Domination/Emperor/Denmark

[Civologist]

I'm trying to win a domination game on Emperor with Denmark. My typical build order is
scout->monument->warriors->GL->Oracle->production buildings/warriors until beserkers researched

I finish the liberty tree and grab a GS to bulb beserkers. Its your typical chivalry rush adjusted to get beserkers around turn 85-95. I build my second city on Iron and typically build a monument there to speed up finishing the liberty tree but I'm not sure that is necessary if I'm getting Oracle. I also tend to build a library there to prep for NC but I'm thinking it may be better to build more warriors and a couple Settlers to build cities 3-4 in gold locations since I'm finding that I sometimes don't have enough gold to upgrade my warriors. I typically have to tech fishing since I'm starting on a coast so I build a Trieme in there sometimes to find all the city states and sign more open borders.

Any advice? Problems I run into are not enough hammers and not enough gold so I'm not running around with 5 beserkers at turn 90 like a want to.

 

[snarzberry]

You might want to forget about the oracle and either ally a cultural citystate or slap up a temple or two. That will free up a lot hammers to build warriors and you can still bulb Steel in the 80's.

If you want to go straight to beserkers and not go to war with swords beforehand then I'd stick to a 2 city approach and aim to have a minimum 6 beserkers supported by a few archers when you bulb Steel around T85.

The fishing luxes are a pain with Denmark, slows you up a bit, but if you get them all harvested before turn 50 then you're okay as you'll be able to sell them again before you upgrade to beserkers. Just focus on getting the first round of sales done by T55 at the latest.

 

[Civologist]

I typically play on continents plus map type which makes it difficult to find a cultural city state but I like it because you can't worker steal early on and it makes interesting maps (not as many inland seas). I agree the fishing boats by turn 50 is going to be crucial I'll have to focus on that a little more.

I would like to get a 3rd or 4th city out there but that delays liberty finisher too much so I'll have to time it right or rely on Oracle still.

 

[snarzberry]

Building a temple in the capital and running an artist until you finish liberty is the other way to do it, but if you're playing on a level where the oracle is always available then yeah why not build it.

Doesn't seem like there should be a problem getting 6 warriors build by that late... what kind of general build order do you have in the capital before starting on the oracle? what do you build in the second city?

 

[Civologist]

It wasn't that I didn't have 6 warriors I just didn't have the gold to upgrade them, the starting location wasn't the best, no rivers and only 1 surplus lux.

Oracle typically isn't prioritized by the AI and if your building GL and bulbing Iron working or Philosophy (whichever one I don't hard research I bulb the other) you can typically build it before the AI

 

[The Pilgrim]

When do you settle your second city? If you build warriors first, GL second and only then settle on iron, it's pretty obvious why second city cannot catch up and you're running into cash problems. Coastal starts are slow. So maybe you should try and experiment with delaying hooking up sea resources and go for AH instead. Selling horses is just as good as selling luxes while you aren't forced to spend money on boats. I would also consider giving up GL in favor of hard building them. Even though you save few turns of research, sounds like you loose more turns on inability to upgrade.
Another option is to expand quickly to several cities and grab as much land based luxes as you can. It might not be optimal for domination happiness wise but it will give you stronger economy and high population will make up for delaying NC.
That being said, in all LP's I've watched Denmark was doing pretty bad. There must be a reason for that...

 

[RedRover57]

You could try ignoring science (i.e., ignore Writing and libraries) and beeline IW while settling 3 more cities ASAP (ideally, one or more of these on/near iron). Then just crank out units and start conquering when you have swords/archers/catapults (in some situations you may even be able to start the rush with just warriors/archers). Upgrade swords to LS after bulbing Steel with your free Liberty GS and keep going. It's possible to ignore the top half of the tech tree (except for the lux improvement techs) for quite a while as your science rate won't be too bad due to population. Gold should also not be an issue since you can acquire luxes/cities to sell from conquest, and often get very favorable peace deals. Happiness is usually the main limiting factor, and will need to be managed wisely by controling your city sizes, razing/selling unimportant captured cities, policy choice, happiness building production, etc. Check out any videos/threads by Tabarnak to see how this strategy is done optimally.

 

[Civologist]

Played a new game last night with Denmark, Slightly better start had a bonus lux to sell and they weren't fishing luxes. Built my second city faster to get a 3rd & 4th lux but it infringed on Hiwatha's territory (good choke point). Built the 3rd city to grab lots of iron. Iriqoius attacked early but I had Swords at the chokepoints. Built GL and Oracle still and had Beserkers by 90. Probably not the best strategy but it can work and set up lots of late game GS's while still warmongering with longswords and then Riflemen

 

[smallfish]

When do you settle your second city? If you build warriors first, GL second and only then settle on iron, it's pretty obvious why second city cannot catch up and you're running into cash problems. Coastal starts are slow. So maybe you should try and experiment with delaying hooking up sea resources and go for AH instead. Selling horses is just as good as selling luxes while you aren't forced to spend money on boats. I would also consider giving up GL in favor of hard building them. Even though you save few turns of research, sounds like you loose more turns on inability to upgrade.
Another option is to expand quickly to several cities and grab as much land based luxes as you can. It might not be optimal for domination happiness wise but it will give you stronger economy and high population will make up for delaying NC.
That being said, in all LP's I've watched Denmark was doing pretty bad. There must be a reason for that...

Ok, he lost his capital to the Babylonians in one game as Songhai, but Harald managed to complete Manhattan Project afterwards and had a decent amount of uranium in his surviving territories. It had also puppeted the hell out of Russia earlier.

There was good chance that he could have retaken Copenhagen had the game gone long enough, even if Neb had nukes of his own too.