Liberty Domination Walkthrough

Moriarte said:

You have to push, indeed. While it may or may not be possible to puppet that cap across the strait (due to happiness), you can still level up your troops, pillage and reduce enemy's defenders. At exactly the moment your happiness allows for it you can take the dying cap. you've been shooting at and move on to the next one.

Think about it this way: right now Monty has 7 jaguars. In 20 turns he will have 14 jaguars. Now is the time.

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Good advice. I did push across the strait and took down size 10 Constantinople in two turns with CompBows. Stupid AI now has left three capitals pretty much undefended but I am now at the end of CompBows usefulness. XBows are coming up in about 7 turns anyways. Thanks for the guide, I did get lucky on a 4-Salt capital.

tommynt said:

rep hit is quite neglicable ..

you have warmonger reputation anyway after attacking 2 civs .. cant get any worse ..
U can still make deals for half gains - no matter if u r a warmonger or a "bad warmonger".

And on top of that u can brake your promise 6 times and the 7th civ will still believe you ..

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I disagree. The rep hit is NOT negligible for breaking a borders promise. And if you're playing continents, this is very important, because you won't have the warmonger rep if you clear your continent fast enough. The problem, especially with continents, is that, upon meeting these civs, you already have a diplo hit from breaking the promise, which, because those civs start off neutral to you, can trigger an immediate denunciation, which can lead to more dencunations, etc.

I never break borders promises until I'm at a point where I don't need open borders, friendships or lux trades. Even if it means DoWing when it's inconvenient.

Cromagnus said:

I disagree. The rep hit is NOT negligible for breaking a borders promise. And if you're playing continents, this is very important, because you won't have the warmonger rep if you clear your continent fast enough. The problem, especially with continents, is that, upon meeting these civs, you already have a diplo hit from breaking the promise, which, because those civs start off neutral to you, can trigger an immediate denunciation, which can lead to more dencunations, etc.

I never break borders promises until I'm at a point where I don't need open borders, friendships or lux trades. Even if it means DoWing when it's inconvenient.

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Yeah, that's what I've been learning. It just snowballs and nothing you can do to stop the downward trend if you are continuing the conquests. They will all declare war on you eventually (which is deserved) and in my case, all at once (I was just sitting there minding my own business waiting for Astronomy), which is more of an annoyance than anything.

I disagree. The rep hit is NOT negligible for breaking a borders promise.

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I was stating an opinion but a fact.

you cant disagree to a fact, well you can but the world will still be a ball even when u call it flat.

No1 will declare war on you if your army is strong enough, what it should be when u got for domination. And if they do they do it to gain their caps back not because u r a warmonger.

Again after killing some1s cap such other modierfiers are just TOTALY unimportant.

uh tommy, your subjective take on it is certainly not a fact

you're a great player and contribute a lot to the forums, but your holier-than-thou attitude does come across.

Cromagnus' argument about the continents map seems reasonable

@tommynt: I completely agree that by a certain point in the game, it's better to build up forces on their border before attacking, and take the rep hit. With only 3 opponents left to go, maybe even 4, especially if you're attacking them all at once. But for the first 130 turns or so, it's pretty valuable not to break that promise. Much better to DoW. IMHO.

I've lost friendships because of breaking borders promises, and as a result, lost lux-lux trades, lux-cash trades, and research agreements . They won't attack your superior forces, but they will denounce or refuse to become friends or renew friendship. longer you can keep a few friends in the game the better. Each RA will shave 5-10 turns off Dynamite. Cash is king.

To have an AI you've just met refuse friendship because of something you did on t60 really sucks...

Would Sweden be any good for domination? I mean with those March units and each extra Great general could be used to grab a quick CS ally.

I've lost friendships because of breaking borders promises, and as a result, lost lux-lux trades, lux-cash trades, and research agreements . They won't attack your superior forces, but they will denounce or refuse to become friends or renew friendship.

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doing RAs with 1 civ while attacking another seems way too risky for me ...
friendships will brake sooner or later anyway when going war ..

doing RAs AT ALL just arent worth it - this should be common knowledge untill now in this forum.
And definatly not without PT and Rati finsiher

this all bounces around the silly idea of attacking/killing a few civ and staying peaceful/friendly with rest. This is gameplaywise just bad and doesnt work after latest patch anyway.

I'm not looking to RAs but looking to do better trades besides 3 gpt. Gold and happiness can be problematic to manage at times and having everyone between Hostile and Neutral basically mean you don't get any help there - way too many reds with the first two relating to breaking my word (and escalating from there). My map makes it a challenge to do a fast conquest and it is going to extend into the later eras. That's a long time to go without much diplomacy or good trading.

If I don't take a city until t90 I can usually get 3 RAs with the civs I intend to attack last. That speeds up Dynamite a lot. How else do you get t150 artillery? One round of 3 RAs before t120 makes a bigger difference than rush-buying one university. IMHO it's a solid use of 600g.

If you could consistently win without artillery, then it's definitely a waste. But that's extremely map-dependent IMHO.

Yeah, that reminds me of one more point I forgot. My map is such that it's easier to go around satellite cities instead of through them to get at the next capital. But because of the snowballed effects from not managing borders and DoW, no way I can get open borders at all. So my Xbows army has been sitting there waiting for astronomy which is not on any beeline paths. I hate waiting when I had the window of opportunity but I screwed up.

Some of you may be interested: the ongoing competition in the hall of fame section of civfanatics. (Deity, Korea, Pangaea) Specifically designed to test skills in liberty domination.

Technically, there's no requirement that you open Liberty in the competition. Just FYI.

But if you don't, you can't use my sploity pillage cash scheme:

1) raze a city
2) build roads on each improvement if you don't have units with free pillage action
3) leave 1 worker on each improvement
4) leave 1 horse unit or unit with no pillage cost for every 2-3 improvements

Pillage and repair those improvements every turn. For a city with 6 improvements, this averages about 90gpt, minus road and unit maintenance. Gives about 65 net gpt per "pillage factory". Great way to heal mounted units near the front. Lots of clicking every turn though... Still, you can do this with any number of cities. Highly effective near the end of a game when you have units and workers that are too far from the remaining victims to get there in time. Buys a lot of landsknechts/artillery/zoos/etc.

Which infrastructure is most important for this kind of domination game? It looks like you'll need science buildings and maybe happiness buildings, but what about other stuff like production and gold buildings? Trade routes? Barracks and walls?

I think markets are a good idea but I only build them in cities with decent gold output. A market in a city with 1 base gold is kind of a waste of hammers, arguably, unless you have a lot of trade routes. Definitely happiness. Science, well it depends on whether you're trying to win with promoted CBs. I'm sure tommy probably doesn't bother to build universities for a CB rush. But otherwise, universities is all you'll need IMHO, unless you're doing a bomber rush, in which case you'll pick up scientific theory on the way anyway... But at that point you're so close to flight, why worry about public schools? A religion really helps IMHO... faith-purchased pagodas, happiness from shrines, whatever you can get for happiness and culture.

Production buildings are probably a waste unless you're going for a later game rush. I think they really help the most when you're doing a rush where you can't pre-build and upgrade, ie bombers. Barracks/Armories are good for building a later army. If you're waiting until artillery to attack, you might as well have them start out with 2 promotions, right?

I find that my best efforts with early domination come when I build less buildings and more units, oddly enough. ;-)

And sadly, pillage-healing is way more effective than any other form of income. So you don't really need banks or any of that... Just go liberty and pillage more. Hopefully one day they'll fix that and make running with a negative economy something exclusive to Honor, as it was intended...

AI's hatred of you going domination apparently knows no bounds. No chance of DoF nor RAs and when it comes times for the first World Congress, their first proposal was to embargo me. That passed and I was left with trading with city-states. In the next World Congress, they are proposing to ban all trading with city-states.

I am now pushing onto Polynesia and their Great Wall. Have to slog through two cities before I can get at Honolulu (then one more capital). Meanwhile, I get declared upon way behind my front lines and Byzantium is swarming their old capital and will re-capture it. Sigh. Guess I'm going have to deal with them whenever I get back to that part of the map.

How can you make the Mongol UA work? Warrior + Chariot in the ancient era? (feels like spearman and composite)? Pretend the UA doesn't exists a tradition -> keshiks?

Seems like you could do an early puppet empire of 1-2 CS, capital, expansion and build from there.

Andy06r said:

How can you make the Mongol UA work? Warrior + Chariot in the ancient era? (feels like spearman and composite)? Pretend the UA doesn't exists a tradition -> keshiks?

Seems like you could do an early puppet empire of 1-2 CS, capital, expansion and build from there.

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If I understand what you're asking, yes, you can start the conquest with Warriors and Chariot Archers. No need to wait until Keshiks. But IMHO it's best to XP and not actually capture cities, until Chivalry or Logistics, whichever comes first. With Mongolia, you might as well wait... Keshiks gain promotions insanely fast. So, whatever you can do to get Chivalry faster is probably best.

Also, I think it's better to level a few chariots rather than a lot. When a city reaches zero health, suddenly you're only getting one hit in per turn. But, if you pick the right neighbor, you can level more by switching from one city to another. When one city reaches zero health, move over a few tiles and nuke down the other city. IMHO it's better to switch back and forth like this with three chariots, rather than attack both cities at once with six, for example, because you will reach a point, even with three, where the city's out of health and you're not getting XP. But that strategy is kind of moot for Mongolia, like I said. You'll have Logistics in no time as soon as you upgrade to Keshiks.

I actually think it's better to attack civs than CS for Mongolia, because their bonus vs CS ultimately means less xp/turn.

If, rather, what you mean by using the UA is capturing CS... I don't think that's a good idea.

Moriarte said:

First build is always scout. So is the second. Scouts are invaluable, as they serve multiple purposes: scouting for good city spots, uncovering ancient ruins, meeting future trade partners, stealing workers, and, if you're lucky to get a weapon upgrade, you can either complete a city state quest, or, bring scout back for homeland defense.

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I've been doing a warrior as the first build because it can do a city-state quest without an upgrade and can survive doing the all-important early worker steal. I think it may be worth the extra 3 turns -- what do you think?

TheGrumpyBuddha said:

I've been doing a warrior as the first build because it can do a city-state quest without an upgrade and can survive doing the all-important early worker steal. I think it may be worth the extra 3 turns -- what do you think?

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three civs do warriors instead of scouts

aztec - jaguars have woodsman promotion and have forrest start bias - jaguars have comparable mobility

incans - hill start bias - their units have good mobility on hills
shoshone - their warrior/scout hybrid (pathfinder) has same mobilty over any terain as standard scouts

Otherwise the lack of mobility is a bit of a turn off .. (definite no if there is a lot of rough terrain around your capital - but maybe if there is a lot of open terrain)