Domination on Immortal/Deity - a noob's guide

Update: replayed from t98, now t115

Is there a reason you don't attack England first as the terrain is much more favorable? You haven't scouted Carthage yet but I am willing to guess that Carthage is a coastal city SW of Utique. It might be easier to swim units across the channel and land between Utique and Carthage to cut off her reinforcement and probably even go after Carthage itself.

I've been at war with carthage since turn 20 or so, when I stole 2 workers and they never accepted peace since. They've been sending units over every couple turns, so I was not looking forward to a two front war.

My current plan is indeed to land units while also moving units across the isthmus. Hopefully the stopping power of XBs will be enough to prevent a counter attack, as retreating to heal will cause quite a delay...

Edit: update: I think I should give up. I captured Utique but at the cost of 3 XB or so because I couldn't retreat wounded units. I tried marching on to cartaghe but my army got creamed, he had 3 galeasses on the coast, killing 1.5 units per turn. I got it into the red with a desperate siege, but couldn't capture it so I guess it will be a loss :-(

If I replay, what should I do differently?

1. You shouldn't be losing units. Maybe you are using them wrongly? Watch Acken's DCL 16 video and see how he manoeuvres them. I don't think there is anyone better at troop movement.

2. You didn't have enough troops. Count up all the things you built in your cities that weren't troops, and now swap the hammers for troops, and I reckon Utique and Carthage will be yours.

vanatteveldt - some comments:

1. Utique bad terrain for XB - need to come in from north. But she will just spam units and kill your XB as you try to move around. maybe move thru CS to north?

2. Notice on mini-map denamrk have city bear capital (not sure if he killed CS or settle city). This is dangerous since he have berserker + covert lands + no notice of attack (will not see "march" mode since it is all in his terrority). Need to bribe him versus England when you hit Dido.

3. Taking 3/4 of Dido city will result in high war hate - england is reaching point whereby will spam LB and SOTL - high chance for DOW.

4. maybe pillage repair can help XB but I think it is difficult. CB more suited for this map imo.

Always wanted to try that dutch map . Been dreaming of a logistic (barracks + armory) Oxforded sea beagger powered spam (with england supplying the SOTLs) conquest of the world. Dido also tends to have watery preference so even more ships ready to be requisitioned for the cause. Perhaps a few Xbows to stay alive until the sea beagger spam begins ?

Sounds like an excellent idea! I've tried this map once a while ago, gave up because it was a bit too hard. I don't know if all caps are coastal but in all honesty, you may need Battleships in the end

Hmm, that's actually quite a nice idea, to just turtle until navigation and then capture a fleet and use that to capture the continent (or more...).

Consentient, when you said that you used "boats" to kill dido, did you mean navigation-era?

This is an excellent guide. I'm not sure why anyone would want to hate on something that clearly took a tremendous amount of effort like this. I look forward to employing some of your ideas.

Hats off to the OP for making such a great DomV guide.

I believe that DomV is not the surest method of winning in Deity but it is certainly the most fun.

However I have to say that it is very map dependent and also fails against AI runwaways. I have made the strat work in about 70% of deity games. In other games my artillery gets one-shotted by GWB and tonnes of melee units from militaristic and runaway AIs.
I would like to know what is the strategy if arty pushes fail or get obsolete. Artillery seems to lose steam by T240-T265 against some AIs. By then as science is neglected there is no backup plan to go to. In standard deity runaway AI`s sometime launch by T285(usually they launch by T320-330). Is there any way to beat this if artillery fails?
Also what is the standard number of arty you should have by T200. Is 15-20 arty enough?
P.S. I usually go full lib-full comm- 7 order in my Domination games.

I have a lot of experience on late game domination. If you really want a 100% strat for domination victory, just go with science focused. I found liberty rationalism commerce or tradition rationalism commerce both works, and you can pick any of the 3 ideology although autocracy is probably the best. You can start warring with artillery, flight, radar, rocket arty, missile cruisers, stealth bombers or xcoms. Any of those tech milestones can be start. Although if you wait till last techs, some science runaway could get close to launching. The key to winning with artillery is to hit the science runaway first, to kill them before they have flight. After flight, you have to rush the tech to AA guns if you don't have close enough base for triplanes. In my experience once you know which tech is key, late game domination is much easier than earlier game domination, when your have to use a lot of different tricks to keep momentum before units become obsolete. Also late game units such as missile cruisers and rocket artillery never obsolete.

Sclb said:

I have a lot of experience on late game domination. If you really want a 100% strat for domination victory, just go with science focused. I found liberty rationalism commerce or tradition rationalism commerce both works, and you can pick any of the 3 ideology although autocracy is probably the best. You can start warring with artillery, flight, radar, rocket arty, missile cruisers, stealth bombers or xcoms. Any of those tech milestones can be start. Although if you wait till last techs, some science runaway could get close to launching. The key to winning with artillery is to hit the science runaway first, to kill them before they have flight. After flight, you have to rush the tech to AA guns if you don't have close enough base for triplanes. In my experience once you know which tech is key, late game domination is much easier than earlier game domination, when your have to use a lot of different tricks to keep momentum before units become obsolete. Also late game units such as missile cruisers and rocket artillery never obsolete.

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Yes,peddroelms late Stealth bomber-XCOM(i like to add nukes too) also work. However that means I am just playing a Science Victory. I can well launch the spaceship using Ackens Trad-Rat-Comm Freedom guide. I have won SV/DV on deity with all civs/maps and it has become way too boring now.
Edit:By DV I meant Diplo.

It seems that in the current state of the game a complete all war throughout the age DomV on Deity standard speed(on Epic and slower game it is very much viable)is not possible. It is possible on certain maps but once you have runaway flight AIs it becomes way too hard.

If you're after pure efficiency and ease of winning, then you'll be doing SV 100% of the time and nobody will do CV/DV. DV is basically for more variety and fun. It is always fun to nuke AI cities.

War through the age DomV fails precisely when the science runaway is separated on another continent full of friendly civ that is impossible to bribe. The RA they sign push them over the top. I once had a Korea AI reach Information era before turn 180 with defense 200 cities and impossible to kill unless I had the tech but domination too early slows tech too much.

Sclb said:

If you're after pure efficiency and ease of winning, then you'll be doing SV 100% of the time and nobody will do CV/DV. DV is basically for more variety and fun. It is always fun to nuke AI cities.

War through the age DomV fails precisely when the science runaway is separated on another continent full of friendly civ that is impossible to bribe. The RA they sign push them over the top. I once had a Korea AI reach Information era before turn 180 with defense 200 cities and impossible to kill unless I had the tech but domination too early slows tech too much.

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I also had a game where Sejong reached T210 Apollo. Strangely he just seemed to not build the last 2 parts despite having the tech. He also hoarded a booster in his cap and did not launch it for some reason.I won the game by SV in T257.

In another deity Hun rush attempt I had a T220 Apollo Russia. She was the only civ left to conquer and yet I lost.
As for DomV strats you are right that too early wars means huge slowdown in techs leading to the next AI being having way too advanced units(like fighting GWI with XBs). On pangaea AI runways can be dealt with sometimes but continents is a different game.

DomV on water maps(archipelago,islands etc) is much easier and nearly guaranteed wins with frigates-Battleships on deity.

Actually most of my DomV have been on pangaea with CB,XB and arty. On maps with science runaways I have always failed to get past their GWB and bombers.

A while back I moved from Immortal to Deity, and I've more-or-less gotten the hang of the higher difficulty by now. I can get Scientific, cultural, or diplomatic victories, I can usually win defensive wars, and occasionally I can wage a successful offensive war.

But you don't win a Domination victory by waging one or two successful offensive wars; you have to wage (and win) 7 successful wars. I'm just not seeing how it's theoretically possible. Whenever I deviate from the "optimum" science path to pick up (and build war-related stuff, that's when I fall behind. So an army is good for conquering one, maybe two civs, and then I have to scramble to catch up in research, army upgrades, etc. If I'm doing really well, I'll catch up & be able to take out another 1 or 2 AIs... and after that conquest is flat-out impossible. I don't see how you can deal with an AI with (for example) 10 cities, each of which is supporting 6 or 7 units, thus creating a ridiculous carpet that they can resupply faster than you can kill them.

Basically, I'm not getting what you folks are doing mid-game. How do you possibly detour into war-stuff (both tech research & what your cities construct) and yet remain competitive with technology & money?

My only problem with very late DomV is the AI turn times. I just hate waiting. Other than that, it is actually the easiest. You don't need to maneuver units and calculate ranges, movements points and stuff because something like stealth bombers and XCOM are simply unstoppable. And when you get to that point, you will have such robust infrastructure that you can just keep popping out units until you destroy everyone.

Plumfairy said:

How do you possibly detour into war-stuff (both tech research & what your cities construct) and yet remain competitive with technology & money?

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There is an extraordinary demonstration of this sort of thing in peddroelm's videos, of which this is one:

https://youtu.be/MvDosx_OQs0

It takes a long time to watch the whole thing, but as an example of how to cope with the scenario you describe, it is hard to beat. Pretty much all of his videos showcase the same techniques, though.

Plumfairy said:

A while back I moved from Immortal to Deity, and I've more-or-less gotten the hang of the higher difficulty by now. I can get Scientific, cultural, or diplomatic victories, I can usually win defensive wars, and occasionally I can wage a successful offensive war.

But you don't win a Domination victory by waging one or two successful offensive wars; you have to wage (and win) 7 successful wars. I'm just not seeing how it's theoretically possible. Whenever I deviate from the "optimum" science path to pick up (and build war-related stuff, that's when I fall behind. So an army is good for conquering one, maybe two civs, and then I have to scramble to catch up in research, army upgrades, etc. If I'm doing really well, I'll catch up & be able to take out another 1 or 2 AIs... and after that conquest is flat-out impossible. I don't see how you can deal with an AI with (for example) 10 cities, each of which is supporting 6 or 7 units, thus creating a ridiculous carpet that they can resupply faster than you can kill them.

Basically, I'm not getting what you folks are doing mid-game. How do you possibly detour into war-stuff (both tech research & what your cities construct) and yet remain competitive with technology & money?

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It is possible to win 7 wars but not on every map. I have started from getting only Spaceship deity victories to trying out Dom. deity victories. I have won a fair number of DomV games on fair maps but on others I just find it impossible to do so.

As for late game AIs with 10-20 cities(eg late game Attila) you have to spam a lot of artillery along with cavalry and 1/2 AA guns. I have followed peddroelms 2-city honor strategy but I just cannot implement his full honor approach. I mostly tend for liberty-comm trees.

Anyway my war throghout the ages approach has been a 2-3 city full liberty opener. Cap BO scout/monument/scout/gran/archers(a settler if another lux heavy location is present). I personally find that it is important to not try to build too many settlers and not have any archers.I try to steal about 2 workers. If I have a DoF I build 8 archers otherwise I stick with 5. Expo is settled near luxes and I directly go for mon./library in expo. Then if I have found an AI to Dow I go for construction,otherwise philo. Archers are upgraded to CB and sent on quest/CS exp. Now I usually hard build the NC if I am not gong for a CB rush against one AI. If I am going for CB rush then the cap builds more archers/CB and the NC is finished with GE(GS is probably better from Lib finisher. I do not know the maths). Also I tend to get horsemen unlocked quite quickly. I also try to get a caravan up(cannot afford to build it always) and tend to beeline machinery. Meanwhile excess luxes are sold(can be done by keeping the expo at low pop).

The ideal army by the end of machinery(about t90-110) is 10-12 XB,1-2 Horseman. This army is enough to get you atleast 2 caps(probably 3 as I am a very poor warmonger) of any civ by t150. In the meantime after the army is built I go for markets. I also beeline education after machinery. After markets I build univ. and beeline artillery. In games where I get more than 3/4 caps by t140 I just stop building buildings and just get XBs to finish the game. Otherwise I tend for Oxford and try for artillery(can be reached at t180-190 with about 120-150 beakers and oxford). It is important to note that a too early artillery is not needed. Rather try to build as many cannons(8-9) as possible and then use oxford for the arty and upgrade the cannons. At t190 you should have an army of atleast 12 arty and 2 musket along with your XB army(some of whom will have range and logistics.)
12-18 arty(you cannot have enough of them) and a knight/cavalry will take down 2 civs by t225-t230.(thus bringing the total to 4-5 dead civs) In the meantime I try to go for Industrialization/Modern era depending on my gold/production. If the AI does not have flight you can usually win by t260-t270 with just arty and cav. You can also go for landships/tanks. It is when AI has flight the game becomes extremely difficult and I do not know what to do.

As for economy markets and banks can help you from getting off the red. I usually do not have the time for banks though.

Social policy is full lib+full comm+ 2 rat(if I have culture) and mostly order(happiness from monuments.)

The thing is that XBs and arty are units that have great longevity and even if the AI has outteched you you can use them to beat the AIs. The counter of XBs are stronger melee units and the counter for arty is flight.

For technically winning DomV you can play for SV and then build tonnes of Stealth and XCOM+nukes to win. However you have to do it quickly before AI launches spaceship.



P.S. Water map deity domination are a different thing altogether and is very easy. Just keep on building frigates and then Battleships. In-fact you can just beeline frigates and battleships for water maps.

Plumfairy said:

I'm not getting what you folks are doing mid-game. How do you possibly detour into war-stuff (both tech research & what your cities construct) and yet remain competitive with technology & money?

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I very much struggle with DomVC at Deity, so I have more than a little empathy for your questions. First, many folks can win by T200. So they might never build a library. See the Shoshone DCL and current Zulu DGC for examples.

I can never war that efficiently and I cannot bring myself to give up science completely (but I will run Commerce instead of Rationalism), so I am with you that there is series of 7+ campaigns. I don’t aim to really win until Rocket Launchers, so money and science does not lag too badly. Autocracy level 1 tenet really helps with the science, and Commerce really helps with the money and happiness.

It is true what everyone says - you don't need Public Schools. Start war with Composite Bowmen or Crossbow, then build Trebuchets and upgrade them to Cannons, then get to Dynamite ASAP and spam Artillery and Cavalry units until you win.