Hey, guys i haven't been playing Civ V for long, but it's a really fun game and i love playing it. But i have never won a game with domination. It's always hard and i always tend to lose, so most of the time i focus on a Science/Culture victory. So my question to you guys, how do you start a game with domination victory in mind? what policies and technologies do you start with and branch to? and what do you do at the start/mid/final parts of the game? also when you take over cities, do you puppet or raze them? or even annex them? but i know annexing can cause unhappiness. So basically what do i have to do exactly to have a comfortable domination victory? I'm sorry if you have seen this question so many times, but i hope you can help and i'd appreciate it a lot. Thanks!
Domination Victory? (Nooby Player)
- Thread starter Ownsin
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Bulldog Bats
King
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1 First to xbows or artillery has the big advantage.
2 Raze cities that are not on your path.
3. Remember, you only have to take the capitals. If a city is not in your way, leave it.
2 Raze cities that are not on your path.
3. Remember, you only have to take the capitals. If a city is not in your way, leave it.
chazzycat
Deity
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if you are a normal civ with no UUs, and still want to go domination, my plan is usually something like this:
1) if pangea, basically wait. Play nice like a peaceful science game but with your target being artillery (dynamite) instead of spaceship parts. Artillery is a huge game changer, and usually results in swiftly defeating any nearby AI. Go to education, fill your university slots to ensure some great scientists, then switch to the bottom part of the tech tree. Use your great scientists to get to artillery ASAP. Have cannons ready to upgrade, and a few supporting units. Once you upgrade to artillery just start smashing armies & taking cities. It should be pretty straightforward...artillery outrange cities so all you have to do is defeat the field army, then cities are easy pickings. Take the capitals and raze most of the rest, depending on happiness. Get to an ideology ASAP to help with happiness.
Artillery should be good to conquer at least a few AIs. On lower levels, you can probably clear the entire pangea with artillery. But I like to circle back to the top of the tech tree (public schools & research labs) after I get dynamite, just in case. Often you will need the later units to finish off the last few AI (especially air force) so you don't want to completely neglect your science infrastructure.
2) for other map types, you have more options. If you share a small landmass with 1 or 2 other AI, you can just kill them with comp bows and be done with it, then build up for an eventual overseas invasion. The difference is that on pangea, you will get massive warmonger penalties for early attacks, because you have witnesses to your genocide. But if you kill everyone before you meet the other civs, they don't know about it, so there is no warmonger penalty. Because of this, the map type can play a big role in deciding when to attack.
1) if pangea, basically wait. Play nice like a peaceful science game but with your target being artillery (dynamite) instead of spaceship parts. Artillery is a huge game changer, and usually results in swiftly defeating any nearby AI. Go to education, fill your university slots to ensure some great scientists, then switch to the bottom part of the tech tree. Use your great scientists to get to artillery ASAP. Have cannons ready to upgrade, and a few supporting units. Once you upgrade to artillery just start smashing armies & taking cities. It should be pretty straightforward...artillery outrange cities so all you have to do is defeat the field army, then cities are easy pickings. Take the capitals and raze most of the rest, depending on happiness. Get to an ideology ASAP to help with happiness.
Artillery should be good to conquer at least a few AIs. On lower levels, you can probably clear the entire pangea with artillery. But I like to circle back to the top of the tech tree (public schools & research labs) after I get dynamite, just in case. Often you will need the later units to finish off the last few AI (especially air force) so you don't want to completely neglect your science infrastructure.
2) for other map types, you have more options. If you share a small landmass with 1 or 2 other AI, you can just kill them with comp bows and be done with it, then build up for an eventual overseas invasion. The difference is that on pangea, you will get massive warmonger penalties for early attacks, because you have witnesses to your genocide. But if you kill everyone before you meet the other civs, they don't know about it, so there is no warmonger penalty. Because of this, the map type can play a big role in deciding when to attack.
What if I'm playing with Mangolia on Pangea? or basically a nation that has UUs?
mongolia on pangea: horses
Horses
Horses
They are your friend.
Get horses, win the game
I got that notion, but i mean what is my strategy if i have a nation with good UU for domination? how do i start compared to a nation without UU.
SULOMON
Mod Civs Best Civs.
Pretty much just tech and beeline to the UU. Then get as much use out of it as you can. The start can be normal.
danaphanous
religious fanatic
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Domination on Civ 5 will require at least several phases of war in a typical game. It's almost always impossible to do all at once unless the map is small and it is later in the game (tanks, planes). This is because happiness problems always make you halt and you need to make sure you aren't falling behind in science, otherwise your army will get to the last few civs and they'll destroy you with superior tech. For this reason if I'm going domination I pick I nation that has an early UU, but also ages well. You want to have in mind several points that you will tech up too and again start conquering.
As a case study and someone I've done this with: Zulu
1. Beeline Bronze working and build an Ikanda, start pouring at spearmen which will come with the unique buffalo promotions giving thembig flanking, cover, and movement bonuses. Make a small force of them and wipe 1 or 2 civs out with the support of archers.
2. Halt, burn what you don't need, focus on the top of the tree to get to eductation and building your core so you don't fall behind and then immediately go for Civil service. Upgrade your spearmen the the specialty Impi (very, very good UU) with double exp gathering and double attack bonuses. Hard-build a few more in Ikanda cities to get them with unique promotions. As his UA is -50% in melee unit cost you actually will want to build a lot less ranged units and more melee as they cost you less and are really resilient with Ikanda promotions. Build as many of these early melee as possible as the Ikanda stops working after gunpowder melee and those initial buffalo promotions are some of the best I've seen and carry-over after upgrading to gunpowder units. They are a head-to-head match to Musketmen with flanking bonuses and upgrade directly into riflemen. Build cannons as siege support as they will become awesome artillery later and really help with walls. I had no ranged but siege to cut cost.
3. Go for riflemen and artillery after detouring for factories. Rush again once you upgrade your elite army to riflemen. By this time, especially if you picked up a few of the military wonders, your force will be near unstoppable. The riflemen will have all buffalo promotions, will keep the +1 movement for 3 movement, and will all have city-taking +50% upgrades. I conquered the 8-civ world before oil or planes came around as things start to change around then and your melee force will lose their edge.
Anyway, Zulu is good for conquest because their original troops stay as the best offensive unit well into the industrial era. I fought and defeated a civ that had great war infantry with them and the infantry weren't much better due to my huge flanking bonuses and high upgrades. Give them city-taking upgrades as soon as possible and you'll barely need siege. I took a 26 population city in a couple rounds of riflemen direct attacks. ANother thing new warmonger players don't think to do: pillage, pillage, pillage. Yields gold to support your army AND heals your troops it's great. Don't worry about the damage. A few workers can fix it all in a jiffy after you take and you got gold and health out of it! It also makes your opponents suffer in combat and happiness if you specifically target their luxuries/resources. I
usually do this first and then cut roads to isolate the cities I'm taking.
As a case study and someone I've done this with: Zulu
1. Beeline Bronze working and build an Ikanda, start pouring at spearmen which will come with the unique buffalo promotions giving thembig flanking, cover, and movement bonuses. Make a small force of them and wipe 1 or 2 civs out with the support of archers.
2. Halt, burn what you don't need, focus on the top of the tree to get to eductation and building your core so you don't fall behind and then immediately go for Civil service. Upgrade your spearmen the the specialty Impi (very, very good UU) with double exp gathering and double attack bonuses. Hard-build a few more in Ikanda cities to get them with unique promotions. As his UA is -50% in melee unit cost you actually will want to build a lot less ranged units and more melee as they cost you less and are really resilient with Ikanda promotions. Build as many of these early melee as possible as the Ikanda stops working after gunpowder melee and those initial buffalo promotions are some of the best I've seen and carry-over after upgrading to gunpowder units. They are a head-to-head match to Musketmen with flanking bonuses and upgrade directly into riflemen. Build cannons as siege support as they will become awesome artillery later and really help with walls. I had no ranged but siege to cut cost.
3. Go for riflemen and artillery after detouring for factories. Rush again once you upgrade your elite army to riflemen. By this time, especially if you picked up a few of the military wonders, your force will be near unstoppable. The riflemen will have all buffalo promotions, will keep the +1 movement for 3 movement, and will all have city-taking +50% upgrades. I conquered the 8-civ world before oil or planes came around as things start to change around then and your melee force will lose their edge.
Anyway, Zulu is good for conquest because their original troops stay as the best offensive unit well into the industrial era. I fought and defeated a civ that had great war infantry with them and the infantry weren't much better due to my huge flanking bonuses and high upgrades. Give them city-taking upgrades as soon as possible and you'll barely need siege. I took a 26 population city in a couple rounds of riflemen direct attacks. ANother thing new warmonger players don't think to do: pillage, pillage, pillage. Yields gold to support your army AND heals your troops it's great. Don't worry about the damage. A few workers can fix it all in a jiffy after you take and you got gold and health out of it! It also makes your opponents suffer in combat and happiness if you specifically target their luxuries/resources. I
usually do this first and then cut roads to isolate the cities I'm taking.
chazzycat
Deity
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- Oct 13, 2010
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- 2,918
well you would want to tailor a strategy specific to that civ and their strengths.
Mongolia on Pangea is a pretty straightforward example, and probably the easiest way to get a domination victory. Get horses, build chariot archers early, get to Chivalry ASAP (liberty finisher great scientist) upgrade and then just go kill everything. Keshiks dominate everything, because they can move into position, fire, and then retreat to safety again all in the same turn. A handful of keshiks and 1 horseman can destroy empires in record time.
Other civs are going to depend...there would be a different strategy for every civ. Some units are really good but only for a brief window, and others have good promotions that carry over to subsequently upgraded units, giving you more flexibility in when you attack. Some UUs are flat out not good enough to form a strategy around, but can complement a normal army.
But the general pattern is that you're going to want to build a lot of the units BEFORE your UU in the upgrade path, and save gold. That way, the turn you hit your target tech, you can upgrade all your units at once. It saves hammers, but really it's all about getting as many of your UUs on the field as early as possible. Your UU give you a window of opportunity, but to best take advantage of it you want to hit the AI with them as early as you can.
Bulldog Bats
King
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- 701
UUs are huge for domination, or any military action. Rush to the requisite tech and use. For instance, I like to play China. Cho ku nos are xbows on steroids, with double fire. I time my military buildup by building archers, and when I hit the tech I have the money to upgrade and instantly double the size of my ranged attack (and therefore promotion rate).
Some Uus are better than others. Ranged units do most of the damage, when you bombard the city to 0, march in and take your city. There are threads discussing the most powerful uus.
Some Uus are better than others. Ranged units do most of the damage, when you bombard the city to 0, march in and take your city. There are threads discussing the most powerful uus.
kickthecommie
Chieftain
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- Mar 23, 2014
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Mongolia is mad easy to win with against AI. It doesn't really matter how many units the AI fields, they just have no clue how to deal with Keshiks, especially logistics ones.
An Impi rush with Zulu is also quite strong. Make sure those Ikanda go up before building any units past the first 50 turns. With like 4 Impi you can take a neighbor's capital with support from maybe 3 cata's/trebuchets and a handful of bowmen.
Make sure not to war before medieval era. The opportunity cost is too high.
If you don't mind watching people play games, this dude is godly at Civ. He plays domination games beautifully, and pretty much does the impossible every game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbWBwoNd-Tw&list=PLHQyGGzRHYIYl7yFyJR8ziAh1SZHsp2_8
An Impi rush with Zulu is also quite strong. Make sure those Ikanda go up before building any units past the first 50 turns. With like 4 Impi you can take a neighbor's capital with support from maybe 3 cata's/trebuchets and a handful of bowmen.
Make sure not to war before medieval era. The opportunity cost is too high.
If you don't mind watching people play games, this dude is godly at Civ. He plays domination games beautifully, and pretty much does the impossible every game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbWBwoNd-Tw&list=PLHQyGGzRHYIYl7yFyJR8ziAh1SZHsp2_8
