Domination Guides/Tips?

This is going to sound really silly but I am a long time player. Usually I play on King/Emperor and almost always go for Science victory, sometimes culture. I really want to polish up on my domination/conquest game. Is there a guide for this?

Some questions I have:
Military make up? 2-3 soilders, 2-3 Ranged, 2 Siege Units? (Some kind of ration like this to take over other cities?)

Do you just take over the Capitals? I've seen some people take over everything but leave 1 city.

How many cities do you keep? How many do you Annex?

Any units you avoid?

Do you still use the 3 city tradition start?

Well in general I would say go Honor > Commerce > Autocracy for policies. Usually I do the right side of Honor first.

For troops just get 2-3 melee for meatshields then as many ranged as you can (composite bows or chariot archers to start with). I usually don't bother with siege until artillery but 1-2 catapults is fine. 1-2 horseman/Knights can be handy to deliver the final blow to a city since it can wait outside city range to deliver the death blow.

I only keep capitals and raze everything else most of the time. The odd time I'll keep a non capital if it has a handy wonder or happens to be in a really useful position. Puppet capitals until you need them to build troops, then annex and get a courthouse up.

I would at least open Tradition first, and then go Honor if you really want to go Honor. Some players would recommend Liberty instead of Honor, by the way. The faster border expansion of the Tradition opener benefits all cities, in fact, not just the capital, which will make all your cities -- founded, annexed, or puppeted -- more productive and profitable.

If I'm playing on a smaller or standard sized pangaea map, then I'll consider annexing once I have the money to buy a courthouse immediately so that they can directly support my war effort by producing units. If playing a larger map or one where I intend to segue into another victory condition, I'll usually puppet my conquests and keep them puppets, except for perhaps the best one or two cities. In both cases, many cities get razed.

Avoid being flanked by cities that you don't want to take. I try to just take the fewest cities needed to take the capitol and then get a sweet peace deal. The reason is that if you spend your time razing every village and hamlet, some other AI player, the one you will really be challenged by, is busy growing stronger.

edit: You can often make peace right after taking the capitol. You want to be running out of units right at that moment. The dummy AI can't see you are spent and will still settle even with a tactical advantage to retake the city.

Another trick that works is to first DOW your neighbor and let them come to you. It's generally easier to fight defensively then offensively. Wipe out their army, often remarkably easy, then charge to their capitol.

In domination victories, the most ideal units to use to attack cities are seige units and xbows. Once you have these units, you can start using them to attack cities and kill off other units that try to get in your way in. If you use the honor social policy, you will eventually get a better ranking for your xbows and seige weapons. The promotions that become really important are range and logistics for xbows because one doesnt let your xbows get attacked by your cities which makes conquering cities a lot easier. Seige weapons such as artilleries become particularly useful when attacking cities. You have to defend yourself and make science to keep up with technology because better units could be a nuissance. Be aware of diplomatic penalties also because you dont want AI to find you annoying and eventually gangup on you and kill you.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about damage from the city. Just rotate the unit out as needed. Or not. If you have to strategize, or even train, to avoid city bombardment, you aren't ready to rule the world yet.

Once in postion, where you are taking hits, you should take the city in 4 moves, or less. Except with unusual terrain challenges, it's a longer siege you are ill equipped for domination.

Yeah, that too. You rotate the damaged unit out and input a new unit thats healed. As long as you go in. Units can also get in your way so you have to make sure you kill them off and have enough melee units or mobiles to go in.