Cult of War

[nato]

In my past few games I have used a different strategy which has vastly increased my success in games. I would like to describe what I have done.

It may be old news, and it is not super brilliant, but it has so improved my game I want to describe it. At the very least, it describes a way to very easily win which might be helpful to new players.

I usually play standard map with 8 civs and default settings. I turn off domination and cultural victories as I would win them too early. This strategy crushes monarch and so far works fine for emperor.

I have two main focuses:
1. Culture
2. Military

Later in the game I pick up a third, smaller focus:
3. Gold

I play Japan for the culture and military bonuses (the Samurai are unimportant, I could just as well be Aztecs).

Early game is the standard land grab, building settlers as fast as possible. I get as many cities as I can until the land is all claimed. I end up with around 10 cities maybe.

I set research to 0% from turn 1. Almost all techs will be forced out of AIs. Luxury rate is always at 0%. Luxury resources and religous buildings provide happiness. Being at 100% tax rate the entire game gives lots of gold.

I build temples early to get a strong lead in culture. As is widely known, this is easy to do early in the game, when the AI ignores culture. A big lead in culture is vital; I make sure never to lose this early lead. (Sometimes this gives me culture flip cities; this is just an added bonus.)

I am friendly to all AIs I meet. I have lots of gold and a couple of techs to give as gifts. I buy their maps but never sell mine. I am very happy to sell any resources and luxuries I can for yet more gold.

After temples, I build barracks in all cities and start stockpiling horsemen (warrior code, horseback riding, and bronze working are the only techs I usually buy from an AI; they are easily affordable).

I get a stack of veteran horsemen, about 15 or so. I also get a few veteran spearmen, about 2 or so. During the game, my cities continue to churn out horsemen (and a few spears) to replace losses and grow the army.

When 15 or so are ready, I stack them next the target civ, victim #1.

I talk to all other civs and gift them 2 or 3 gold per turn to keep them neutral. I do this before every war, increasing the amount of gold given as everyone gets more rich. It is very important, and very easy, to win the diplomatic game. I always make sure that I am only at war with 1 civ (the target) at a time. Generally the AIs are very good about waiting until it is their turn to be conquered.

I then talk to the target civ. First I buy his world map to get the most updated version. Then I threaten him and try to clear out his treasury before the war starts. Regardless of whether he gives in, I declare war in the diplomacy screen.

My stack of horsemen is always able to attack target city #1 on the turn the war begins, because they have 2 movement. I select the biggest, most important city I can to get in a good first blow. Often, this is the capital.

(Also, if there are any resources near the border in other spots, I usually have one spearmen there to move in and deny that resource; thats more for fun though.)

My stack of horsemen takes the city. They will always take the city because their are 15 or so veteran attackers, and no city garrison can withstand that. Further, because they are fast units and will retreat, I have near zero casualties.

After the city falls, I move in the entire stack to quell resisters. With 15 or so units, usually resistance is ended in a single turn. Since my culture is vast, and the war will be quick, culture flips are never an issue. In a game I get at most 1 or 2 culture flips. It really is nothing I worry about at all.

Horsemen are poor defenders. However, the AI is not an aggressive attacker, and 15 or so holds the city, guaranteed. Later, the horsemen move on to conquer, and a spearmen moves up to garrison the city. Usually 1 is all that is needed.

So the stack of horsemen move on after quelling resistors. Usually, they conquer about 1 city per turn, sometimes more. The AI is quickly devoured. No one can sustain losing a major city every turn, when they only have 10 or so cities.

The war is very quick, maybe 10 turns, and ends with me completely conquering the enemy civ. Like culture flipping, military resistance by the AI is simply not an issue. The war is too fast and my army too strong. The limiting factor of conquest is not enemy resistance, but how fast my horsemen can move and get to enemy cities.

Before I finish off the civ, I get the army standing next to his last mainland city. Then I offer peace for all his techs and minor cities. Sometimes this must be done twice, for two reasons. First of all, some AIs are stubborn and won't give everything at first. Second of all, if they are a couple steps in the tech tree ahead of me, I can't get all his techs in one shot.

In any event, the techs aren't very important (they could be easily bought). It is very important to get all his far away or off-contient cities, that would be inconveniant to get to and conquer. Once he has given those, I finish him off. It is important for him to actually die, so that the threat of culture flip (small though it is) is permanently removed.

Further, it is much better to finish him off while your army is in position and ready to do it. It is very wasteful to have your army marching around, not fighting.

So wars are extremely quick, totally one sided, and greatly increase the empire. I am always at war, but each individual war is short. War is constant but quick.

After this, the army is on the new border, and in a position for target #2. I just do the exact same thing to him. When one civ is conquered, I heal units, get them into position, and then quickly declare war on the next civ. I conquer them one at a time, one after the other, in quick succession.

Generally I can get 2 or 3 civs before having to switch to samurai. I still keep and use my horsemen though; later, all will be upgraded to cavalry.

Eventually the continent is all conquered. This makes a short break in the constant war, as transports are built. This can take some time, depending on how big the continent was. If its a large one, I will have about 100 samurai, so will need about 25 galleons. Once the obstacle of the sea has been hurdled, then things go on as before, just on different continents.

Also, when I get the tech, cities will take a short break from building units to make cathedrals, for more culture, and marketplaces for more gold and happiness. I will also build courthouses (only when they will help) and harbors. Later on I will build aquaducts and banks, but that is later.

All cities make a temple and cathedral for certain. Since I have so many cities, the culture adds up greatly. Lots of gold easily finances rush building in corrupt cities.

These are generally the only buildings I ever need. I never make any science buildings. I usually don't make any wonders either; they are much easier to conquer. Also, I make very few of my own workers. 100s of captured ones work fine.

Once I have 100 or so attackers, my cities all go to wealth. The 100% tax all game long, markets, banks, trade deals, and wealth add up to enormous gold. I can rush buy nearly whatever I want. Thus later on gold becomes almost a third focus, along with culture and war.

There are three phases concerning enemy civs, early, middle, and late. Early civs are extremely easy targets. Their handful of spearmen are no match for a stack of horsemen.

Middle civs can be fairly challenging. They may actually have forces that are not totally insignificant. Pikes and muskets are somewhat better defenders. These guys are the toughest match in the game.

Finally, late civs return to being very easy targets. With 100 cavalry or so, with 3 movement, large continent size empires are conquered in less than 10 turns. Enemy forces are killed casually as they reach my front; enemy cities are conquered casually as my front reaches them. Again, the limiting factor to conquest is not the enemy forces, but simply how fast my units can move.

I of course make optimal placement of capital and forbidden palace. Often, I use my first leader to do this, not create an army. Being militaristic helps make this not a problem. I make sure to have both capitals set up before I let a samurai start my golden age. This golden age is usually well timed for when I am fighting the tougher middle civs.

I am in monarch most of the game, though republic is also feasible, perhaps because each war is short.

This strategy quickly makes me the number 1 civ. In most games, all other civs are conquered around maybe 1500 AD or so.

The strong military makes conquest easy, and the high culture through religion removes the problem of culture flipping. Being rich is just a bonus.

This is simple, and nothing ground breaking, but it is very powerful. It makes winning (on monarch at least) near automatic. I may quit using it soon, as it is somewhat repetitive, but I doubt there are many more efficient ways to win.

Thanks for reading.

[Arrian]

Nato,

Your strategy bears several striking similarities to mine. I also play as Japan and utilize a horseman rush. I go about it a bit differently, and I think you may be interested... so:

Do your normal expansion, building about 8 cities... probably stop there, unless is a compelling reason to build more (chokepoint). At this point you should be concerned with two things:

-Building a solid core of productive cities.
-Securing sources of horses and iron.

One luxury is really all you need at this stage, two is nice. More is unecessary, and going out of your way to build a city to claim more is a waste at this stage.

I start off with science at 50%, and set research for iron working. After I get there, I switch to warrior code. After that, masonry (in case of a very early leader). Finally, I drop research to 10%, or 0% w/1 scientist and select horsebackriding.

During this time, I build my core cities, build temples & barracks, hook up horses and start building chariots. As many as I can, in fact. Provided I have an iron source in my territory, I will also build some vet warriors. If I have a relatively non-corrupt coastal city, I'll take a shot at the Colossus.

Upon discovering HBR, I upgrade all chariots to horsies. This is usually 20-25 (400-500 gold). Then as many vet warriors to swords (I hold off on hooking up the iron until this stage) as I can afford.

Then, I attack. The goal is to conquer the continent. Like you, I stop short of destroying the civs at first in order to get their tech/maps/etc.

On continents with 2-3 neighbors, this usually results in total conquest in ancient times (unless the Greeks or Zulus are involved). With 4 neighbors, I can usually wipe out 3, and perhaps start on the fourth, before encountering pikes. Then, it's samurai time. Continents with more than 4 neighbors are tough, but I can still do a fair amount of damage early.

The goals are:

-Gain cities/territory/resources
-Gain Great Leaders
-Gain tech parity
-Destroy AIs

This strategy was actually born of a builder mindset. I love Wonders of the World, and HATE not being able to build them all. Heh. Playing on Monarch, I find that building all the ones I want is very, very hard, if not impossible. Further, I want a huge tech lead.

I realized that the only way to pull these goals off was to get a well-placed Forbidden Palace up ASAP. The only way to do that is to fight. So I began doing that. Once I figured out just how useful Japan was, my goals got even loftier. I began to seek Ultimate Power (tm).

Early GL uses: if I have a good FP spot, any available GL will immediately be used on that. If not, I usually rush the Pyramids, or if I already have that the Great Library, or perhaps an Army. It depends.

I have had a wide range of # of leaders generated... from 1 to 6 in ancient war. The game with 6 was probably my best ever. It made playing on Monarch look more like Chieftain... which, come to think of it is kinda the goal. I want it all.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Arrian,

What if there are more than 3-4 rivals on your continent? eg - 8 civ standard map pangea w/ large land, or 12 large map continent / pangea.

In nato's strat I suppose you just keep building horsie units and keep upgrading them all the way till cavalry, warring non-stop & forgoing research.

My problem is, I'm just too hung up about my reputation to go down this dark path of back-stabbing and treaty-breaking . Hence my games usually involve war-avoidance strats.

[Arrian]

Cort Haus (like the handle, btw),

More than 3-4 makes things trickier. Tech progress speeds up, such that if I'm lucky, I can take out 3 civs before pikemen. Then I have to stop, regroup, build up a bit, and continue onward with either Samurai or Cavalry. It depends. I don't really like starting on mega-continents.

As for reputation, bear in mind that if you wipe out your neighbors prior to making contact with overseas civs, they will not know about your atrocities, and your reputation will be spotless. This is what I aim for... so they're unsuspecting when I come for them

-Arrian

[jshelr]

Do you guys tend to get guilty conscience problems when playing like Cort does -- as though the game were real life. I do. I never use nukes, even if I'm about 5 techs ahead and no one can ever respond if I do nuke them. I never break treaties or 20-turn limits. I don't like to polish off two-city civs left residually on my continent. If you do have these problems, do you think you should see anyone about them? I wonder if medical insurance covers this type of mental block?

[nato]

Your strat sounds cool Arrian, thanks for writing it out. Like you say pretty similiar.

About building cities just to claim land, I agree that lots of cities are not vital, and I am happy with around 10. However I feel every city I build is one less I have to conquer. Worth the cost of a settler to me.

For pre-attack techs, like HBR, I just buy mine, as late as possible. They are so cheap! I guess your way keeps the gold out of AI hands. AIs research cheaper than humans can though, so I feel its cheaper to buy.

I much prefer horses only, no swords. I want to move and conquer fast. Since the army is overwhelming, the horse's speed is more important than the sword's power.

My goals are simply to conquer the world quickly, and to hold it strongly. I think you've mentioned that you want total victory and domination over the AI in all areas. Thats cool, but not what I was going for here. I like to go for specialization and schwerpunkt, in this case military and religion.

For what Cort Haus is saying, the number of civs on my continent makes no difference to me. Just like you say: "just keep building horsie units and keep upgrading them all the way till cavalry, warring non-stop & forgoing research." That sums it up!

Reputation is absolutely not problem. I wouldn't worry about it. My strat is clearly terrible, declaring war for blatant conquest and breaking a peace treaty I just signed THAT VERY TURN to get his techs. I do all those things! and every AI is quite happy with me, right up until the dreaded world-map-purchase-of-doom...

jshelr - I would be very guilty if I was playing "me". But if I was going to play like I would in real life, I would never declare war, unless some AI was somehow acting very evil. I'd never break a treaty. I'd have lots of universities and zero temples. I'd feel guilty about cutting down forests and mining hills. I'd give away a lot of my techs. All that kind of stuff.

In general, being me as I would in real life doesn't make for a good civ game!

[Arrian]

Nato,

The differences between your method and mine are basically twofold:

1) I used to use horsemen only, just like you, but have refined that to include some swordsmen as backup. They are mainly used as defenders for horsie stacks. Only occasionally do they attack. I find having them along lowers casualties.

2) Once I hit the middle ages, I go builder for a while, cranking up science, building wonders, etc. I often don't bother with chivalry at all (GA triggered by Wonders).

jshelr,

I used to have those problems. Not anymore. I have developed a healthy hatred of the AI, and have no qualms whatsoever with breaking treaties, wiping out civs, attacking people for no reason... but I will never use nukes. It's just stupid. I screws up the world.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

nato,

Just to make sure: You know you can upgrade Horesemen to Samurai, yes?

We should call this "nato's Brute Force Lotto."

And the next lucky AI civ is...

[nato]

Oops, yeah I knew that. Guess I slipped into original mode while typing. Thanks though.

The lotto thing made my day

Maybe I'll give swordsmen a try, they're gonna have a hard time keeping up though...

[Arrian]

I slowed the conquest pace down a little bit, because I realized I could better optimize my chances of generating GL's that way. It doesn't really slow you down much, and because you take less casualties due to counterattack (at some point that all-horsemen stack has to end it's turn in AI territory, and will be subjected to, at the very least, archer attack), the pace of your 2nd, 3rd, etc. conquests will be faster. You will have more troops that survived.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Agreed... even if I'm doing maximum rampaging, I'll take little R&R breaks to assess the situation, make sure my Workers are doin' the right thang, and, most importantly, get my attackers healed up. And if I get too banged up while in AI territory, I will definitely withdraw to a mountain or something.

Balance between inflicting terror and keeping the troops healthy and happy.

[Txurce]

I tend to go all-horse and trust culture to hold my undefended captured cities, but recently encountered the need for Arrian's mixed-force strategy. My MWs were stopped by the Americans (!), whose swordsmen were devastating in the mountains where our war had to be fought. I could have used a few spearmen in that game.

Nato, I usually bribe the other AIs by paying them to declare war. A few gpt seems like a much better deal. Good tip. You also imply that repeatedly breaking treaties doesn't hurt you in future negotiations. Is that because you only negotiate just before extermination? Does the collective AI ever view you as a menace and try to put a stop to you?

[nato]

Well, lets see...

I negotiate when I first meet civs to buy their maps. Before I attack anyone I negotiate to get bronze working and HBR. I buy their map right before I attack. After I start attacking I guess I basically only negotiate like you say, right before extermination. This is when the AI is willing to give you EVERYTHING.

I do a lot of gift giving, like 50 gold and 3 gpt. I especially do this right before I attack a different civ. I feel winning the diplomatic front, and keeping everyone but the target neutral, is a fantastic way to spend all that gold. I guess since its a straight gift it doesn't count as negotion. I also sell whatever resources I can for gpt. Sometimes I just give resources and luxuries as gifts.

I do make sure never to break a per turn agreement. What I mean is I never offer gpt for say a tech and then break it. All my trades are fair and honest. Actually peace is the only treaty I break. Minor exception!

You would sure think the AIs would perceive me as a threat and gang up on me! However, my very regular policy of generous gpt and resource gifts seems to stop this.

A couple of times AIs declared war on me before I was up to them, which impressed me very much and struck me as very realistic. This was exactly the times I had been lax in giving gifts, so I really think it is the gifts. In these cases I was able to make the AI eventually pay me for peace and then wait his turn.

[Cort Haus]

Keeping 'em sweet with gifts is a good way to maintain / improve relations, but I didn't realise you could buy peace whatever your rep.

I notice you've nothing else to spend money on but greasing palms, whereas Arrian's upgrade strat costs ~500GP. How many neutrality pacts do you get for that?

Then there's the flipside. For the build cost of 20 horsies Arrian gets 30 chariots, so take yer pick - firepower or diplopower

So nato, are you able to hack your way through 8 or 9 civs on the same, large continent, without anyone ever attacking you at an inconvenient time?

[nato]

Well eventually I have to upgrade to samurai and cavalry also, but thats really a small expense compared to all the gold I have.

Early on, there are less civs I am in contact with, so there are less people to bribe. Also gold amounts are lower in the early game. Maybe 3 other people to bribe at first ... all three would be like 150 gold plus 9 gpt for 20 turns = 330.

Later you meet more civs, but more are eliminated. However, gold amounts have to rise to remain a significant gift. But just like upgrade costs, theres plenty of gold left over. I have enough to rush a lot of temples and cathedrals in captured cities.

I really haven't had problems with other civs declaring war on me. As long as I give gifts, they are usually wait for me to get to them. A couple of times they have declared war, and I was able to get their nearest, biggest neighbor to declare war on them for a few hundred gold. Then a little later I get peace from the guy who declared war on me, usually with him paying a hundred or so gold for it.

Arrian is being more clever than me with the chariots thing. The armies he describes start out quite a bit bigger than mine. Still I do ok. The AI is so unprepared for war on that scale early on!

[Radiation Zero]

I tried this strategy, but when my stack of horsemen hit the nearest city, the whole thing fell apart on their spearmen.

I kept sending more troops to reinforce, but they got troops behind my borders and took out my roads. My Horsemen weren't doing very well at all against their spearmen, but their seem to do okay against mine.

I went from having a stronger military to a weaker and it looks like they want at least two cities for peace.

[alva]

Originally posted by Radiation Zero
I tried this strategy, but when my stack of horsemen hit the nearest city, the whole thing fell apart on their spearmen.

I kept sending more troops to reinforce, but they got troops behind my borders and took out my roads. My Horsemen weren't doing very well at all against their spearmen, but their seem to do okay against mine.

I went from having a stronger military to a weaker and it looks like they want at least two cities for peace.

i know what you mean this strategie doesn't work for me either
i guess having an overkill of units is the trick, but i'm never patient enough

[nato]

Well, I don't know what to say. It works great for me.

Radiation Zero, you really had about 15 veteran horsemen, and they couldn't take even ONE city? I'm stunned by this. AI cities usually have 2 or 3 spearmen in them. I just don't see how you could lose.

Capitals usually have extra troops in them, but I always take them fine as well.

I do keep my cities building more horsemen, to replace losses and increase the army, but 15 is enough to start.

alva848, did you build about 15 veteran horsemen or did you build less?

Not that there is anything magical about 15, its just that that is a very large force early on. For me it is overwhelming. I'm curious how it got beat back early in the game.

[jshelr]

I think it's clear that the early mounted offense is the strategy that is working best in the ancient era. My two daughters are 1/4 Iroquois. So, to show loyalty, and also to get the 3 attack rating, I choose to use that Civ to build the attacking force now that I'm married to the horse attack strategy. They are religious, making temples cheap for early culture as well. However, I play the larger maps and often pangea, causing it to be impossible to bash through everyone. There is no need. You can win practically every time if you can carve out an empire that can be cheaply defended on one side -- get your back to the sea. Then, build the best economy of all the civs. That is nearly always doable. And wait for modern armour to finish off the victory. If the map gods have placed you right in the middle of the pack, you're going to have to fight more, probably virtually eliminating half the civs personally. More challenging by far when that happens.