[cabert]

that seems too much. How do you control maintenance costs?

I attack after iron working usually. then again after cavalry. Then again after tanks.

too much?
What is this?

If you play for conquest or early domination, there is no such thing as too much.
You should look at S05 beat the clock in the Succession Games

 

[shmily_dana]

My last game was a duel against one ai. We were on a peanut shapped land mass. The vikings were close to the midpoint of the land mass. If they get one more city, I'm cut off from the larger western portion. I know it will be an early war. I don't have copper. It is on the other side. The only horses are in viking territory. So while I'm going for Iron, I declare war with my warriors and archer army. Mostly to grab hist workers, prevent his expansion towards the copper, and pillage. He would send a few troops out to break the siege, but I bled him white. I also lost a bunch of guys, but finshed the last viking defenders in the city.

After the game I looked, and I would not have had iron either. So the early war was my only chance for survival.

 

[Ecofarm]

1st target eliminated from game by 0AD. 2nd target gone by 1000AD. I consider this the absolute minimum (except in cases of impending 'death by technological isolation'). Keep whichever cities your economy permits. If you accurately assess your opponent, exploit weakness, leverage advantage, and use units efficiently, there will be no "leftover" offensive army - just enough units to spread out for basic defense of all cities and a small task force of highly promoted units.