Conquest Expansion

[Civman33]

Conquest Expansion is a challenge where the player may build only their capitol, but expand by conquest. The rules are simular to OCC exept,

1. The only way to expand is to conquer enemy cities, no second or more cities can be built.

2. It is not an AW game, but can be won by any victory type.

3. Pangaea maps only. Its too risky to try to move your settler to a coast.



I play it occasionally. Usually, you will go for a Diplomatic Victory, but I go for Conquest for a real challenge as it is tough already.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I bet this is pretty easy until monarch + .

 

[Civman33]

Then go try it!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Then go try it!

I beat earth 18 civs this way as isabella.........

Just warrior rush someone, hope for a strategic resource in one of the two cities, otherwise you're spamming a lot of archers and catapults until you get one.

Why not though. I could use a break from hard maps after spamming immortal games this week.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The start:

Settings:

"Settle" first city:

Build is a complex warrior x5.

I go for 2 early cities:

And fail.

Lost a 70% battle that would have given me 2 capitols. I move on.

Protective archers with cover can beat prince archers. Proof:

I use library scientists to get alphabet, keeping the slider low for gold until after I have them. I get alpha and trade for IW and AH, I have both iron and horse (no copper earlier)...although only iron in Kyoto. Bit of tech n trade after running the slider low until I can put an academy in Utica (flood plain cottage city).

Once I get HBR I spam out some HA's. I note that there's only two sources of metal in all of the ottoman empire. They're close, too.

I declare on that turn, shave some cities, and end it after this pic:

Sully decides he's an idiot:

So I decide I should take more cities since he can't even make spears.

And I end the war after a short time again:

Note that my HE capitol can make about 2 HA's every 3 turns, and after my GG medic I've settled guys there. It will be spamming a lot of powered troops by itself.

One more time:

Also note that because sully is a dirty heathen, nobody cares that I'm doing this to him. For a while darius even liked it.

HE city in 1285:

Polish him off

I actually micro'd workers this time. I used groups of 3. I put workshops and farms in conquests, quickly converting their production power with caste/guilds into scary cities. A couple GAs and multiplier building spam to get oxford and whatnot I even had a good beaker rate despite losing lib and cicumnavigation. I wanted hammers, not egghead tech.

I got to rifling first by a bit, and that's bad news for the remaining AIs (numbers just before declaring):

And massed cavalry win the day.

Note that I didn't care in this one, because I was going to win dom anyway. However, taking gandhi as a vassal prevents darius from being a vassal. Wait, what? Well, let's have a look at the final power:

Darius' power was greater than the average power of all civs thanks to Gandhi. After winning and getting my domination, I decided to experiment to prove it (even though I knew it was 100% true, since DanF said it).

I deleted gandhi with the world builder, and presto, Darius was no longer "fine on his own". He'd capitulate.

So basically, the way the game works is that by being slightly weaker, they'll capitulate due to this highly flawed mechanic. Clearly, Gandhi shouldn't be considered when determining average power. If a power is weighing its position, it really shouldn't consider the power of a bent-over useless throwaway who belongs to another empire already as a reasonable gauge of its own power. But it does. Keep this in mind ----> eliminate weak civs if you want anyone of consequence to vassal...at least until someone fixes this stupidity.