Thoughts on Domination Victory

Does it seem to anyone else that with the introduction of the Wold Congress, Ideology, plus the changes to Culture, developers are encouraging those seeking domination victory to do so in the early-mid game vs late game?

I haven't actually played a game where I was working for Domination (in bnw, plenty otherwise), but it very much seems to me that the penalties which can be levied against a civ via the WC and by strong culture civilizations can very probably cripple a warlike civilization. However, since these penalties are weak/ineffective pre-industrial, early war would be far more viable.

If true, then that more or less parallels real life in that over the centuries warfare has become progressively smaller, shorter in duration, and world reaction far more critical that during prior periods of history.

What do you think?

I'd say midgame and late game with more diplomatic savvy, because the difficulty in generating happiness and gold in the early game makes it very hard to go rampaging. In the late game, you can often go rampaging if you stick to blitzkriegs and form alliances to do it. In my last Moroccan game, I ended up with 4 capitals (and a science victory, but I didn't want to go smash some long time allies) in wars fought by alliances. I took Shaka's capital with the blessings of Hiawatha, William, and Genghis, and then later took both Madrid (which Babylon had already captured) and Babylon after they had pissed off the world too many times with their warmongering and attempts to impose Buddhism on everyone (the triple alliance of major Muslim civs was not amused). It would not have been too difficult to move on to Onondaga, Amsterdam, and Karakorum from there, and I didn't start fighting until the late renaissance/industrial era.

On the other hand, when I've tried to expand through war in the early game with Assyria, I rapidly outran my revenue and happiness base and got whomped. It was unpleasant.

I just started a new domination with this exact issue in my head. I'm worried about the world congress later in the game. So to combat this I need to also build lots of culture and spread my religion? Also helps that I'm Germany, so I get easy early game money from barbarians.

nethervvoid said:

So to combat this I need to also build lots of culture and spread my religion?

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To me that feels like a too much to balance effectively. Building culture and religion buildings can take many turns and eats up alot of gold per turn in maintenance. Plus, you have to invest in science generation too, which is also many turns to build and lots of maintenance. Finally add unit generation and further maintenance..... that's four priorities all competing for the same resources.

Germany does help in terms of unit generation, but you still have to maintain all of them. (I can't recall if Germany has reduced unit maintenance or not.)

In vanilla and g&k when I was going domination, I tended to largely neglect culture and religion generation. Not completely... but definitely enough that in a similar situation in BNW my culture would be very vulnerable to foreign influence.

Aramis604 said:

If true, then that more or less parallels real life in that over the centuries warfare has become progressively smaller, shorter in duration, and world reaction far more critical that during prior periods of history.

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Steven Pinker, is that you?

I think they've just tried to give peaceful types a way to fight back outside of building bombers. Mind you, they're not all that effective. An embargo hurts but it isn't usually crippling.

A Rabid Dopsis said:

Steven Pinker, is that you?

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heh, no. Sorry.
I'm definitely no angel.

Aramis604 said:

If true, then that more or less parallels real life in that over the centuries warfare has become progressively smaller, shorter in duration, and world reaction far more critical that during prior periods of history.

What do you think?

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I think you need to reconsider whether wars have become "smaller." Two World Wars weren't exactly small.

World reaction has not become more critical, just the world has become increasingly connected. People in England were not too aware of wars in China 500 years ago.

Late game wars are actually the most viable wars in Civ V. Early-mid game wars are the most difficult ones because the unhappiness and diplomatic penalties are too severe to compensate for. There are enough ways to make up for that in the late game.

Late game wars are actually the most viable wars in Civ V. Early-mid game wars are the most difficult ones because the unhappiness and diplomatic penalties are too severe to compensate for.

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This. Early wars doom your diplomacy with huge amount of warmongering "points".

The formula works so that your warmongering score increases more when you take a city from a small civ and when there are few cities on the map. That is exactly the situation of the early game.

So early warmongers risk to become diplomatic parias for centuries (millenniums ?) to come, will have a hard time getting DoF, research agreements, balanced trade... And that will snowball to make them weaker on the long run.

On the other hand, if you only go warmongering in the late game, you have a stable economy to support your conquests, but also good friend which will let you take capitals... with their blessing.

The world congress is actually a threat for civs who already warmongered and are hated for this reason... not for future warmongers.

The war mongering penalty aught to reset each Era.

"Hey guys, I'm in the Industrial Era now, please forget the fact that I slaughtered a few cities earlier."

There are exceptions to everything. I had a game where I took Gao and Vienna with composites and still managed to maintain relations with Gandhi, Maria I and Harald. I have a feeling it was Immortal, but might have been Emperor. Anyway, I feel very much less encouraged to conquer in BNW.

On the other hand I still don't have an Immortal domination victory in BNW, which is extremely frustrating for me as it is my preferred VC by far. I'm just not getting there.

VainoValkea said:

"Hey guys, I'm in the Industrial Era now, please forget the fact that I slaughtered a few cities earlier."

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Well, with the way it works in Civ V, Greeks would still in the 21st century be regarded as dangerous warmongers because of Alexander.

VainoValkea said:

"Hey guys, I'm in the Industrial Era now, please forget the fact that I slaughtered a few cities earlier."

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I'd rather have that than everyone moaning about a war from 3000 years ago with a now dead civilization.

How about warmonger and denouncement snowballs are reset every 500 years?
(1000 on quick, 300 on Epic and 100 on Marathon)

Josh123914 said:

I'd rather have that than everyone moaning about a war from 3000 years ago with a now dead civilization.

How about warmonger and denouncement snowballs are reset every 500 years?
(1000 on quick, 300 on Epic and 100 on Marathon)

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I agree. Something needs to be done to fix the warmonger penalty. It's ruined early-mid game warfare, as one of the previous posters explained quite well.

The AI doesn't like it when you completely wipe out a Civ. It also doesn't like it when you start the war (but it doesn't mind a bit if you crush the other guy after he's DoW'd you). Leave your opponents at least one city while dominating.

Maybe play on Archipelago maps and conquer each civ you meet pre-Caravel before you meet the next one? No Research Agreements and you'd have to get money from CS Trade Routes. But I don't think civs you meet later will old against what you did before they knew you.

VainoValkea said:

"Hey guys, I'm in the Industrial Era now, please forget the fact that I slaughtered a few cities earlier."

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60 years ago we were nuking Japan.

Things change.

Each of my Domination Victories (on Immortal) have ended before Atomic Era - kinda of easy to do so. Don't know if they purposely did that but I do not think it would matter - AI opponents have not been too keen on winning in any timely manner.