Passive-Agressive Only defence Domination

Many of my SG coming to the end. I want to explore a bit different aspect of the game. I want to explore mostly diplomacy and culture.

So settings:
Warlords
Civ- to be decided
dificulty- to be decided
Map - Pangea, normal size.
Speed - standard
All other settings are standard.

Variant
1) We must win by domination.
2) All Victory conditions are enabled.
3) We are not permitted to capture any other civ cities(no capture, no raise by military means). In war we only permitted to defend our cities and we can pillage as mach as we want. We can even attack and kill defenders, so long as we do not capture the city. We are permitted to capture barbarians cities.

I see it as potentially fun variant and I think it is posible. Question is, on up to which dificulty level?

For me it is attractive as I can emagin a lot of tacktics never useally used in normal civ game which could be use to achive this.
I think It could really open people emagination and we start to use some of posibilities that there in normal games.

Did you test this concept?
I don't know if this is possible without permanent alliances.

Are you allowed to culture-flip cities? If so, has been proved many times to be doable, if not I've no idea how you'd win this.

Yes, you can culture flip cities and note, it is not allways peace game.
Culture domination on small pangea map allways peace was done befor. If you can wadge war and Warlords add additional options making it posible on any map I think. Even probably on archiperago, continents, fractial. I may even change map to continents, on pangea it is just garanty I think. On continent could be posible if you start on big enogth continent. (And I do not mean 60% of land continent).
I did not play test it, but I emagin a lot of different ways to achieve that.
I think it is very posible, but demand to think outside the box.

Ways:

I). Vasals. If I figure out vasal system properly you do not need to take any of there cities in order to get them to capitulate to you. What you need is:
1). Have more then 2 times land and population then them.
2). Be vastly more powerfull.
3). Posible did not damage relationships too mach yet.

II). Filling after others. Incite the war in which one of civ will win. Move your settlers in and fill up the land. Build as mach culture as posible, so when other civs cities come out of revolt they allreay do not have mach ties to work with. Culture flip them. If you incite war in which oponents relativelly far away they more lickly to raise cities, leaving you land to build on.

If you think about, you will see that it is not actially that hurd, depend on dificulty level.

I don't know the vassal system that well, but letting the AIs razing or capturing cities is a good point.

Mutineer said:

...depend on dificulty level.

Click to expand...

How low do you want to go?

I'd like to try this out, but I'm pretty new to this game. So I think the hardest difficulty I could possibly play on right now is noble.

yeah, i was just reading sulla's peaceful hatty game, he culture flipped a capital

ps no this is not a sign up

This Variant sounds very interesting. I think the difficulty level should not be that high as this could reduce the number of possible strategies which can be employed.

As for strategy, i assume it would be best to grab as much unsettled land in the beginning as possible. So specialist economy will help with this as early high upkeep wouldnt kill research.
Another idea was presented by Snaaty not long ago: he used his capital to block enemy civs early on. Basically you use 4-5 or more turns moving your initial settler. This strategy even works on higher difficulty levels.
I personally would like to see if a extreme REX-Specialist-strategy is feasible as the Blocking technique is already proven to work. Even a combination of the two strategies is possbile or even requird, depending on difficulty.

Is everything is settled there are only two ways to aquire new land.
-Culture flipping
-Settling on razed cities

For flipping, culture or artists are needed. The other approach requires military strength. Either way starting wars between the AIs is key i think. So bribing material is needed. Different religions between AIs would help also. Spiritual trait seems very appealing in this context. (switch religions/civics often to make friends)

The biggest problem is see is with the vassal concept. I imagine the wars to be long and drawn out as the player has to wait for the friendly AI stacks to actually attack enemy cities. This means that the chance that the enemy AI will become the vassal to another AI is very high! To counter this the player would have to vassalize the enemy AI before it becomes the vassal to another AI. This in the other hand would lead to uncontrollabe AI-behavior (see the last acid_final_frontier succession game)

Well, who sad you need to wait long? Apply imagination.
Gifting attacker stack of units, even absolute as near to fron line a posible is one way to speed up the war.
If you do not mind to declare yourself you can clean up mach defenders even befor AI stack arrive.

Vassal behaviour is mach more usefull and predictable then people claim. Mostly people get close there mind after the most evident uses did not work.

I actially think stratedy of obtaining vassal true military pressure and using vassals to get other vassals is the most interesting posibility.

Yeah this might work. I think so especially after i read a interesting thread about vassals in the strategy forum.

I believe the same way you can make a suggestion to non-vassal allies in a war...go to the diplomacy screen, select "Let's talk about something else" and an option to the effect of "direct your attacks on this city" will appear, as long as you're both at war with the same enemy.

Click to expand...

Does this work? Can anybody confirm this?

Mutineer said:

I actially think stratedy of obtaining vassal true military pressure and using vassals to get other vassals is the most interesting posibility.

Click to expand...

The challenge would be to start this domino effect. Is it possible to vassalize the AI just by killing its units and land improvments? How does the AI really decides when it will vassalize itself?

So far only 2 people expres interest. It do not seems to be enogth.
I thin It is doable on prince, but I play on immortal/deity levels.

@ Mutineer do you think it is possible above prince?

I am resonably sure that with the rigth team I can do it may be up to emperor, definatly on monarch.
Main problem is to get big enogth size of land so one can get vassal. Any vassal will do, but we need to be big engoth for someone to surrender to as.
In addition, then I say it is doable on emperor, I assume that all tacktics and mechanism allready worked out. For first try I probably would not go higher then Monarch.

Mutineer said:

...but we need to be big engoth for someone to surrender to as.

Click to expand...

I've serious doubts if an AI will surrender if you've never captured
one of their cities. As long as they don't surrender to the human player,
you'll risk they will surrender to one of your allies.
So, show me if an AI will surrender without capturing one of their cities.

OK, I just played part of the game to the point when AI capitulate with me never taking any of his cities.
Fact that I played this game allready drop my interest in varian because I know how it could be done and what are pitofalls.

I roll normal pangea map, Warlords, Catherina (creating and imperial sound good, creating for culture choke, imperial for initial settler spamm)

My neybor was franch and Shaka.
I decided to choke French. Napoleon got settler about the same time I did, forces me to position my city in such way to take as mach space as posible.

Here Napoleon Settles:


After that he found his second city in tundra near sea resource.
Found hinduism in second city, declare on Napoleon and steal worker, found thurd city. Here my culture expancion block Napoleon:


This war continue untill his capitulation, no peace
Then I found Monotheism in my thurd city.
More pressure on poor Franch.


The I expand toward Shalka, putting cultural pressure on him and becoming his worst enamy.
He declared on me and war continue seens them, like for ever. He is my next planed vassal.

Eventially I build a huge stack of cats, even Napoleon managed to research pheodalism.

Here I move stack next to capital and kill allmost all defenders.
here capitulation screen:

Here position at the moment of capitulation. I never took any of his cities:



And here is a save at the point of capitulation:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/84898/Alex_AD-1400.CivWarlordsSave

So, yes, one does not need to take a single opponent city.
The only think that needed is:

You need to sutisfy vassalage conditions:
1) Have more then 2 times of population and land.
2) Know proper tech
3) Bee mach more powerfull.
4) Be persived to be winning war(kill more power then lost).

That is all what needed to get capitulated vassal.

I am actially surprised by such little interest.
I believe variant is very original and let one to explore AI, how it react in order to use one's vassal to fullest in future games.

I would think it is stright in line of RB people.

Was this a sample game or do you intend to continue from this point?

well, it was sample. I did not get team up.