First attempt at warmongering...

[Crossfire]

I have been playing Civ4 since it came out and am mostly a builder. I do usually take one civ out at some point during a game because they attacked me. I occasionally get pissed that I am attacked much earlier than I would like so I tried a game of complete warmongering. It sure is easier! I played as Caesar figuring that praetorians were unbeatable if I got them out early enough. My capital had solid hammer output and iron and after starting my 3rd city I started pumping troops. It took very little time and effort to eliminate the first civ. All he had were archers and warriors. By the time I took the second civ out they had axemen but not in sufficient numbers to give me any trouble. My only problem was that about the time I took over their 5 cities I was broke and had to go to 0 research for a while. Once I finished them off and got rid of the war weariness I was fine and having nearly 20 cities I quickly out researched everyone. After that I waited until I got cavalry and then started another war.

I am surprised at how easy it makes the game. It just doesn't matter that you don't start religions or build wonders, you just take them. Does this tactic work as well at Monarch and above as it does at Prince?

[UnOrthOdOx]

Re: First attempt at warmongering...

Originally posted by Crossfire
I have been playing Civ4 since it came out and am mostly a builder. I do usually take one civ out at some point during a game because they attacked me. I occasionally get pissed that I am attacked much earlier than I would like so I tried a game of complete warmongering. It sure is easier! I played as Caesar figuring that praetorians were unbeatable if I got them out early enough. My capital had solid hammer output and iron and after starting my 3rd city I started pumping troops. It took very little time and effort to eliminate the first civ. All he had were archers and warriors. By the time I took the second civ out they had axemen but not in sufficient numbers to give me any trouble. My only problem was that about the time I took over their 5 cities I was broke and had to go to 0 research for a while. Once I finished them off and got rid of the war weariness I was fine and having nearly 20 cities I quickly out researched everyone. After that I waited until I got cavalry and then started another war.

I am surprised at how easy it makes the game. It just doesn't matter that you don't start religions or build wonders, you just take them. Does this tactic work as well at Monarch and above as it does at Prince?

Welcome to the fold. I always love to see a builderer come to the dark side.

0 research is not so much a problem...you got 20 cities, get some scientists working for ya.

You'll run into the financial crunch quicker the higher the level, and they AI gets a few more units, but yeah, pretty much, works just as well.

But, I've said it once, I'll say it a million times. CATAPULTS!!! Learn to use them, and you don't need to rely on Peatorians. There are very few problems in CIV that cannot be solved by building more catapults (or equivalent for your tech level).

[Crossfire]

Yeah, I only had 0 research while i was suffering from war weariness. Once that was done I was quickly back up to 60%.

And I use catapults, but early in the game it is way faster to get iron working and praetorians than it is to get construction, especially because I had no copper anyway.

It's good to hear that the dark side works well on the harder levels. I might have to step back up to Monarch now.

[Targonis]

This is the main problem I have with Civ 4, that being a warmonger, and starting wars with neighbors works so well compared to being peaceful and focusing on research. I really wish that unhappiness in cities compared to neighbors would boost the culture output of the happy cities. It would make sense that if your neighbor is unhappy but you are happy that they would shift their culture to yours. I don't care for the sudden revolt to your side the way we have seen in previous Civ games, but watching culture shift outside your normal cultural borders would be an interesting idea.