Who to attack first/second?

[Baldas]

I have recently started a Cyrus game (Warlords, Noble, Pangaea, Normal speed) and have already had fun with a quick immortal rush on my nearest neighbour Frederick, taking him out quite easily. It is still very early in the game and hopefully I can take out another one or two opponents with immortals, then use them for pillaging or razing small cities until catapults are available for removing cultural defence from more established cities.

Anyway, to my question. The remaining 5 civs (in order of current score after me) are Mehmed, Asoka, Genghis, Hannibal and Montezuma. I am wondering if people have advice about what order to take them out? Here is my reasoning, and please pick holes in it because it will help me improve my game.

Other relevant info - Monty has bad land and is the furthest away from me. The other civs are pretty much in a circle around me on the pangaea. Religion isn't really an issue yet as there are no religious alliances (only Bud and Hin have been founded - both by the AI - and haven't spread yet). Genghis has horses. Not sure if Hannibal has. There is a fair amount of iron and copper around. I have iron and horses and 4 cities (2 formerly German). My economy is slightly negative but I have good funds from beating Freddy. Asoka was friends with Freddy.

Target 1 - Genghis. Reasoning - I haven't seen Keshiks yet but he has horses so it won't be long, and they are scary. Better to take him out before he builds many, as he could move from 3rd AI to 1st AI when that happens.

Target 2 - Asoka. Reasoning - he was friends with the late Frederick and therefore I already have a negative diplo with him (-1 or -2). Plus he is next to Genghis so it keeps the geography neat. I am planning to raze cities other than AI capitals by the way.

Target 3 - Mehmed. Reasoning - he is the strongest AI now, but not an immediate threat with no early UU. By this point the immortals may only be useful for pillaging, but that could be enough before I can build catapults.

Target 4 - Hannibal. Reasoning - he is stronger and closer than Monty.

Target 5 - Montezuma. Reasoning - poorest land and furthest away. Of course I may not need to attack him at all.

One doubt I have is about Hannibal's numidian cavalry. They will be available before I get to him, and my current technology won't match them. But I can build spearmen now to keep him back, and then better stuff later.

Do people think this is a reasonable order, or am I missing something? Of course the plan might have to adapt if religion spreads (for example). Please point out errors as it's a good way for me to improve.

Thanks.

Baldas

 

[Gooblah]

Take Asoka out quick. His military power is probably lowest. Does he have copper/iron? If he does, he'll be pumping Spearmen out like there's no tomorrow. Whip some Axemen (about 10) w/ CR 1. Smash his defenses and capture a few holy cities. Spread his religion for LOS and Allies, and spread your non-state for income and enemies. Bribe Genghis to hissyfit w/ Monty, and after they both are weak, mow em down. Make friends with Hannibal and sic him on Mehmed. Do what you did to Monty and Genghis and you should be good.

 

[madscientist]

1)Mehmed most likely will be your long-term toughest opponent, so I would form an alliance with him, adopt his state religion if you can. At the least when you get Fuedalsim, plan to switch to vassalage (his favorite civ), bribe him to attack Montgomery (if he has already).
2) Take out Ghengis just take some spears with you. If you attack Asoka first and ghengis joins you or attacks someone else he will have better promoted units (plus from the Ger) when you buck heads.
3) Next I would hit Asoka. Hannibal is rather patient and likely will declare war after his Numidian units are outdated.
4) Always help out Mehmed in wars. When it is you and him hopefully you will have the stronger empire and can take him out.

Just some suggestions without seeing teh map.

 

[Naismith]

It all depends, of course. If it looked like anyone was running away in the tech race, I would target them first, and at least pillage the crap out of them.

In general, I would favor taking Genghis first. I would be very worried about him declaring on me while I was busy fighting someone else. If you don't take Genghis out first, then try and bribe him to join you as a war ally or declare on someone else.

If you are well ahead in power, and feel pretty safe from Genghis, I would just hit whoever has the best cities/resources/etc.

 

[Sjaramei]

General rule, take out the peaceful civs first and bribe the warmongers against each other. If no peaceful civ is near you, attack until you get to them. Do not let them tech in peace.

So find out who is teching fastest and go get him!

 

[Nuka-sama]

Even Better General Rule: Kill AI When they don't have their UU. Mehemed and Asoka are the obvious choices to eliminate now. I personaly would go attack Mehemed, but then again, You oculd make a fair arguement to kill Monty, since he's the weakest.

 

[budweiser]

I would attack the strongest civ first, especially if I have a dominant UU, which you do. Send your cats with a few melee escorts at his capitol while your immortals take his out lying cities. Then meet in the middle to take out the hard cities. Keep mass building immortals. You will likely break the game wide open if you win and will get more of a challenge and learn more even if you dont.

 

[Sjaramei]

Even Better General Rule: Kill AI When they don't have their UU. Mehemed and Asoka are the obvious choices to eliminate now. I personaly would go attack Mehemed, but then again, You oculd make a fair arguement to kill Monty, since he's the weakest.

AI stinks with UU's. Unless it's Praetorians or Skirmishers it's not dangerous at all and not a problem. (Praets in defense can be annoying early on, Skirmishers is a nightmare to rush with axes)

 

[bluedevil99]

My priorities in this situation:
1) If ANY nearby civs don't have copper/iron, they're IMMEDIATELY at the top of the list.
2) Check if anybody closeby has a shrine (go back and check for 'great prophet born' notices) or other nice wonder (NOTHING beats capturing 'mids). Even a shrineless holy city can be nice if you're generating GP points.
3) If all else fails, go for the guy with the best land closest to yours (ideally you want to be able to keep more than just the capital).

As good as Immortals are, you're at the point in the game where I don't necessarily want to war against a tough opponent. I want to crush an opponent for a quick city or two, then give my economy and cities time to recover in time for a massive cat rush. That's the time to go after the strongest AIs--even Praetorians can't stand up to stacks of CR catapults and axemen.

 

[Baldas]

Thank you everyone for the advice.

It's interesting isn't it - which is why I asked the question - do you attack the strongest AI first or ally with them and take out easier targets? Or do you base your plan on early UUs (e.g. Genghis) or resources or religion?

Madscientist suggested allying with Mehmed (the strongest AI) and adopting his religion. He was buddhist and that spread to one of my cities by chance, so I decided to follow this route and adopted it. That earned me a small negative with some of the others of course.

Naismith suggested Genghis as target #1, and Bluedevil99 pointed out that a lack of copper/iron means no spearmen to counter my immortals, so I scouted Mongolia properly and discovered that Genghis didn't have iron or copper but did have horses, so I attacked him first. The immortals were pretty good at that, and now he has only one tiny city left, which will soon be gone. I kept his capital which was sited very nicely.

Then two other AIs asked me to cancel my trade with Asoka. Turns out he wasn't a popular neighbour, and he didn't have copper/iron either, so my next wave attacked him. I lost a lot of immortals attacking Delhi however, defended by archers on a hill with a reasonable cutural defence. Hey, I'm learning! So I have failed with Delhi so far, but now a mixture of swordsmen and immortals are almost there, and I am researching construction for catapults for the next wave. Then I'll probably need some peace to recover the economy which is down to 10% research to avoid bankruptcy.

It looks like the time of the immortal is pretty short! They took out Frederick very easily, Genghis fairly easily, and failed with Asoka. But they will still be good pillagers for a while.

So after I have had a period of peace building cats and recovering the bank balance, Genghis should be history and Delhi hopefully will be mine too but perhaps not the other Indian cities (I'll pillage them though). And then.... Hannibal has adopted Buddhism like Mehmed and myself, so I'm thinking Monty will be the next target (he founded Judaism and has no religious allies) before I even finish off Asoka. Monty has already been threatening me and has cancelled Open Borders with me, so even though I'm a lot stronger he may be about to attack me anyway. Then finish off Asoka after Monty. And then see how things lie at that point with only my religious allies left.

Hey, this game is fun! Thanks people!

Baldas