A few thoughts on BtS

[Cookie Crumbs]

I just won Domination with Darius on a Huge Big+Small map, Prince difficulty, conquering the continent I was on and REXing, cottage-spamming everything. After making contact with the other civilisations I realised how slow the AI tech pace is - I was more or less on even footing tech-wise, and this is considering there were 7 civs on one continent. The initial plan was to go for Industrialism, build a fleet of battleships as a deterrent and tech peacefully for a space race victory, until I realised that every 15 or so turns the Apostolic Palace kept cutting all trade with me, which was extremely annoying.

Anyway, in revenge I set my sights on world domination, exacting my revenge on the main continent. Teched to Tanks/Modern Armour, built a fleet of Transports and cracked some heads. Modern warfare is much improved in BtS, since now you can't just spam Tanks and kill everything - Anti-Tank units are actually really good at stopping this. I was surprised to see Gilgamesh, Kublai Khan and Qin Shi Huang all capitulate within 5 turns (Gilgamesh cap'd in 3), but I don't know whether this was down to leader personality or the fact my power rating was twice that of my rival.

By the time I got to the domination limit I was running deficit at 40% culture. This was under State Property, Free Speech, Free Religion, Representation and Emancipation, with a Financial AND Organised leader! Then I checked the cities I conquered, and some of them had 100 gold maintenance, mostly down to colonial expenses. Inflation was something like 1900. Somehow I think the colonial expenses are a little too powerful and need to be toned down, because I was *just* mananging to keep my cities happy using the culture slider because of WW, and I even had Mt Rushmore+jails.

At the very least 100% of your vassals' land+population should count towards the domination limit, because since it's only 50% I was prevented from making my overseas empire a colony to reduce costs.

 

[gettingfat]

...until I realised that every 15 or so turns the Apostolic Palace kept cutting all trade with me, which was extremely annoying.

This is indeed very annoying. In some games I tried to play peacefully, trade with most people, go for free-trade and test the corporate feature, but these religious frexk kept bugging me. It forced me to play aggressive instead to get more resources for my cities to survive, and when my land got big I finally had to use state economy.... again!!

 

[50_dollar_bag]

I remember reading somewhere that nothing reduces colonial maintenance e.g. courthouses/Forbidden Palace/Versailles. not sure about the Organized trait though. Had you thought about releasing your conquered land as a vassal state?
I've never done that myself so I'm not even sure how to do it.

 

[Zetetic Apparat]

I've seen much quicker capitulation in BtS. At Noble, just threatening the capital sufficiently convincingly, or taking a minor city can force Civs to capitulate; presumably it's also related to our general Power difference.

 

[Evil Twin]

I've come to regard the Apostolic Palace as a goddamn nuisance.
Next game I think I'll march off and raze the city that builds it.