You're right: it's a huge decision. It is possible to delay war and even play peacefully, but you still need a fearsome military. If you're one of the "builder" Dynasties, you could even do well building your VPs.

Generally, though, it's war. I see that the AI tends to engage you once it has scouted you and can decide whether or not you pose a threat and whether or not you have definite weak points. I guess my decision falls along the same lines: I try to scout faster and find the AI's exploitable areas. Sometimes, though, I feel the pressure to declare war with incomplete information, to beat the AI in building its own army. Then, it's a huge gamble; frankly it's one I tend to lose.

Another factor is Barbarians and the minor cultures. Sometimes you have quite a number of those you can play with, but other times the AI goes on a rampage and wipes them all out. Those minor players often can give you a useful buffer against an early war against the majors.

Yes, it's nice that you always have to have a military, but also that building military doesn't interfere with building anything else as much as in other games.

In my experience, it is possible to wage an early, or even immediate war up until Glorious Difficulty. I have done it a few times even above that, but it depends on the target nation, but it's not usually a reliable tactic on The Great. Fun when you can occasionally pull it off, though.

typically something like that is dependent on start of nation. For example, most of my full conquests that take place in 50 turns or less are done on the back of an Assyrian or Greek (champions) army that had Iron right in the capital.

These sorts of things tend to require very specific intention. Greece, for example, can place phillip as a governor and then abdicate to Alexander (still possible on glorious, since you start with 200 civics) - this enables you to have a high training governor in your capital to produce early military units, and a powerful general to lead them.

I have a handful of games where I started a war by turn 30, and have fully eliminated a nation by turn 60. You are right, though, this is a pretty big investment and has the potential to cripple you. The thing is though, Old World can usually be won via points in most games with at least 1, some times two, wars of conquest. If you get enough territory, the points will follow.

So you can build up and attack, or you can attack and then build up. The latter comes with experience and understanding about the game. I've played this game a lot. So I know how to pivot my economy back and forth and also catch up in things like science if I go all in on a military strategy from turn 1.

The risk, of course, is it backfires and if you fail to conquer or fail to bring your economy online afterwards, then you basically lose the game, but it can take you another 50 turns to realize that you let someone get carried away with the momentum and now there's nothing you can do about it. That can happen in any game though.

Aside from something cheeky like an early champion rush; the main thing you want to do is leverage power spikes. If you can plan a rush to 4 laws, or even 7 laws which is very doable (especially on clerics nations), you could put yourself in a position where you have the only 8 strength unit on the entire map. From that position, if you can bring a bunch of them online quickly, you can conquer a nation in the mid-game before turn 80 or 90.

Originally posted by jairgraham:

Yes, it's nice that you always have to have a military, but also that building military doesn't interfere with building anything else as much as in other games.

The economy in Ōld World is nicely done. Leaning into a particular strategy won't bankrupt you, and even if your balance sheet is lopsided, you can normally bail yourself out using market prices. It's an elegant system. Likewise, the continuous actions of builder units buffers your economy in wartime, unless it's all-out war, in which case we are back to the OP's question wondering how much war is too much.

I play with forced march off.

1. scout the enemy.
2. if you can position to move in quickly and grab a city then it may be worth it. Even so you are likely to be dedicating a lot of orders to combat and allowing your economic development to fall behind.
3. if an AI is engaged in a war with someone else move your forces into position and see how much you can grab before they can return from that fight
4. Best only pick fights if you are rated as Stronger
5. Having even a few units that are ahead of the enemy in tier can make a lot of difference

Thank you both, those sound like some good strategies.

I play on forced march double fatigue, as forced march seems like an interesting mechanic but unlimited seems weird to me.

In CIV IV there used to be a joke that 'Hoard of Axemen' was the best early game wonder, and it gave you three cities on your continent and two other random wonders. Old world seems to force you to think about warfare timing and play the map a lot more, I really appreciate that 'build 5 axemen and take a capital' isn't just the default optimal way to play.

"I have a handful of games where I started a war by turn 30, and have fully eliminated a nation by turn 60. "

Sounds like a gamble that can win or lose you a game depending on how it turns out.

"4. Best only pick fights if you are rated as Stronger"

So these ratings are helpful then hey? I'll try to keep a closer eye on them.

You can win if you are rated as Weaker, but you had better also be the re-incarnation of Sun-Tzu.

The strength value is an important indicator, but so is composition. The strength value of a nation is simply the sum of the strength of all of it's units. So two dozen chariots will have a higher rating than 8 Phalangites. But I'd bet solid money that 8 phalangites will beat 24 chariots without breaking a sweat.

Here's an example where Greece was at war with Carthage for most of the game from turn 73 onward and Greece beat Carthage, taking 4 of their cities, including their capital and all of their wonders:

https://i.imgur.com/Fjvt8qS.png

You can see the real damage done at the couple of points where Carthage suffered massive drops in power scale. This is simply a matter of killing more of their stuff than they can kill of yours. Once both nations were more even in power, Greece never exactly held a lead in power levels over Carthage, but the damage was done.

Tactics are critical, too, but a power spike is very devastating; If you're invading a nation and you have siege behind you, for example, and enough spears to ensure their horses can't really do anything about it (or even better; they don't have horses.), that can do a lot of damage to a early/mid-grade army if you're just the only one fielding Onagers and Ballsitae.

You definitely don't want to tango with someone if you see they have longbows and horsemen and are "much stronger" than you while you're running around with axes and slingers. That's a huge problem. But if you have longbows and your enemy has slingers and axes; go nuts, even if you're similar or weaker. Unless they're tucked in the woods. ;)

But war can take a lot of practice to get the hang of. I used to be very very bad at it.

Another thing. If you are playing with only a few AI then the economic cost of war is less severe as there are fewer bystanders getting an economic lead. If there are many AI not only are there more AI's getting an economic lead but also there are more AI who can take the opportunity to start a second war with you.

Originally posted by Feigro:

But war can take a lot of practice to get the hang of. I used to be very very bad at it.

After you master war, then there's religion. I have a handle on war, still figuring things out, but religion is bonkers. Realistic, though.

war in old world is really heavily focused towards having a lot more units than your opponents
defense doesn't really do much so wars are pretty much about throwing as many units as you can at the enemy

If you can wait, go to war only after you have machines. Grouped onagers can make short work out of a massed army. Also pick countries that are weaker or much weaker if you're starting war. If you're up against a similar strength or stronger opponent, be sure to build some forts in choke points. Workers build these in 1 turn in their home city. If you're a builder archtype, workers can also build urban tiles instantly, which aren't as good as forts, but are far better than open ground.

The AI uses combined arms very effectively. I often neglect my bows and pay a steep price for it later. Cavalry are important, too, for their route effect, but they can be tricky to deploy without them dying.

If you see signs of war looming, be sure to get your economy in shape ASAP. There's nothing more frustrating than being advanced militarily, but then being hamstrung by a lack of resourcs. Mines, mines, and mines! Food, too!

Originally posted by krabdr:

Cavalry are important, too, for their route effect, but they can be tricky to deploy without them dying.

I wish cavalry could "kite," eg move after the attack, to the limit of their remaining move allowance. (You'd need to position them carefully to retain some movement, which would limit their power a bit.) There's a mod that does something like this, but it comes with a lot of other major military modifications that I don't like as much. Nothing against the mod, just not quite my style.

In my latest game I tried out Rome, I wound up being in a situation where peace expansion (tribal warfare only) was a solid option and kept neck and neck with Egypt, my eventual ally, all game. Final ambition was to destroy Persia, one of the weakest players on the board and half my score so I thought I'd try it. The report was that they were weaker and I had late game troops.

Took a couple cities in the initial rush and thought things were going well. I have three ways to rush units out and elites to keep an orders stockpile. Five turns in and they have unit parity. Ten turns in and they're swarming me with units almost 3:1. I'm rush buying. I'm killing significantly more than I lose. But I'm only really holding the line by maintaining naval superiority and forcing them through a choke with massed onagers behind it (Those are pretty great Krabdr). Where do they get all those troops? I can't keep up with twice the cities and most my cities rush buying every few turns. Egypt was five points to victory before I decided to divert from the war effort, focus on just stalling Persia, and getting those last few points I needed to win.

It just seems like in many circumstances war costs too much production compared to just culture/sci or wondering the way to a win.

I also wish Calvary could Kite, It seems like they need a guard of swords of Xbows to do their job without it being a suicide mission.

___

Side note, forests are everywhere, aren't bows just generally bad? Unless you HAVE to break a river AND there is no forest on the other side of a river it seems like they're stuck doing chip damage most the time. Are they not kind of obsoleted once mangonel/onagers come around?

Originally posted by jairgraham:

The report was that they were weaker and I had late game troops.

Took a couple cities in the initial rush and thought things were going well. [...] Five turns in and they have unit parity. Ten turns in and they're swarming me with units almost 3:1. I'm rush buying. I'm killing significantly more than I lose. But I'm only really holding the line by maintaining naval superiority and forcing them through a choke with massed onagers behind it (Those are pretty great Krabdr). Where do they get all those troops?

That's strange. So far every time I've attacked a "weaker" enemy and captured some cities, they were done for. That said, they are definitely rush-buying same as you, and the AI may have even more ways to do that (with different law choices) and will do it pretty ruthlessly. It will really go all out with it. Did they perhaps have better research than you and are fighting you with superior units?

Originally posted by jairgraham:

Side note, forests are everywhere, aren't bows just generally bad? Unless you HAVE to break a river AND there is no forest on the other side of a river it seems like they're stuck doing chip damage most the time. Are they not kind of obsoleted once mangonel/onagers come around?

Map dependent. Not all map scripts have all that much forest, and generally the more advanced the timeline, the less forest and the more urban terrain there is. While a civ can hide out in forest, ultimately they will have to defend their cities and those can't be forest. Use melee to clear out the forests and archery to attack urban tiles.

Onagers and their upgrades are very good, especially against cities, but they are order-expensive to move and more vulnerable to counterattacks than regular archers. They have the same forest weakness, too.