Liberty Domination Walkthrough

Thanks for the additional Shoshone discussion, Cromagnus – that makes a lot of sense. I'll try that the next time.

One more thing: Is the “Great Prophet” ruin worthwhile? I got it early in my game, but even with a big head start, I still ended up with a late, weak religion that I couldn't spread effectively. I'm not sure whether I got unlucky or whether I'm better off just using a temporary religion and then letting my neighbors convert me later.

Is it ever worthwhile to found your own religion with this strategy? And if you plan on adopting neighbor religions, which pantheons should you aim for? Does it ever make sense to skip the early religion game entirely?

BWS said:

Thanks for the additional Shoshone discussion, Cromagnus – that makes a lot of sense. I'll try that the next time.

One more thing: Is the “Great Prophet” ruin worthwhile? I got it early in my game, but even with a big head start, I still ended up with a late, weak religion that I couldn't spread effectively. I'm not sure whether I got unlucky or whether I'm better off just using a temporary religion and then letting my neighbors convert me later.

Is it ever worthwhile to found your own religion with this strategy? And if you plan on adopting neighbor religions, which pantheons should you aim for? Does it ever make sense to skip the early religion game entirely?

Click to expand...

Personally, unless you're going for a CV, with the Shoshone I feel like it's waste to use the Great Prophet ruin unless you've got no better options. (Tech, growth, CB upgrade)

I might even take gold at that point.

The thing is, 60 faith (or whatever) isn't going to get you to a first religion unless you *also* have an awesome faith pantheon like DF. It's not going to get you your choice of enhancer belief. It's not going to get you your choice of reformation belief, even if you open Piety. On Deity anyway.

IMHO, you need at least 8 faith/turn to get first religion, and even that is no guarantee. So, maybe you only need 5/turn with Prophet ruin.

But, let's say you got it. Then what? Now you have your choice of beliefs, but what's your plan? I can usually get decent beliefs with a 4th or 5th religion. Not great, but ok. IMHO< you should only push for first religion if you've come up with some sort of master plan for winning through certain beliefs that you're sure you can get.
So, for example, Pilgrimage, if you play it right, can net you a TON of faith in the late game. Which can get you a bunch of great scientists or great engineers. That's all well and good, but it only works if you successfully spread your religion. That's an art that takes a while to master. Spreading religion is hard on Deity unless you start next to a civ that missed out on it, or have access to some isolated CS that no one else can easily reach.

I wouldn't try it with the Shoshone unless you're handy at it with a religion powerhouse. Try it with the Celts, Arabia, or maybe Ethiopia first. And relying on reformation beliefs isn't a good idea. There's no guarantee you'll get them with Shoshone. Honestly, there are very few civs who can get their choice of reformation belief on Deity. Possibly the Aztecs, Poland, and maaaybe Byzantium because they can double-down on culture.

So, to answer your other question, yes it's entirely possible and valid to ignore religion entirely. To make up for the deficiencies of Honor, I frequently ignore shrine in my build order. It saves gpt and frankly, I usually don't get a pantheon anyway without a faith ruin since the patch.

If my start position supports a great faith pantheon (quarries, desert, tundra, a NW maybe) then I go for faith, and try to found a religion. If it doesn't I go for food if my start really demands it, or culture if I can. For example, a 3-wheat start almost begs for Sun God. If I can't find anything that will net me multiple food/turn or culture/turn, I go for God-King, because in the early game it's actually a somewhat significant boost, and by the time it isn't, someone will give you a new one.

I did pass on religion in most of deity games. It isn't rare to ally faith CS and/or get a decent pantheon for a while. So, you can start accumulating precious faith points. Say the prophet pops at turn 90. Settle him. With some luck you'll be converted soon and will use that faith in a snowballing fashion, by buying pagodas, mosques, cathedrals or else. So, in the end, you will reach 50+ fpt in most of your games without even building an early shrine. The only case i can think of where you actually need religion, is if you want to enhance your culture game by passing corresponding resolution. Of course, it's nice to have a religion, but, be realistic.

As to pantheon choices, i tend to go for either faith enhancers (including cultural ones) or that 10% food growth thing. While god king is tempting, 10% food will yield more in the long run, well, if my math is correct.

Moriarte said:

I did pass on religion in most of deity games. It isn't rare to ally faith CS and/or get a decent pantheon for a while. So, you can start accumulating precious faith points. Say the prophet pops at turn 90. Settle him. With some luck you'll be converted soon and will use that faith in a snowballing fashion, by buying pagodas, mosques, cathedrals or else. So, in the end, you will reach 50+ fpt in most of your games without even building an early shrine. The only case i can think of where you actually need religion, is if you want to enhance your culture game by passing corresponding resolution. Of course, it's nice to have a religion, but, be realistic.

As to pantheon choices, i tend to go for either faith enhancers (including cultural ones) or that 10% food growth thing. While god king is tempting, 10% food will yield more in the long run, well, if my math is correct.

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Is it +10% to surplus food or base food? (Like ToA?)

If it's +10% to base food, that's huge, even if your expos get converted at t70.

If it's +10% to surplus, that means 10% faster growth, which, given that your capital can hang on to its pantheon for at least 100 turns, means that your capital gets maybe 1 extra population before you lose the pantheon, but your expos will likely get less than 1/2 extra population... At least I think that's how it works out.

I'm not sure if that's better, given that God-King averages +6% tech over the course of its lifespan. (Starts out around +12% at ~7 beakers, and by the time you're at 100 beakers you'll likely lose it, and at that point it's at +1%)

God-King typically nets you +100g,beakers,culture,faith,and production. I think when you add up the total value of that, God-King outperforms +10% growth, because the expos don't get to keep that growth for long if you don't found a religion.

Just my gut feel though. Also, the timing is the big reason I like God-King better. (I mean assuming there's no better pantheon) Getting +1 beakers when you're at 7 total is pretty nice. By after 35 turns you've gotten a bottom-tier tech for free. But, I would never build a shrine just for God-King. This is usually when I get a late faith ruin and there's no better option.

Yeah, it's surplus. Not very strong if you'll have to part with it.

Could you comment a little on tech path?

The guide recommends Engineering or Civil Service after Philosophy. Engineering has aqueducts, trade route, and bridges; Civil Service has farms, pikemen, and open borders. I presume that the main goal is growth? What are the tradeoffs here? Why would you choose one over the other?

There's also an option of Scientific Theory or Dynamite first, depending on how strong the AI tech lead is. When would you go for Dynamite first? My current game is a little behind pace, partly because I thought I had enough tech momentum for Dynamite first, but it didn't work out. I had to switch back to Scientific Theory and ended up getting schools behind schedule. Luckily I'm back to the middle of the pack, but I think I could have done that better.

Any other tech recommendations would be helpful too while we're on the subject. Do you have favorite techs for changing eras? Does it matter?

I'm sure Moriarte has better perspective on this, he's better at Liberty Domination than I am for sure. But, here's how I generally play it. On Deity, the AI typically enters the Renaissance on or before t110. That's when you get your first spy.

If you play it right, you can use that first spy to get you Education, and build/rush-buy Universities on t120-125. If you're maximizing growth, happiness, and filling those specialist slots, you can get Artillery by t165 this way, bulbing Oxford to complete Dynamite. Possibly earlier, but I kinda suck at this.

If I'm going for Artillery, I enter the Industrial Era through Fertilizer to boost my growth. Chemistry is right before that, and the extra production will help you win the World's Fair.

Whether I detour to Engineering before Civil Service has a lot to do with whether I'm planning on continuing my conquest with XBows, and whether there's an available high-beaker trade route I want. Engineering pays for itself if you get that caravan out quickly. If I do go for XBows, I go for them before Civil Service usually, because timing is everything, and get them earlier if you go for machinery first.

So, the tech path has to do with how my game is going. If I have good tech momentum and my CB army is kicking ass, and I think I can hit XBows early enough AND can continue the conquest, which usually depends on terrain & diplomacy, then I go straight for Machinery, then Civil Service, steal Education and beeline Dynamite.

If things aren't going well though, I beeline Civil Service, Education, Sci Theory, and then go for Dynamite IF I'm doing well enough to hit Dynamite by t175 at the latest.

If you can't hit Dynamite by t175, you aren't going to capture more than maybe one or two capitals, and by skipping Sci Theory, you're delaying Biology/Flight/Combustion.

There are many branch points for me, each with a different estimated victory time that I'm pulling out of my ass:

1) Machinery->Philosophy->Civil Service->Dynamite->Flight. Victory on t210-t250, the goal being to either win with Artillery, or only have 1-2 opponents you have to kill with bombers. Steal Education and blow off public schools.

I do this if I have good tech momentum and promoted CBs, and I've knocked off at least 3 civs by the time XBow rush loses momentum. That leaves 4 civs to kill with Artillery. Splitting your army can accomplish this if terrain allows. If you lose momentum with Artillery, stop and go for Biology & Flight. I usually go for Flight first for the Ideology, but there's an argument for going for Biology first to ensure you have oil when you get Flight.

2) Education->Dynamite->Flight. Victory on t220-t250

I do this when I don't like the map for CB/XBow rush or if things just aren't going well. Like, if you CB rush successfully, but have no Trade Route beakers, or your empire has growth/happiness issues, or if geography makes an XBow Rush impractical, or if your CB rush fails.

3) Sci Theory->Dynamite->Flight. Victory on t220-t250.

If things just aren't going well from the beginning, just suck it up and go for Scientific Theory before Dynamite.

4) Machinery->Scientific Theory->Flight. Victory on t230-t250.

I typically do this if I think I can get some cities with XBows, but when I get to Machinery I can tell my tech is too far behind to hit Artillery at a reasonable time.

5) Education->Sci Theory->Flight->Combustion. Victory on t230-t260.

If things REALLY aren't going well throughout the game, Artillery rush is no longer an option, but the game is salvageable.

6) Plastics->Rocketry->Nanotech/Stealth. Victory on t250-t290.

If worst comes to worst, just keep focusing on science and cap most cities with Rocket Artillery, and finish off the rest with XCOM and Stealth Bombers.

Of course, I'm sure some will disagree. These are just estimates based on how my Domination games have gone.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot one more totally valid option:

Construction->Philosophy->Machinery->Civil Service->Dynamite. (or any variation after Construction->Philosophy)

This path is best if you're isolated IMHO. You need the NC as early as possible if you're not getting trade route beakers.

It also works great if you ARE getting good TR beakers and you want to start your conquest with XBows. (You'll get XBows at least ten turns earlier this way)

The problem with starting conquest with XBows is if they're not heavily promoted, XBow rush is MUCH less effective. Starting with CB Rush means you have Range AND Logistics when you get XBows, which is *everything*.

So, if you're going to start your rush with XBows, I recommend attacking a neighbor EARLY, and farming XP for your CBs while you tech Machinery. You want those promotions before you get Machinery.

For optimal farming, I recommend DoWing a CS too. 3 CBs on a CS and 3 CBs on a neighbor's city ensures that everyone gets XP every turn.

However, this is not a trivial task. It takes a LOT of practice to get good at farming XP without losing units. tommynt makes it sound easy, "stack xp, never lose a unit"... yeah, easy for him to say.

Wow, thanks for the detailed information! I will have to try that when I start over. My last game was a bust, didn't get my military going nearly fast enough.

Next question: Where do you build your units? Do you put XP buildings and Heroic Epic in your capital, or do you spread unit builds around for speed and rely on training to level them up?

Also: How do you get enough culture and influence to survive ideological pressure? I got hit hard with a revolutionary wave in my last game. Partly that's because I was just too slow getting everything started, but I'm wondering whether I should have developed my culture better?

I dont understand all of this "guide" - IF u want tech to artileries u r obviously better off with a 4-6 city Trad or even better lib/Trad mix.

A liberty domination is a 6-8 city liberty build where I ont get libraries in EVERY city but do spam 4 settlers right after the free one - get a munument, a shrine, maybe a barrack and a granny and then spam units.
All of this is boosted by the 2 bakkers per city conection pantheon and if any possible a religion aswell to get gold (preferably +100).
Either massdteal workers or do pyras.

Ten attack with cbows 2 civs and with xbows 3 more and with 3 range 2 shoot xbows the last ones ...

with managing happynes well u can still have CS and xbows till turn 100 kinda easily.

And re-roll if you fail?

Difference here is you can still get to machinery @ t.100 and have reasonably solid base to progress towards artillery.

tommynt said:

I dont understand all of this "guide" - IF u want tech to artileries u r obviously better off with a 4-6 city Trad or even better lib/Trad mix.

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^^this
Arty comes so late, that I find trying to go Liberty and getting arty up before T160 almost impossible unless I get extremely lucky. Liberty = buying a lot of tiles to keep growth going, and having less gpt and happiness to begin with. Tradition is a lot easier to manage. Trying to C-bow/x-bow rush with tradition is painful because the slower build times add up quickly and getting a large range army out early is difficult.

Either method works really well, I try to chose based on my local map. If I have a near neighbor and they have open terrain, then Liberty/bow rush. If I have hills and forrest so I can't approach my neighbor, then Tradition/arty "rush."

Cromagnus said:

I'm sure Moriarte has better perspective on this, he's better at Liberty Domination than I am for sure. But, here's how I generally play it. On Deity, the AI typically enters the Renaissance on or before t110. That's when you get your first spy.

If you play it right, you can use that first spy to get you Education, and build/rush-buy Universities on t120-125. If you're maximizing growth, happiness, and filling those specialist slots, you can get Artillery by t165 this way, bulbing Oxford to complete Dynamite. Possibly earlier, but I kinda suck at this.

If I'm going for Artillery, I enter the Industrial Era through Fertilizer to boost my growth. Chemistry is right before that, and the extra production will help you win the World's Fair.

Whether I detour to Engineering before Civil Service has a lot to do with whether I'm planning on continuing my conquest with XBows, and whether there's an available high-beaker trade route I want. Engineering pays for itself if you get that caravan out quickly. If I do go for XBows, I go for them before Civil Service usually, because timing is everything, and get them earlier if you go for machinery first.

So, the tech path has to do with how my game is going. If I have good tech momentum and my CB army is kicking ass, and I think I can hit XBows early enough AND can continue the conquest, which usually depends on terrain & diplomacy, then I go straight for Machinery, then Civil Service, steal Education and beeline Dynamite.

If things aren't going well though, I beeline Civil Service, Education, Sci Theory, and then go for Dynamite IF I'm doing well enough to hit Dynamite by t175 at the latest.

If you can't hit Dynamite by t175, you aren't going to capture more than maybe one or two capitals, and by skipping Sci Theory, you're delaying Biology/Flight/Combustion.

There are many branch points for me, each with a different estimated victory time that I'm pulling out of my ass:

1) Machinery->Philosophy->Civil Service->Dynamite->Flight. Victory on t210-t250, the goal being to either win with Artillery, or only have 1-2 opponents you have to kill with bombers. Steal Education and blow off public schools.

I do this if I have good tech momentum and promoted CBs, and I've knocked off at least 3 civs by the time XBow rush loses momentum. That leaves 4 civs to kill with Artillery. Splitting your army can accomplish this if terrain allows. If you lose momentum with Artillery, stop and go for Biology & Flight. I usually go for Flight first for the Ideology, but there's an argument for going for Biology first to ensure you have oil when you get Flight.

2) Education->Dynamite->Flight. Victory on t220-t250

I do this when I don't like the map for CB/XBow rush or if things just aren't going well. Like, if you CB rush successfully, but have no Trade Route beakers, or your empire has growth/happiness issues, or if geography makes an XBow Rush impractical, or if your CB rush fails.

3) Sci Theory->Dynamite->Flight. Victory on t220-t250.

If things just aren't going well from the beginning, just suck it up and go for Scientific Theory before Dynamite.

4) Machinery->Scientific Theory->Flight. Victory on t230-t250.

I typically do this if I think I can get some cities with XBows, but when I get to Machinery I can tell my tech is too far behind to hit Artillery at a reasonable time.

5) Education->Sci Theory->Flight->Combustion. Victory on t230-t260.

If things REALLY aren't going well throughout the game, Artillery rush is no longer an option, but the game is salvageable.

6) Plastics->Rocketry->Nanotech/Stealth. Victory on t250-t290.

If worst comes to worst, just keep focusing on science and cap most cities with Rocket Artillery, and finish off the rest with XCOM and Stealth Bombers.

Of course, I'm sure some will disagree. These are just estimates based on how my Domination games have gone.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot one more totally valid option:

Construction->Philosophy->Machinery->Civil Service->Dynamite. (or any variation after Construction->Philosophy)

This path is best if you're isolated IMHO. You need the NC as early as possible if you're not getting trade route beakers.

It also works great if you ARE getting good TR beakers and you want to start your conquest with XBows. (You'll get XBows at least ten turns earlier this way)

The problem with starting conquest with XBows is if they're not heavily promoted, XBow rush is MUCH less effective. Starting with CB Rush means you have Range AND Logistics when you get XBows, which is *everything*.

So, if you're going to start your rush with XBows, I recommend attacking a neighbor EARLY, and farming XP for your CBs while you tech Machinery. You want those promotions before you get Machinery.

For optimal farming, I recommend DoWing a CS too. 3 CBs on a CS and 3 CBs on a neighbor's city ensures that everyone gets XP every turn.

However, this is not a trivial task. It takes a LOT of practice to get good at farming XP without losing units. tommynt makes it sound easy, "stack xp, never lose a unit"... yeah, easy for him to say.

Click to expand...

I have a few questions on this.

1) Carefully watching Moriarte's Harald videos, I saw that he got to artillery on turn 185. How would you do it 20 turns before that? Especially if you do an Xbow rush.

2) If you go for a bomber rush, won't the AI's be too big to deal with? The tech path that you mention is: "Education->Sci Theory->Flight->Combustion". Which means that you won't fight any serious wars before flight. Unless you bribe the AIs into destroying each other, do you think you can conquer them all, starting with Flight, then going to Radar, and then Stealth?

The question goes to everyone too, of course. Thanks in advance for any upcoming replies.

T185 is fine for artillery, but you will not clean up the map before the AI gets flight, so the game gets delayed even farther. I aim for T150ish artillery (pretty hard to get), because you can clean up the map before the AI gets flight.

Going for a bomber rush works fine. Your better off going for x-coms than stealth though - problem is you might as well be doing an SV, you will probably win sooner. If you crank gobs of paratroopers, you can end the game 3 - 4 turns after you get x-coms.

XCOM vs Stealth is IMHO a matter of timing. XCOM can't take a heavily guarded high-tech capital by themselves. My last XCOM win, Ethiopia had units in every tile around the capital, and all kinds of advanced units like Rocket Artillery nearby. If I had gotten XCOM 25 turns earlier, I could have won without bombers. But Stealth Bombers allowed me to cap that last city despite all the heavy resistance.

A faster option is nukes + XCOM. Nuke, drop XCOM the same turn, win the next turn.

There's nothing wrong with t185 artillery, but you won't win before flight, unless you've got only 2-3 capitals left to take and you can attack them all at once on t185 with different armies. If you have 6 cannons ready to upgrade, you could maybe pull it off, but 3/opponent is a safer bet, and you'll need supporting armies. I've personally never won with just an artillery rush because it's so hard to get 3 armies up and running that early. The closest I've gotten is with a t165 artillery rush, but I hadn't taken any capitals up to that point. I took 4 with artillery (two armies) and 3 with flight. It's also rarely practical to attack 3 targets at once if you have 7 opponents left. In fact, it's almost never practical because of lost trade opportunities and all the nearby CS who will DoW. You'll be at negative gold and negative happiness immediately. My hat is off to those who can pull off an artillery win. It takes mad skills. Or the pyramids.

The reason it might be better to focus on science until flight if you can't get artillery by t170 or earlier is that the goal is always to have a tech advantage when you start your attack run, so you can capture as many capitals as possible before you stall out. The longer you focus on tech the bigger your tech advantage, generally, unless there's a crazy AI runaway. And if there IS a runaway who isn't close, they can become a real problem.

The AI doesn't have an answer for artillery until it gets GWB and has time to build them, which is typically t200 or later. Whoever you're attacking will get them later than everyone else as long as you start attacking them before they get them. By chewing through their units, pillaging, taking cities, you're causing them happiness problems, reducing their production and tech, and so the one or two bombers they might have time to build won't save their capital. But your NEXT target will typically be an issue because while you were fighting, he was building air units.

GWB are effective on offense until the AI has anti-aircraft, and even so, you can usually take those out with landships. Hence Flight/Combustion. So you start the attack run with Flight, get Prora, and go for Combustion next. If the AI decides to build a lot of fighters and put them in the city you're attacking instead of bombers, you still have artillery and landships. It really isn't until Mobile SAM that bombing start to lose steam IMHO. It can also work to go the other way, especially if you're going Order. You can go Sci Theory->Combustion, get Kremlin ASAP, and go all out tank blitz. But in my experience, this is generally a less effective strategy, unless you're Germany or some civ with a cavalry UU and have been heavily promoting your horse units all along.

Yes, the AI's get bigger the long you wait to attack, but as a general rule, on Deity, if you focus on tech, the AI's tech advantage is never greater than at the beginning of the game. So, the longer you tech, the more of an advantage you'll have. If you focus on science from t0, you can be at XCOM by t250 and win the game within ten turns if you have enough paratroopers ready to promote.

But if you look at the tech path along the way, you'll have artillery->rocket artillery, landships->tanks->modern armor, and GWB->bombers... 5 key points along the way where you can efficiently capture capitals: 1) CBs, 2) XBows, 3) artillery/cavalry, 4) bombers/armor 5) Rocket Artillery/Mobile SAM

(And this is ignoring the fact that even on Pangaea you can finish off a domination run with frigates, or later, battleships)

So, yes, you can out-tech the AI to start conquest later. The advantage to earlier conquest is the momentum you get from capturing juicy capitals, and the simple fact that you can only attack so many targets at once. But, the later you start conquest, the easier it *can be*, due to diplomacy and other factors, like maybe the AI is infighting or starting to conquer each other. It's easier to make friends by denouncing, bribing people to attack who you're going to attack, by then the AI is fighting over land/resources/Wonders/CS... plus you can have multiple rounds of RAs before you start attacking... etc. IMHO the earlier you attack the more skill/luck/planning it requires, generally, because it's much easier to play tall/peaceful.

Also, more important than getting artillery by t-whatever, you have to take into account the map. Sometimes you don't have viable nearby targets. Sometimes you're beating your head against a wall by sticking with the plan. /shrug

The keys to a successful early rush are, in order of importance, as follows. #3 and #4 are optional, but the most successful rushes involve all 4.

1) Get 6 archers, get them promoted, upgrade to CBs, attack a neighbor and do all of these things ASAP.
2) Get your cities up ASAP. You need cities for unit supply to support your army. You need them for tech. You need them for trade routes.
3) Worker-steal early and often.
4) Get the pyramids and bring workers to pillage/heal. This is more effective than any other strategy, period. You can easily average 30g/turn and most importantly, *never stop firing*. It's so OP that I advocate a hotfix to remove it, but until then, nothing you can do will make as much of a difference in the game's outcome as this one tactic does.

All except #3 are why Liberty is better for early Domination. Unit supply is much more a factor of # of cities than population is. War is about production, and production is much more a factor of # of cities than population is. Liberty's ability to get 4 cities out with minimal stagnation/production loss is a key factor in being *ready* to start a CB rush on t60. You can CB rush with Tradition or Honor, but the tricky part is finding time to build the minimum 2 settlers you need to support your initial army. But I digress.

JamesCivFan said:

I have a few questions on this.

1) Carefully watching Moriarte's Harald videos, I saw that he got to artillery on turn 185. How would you do it 20 turns before that? Especially if you do an Xbow rush.

2) If you go for a bomber rush, won't the AI's be too big to deal with? The tech path that you mention is: "Education->Sci Theory->Flight->Combustion". Which means that you won't fight any serious wars before flight. Unless you bribe the AIs into destroying each other, do you think you can conquer them all, starting with Flight, then going to Radar, and then Stealth?

The question goes to everyone too, of course. Thanks in advance for any upcoming replies.

Click to expand...

1). Of course you can. 3-4 RAs, bulbed GS, Oxford and you're there. Especially, when you can capture 3 good cities filled with universities (with xbows), the bpt will be sufficient to have competitive science rates. It seems to many people that if you fight early wars, you are doomed to very slow development. That is wrong. With force applied carefully, you can have (for example) 3 city early NC start up, conquer 3 more cities with uni's around t. 110-120, and there you are with 6 cities filled with universities (plus decent army) early in the game. Might get a city or two in a peace deal on top of that, if you happiness allows for it.

2). I feel it's dull to go that way, so i always make a pit stop at dynamite. But the whole thing is definitely viable (not so easy after patch with air stacking limitations). There was a thread not long ago (autocracy domination guide or something) where a guy called peddroelm shown how he beats deity consistently (and by t.250-270) by beelining stealth and xcom, conquering all capitals in a few short turns. Fun for some.

My last XCOM win, Ethiopia had units in every tile around the capital, and all kinds of advanced units like Rocket Artillery nearby.

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Ethiopia, man .. I rage quit a dom. game few days ago, when rolling easily with arties i took a hit against a brick wall called Ethiopia. He spammed 3-4 mehal sefari's every turn and i could literally do NOTHING to this guy.

Moriarte said:

Ethiopia, man .. I rage quit a dom. game few days ago, when rolling easily with arties i took a hit against a brick wall called Ethiopia. He spammed 3-4 mehal sefari's every turn and i could literally do NOTHING to this guy.

Spoiler :

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Ouch!

Yeah, I hate him... I had to remove him from my HOF civ list after he ruined my best effort. He uncharacteristically spammed like 11 cities and DoW'd me on t109 right after I got Machinery. I had left my flank undefended to attack someone else. He had GW, +20% from religion, +30% city ranged attack, and the normal bonus against larger civs, so even after fighting him off I couldn't make ANY progress through his many cities to get to his capital. Wasted all the advantage I had with early Machinery.

Moriarte said:

1). Of course you can. 3-4 RAs, bulbed GS, Oxford and you're there. Especially, when you can capture 3 good cities filled with universities (with xbows), the bpt will be sufficient to have competitive science rates. It seems to many people that if you fight early wars, you are doomed to very slow development. That is wrong. With force applied carefully, you can have (for example) 3 city early NC start up, conquer 3 more cities with uni's around t. 110-120, and there you are with 6 cities filled with universities (plus decent army) early in the game. Might get a city or two in a peace deal on top of that, if you happiness allows for it.

2). I feel it's dull to go that way, so i always make a pit stop at dynamite. But the whole thing is definitely viable (not so easy after patch with air stacking limitations). There was a thread not long ago (autocracy domination guide or something) where a guy called peddroelm shown how he beats deity consistently (and by t.250-270) by beelining stealth and xcom, conquering all capitals in a few short turns. Fun for some.

Click to expand...

The bulbed GS is really significant. Early artillery is one of those few situations it's worth burning your first GS. The hard part is doing it by t150. For me anyway.

I've been playing around with the following approach: (still standard Liberty Pyramids opening)

* Make friends with ALL your neighbors for max beakers
* Level up your units on a hilltop (more XP) CS to get range & logistics
* pillage heal the CS improvements for university cash
* Tech Construction->Education->Machinery->Fertilizer->Metallurgy
* Rush-buy universities
* Dow a former friend after shifting your trade routes and capture two cities around t120, pray they have universities, annex them if so.
* GS bulb Military Science, Oxford bulb Dynamite

If you're lucky with tech theft, this will get you artillery on t150, but it requires luck. It's easier to steal Education/etc than Gunpowder/etc...

The thing I like about this is that you don't lose those key TR beakers and trading partners early, and it salvages a game where you failed to get your CB rush off the ground properly. Attacking a neighbor ineffectively is worse than not attacking. This is a good fallback for when plan A doesn't go well.

Moriarte said:

Ethiopia, man .. I rage quit a dom. game few days ago, when rolling easily with arties i took a hit against a brick wall called Ethiopia. He spammed 3-4 mehal sefari's every turn and i could literally do NOTHING to this guy.

Spoiler :

Click to expand...

lol, had the same thing happen to me. He had less than 5 cities, and took all the religious stuff that gave extra defense. It was just like hitting a brick wall, I just could not do any damage to his units, I just gave up and started a new game. I would rther slog it out with Siam or Shaka than deal with Ethiopia