Domination on Immortal/Deity - a noob's guide

stormtrooper412 said:

I'm thinking about trying that out. I have played a few games where I deliberately didn't go Rationalism, and my science wasn't particularly good.

You Songhai Modern Armor domination was a thing of beauty though

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that was liberty- piety .. The German LP should be quite similar with panzers instead of the modern armors ..

Yeah I know. Why would you pick Honor if you're not gonna war until late. So that once you get going your economy will run on the finisher?

stormtrooper412 said:

Yeah I know. Why would you pick Honor if you're not gonna war until late. So that once you get going your economy will run on the finisher?

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Sometimes war comes to you (Shaka / Harald ) .. And Honor after liberty takes a while to finish.. If peace secured you can detour in commerce to get mercantilism and finish honor when you're about to start the war..

Finished the german LP, T271 win, T250 start of the big war.. Did a very poor job managing the flood , didn't have lightning warfare until very late and no claustervitz and still it was an easy map clear ..

I feel like I'm beginning to really hone my war-through-the-ages play style now. There are some surprises and new things I learn, of course, but on the Cold & Cramped Challenge, it just felt like everything is starting to come together.

I think I'm going to try something similar, but without the other VCs disabled, and maybe not quite so many AIs, so that they don't get in each others' way.

Consentient - First, thank you very much for this guide and your tier list and contribution to the other domination related threads. Reading all of this (as well as Moriarte's and pedroelm and Ackens posts and videos) have helped me a ton with this game and I was able to beat deity for the first time this weekend.

I was wondering if you could please expand a bit on your strategy when playing on contintents. I've found that most of the information on here relates more specifically to domination on pangaea, but I really prefer playing on continents and I'd like to hear your thoughts on the best way to approach those games. Thanks!

My go-to strategy for Continents is the Violent CV I mentioned in passing. Take control of my continent and then use those bonuses to win a comfortable CV, with a lot of archaeologists, and hammer caravans to build the lategame Tourism wonders.

For a continued Domination sweep, it's all about timing. If the other continent was ravaged by war, you might even have the edge with XBs and Cannons and Knights last long enough to swim them over after a rushed Astronomy (maybe with Oxford) and take some or all of the remaining continents.

Swimming Artillery is a popular strategy for me, and once you've gotten the Revolt red icon disappear from a coastal city you've taken as your 'war base', you can just buy units on the cheap and spam the other continent out quite easily. The Spain ICL was an example of this for me.

If the other continent has a runaway, and/or has known no war, but you are determined to win a DomV, then I recommend Frigates/Battleships to take multiple coastal cities and then use a combination of Artillery and spammed Infantry/Tanks whatever.

TLDR: It's all about getting a foothold and then spreading out.

Glad you find the guide and list useful, and thanks for your kind words

Can you elaborate a little more on the violent CV strategy? Do you still go honor commerce autocracy or do you start liberty or even tradition and then build up more like the way you would in a peaceful game after sweeping the continent? Do you go into aesthetics?

Thanks again!

Well it depends on what time I make the switch. A good time is when XBs have helped you finish off the continent, but you're nowhere near the Industrial yet. That means you don't have to waste any policies in Autocracy, or even finish Commerce (unless you need the happiness). Then you can move to dipping into Aesthetics, maybe take Rationalism opener, and crack Freedom instead.

In my LP of ICL Poland, it was around the T200 mark where I finished off the continent (so quite late), but I really hadn't pushed early war and was held off by Impis until I killed enough and got XBs, so T200 is a bit on the late side for clearing a continent.

Bottom line, whether on continents or Pangaea, when your dominance is so assured that you are not going to be threatened by anybody, even if they all gang up on you, then you can easily spam archaeologists and nab some of the lategame wonders for a decent CV. Part 9 in that series is the start of the switch, I believe.

As for your question about starting, it really doesn't matter. Both Liberty and Honor's benefits have kinda worn off by the time you stop your wars, so whichever you opened with, it's about what you do after that matters most.

I personally like Liberty first if I plan to be peaceful after first continent cleared. The reduced cost to policy will add up late in the game due to the larger empire you'll likely get because of additional capitals. It doesn't compare to the empire bonus you get by getting Honor first.

I'm trying to do an x-bow rush on the DCL Netherlands map, I have turn 82 liberty 3 city NC, teching luxury-philosophy-construction-guilds-machinery. However, I will probably only get machinery around turn 105 or so, which feels like it is probably too late. I do have some CB's that are earning experience in a worker-capture-turned-quagmire.

What what you say is the window for a good XB rush aimed to conquer 2-3 civs?
Would you think it a good idea to use the liberty GS to tech machinery?

T105 machinery is not bad.

T105 Machinery is quite good. If you have ~10 XBs, 2 Horses and 2 Pikes, that's more than enough to clear out the continent and it's smooth sailing from there

On the map in question, it just depends what tech level the victims are at. When I played the map, I got the two ladies to war against each other and exhaust one another, so they had no gunpowder units. T105 Machinery is no problem at all. Are you going to stop the war then? If not you will need to beeline Navigation because another lady ended up being really formidable in my play through.

Thanks for the answers, I guess I'll play it through and see how far I get

I've been friends with East the whole time, selling her luxes, I haven't bribed ber against West (maybe that's a mistake). I've been at war with West since grabbing two of her workers at a very early time, so I guess she has probably been wasting a lot of time building elephants instead of teching (but who knows what she will do).

I noticed nobody had done a CV on that map, so I was planning on taking the continent and then going for CV. Call it "Rembrandt's revenge"

Edit: that didn't go very well . I got t105 machinery but only had 6 CB's to upgrade, and terrain to the first city was difficult, so I quickly became bogged down and lost 2 XBs; and then Denmark DoWs me (bribed?). I'm tempted to reload and play a bit more cautious . Maybe I should first take her third city, which is on my side of the isthmus, and use that time to get XP, a couple more units, and thin out her army further.

Denmark is always dangerous around the time of berserkers. It is a tech before machinery. Either bribe him during that or take him out before that.

Walls: Only later in the game to get happiness from Autocracy. You are the aggressor. You don't need defence.

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Fortified Borders doesn't give happiness from Walls, does it?

No, but you need them to have Castles, Arsenals and the like.

vanatteveldt - can to share screenshoot of the Xb rush? I opened up my screenshots of the map but cannot understand how western neighbour can have city on your side when you have 3 cities. also terrain will work against XB on that map...

also wrt the GS bulb - dont reccomend it since you have to tech to other things to win on that map. (AI were quite decent when i played it)

Sure, see below. IIRC, the western city was built before I had my settler out, so I built a second city NE of the lake and a third north of that on the copper. The second city is kind of weak but has three polder spots and two luxes. I decided to get a GE from liberty to get a CV wonder, not sure if that is good play.



All criticism is most appreciated

Problems:
- I spent time building pyramids (for 2 CS) and a cargo ship (which was promptly pillaged), that should have gotten me some extra troops, at least some spearmen to join the invasion. (my plan was that horsemen would follow after the XB and that they should get in just in time to take the first city, but not sure if that actually makes sense)
- I probably have too little XB at t105 (7 I think), but not sure where to get extra money, maybe I should have been saving more.
- The attack vector is difficult, maybe first taking hippo and then doing a naval invasion as well will make it easier to not get locally outnumbered.

I still have all autosaves, so I can replay a bit for the learning. E.g. turn 98 I am 7 turns from machinery with 6 CBs plus 2 partially built. I guess I should be able to get 2 or 3 spearmen out in time for the attack as well, and hit hippo first. What would you guys do?

Using the Liberty GE for a CV wonder is not a great idea, IMO.

I don't like the placement of your 3rd city, but from here you should be able to do quite well. But...I have to say...NOT ENOUGH UNITS!!! Make a load more so the Domination is swift and powerful.