Best traits to win a domination victory?

[paplan]

After playing a few games, I'm thinking its maybe creative and spiritual.

I know, maybe a bit counterintuitive given that you're going to be in lots of wars.

But the creative helps you quickly expand territory in cities you've conquered.

And the spiritual helps you quickly change govts from war to peace settings.

Also, spiritual helps your get temples quickly, which leads to the seocnd order temples, which give you a 50% gain in culture, allowing faster teritory gains.

Anyone agree with this, or am I totally out to lunch?

 

[DrMayhem]

I would now say that you are completely out to lunch. I in particular like creative very much. I liked it even before the cheap library, theatre, and collesseum.

I however do also think that aggressive or charismatic are better than spiritual for this.

 

[Grimz101]

charasmatic and philo are sweet traits if your an experienced player, food economies making more gp, and charasmatic can be a huge huge happiness bonus early game if you build stonehenge, and its good for units 8xp for level 3!
but the leader with those traits is abe.. and well he is American and his unique building and unit wont see 95% of games

 

[RockTheCazbah87]

^

Unless you play as Abe Caesar. Praets combined with his traits would make a beast of a war machine.

But if you'd like to go by the book and not use Unrestricted Leaders, Julius isn't bad for domination with his Organized trait to cut down on maintenance.

 

[Bast]

Well Hatshepsut is creative and spiritual and she is awesome for domination. It all starts with the war chariots. But the UB is not so great for domination victory unless if you want to run priest specialists with Representation or something.

Anyway, spiritual is ideal for domination because you could be switching from war to peace and switching from army building to building building.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Aggressive is a decent war mongering trait, but I fully believe that in domination vic games, you will want an infrastructure trait as your primary (ie organized, creative, or financial). I'd take charismatic over aggressive in combination with one of the above stated traits. Augustus in Warlords was unbelievable for domination (creative / organized with praetorians).

I feel like the aggressive trait is really more powerful in the early game where you only get 1 promotion at time of unit build. That 1 promo can be shock, combat II, or medic which is great. Not to mention cheap barracks early on is awesome. But the later in the game, the less this trait is effective.

 

[SlipperyJim]

Charismatic / Organized
- or -
Aggressive / Organized

Yes, Aggressive gets less powerful as the game progresses, but that early benefit can be huge. If you can carve out a good empire by taking an enemy capital (or two!) early in the game, Domination will become a sure thing....

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Charismatic / Organized
- or -
Aggressive / Organized

Yes, Aggressive gets less powerful as the game progresses, but that early benefit can be huge. If you can carve out a good empire by taking an enemy capital (or two!) early in the game, Domination will become a sure thing....

Domination is definitely not a sure thing after taking out 1 or 2 civs in early game. It ensures a strong positioning throughout the game, but unless 3 - 4 civs (large - huge maps) are gone by the end of the medieval era, you're not posturing for definite domination vic anytime before the late modern age. This also depends on the level you play at. Even at only Noble, I find that by the end of the industrial age, unless you've eradicated the world of the most powerful and aggressive leaders, you've got some huge stacks to deal with.

I feel that the early wars are impossible to win domination without, but 2 early wars surely does not guarantee a domination vic.

 

[Maddin]

Well I think I'll go with Yaqob's traits:

Creative let's you spread the borders pretty quickly after taking over, whereas organized can really save you some money in a gigantic empire required for domination victory.

To spiritual: If done right, you don't need to change back to peace settings - ever. You kick 'em off one by one, no pause.

 

[Silver Marmot]

I prefer organized and either aggressive or charismatic. Basically, the biggest obstacle that I've encountered when going for domination victories is money, and organized really helps with this by enabling you to quickly build courthouses in all the new, far away cities you conquer, drastically reducing maintenence costs, and the savings on civics is always nice too.

Aggressive and charismatic make wars easier, which is always useful.

 

[BYC]

I would definitely use an Organized leader and probably Charismatic.

Napoleon is that combo, and I think he's actually very well suited for it as well. The starting techs allows you to build the worker first and pretty much assuring you'll have SOMETHING to do with it. Musketeer isn't great, but you plan for it properly, it's extremely solid. I like the salon for non-warmongering games, but there's nothing wrong with it and gives a good boost to research, culture, and GPPs.

Domination and conquest both rely a lot on steamrolling your opponent or building nothing but courthouse, barracks, and maybe a granary for each city, and relying on your empire size for economy and science.

 

[phungus420]

I've found Brenus's Cha/Spi trait combo to be utterly awesome for warmongering. Too bad his UB and UU are not very synergistic for it.

Also had good luck with Hannibal's, and the Inca's leader (pre BTS, and can't remember his name for some reason) warmongering prowess. I have yet to try Boudica, but I'm sure she's awesome as well. Overall I'd say Cha is the most useful trait for warmongering. The second best would be hard to say. Agg is great in the early game, but becomes less helpful late game (as noted), financial is always helpful, and spiritual is great to flip in and out of civics so you can build up XPed armies, and then consolide your gains.

 

[Loki cdn]

I am finding that Ethiopia's Org/Cre combo is great for domination. When you add the UB you can create a ton of cultural pressure. Makes conquest easier when you can pick off border cities by parking outside their walls.

 

[Figaro]

I agree about Creative, but I'd definately want a warmongering trait - either Charismatic or Aggressive - to go with them. Domination is more about War than culture, but the Creative can knock several turns off your victory.

I've managed to get a Domination Victory in 1200BC with Catherine - Creative/Imperialistic is the best combo for taking territory at the beginning of the game.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I don't like reaching the end of the game anytime before the modern age. I realize that the score is higher, but it almost seems like I'm robbing myself of most of the game play if I don't allow myself to get through the industrial era. Also, isn't it a little easier to steam roll the AI early on so that it has the minimum amount of troops? After all, if you wait until the industrial era, the AI tends to have ridiculously large stacks and sometimes huge defense stacks in all cities. This adds to the difficulty of the game which I rather enjoy.

Also, @Figaro: what kind of map was that?

 

[Figaro]

Duel, Arboria

Just to see how early I could do it. I don't consider it a massive achievement... just using the example to illustrate that Cathy is a good leader for taking ground as quickly as possible.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Cathy's great for claiming land early. She is the powerhouse in my current Earth 18 game.

 

[Spearthrower]

I've had a couple of games where expansive would have won it for me - I had enough territory, but not enough populace for quite some time!!

I couldn't even take any more easily as all my landmass were vassals, and the other landmass was all highly militarised and powerful!

 

[Indiansmoke]

Cathy's great for claiming land early. She is the powerhouse in my current Earth 18 game.

I agree cathy is an early monster with quick settlers and creative.

 

[hoopsnerd]

Duel, Arboria

Just to see how early I could do it. I don't consider it a massive achievement... just using the example to illustrate that Cathy is a good leader for taking ground as quickly as possible.

Persia is nice for that too... I finished a Diety Duel map last night in the mid-BCs also. Go Immortals.