Warmonger building

[frostycreep]

When playing as a warmonger, i usually build hardly any improvements in my cities and concentrate on building units. I always build a library, market, bank and university and nothing else. Doing this i can usually keep up with other civs with research when playing on noble. Is this a similar startegy to other people trying to win by conquest? Or does anyone build more or less improvements?

[Snotty]

barracks and forges. This is why napoleon is a great warmonger leader imo

Youre right that you have to build the library and all that to keep up in the tech race. Hopefully you will have crushed your closest neighbour and can use his cities to continue your military and research drive.

Sometimes I will pop a granery in a high food city for slavery rushing units.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

I tend to ignore almost all improvements except forges, barracks, courthouse, and granary (for pop rushing). I will build a library, university, bank and market in my capital and maybe a couple of those in one or two high commerce/coastal cities. Of course, build cash buildings in your shrine city. Other than that massive units. It is not necessary to build lots of science/cash improvements because your commerce will be fine if you are conquering plenty of cities while the research rate of your opponents is dropping.

Napoleon is an ok warmonger, but his economy sucks. I much prefer Caesar, Toku, or Genghis. Napoleon is the worst aggresive leader IMO. Cheap forges are not that big of a deal. I would rather have Genghis's cheap granaries for early pop-rush or organized trait. With a conquest approach, Industrious is garbage (only benefit is the forges and maybe an early stonehenge/oracle). His UU is probably better than Monty's, but spiritual is far more useful for warmongering than industrious as are creative and financial. Compared to the other aggresive leaders (who are all great), Napolean is clearly the worst (in fact he is probably the worst leader in the game). Okay, Monty isn't that great either, but I still like to play him.

[Vynd]

When I'm playing as a warmonger most of my cities are weighted towards production, which means I'm not too worried about putting in stuff like markets, banks or universities. They do usually get libraries, if only to get some culture spread going. Instead, they get granaries, forges, and factories, as well as enough happiness improvements to combat war weariness.

One or two of my early cities will probably not be capable of becoming strong production cities. They get focused on commerce and science and get the usual sorts of improvements.

Now later in the game, once I've captured a fair amount of territory, is when I start looking at adding things like banks and universities to my original core cities. At that point my captured cities can pick up some of the unit production duties. And my core cities are large enough to produce buildings quickly and see noticeable impacts from them even if they don't have much commerce going.

[Ijuin]

If you can build your capital into an effective science city (run Bureaucracy, lots of cottages, all science improvements, Academy, Oxford University, and possibly Great Library), then you pretty much don't need to focus on science in any of your other cities (beyond getting the necessary 8 Universities to build Oxford).

[Urban Ranger]

Reseach is still important even when you are warmonger. It's much better to build up a tech lead, then attack.

There are several points in the game where you could rush. Ultra-early: if you have the correct UU and the computer players don't get archery for free. Early: when you get the catapult, or the Preatorian if you are the Romans, or the Crossbow UU (Cu-Ku-No or whatever its name) if you are the Chinese. Next good point is probably the Cannon, then the Cavalry.

As a result, I would actually hold back on building loads of units. Lots of units = high upkeep. Instead, I rather build up my research and finance facilities util the proper moment.

If you are on Noble, you should have no problems keeping up with the research at all.

[couerdelion]

Every city has its own purpose: Build for that

Almost every city will need some basic prerequisites in order to contribute to the civilisation even if you are rushing every rival civ in sight.

Granary: Any city with some potential for growth with gain from a granary and the health bonus will mean you may avoid building the more expensive buildings. Growth is also needed for domination win.

Barracks: Any city that will spend more than 120 hammers (60 for aggressive civ) on units should have this.

Forge: For cheap hammers. For a non-industrious civ, investment will be recovered after 480 hammers (base) production. So you could build a forge, library, market place, bank and university more quickly than doing so without a forge. Industrious civs will recover the cost even more quickly.

Theatre: Particularly for newly captured cities, you’ll need some culture and this is the cheapest way of getting it. Sometimes, it is needed just to resist cultural pressures from rivals. Don’t forget that grabbing land will contribute to a domination win.

Of the above, barracks is really only necessary at the point where you convert to building units so is not a priority build in new cities.

After the first three builds (perhaps also lighthouse for coastal cities with seafood resources), the subsequent choices are based on the needs of the civilisation as a whole but with one eye to the city level constraints imposed by happiness, health, cultural pressures, defence, buildings required for national wonders.

With sufficient time in the game, you may find the factory a worthwhile early investment. With a source of power, these pay off in about the same time as a forge.

With a slider at 70%+ investments like market places, banks and grocers are less likely to pay off quickly. By contrast, a library will often return the investment quickly as will a courthouse in a large empire.

Ultimately, though, the question you have to ask yourself is what you want that city to do and then look at the build order with this in mind. Holy cities are very well suited to developing a “gold” specialisation so you’ll want to target bank, market, grocers and courthouse in these. Low food/High production cities are best turned over to military production and are suited then to a forge, factory, courthouse, units build order. High food/Commerce will, more than likely, want to divert a little time to generating some science investment with a typical build order of forge, factory, library, courthouse, observatory, university, etc. If you can follow a coherent build plan for each city then you don’t need to spend so much time comparing competing build options every time a building is completed.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

Hmm you guys have a different approach than I do. I think stopping to build 8 universities and Oxford is an unnecessary diversion when going for domination. One or two universities is fine. Also, having a tech lead is not that important. I am often losing the tech battle in my domination wins, it is your military strengh that really counts. As long as you get the right techs ahead of anyone else (CS/mach, chem/steel, or mil. trad) you will be in great shape since the AI just can't fight well and you will just roll over them if you have lots of troops.

Oftentimes on pangea maps, I know way ahead of time if I can achieve an early dom win. When I get steel and chemistry I will shut my science off and crush everyone. I will make grenadiers and cannons in ALL of my cities. It is true that these cities may not be specialized to produce units, but If I have 25 cities all producing the most powerful units available then it doesn't take long to get the win.