Domination on Immortal/Deity - a noob's guide

This would be a good map for practising Liberty CB rush on Deity. The domination sweep will likely be problematic after the first victim, so it might also be a good map for practising midge ingenuity.

I have recorded 2 parts of an LP for this map, showcasing worker steals and a CB rush.


Link to video.

beetle said:

Thanks consentient. I am really struggling with productive warmongering. I think my main problem is not being focused enough.

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You're probably right. Focus only on conquering capitals. Whether you annex them or no, they are now part of your empire, and as your empire grows, so does your power. Don't worry too much about tending that empire. It's not a flower that needs constant pruning. It's a mighty-oak battering ram that should be shoved down the throats of the AI. Focus on conquest and conquest alone!

Every game I want to (at some point) build all guilds and all the National Wonders.

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They're totally unnecessary to a DomV, and therefore if you're building them, you're playing sub-optimally.

Also, I have never really been able to get anywhere between XBs and Arty, and my Arty always seems too late -- even though I shoot for it straight after Electricity.

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Why would you go to Electricity at all? It's not on the tech-path. Beelining means clicking on that tech and racing for it ASAP. Electricity is a major detour. After Machinery and Chivalry to support your mid game, you click on Chemistry, then Fertiliser, then get the other requisite techs for Dynamite and use Oxford for Dynamite. Get it by T160 and you're home free. After T180 and you're gonna struggle to make anything out of it.

Often my arty is killed by air, and I never have been able to get to GWB faster than the AI.

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Bombers are modern era units and you want the war to be over by then.

So I guess I have two questions:

1) Which of your listed periods/policies do feel is the most straightforward? Not necessarily the fastest game, but the one that is probably the most robust for a noob?

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This is a matter of debate. Some players will tell you that Tradition and beelining Dynamite will get you the safest win, as per Moriarte's Korea LP.

But I think that the later you leave it, the more risky it can be, the more you are letting the fate of the game sit in the AI's lap. The quicker you can increase the size and power of your empire, the better, IMO. So I'm a big fan of 3 city Liberty NC, CB rush, promote to XB and snowball from there, with Cannon support coming ASAP, and then later upgrade to Artillery.

2) Which of your the listed periods/policies is least incompatible with builder habits?

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Well, Tradition and going to war with Artillery, obviously, but even then, don't neglect your units

I played around with the Greece map for a bit. I went 3 city liberty. Ignored religion seeing as the Celts were my neighbor. I think I misplayed the start a bit and could have had better growth. Got construction on turn 62, with enough money to upgrade 6 archers. DoW'd Boudicca on turn 69, mainly because her capital was easy pickings. Her religion was actually pretty decent too, with desert folklore. However, a few turns later England and Spain simultaneously attacked me. I captured Edinburgh and made peace by turn 86, and set my sights on Morocco, who was wonderspamming. However his capital was in a bit of an awkward position and I waited until XBs to attack.

I finally took his capital on turn 129 while fending off Elizabeth and Isabella. However I had to ditch Edinburgh once Isabella started sending carpets of Tercios and Conquistadors. I made peace of Morocco and now I have decide whether I want to push forward or consolidate. Spain is the leader in military strength, and I think it would be unwise to pick a fight when they are at their strongest. Edinburgh is easily retakable later. I think the best course of action now would be to push upwards into London before sweeping east and west from there.

I would likely concentrate on growth for the next 20 turns or so. My concern is that my science output is lagging and that my cities are under developed, so it would likely be necessary to focus on growth for the time being. Capturing Marrakesh has left me with a very strong economy. Any momentum that I had was lost from the 3-way war I had to fight so early on. I also lost 3-4 units through careless placement

Liz probably hates you because in her mind you forward settled her. What did you do to ruffle Spain's feathers or do you think Liz paid Izzy to join her?

I'm pretty sure someone bribed either Liz or Izzy, I had no red modifiers with Izzy and she was friendly up until then. That said, she's still refusing to make peace, although that might be a consequence of her army being stronger than mine.

They won't make peace until you have a stronger army or have inflicted at least some casualties

beetle said:

I will be settling on T0 on the cotton, more for the observatory than the quicker lux, plus I can farm the hill. Settling-on-luxes and hills are more a priority for my expos.

From the opening SS, I am thinking pottery, calendar, AH, archery, then mining and masonry before writing, philosophy, and then off towards education.

BO will be scout, scout, shrine, monument, worker (if I have not stolen one), then archers and a couple settlers, then library and NC. Expos will be monument then library.

That is all my opening plans, and I welcome your critique. One problem is that the above is all pretty generic. I don’t think I would do anything different for Liberty or Tradition (except expos skipping monument).

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Here is my progress to turn 50, I am pretty happy with it actually. I forgot I had settled on cotton, and so neglected calendar. Feed back is welcome!

BO: scout, scout, shrine, monument, archer, settler, settler, archer
Tech: pottery, AH, archery, mining, writing, masonry, bronze working, wheel, calendar
Ruins: pop(t4), maps(t11), gold (t13), nothing after that.

By t17 I have met all but two neighbors. [1] looks to be the only problem.
T18 Take a worker from [2] because I can.
T22 Scouts pause to train up on barbs, have met all but 1 civ so far
T23 Open Honor. My Liberty and Tradition runs will start from this save.
T32 Taking RHS. 1st settler only half done. I am really unhappy with how [2] has forward settled me. Glad I took [2] worker and is first on the hit parade. Expo spots are disappearing fast. No wide Liberty on this map.
T40, 1st settler out and I get to found a pantheon. Going for Stone Quarries.
T47, 2nd honor policy, 1 turn to 2nd and last settler. [2] has spoiled my second-best expo spot. This map will be hard to get 4 for Tradition.
T50, Corinth is founded on flat, off river, no stone. At least money is building well enough I can rush buy library. 2nd archer close to done. SS attached.

consentient said:

It's pretty simple. Find the capitals. Settle 3 cities. Build an army of archers. Make sure the settling is done by T50. The army is priority over the NC, but still an early NC is good.

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I am closer to this than I expected. All but two caps spotted, but I am pretty sure [2] is due north. [3] is a nice close soft target after [2]. Settling done (just barely) by T50, and 1.5 archers is hardly an army.

consentient said:

Update T105 EducationEverything is primed for an attack on the weak neighbour. This map would definitely have been slightly stronger going Liberty instead of Honor IMO, but maybe that's because I'm still a better Liberty player?

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tldr;things go badly

Tech: calendar (oops), trapping, horseback riding, philosophy, construction, CS (requires 3 other techs), education (requires theology)
Athens: finish archer, archer, worker, caravan, library, granary, stone works, NC, watermill, stable, companion calvary x2, caravansary, cb
Sparta: finish monument, library, granary, watermill, stoneworks, stable
Corinth: finish monument, granary, rush buy library, stable, barracks, cb

T52 [2] has CBs, that is no good. No open borders with anyone, so my scouts are bottled up too close to home.
T59 Make peace with [2] after clumsy steal of second worker. Now I can pull back troops for garrison and finally get to happy. I expect [1] to DOW me sometime.
T66 Meet last civ and open 3rd policy in honor. Scout could steal a worker from CS, but I skip it since they are kind of far away, and have a couple EZ quests up. Caravan goes to [3] since I have been running a deficient and need to rush buy a library.
T77 Libraries are done and NC unlocks in a few turns. Religions are gone, but I have almost enough faith banked for a pagoda. Plan is to turtle for a while.
T84 [1] asks me to war w/ her on [4]. Okay, it will keep [1] off me until I am ready. [5] build Statue of Zeus — just as [4] takes his cap LOL.
T95 NC done, still building up, can’t afford to upgrade to CBs
T101 Enter Medieval, loosing gold, education is 18 turns away.
T104 Finish honor, never build a hoplite.
T109 [4] Allies a CS and kills a scout.
T113 [2] dows me, sorry to say I did not see that coming.
T117 Athens falls. Education was still 4 turns away. Economy is terrible, -29 gpt.
Is Civil Service before Education? I cannot figure out how to get there fast enough. Also, my economy is terrible.

I will try reloading back to when I stole [2] worker and made peace, so to keep the war up with her. Also Eduction before CS so I have time to build me some hoplites.

Beetle, why not make an uncommented video and we can give you tips on exactly where you're going wrong?

From your write-up, I can see you are ignoring the advice in this thread about not building buildings.

In your first 100 turns you build the following, which I didn't: Shrine, Stone Works, Watermill (2x), Stable (3x), Caravansary.

On most of my Deity DomVs I never build any of these. Shrines are debatable perhaps but the rest are a total waste of time. Add them up and you have wasted at least 600 hammers, or enough for 15 Archers. If you had built those archers and used them to kill barbs, complete quests, make culture and gold, and help your beleaguered scouts find out about your surroundings, you'd be in much better shape. You'd also not have been DoW'd. At all.

This is Domination. It's very different. You need to stop building an empire. Take it from the AIs who can build it faster and more efficiently.

Your economy was in a poor state because you were paying maintenance on a ton of buildings you didn't need. The Roman Empire fell for this reason.

consentient said:

Beetle, why not make an uncommented video and we can give you tips on exactly where you're going wrong?

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Sorry, I have no interest in that.

From your write-up, I can see you are ignoring the advice in this thread about not building buildings. In your first 100 turns you build the following, which I didn't: Shrine, Stone Works, Watermill (2x), Stable (3x), Caravansary.

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Coach, you have no idea how hard is has been for me to skip the guilds and gardens!

Tried again, not bothering with extra archers since I cannot afford to upgrade them. From about t50 since I apparently was not saving even when I made notes.

tldr; might be okay, hard for me to tell.

Tech: calendar (oops), construction, trapping, horseback riding, philosophy, Education (requires 5 techs, including CS)
Athens: finish archer, worker, library, worker, granary, worker, caravansary, caravan, stone works, watermill, NC, barracks, stable, replacement caravan, caravan, caravan, cb and companion calvary.
Sparta: finish monument, library, watermill, granary, stoneworks, stable, barracks, cb, companion calvary
Corinth: finish monument, granary, rush buy library, stable, barracks, cb, companion calvary

T95 ruin (20 culture, blah).
T110 NC was quite late because I spent gold too early to grade my one archer to CB.
T113 [2] has UU. I will be on defensive for a while, not surprising with two units.
T125 Close out Honor. -10 gpt, no good units to build atm because I sold my horses and iron. Education is still two turns out, I have no idea how folks get that by T105 or so. My army is now 1 CB w/ range, since my warrior was sniped by the UU. 3x CB in the queue.
T129, I now have 5(!) CB and swordsman on line. 3x CC in the queue. -11 gpt, but gold coming in from kills. [4] just took a core city from [2]. Happy at -7, from pillages.
T138, positive happy and gold, but CC are getting killed faster than I can build them. Athens down to 0HP, but think I can kept the melee units off the city.
T142 [1] gets influence, like that will matter. [5] is gone, I missed exactly when that happened. [4] looks to be running away. Barely positive gpt, but honor kills will pay for XB upgrade easy. Nothing but CC in queue, I am starting to keep them alive. [2] has knights, so all her units are an era ahead of me, but I am feeling okay. [2] has pulled back, but I have to wait to XB upgraded before pressing the attack.

beetle said:

Coach, you have no idea how hard is has been for me to skip the guilds and gardens!

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Well, you can continue to build those worthless buildings if you want, but I doubt you'll ever get very far at Domination on higher difficulties. It's pretty much either you adapt and focus on your army, or lose.

I've never seen a good player building a caravansary. Ditto stables, etc.

I should tell you that all my ICL and DCL wins have been without guilds. They're great for peace games, but totally unnecessary for conquest.

Uhhh Stables are great (depending on number of relevant tiles, of course), so are Stone Works. I almost always place a very high priority on these. "Don't build buildings" as a blanket philosophy is unhelpful. A more useful philosophy is "think about what a building is actually giving you before you decide to build it".

In the case of the particular buildings above, the answer to that question is very obvious: "hammers". Hammers = units. It doesn't take long for these buildings to become hammer positive. Building Stables and Stone Works means that you'll have MORE units, not less.

Guilds are also fine, as long as you know why you're building them. For example, generating a Great Writer can speed up your Liberty finisher, potentially granting you Crossbows 10 or more turns earlier. Having Crossbows is obviously helpful for warmongering.

Obviously if you're an expert and are planning to win in the first 100 or so turns these buildings might not have time to become profitable. But that's very much an advanced case and not relevant to a "noob's guide". Even then, though... My fastest-ever Deity domination victory was a t106 with Polynesia. You'd better believe I built a Writer's Guild that game. And I have no doubts that it was worth it.

In general, every resource in the game can be converted into something useful for warmongering. Science = unit strength. Food = science, hammers, gold. Culture = science, gold, hammers, happiness. Happiness = unit strength. Happiness = food . Hammers = food, happiness, units, gold, faith, culture. Gold = unit strength, hammers, happiness, science, food, faith, culture. Faith = hammers, gold, happiness, culture. If someone is telling you that any given resource is "useless", they are simply wrong.

All resources are useful. It simply takes imagination and intention. Being thoughtful and critical about improving your play is best achieved by being open to possibilities -- not by closing them off.

I'm not saying don't build buildings. I'm saying, very clearly, don't build a building unless you need it. Since I rolled the map in question, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that stables, caravansary, etc, are really not worth building in the first 100 turns.

This has nothing to do with when you want to win. It has everything to do with the fact that if your economy is terrible AND you have no functioning army then building buildings is NEVER going to make up for this if you are pursuing Domination.

consentient said:

It's pretty much either you adapt and focus on your army, or lose.

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I think I can make it work for me. I won’t be winning by the Modern Era, but that is okay.

Circus, Granary, Stoneworks, Stables, Watermill all offer a high return. I hated having to build a caravansary, but gold was such a problem.

I will hold off on the guilds until they can be done in a turn and fulfill CS quests.

Don't mind me trying out the map

Is it just me, or are most of the maps that Civ produces totally useless if you want to try Domination?? I've just spent much of a day rolling maps that were mostly jungle, or had other civs almost inside your living room, or had them so far away that I hadn't met any of them by turn 30; copies of the same lux clumped together, and nothing else for miles; or tiles and tiles of featureless plans without so much as a hill. Either that or mountains all over the place. I've lost count of the times I've spawned on a promontory or isthmus. Pangaea isn't much like Pangaea if you are dangling off the end of some appendix in a far corner of the map. I'm coming to the conclusion that the Oval map is probably the one to try if you want a decent chance of a Domination game. But it's probably just me.

I chose this map because it has the potential for a really fast rush. I finished on T160 but it could have been much, much faster. Anyone who wants to try a WC rush with all the ingredients there and ready, this is a good map for it. It has sparse resources, so wouldn't be much fun for anyone not going conquest, but this is a DomV thread, so all players that try it should find it to their liking.

No LP this time, but I'll happily contribute a write-up if enough people are interested.

mbbcam said:

Is it just me, or are most of the maps that Civ produces totally useless if you want to try Domination

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For all the reasons you mentioned and more, I agree with you. This is the reason that I play Continents a lot, because it's more consistent. Pangaea is OK but those peninsulas do of course suck.

I also like to use Rotate Start Positions mod for help selecting starts and saving maps, without giving away anything away about the larger map.

consentient said:

I also like to use Rotate Start Positions mod

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I missed that mod, for some reason. I'm glad you mentioned it. I'll definitely try it out. And I'm glad I'm not the only one who is dissatisfied with the maps in Civ.

Yeah, and I'll add that maps saved on T0 with Rotate Start Positions are playable in unmodded games, or even by people without the mod. It doesn't change the code of the map, just lets you see the different positions and save them.

So I'll roll a map, save position A as 'Suleiman 1A' and then next one as 'Suleiman 1B', then maybe the next 2 positions I don't like, so I click 'Restart Game' and save the next ones as '2A', '2B', etc.

Then exit to main menu and load the maps as normal.