Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
So, I recently wrapped up a Domination game as the Kuriotates (Domination the victory condition, not domination the spell). First time I've really managed it, and of course, I noticed a lot of things I could have done better.
Game ended around turn 330 (Standard), so a pretty slow win. Only totalled 110k victory points (Though considering you don't get hardly any from population, I've grown to expect this from Carditha). This was on Emperor Difficulty, and did not have "No AI BUilding Requirements" checked, meaning this was about the easiest settings I've played in a long time.
That said, there were definitely more routes to victory than I was expecting for the Kurios. Primarily in two areas:
1) High tech mounted units
2) The Nexus.
The first area is doable because the kurios can get a very VERY strong tech game going by around turn 150ish, when your towns start turning into enclaves, and your cities get a second spurt of growth and economy. This push lets you get the fairly expensive horse techs so that you can get some decent centaurs. Also, I'm thinking that if you get a handful of centaurs out earlyish (Early enough to farm barbs for a while) then you will often upgrade them to centaur guards and already have good experience. Enough to start conquering people.
The second area, is the Nexus. As your conquer more and more, the distance between your three little cities and where you need additional troops is going to get further and further, and you never catch up due to newly conquered cities being able to defend themselves. However, with the Nexus you can build units in your three bigs, and then send them to wherever they are needed the most. While three normal obsidian gates would work, the nexus lets all three of your cities transport to the same target location.
Lastly I think good mention to Mercantilism/guilds is in order. Between these two techs you get the Liberty and Guilds civics, which allow you to have two of any type of specialist in your newly conquered cities. That can be 2 Bards, producing enough culture to compete with nearby enemies. Or more realistically two Sages or Merchants, to actually make each settlement a good investement.
The final thoughts on all this, is that the kurios are by far the latest game civ out there. Because they can't reasonably conquer the world at all early, (Their unit power compared to hammer cost needs to be very high) then an early game for them MUST focus as strongly as possible on teching down one of these 'strong' routes to victory. Playing the diplomacy card is likely also important, since you need to be able to attack on your own terms, not someone elses.
Also, remember that growth is very much more exponential for the Kurios than other civs, so each of your cities needs a LOT of food. Grow as big as you can, and THEN start working the cottages, while this will slow the turn before the first enclave, it will shorten the average time to turn towns to enclaves by quite a bit. I actually think this is the area I need to remember to focus on in the future, because I always seem to have one city that just didn't get the 'growth' memo, and is size 12 while the others are size 22.
Game ended around turn 330 (Standard), so a pretty slow win. Only totalled 110k victory points (Though considering you don't get hardly any from population, I've grown to expect this from Carditha). This was on Emperor Difficulty, and did not have "No AI BUilding Requirements" checked, meaning this was about the easiest settings I've played in a long time.
That said, there were definitely more routes to victory than I was expecting for the Kurios. Primarily in two areas:
1) High tech mounted units
2) The Nexus.
The first area is doable because the kurios can get a very VERY strong tech game going by around turn 150ish, when your towns start turning into enclaves, and your cities get a second spurt of growth and economy. This push lets you get the fairly expensive horse techs so that you can get some decent centaurs. Also, I'm thinking that if you get a handful of centaurs out earlyish (Early enough to farm barbs for a while) then you will often upgrade them to centaur guards and already have good experience. Enough to start conquering people.
The second area, is the Nexus. As your conquer more and more, the distance between your three little cities and where you need additional troops is going to get further and further, and you never catch up due to newly conquered cities being able to defend themselves. However, with the Nexus you can build units in your three bigs, and then send them to wherever they are needed the most. While three normal obsidian gates would work, the nexus lets all three of your cities transport to the same target location.
Lastly I think good mention to Mercantilism/guilds is in order. Between these two techs you get the Liberty and Guilds civics, which allow you to have two of any type of specialist in your newly conquered cities. That can be 2 Bards, producing enough culture to compete with nearby enemies. Or more realistically two Sages or Merchants, to actually make each settlement a good investement.
The final thoughts on all this, is that the kurios are by far the latest game civ out there. Because they can't reasonably conquer the world at all early, (Their unit power compared to hammer cost needs to be very high) then an early game for them MUST focus as strongly as possible on teching down one of these 'strong' routes to victory. Playing the diplomacy card is likely also important, since you need to be able to attack on your own terms, not someone elses.
Also, remember that growth is very much more exponential for the Kurios than other civs, so each of your cities needs a LOT of food. Grow as big as you can, and THEN start working the cottages, while this will slow the turn before the first enclave, it will shorten the average time to turn towns to enclaves by quite a bit. I actually think this is the area I need to remember to focus on in the future, because I always seem to have one city that just didn't get the 'growth' memo, and is size 12 while the others are size 22.
