Your Quickest War?

[djvandrake]

OK so I'm curious. What was your quickest, most devastating conventional war?

I'm a builder by nature and find wars somewhat tedious, but I tried an experiment to see how quickly I could polish off Shaka. This was partly just to see how quick it could be done, and partly because I had just captured the Khmer and Mayan empires, and I couldn't take any war weariness without major economic trouble. So I arranged a naval invasion force around each of his cities and an attack force next to the one city where I could reach him by land, then attacked. I started the war in October, 1974 and it was over by July, 1975. Granted I had far superior units and a big tech lead, but it was still an interesting experiment. This was my first and only domination win. (everything else has been space, cultural or diplo)

Here's the save game for the really curious or if you want to try it yourself. The particulars are: BTS 3.17 standard. Huge map, Marathon speed. Playing as Ramesses II of Egypt. Prince difficulty, low sea level and tropical. No tech brokering and no vassal states.

AND please keep in mind that over 2/3 of the empire is captured, so don't thrash my management skills too bad! I finished off Japan, France, Maya, and Khmer before hitting the Zulu.

 

[Joshua368]

So I suppose wars where your opponent capitulates before you even get to capture a city don't count, huh?

 

[CCRunner]

Conventional meaning non-axerush? Probably around ten turns.

Axerush on the capital- about two turns.

 

[djvandrake]

Conventional meaning non-axerush? Probably around ten turns.

Axerush on the capital- about two turns.

Well no, I was thinking conventional as in late game and non nuclear. More like taking down a multicity empire from the sea type of thing. Allthough my quickest warrior rush was 3 turns.

So I suppose wars where your opponent capitulates before you even get to capture a city don't count, huh?

Seriously? How did that work? Were you that big and mean? This game I had no vassal states turned on, so there was no surrender!

 

[Joshua368]

Seriously? How did that work? Were you that big and mean? This game I had no vassal states turned on, so there was no surrender!

Well it works when their power level is rather weak (well below the halfway mark) and you destroy whatever army they got. Hopefully when I begin my intercontinental invasion there's a silly little backwater empire that's generally hated by the others on the continent but not surrendered, easy beachhead for the real targets! I don't know the actual math/mechanics though.

Though technically in my example I did sort of capture a city... but with a sacrifical garrisan to bait the AI to move his stack into a trap, he immediately retook the city.

Turn 1: Declare war on Hannibal, drop stack of cannons/infantry next to decently sized coastal city. My opponent has rifles for defense.
Turn 2: Bombard down defenses and capture city, leaving only a single garrisan inside as his stack is approaching.
Turn 3: His stack retakes the city and sits inside it ( ), my seige weakens his stack, and my army destroys about 2/3s of it before running out of units. Civ is now willing to talk and capitulate, with a nice sum of cash on the side.

Beachhead!

It was immortal so my power level wasn't really too high in comparison to the other AIs... (though it was rising) But he didn't really have any friends to turn to.

 

[negZero]

Shortest war was 5 turns, in which I conquered an island civ.

Longest war I ever had was 100 turns and total of 5 civs against me at the peak (wish I had the save of it be fun to go though it again), on prince.

 

[Mesodius]

In a recent game I had an AI capitulate on the second turn. I was in my vassals territory with a large modern army composed of Modern Armour, Mech Inf, Mob Arty, etc, attacking Charles, I believe, who was still using Infantry era units, with no modern mechanized units. On turn 1 I declared on him and captured his border town, moving my whole stack into it. On his turn he sends his ENTIRE ARMY and attacks the city. It was the longest sustained assault I've ever seen the AI make. Must have been 50+ units, and went on for minutes. I had a ton of guys in the city and he didn't kill very many of my modern units. My next turn, he capitulated. It was lulz when I looked at the power graph.

The next two people I fought also capitulated in less than 8 turns, they were on a similar tech lvl as Charles. Those wars really showed me that the power graph is meaningless if you have a good technological superiority over your foe. They simply stood no chance. All my modern armour were running around with 4 promotions because they wouldn't die.

BTW- This was on 18 Civs huge map, Noble or Prince, and there were other Civs with more tech than me, but they foolishly didnt bother to stop me from vassalizing all the backwards Civs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Capitulation? 1 turn. Declared, took a city, vassal the next turn.

Complete obilteration? Axe rush = 2 turns, renaissance vs an AI with about 8 cities about 10-12 turns (used cavalry and spies)

 

[Cutlass]

Late game wars, I've had a war last one turn where I took several cities and then got a peace treaty leaving the enemy independent but diminished. I've had wars wast only 3 turns or so that wiped out an enemy that had infantry, but not a lot of territory, and that mostly accessible from oceans.

 

[Phrossack]

There was an occasion where Isabella was down to one city that I hadn't found during my earlier war with her. It was weak, so I declared war, and my Tanks triumphantly rolled into the city in the same turn.

 

[The Snug]

I've had massive enemy civs capitulate in 1 turn. It simply requires attacking from multiple directions with fast units and capturing a majority of his cities in the first strike.

My most memorable game of all time was when the Mayans sent up a spaceship, and my only option to win the game (huge, inland sea, marathon) was to conquer the entire world in less than 30 turns. I did.

 

[Sciguy001]

On Earth 18 civs I rushed Germany two turns after the start of the game with my starting warrior, but I am not sure if that counts.


Merry Christmas!

 

[Endwar 005]

I've had massive enemy civs capitulate in 1 turn. It simply requires attacking from multiple directions with fast units and capturing a majority of his cities in the first strike.

My most memorable game of all time was when the Mayans sent up a spaceship, and my only option to win the game (huge, inland sea, marathon) was to conquer the entire world in less than 30 turns. I did.

EPIC, what difficulty was it?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

EPIC, what difficulty was it?

I've done it on emperor (not immortal just yet), but the mechanics dictate that under the right circumstances you could vassal a civ in 1 turn on deity. This is especially true if you have 2x their power, are larger than them by enough, and have a war aly that borders their territory. If you clear those objectives, you need to little else other than taking a city or two on turn 1 and the target will vassal.

After seeing Unconquered Sun win domination in BOTM 10 (A deity game with holy rome), I'm convinced that this is 100% possible on deity, assuming you're good enough to win there to begin with (I'm not...yet).

 

[Jewman]

my fastest conquest would be my first massive naval assault i ever put together.
The romans had a big peninsula and all their cities were coastal.
They had rifles and machine guns.
i had 9-10 transports full of marines, and 3-4 carriers full of fighters and about 12-16 bombers parked in cities around the roman empire. Oh and i had about 16-20 destroyers/battleships around his empire.
DOWed on him. Bombers raped his troops. Fighters targeted a couple of cities defences. my fleet completely destroyed all his defences and random frigates floating about.
My transports move in, marines attack all his cities. No casualties, his empire completely under my control.
and then... i notice he's still alive and has a tiny city in some icy strip of land way north.... i get angry and use WB to destroy it.
If he hadn't had that one random useless city i didn't see, it would've been 1 turn to legit destroy him... but instead it was one turn not-legit destruction.

 

[allunderheaven]

It took me four turns to crush Isabella, provided that it was modern armour vs. pikemen. She did manage to kill one of my armours

 

[Al Capone]

The shortest war I ever had was 1 turn:
The enemy had two cities that I surrounded with my troops. Of course I could conquer them within 1 turn.
By the way, my longest war was something like 2000 BC to 1950 AD, Germany vs America, wouldn't make peace until total obliteration....

 

[AccipiterQ]

I had a continents map that I was playing on. I was the #1 player, #2 was on the other continent and was pissing me off. I pulled a D day on him. I had 40 transports off his coast, and several aircraft carriers.

Turn 1: Declare war and land units
Turn 2: Attack with units, take 8 major cities, all coastal, move a ton of bombers into those cities
Turn 3: bomb the crap out of his remaining few major cities slightly inland, moved tanks into position
Turn 4: Take his remaining major cities.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The shortest war I ever had was 1 turn:
The enemy had two cities that I surrounded with my troops. Of course I could conquer them within 1 turn.
By the way, my longest war was something like 2000 BC to 1950 AD, Germany vs America, wouldn't make peace until total obliteration....

We're counting stuff like this?

I've had enemies where I took all but 1 of their cities, and then peace to milk over 1k beakers worth of tech from him. Then in 10 turns I used horse archers to 1-shot the last city on turn one of the war. Technically, that's a 1 turn complete obliteration.

I also forgot about warrior rushes. Even if the above doesn't count, a warrior rush will end a civ on turn 2 of a war, and that's pretty fast (I've done it).

 

[Al Capone]

We're counting stuff like this?

I don't see a reason why we shouldn't:
The question was: Your quickest war?
Not: What was your quickest war, where the enemy had more cities that you could conquer in one turn?

My war was a war like any other (except you believe the question to have been the second one).