Early conquest, pros and cons...

[Blake]

Is it at all worthwhile, assuming that you aren't actually particullary cramped and are just conquering for fun or to take some cities.

Like I'm playing a game as Mongols on Great Plains (prince difficulty, the fat leader with creative/agressive) and immediately killed off the Spanish and Indians, keeping their cities. I also "finded" Buddhism in Dehli, built the shrine and spreaded it around as my own.

But I ended up deep in the hole from the distance-upkeep and it took quite a while to reach 70%+ research again, the Americans ran away with the tech. They even surpassed me and became #1 and I'm still playing catchup (lucky they are my buddies).

But what was worse with the early conquests was the large cavity of empty space. Destroying 2 civs not only gave ME more room to expand, but all the other civs too! And expand they did, in fact I managed to find my empire split completely in half by hostile civs!


My empire is the two large brown turds. I'm COMPLETELY seperated from my ally America, and enemies can come from SEVEN directions!

Thanks to a tech advantage I actually fought off all 3 of them (with lots of screaming GET THE MY LAWN YOU LITTLE PUNKS!), then signed "rolling peace treaties" so I could focus on laying the hurt on one of them at a time. (I lost 1 city... but took 2 cities and razed a 3rd, so fair trade)

As the Axis of evil discovered, when you try to trample a turd, it simply spreads out and gets stuck to everything! (Such as the Hinduism holy city!)


Altough I'm winning quite convincely and it's been my most fun CIV game so far, I have to wonder at what I actually gained from the early conquests. Sure Isabella WOULD have been a thorn in my side, and Ghandi my largest competitor... but the "void" got filled by the other AI's and left me extremely vunerable in every way possible.

[Jim0322]

At least with early conquest you have more time to build up culture in captured cities than in the later game where a captured city can be completely enveloped in another civ's borders. I never played civ 2 and 3 but I find it much more difficult to expand militarily with Civ 4.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Couple of my early observations on early 'for fun' conquest:

Yes. It's 'worth it'. From a fun standpoint.

You have to dedicate yourself to it, however.

Some advantages: You are not paying to build the settlers, hence your home lands should be better developed than just expanding via settlers. Often you capture workers you didnt' pay to make as well.

Weakening/killing a rival early.

Typically capitol sites are VERY good city sites. The old 'your capitol will be my FP' saying works pretty well.

Land surrounding the cities is typically already upgraded via workers.

Some things that seem a MUST:

Slavery, coupled with a early push towards Code of Law and poprushing courthouses seems a very real need to help curb the costs. (forest chopping with an organized leader works as well.) As well as getting the requisite numbers to get that FP going ASAP.

You need to pick and choose your cities...

Don't simply keep every AI city. AI settled in that dessert just for insence? I probably don't need that. Settled in the middle of that jungl for ivory, a city that wont be worthwhile for hundreds of years? Don't need that. etc.

Keep an eye on your support costs. you hitting -3? -5? -10? City costs don't hit you until the resistance is over. Keep that in mind, plan when you want to stop the war accordingly.

[The keeper]

In my current game, I am going with the warmongering approach.

In the early game, when I was killing the spanish, the gold I got from taking their cities helped to finance my attack. I was running a defecit because I kept my research high, but continued to stay in the green because of the gold I kept getting.

I tried to only fight wars in short bursts of about 20 - 30 turns or so. That way, I never got too far behind in tech. I am in the industrial age right now, even with the leaders in tech, but ahead of them in everything else.

As long as you can quickly get the conquered cities back up and running as part of your empire, I think an early conquest is a good idea. I made sure that as soon as a city was conquered, I had them included in my trade network so they could share my goods. And I moved fast enough so that the cities never had time to revolt. This is what I did in the first wave.

In the second wave of attacks, the russians and indians to my south were my targets. I conqured the cities on my borders, and then went in deep to conquer Moscow. (added bonus, they had the pyramids there). After conquering Moscow, I declared peace. I didn't have the guns to stop a revolt, so I pulled everyone out, and allowed Moscow to revolt, giving it back to the Russians.

The third wave, (with new and improved calvery), I was able to finish off russia.



With early conquest, expand until you reach another border. THEN attack.

[Blake]

Typically capitol sites are VERY good city sites. The old 'your capitol will be my FP' saying works pretty well.

Good point. In my Mongol game I notice that Madrid (Spanish) is my hammer powerhouse while Dehli (Indian) is my gold powerhouse. My original capital is my research powerhouse.

As it happened since the Spanish and Indians were close together I relocated my Palace to Madrid to save a bit of maitenance, it didn't save much (less than 10g/turn probably) but it was during my 10% research with nothing to build phase... I also found myself using "Build Research" to get back into the game .

From this game I have to admit that taking the middle of the map made for an interesting situation of being able to attack anyone I wanted, so once I had the "rolling treaties" down I alternatively snacked on each of the 3 hostile civs and never really had to fight more than 1 at a time - atleast after the intial dogpiling. I had some war-weariness

I probably shouldn't have kept Ghandi's 2 non-capital cities... but they were on GREAT plains/rivers + cows spots, and one ended up building a lot of wonders (it got stooled by an AI at one point... but I got it back) with the other being used as a GP pump.

Oh well, the early conquest definitely gave plenty of mid game conquest imperative and made for a fun game.

[khumak]

IMO early conquest is only worth it if you can quickly dominate your opponent and get back to building up again before you fall too far behind in tech. Even then it's only worth it if you're capturing cities in good locations, preferably with some special resources you wouldn't normally have access to. The most likely targets would be cities where the AI managed to snag a strategic resource that you don't have access to. Suddenly gaining access to copper, marble, stone, etc can make a big difference in a game.

[Bobby Chicken]

Early conquest is never necessary. Fun, yes, but it won't help you win Civ 4 under standard playing conditions. War elephants or maceman should be the earliest units you attack with (except for worker snags).

[The keeper]

I disagree. Horse archers are great to attack with.

I killed the spanish with horse archers, archers, and jaguars.

[DrSpike]

Everyone is right............and wrong.

It just depends on what you want. If you are asking me whether the war you fought was a good idea if you wanted an early diplo or early spaceship win then no - only immediate neighbours who threaten your expansion should get whacked.

But if you want an early conquest the world, then don't worry if you have to tone down research a little.........just carry on mashing.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Oh, no no no no.

That depends ENTIRELY on civ choice, map, available resources, etc.

Why waste a good Quecha? May as well pump out 6 and kill off that nearest neighbor, razing his second city and capturing his capitol, for instance.

It most certainly can help you win.

edit: I obviously type slow.

[quinalla]

Originally posted by Bobby Chicken
Early conquest is never necessary. Fun, yes, but it won't help you win Civ 4 under standard playing conditions. War elephants or maceman should be the earliest units you attack with (except for worker snags).

I agree it isn't necessary, but it certainly can help you win. It is a choice like any other in this game with good points and bad. You will likely have a larger population that the other civs and more land. You may get lucky and inherit wonders from the cities you conquer. You build military units instead of settlers and get cities that have already grown so it may end up being less production time.

There are trade offs of course, you have to be careful of your finances and make sure to get building infrastructure and buildings to increase money and science asap. You won't have as many buildings in your cities that have been churning out military.

[Shaka II]

I'm still learning the ropes of Civ IV, but I think if conquest or domination victory is the plan, then I think early conquest is the way to go in Civ IV as it was in Civ III. But care has to be taken to choose timing well and not dwell in the state of war indefinitely, lest you fall too far behind in tech. Rexing is harder in Civ IV.

So, build up a good sized army, take over a civ in one good drive. Eliminate them off the board so their population does not "yearn for their mother land" anymore. Also, some defensive pacts or agreements to attack may be perpetual, but are eliminated once your immediate rival is eliminated. Build culture quickly to expand borders out and link resources, etc. Build FP in enemy capital or other good city.

Present game normal/pangea/monarch/romans, I built 6 cities, took over Russia, except for one city somewhere far away. She's gotten over that and is friendly now, though she slaps me once in a while.

When I went to war with Germany, Egypt jumped into the war and would not make peace until Frederick was out of the game. Good thing she was on the other side of the map, beyond my friend Montezuma, who attacked her shortly afterwards. Monte likes me because his enemy is my enemy. I didn't even have to ask him for this favor. But I pay tribute to him, giving him spare luxuries and older, less strategic techs. Keep him happy until the end game is the way this one will play out, while I take over Incans and Persians to form a perfect circular empire. So, use diplomacy to redirect AI aggression toward someone else.

Make war in discrete and timely campaigns. Don't take on all comers at once. Rebuild, advance technologically, keep an eye on enemy strengh to avoid damaging surprise attacks, making sure your strengths are at least equal or better. Don't let a strong neighboring civ get annoyed with you, when you're not ready for war.

I think early conquest is the best way to insure a win by domination/conquest, regardless the level, though I think it's almost a must at harder levels. Besides, early conquest is the most fun part of civ in my opinion, and the area where humans have the edge. Hopefully, what bad warmonger reputation that I may have acquired will slowly lessen with time.

[Utwig]

I think it's very viable, but you must not neglect infrastructure in your core.

For instance:
Forges: I usually research mining, bronze working, archery (to get defenders), military and worker techs, then metal casing. I build forges after granary or barracks in my first two cities. AI in general goes after forges very late, so you can outproduce them
Cottages: you have to have a worker in each of your core cities from the start putting down cottages
Organised religion - while Theocracy will get you better units, once you start rolling, vasselage is sufficient for units. Core 2-4 cities will produce bulk of army for most part of the game fast enough, what willl be more problematic is building courthouses, forges, granaries, lighthouses and culture in newly conquered/founded cities.


Further points:
- Expand so that your borders are simplified
- Raze most cities (except wonders, holy cities and cities in places you would build yourself) and build in loose OCP. If some rival settles what you conquere, simply declare war after finnishing off initial oponent
- Fast units
- Use catapults for bombardment, loose your horse archers, knights or cavalary to capture cities. While sacrificing catapults might be more cost effective, fast units get to frontline sooner
- Plan to build Versailles, usually great engineer and ~1200 gold is enough, you need to have corthouse before


Use traits wisely, I'll list some useful traits in no particular order.
Expansive = +2 health, it's like having 5 forrests per city (5x0.4 = 2), chop everything arround your capital. Latter when your cities become big, you will have most health resources anyway
Agressive = obvious, but not crucial. It's only neccessary in early rush, when you have comparable production to AI. Once you have 3-5 times production of rivals, you can build more units and lots of fighting will give you promotions anyway
Finnancial = also very beneficial in order to fund massive empire
Creative = don't need to research Mysticsm build Stonehenge or obelisks. If you're not creative, going for Stonehenge and delaying calendar is worthwhile
Industrious = cheap forges. In every strategy game I've been assessing rivals on their tech level and production.
Philosophical = great people are not as important, scientists and merchants are useful, prophets to build holy cities. Great Artist bombs are only neccessary for partial conquests, when you take out entire civ, you won't be under cultural pressure.
Spiritual = not so useful, although, you will probably be changing wartime and peacetime civics

[Shaka II]

Excellent post Utwig.

I'm playing Rome this time (mining/fishing/expansive/organized), with 1/2 price granary, harbor, lighthouse, and courthouse. So as luck would have it, my pangea/standard map has quite a bit of coast and forest. I've been a wood chopping fool, with granaries, harbors, lighthouses, and courthouses all over the place. Romans are great!

But I digress. Whatever Civ you play, play to their strengths (obviously). I just seemed to have lucked out with a dream map that coincided with my attributes. Plus Praetorians are a pretty awesome early unit to take out two Civs in my case. Quickly building up knights and musketmen now. Those Incans are annoyed at me, and their army is quite a bit larger, but they don't have gunpowder or guilds yet. I think I'll switch to Theocracy now and go on a crusade.

[Blake]

I'm having some great fun with Japan, the aggressive/organized traits are excellent for conquest. This is a tiny islands game on Prince Difficulty with Raging Barbarians (but I havn't seen one ).

I "allied" with my neighbor Isabella (ran Buddhism for her) to keep her out of my hair. Come Samurais I ran bureaucracy and trained a nice little horde of them, gobbled up the Romans and lost only one samurai in the process (Rome was an excellent catch), made peace with Caesar in exchange for his map (what a doofus!), but his last 2 cities were on the other side of the map...
Since I still had a perfectly good horde of Samurais (some with combat1, city3, cover) I decided to go take Tenochtitlan, Monty had it garrisoned with a zillion units but I had pults so took it with few losses, I grabbed a 2nd Aztec city but he counter-attacked it with Knights, I took it back the next turn and sued for peace (these AI's aren't too smart... are they). I'm considering razing the other two Aztec cities on his mainland as they are on desert, but each does have 2 grassland towns and as coastal cities they'll generate decent trade.

Anyway this little bout of war mongering bought me up from 3rd from last to #1, and knocked monty and julie out of the game.

Samurais = GOOD. They hardly ever die.
Organized = Fantastic. The cheap courthouses really help.
Aggressive = soso. Usually I like it, but in this case it didn't provide a huge benefit, mainly since my Capital was my only city with any hammer output so I only needed one barracks. Oh well, free Combat1 is always nice as it allows for City attackers with Cover at much lower exp levels.


So far I'm thinking the best conquest traits are:

Aggressive: For obvious reasons. Although City Attack is the main promo used and doesn't require Combat1, the ability to get heal, shock and cover easily is nice. Also stacking up the combat promos is fun.
Creative: Fantastic trait. Allows new cities to get working on more important things than theatres or whatever, the free defense is all good. Not so useful post-Caste when you can make an artist for 4 turns, but it certainly never hurts to have the free culture and cheaper theatres, it’s a nice “always on” benefit.
Organized: This can be the difference between a highly lucrative conquest and a long, unpleasant dark ages of 20% research. The cheap civics is also all good. It's nice that both the 50% cheaper buildings are available early game.

Organized, Aggressive and Creative are IMO THE warmonger traits. A civ without any of them isn't really a natural for warmongering.