New challenge: domination victories for civs

I am going to be posting a Spanish emperor game pretty soon, but I'm going out of town this weekend, so it will have to be a few days before I finish it up. (America, Mali, Egypt as vassals, I'm near 20% land area and solid, 60 turns to go).

Meanwhile, I know the percent land area goes up when the number of rival players goes down, but I've seen the percent population requirements fluxuate very wildly. I'm not really sure why they do that. Do you guys have any insight into what causes the changes in the population requirement?

Okay, well I did play a little bit before I left this morning and finished this one off.

This one was really challenging up until about 1910, and then my stability was solid or better for 60 turns until I made the last push for that last 3% land area (which knocked me temperorarily to collapsing, but I fixed that with a golden age and switching to Nationhood/police state).

I started off with a squat at Lisbon, and invaded France with all my starting troops. I took Bordeaux and Paris, and then sued for peace. Some 30 turns later, France collapsed, and Marseilles and Brest (I disbanded Brest) flipped to me. I managed to be the first Europeans to the new world by stealing optics from the Dutch, but the Chinese beat me to both Inca and Aztec. Undaunted, I stole Astronomy from the Dutch and began to settle the new world. Without France or Portugal, S. America and New Orleans were easy to get. I managed to settle S. Africa just one turn before the Dutch did, and they had some troops and a settler down there most of the game with no where to settle.

Mali vassalized willingly to me thanks to my N. African colonies. America vassalized to me for help against the English. Egypt respawned and vassalized to me.

I was unstable from about 1600 to 1920, when I finally managed to get my economy out of the toilet and set my civics to US/FS. I lost a couple cities to declarations of independence (Chile you see was taken by Arabia before I could take it back), but alls well that ends well.

As you can see, the last of the game was won by picking up the independent Viking cities to set me over the top. Roosevelt apparently had a fleet of nuclear submarines nearby, as every last one of their cities got hit by a tactical nuke when I declared war on the independents.

Chicago was size 36 and had some 23 million people living there. (nearly 1/4 of my 100 million population!)

I still haven't figured out exactly how the % population requirement for these domination wins works. It seems that sometimes when a civ dies it goes up, and other times it goes down.

Very nice. Egypt is a waste of a vassal though (Khmer, Aztecs or even India would be better).

I'm surprised the Portuguese didn't declare war on you since you left them so much open space for founding cities in Iberia (e.g. you didn't found Toledo or La Coruna). Even opening borders and good relations with them doesn't ensure peace.

On Egypt:
Well, I had an open vassal spot, and Egypt ended up taking 3 of my African cities, and accounted for a few percentage points of land area. Egypt did also hedge Turkey's expansion into Africa. Since I missed Inca and the Aztec, I was desperate for vassals. Obviously, the key vassals were America for land area, and Mali for tech stealing.

On Portugal:
They did declare war on me. Which was fine, because I was planning to annihilate them later on. They had founded Cadiz, which I razed. With Casablanca founded they didn't settle in N. Africa, and for some reason they never founded Ponta Delgata. I really only like to use 2 cities to fill Iberia anyways.

kbk, your efforts inspired me to try the Maya again, and I think I'll have it this time. It's 1930, I'm 2nd in score (Germany is 1st but hugely unstable due to occupying lots of Russia, Netherlands, France and Italy, and nobody likes him), I have built Cristo and Eiffel Tower, and I have Industrialism, Flight and on my way to Fission/Rocketry (I'm researching the latter while my servant America will research it for me). I have good relations with everybody who's reasonably powerful, meaning that I can declare war on any little country that my eye fancies (right now it's Spain). Too bad Khmer and Inca aren't my vassals (or anybody's vassal for that matter), but that can be easily corrected. The best part is I brought the Netherlands into a war which they lost, and they have plenty of good indy cities in Africa and Australia for my tanks to conquer!

Population requirement is population of second biggest (pop-wise of course) +25%.

Any quick tips for a dom victory? Will be playing Mongolia/Monarch. Vassals i expect are Aztec (for america), Mali (africa), Inca? and someone else. Khmer?

Second biggest +25% eh? Interesting.

The classic 4 vassals are Aztec for N. America, Inca for S. America, Mali for Africa and Khmer for Indochina and Oceania.

You can do without Aztec, and in fact, I like to just raze all but one of their cities, and use that to produce a settler for New Orleans. If things work out well, you can then vassalize America. India is a good substitute for Khmer if you can't get Khmer vassalized, but since your Mongolia, and they'll be local, you shouldn't have any problem getting them.

Looking back over my screen shots, it looks like its 20% and not 25%

So I thought I should have domination easily. It was a nightmare. I had first vassalized Spain (to whom I thought would then force feed Africa). Then Khmer was awed by my power and vassalized. But I force-fed them too much of China and India and they collapsed. Then I thought I might force Mongolia to vassalize so I conquered everything from China to Mongolia to Siberia. Down to 2 cities they still won't vassalize, and when I nuked their final stack they collapsed instead. I was unstable most of the time despite 3 golden ages, and I even made America and Aztecs unstable/collapsing for a while, giving the former the whole of Italy and Graz/Berlin (which have a ton of wonders), and giving the latter various Asian cities that I can't use.
So I thought I might try and vassalize Inca (and use Spain as a dumping ground for their cities) but thankfully Carthage respawned which made by land goal 33% and population 28%.
All this hard work for an Ethelred the Unready.
I have a save but my account is getting full, if anybody is interest I can upload it.

Still, I've tried Maya a number of times and couldn't quite pull it off. I never thought to actually vassalize aztec instead of eliminate them though.

Well Done, Maya are a real challenge.

Some tricks I learned as Maya:

1. Aztecs are great vassals initially--they can research some techs that you don't need right away (like the aesthetic line) and since they are close enough, you can steal them cheaply. (the spy in Oaxaca can get to Tenochtitlan in 1 move) Also, the fact that you don't have religion for much of the game means that you need happiness from a vassal in order not to overbuild and maintain useless units. Later on, the culture from Oaxaca will probably flip Tenochtitlan and I usually disband it.

2. Oaxaca should absolutely build the Moai Statues if possible, and 2nd settler should go to New Orleans (Uxmal), then Chicago, then a Canadian city, then Denver. Those were my 5 cities for much of the game until I was strong enough to declare war.

3. Because of the 40% discount until Renaissance, research Astronomy, Education, PP, Military science and/or military tradition up till the turn when you're about to discover them, then go for Astronomy (for trade routes overseas). This will save you a lot of beakers (you will still have about 3 turns each for the 4 remaining renaissance techs). I actually stole military science from the Aztecs so I didn't need to do it.

4. Americans were my research bank--devote all your espionage to them as soon as they appear. I stole the majority of techs from them, including late stuff like superconductors. I usually have them research the complementary tech that I need, e.g. I do rocketry while they do fission. Divert them from the wonder techs like radio.

5. Be nice to everybody until you're ready to kill them.

Relatively standard-faire. Took Frankfurt early on and collapsed Germany. Stole optics from the french the moment they discovered it (they were the first), and capitulated Aztec and Inca. End game vassals were Aztec, Inca, America, and Babylon. I stole techs from Babylon for a while because it was cheaper than America, then I sent my spies to New York.

The end game was an artful pre-emptive nuclear strike on Russia involving 10 spies blowing up 8 bomb shelters, and 25 some ICBMs hitting every Russian city in existence, knocking them from 19% population to less than 10%.

I didn't even have to adopt Nationhood/police state, and I had a 4 person GA saved up that I never needed.

Aside from Germany in the beginning, and Russia in the end, I played a classic pacifist game. Of course no one minded me nuking Russia back to the stoneage, because they nuked France out of existence, and they threw a few at India too.

The end game was an artful pre-emptive nuclear strike on Russia involving 10 spies blowing up 8 bomb shelters, and 25 some ICBMs hitting every Russian city in existence, knocking them from 19% population to less than 10%.

Click to expand...

I've always wanted to do that as Buddhist Khmer.
What patience you must have had building all those ICBMs in Denver. I especially like the touch about the sabotage. Did your spies make the ultimate sacrifice or did they make it out in time just like the movies?

Well, a handful were captured by Russians agents after sabotage. One was captured the turn before, but clearly kept his mouth shut. One was on the road near St. Petersburg, but never got deployed because I was ready. The rest of course made it back to Amsterdam safely.


Only about 5 were in Denver, nearly every city had produced one or more while I waited for Russia to collapse from taking France. Eventually I got bored and initiated the nuclear strike. I had to load from nuclear exchange about 10 turns prior that didn't kill off enough of their population and resulted in a very sizeable return strike. So I decided I had to go for overkill.

Okay, so I think the basic formula for Europan powers holds up pretty well in Emperor.

Get a great spy.
Use it to steal optics and astronomy from the first civ to discover both (Usually France).
Get Inca and Aztec vassals.
Settle Caracas, New Orleans, Chicago and Denver. I've also been placing 2 more cities carefully in S. America: Buenas Aries and Sao Louis (Near the oil).
Getting a city on the Gold in S. Africa is also pretty useful.
From there, it'll mostly play itself, except that the last expansion you do has to be very slow and measured. I usually push for internet, but the English, Americans, and French like to build it. You can stay pretty competitive with espionage with your techs though. Getting Democracy before 1800 will really help out there.

So, I want to try some less conventional games:
Arabia would be pretty cool. You start in 600 AD with guilds already, but the barbarian pressure is insane. Arabia also faces some tough choices and early instability. Do you raze those future Turkish cities? Do you try to take Constanople and Athens? Do you expand into India and Samarkand, or Northern Africa? The barbarian pressure is pretty insane, and I've had difficulty staying stable and fending off the barbs.

Turkey has a late start, but you have a good chance to get optics before 1500. This may or may not be fast enough to get conquerers. Research compass, and get half of optics by a GE lightbulb. I've had real difficulty getting good vassals for Turkey.

Japan and China could work, but I can't get the Chinese economy up and running fast enough on emperor. Japan is pretty isolated, but if you can get conquerors, you may be able to get the power cities in the Americas. I've had problems keeping Japan competitive in tech because they're isolated.

I'm thinking other civs that we pulled it off for in monarch might be near impossible in emperor:
Greece
Vikings
Carthage
India
Khmer
Inca
Aztec
Maya


And of course, there's the ones that we haven't yet done even on monarch:
Mali
Ethiopia
Egypt

Any thoughts on clever strategies for some non-European emperor games?

Vikings isn't so bad--just squat on England and Ireland, wait for England to collapse. Compass, steal guilds and optics, then America is yours.

Greece and Carthage rely mainly on squatting in Rome, and once you have Rome (or Neapolis for the Greeks), you can build up troops to kill the new Europeans. The barbs are tough though.

I think Ethiopia (monarch) you have to rely on a great spy to steal stuff from Arabia, and stability needs to be changed in favor of them, Egypt and Mali before I would even try it again.

If someone can pull off a Mali domination victory he shall be crowned the King Of RFC Eternally.

Egypt has to be harder than Mali. Egypt can't even survive to modern era with 3 cities, let alone control an empire of 30-40.

Hell, Mali has some shot just because they get so much extra gold. I'm just not sure what sort of strategy it would require. Africa is maybe 8-10%, then you'd want some of the power cities in N. and S. America, and some really good vassals. You'd probably have to feed your vassals basically every city, and would have to peacefully acquire them or risk them getting bigger than you.

I'd wonder if Egypt is even possible on viceroy...

Problems with Malian domination:
1. No feudalism or machinery (prereqs for guilds/optics)
2. I.e. can't beat France to New Orleans or get conquistidors
3. terrible stability

A possible Mali solution (not counting the stability problems that go along with it):
1. Build 2 cities in north Africa and trade for feudalism and code of laws from Spain or France. Meet all the European civs (to decrease cost of research and open trade routes)
2. spawn a great spy and steal guilds
3. get enough gold to trade for machinery from somebody while researching compass
4. It's OK if we got beat to optics, just get to Astronomy ASAP to send a settler to New Orleans, which, if built, we should then build Chicago first (because France builds it), then Denver (nobody ever builds Denver!).
5. When America spawns, and if France has a Florida city and declares war on America, declare war on France and capture New Orleans. Denver should have more than enough production for troops.
6. From then on it plays like America, tanks and nukes all around.

The hard part is 2. and 3.

Why Arabian domination is hard on emperor:

3 stars across the board, but collapsing. Admittedly, on the lower threshold for each of them, but still very frustrating.

This is while fighting a winning war with Turkey.