Domination Victory too hard?

I can easily get a cultural victory on King. I can easily get a science victory on King. But domination victory seems too hard.

Even if you have a way better army then the AI, you get owned.

For instance, I started out a game with Genghis Khan. Everything starts out great; I found 6 iron and I got had like 6 Swordsman. I dominate all the nearby city states with no problem. But then Harun Al-Rashid's capital just HAPPENS to be between 2 mountains and can only be attacked from one direction.

And Harun Al-Rashid owns my Swordsman with one of the first units you can get; an archer.

Seriously domination victory is too hard. You could have way more units, have more advanced units and still get your butt kicked.

I think I'll stick to cultural and science victories.

For tough cities that are wedged by mountains, wait for artillery and bombers they'll take care of any city.

liltrogdor said:

For tough cities that are wedged by mountains, wait for artillery and bombers they'll take care of any city.

Click to expand...

Yes, battleships can help too, you might want to look into getting all types of units, it is handy to have spears for calvary and such, swordsmen for the other heavy duty combat units or Calvary for quick precise strikes. To be honest it isn't that hard to kill AI because it can be stupid at times. Just exploit their weaknesses. All it takes in determined attacks with a good empire to take them out.

Other then that you shouldn't focus on swordsmen alone, but pretty much anything that is available to you. 6 swordsmen with a few Calvary units combined with spears could be a deadly well rounded force. Also archers and such are good at cleaning up any weaker military units.

To get even more skilled at combat, keep in mind that some terrain gives you combat bonuses and penalties, so you may want to research that stuff a bit to see how to get to tiles quickly or safely with the defense bonuses.

One more thing, make sure you have healthy economy, you can't rage war when you cannot pay your own troops.

I find the AI very easy to overwhelm with military, unless they sneak up on your boarder and surprise you.
They have a tendency to suicide units; range is your friend.

Naval warfare is incredibly easy - in my current Immortal game, my battleships have taken 5 capitols thus far with a destroyer to actually capture it.
Unfortunately, there is a certain lacking of "awareness" and acting on it for the AI. Armies don't necessarily approach you collectively and it can be a case of picking them off.

More open, plain territories are certainly harder though.

You're Mongolia. Use keshiks.

Melee units are particularly bad at taking cities (obviously they need to make the final capture, but they're bad at getting it low), because unless it's an unwalled city (and the AI always makes Walls), you're just killing yourself attacking it. Taking a capital city flanked by mountains with only Swordsmen is a fool's errand.

Keshiks are godly at taking cities, 3 Keshiks and a Horseman is better than 20 Swordsmen. For other civs you either need large numbers of archers/siege weapons, or high ranged units (level 5 archers, artillery, bombers, battleships).

Keshiks are indeed great, but don't forget he's on vanilla, so ranfed units get a 25% penalty against cities.

digrosz said:

Keshiks are indeed great, but don't forget he's on vanilla, so ranfed units get a 25% penalty against cities.

Click to expand...

Ah, didn't see that.

Wasn't catapult spam really strong in vanilla? I seem to remember catapults easily fighting equal tech units while also beating cities.

CivAddict2013 said:

I think I'll stick to cultural and science victories

Click to expand...

Your name and this statement don't quite go together!!

As others have said, take the time to learn the art of using three or four keshiks along with one spearman, one horseman and a Khan, once you know what you are doing, then you should be able to capture that Arabian City.

Alzadar said:

Ah, didn't see that.

Wasn't catapult spam really strong in vanilla? I seem to remember catapults easily fighting equal tech units while also beating cities.

Click to expand...

Catapults had their own ranged strength, not equal to archers or anything. Nowadays a catapult is basically a Comp Bow (11 strength ranged) but with a bonus vs. cities.
But, as there was no composite bowman in Vanilla, and catapults also had a lot more strength, things were... Fairly unbalanced

digrosz said:

But, as there was no composite bowman in Vanilla, and catapults also had a lot more strength, things were... Fairly unbalanced

Click to expand...

VANILLA
The OP has highlighted a situation that he has found himself in, what the hell is the point in highlighting your so called faults in a version of the game that you probably never played to a high standard. You happened to mention the prowess of Keshicks, fair play to you, but you then went on to mention their -25% versus Cities on vanilla, almost as if you know something that we don't!! Mongols Playing on Epic or Marathon it's possible to take out seven AIs before the end of BC even on emporer with good planning.

I am getting seriously pissed off with people getting involved with older versions of the game when it has nothing to do with their currant form of play, right now we have VANILLA, G&Q and BNW, it would help us all if people stuck to their own chosen game!!!!!!!!

There are so few posts involving the VANILLA game, I would be willing to help anyone who needed the help, if I felt I was able to help them.

I usually just spam composite bowman and pick up a few spearmen and I can take a almost any city.