*=done:

Easy (all late civs, of course):
Ottoman
*Ayyubids (Mansa Musa, but as long as the Ottomans are dispatched post-haste, it's easy)
*Mamluk (see succession game)
*Rum (no Ottomans to deal with)
*Seljuks (tech is probably more important than land as long as you survive the Mongols, finish early before Safavids show up)

Moderately easy:
Safavid (destroy the Ottomans first)
Ak Koyunlu (just need to kill the Mamluks and Safavids early, and at least put up a decent surprise attack against the Ottomans)
Byzantines (once you survive the Ottomans, it's just expansion towards the east and south)
Mughal (need to capture Constantinople?)
Timurids (survive Bukhara and you'll have all the time to expand into India and Persia)
*Fatimids (As long as you're solid in 1250, Mamluks won't show up. But beware of Mansa Musa!)
*Georgia (just get Constantinople and Anatolia)
*Abbasids (just spawn great people for golden ages! but win early)
*Armenia (just bide your time in capturing Constantinople)

Moderately hard:
*Ajmer/Chauhan (trying to avoid later Indian respawns is really hard)
*Khwarezmids (can't usually finish before the Timurids, but they can be vassalized)
*Ghaznavids (Mongols and later civs to deal with)
Ghorids (not much time before the Mughals show up)
*Yemen
*KoJ
PoA
*Gujarat (small stable core lands and have to deal with the Delhi Sultanate and other Indian respawns)
*Samanids

Near impossible:
Sindh
Oman
Makuria (would be nice if one can keep Egypt--question: if there were no Ayyubids or Islam/slavery in Cairo, would there even be Mamluks?)

Anybody interested in a succession game with an "easy" civ like Mamluks for domination? (Doesn't have to be Mamluks, Ottomans might be easier)

Anybody interested in a succession game with an "easy" civ like Mamluks for domination? (Doesn't have to be Mamluks, Ottomans might be easier)

I think Ottomans would be easier. The western portion of the map is one big border province to them while Mamluks are limited to Africa + Levant + Hejaz.

Would Anatolia + Levant + Hejaz + Mesopotamia + Caucasus without Georgia + Shahanshah + Mamluks as vassal work?

Easier isn't better for a domination game though. :D
Mamluks conquering Persia, vassalizing Ottomans and Ak Koyunlu makes it much more challenging.

Easier isn't better for a domination game though. :D
Mamluks conquering Persia, vassalizing Ottomans and Ak Koyunlu makes it much more challenging.

That's true. Toassins are pretty fun to use as well.

OK, so I started a thread in the SG subforum.
Require also becoming Shahanshah, Roman Emperor, Sharif of Hejaz, AND Defender of the Faith. This is going to be a little harder than just domination.

It's Commander of the Faithful. Defender of the Faith is Catholics vs. Protestants.

Fatamids don't have to deal with Mamluks if their stability is good. It's a cool civ because you get to see how the West plays out.

Whoops, sorry about the Catholic error. ;)

I wouldn't say that PoA or KoJ are nearly impossible, since they can both crab the Roman Emperor title pretty easily. For instance I would say Sindh and Gujarat are much harder.

Did the Fatimids on Sultan in 1552. I stupidly conquered Yemen and it eventually respawned. Should have never been there.

Roman Emperor means you can let stability go to hell, i.e. no need to liberate cities to vassals (which made my land requirement go up since they only count as half the land). (my stability was -166 with -366 in expansion and -46 in foreign) 25% is really hard when you can't found cities in desert--I had all kinds of CITY WITH NO NAMES pop up in Bulgaria, Africa and 1 on the coast south of Mecca.

The hardest part was the Mansa Musa event which killed my economy (every city means 10% less science).

Did Rum, just won in 1500 (thankfully, otherwise the Safavids would have taken a lot of my vassal Ak Koyunlu's lands). Key is obvious to madly rush the last 7% or so from super solid (70) down to collapsing (-53) within 20 years but before you actually collapse (impossible since I'm Roman Emperor, but a respawn of the Byzantines was theoretically possible). Vassalized Zengids who coexisted with Ak Koyunlu after I reconquered Zengi's lands for him and left Ak Koyunlu to expand in Kurdistan, did Mamluks early on (didn't want to incur the instability of occupying their lands). Vassalized Yemen late (and liberated cities to him to make him solid). Last few cities were Tabuk, Bulgaria, one named "City" on the Hejaz, Soba, a couple in Lesser Armenia, and one west of the Caspian Sea, and one just east of Hamadan. Was about to conquer Shiraz when I won...not a moment too soon.

I am curious as to why Yemen is 'near impossible'. I actually got my first domination victory playing as them.

I am curious as to why Yemen is 'near impossible'. I actually got my first domination victory playing as them.

Wow, if that's true please elucidate how you did it in Sultan. I suspect you conquered Egypt first, then either some combination of Constantinople + Baghdad and lots of vassals.

Wow, if that's true please elucidate how you did it in Sultan. I suspect you conquered Egypt first, then either some combination of Constantinople + Baghdad and lots of vassals.

You summarized it well. It was actually a very epic and lengthy game, and tricky as heck. I had to restart a few times. It's not near impossible. I'd up it to Moderately hard though. You actually have decent access to most of the crucial areas needed to win a domination victory. I isn't like Yemen where Egypt and Constantinople is so difficult to get to and maintain control over.

The latest one I did were the Ghaznavids. I might give PoA a shot soon, and will try and post screenshots.

Georgians are fairly easy. Kill Armenia, defend against Abbasids and Seljuks, attack Rum when the Mongols have done their job, and capture Constantinople when the Ottomans spawn. Then it's defending against Ayyubids/Mamluks until you are strong enough to conquer the Levant and Egypt. Ak Koyunlu should be killed rather than vassalized. Be ready for the Safavids and vassalize them--they help quite a bit in absorbing Persia.

Found some border cities in the Caucasus and Iraq that you've never heard of, plus the obligatory Bulgarian city. :D

Why near impossible with Samanids? They have a lot of time and +stability from conquering. Balkh doesn't flip to anyone and can't you just stack tons of defenders in the cities that do flip?
I'll give it a try sometime

Fun game! I was way ahead of everyone in techs and I built about 15 wonders in Baghdad, which spawned great people at an incredible speed, which then translated into a 60 turn golden age.:D

Mamluks just respawned, because of a plague and the temporary instability it gave. At that point I was at 24,78% in land.:mad: Otherwise I would've won much sooner. Makuria, Rúm and Yemen were my vassals.

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0003-24.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0004-28.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0001-27.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0002-24.jpg

What were your civics Jusos?

How come you didn't squeeze the borders of your empire for land? E.g. a city in Bulgaria is worth 6 more tiles in just 1 move (with culture dial turned all the way up). A city on the west of Samarra and Baghdad and maybe another one in Azerbaijan would have pushed your land up by 0.5% at least.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0605.jpg
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0604.jpg
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0603.jpg

What were your civics Jusos?

As soon as these were available, I used Empire, Religious Law, Free Labor, Agrarianism and Organized Religion. Free labor and agrarianism are an excellent combo!:D


How come you didn't squeeze the borders of your empire for land? E.g. a city in Bulgaria is worth 6 more tiles in just 1 move (with culture dial turned all the way up). A city on the west of Samarra and Baghdad and maybe another one in Azerbaijan would have pushed your land up by 0.5% at least.

Yeah I could've done it, but didn't feel the need for in the end and I was fun to roll over weak civs. However, by doing so, I would've probably won before Mamluks respawned.

Seljuks are almost as easy as the Abbasids...as long as you give away the 2 far eastern cities and concentrate on science and wealth creation. I stuck with 7 cities for the majority of game until the Mongols showed up in force. Captured Iraq BEFORE the Mongols show up to preserve the infrastructure (twice captured cities have fewer buildings than once captured). Then Constantinople and Ottomans (who eventually respawned but only with 4 cities, thankfully). Ak Koyunlu was easily dealt with. Mamluks I wanted to vassalize but they collapsed, so I needed 29% of land in the end.

Just to show that getting all 4 titles (as in our current SG) is more than possible.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0607.jpg

Armenia is a little tougher since it's got essentially no techs to start with. Aimed primarily for crucible steel, guilds and rapid expansion towards Lesser Armenia. Guilds was able to get some good techs from everybody (including the Buyids who successfully defended themselves against the Seljuks and Mongols and were still alive in 1250, thanks to guilds). In order of elimination: Georgia, Rum, Byzantines (surprise attack on Constantinople while they were still at war with the Ottomans), Ottomans (vassalized), Zengids (vassalized but mainly razed their cities so that Ak Koyunlu doesn't spawn anywhere close to me--and spawned with Mahabad instead), Ak Koyunlu (vassalized but died when Safavids showed up), Mamluks (vassalized briefly but collapsed), Yemen (vassalized).

Numerous horse archers located outside cities were key to recapture rebelling cities the same turn (just move out the defenders from the turn before).
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0612.jpg

As soon as these were available, I used Empire, Religious Law, Free Labor, Agrarianism and Organized Religion. Free labor and agrarianism are an excellent combo!:D

Why Agrarianism? Farms over cottages?

There's no city that's worth the cottages, since if you have big enough cities you can always just hire some merchants.
SoI is a production and culture-based mod, there's really no need for cottages, except maybe somewhere in India where grassland is more prevalent.
The first thing I do in Egypt is build farms over cottages. If it's a hamlet, I let it be, but as soon as the plague hits, I convert them to farms.

(This might not be true for Caliph where you need all the science you can get)

Ayyubids was fairly simple, if one prepares for the Mamluks correctly (i.e. since you're anticipating a revolt, you might as well starve all your Egyptian cities by drafting and employing as many specialists as possible, so that when they get the cities they are unhappy and small). Vassalizing the Mamluks by leaving them with 1 city makes a future revolt impossible. Also, the Mansa Musa event is just a distraction, since your economy can withstand almost anything by building wealth.

Had 26.6% of land and won the next turn since the Safavids appeared (25% needed).
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0613.jpg

I'm starting to think that any civ that spawns close to (i.e. not in India or Afghanistan) and before the Ottomans is easy. As long as you can vassalize the Ottomans and have Constantinople safely in your hands, it's only a matter of time before you win.

Safavids and Ak Koyunlu are probably quite hard due to the fact that the Ottomans are entrenched when you spawn.

India civs are probably really hard for domination.

Why Agrarianism? Farms over cottages?

By any means running Agrarianism doesn't prevent you from building cottages. The cottage growth bonus from Free Labor cancels out the penalty from Agrarianism anyways.


Safavids and Ak Koyunlu are probably quite hard due to the fact that the Ottomans are entrenched when you spawn.

India civs are probably really hard for domination.

Yes, this is the way I see it as well.

How many empires can acheive domination just by extending to their historical areas? (except the Abbasids)

Ottomans can do it, if only one can count the vast areas not included in the map and extend their Persian holdings a little.
The Timurids can definitely do it, but I think it'll probably collapse if it extends beyond Persia and Georgia.
It would be really nice if one can raise the 25% to 30% but not count any land that cannot be colonized (e.g. the vast majority of the Arabian and Saharan deserts and the mountains in the east.

Just as a quick estimate, how much land does India encompass in terms of %?

I remember that I was solid by the end of the 3rd UHV for Ajmer, and had on hand some several dozens of war elephants and similar number of horse archers. I suppose one can take 30 years to trek to Anatolia, declare war on every civ on my way and capture 3 Anatolian cities including Constantinople, and then capture the rest of the land closer to home (like the rest of Afghanistan, Timurid lands and even Persia).

Why Agrarianism? Farms over cottages?

I take it back--there are certain civs like Ajmer that really should build cottages--Gwalior and Delhi, in particular, can certainly use cottages since they have plenty of rivered grasslands. Since science is so important for early civs, to be able to research the gold-producing techs (including cash cropping and cheque system), one really needs Gwalior to be cottaged.
By the time I got Multan, I had agrarianism already, so I didn't need to cottage it.

OK, finally did it. The hard part is NOT getting the big 10% empire that is northern India--it's almost easy to get the science once you get Al Azhar and Spiral Minaret (just conquer some cities with those religions or don't spread Hinduism and Shia will probably spread to you by sea).

Neither was getting Constantinople the hard part--I started my journey in the mid 1200's with a stack of 40 (got delayed by the Mongols, so I had to take the desert route instead), and fairly easily vassalized Ottomans.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0614.jpg
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0615.jpg
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THE HARD PART IS NOT TO HAVE CIVS RESPAWN! I have not realized how easy it is on the western side where civs are not allowed to respawn (e.g. KoJ, Byzantines, Abbasids) after later civs respawn. Well, if you're Roman Emperor, and you can't collapse, what happens when you hit shaky? Civs respawn! Even though I was killing the Timurids, I couldn't keep their lands due to instability (just one more city made me unstable).

The only solution is to save up great people for a golden age (when civs cannot respawn), and expand your territory rapidly towards the end. I went from 22% to 27% then. Founded all kinds of tiny cities in the middle of nowhere (ever heard of Surab? Maymana? Bhingar? Akola? Fahraj? Rafsanjan? Turbat? Khorugh? "CITY NAME MISSING"? "City"??:lol:

See how big the Ottoman empire is? I had to basically give back all my conquests except for Constantinople (to keep the Roman Emperor title, I think). 27% of land was what was needed towards the end. One more turn and either Delhi Sultanate, the Gujarats or Malwa would have respawned.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0619.jpg

Obviously, let the Fatimids stew in their semi-stability until after 1250, then go all out and collapse them but make sure you're stable. Cairo is as far as I went, which allowed a Mamluk spawn at the rest of the Upper Egypt cities, and I vassalized them and liberated most of Makuria to them.
Getting a little late to the Ottomans means that it was much harder to vassalize them, but I did it after killing many marksmen in Izmir.
Georgia, Ak Koyunlu and Safavids were the other vassals.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0620.jpg

Very nice UP but sucky location for domination. I almost didn't make it to Constantinople and 3 cities (took me a little while to get the 3rd Anatolian city, which meant I was close to collapsing for about 5 turns).
Mashbad is the perfect location for Heroic Epic--don't want to build one in Samarkand (since it'll flip to Timurids), and Mashbad is the exit point for troops going towards the west. Thankfully the Seljuks didn't found it and I did it with my 3rd settler.
After the Mongols are repulsed, all out for Iraq, Baghdad had my Royal Mint and a settled great general.
Timurids are fairly easy to prepare for--just starve Bukhara, Samarkand, Khojend, wait for their heavy lancers and heavy horse archers to come in small groups (and destroyed outside cities by my promoted heavy horse archers).
Very interesting in that Zengids spontaneously vassalized (and are still alive and well after helping me vassalize Ak Koyunlu), Mamluks are conquering former Georgia, and I just vassalized Karaman when I won. Ghorids are solid. :eek:
The Zengids conquered Kermanshah, which is the reason I didn't get my 2/3 UHV.:mad:

http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0622.jpg

OK, here's a summary of techniques--all centered around Constantinople:

If you're close to Constantinople (i.e. anybody west of and including Seljuks)--just get tech and <=10 cities, defend against Mongols if necessary, and conquer Constantinople around 1300, then vassalize Ottomans. Then expand like mad, turn culture dial to max, found cities after you've hit Mongol Invasions era (to get size 4 cities with infrastructure).

If you're east of Seljuks, build stack of 20+ units, trek towards Constantinople around 1200 (or 1260--after the Mongols have settled in instead of attacking you), and conquer Constantinople/vassalize Ottomans. If you're in India, you're in for potential respawns, so it's best to vassalize your coreligionists and expand towards Ghaznavid/Seljuk lands which are not up for respawns.

I still haven't a clue what to do with Oman.

It would be really nice to be able to build a wonder that allows unlimited land expansion regardless of stability.

Almost as hard (or easy) as Ajmer, except that you get many more techs to start. Big stack to the west after Mongols, made Iraq very prosperous. Byzantines were powerful but as soon as Constantinople falls, they collapse. Ottomans won't vassalize, so Karaman took its place.
Ajmer is excellent as a voluntary vassal and provided a lot of trade and techs.
Dwarka was very productive with Kizil Kule and I built my Royal Archives there.
Surat had Grand Bazaar and Royal Mint.
Had to deal with a 3 city revolt from Delhi Sultanate (while I was STABLE:mad:) but that was easily put down.
First game that I did with domination that still has a KoJ alive (partly because of me since I kept giving them cities) and one that didn't have Ak Koyunlu as a vassal.

http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0624.jpg

As AP has shown us, with the Roman Emperor title domination victory is a walk in the park and not a real challenge. I think that there should be something that would make domination victory more difficult than it currently is. Like that when your stability around -50, your cities declare independence at a more frequent pace. Alternatively the title should somehow be nerfed, but can't really see how, since the Ottomans need it to be good, so that they can conquer the required lands quickly.. Any other ideas?

As AP has shown us, with the Roman Emperor title domination victory is a walk in the park and not a real challenge. I think that there should be something that would make domination victory more difficult than it currently is. Like that when your stability around -50, your cities declare independence at a more frequent pace. Alternatively the title should somehow be nerfed, but can't really see how, since the Ottomans need it to be good, so that they can conquer the required lands quickly.. Any other ideas?

I was thinking about something like +5 stability per province in Thrace & Anatolia (still: as long as Constantinople is under control). That would amount to about +60 stability max. which is enough to keep Byzantines/Rum/Ottomans going, but would effectively prevent the weird Indian-Roman emperor scenarios where a player captures just Constantinople. More frequent rebellions with very low stability is also something that should be in, but it won't fix the problem I think, unless it's overdone to the point of frustration.

p.s. have you seen my question about astronomy save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10449137&postcount=2090)?

I wouldn't call it a walk in the park. It's definitely not JUST Constantinople.
You have to bypass Mongols, capture key cities en route, and diplomatically pit the Byzantines against whoever is warring against them (either to OB with Byzantines or their enemies) to get close to Constantinople, and THEN you have to vassalize the Ottomans (or Rum) to ensure you can keep your Anatolian conquests.
More frequent rebellions would just mean that I would keep more horse archers everywhere else, and reload the turn before to recapture them.
What about making a new wonder that allows you not to collapse, only available with a late tech? As I pointed out before, right now the Topkapi Palace is USELESS--use that for collapsibility.
How would you not have Byzantines collapse early if you take away the Roman Emperor power?
It took me 4 days to finish the Gujarat game, you know.
I was actually thinking of doing a Byzantine conquest game, but before that, I'm going to try the Samanids for domination.

BTW, you do realize that other than cultural victory and UHV, it'll be close to impossible to win if you don't have the power of the Roman Emperor? (unless you include religious victory in the future)

I wouldn't call it a walk in the park. It's definitely not JUST Constantinople.
You have to bypass Mongols, capture key cities en route, and diplomatically pit the Byzantines against whoever is warring against them (either to OB with Byzantines or their enemies) to get close to Constantinople, and THEN you have to vassalize the Ottomans (or Rum) to ensure you can keep your Anatolian conquests.
More frequent rebellions would just mean that I would keep more horse archers everywhere else, and reload the turn before to recapture them.
What about making a new wonder that allows you not to collapse, only available with a late tech? As I pointed out before, right now the Topkapi Palace is USELESS--use that for collapsibility.
How would you not have Byzantines collapse early if you take away the Roman Emperor power?
It took me 4 days to finish the Gujarat game, you know.
I was actually thinking of doing a Byzantine conquest game, but before that, I'm going to try the Samanids for domination.

BTW, you do realize that other than cultural victory and UHV, it'll be close to impossible to win if you don't have the power of the Roman Emperor? (unless you include religious victory in the future)

We're not talking about taking the effect away completely, just making it more balanced. My solution would give Byzantines from +30 to +40 stability, which I think is enough to keep them from collapsing early.

Some points:

- looking at this thread, Domination games do seem weird... maybe it's not too easy but it's weird to see that any empire can just capture Constantinople to keep its overextended Empire in India or Persia from collapsing
- the title can be powerful, but I'd really like to somehow limit it to Thrace/Anatolia/Syria etc.
- I like your idea for Topkapi palace; I already moved it to an earlier tech BTW, but I'm not fond of its current effect either. Making the owner immune to collapse sounds overpowered, but some kind of big stability bonus would make it a cool wonder (something along the lines of -50% stability penalty for expansion).
- making Empire civic more powerful is also an option; it's not that good currently and most people (including myself) seem to go for Aristocracy even with big empires.

One thing I've consistently argued for (both in RFC and other mods) is equality of the civs to achieve victory: I really, REALLY hated Rhye's implementation of certain things that count against early civs and Eastern civs. (like worker speed, free buildings with settlers, expansion stability) You've done quite an equitable job here (all civs get free buildings after reaching a certain era, workers are equal, etc.)
However:
To tie stability to control of Anatolia means that all other civs are at a disadvantage, i.e. it's much harder for civs away from Anatolia to occupy it (at a stability disadvantage already since it's not native to them).

It's only a game: weird history is what mods are for.

-50% stability is still not enough--as of right now, the minimum stability hit you have to endure is -100 to -150 to win domination (see all the screenpics I have), and for smaller civs, it's even worse.

Maybe you can reimplement stability bonus for certain buildings like inn and debtor's jail.

What's wrong in Domination Victory currently is that you have to worry about stability at all after taking Constantinople. This makes it is just a rampage for land, in other words, really easy. In basic RFC domination must be carefully planned for each civ, even more nowadays because Rhye reduced the city liberating bonus, and conquering too early will collapse you.

And AP as you can see from my Abbasid game you don't need the title to win domination, so your minimum -100 stability hit in order win is really a load of cr*p, no offense. It just shows how you can completely ignore stability while going for domination.

Abbasids have an extraordinarily large land entitlement. So do the Ottomans.

Feel free to post pictures (I'm eager to see the one for Yemen).

OK Jusos, do a domination while stable as an Indian civ (try Sindh), and I'll believe you.:D

Not every domination should be easily doable. For example in regular RFC some civs are extremely difficult (Mali, which hasn't been done) while some are really easy (England). Some civs just aren't meant to dominate.

OK, please do a domination for Seljuks, Ayyubids or even Timurids with a STABLE or SHAKY stability. I want to see proof:spank:[pimp].

Here's a thought--spread plenty of religions (as many as possible), save enough great people for GAs, switch religions 3-4 times during GAs, and build lots of temples for each religion for stability.

The underlying problems are:
1. There's too much land that is uninhabitable, and 25% of inhabitable land has to trespass on other civs' core land.
2. There are often not enough civs alive, and 27-29% might be required sometimes.
3. There are not enough stability buildings (right now there's the temple and courthouse, but in normal RFC there's courthouse, IE and SB)

As soon as these were available, I used Empire, Religious Law, Free Labor, Agrarianism and Organized Religion. Free labor and agrarianism are an excellent combo!:D

So did you use cottages or farms? What about watermills in Iraq? Any tips to remain stable by the end of the game? Wouldn't your economy stability rating crash after a 60 turn golden age?

Abbasids have an extraordinarily large land entitlement. So do the Ottomans.

They are also Islamic. By the endgame any Christian/Hindu civ has a poor foreign stability rating.

OK, please do a domination for Seljuks, Ayyubids or even Timurids with a STABLE or SHAKY stability. I want to see proof:spank:[pimp].

I am quite busy right now, although I am playing one domination game at the moment, but that might take a while to be finished.. Actually Seljuks are probably quite easy.

So did you use cottages or farms? What about watermills in Iraq? Any tips to remain stable by the end of the game? Wouldn't your economy stability rating crash after a 60 turn golden age?

Both and watermills for the production poor cities. Stability never was a real issue in my game, iirc I saved some of the +1 stability (temples) buildings until I needed a buff. No it didn't, because it was so high before it ended.

Here as AP requested:

Founded my capital 1E of starting plot, Mazar-e Sharif. It is much better than Balkh and can reach size 17. Second settler founded Gwadar, in which I eventually builded Kizil Kule, Al-Jaziri, Grand Bazaar and so on. I also conquered Kerman early. After the Ghaznavids spawned, I conquered them and after that Sindh, who respawned once.

Then I just waited for the mongols to tear the Seljuks and Abbasids apart and sweeped in to take their former lands. I vassalised Ajmer in the end, because Gujarat annoyingly collapsed before submitting. I had the land requirement when the Timurids spawned, but their flip took away most of my capital's plots, so I had to pop some borders and conquer Malwi lands for the Ajmer's. Again when I had enough land the Malwis respawned and took away Ajmer's cities.:mad: Anyway after reconquering some of them I finally got the job done without ever entering Anatolia..;)

My empire in 1372:
http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0007-19.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0006-23.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0005-22.jpg

World in 1201, 1271 (after Mongol invasion), in 1300 (note really strong Byzantium) and 1384:
http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0010-15.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0011-15.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0012-15.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0013-11.jpg

Other pics (at least I wasn't Guy):
http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0009-19.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0014-9.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0015-10.jpg

Yeah, I founded Mazar-e Sharif too. Currently for me it's 1156 for me and I have all of north India to myself as well as the traditional Samanid lands, fighting the Ghorids, and was about to build my stack to take over Persia and Iraq after 1220 and the Mongols.

But you have to admit that Samanids' UP helps quite a bit. Without it, if you were any other civ, say, Timurids, you would have been shaky or collapsing by now (+2 stability per city conquered). And the Samanids also have quite a large area which is native to them.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Samanid_dynasty_%28819%E2%80%93999%29.GIF/769px-Samanid_dynasty_%28819%E2%80%93999%29.GIF

Try Sindh with your next attempt. :)

Have you noticed the opium bug?

But I'm getting really sick of this mod by now...

Yeah, their UP does help. I think I'll try the Seljuks or Timurids next.

You mean the text bug?

:lol: Why?

No, I had 2 opiums hooked up (the one 2SW of Mazar-e Sharif and one next to Delhi, I think), and I kept getting the Ghaznavids offer me opium because it wasn't in my capital.

No I didn't have that kind of a problem. Did you have Medicine?

Yeah they have a historically large territory, but not all of those areas are their border provinces. The Turk requested that some them should be included, but Edead didn't include them, because they controlled some of those areas for such a short period of time.

This was actually easier than the Samanid one. My stability solid or very solid 95% of the game.

Starting strategy was to conquer Persia and found the 'missing' cities. Then I waited until 1160 or so, when it was clear that the Abbasids won't respawn and stromed Iraq. After that I raised massive armies against the Mongols, which I killed 127 btw. Zengids vassalised for the price to declare war on Ayyubids and Georgia was capitulated. After that I went for Byzantines, not Constantinople though. When it was clear that this wasn't enough I conquered Yemen.

The annoying part was that the Ak Kouynly spawned eventhough Zengids were solid. For some reason I had always thought that they wouldn't. This delayed my victory by about 10 turns, but it was still quite easy. My army relied heavily on fast moving and highly promoted Heavy Horse Archers and later Heavy Lancers. For the fun of it I attached one GG to my starting Seljuk Horse Archer and he became quite a monster.:D

World in 1223, 1302, 1402 and 1420:
http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0010-16.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0011-16.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0012-16.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0013-12.jpg

Other pics:
http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0008-20.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0014-10.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0007-20.jpg

Since you guys are delaying the start of the next Domination succession game, I figured I'd rather warn you about the specifics of Roman Emperor change. It's really hard for me to tell if it's not overdone. I'll just sum up all 0.3.4 changes that are related to Domination:

- Empire civic now reduces Expansion stability penalty by 40% instead of 25%
- Topkapi palace comes 1 tech earlier and has the old effect replaced with another -40% to Expansion stability penalty (so with Empire + Topkapi you only get 1/5 of the usual Stability hit for expansion).
- Temples and Courthouses provide stability for the owner, not just the founder; this is a small change but it's much more logical than the usual RFC mechanic, and will provide extra stability for players that flip/conquer developed cities.
- Roman Emperor no longer provides complete immunity to Stability issues - while you can't collapse, whenever it should have happened you instead lose a number of cities - from 1/8 to 1/3, depending on how bad your stability is (i.e. -80 is worse than -50). This only affects cities in foreign provinces, with distant and unhappy cities being cut off first. All your core & border provinces are immune to this and will never secede.
- Vikramaditya title changes all of India to border+ provinces, but only if you're Hindu.

Let me know if this is sensible. The goal was to make Domination victory challenging but geographically universal, rather than being dependent on capturing Constantinople.

Actually it's a Conquest game, and we only plan on occupying 1 city per civ spawn area. But the changes sound good.

Actually it's a Conquest game, and we only plan on occupying 1 city per civ spawn area. But the changes sound good.

Oops, right, still assumed the stability will be a problem. But thanks, at least I know it's not something that puts off immediately ;)

Since you guys are delaying the start of the next Domination succession game, I figured I'd rather warn you about the specifics of Roman Emperor change. It's really hard for me to tell if it's not overdone. I'll just sum up all 0.3.4 changes that are related to Domination:

- Empire civic now reduces Expansion stability penalty by 40% instead of 25%
- Topkapi palace comes 1 tech earlier and has the old effect replaced with another -40% to Expansion stability penalty (so with Empire + Topkapi you only get 1/5 of the usual Stability hit for expansion).
- Temples and Courthouses provide stability for the owner, not just the founder; this is a small change but it's much more logical than the usual RFC mechanic, and will provide extra stability for players that flip/conquer developed cities.
- Roman Emperor no longer provides complete immunity to Stability issues - while you can't collapse, whenever it should have happened you instead lose a number of cities - from 1/8 to 1/3, depending on how bad your stability is (i.e. -80 is worse than -50). This only affects cities in foreign provinces, with distant and unhappy cities being cut off first. All your core & border provinces are immune to this and will never secede.
- Vikramaditya title changes all of India to border+ provinces, but only if you're Hindu.

Let me know if this is sensible. The goal was to make Domination victory challenging but geographically universal, rather than being dependent on capturing Constantinople.

I like your change to Vikramaditya, Roman Emperor, and the temples but I'm not sure on the others. I don't think it's necessary to make a domination victory any easier. Domination victory wasn't dependent on capturing Constantinople as Jusos proved. And I don't think many civs should be able to achieve Domination in the first place. Big empires had to constantly fight against insurrections and revolts to keep their territory intact. Isn't that the whole point of the stability system? It's easy to conquer territory but hard to keep it.

I agree with MessageMan, domination victory shouldn't be too easy.

With the new version released (props to embryodead), I thought about finishing the list in this thread, starting with Makuria.
They start from the very beginning as the most backwards civ, isolated, lots of flood plains and not that much production initially. Their UB/UU/UP all synergize well and the outcome are fearsome drill IV / CG I Longbowmen out of the gate.

The capital was founded 1S of the starting spot, the other city to the north (stone, sorghum, camels, hemp). Civics to Aristocracy and Vassalage, later Slavery + Agrarianism. I didn't spread Orthodoxy to the capital until Sunni autospread, which allowed me to build the Spiral Minaret with the stone, a great boost to Makurias bad economy in the beginning. Research was Botany, Currency, Long Distance Trade. After that, I only researched the important techs myself (Engineering, Guilds...) and traded them to backfill the other techs, mostly with Byzantium and Georgia. Settled & conquered everything south of Egypt, and grabbed some Islamic wonders (Kutlug-Timur and Minaret of Jam).
The Mamluks had no chance against hordes of Longbowmen, after that I slowly conquered the Levant & Hejaz and vassalized Kingdom of Cyprus. Civics were switched to Empire and Persecution, tech towards Topkapi Palace. Killed Ak Koyunlu, conquered Iraq and vassalized the Safavids. A few more cities in Iran, and Timur vassalized for the last %'s.

The core area:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=321680&stc=1&d=1337565107

World in 1200:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=321681&stc=1&d=1337565107

Constantine score :undecide: :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=321682&stc=1&d=1337565107

Nice work!
Makuria is definetly one of the hardest civs to dominate in SoI, although I believe Sindh might be the hardest.

AP hasn't been around lately, so maybe we should start another domination challenge thread to compile all the civs, earliest dates and highest scores? I plan to play some SoI domination games myself soon. I can also do it, if you're not up for it?

Yes, with all the changes around expansion stability this list is a bit out of date. If you open a new thread it would be great, i'm not that good in formatting ;).

Okey, I'll do it later today.

why are the sindh very hard? i havent tried domination with them, but they seem like one of the easier civs. even the AI does exceptionally well with sindh sometimes

why are the sindh very hard? i havent tried domination with them, but they seem like one of the easier civs. even the AI does exceptionally well with sindh sometimes

I've done Sindh once. An easy way is to convert to Hinduism and gain the Hindu title, that gives you a lot of border provinces. Then, rapid expansion with golden age and 100% culture will do the work as usual.

Hi AnotherPacisfist :)
I'd like to know how u managed to have that huge empire with a terrible stability everytime...It's almost impossible for me doing that....
If i was in your situation, firstly all civs were borning under my empire then ill collapse asap....
I won just a time game with Abbassid but ive used a tactical expansion....For instance, lets take 3 cities and stay in peace for long time....
I took all middleast with my vassals.....killed zangid, safanid (later reborn and become my vassal), fatimid, antioch, jerusalmen and oman, sultane of rum as vassals.....
My hardest time was against raging mongols but i survived with shaky stability....
Anyway, i become unstable just one time! and a civ has born in my land!!

I haven't seen AP around these parts for quite some time.

But to answer your question, the Roman Emperor title is the key.

Thanks for your reply ;)

About the question.....
Really?
Then if I take byzantinium cap i'll become immortal every time?
Thats a not great deal then, more funny to keep your empire stable before world domination :)

Those games were played before the Roman Emperor title was nerfed. Nowadays that isn't even possbile.

The three most important things to keep stability up are:
- Run Empire civic
- Build Topkapi Palace
- Liberate cities to your vassal

Especially the last one has the potential to provide an enormous amount of stability. I think you need a certain amount of cities, though.

Well, stability is never a problem, you can easily leave ur empire solid for the most time of the game:

I agree about PoB important thing and I add this one:

- You must have tons of units for destroy any civ borning in ur empire and keep those barbarians away.....

Mongols in abbasid, byzantinium, georgia and armenia can easily collapse your empire for instance...