May as well do the write up for Mongolia using Skepticon's border blobs strategy:
Civ: Mongolia
Preferred Victory: Domination
See Skepticon's border blobs strategy (
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=565652) which I will outline here specifically for Mongolia.
The basic idea is to stack border expansion multipliers with border expansion instant yields to create a powerhouse of land grabbing bonuses. The border expansion multipliers are as follows:
God of the Expanse (Pantheon) = +25% faster border growth
Ger (Mongolian UB) = 25% reduces tile acquisition culture/gold cost
Sovereignty (Tradition) = 20% reduced tile acquisition culture cost
Divine Right (Piety) = Border growth doubled during WLtKD or Golden Ages
Ankgor Wat (World Wonder) = 25% reduced tile acquisition culture/gold cost
The border expansion instant yields are:
God of the Expanse (Pantheon) = Gain faith upon border expansion (scales)
Tribute (Authority) = Gain gold/food upon border expansion (scales)
Lebensraum (Autocracy) = Gain culture and golden age points upon border expansion
Essentially, you put yourself into a position where you are gaining huge amounts of food, gold, faith, and culture every time any of your cities expand their borders. And those border expansions are going to be happening very frequently because of all the reduced costs and the fact that we are going to be collecting quite a few cities on our way to a domination victory.
Early game: Get a religion, Ankgor Wat, and a few cities
I opened scout/monument/shrine but any variation should be fine as long as the shrine is one of your first 3 things to produce. In all my attempts at refining this strategy on Immortal difficulty I never failed to get the God of the Expanse pantheon.
I found the optimal policy choices to be Tradition->Sovereignty followed by Authority->Tribute->Imperium. You get early Culture from tradition along with faith and an artist slot from Sovereignty (work the artist slot, you need the culture!) and you get your border bonuses going from Authority's Tribute. You can also utilize Authority's barbarian bonuses for some extra ticks of culture if you are able to hunt down the camps fast enough. Last, Imperium gives you a free settler and some bonuses to founding/conquering cities.
Early tech choices are largely based on what tiles you are likely to have, but unlocking the Ger early is typically a good idea. I found that in order to get the Angkor Wat wonder I had to only research it's prerequisite techs, as otherwise I would be beaten to it by an AI. So that means we will be focusing largely on the bottom portion of the tech tree in the early game in whatever order makes the most sense. In the games where I didn't beeline Commerce I was always beaten to Ankgor Wat. Try to prioritize science bonus buildings (council and barracks) along the way since we won't be getting writing/libraries early (at least not if you're playing Immortal). On lower difficulties you might be able to get away with going Writing and then Commerce in your tech path and still grab Angkor Wat.
We also need to make sure we end up with enough policy unlocks by the time we research Commerce (the tech for Angkor Wat), hence why early monuments are key and why we work our artist slot from Sovereignty.
For city settling, aim to build 2 settlers in this time period so that along with the free settler from Imperium you have a 4 city opening. Settle cities such that you can achieve a local monopoly on a luxury, gain strategic resources like horses and iron, and hopefully be near some of the special tiles that benefit from the Ger (Deer, Wheat, Bison, etc).
Last, our religion should largely take care of itself. The +2 faith from sovereignty, instant yields from the God of the Expanse pantheon, and a shrine in your capital should get you to a religion. I believe I got a religion in every attempt with this strategy even if I didn't prioritize shrines in cities 2-4. I especially recommend picking up Inspiration as your follower belief (+1 culture / 2 followers in a city) to aid in border growth.
Mid Game: Recover and consolidate/prepare
Beelining Commerce for Angkor Wat will likely have the consequence of making you feel a bit behind. Take some time to recover. Get to Writing and get your libraries up. Do some infrastructure recovery like making city connections with roads. Spread your religion to all of your cities.
Make a modest military (focus on ranged mounted units to take advantage of the Mongol UA) but don't necessarily pick a fight with an AI since at this point they probably aren't easy pickings (yet). An easier fight would be whichever CSs are nearby. Take your modest army and march it to their doorstep. If you are able to forcefully annex them via heavy tribute, do so. If not, declare war and kill all of their units and then make peace and attempt to forcefully annex again (or maybe just do this from the start, since killing their units gives you bonuses via Authority anyway...). If you still can't forcefully annex then just DoW again and whittle their city down and take it. Repeat this process for every nearby CS and puppet them all. Spread your religion to them ASAP.
At some point you will want to save up in order to enhance your religion. Take Zealotry as your enhancer belief (can buy land units with faith).
For policies, finish off Authority and then open Piety. Take Organized Religion (reduced faith purchases) and Divine Right (double border growth during WLtKD or Golden Ages) from Piety. Work some merchant specialist slots to pop WLtKDs and Artists for Golden Ages.
For techs, prioritize military unit upgrades. Go for Cannons and Cuirassiers.
At this point you should be out of nearby CSs to bully and puppet. Your borders should be starting to pop such that you get border growth notifications from at least one city in your empire almost every turn, and sometimes more than one. You might be sitting at -50 gold per turn like I was, but it doesn't matter when your instant bonuses from border growth dwarf that. Use that gold to upgrade your military as new techs unlock. Your faith generation should be massive from God of the Expanse. Rush-buy military units with faith as much as possible and get your military ready.
End Game: Conquer the world
Pick your first victim and DoW. Take every city and puppet or annex them all. Even weak cities will still benefit you via border growth. Pick your next victim and repeat. As your army marches, detour to move near CSs and conquer them without a fight- your huge army should be enough to intimidate them into allowing heavy tribute. Take over your continent and puppet/annex everything. Use inquisitors and missionaries to spread your religion to make sure the new cities are giving you faith via God of the Expanse so that we can get back to rush buying more military with faith. Be sure to address happiness concerns by producing buildings to relieve whichever source of unhappiness is hurting most.
Open Imperialism and eventually Autocracy. Grab Lebensraum first for culture when expanding borders. The more cities you take the more out of control your instant gold/faith/culture yields will be from border growth. Embark your massive army and send it overseas. Grab CS puppets along the way, and grab a CS puppet on the other continent to use a staging ground for disembarking and organizing your military formation. Pick a new victim, DoW, conquer, rinse/repeat. Annex useful cities on the new continent in order to rush buy more military with faith.
Don't stop until you've conquered it all!
