Recovering builder trying to play aggressively

[IronParrot]

Help wanted.

Background: For the longest time I've been playing either standard games or OCC with a vertical, tech-heavy strategy and not much in the way of early-game expansion, and virtually no offensive warfare before Gunpowder except to keep Montezuma/Isabella/etc. down. As far as my skill level goes, I can pretty consistently go for a space race win on Prince.

This trapped my playing style in a certain routine (for example, I tended to rely too much on going for either early Pyramids or the Oracle/CS slingshot), so I've been experimenting with fast expansion and early wars (and leaders with the appropriate traits for that sort of thing). I'm playing BtS, I've had to crank it down to Noble, and I'm still running into some trouble. I can expand and establish a lead in territory/population without breaking my budget too much, but once I start dedicating myself to fighting a war my research lags way behind, and some peaceful AI civ on the other end of the continent pulls way ahead.

While I've gone for late-game Conquest or Domination before, this is a completely different style for me and I'm having trouble adjusting. I find it very difficult to resist going for wonders and buildings instead of producing enough units for taking (and keeping) cities, because I'm used to beelining up the tech tree. What should I be doing to adjust?

[wodan11]

Are you prioritizing economic techs?

First priority is to get your early war going. That means BW, IW, or AH usually. The question is what you do after that (while you're fighting your war).

There are several ways to go about it. Currency is important, as is CoL of course. CoL can (still) be lightbulbed, so that's a possibility (but you'll have to plan this out and make sure you have a prophet at the appropriate time). Also is going for a shrine... the first two are probably gone but you might have a shot at Poly; if not then Philo.

Wodan

[DirtyMartini]

agree with wodan11 --

I'm far from an expert, but I play pretty aggressively early. My initial goals are:

1) to expand peacefully to three cities (toward the enemy). Usually this is one commerce and two production cities.

2) start pumping swords ASAP

3) pick the victim early and begin the diplomatic maneuvering-- if a neighbor has founded a religion, that's who I'm going for. I also need to figure out where I'm going to get the prophet for the shrine. Usually it's Moai + temple priest.

4) Once I'm at three cities with sword capabilities, I assess the situation. If I think I can pull it off without getting to cats, I go for it. If not, I do another round of peaceful expansion while teching to catapults. Once you've got swords and cats, you should be good to go almost no matter what, but that is a little late to be considered early war. If you're going to delay war you need to not overdo the peaceful expansion -- would you rather found a marginal city of your own, or be able to afford to keep one of your enemy's core cities?

[Blake]

Found no religions, build no wonders.

The warmongering should come naturally.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Blake
Found no religions, build no wonders.

The warmongering should come naturally.

NO wonders.

Early rush of your nearest neighbor.

Play as a civ with a strong early UU.

[wodan11]

War Chariots is a good rush UU.

Wodan

[snoopy369]

Let your tech lag. As you're warmongering, you will have to reduce your tech %; but 20% of a lot can be more than 80% of less. It won't be at first, but when the cities have improved and grown, it will be. Make sure to quickly improve the taken-over cities, and get their culture at least one expansion quickly; once they're up to size 8+ you'll be making a good profit on them, rather than having them drag you down, and you'll quickly catch up to the other continent.

Also, play with 'no tech trading' or 'no tech brokering'; if you're at war with a lot of people you will have problems getting AI's to trade with you, and this way they don't trade as much amongst themselves.

Try to get Code of Laws earlyish, and Currency also quice early. If you need a religion, Code of Laws will get it for you; but the real reason for it is the courthouses, which if you have 20+ cities are ... useful, plus the Forbidden Palace. Currency's trade routes and marketplaces are also key. Banks once they're available are huge for money, build them over universities (50% instead of 25%... unless you are 70%+ tech, university is the worse deal). But, most of all, DON'T BE AFRAID OF 20% TECH RATE or even worse... you may have a short time at 10% or 0%, that's fine as long as you're improving.

[Hauptman]

Dont know if you read this one, but here is a look at how I did a warmonger game, wich nearly devastated my economy.

Fun with Tokugawa

[Yosho]

If going for an early rush, I try to develop my economy and make a bunch of swordsmen at the same time; I usually don't found a religion, but I always pick up pottery (mostly for cottages) and such early. Once I have 5 or 6 swords, I rush whichever one of my neighbors dosn't have axemen yet; swords beats archers, no question. After I win that war (or even as I'm winning it), I make sure my economy is really going and continue to expand.

[Seedle]

I used to be very much a builder too, and still am really, but after reading these boards and playing the game, I've learned ways to better leverage my military and break out of my builder rut. You said you usually play Prince, but are trying to warmonger on Noble. I play on Noble marathon, so this should work for those settings, though for other set ups, these other folks know much more than I.

When you are first starting to warmonger, I would recommend a pangaea map, this eliminates the need for a navy (except to protect seafood) and makes it easier to move your army from one victim to another.

I would also recommend marathon speed, units are relatively cheaper compared to buildings, and get a de facto movement increase.

You definitely want to ignore early religious techs. Get the techs you need to hook up resources, then get bronze working ASAP. Make sure you build a warrior or two to scout and collect money from huts, you will be running a deficit for awhile.

When you should first strike depends on your neighbors. Pay attention to what they are doing. Hopefully, and usually, at least one nearby civ will found a religion for you (or two, I've captured a double holy capital before) or build you a wonder or two. If they are teching religion or building wonders, they aren't going to have crap militarily. In this case, I usually only build one (MAYBE two, that eats 300 shields that could be an army, but sometimes resource requirements demand it.) city other than my capital and rush. Build axes or chariots (or even archers) and kill their warriors. You now have either a future shrine city or a couple of "free"wonders, as well as some prime city sites and more room to grow.

If your neighbors are pursuing more militaristic goals, you may need to avoid the earliest possible rush and build 4-5 cities. While building these, get pottery and then Iron working. After you have a decent production base, while the AI builds wonders and more cities, you build an army. You use your army to take their non-armied cities and wonders. Make sure to use the whip to build quickly. You'll want to get cats sooner rather than later, but some non-military tech (for temples, or libraries) may need to come before construction.

The AI isn't as dumb as it used to be (thanks, Blake ) so there are a couple of things to note. The AI will build counter units to your army even before you declare war. If you have lots of horse units, the AI will spam spears, if you build swords/axe men, the AI will spam axemen. So combined arms is good, chopping/whipping an instant army so as to prevent the AI from responding is better. Also, the AI watches its borders, and If it thinks you are building a stack of doom, it will move its troops accordingly. Keep your units seperated until just before you are ready to strike. I didn't do this in the game I am currently playing and Shaka, my ONE ally, thought my stack in Mainz was meant for him and not Greece. I won the war, but it would have been much nicer to have Shaka helping me with Greece (who he hated) rather than attacking me.

This should get you through the earliest part of the game, and allow you to capture 2-3 civs. At this point of the game, I usually stop being aggressive for awhile, and revert to builder form. So if your objective is just non-stop war, I can't really help you any further. I've played those games, but I find war in the middle ages to be very inefficient. Once I've used the early aggression to secure territory, I concentrate on out-teching the AI to flight and Assembly Line, then go on the warpath again.

It is true, especially if you are going for a "I never need to run in the black because of all the money from sacking cities and I hardly ever don't build units in any city" sort of game, that building units is better than using shields one wonders, especially as you can always capture wonders. However, I have never been able to go cold turkey on wonders, so if you have trouble completely abandoning them too, I have some recommendations. I actually like the Oracle. It is only useful if you build it, and it provides Great Prophet points that can get you a shrine. However, It does come at a time in the game where building units before your opponents can stabilize is key. As I said, units>wonders, but if you must build one like me....

I also like the Spiral Minaret, U. of Sankore, and Apostolic Palace. These are obviously not very good on small maps or quick games, but on huge marathon, they are very good. 15-30 cities in the mid game is not unrealistic, so each one of these wonders can give 60-120 beakers/coins/shields per turn, for 600 or more turns. The Apostolic Palace also comes off a good warmonger tech, and having it can help you control diplomacy to your benefit. Of course, you may be able to use the shields spent on these wonders and the buildings that they affect on units that will allow you to win the game before they pay for themselves, but I'll let the more mathematically inclined demonstrate why these wonders are not good builds like I think they are However, regardless of efficiency, I don't think the "just capture the wonder" argument works on these. I know the Apostolic palace is locked into the religion that founds it, but I'm not sure about the other two.

As far as religions, like I said, don't try for the early ones. Military tech is more important. However, the later ones can be okay to get. This allows you to more effectively control the spread of religion, which gives many benefits to the warmonger. Knowing what religions they AIs are and what religions they will spread on their own allows more efficient use of shrines. If you can get an AI to be your religion, they'll spread it for you, so you won't have to use missionaries when you take their cities. And, it is always bad when a long-time ally is first to philosophy or divine right, switches religions mid/late game, and decides your the first target in its holy war.

The point I guess I'm trying to make with all this religion and wonder talk is that I have found that a war->build->war game works better for me than just a war->war->war game. So, don't totally abandon your builderness, just make sure every shield not spent on a unit counts. And know when to build. The very earliest part of the game is the best time to war and the worst time to build. That, ultimately, is what I learned from these boards and experience.

[Fleme]

One thing you must be ready to face is the poverty that follows an early war. I had one game with Genghis in which I decided to be a true Mongol and started out by building my three cities on the steppe, working my way up to Keshiks and going raiding. I did completely destroy (capture or raze) 2 of my closest neighbors (who were both more than 10 tiles away from my border) and having a core empire of 3 cities and having 2 captured capitals far from your core cities along with an army of roughly 10 Keshiks really does turn you poor (No wonder the Mongolians these days don't have much going on for them - they spent all their wealth on Keshiks ). Seriously though, you have to be willing to be the ass the AI (Read: Monty, Shaka, Genghis) is and put your mind into it. Capture a shrine, ToA or cities that have a lot going on for them in the commercial sense and make your enemies pay for everything and you'll be fine. Just set your goals and focus on the military techs as has been suggested here.

[snoopy369]

One great way to learn, is to play the Genghis scenario (Warlords), by the way. You can't meaningfully win that game as a bulider. Play with the rule that you'll only take at most 2 civs' cities for yourself and raze all other cities.

This isn't useful for learning the economic aspects, but is VERY useful for learning the attacking aspects. To win this scenario on Deity or Immortal, you have to move quickly and keep on moving the whole game. You can't stop attacking for even a few turns, or you'll fall behind and lose; so you learn how to use an attacking force that is relatively weak compared to what you normally would use, and how to keep the attack going rather than stopping to heal (and you'll also learn the value of the medic unit...)

[IronParrot]

Thanks, everyone - that's some thorough advice and I expect I'll be spending a lot of time playing with your suggestions. I didn't pick up BtS until fairly recently, so I've only begun to adjust to some of the AI improvements (in terms of the AI matching my preparations for war before the horn ever sounds).

One other question, though: if I happen to draw a starting position right next to civs with Protective and/or early UUs (I'm thinking of archer/spear/axe replacements in particular), should that have a big impact on my diplomacy? On one hand, it seems infeasible (or at least very expensive) to attack those civs too early, and on the other, I don't want to sit back and let them box me in.

[snoopy369]

You can rush them early, as in VERY early, on noble; or you can leave them alone. It's always up to you of course to decide whether the cost of rushing is worth doing it; but it's often worth it if you're very close to another civ, even if a bit more expensive.

One thing the AI isn't very good at dealing with, is pillaging. A lot of war early on can be just pillaging; if you start next to Rome, for example, you had better make sure to pillage any iron they have very early on ... and that means you have to research iron working, or else pillage EVERY mine you find (which is not a bad idea either). You can always send in a group of units that can't take a city, but can pillage a city into uselessness, and later take it when you have superior units and/or tech.

[Fleme]

When you play on Monarch / Emperor it's increasingly hard to rush a Protective Civ since they start with 1-2 of upgraded archers (but this of course doesn't apply to Noble). You should try a few games just from a rushing point of view and try different rushing units from UU's to regular Axes. Actually if you intend to rush on higher levels I've found that the Incas are a total killer with their Quechuas. The AI's first archer or two fall to just a few Quechuas and this won't even set your economy back seeing that they replace warriors. Other really good rushing units in my personal experience are Persian Immortals (Chariots that receive defensive bonuses!) because you can choke with them even if you can't kill and of course Egyptian War Chariots. Even if your Immortal / War Chariot rush fails or you decide that it's not worth the losses you can always pillage the countryside and then stick your units surrounding the AI capital which will effectively stop them in their track. They won't expand, will rarely try to engage your units and will fall behind in techs.

Well, basically any ancient UU can rush and you should really give them a try even if you don't intend to finish those games just to get a feel to it. It is quite a feeling to capture a rival capital just a couple turns into the game when you and your 3-4 Quechuas (perhaps with Cover, if you happen to have a barracks?) roll in and beat their defender (again, this rush is arguably easier on higher levels tbh) and you now have 2 capital spots.

So there are rush strategies that don't really break your economy but instead grant you a nice little standing army and two really strong cities from which you can expand your empire and a properly executed rush can really make your game if you succeed. (Also, throwing away 4 Quechuas for example won't kill anyone's economy at any rate)