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Petrus2
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Ok, I'm a builder by preference, but wanted to try some warmongering early (I've always been jealous of all the MGL that the militaristic cultures get!). That causes a problem, since my habits are not those that support playing an Aztec and going on the early offensive! In a game I started, I was busily expanding madly; I had probably...hmmm, 17-20 towns and area 'protected' to fill in another 5. Had 2 cultures near me (Spain, America) and another 2 (Dutch and er, someone else) not that far away.
I was building plenty of Jag Warriors, but then I realized that I was now facing enemies with lots of spearmen and some archers for their attack.
Did I wait too long, in my typical Builder Mentality, to start the attack? I was hoping to have a base to support enough troops, as well as make my GA be worth a bit more that if I attacked too soon. Or is this typical, that you just need to be ready to swarm the spearmen?
Game is on monarch level, my preferred "fun" level to game (Emperor just takes too much time, around the interuptions of RL).
Thanks in advance 
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Aramis
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Not where I was tomorrow, nor will be yesterday.
Dec 2002
time: 23:33
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I think waiting until you have everything ready to start a war is a bit self-defeating. I used to do that, and I was often waiting way too long, giving opponents time to build up, or start a war with me first.
I don't think there's an optimum time. When your blood is up and you can just taste the carnage to come is the time to start. And yeah, be sure you have 8-10 units.
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Aramis
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Not where I was tomorrow, nor will be yesterday.
Dec 2002
time: 23:33
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Persia is a good choice.
Egypt, being Rel & Ind, has advantages that come later, making it great for being a builder who wants to build until s/he can go warmongering like crazy.
Carthage is good, as well, for the long term. I'd suggest peaceful relations as long as possible if playing these.
All the Mil civs are great for early wars, but they'd better come damn early.
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Antrine
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Well, I have modded to this; undeclared war starts in earnest on the very first turn. The human gets 6 settlers, AI’s 8 settlers each along with what I call a first-strike force, these long-range ‘hidden nationality, near invisible units (some units can see them) can and will take cities out first turn (a global road network is pre-built with almost no units tagged to pillage).
If by random chance, you are squeezed betwixt two or three belligerent AI’s, the first three turns is live or die. The human has no first strike capability, only limited defense and many scouts. From turn 10 to 25 it is touch and go. An early war here will be a doesy, because everything is double and triple speed (growth, movement and resources). After turn 25, a major build up is the priority for by turn 40 or so all hell will break loose with well-stocked AI fielded armies numbering in the dozens. Everyone is dangerous, make friends or else!
Many ‘start’ units are not available for re-build until later so timing and finesse is king.
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cracky
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If I have seen further, it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
I used to wait for IW and a large group of swords, or if things were progressing especially slowly in my city development I might even wait for knights. But after lurking here at 'poly for quite some time, reading all the AU DARs and what-not, my second or third city does nothing but push out archers, with the occasional rushed archer from other cities. Once I have (at most) six archers, its time to go. Even at Emporer, (which I'm just adjusting to now) this stack will usually get you at least one city and a few techs. If you manage to do this quickly enough, this short stack can even move on round-robin style to another civ, though the archers will usually be accompanied by swords by this point.
War, and more war. The sooner the better! 
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Petrus2
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In reply to the general comments, as opposed to one in specific...
Yep, I realized I should have started the offensive sooner. Like I said, I'm a builder at heart, and am purposely trying some different civs to get the warmonger flavor of the game. Picked Aztecs cause the Jag Warriors, while weak individually, seem pretty powerful when you consider their 2 pt move for scouting AND retreating from battle. Thinking about trying Zulu instead, but havent' decided (obviously the game I had played to 18 cities has to be thrown away if I'm gonna try this kind of game!).
I often play Egypt, for the wonderful traits they have, so am used to fighting "sorta early", but not as a requirement to utilize my civ. In fact, just won a game with them by Culture, which was kind of a surprise since I hadn't been paying attention to that 
So all in all, I'm gonna try Zulu or Aztec again, but this time will probably get 3 cities going, then use 1 to continue to pump out settlers, and two to build my army (filling the new towns with some of those new units, the rest for an attack stack). New towns will build units for my offensive army, and I'll follow the general advice of making that first attack quickly, at about 6-8 units in my army.
Should be a fun change of pace for me!
Thanks for the ideas, everyone.
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gunkulator
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You might want to consider Babylon. The Bowman is a no resource 20 shield 2/2/1 unit that can take as well as give a beating. After conquering, this rel/sci civ gets ALL those culture buildings on the cheap.
I'm too much of a chicken to try an early unit rush, but if I ever did, I figured I would use either Egypt or Babylon.
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Petrus2
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I've played Bab, but go the builder route with them. I'm specifically looking to use a militaristic culture to get the rapid promotions, earlier MGLs, and just the general game play that it all entails. I'm also thinking about using some of the militaristic cultures with later UUs, still doing an early archer/horsie rush, then having a special unit later for a better GA.
Lots of options, but that's a good thing!! Next game (as soon as I get home from work, in UGH! 9 hours) will be either Aztec or Zulu, then maybe America for a different game, then Japan I think, or any mid-game UU militaristic culture.
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Petrus2
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Hmmm, that DOES raise a question. If you get a GA in despotism, will you actually GET the bonus shield/trade like bonus squares do, or is it lost to the 2-resource-per-square cap that usually applies?
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by Kuciwalker
'Ready'? Nothing happens! |
"Nothing" only happens if all the tiles your cities are working are River Bonus Grasslands, in which case you may not need to rush at all, and should probably consider reloading less (edit: unless you're rushing really early, as in before your second city is founded, in which case I agree that a despotic GA would do next to nothing).
Consider that on Plains-heavy starting locations you nearly double your Shield and Commerce output. When playing, say, the Aztecs, you might just want to irrigate those Plains before mining the Bonus Grasslands.
It's true that a despotic is not something to rejoice about, but nonetheless you should derive a noticeable benefit from it. Sometimes it is all that's necessary to take you out of a tough position. And on the other hand, if an early rush will cement a lead for the rest of the game (which they so often do), a despotic GA is a fair price to pay.
Last edited by Dominae on 11-08-2004 at 06:04
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Petrus2
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Dominae, you make some good points, and those ideas could notably change worker actions in the early game.
Kuciwalker, thanks for the clarification. Again, knowing exactly how the game implements some factors is half the battle right there!
I did decide to sidestep the issue completely (for now) by starting a game with the Japanese last night, a culture I'd never used. Didn't play as much as I'd like to (that whole 'family' thing intruding on my gaming  ) but got 4-5 cities going, started building archers then chariots, and sent them off to spank the English. When I came calling they only had 3 cities, and handed one over for free to my threats. Then when the rest of my army arrived, I conquered another (they had since built a new 3rd city). At that point I stopped (bedtime), but it was nice to have gained a city, eliminated another, and pretty much clipped their feathers with very little effort. Such a change of pace for a builder!! I'll trim them back to just London, or maybe erase them, then it is on to the French who are my other neighbors. Little Joanie won't know what hit her
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:33
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[Note: this is a Monarch-level post. Different difficulty levels will call for an adjustment of many of the things I'm about to say.]
My suggestion for early warmongering is to stay away from powerful UU's, actually. You learn a lot by just using the stock units (warrior, archer, spear sword, horse & catapult).
Picking a militaristic civ is probably good, just since they get the barracks up quickly and get the promotion bonus. But it's certainly not necessary. I'll wage early warfare (limited) with India, which I'm sure people think of as a "builder" civ.
One advantage of learning how to be effective early on with just stock units is that you then do *not* have to worry about trying to maximize a despotic GA (which Dominae correctly notes is not a bad thing, just not a great thing).
There are two basic types of warfare in CivIII:
1) Harrassment/bullying
2) Conquest
Early on, I typically stick to #1. It doesn't require a large force, and if things go well (meaning the RNG isn't angry with me) I can build up my homeland while my harrassment force does their thing with little or no reinforcement. The things one can do early to harrass the AI:
1) Worker theft. Simple, walk up to the AI's borders, declare war and capture their worker. Run away. Make peace once they will talk to you.
2) Settler bopping. This is extremely effective. It typically requires either several warriors or 1-2 archers, and a bit 'o luck to be in the right spot. If you have an archer or two out hunting barbs, consider keeping them relatively near your closest neighbor's core, and wait for a settler team to come marching out. Then nail it, and get the 2 slaves. After that, you can just hang out and kill any lone AI units that come your way, and as soon as the AI will accept your envoy, make peace. You will usually be able to extort stuff from them (tech, gold, workers). Oh, that reminds me, if you can w/o getting a unit uselessly killed, try to enter the enemy's capital radius 1 turn before you call them up to make peace. If they had a worker in the area, it will run into the capital, and then you can grab it in the peace negotiations.
3) Take one city. This is halfway between Harrassment and Conquest. Sometimes the AI grabs a key resource that was between you and you feel you must have it (or they NOT have it. Romans with Iron next door, for instance). Take a city from them, though, and you will get more out of them in peace negotiations. The AI gets really scared of you once you start taking cities.
The second type of warfare requires more preparation (unless we're talking about a 3-unit rush on a capital). The best way to produce a largish contingent of quality troops is to utilize unit upgrades. The two in the ancient age are warrior to sword and chariot to horse. This is all about trading gold for shields. Shields are hard to come by, especially early in the game. Gold is easier to get, via doing 50-turn research on a tech. Warrior to sword costs 60 gold a pop, and chariot to horse is 30. Catapults are quite useful at reducing losses, although every catapult you build is one less chariot or two less warriors. For that reason, I tend to use cities that do not have barracks to build some cats. I'm not going to waste precious turns building a catapult (which gets no benifit from a barracks) in a city that could produce a veteran combat unit.
I hope you find this useful.
-Arrian
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09-08-2004 18:34
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