Domination via Culture, No War.

Open Vanilla, 1.29f
(Wait, this isn't a GOTM write-up. Let's start over again.)

I proposed the idea of coming up with a domination victory without ever going to war, although an angry AI might declare on you(and as such you were allowed to defend yourself but not to initiate any attacks). Here's the rules I'm going to follow:

-You may build anything.
-You may NOT declare war.
-You may "border-cram" (see below).
-Combat settlers are DISALLOWED. However, you can, as mentioned, "cram" cities into territory that's been warred on by other civs.
-If at war:
--You may NOT initiate any attacks.
--You may NOT plant a settler in enemy territory.
--You may NOT advance any units into enemy territory for the purpose of drawing attacks.
--You MAY attract units to a city for the purpose of creating defensive leaders.
--You MAY sign alliances to get other civs into war.

Attempt #1 - Too easy.

Ok, a more experienced player probably could've blown this date out of the water. I should have expanded more in the beginning, and I might've even been able to accomplish this in the ancient age had I really put some effort into it. But, this was just a first test game. The conditions:

-Tiny, Pangaea
-Chieftain
-Babylon, 3 random opponents
-Sedentary barbs

Can't get much easier than that. It wasn't a very exciting game, most of the game was building settlers, workers, and culture buildings, and then defensive units when I ran out of things to build. I got all wonders but two, Sun Tzu's and the Lighthouse, but neither hurt me in the end. My random opponents ended up being Zululand, England, and Persia. Persia ended up being more of a problem because of cheap libraries. However, I ended up flipping all but 4 each of england's and the zulu's cities, and had those down to size 1 borders(even the capitals). The date was 1778 AD when I finally got domination, but as I said I could've had that much much sooner if I had built more settlers. As a test game, I didn't take many intermediate saves or any screenshots.
I kept all three civs in RoPs and later on MPPs and there were no wars whatsoever throughout the whole game.


Anyway, now that we know it's possible, time for the next attempt. I'll be starting this today and playing throughout the week. Conditions are going to be a bit less convenient:

-Warlord difficulty
-Small, Continents
-Some civ that's not Babylon - probably a scientific one. Persia's looking good with industrious workers.
-Random barbs

Also, a challenge to more experienced players: Get the best date possible with the conditions set forth in my first game - Babylon, Tiny Pangaea, Sedentary Barbs with random opponents. I bet with a good start you might be able to beat 500 BC. (Actually, if you're going to try for one THAT early, maybe an ind/exp civ would work better.) Note I'm playing with vanilla 1.29f.


EDIT1: Ok, the war rules are mostly there for playing at a higher difficulty level where you can't out-expand the AI so much. You can't flip capitals, but you can flip CAPTURED capitals. I think in a Regent/Monarch attempt you're going to need to make the AI declare on you, stack a city with elite defenders(barb-trained?) and use leaders to hop the palace around a lot, since that's a big deal in flip calculations.

One more reflection: A much looser city spacing is really to your advantage here.

i dont understand... your trying to get a cultural victory right? thats not that hard on warlord...

Domination was the goal. With no war. The only way to take cities is via flips.

Do you disable the Cultural Victory ?

It would be easier, not to risk reaching a cultural victory before the domination victory.

That's sound like a nice variant, as a player, I'm more a builder than a warmonger, I think I could achieve that in Regent difficulty...

But only if I'm allowed to sign MA against a civ that attacks me, so that I can put the other civs fighting each other. Then I could settle the ravaged land...

Babylon is of course the easier civ for that...
But maybe I'll try with the Celts, they are better at expanding in the begining (thanks to AGR), and I love that civ ! ;-)

I'm very fond of culture-flipping my opponents in my regular games...

Recently I won an AW at Monarch level as the French, on a Medium map I actually flipped 5 or 6 cities during the game (Zulu cities for most of them)... Even if I try to train my warmonger side, I can't help build up culture and flip.

Hey Xerol this is a nice challenge! I'll try it when there will be some free time. Probably i'll try with Babs or Persians... what about regent level and standard pangea map?

I think it adds an extra dimension to the challenge if you leave culture victory on. You are allowed to sign alliances, in fact I doubt it would be possible on regent+ without it. Anyway, to avoid getting 100k (I nearly reached it in my chieftain game on a TINY map) I'd say sell off improvements in interior cities, spread out a lot(i.e. REALLY loose city spacing), and raze flipped cities after you've converted the population(run it down to size 1 building workers, then let it grow to size 3 so it's a majority domestic population, then abandon it). I don't think it's possible at all on large or huge maps, just because of the number of cities you'd need with 100+ culture.

Anyway, this is a challenge that I'm putting out there. Keep in mind I don't have PTW or Conquests and I believe the way flipping works was changed in those versions, so it may be a completely different game. I started out on my Small Warlord Continents as Persia attempt last night, unfortunately I drew Babylon as my neighbor and they had a much higher food start than I had - it's 10 AD already, I still don't have them contained and the Zulu are breathing down my neck with demands every 3 turns - and I have no military because of my huge expansion. I think I'm going to start over and make sure I don't get Babylon as a neighbor(of course there's one way to guarantee that--play AS Babylon. But that makes it too easy).

nice variant. I tried it kind of before, but I was forced to attack, braking the variant

Playing as Babylon should make possible to raise the difficulty level... and be with a hard challenge anyway, since at Regent the AS is on par with the human.

Three attempts to start a small warlord continents as Persia and I've drawn Babylon as a neighbor all 3 times. I might just manually pick civs, although that'd take the fun out of it. However, even on Warlord, Babylon is somehow able to out-culture me. I've knocked 3 cities down to 3 tiles or less and still haven't flipped them after 10 turns, although I think that might have something to do with distance to capital. Some defensive wars may be necessary to create leaders for palace jumping.

Tonight I'm going to just try using Babylon again. The problem with Persia is that their cheap building is deep in the tree. I might try a religious/industrious or a religious/whatever trait starts with alphabet civ too. Cheap libraries are more efficient than cheap temples though, but they get there later. Like I said, my current attempt is Small Continents Warlord. Update tonight.

I think that a great effort should be put in provoking war, then draw some AS into the fight, then resettle the land after they razed the city (when an opponent is strong on culture, the AS is more likely to raze cities rather than capturing them).

Well, I think on Regent+, simply settling a city such that it takes workable tiles away from an AI is enough to at least piss them off a little. Do it enough and they'll declare war. Then you fortify the border with tons of defensive units, call in the AIs from the other side, and fill in the gaps. You're not allowed to DIRECTLY cause them to declare war - things like demanding tribute and the like. You can refuse tribute or attempt spy missions that may fail however. (Demanding tribute is like saying "come and get it", so at least in my book it's out of the question. Also remember you're not allowed to get cities via peace deals - the only allowable methods of getting cities are settlement and culture flips.)

Er... wait Xerol. Before we further discuss this variant, please state clear and definitive rules. It's annoying to think hard of a strategy only to read in your last post that it cannot be used. You didn't say in your first post that cities cannot be extorted during peace treaties.

I thought it was clear about getting cities - only through culture flips, and of course the cities you found yourself. Anyway, I doubt on Regent and above you'll be able to get cities out of a peace deal just by defending their attacks - remember you're not allowed to advance troops except to defend other cities of yours. Everything else is as set forth in the first post.

Here's a question, if one of your cities is captured through military means, are you allowed to attack to get it back?

Just to be clear: Even if the enemy is on your land - you cannot attack them - yes? Does this apply to bombardment as well?

Yep, you can't initiate any attacks of any kind. Anyway, if you're playing it right, you shouldn't have to worry about the AI holding onto that city for very long - you'd be building enough culture to flip it back easily.

Are propaganda missions allowed? The effect is the same of a flip... only it's provoked.