Civ choice for early warmongering

[Velociryx]

Good thread! And as to my Aztecs....I'd be happy to!

My prediction is that the Aztec will be among THE most despised civ in all of MP. Only the Greeks will be safe from them, and only then by playing ultra conservative, meaning that the Aztec player can bully his way into dominance via significantly more rapid expansion.

Why?

The Jaguar is one of the BEST UU's in the game.

I can hear detractors now, laughing at me for calling a warrior with an extra point of movement "one of the best," and in truth, the unit does not inspire much in the way of fear for its stats, but it would be a HUGE mistake to underestimate the unit and the capabilities of the civ that produced it.

Advantages of the Aztec:
Religious - One of the best, strongest traits in the game.

Militaristic - With warring, you'll see more than your fair share of leaders.

Jaguar - 2 move unit available at game start is the same thing as having the Expansionistic trait, for all practical purposes, and even barbs from huts are good, cos remember, you're militaristic, so you will likely either get a promotion or retreat before dying (fast unit, 'member?)

Jaguar - 2 move unit available at game start means you can outrun EVERY other military unit in the game. You can, with a proper jaguar building program (which usually means, as fast as you can), uncover the entire continental map, find all your neighbors, deny them contact to each other by blocking, shadowing, and otherwise getting in the way, and capture HORDES of workers/ambush settler parties in the exceedingly early game, when AI settlers are guarded by warriors. This influx of slave labor gives you, almost from the game start, the equivalent of Industrious workers, at least in terms of the total amount of early game terraforming they will accomplish.

Not many civs can lay claim to having effectively four civ traits, and with an aggressive attack pattern, you can be in *firm* control of the continent before your first opponent even starts thinking about horsemen....THAT's power....

-=Vel=-

[Theseus]

This was a GREAT thread. It's what got me into Armies (don;t laugh), and got me committed to 'poly.

I'm gonna re-read it from scratch.

[Theseus]

I remember that last game well... it was when I started REALLY taking care of elites.

To answer your question about early GL generation, in that game, as Egypt, I got 3 in the Ancient era.

[Arrian]

Yeah, the FP, the Great Library and an Army between 1500-150BC. [Vader voice]Impressive. Most impressive. The RNG is strong with this one.[/Vader voice]

Seriously, though, it's just a question of doing enough fighting. Ever check out the "Always War" succession games over at CivFanatics? Talk about leader insanity!

If I had the patience for large map games, I could probably pursue Ultimate Power with Egypt or other non-militaristic civs. But on Standard maps the militaristic promotion bonus is a must. IMO, of course.

-Arrian

[WackenOpenAir]

My simple reasoning:

Deity: getting techs first is not possible, researching techs takes long. research at 10% is by far the best thing to do. (usually makes it 40 instead of 30 turns to research or so)

You can't always make settlers in the opening, you wont have food for them. you need to make units right from the start.
since the opponent has 8 free defensive units each, attacking realy early (like 3000 BC) with archers wont do much good. you first need to have some force to overcome their advantage.

Your units are twice as expansive as your opponent's (deity disadvantage) the opponent has twice as many cities. In other words, by just building you units, you will not even come close to the AI in units.

Since your science is at 10%, you will have a lot of gold to upgrade units. in early game warriors and archers are the only thing to be made, warriors are the units to be upgraded. these swordsmen will be available right when you have enough warriors and gold to make a force that can make a difference, this way.

You will go for warriors upgraded to swordsmen. The best way to mach your opponents in military power.

fact: in middle ages, you will want to have knights - cavalry.

Since knights are rather expansive to build as well, kind of the same reasoning as for the warrior - swordsmen goes here. while you just upgraded your warriors to swordsmen, start producing horsemen. upgrade those to knights when available.

meanwhile you have to make sure you get your science from trading and beating your opponents.

So the only units to be used are. (for upgrade path)
-warrior
-swordsmen
-horsemen
-knights

Your UU must be a replacement of one of these to be in any way usefull at all.

happynes is a problem on deity, culture flipping also is a problem. Temples are your best friend. In the end every city will need a temple. Religious is a high priority.

In order to stay even with the AI on total production, you need a bigger empire with the forbidden palace. Building the forbidden palace effectively requires a GL. Militaristic helps for this as well as your overal succes in wars. Militaristic is a high priority.

Infrastructure will make your armies move faster and your workers get to iron and horses faster. Industrious also is a high priority.

so to conclude a good civ has:
-religious / militaristic / inductrious
-UU that replaces warrior/swordsmen/horsemen/knight.

That leaves:
China
Japan

Luckily both these guys also have a very good GA timing IMO. This makes them stick out above the other even more.

It's a hard choise between these 2.

[DrSpike]

Wow, a bumptastic effort.

[Drachen]

I really like this thread and I'm glad it got bumped up.

I just finished my first Egyptian Deity game and was surprised by how dominant Egypt can be. I was able to get a domination win in 90 BC on a tiny map vs Spain, India, and England. It seems that lots of war chariots and taking the early Golden Age can work wonders. I used a Great Leader to get Sun Tzu's and I was able to build both Leonardo's and The Sistine! Egypt gets my vote although I still have a number of tribes to try on deity.

[player1]

Originally posted by Drachen
I really like this thread and I'm glad it got bumped up.

I just finished my first Egyptian Deity game and was surprised by how dominant Egypt can be. I was able to get a domination win in 90 BC on a tiny map vs Spain, India, and England. It seems that lots of war chariots and taking the early Golden Age can work wonders. I used a Great Leader to get Sun Tzu's and I was able to build both Leonardo's and The Sistine! Egypt gets my vote although I still have a number of tribes to try on deity.

That's so true.

Early golden age does not need to be bad.

In fact it can be pretty good if prepared.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by WackenOpenAir
That leaves:
China
Japan

And the Celts, if you're playing PTW. Rel/Mil with the 3/2/2 Gallic Swordsman.

[Arrian]

That swordsman, powerful as it may be, can be a hinderance rather than a help. In many cases I'd take 15 swordsmen + 10 horsemen (true, more production required, but same upgrade cost, using warriors & chariots) over 10 GSs.

-Arrian

[Solomwi]

Too true, Arrian. The one game I played with them, I was underwhelmed, mainly due to the cost factor, but also due to the need to force yourself to produce horsemen with an eye to the future. It makes for interesting planning in the ancient age, but it's nothing like being Germany, hitting Motorized Trans. and slapping your forehead, saying "Holy crap, I forgot I have Panzers! YES!", as happened to me last night.

[Ecthy]

Should be Iroquois or Persians