Importance of staying out of early wars.

[CiverDan]

From my PTW experience (multiple games into late middle ages) I have found that it is imperative to stay out of early wars, unless either we are terribly boxed in are someone has attacked us first and forced us into.

I have found that when a few civs are attacking each other the others will continue to build cities and their infractructure (terrain and city improvements) and build up a significant tech lead as a result. I have had multiple MP games where I have had cavalry while my opponents have spearmen as a result of this very thing. If we have to fight we have to make a decisive action early in such a battle. Otherwise we will be in a lot of trouble By the late middle ages. If we do get is such a war, we must keep expanding in other directions away from the battle, if there is room as we can spare the shields to build settlers.

[statusperfect]

Keeping a low profile until we get our hands on the Sipahi sounds like a good idea.

[Jon Shafer]

I agree. Until our REX land grabbing is over, we need to try and keep out of wars. However, after that....

[WarriorPoet]

This exact sentiment seams to dominate the core of our ancient era strategy discussions held in many threads. It's an important decision to be made. As your minister of war (shameless plug-see my thread), I would firmly agree with you. In fact, I firmly believe in fighting only when you are ready, and nearly assured of victory.

[Zero]

IF we can squirm ourselves of having to fight Civs that are in their GA with their UU at full power, (Most teams will get aggressive during their UU reign) We will be able to quietly build up a tremendous force. All we gotta do is make us seem less viable target than the next guy.

[WarriorPoet]

That will be my strategy precisely, of course, I will depend on being given units

[BigFurryMonster]

We will probably have our UU last of all civs (or close to the end of the list, anyway), so staying out of trouble should be our top priority.

[WarriorPoet]

Yes, BFM, just make sure your cities are building the units I will need

[Zero]

We cant be too pacifist either. We cant sit around while each civ takes turn dominating and when our UU comes up, the world has been already been carved up and served out. Like a pizza pie, we don't wanna come in too late when the feeding frenzy begins.

It will largely remain on how we balance dodging wars and ceasing opportunities. We will have to resort alot of our time taking advantage of weakly defended but fatten civs as much as we can, while justifying our cause to the world.

If we can play such game properly, no one will live to buy their own personal computer excpet people of Lux Invicta, cause before such thing is known we will have conquered!~ MuHAHAHAHA

[statusperfect]

I don't wanna eat pizza with you

You have a point, we have to grow at the same pace as the other civs. But not too much, we don't want to stick our neck out before the siphahi.

[WarriorPoet]

If I am given the tools....At any rate you are all right. Expand at a "stable pace." That is until we get our UU

I don't know if you've seen my other thresads on similar subjects...

Anyhow, my strategy/rather the strategy I would like us to persue is in stages...

First, expand rapidly towards valuable land and resources. Our military should be concerned with protecting these assets and "herding the AI." You can't really herd human players, but the AI lets you do it.

Second, once our initial expansion begins to slow down, the military should firm up our defenses and develop enough strength to keep our competitors at bay.

Finally, we should attack if we need resources, or if we sense one of our competitors may be getting uncomfortably strong. Always better to pre-emptively strike if you have the capability and the opportunity.

By now, around mid to late ancient era, your wars are quick grabs for nearby goals. The Middle ages ushers in all sorts of chaos and war...there really is no strategy here, except making the enemy pay more than you loose.

That's how I plan to have the military used.

The diplomatic core will have to devote its time to avoiding war as much as necessary unless otherwise instructed.

[Admiral PJ]

One point :
We should try and hide our true millitary strength from our neighbours, Millitary Intelligence is a poweful weapon, and cheap.
As they are human players, if we hide most of our units just out oftheir sites (and outside cities so they can't see them) - then they will not build a big army as they think they only need a small army.

On the other hand if we have a pathetic small army, we should only show them our strongest , and put more units on our borders to make them think we're more powerful than we really are..

They may be able to see our strength with the histogram chart, but that dosen't take training into account i expect.

This intelligence stuff is secondary to defence tactics, defending cities (or lower in prescidence anyhow).

TSun Tzu talks about using geography to your best advantage too.. putting mountains behind your own forces I think, I will try to psychically talk to Tsun from the spirit world for advice :P

[Jon Shafer]

Definitely be mysterious.

Like I've mentioned before, our wars should come in 3 phases, each coming with the new mounted unit upgrade ( Horsemen -> Knights -> Siphais) with the Siphai offensive being the largest, of course.