What is a fun civilization to play for Dom. Victory?

I'm been on a domination victory binge lately. I mostly play on Immortal. Deity pisses me off because I get don't like getting boxed in immediately by their free 2nd settler. (Their other bonuses I don't quite mind) Emperor and below is a bit too easy that I usually can finish them off around Renaissance and can't really have fun with the late-game units.

I just did a game with Sweden, and it's different enough that it's quite fun. Normally my game devolve into an Artillery (then GWBomber) barrage, with a cavalry and Infantry here or there to take cities. Sweden's super Carolean/Infantry makes for a very fun style that also allow me to use my 10th Great General. I also tried a Persia domination victory with perpetual golden age late-game for my final push, which is also interesting.

So something different, I guess, then just sniping things afar with ranged units and then sweeping in with cavalries/tanks I guess.

Indonesia, Small Continents: your goal is to snatch up every piece of iron possible and fund your increasing army of Kris. Once you have to obsolete them (and put this off as long as possible) make sure you have a ton of them, because you'll want (most of) those promotions going forward.

A couple that I've used recently for a domination victory that I'd never really done before are America and the Incas.

America are really really powerful as soon as they hit the renaissance, which is a bit earlier than your normal tactic of course, but give them a try and you'll realise that minutemen literally flatten everything in their path until rifles come into the game. If you can rush to them and get some barracks/armouries in your cities for the +30xp start, you end up with a musketman with Drill 3 right off the bat. Use this to your advantage and run for the hills.

Inca are also really good for a similar reason. Their unique ability means that they move quickly through the hills so using horse units in a hilly area is a really nice hit and run tactic. Also, you can field a larger army because of the reduced improvement maintenance. I honestly didn't realise how much of a difference it makes not having that improvement maintenance, but at the point where I'd normally be making 20GPT, I was making 60GPT. By turn 350 I was making 540GPT (From 4 cities and 9 trade routes, 4 of which were trading food in my own borders) non-Golden Age. Their terrace farms are also really nice because your cities seem to grow quicker than others, meaning you get those extra science beakers. The Incas might not seem like a militaristic civ but they're actually really good at it even without any UUs.

Try my Deity OCC Domination challenge on the strategy forum. It is doable by Immortal players. Good luck!

If you want to try non ranged domination, you can try Songhai. The mande cav is very powerful for hit and running cities. Just open honor while doing the usual tradition or liberty stuff. You will need the statue of Zeus. Beeline chivalry while pumping out some horseman. You will need to level them up in the meantime either on barbs or city states. You are going to need mostly medic mande cavs so you can cycle through them faster when attacking cities.

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Navelgazer said:

Indonesia, Small Continents: your goal is to snatch up every piece of iron possible and fund your increasing army of Kris. Once you have to obsolete them (and put this off as long as possible) make sure you have a ton of them, because you'll want (most of) those promotions going forward.

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Heh, people actually use Kris's? Those things invariably end up with debuff promotions and then I just end up getting rid of them and using pikes instead. Anything that has a chance of being junk isn't worth using, imo, and that's the ONLY unit in the game that's like that.

Chum: The debuff chance is low and those guys still have use as your cannon-fodder/city-takers in a good Indonesian strategy. The rest of your guys get free heals, bonuses to flanking, bonuses to attacking, and become great freaking generals. Ignore them if you want but they're a powerful unit if you take the time to actually know how to use them.

I actually tried Indonesia once, and I was fairly lucky that of the 6 Kris Swordmen that I pumped out, all had good ones. (If I remembered correctly, 1 great general, 2 Restlessness, 2 Flank Attacker, and 1 dude that heals up when it kills an enemy.)

I'm not really a big fan of holding a huge reserve army without doing anything though, and the whole building a bunch of Kris Swordmen to promote them doesn't really sound good to me due to the gold cost. And I'm fairly wary of making use of my big army too early because now everyone hates me.

I'll look into that again though, I guess. (And the other suggestions, too, of course!)

There are several civs that if you choose to play specifically to their strengths can take you into atypical paths or strategies. Japan is terribly fun with no wounded penalties, Assyria makes me play with early catapults - something i never do, and Germany's Panzer is one of only a couple late game Uniques and is pretty fun to play.

There's also some ridiculously early wins with some fairly simple strategies. Egypt can flood enough Chariots to win Deity Domination pre-t100, assuming pangea map. I think there are some threads detailing the basics. I also liked the idea of using Austria to mid game buy up 2 CSs in strategic places to surprise attack some civs. Stuff like that might not be optimal for fastest times but they are fun to mess with.

Navelgazer said:

Chum: The debuff chance is low and those guys still have use as your cannon-fodder/city-takers in a good Indonesian strategy. The rest of your guys get free heals, bonuses to flanking, bonuses to attacking, and become great freaking generals. Ignore them if you want but they're a powerful unit if you take the time to actually know how to use them.

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Doesn't seem low from my experience. That and the fact that you never know if they're going to be useless or not until they fight means they're worse than Pikes in my book.

Not to mention no one uses melee to begin with, aside from 1-2 to take cities with, and you don't even need those if you use horses. Terrible unit, made worse by the fact that it fills a niche no one needs.

Rome, just because it's Rome

I've been playing as Russia quite a bit. The krepost is pretty neat and the double quantity on Uranium, Iron and Horses ensures you won't need to be trading with other civs who are probably butthurt anyway to keep your units up.

Chum: Fair enough, but whatever, I love playing as Indonesia. They make me play differently and make for a very fun domination game. For me. I know I have a friend who swears by The Celts for domination and rocks with them, but they'll probably always be bottom-tier for me. So different strokes, I guess.

America, if you want start in the Atomic Era. Cuz who needs fighters when you have B17s!

Chum said:

Not to mention no one uses melee to begin with, aside from 1-2 to take cities with, and you don't even need those if you use horses. Terrible unit, made worse by the fact that it fills a niche no one needs.

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I'm with Navelgazer here, Kris swordsmen are so much fun to play with... I've played many an overpowered game with Indonesia due to their insane bonuses. Sure, most civs are best with ranged and mounted units, but you don't play as Assyria or the Huns and wait until crossbows, artillery or bombers to attack, right? It requires a rethinking of how you play to make the most of it, and I can see your point because there are some civs that don't fit my playstyle well so I don't enjoy playing them as much as others. Indonesia probably just falls in this category for you. To each his own indeed.

I will always, always recommend Attila for a fun domination game.

Your Ancient Era units will be helping you capture cities in the Medieval era, even on deity. Early on, you can blitz a capital on in two turns (three turns if its on a hill) with three horse archers and a battering ram, since they will not have walls, and their borders will not have expanded far enough to stop your from positioning your Battering Ram(s) in range of the city before you declare war. Horse Archers are really powerful for two reasons: they don't require horses, and don't have the rough terrain penalty that Chariot Archers do, meaning they can move on to any tile (providing they don't cross a river/ZOC) and still shoot. +1 hammer from pastures is really helpful - steal a worker from a city state and your grassland-cattle become 3food/2hammer tiles very early in the game, while your plains-hoses become 1food/4production making your capital very strong, keeping the growth up while you churn out Horse Archers very quickly.

Another benefit of starting with Animal Husbandry, other than instantly being able to create pastures and being two techs away from Horse Archers, is that you can focus on caravans early as well. Caravans will be absolutely vital for both your science to keep you in the game, and your GPT to sustain your army (which won't have to be as big as with other civs, thanks to the strength of Battering Rams).

Generally you can take 2 or 3 capitals at least before you start focusing on catching up on science and defending yourself while you build up and connect your empire. The game will provide you with a lot of early and late game wars.

Bare in mind that the whole world will hate you, and that is part of what makes this so much fun. Play on Pangaea for the best experience, or on Great Plain if you want lots of OP pastures and easy to take cities. It can take a lot of getting used to (especially for a player like me who very rarely plays domination).

Good luck!