Six Tips on Crushing Your Enemies in Civilization V

[RMcD94]

The Mongol Empire forged by the chieftain Temüjin, who took the name Genghis Khan in 1206, is the largest in known history.

What.

See above post.

That paltry British Empire was .7 million sq km bigger than the Mongols.

Kind of funny.

 

[Soylent Dave]

The Mongol Empire forged by the chieftain Temüjin, who took the name Genghis Khan in 1206, is the largest in known history [...] bigger than the paltry British Empire

As some other people have pointed out, the British Empire at its height was actually bigger in terms of area (13m square miles vs. 12.7m square miles) and population (458m vs. 100m*), as well as the British Empire being dispersed across the entire world.

The Mongol Empire was the world's largest contiguous empire, which is what confuses a lot of people (the British empire held lots of land in lots of places, the Mongol empire was contained within a single border).

Much more importantly, the British Empire was a lovely shade of pink on all the maps.

*Obviously quite a few years later so there were more people to conquer, but the British still ruled over 25% of the population of the entire planet, which I suspect is more than the Mongols did (I have absolutely no idea how many people lived on Earth in the 13th century, though).

 

[Bullfrog1983]

I know its not particulary on topic, but I've never found any modern CIV games as fun as Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri was an awesome game, I was actually thinking of re-installing it yesterday. Although I'd rate the Fall From Heaven 2 mod for Civ 4 on par with it.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Horsemen early on means you can quite easily conquer everyone with little resistance, i mean nothing really stops them until you come up against gunpowder units.

 

[carpathic]

In Civ4 I used the ancient Russian tactic of "Throw so much meat at the grinder that the gears break." It works.

Ack...it hurts so bad, but you are absolutely correct. There is always a place for butchery when facing better armed/equiped troops.

 

[Big Phil]

Well, when it comes to open and large-scale war I mainly use melee-infantry only as a frontal cover for the archers, riflemen, artillery etc. Cavalry, in my case, gets the role of immediate reserve: when one infantry units is low on HP I pull it back behind the front line and move a unit of cavalry in it's place. Then, when the infantry is fully healed, I do the aforementioned actions in reverse. I prefer to avoid close combat if possible. For the very same reason I prefer to bombard the coastline with naval units and - if possible - do a deeper bombardment with airborne units before landing the land units ashore in case of a naval invasion. In this case an escort is required for the land units, of course, so that they don't end up being crushed by enemy naval units - this unless you have the respective upgrade for your units. In any case, the key to crushing your enemies in not a large army, but a more modern one. Like the "Lady in Black" song by Uriah Heep puts it - "there is no strength in numbers, have no such misconception".

 

[Greg Tito]

As some other people have pointed out, the British Empire at its height was actually bigger in terms of area (13m square miles vs. 12.7m square miles) and population (458m vs. 100m*), as well as the British Empire being dispersed across the entire world.

The British empire was bigger than the mongol empire.

That paltry British Empire was .7 million sq km bigger than the Mongols.

Kind of funny.

Hey guys,

Thanks for pointing this out. I knew that was true, and was trying to make a sarcastic joke, but I'm glad that The Escapist has such awesomely educated users. So many other people wouldn't have bothered looking that up.

But yeah, the Mongols had the biggest contiguous land empire, as Soylent Dave said. I should have made that more clear.

Greg

 

[Greg Tito]

*snip*

Kuliani has some great tips, but some of these border on exploits, in my humble opinion. I don't get much enjoyment from parking a naval unit outside a city to be bombarded, I'd much rather blow 'em to hell.

Good point about promoting from barbarians. I hadn't noticed the lack of experience but perhaps that's because I always have a bunch of units early on and spread out my attacks so that they all receive XP from attacking.

At a certain point, you just want to start killing the real civs, right?

 

[Zechnophobe]

I feel compelled to point out the difference in tone of the responses to this article, compared to Greg's Original review:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.232953-Review-Civilization-V

I know so many people let down by this game, and most of those who liked it out of the box, became disillusioned very soon afterward. It is very sad .

I wish an article on Tactics was something cool to look forward too.

Well, at least Greg is having fun .

 

[Soylent Dave]

I'm glad that The Escapist has such awesomely educated users. So many other people wouldn't have bothered looking that up.

It's 'cause we're British* - we might not have as much to be proud of these days Greg, but goddammit we're going to be proud of having once oppressed a significant chunk of the world, trafficked in slaves, obliterated entire cultures and generally acted like total and utter bastards to most of the world while expecting them to be grateful because we taught them to play cricket.

Although now that I've written it all down it almost sounds bad.

(There are some Brits who still claim to wonder why we always play the evil guy in American films. We know why. I don't think we should be all that surprised that the entire crew of the Death Star is English...)

-
*And also nerds, obviously.

 

[WillyDJ]

Better advice is to know how the relationships work.

1. Everyone hates the leader. Every AI is looking for a way to have the top score. They dislike no 1 inherently.

2. No 1 hates No 2. The AI dislikes the next player (human or AI) on the points table.

3. Agressive (eg the Aztecs) Civs dislike empires with small armies.

4. Expansionist (eg the English) Civs dislike empires which are small in area.