Earlier Conquest/Domination Victories

I've been playing this game for a couple months now (I know, late to the party), and have worked my way up to Monarch. I can win pretty consistently on Prince, and about half the time on Monarch. Regardless of the civ that I'm playing as, my starting position, neighbors, etc, I find that I usually win a conquest/domination victory in the late 1700s to mid 1800s after a massive rifle draft in the previous century. By the time I finish, I usually have infantry as well.

I've definitely seen the power of elephant and catapult rushes, sometimes taking over two or three civs when I time it right, but it never seems like that's enough to finish the job since the other civs have usually researched advanced military techs like feudalism and engineering by the time I finish up a couple wars. I usually just consolidate my gains after these early wars and beeline rifling (with liberalism -> nationalism) in order to start the final phase of conquest. This is a pretty reliable strategy, especially since the AI for whatever reason doesn't seem to prioritize rifling as a tech and doesn't abuse drafting as much as I do. However, it takes a while to get to rifling, and I figure that there must be a faster way to take everyone down quickly, especially when you have an empire that is vastly larger than everyone else's. I'm asking the veterans here for any advice on winning conquest/domination before the time of rifles (barring ridiculous things like Quecha rushing).

For reference, I usually play at Epic Speed on a Huge Terra Map. I appreciate any advice you guys have!

First, welcome!

Second, huge Terra map will delay your finishing date quite a bit because of size and the need to settle big overseas chunks of land.

Having said that, on Monarch you can usually easily win by 1000AD. It's hard to say what is holding you back - it might be not building enough units, or building units too slowly (use Slavery a lot!), or it might be not teching fast enough / teching the wrong things. Best thing to find it out is to either look up game write-ups from other people or post a game yourself to get others' opinions.

On Monarch there are many units/techs to wage succesful war before Rifling. From early to late:

Horse Archers are awesome here! They take some skill to use successfully but can easily take down two or even three AIs on their own. Moving 2 tiles makes for less defenders, you can threaten two cities at once, you arrive faster at the frontline - and they are strength six! Pillage Iron/Copper whenever you can.

Elephants + Catapults you already know. Axes + Catapults work as well. They work until the AI has Longbows, maybe even then. If you feel you can't advance with them anymore you should beeline Engineering - it's not far away. Note that if you don't tech Fishing you can often use Great Scientists to bulb both Machinery and Engineering. This gives you Trebuchets to add to your army. Trebs have a VERY long lifetime, pretty much until the AI gets Military Science or Rifling, which is far off. You can wipe an entire continent with Trebs (supported by Pikes/Elephants and Maces/Crossbows).

After Horse Archers and Trebs but before Rifling there are Cuirassiers. They are THE standard breakout unit on Deity. See Horse Archers above - use some tactics, make a lot of them, win.

Drafting Rifles is very strong, and it's often needed to win on Deity. But on Monarch any of the above units should be strong enough to take down half the opponents on their own. At that point you should be far ahead in city count so making enough units to conquer the rest should be easy. Of course, so is crashing your economy with 20+ cities - Courthouses / cottages / Currency are your friend here.

What above-guy said: playing on Huge maps is not optimal if you want to win early C/D victories. I'd suggest lowering map size.

Here are some minor tips for early military success:
- Horse archers with +Withdrawal are nasty for early, fast city conquests. Pair them with Axemen for the first non-siege wars. Repeat when Knights arrive.
- Construction is key! I've found there's sort of a trap, where you enter a phase of slowed economy right as your first war is waging (recently conquered cities, armies abroad, no time to construct buildings), and it's important to time researching Construction properly to really get momentum from elephants/catapults. My pick order is usually 1 civ without siege, 2 with catapults, and rest medieval/renaissance - if you can finish the first two phases quickly the rest is not really a challenge so early Construction is important.
- Make sure you negotiate an AI to enter your first war with you. Either you ask the friendlies to "spare it for a good friend" (Mansa Musa, Gandhi) or just demand it (this works when you have your army ready.)
- Charismatic and monuments/Stonehenge is an excellent combo for consolidating territory+unit XP. In my opinion the strongest trait for C/D victory. Ideally Hannibal (Fin/Chm).
- Don't overestimate Longbowmen. The AI has a knack for them, and some leaders will get them early. But they are easily countered with Catapults and promoted Horse Archers/Swordsmen.

In general it's easy to stagnate in the Medieval era and start building the conquered cities. It's the most important era for military however, as the AI will really ramp up their unit production.
Trebuchets, Knights and onto Cuirassers I've found is the key to speedy C/D. And constantly warring, not having pointless armies standing around costing maintenance and lousy diplomatic status for nothing - the idea is to war.

ztrapon said:

In general it's easy to stagnate in the Medieval era and start building the conquered cities. It's the most important era for military however, as the AI will really ramp up their unit production.
Trebuchets, Knights and onto Cuirassers I've found is the key to speedy C/D. And constantly warring, not having pointless armies standing around costing maintenance and lousy diplomatic status for nothing - the idea is to war.

Click to expand...

This is really crucial. There are some situations on the highest difficulties where you need to stop warring for some time until you can catch up in military techs. But generally - and definitely on Monarch - after the initial attack, near-constant war is the way to go. When you have conquered/vassaled an AI, your first thought shouldn't be "how can I improve all those nice cities I have" but "who is next and how do I take him down".

- Make sure you negotiate an AI to enter your first war with you. Either you ask the friendlies to "spare it for a good friend" (Mansa Musa, Gandhi) or just demand it (this works when you have your army ready.)

Click to expand...

I haven't ever tried to do this so no idea - does this really work? My understanding was that begging ("spare it for a good friend") only works on things with little value (maximum gold is 25 for example) while a war declaration is usually costly; while demanding only works if you are far more powerful in which case the AI won't be any help in war. Am I overlooking something?

ztrapon said:

- Horse archers with +Withdrawal are nasty for early, fast city conquests. Pair them with Axemen for the first non-siege wars. Repeat when Knights arrive.

Click to expand...

Combat promotions are much better in a HA war. Sometimes it can make sense to give a HA Flanking 1+Sentry, but otherwise the combat line, with shock if you are facing melee units.

georgjorge said:

I haven't ever tried to do this so no idea - does this really work? My understanding was that begging ("spare it for a good friend") only works on things with little value (maximum gold is 25 for example) while a war declaration is usually costly; while demanding only works if you are far more powerful in which case the AI won't be any help in war. Am I overlooking something?

Click to expand...

I haven't tried begging/demanding someone goes to war, but I can say that maximum is way above 25 gold. It's dependent on how long you've known the AI. Don't remember the exact formula, but it's out there.

For a succesfull demand you don't need to be more powerful, you only need to be slightly behind them in power. 90% of their power rating, iirc.

georgjorge said:

I haven't ever tried to do this so no idea - does this really work? My understanding was that begging ("spare it for a good friend") only works on things with little value (maximum gold is 25 for example) while a war declaration is usually costly; while demanding only works if you are far more powerful in which case the AI won't be any help in war. Am I overlooking something?

Click to expand...

I use K-Mod don't know if that makes any difference. And it's not guaranteed, very often it does work however for me.

elitetroops said:

Combat promotions are much better in a HA war. Sometimes it can make sense to give a HA Flanking 1+Sentry, but otherwise the combat line, with shock if you are facing melee units.

Click to expand...

I might have a few HA's with Shock to absorb Spearmen damage, but the way I see it Flanking II is superior vs archers (the main unit you'll be facing) and after trying both I'm usually more successful with Flanking II then going Combat second.

I actually finished a Domination victory in 1080 AD just now, Boudica of Sumeria on Emperor difficulty - using nothing but Vultures, Catapults and Spearmen - cheap, promoted Vultures are a nice little toy

ztrapon said:

I might have a few HA's with Shock to absorb Spearmen damage, but the way I see it Flanking II is superior vs archers (the main unit you'll be facing) and after trying both I'm usually more successful with Flanking II then going Combat second.

Click to expand...

That's easy to prove wrong by numbers. By the time you get HAs, you're not likely to face any archers promoted higher than CG1 and cultural defenses no higher than 40%. Unless a very rocky mapscript, or being unlucky, the majority of cities you attack should be on flat land. Here are the odds for C2 versus Flanking 2 facing archers like that:


In the first case, your flanking HA is a bit more likely to survive, but I much rather have 10% increased victory odds than 3% increased survival odds. Looking at the rest, you have about as good, or better, odds of killing the defender with C2 as you have to survive with Flanking 2. Picking Fl2 over C2 vs archers in flatland cities is simply terribly bad.

When you put hills into the equation, your flanking HAs will mostly have 10-15% better odds to survive the battle. But on the other hand, the C2 HA will have 10-15% better odds to kill the defender in the first battle. And even when it doesn't kill the defender, the C2 HA will leave him more wounded, increasing the odds for the next attacker. For fast conquest, increasing the damage you do and increasing your odds to kill the defender is the best option.

I have always proffered the combat line. Especially c3 then march. and eventually c4 and commando or blitz. Upgrade those puppies to CRs. Nothing like a stack of them for middle game romping.
I may do one or two flanders for the tough nut, but mostly go COMBAT.

Thanks for all the help guys! I think the main problem is that I tend to focus too much on rebuilding after a war, and also try to avoid the medieval period of wars because longbows scare me (such good defenders, and at such a low cost!).

A question about siege weapons: do you guys take the time to bombard city defenses before the main attack, or do you just attack after suiciding a couple siege weapons? I usually bombard, but I'm noticing that it can really slow down the war and I'm not sure if the increase in battle odds is worth it.

In general, I'd say yes it's worth it. Bring more so it doesn't take as long.
On the plus side sometimes that extra few turns helps because it lets the AI get more of it's troops there for you to collateral down and take out.

I always bombard down unless I a) have far superior units (Cannons or Rifles against medieval units) or b) have a huge stack anyway and don't mind losing some units if I can conquer faster. Bombarding can take some time, but if you bring something like 50% of your stack as siege it will go fine.

Yes, Longbows are very efficient defenders in medieval times...luckily, Trebs are very efficient attackers as well! If Trebs didn't exist I would fight much less (or not at all) in this era.

I bombard with the siege units that are being held in reserve for later cities and attack on the same turn

spindaslayer said:

A question about siege weapons: do you guys take the time to bombard city defenses before the main attack, or do you just attack after suiciding a couple siege weapons? I usually bombard, but I'm noticing that it can really slow down the war and I'm not sure if the increase in battle odds is worth it.

Click to expand...

Depends on how important speed is. Usually when I have a big stack of 1-movers with lots and lots of siege, speed isn't so important to me and I'll bombard the defenses down. Exception might be if I'm sitting outside a hill city and I think the AI will reinforce it significantly if I don't take it immediately, or if the economy is really screwed from warring such that shaving a few turns off the war is worth losing a few more units.

Bombarding defences obviously takes time up front, on the other hand you get better attacking odds once defence is gone so fewer losses means less time waiting for reinfocrcements and less damage means faster healing so you get the time back.

These have all been excellent responses, thank you.

I just got done playing a game as Suryavarman (one of my favorite warmongers) and while I was able to finish up quite a bit earlier than I usually do from trying out a few of these tips, I found that I really got slowed down at the end by some really stubborn AI refusing to capitulate. I had razed half of Mao's empire and razed half of Charlemagne's, and yet they still insisted that "We're doing fine on our own". I basically just threw my rifles and cavs at their cities until they capitulated, but I was taking out their random barbarian cities by the time they finally gave in. I checked power, and I had about 4x the power of Mao, and 7x the power of Charlie a few turns into the war. I know capitulation is personality dependent, but is there any way to make the AI capitulate faster?

To capitulate they have to be below average power rating of all living leaders. Power rating includes points for military, population and certain buildings and techs.

If you have taken many vassals already and left your vassals with few cities, their power rating will be very low and your target AI will stay above average power rating until they're down to very few cities. Gifting back cities to vassals after they capitulate is often a good idea. Keeping them at a higher power rating makes it easier to capitulate other civs. If you are in your final war (no chance for your vassals to trade away techs anymore) you should also gift them every single military tech that you have, since that also boosts their power rating, and them building stronger units boosts power rating further.

Other than your target needing to be below average power rating, you also need at least twice their land or population, and 1.5-3x their power rating, depending on if they are land target or not (leader personalities might raise/lower this). This is usually not a problem in the final war. You also need +40 war success, but if this condition isn't fulfilled they'll say "surely you must be kidding", not that they're doing fine on their own.

I took all of these tips, and recently won a Conquest Victory in 1040 AD! (Granted, it was with Darius and I took out three civs by rushing with Immortals lol). I see now that I was being way too cautious with warfare. Also, I definitely wasn't whipping enough.

Congrats! If that is still on a huge map, then it's quite a good achievement.

Haha no, I moved the map size back down to standard and changed it to Pangaea. Still, much faster than what I was usually doing for those settings. Just finished another game with those same settings with Hannibal (the games just go so fast now!) and was able to win by 1020 AD! I never realized how much you can do with a stack of catapults and promoted axes+swords+elephants, even against longbows.

That's great to hear! Heavy whipping and constant war really is a game-changer...

Now onto Emperor ; )