Unexpected Domination game

Over the weekend I had a game as Poland (which I am still playing) and was planning to do Tradition, Science, four Cities, etc - you know, the usual. But in the map I rolled I ended up very close to England, Spain and Korea so I decided to go Liberty to try and expand as quickly as possible. My thinking was that I would probably be at constant war due to being more or less surrounded so I might as well take advantage of the expansion benefits of Liberty in case I take some enemy cities.

Lo and behold, my first war started pretty quickly when Korea started trying to spread their religion to my Cities and refused to stop when asked so I DoW and captured their Missionaries. England immediately hated me, followed by the Spanish and before I knew it, I was at war on three fronts. So my strategy completely changed from Tall/Science to Wide warmonger and I had to use Poland's UA to finish the Honor tree quickly and then move on to Commerce to fund my constant war.

Currently I have captured London and Madrid and I'm now focusing on Korea's capital and I have to say, it's a really fun game. My Science has suffered a little bit but my spes are working overtime to steal tech and keep me in the game. I have now adpted Autocracy and decided to take on the World and I have completely ignored culture and used my GWs to get the one-time culture boosts to get new policies quicker.

As the title of this post suggests, I wasn't expecting to play this current game in this manner but it has turned out rather fun and challenging (at one point my Capital was under siege from both the Spanish and English until I beat them back).

So basically I am writing this post to find out what has been the most fun game you have had when your plan was completely altered by circumstances beyond your control (like being DoW by three Civs in the same turn) - please feel free to share your stories!

NOTES:
I almost always try to play pacefully so a full on warmonger game with enemies all around me is a rarity. I especially don't normally play Domination as Poland!! I realise that it was partly my fault that the game went this way but I only did it to stop my religion being overrun. Also, the AI remembers your warmongering for years which can be annoying!! I am playing on Immortal difficulty.

I had a really fun game as Germany. Autocracy with 8 movement Panzers ignoring ZoC's is fun. Once the Hanse is up and running your production crushes your enemies. Just have to keep the trade routes going to places you can protect.

But did you start the game with the intentions of going warmonger or did it just work out that way? In my game, the whole World hated me so I was at constant war. It didn't go to well in the end - after beating the Spanish and English, the Koreans steamrolled me due to their more advanced units. Three Rocket Artillery and two Infantry managed to take my most outlying city and it was all downhill from there. I rage quit in the end lol

You need to work on your skill at managing diplo. Should always avoid to fight a multi front war, even when aiming for Domination V. So if you plan on liberty domination after seeing your neighbors, you should plan for your victim's order, by using bribes to AI to initiate the war, before your join in the war. That way you get diplo modifier for fighting in a common war. You can also bribe your chosen victim against as many other civs as possible, then DoW them later to get your gpt/lux back. You do not get warmonger penalty with a civ if you were at war against a common enemy.

Also you say that it went downhill after rocket artillery. You should never bother with war that late into the game. You gain nothing after turn 150 from war most of the time, due to severe tech penalties and inability to grow the captured cities to recover science. Exception is to eliminate SV/CV threats.

In MP games it is quite usual - you can plan, you should plan... but you also must change plans quite often. Just one example:

Started as Portugal, wanted to go tradition and peacefull wonder spawn, using food cargos (probably kill one with frigs), but failed HG to Maya, also Maya was leading ~20% in food and hammers and was also on sea. So plan was changed dramatically - production focus: chariots and triremes, then several galeases. Quite strange and late rush, but succeeded.

Sclb said:

You need to work on your skill at managing diplo. Should always avoid to fight a multi front war, even when aiming for Domination V. So if you plan on liberty domination after seeing your neighbors, you should plan for your victim's order, by using bribes to AI to initiate the war, before your join in the war. That way you get diplo modifier for fighting in a common war. You can also bribe your chosen victim against as many other civs as possible, then DoW them later to get your gpt/lux back. You do not get warmonger penalty with a civ if you were at war against a common enemy.

Also you say that it went downhill after rocket artillery. You should never bother with war that late into the game. You gain nothing after turn 150 from war most of the time, due to severe tech penalties and inability to grow the captured cities to recover science. Exception is to eliminate SV/CV threats.

Click to expand...

Trust me, I know Diplomacy very well in the game, but Korea converting my cities forced my hand. I didn't intend to be fighting on three fronts and as I already said, three Civs declared war on me in the same turn - not like I had a choice! ' You should never bother with war that late into the game.' Again, I didn't have a choice in the matter, Korea DoW me while I was busy fighting the Spanish on the other side of my border. My intention from the start was to take on each one in turn (Spain was closest and looked weakest) but all three of them attacked me at the same time. I didn't write this post in order to get advice on how to win at Civ, I was merely asking people to share stories of how their games took unexpected turns and they had to change their plans