Attila Deity Domination Guide

Hi Cromagnus, thanks for this guide. I tried your strategy several times but I can´t see how you manage to capture capital on turn 50 or even 40. Would it be possible to post a video ?

Don't know if Cromagnus does videos, but you might find this one instructive: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=521138 Zulu, not Huns, but he uses substantially the same approach Cromagnus lays out (chariot archers rather than horse archers, so horses are important).
EDIT: One major difference is he uses insta-heal much more.

Browd said:

Don't know if Cromagnus does videos, but you might find this one instructive: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=521138 Zulu, not Huns, but he uses substantially the same approach Cromagnus lays out (chariot archers rather than horse archers, so horses are important).
EDIT: One major difference is he uses insta-heal much more.

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I was going to try to post a video, but my horribly slow machine doesn't like OBS. I'm working on it.

If you're struggling to take a city by t50, here's the most important thing:

You need to get your horse archers out fast. You should be teching the Wheel ASAP and building those horse archers ASAP. There are a number of things that help with this. It's hard for me to know what your bottleneck is without seeing a savegame, but since I left out a lot of things that I (probably incorrectly) assume players all do, here are some of them:

1) Parking your capital on a hill. (a lux mine if possible) This adds up to the cost of a horse archer by t56, so it actually makes a difference. It also adds bonus gold early. Move your capital if you need to, and try to maximize early workable "good tiles". Since you start with animal husbandry, you can see horses.
2) Good tiles: If you have the choice between 2food1hammer tiles and 2food2gold tiles... choose 2food1hammer. If you have the choice between 3food and 2food1hammer, choose 3food until you're at least size 4.
3) Micromanage and lock your tiles and use production focus: Doing this ensure that you get bonus hammers every time a city grows.
4) Steal workers early and often. This is probably the single most important thing to do on Deity. Getting farms, pastures and mines up is sooo important to production and gold. You should have multiple workers stolen by t25, preferably from your first victim, but a CS works in a pinch. (Preferably a CS you DoW before meeting any players)

You start with animal husbandry. A worker stolen by t10 means you can sell your horses for gpt by t20. This will earn you enough money to buy a horse archer by t40.

Basically, you should have 3 horse archers by t40 no problem. Earlier, if you do everything above (and more) to optimize gold/turn and hammers/turn.

Also, I highly recommend leaving ruins that you find for the warrior to grab, to try to get a free battering ram. (IE don't take them with a scout unless someone else might steal them)

One battering ram + one warrior can take an undefended plains city on t10. If I get a battering ram upgrade and conditions are right, I usually ditch whatever I'm building to build a warrior, so I can execute a pre-t20 capture. But one ram + 2 horse archers can easily take a city on t40, regardless, with proper tactics.

If you're struggling with that first capture, It could also be an issue of tactics.

* Draw out their forces. I sometimes swoop in and steal a worker and then gang up on whichever unit tries to recapture it. With no archer in the city, your units take less damage/turn.
* Bring a melee unit at 95-99 health so that the horse archers don't take damage at first. Pillage to heal him. Park him in rough terrain. Instant heal to keep him in the fight longer, or give him +15% in rough terrain and cover I. (If you got a promotion while fighting barbs, and don't have promotion-saving turned on, that's your best bet)
* Have the worker you stole repair the improvement your warrior pillaged so he can heal again.
* Don't bring one unit into range at a time as you build them. Maximize the number of city hits on the first turn, to maximize your chances of capturing before someone needs to run away.
* Insta-heal if you need to for capture. I do recommend going for logistics whenever possible, but if insta-heal would be the difference between failure and success on that city capture... take the heal. Just try to avoid needing it. Again, as I've mentioned, logistics is the "safe" bet. Insta-heal works great if you're a master tactician (and even better if you have promotion-saving turned on) but the primary value is speeding up the rate at which you capture cities early. It's a gamble. If you fail to capture cities quickly, your unpromoted horse archers will struggle with the remaining capitals. Logistics keeps your units relevant for another 50 turns... so if you struggle with Domination, IMHO it's a better place to start.

Anyway. The bottom line: Basically, you need to maximize early production and gold through trades, improvements, growth and choosing which tiles you work wisely. Did I mention worker stealing? It makes such a huge difference on Deity.

Browd said:

Don't know if Cromagnus does videos, but you might find this one instructive: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=521138 Zulu, not Huns, but he uses substantially the same approach Cromagnus lays out (chariot archers rather than horse archers, so horses are important).
EDIT: One major difference is he uses insta-heal much more.

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Yes, this is a great video. Bear in mind that game was a much lower difficulty level. Still an excellent video, not taking anything away from it, but there are a lot of things that work on Chieftain you can't get away with on Deity.

For example, on Deity you can't bully CS reliably until your army is much larger. You need more happiness to stay afloat too, so you most likely will at some point need to build a circus or ally a mercantile CS, etc. etc., all things you wouldn't have to contend with on Chieftain. But, a lot of the combat tactics demonstrated should help.

Yeah, I should have said TWO major differences -- more use of insta-heal and Chieftain. But, as you say, the combat mechanics lessons are similar.

Thanks for the tips guys. I also seemed to be a bit unlucky because the nearest AI capital has always been far away and behind his other cities and/or on rough terrain and/or I was facing AI with some UA (Aztecs in jungle). Will try again.

It's fine if there are other cities in the way. Just raze them.

I do recommend scouting thoroughly enough that your first target is an easy one if possible. However, rough terrain shouldn't slow down horse archers much. It just makes it easier for your melee to survive city hits.

And it's good practice. You'll need to get good at taking capitals in rough terrain anyway because almost every map will have some like that. It's easier with logistics though, which is one reason it's better to put them off until later. Another is that their workers will chop down the forest over time. But if they're between you and the rest of the map, they gotta be dealt with. So it's an opportunity to get some practice at taking hard targets.

I am always impressed by these guides that are posted, but sometimes it seems like we are playing a different game entirely.

I can't imagine taking a capital city using one warrior and a Battering Ram on KING, let alone on Deity! Doesn't the AI start with like five extra military units and an extra settler on Deity?

Taking a capital every ten turns? How do you even get in RANGE of a capital every ten turns? Battering Rams don't have a difficult terrain bonus, do they?

try it out it works and it's pretty fun

Cragspyder said:

I am always impressed by these guides that are posted, but sometimes it seems like we are playing a different game entirely.

I can't imagine taking a capital city using one warrior and a Battering Ram on KING, let alone on Deity! Doesn't the AI start with like five extra military units and an extra settler on Deity?

Taking a capital every ten turns? How do you even get in RANGE of a capital every ten turns? Battering Rams don't have a difficult terrain bonus, do they?

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Horse Archers are how. The battering rams help get a super-early capture, which gets you a head-start. After the first one or two, it's mostly Horse Archers for the win.

And, re: Battering Ram and Warrior, how I generally do it is:

1) Only attack a plains capital. Do it early before it grows. Make sure it's undefended. It happens. Warriors go off to protect a settler, explore, or sometimes.... they were in range of your capital when you DoW'd, and you pinned them in with your units, so they soaked ranged fire and died, gave your units some XP, so that the next time they attack they get an insta-heal.. for example.
2) DoW when you're in the 2nd tier (the city should not have grown yet) or have the warrior be slightly damaged to absorb the first hit.
3) Attack with both the warrior and the ram. This will take the capital down below 50.

The warrior will likely die without an insta-heal or pillage, then the ram insta-heals and finishes off the capital. Make sure to give the ram the rough terrain spot if you can't dow from the 2nd tier.

That's about how I do it. This is a time-honored Deity trick... it's how all the duel map HOF games are won by like turn 8.

Anyone tried a mongolian honor domination? With early khan + chariot archers. Wonder how it compares with egypt and huns.

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Vitruvius said:

Anyone tried a mongolian honor domination? With early khan + chariot archers. Wonder how it compares with egypt and huns.

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I've tried it. It works, but it's not ideal. Basically, unless you get Animal Husbandry through a ruin and get great terrain, it goes pretty slow. Honor is redundant if you just wait for Keshiks.

Cromagnus said:

I've tried it. It works, but it's not ideal. Basically, unless you get Animal Husbandry through a ruin and get great terrain, it goes pretty slow. Honor is redundant if you just wait for Keshiks.

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Basically what cromagnus said With mongolia , since you are going to wage war at chivalery , there is no much point in starting honor. I find a strong science start with tradition with one or two cities , or a usual liberty to capitalize on the happy per city once you start to be serious on war, and only then really go to a total war is stronger.
You can start honor using chariots first and start to wage a war with a neighbour only to get some experience sometimes work tough.

well basically you dont need 50% exp on keshisks, they already have +50% IIRC, meaning they get 150% of base, adding 50% exp to that is really just +33% for keshiks, and they get important promotions really fast anyway, you are better off with liberty imo

I decided to look up a good deity early rush strategy and came across this one. This is pretty damn awesome. Currently I'm on turn 80 and have three capitals left to capture. My empire is surprisingly happy for what I have done so far. I have 13 Horse Archers, three Horsemen, one Warrior, and scout upgraded to Archer.

I captured Portugal around turn 45, Iroquois 60ish, Songhai 70ish, Japan 80. I've been pretty fortunate so far to have all the Capitals front and center for my attacks. I haven't had to go through any other cities. That is all going to change now.

Here are some pics.

Settings


Victory Progress


In Game Map

England has the Great Wall, which might be a pain. I'm not sure which city actually built it either since I found England kind of late. I'm also not sure where London is, but I'm guessing right to the North of York. Gonna take Nottingham, raze and keep moving. Also, all the units surrounding Kyoto are very upgraded. The ones around York are pretty new.

Venice is somewhere back there, but not sure where. He shouldn't be a problem. Jakarta appears to be located on a choke point, but I can barely tell right now. I'm probably going to have to go through a few cities before I can get his capital. I'm hoping for a sub 100 victory, but I'm probably going to get hung up fighting England.

Anyway, the only mod I have for this game is Enhanced User Interface. Other than that it is all standard. The one thing that helped me greatly in this game is having Kilimanjaro just outside my borders. I have been able to run my units by it all game.

Update: London was where I thought it was. I took it down on turn 88. Finally picked up writing and grabbed an embassy with Venice. He is on the far NE corner of the map. The only way there is through the water or through Songhai.

Update:2 Snagged Jakarta on t95. One cap left and it is literally as far away as it possibly could be. Had I known the location I think I easily could have finished this game off below 100.
Another Pic


Final Update It took way too long to get there, but I still managed t113. Thanks for the awesome guide.

Nicely done! Mt K is awesome for Attila. Not so great with other civs, because of the stupid way chariot archers work.

Cromagnus said:

Nicely done! Mt K is awesome for Attila. Not so great with other civs, because of the stupid way chariot archers work.

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I agree. I don't know that I had ever used Horse Archers with altitude training before this game. They were phenomenal. They felt like super early game Keshik's. I'm going to have to try this again. If I don't screw up I bet I could get under 100.

Final Update It took way too long to get there, but I still managed t113. Thanks for the awesome guide.

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Bravo...that is very impressive although kind of disappointing you didn't know where Venice was located. You easily could have finished below 100 if you didn't spend 15 turns walking across the map. Op's strategy alone makes Attila my favorite civ. I think the lowest I've ever finished a game is like turn 125 or something close to that. That game seemed damn near perfect, so I can't imagine finishing so much earlier.

I'm currently playing a game where I just captured my third civ at turn 67, but I'm at war with everyone. This is the type of thing that usually slows me way down. I probably won't be able to capture my next capital for another 30 turns. If I could just do one war at a time I am sure I could get much closer to turn 100.

gudbajn said:

Hi Cromagnus, thanks for this guide. I tried your strategy several times but I can´t see how you manage to capture capital on turn 50 or even 40. Would it be possible to post a video ?

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I know you asked a few months ago, but I figured I might as well make a video of the first 50 or so turns. Here's the youtube link

Early Attila Rush

DingleBirdy said:

I know you asked a few months ago, but I figured I might as well make a video of the first 50 or so turns. Here's the youtube link

Early Attila Rush

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You should really consider doing a full lets play. There are not a lot of deity players that do lp's. I would watch. Also, do you have the initial save from that video?