Conquest!

[solomani]

OK I am planning my next game of Civ and I want to go conquest (assuming I can finally get that elusive culture victory - damn space race!). I really want to use Rome for this. Their Praetorians are the closest thing to the civ3 killer stacks. In my experience they tend to roll-over all the enemies of that period - though their glory is short lived. They seem to become obsolete with Longbowmen. I also will be playing epic speed using the huge-real Earth map with all civs in their historical position on noble.

Now here is my basic plan and was just wondering what people thought of it:

Rush to ironworking for the praetorians. Start pumping them out.
Roll over the nearest AI civs with them until they become obsolete.
Rush to cavalry and use them to roll-over as many more AI as I can.

I think by this stage I should be big enough to just hammer the remaining civs into submission through brute force. I was going to ignore religions entirely but as soon as I inherited one switch to Organized Religion. The only wonder I was going to try for was the pyramid so I can switch to police state early. But if I fail I don't think its a game breaker. Eventually I would plan to put the forbidden palace in Asia and Versailles in the new world to cut back on maintenance. Or maybe the AI will be nice enough to oblige me before hand

Ultimately my goal is to have the following for XP units and warmongering:

Barracks (4), Theocracy (2), Vassalage (2) West Point (4), Heroic Epic, police state, Red Cross, Pentagon (2)

Anything else to consider? I know Catherine is better for the cavalry rush but I want to win as Rome so switching powers is out of the question. I also realise that probably Tokugawa or Kubla Khan is overall a better warmongering race.. but as I said I want the Pax Romanium not the Pax Nihon.

I will also probably put raging barbarians on. Mainly because I just like them but also it will hurt the AI more than it will hurt me considering my start position. And the new world should be partially colonised by barbarian settlements making it easier to get a foot hold long term.

I am also guessing I will get a domination victory before I get a conquest victory. But I believe that you can continue to play and get further victory types even when you win initially (?). At least that's what the manual says.

The only real problem will be if I am totally unlucky in getting iron somewhere within my border or close by. But not much I can do about that.

[khearn]

You could just turn off domination victory to avoid that issue.

Be careful not to run out of money from unit expenses, city maintenance, and civic costs. You've mentioned two high cost and one medium cost civics. If you capture too many cities, the combination of those civics, plus all of the city maintenance will get very expensive. Consider razing cities that don't have essential resources/wonders. Of course, with raging barbs, all of the empty space from razing cities will get, um, interesting.

Have fun!

[solomani]

In my experience cottages help alleviate the massive cost of a large empire and large military. It will hurt my science for a while but eventually as soon as all the cities start making profit + courthouses you easily make up the lost ground.

Thanks for the info!

[Shaka II]

I would leave domination victory enabled. You want the option in case you don't make it. I don't know about getting to play on to another win, but if the manual says it, then you probably can.

I agree with khearn that you need to watch early expenses. That's what usually bites me as I try to expand by conquest. If you can't support that army, you'll lose them. So you need the cottages going early to.

I question going for the pyramids, maybe if you have the stone, but it would be hard to catch up if you didn't make it. I suppose if you save the forest just for the pyramids, it's as good as having stone, but then you don't get to use it for chopping out settlers. It depends on the level you're playing at too, how big the bonuses are for the AI.

Praetorians and Rome in general are great for domination. My favorite Civ so far.

[solomani]

I was planning on saving the forest for the pyramids specifically. If you disable the time victory does the game still end at 2050?

Thanks.

[Diadem]

If you disable time victory the game goes on forever.


And I don't think you need to do much early expansion if you plan on an early conquest victory. Instead of all those settlers and workers you can pump out troops and just take cities.

One of the main problems of your strategy will be too many cities. No need to spend time and energy into getting more of them

[Shaka II]

Rather than finish the last grueling 30 turns in my previous game (Persians), I decided to take a break and start a new game with Rome on pangea/standard/normal/emperor. I didn't go for the pyramids and used the forest to chop out my workers and settler, libraries, barracks, granaries, etc. Great starting location adjacent to 3 ivories along river in Rome (production powerhouse), and copper and gold within the borders of my first three cties. So, I have not bothered with iron working and aside from growing the cities, I have been pumping out axemen and taking cities away from China. No need to build more than 3 cities if the AI makes such fine ones to take away.

In tech, I followed someone else's suggestion that I not trade alphabet away, so I haven't, and it's been working great, as I'm presently researching construction, having also researched monarchy and used it to trade for other techs. I think the only lower techs I don't have are animal husbandry/horseback riding (which hasn't hurt me since I don't have any cows, pig, sheep yet) and iron working, so construction (10 more turns) will allow trades for that, or perhaps it will be time to trade alphabet. I would rather not see the AI with catapults in their cities. Only bad sign is the Chinese also have copper, but not enough axemen to counter mine. It's a gamble to hold off trading alphabet, but if research is going well, then it seems like a nice strategy.

This time, I've been more careful about laying down cottages early and being Rome, it's important to use granaries, harbors, lighthouses, so I stayed on or near the coast to maximize their utility for my core. Also, it is nice not to be surrounded by barbs. Shore covers your back side. Now gradually growing inland toward Chinese jungle, dyes and bananas. Yum.

The nice thing about monarchy is the happiness that military provide in the city, so along with a few luxuries, it makes for a nice, powerful base to crank out militia. The economics is helped out quite a bit by gold acquired by conquest, which is a nice side benefit. That's all for now.

[solomani]

Started my game last night. Upto 700 AD so far and here are my comments.

I had no plans of making a Settler fyi. I have only founded Rome and that's it. Trying to get the Pyramids from the get go is actually not a good idea. As it will take too long to get and you will have iron working way before that. I actually think if you can pull it off get Stonehenge (I couldn't) because culture is at a premium on such a tightly packed map. One of my cities has already turned to Catherine. Wont matter when the legions march over Russia I did manage to get the Pyramids as I have access to both stone and marble and I chopped and used slaves to build it.

I found that by the time you have iron working you should have enough time to build 1 worker and barracks. Which is what I did. The worker is important so you can get the iron going ASAP. I build a mine in every possible, workable hex around Rome hoping I would get iron. Which I did so there was only a 1 turn lag between Iron working and being able to produce Praetorians. I built 8 praetorians who rolled over all the enemies. I then only built praetorians in dribs and drabs ultimately producing a total of 32.

I had originally planned to also rush Axemen after I got copper to take one or two cities. But I had no copper and iron working came very quickly afterwards anyway. I just waited for my praetorians.

So far I have knocked out France, Spain and Germany with Greece reduced to one tiny city. Only reason I didn't eliminate Greece was because Catherine revoked open borders and I needed that to get to the last city. Not a big deal. They can both wait. Switched my focus to England. The English isles + Ireland have fallen. All that's left are some small colonies in Scandinavia so its game over for England as well.

At this point Longbowmen are starting to show up but I have also produced catapults. I am losing more men but still rolling over cities. After England is conquered I will move onto Arabia, Persia and Egypt. Probably Mansa Mansa as well. Then switch to Catherine who is #2 in the scoring. I have Cavalry and I am only 8 turns away from gunpowder.

I will use my remaining Praetorians/Macemen and Catapults to take out the African powers and build a second force of cavalry to take on Catherine.
So far so good. This military campaign is a lot more fun than the space race and culture victories. You are a lot more involved which I like. Currently I am running science at 80% with a turn deficit of about 20gp. But I have a war chest of 2k gold. All of that is from conquest pretty much.

Will start building up my navy after the cavalry so I can get galleons and be ready to head to the new world by the time Asia is tamed

[solomani]

Seperate question. Apart from the temporary affect of spys is there a way to reveal the whole map and remove the fog of war?

[Quillan]

Researching Satellites reveals the entire map. However, most of it will still turn that dull color because nothing can see it.

[Blake]

Rome is a truly wicked warmonger. This is both because of the other of Praets (no need to bring axes/spears, praets defend better), and also because of the low-cost civ traits, you get that essential infrastructure (granary/courthouse, lighthouse/harbor) in place very cheaply. Organized further helps by cutting down the civic upkeep, which gets very high with a sprawling empire.

Rome can get wicked warmonger momentum going with city raider Praets (which gain 33% more effective strength from City Raider promotions than swordmen) plus a big stack of pults to insta-lower defenses. And to keep the momentum going, captured cities quickly become productive rather than a drain.

The best wonder for Rome would probably be the Great Lighthouse, making new cities generate more commerce and offset more of their (already reduced) upkeep.

[solomani]

Good idea about the Lighthouse. Think I am building it this game. Will need to check.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Blake
The best wonder for Rome would probably be the Great Lighthouse, making new cities generate more commerce and offset more of their (already reduced) upkeep.

I certainly agree about Romans. Maybe I'll give Lighthouse a try this game. I built it once before along with Colossus, and it was my best game ever. It's still quite early in my present game and I have a wonderful coastal city with high production. I started to go for Stonehenge, but a few turns later, it was built by another Civ, so I switched to axemen. The AI doesn't seem to build Lighthouse or Colossus, so they are both high probablity wonders and compliment Roman strength.

All this talk about Praetorians is getting me primed to discover iron working now, and shift into high gear.