DoC Domination Challenge

[Jusos2108]

Glad to be helpful, although most of my strategies I compiled from the first dominators like Blizzrd and AP, etc.

Anyways, earlier dominations are definetly possible with the classical civs, for example in regular RFC I did Greece in 1260 (check here), but that strategy isn't valid for DoC, because the castes don't work the same way, but I can think of a few alternative strategies that lead to the same result, i.e. Great Prophets acting like culture bombers.

 

[jammerculture]

Hey guys.

I've come back to cic after a long hiatus and figured I should give this whole domination thing a try., I've always been a UHV player but have always loved the epic AAR's that have come from domination and conquest wins (SOI's byzantine conquer the world thread FTW!). I plan on reading through this thread, but in the meantime, could you guys give me some tips for a casual civ player to get his first domination win? I have noticed that much of the strategies in this thread are stock, and that the civ specific stuff is just about getting into a dominant position for the point where the games become the same (settling America, vassalizing Russia etc).

So what I am really looking for is the essence of a donination win, and the strategies needed to acheive this. My first attempts have been failures. I can't seem to get vassals. I can't keep stable while trying to mimic some of the feats I have seen in this and other threads.

I don't have a ton of time to play civ any more, and the time I do have will be diminishing. My civ playing days are dwindling and I want to go out with a bang.

 

[mykeedee]

For your first Domination I'd recommend playing as England,France, or Russia (Prussia if you can get a good start and handle the wait) Beeline Medicine and Radio and follow a settling pattern in the Americas similar to the ones shown in this thread.

 

[Barbuesque]

Vikings, 1754, 12339, 3000 BC start

I had been thinking about it for a while, since the vikings have the potential to get to 10 supercities faster than any other european civs; Starting earlier, and having access to colonize scotland, the baltic states and ukraine, and then conquer the remaining city sites with superior military.

I settled the capital one north, to get the deer within the BFC, and to give Kalmar the pig, and along with the 2 fish, an early settler farm, and then the first GP farm. The last settler went north and settled Lulea.

I traded for basic classical techs with the romans, ethiopians and persians (calendar, meditation, monotheism), and sent an axeman east to make contact with the eastern civs for more trades. The remaining troops went south and conquered barbarian rome after Rome collapsed, using the free kills.

I waited until the england flip was done to settle a scotland city on the iron, and the same method with the russian spawn to settle Reval and Kiev. Meanwhile I built up a few huscarls and catapults and invaded england when the 10 turns delay was up. The survivors healed, and I bribed France and HRE in war with each other (can't remember who I bribed). I invaded France and took Paris, then make peace.

While the war continued, to HRE's disadvantage surprisingly, I moved east and invaded poland as soon as I could, wiping them out and keeping krakow. I also settled a city in the balkans with the pig and clam in the BFC. To free up Paris's BFC, I peace vassaled HRE and went to war with France again. I slowly reduced cities one by one, letting HRE capture them until France collapsed.

After that research took off and was FAST. With such rich land and cities, techs never took longer than 4 turns to research, and the cristo redemptor, key to all domination games, was finished in the 1600s.

Viking stability isn't so hot, so it took longer than I expected from that point. I settled a lot of north america and south america, ceding a lot to my aztec and inca vassals, and I was around 21% at that point. At some point stability dipped into shaky and France promptly respawned. I reconquered paris expelled them from europe, and capitulated them. Tthey had time to send a settler to North america, and respawned with economics so got an city in india. I had to invade and capitulate russia to wrap up the win in 1754.

P.S.: Jusos, can you update the list with my Greece win. Thanks

 

[Fresol]

Revision 451, Monarch/Normal.

 

[Jusos2108]

List has been updated and leaderboards added in the first post!

 

[mykeedee]

Has anyone attempted Safavid domination? I tried it and I was only able to get about 10% land and 12% pop before it all went to crap.

 

[Askiya]

Has anyone attempted Safavid domination? I tried it and I was only able to get about 10% land and 12% pop before it all went to crap.

I'm currently trying it, but I'm stuck between strong Mughals and stronger Ottomans. I've managed to push them out of Mesopotamia and the Levant, but they're holding strong in Armenia and Anatolia.

 

[jammerculture]

Variant rule: no cities in NA

 

[Barbuesque]

France, 1760, 11136

In this game I was trying to get the earliest possible date for a virtual uhv win, but as it turned out capitulating russia early turned this in a domination win well before 1800.

The opening was pretty standard, whipping a galley in bordeaux to send the 2nd settler on the iron in scotland, and setting research to civil service. I also revolted out of agrarianism on turn 1.

When HRE spawned, they went straight for Rome. I followed them, and declared war when they conquered the city. I lost most of my troops wiping their stack, but I got Rome in the end. I also conquered the independent ireland city. I razed venice and napoli (independents) to cancel the italian spawn.

Spain didn't capture cordoba early which is a rarity. This proved very beneficial, as the moors and spanish got dragged into a stalemate, and with much fewer troops than usual. Marseilles and rome focused on building troops, and I invaded on the west coast, capturing santiago, then razing madrid. Spain collapsed right after. I then invaded portugal, razing lisbon to free up room for santiago. Next was cordoba, conquered in 1415. Since England was at war with them, they peacevassaled to me in 1420, and the moors collapsed a few turns after.

England proved to be a great research slave, as usual, researching the lower end of the tech tree for me: Gunpowder, military science, chemistry and steel.

I decided that my next target would be Russia (also master of poland), as they were at war with the mongols. I built up an invading army of roughly 20 units, including several CR3 veterans. I invaded from the baltic states side (swedish territory) going southeast toward kiev, which fell easily, but I found myself stuck between the poles and the russians, who were still unwilling to capitulate, so I had to work my way west. As I was besieging krakow (around 1560), HRE got the printing press, and declared war on pretty much all of europe as England, Poland and the vikings switched to protestantism. When poland died, the russians became willing to capitulate, which was probably spurred on by the additional wars. I made peace with HRE after killing a few units.

Meanwhile I got the conquerors in the americas, and moved them in north america to protect my future colonies, which were established in the mid 1500s. And after making peace in europe, both the incas and the aztecs were willing to peacevassal. So at this point with only 14 cities, I had both the america and europe UHV covered. I focused on research, going straight for radio, and feeding my vassals tons of settlers. China also peacevassaled to me after respawning.

The virtual win was achieved in 1732 when I rushed the eiffel tower with a great engineer. I built a few more cities and turned the culture slider as high as I could, and won in 1760 with only 19 cities, since my vassals covered so much land.

 

[Barbuesque]

Variant rule: no cities in NA

And I'll add no vassals.

Challenge accepted!

 

[mykeedee]

And I'll add no vassals.

Challenge accepted!

Russia and Britain are prime candidates here.

 

[Jusos2108]

Yeah, they are probably the easiests, I have done both of them with the above rules, although I had Canada as England. Check the whole empire challenge thread. here

 

[Barbuesque]

Yeah I meant to add no Russia. Not sure how hard England would be without Canada as it is a lot of land.

 

[Fresol]

SVN revision 451.

Refined my strategy a bit, and here's the improved result.

Settled my capital Chang'an on the coal hill. Teched Hunting->AH->Writing->Mysticism->Masonry->Polytheism->Monotheism. Chang'an built worker->scout*2->worker->warriors->settler. My initial warrior went all the way to abduct a Babylonian worker, and then explored Europe and eventually stayed there for contact with the European civs. The 1st scout squatted the Indian indie cities and the 2nd one picked up the huts in China and India.

With the cash from the huts, I hired a spearman and a chariot at turn 40+ and sent them for India. They destroyed Samarkand on their way and took Pataliputra(renamed Huazhicheng) eventually. Meanwhile in China, I settled Shanghai 1N of rice and non-coastal Beijing.

Zoroastrianism was founded in Shanghai, and Shanghai focused on building workers and settlers after reaching 3 pop. Chang'an built a Taixue and worked 3 scientists. Beijing built Taixue. My 5th city was Hanoi, a good city with much needed happiness resources. GS bulbed Mathematics and Confucianism was founded in Hanoi.

Some time before I popped the Wheel from a hut which eased my financial difficulty a bit, but difficult time is still ahead. I researched BW, and then Fishing and Sailing. I didn't settle Guangzhou just yet because doing so would destroy my already shambling economy.

After BW I chopped Oracle in Chang'an, and bulbed Currency(I think it's most helpful, extra trade routes and the ability to build wealth). My economy recovered soon and I started to build the GLH, the Great Cothon(in Shanghai), and the Pyramids. With Sailing done my contact with the Western world brought in many many delicious trade routes.

I tried to open border with everyone, and sent workers to build a road to connect to Persia(from Huazhicheng). In this way the barbarian trireme blockade would not ruin my trade routes, and India was no longer there to declare war on me from time to time either.

Then I teched Calendar and Construction, had workers improve the tiles. I was going to build Lahore(on marble) as soon as the Great Wall finished but the Tamils declared on me earlier, so I defended for a while first. With Lahore(after Guangzhou), I had 7 cities. And a terrific economy. Things then became easy.

I eliminated my neighbors one by one and took Pyongyang as my 8th city, and later founded Jianghu south of river and Visakhapatnam on the cow. I founded all the religions(Orthodoxy before the ERE spawned) and built all the wonders. I went for Economics and Corporation for an even better economy(and switched to Capitalism/Free Market at first chance possible).

Unfortunately Russia was doing pretty well by themselves as my early founding of Protestantism brought the rest of Europe into a chaos. They were not willing to vassalize. I dealt with the Mongols swiftly and endured the Mughal flip. The Mongols reached Russia too late and collapsed(the 2nd time) immediately after, so I had to give up the idea of vassalizing Russia.

I took Italy and Poland as my vassals, along with the Aztecs and Incans. With 8 full grown(lots of early whipping) and 2 developing cities, I teched ahead, prepared for the future New World settling, and meanwhile kept gifting knights/cuirassiers/cavalries(lots of them) to Italy/Poland to help them fight Spain/France/Turkey(HRE was dead). I built a road to Russia for better logistics. I also used quite a few privateers to blockade the Europeans.

As for settling the Americas, I tried to settle the minimal number of cities(with good quality) to cover the maximal land. With Westminster Palace done early I was able to hurry buy Levees and such to help develop the cities. Culture slider was turned up after I finished researching the techs I saw as useful for domination(except Communism, I didn't need the Great Spy so I shouldn't have researched it in hindsight). I have to mention that India(west coast) is a better base compared to ports in China for the purpose of settling the Americas. It saves quite a few turns.

After reaching 21% of land, I culture bombed 2 cities in Siberia to achieve the victory.

My stability was once near negative during the middle part of the game(due to early expansion into India), but it got better over time and I didn't face any problem with stability later in game. Italy and Poland were good vassals too, they remained quite stable despite all the combat and conquering, due to their stability map and UP respectively, I suppose.

I had (almost) 72 turns of GA in the game, which was really pleasing.

 

[Barbuesque]

SVN revision 451.

Refined my strategy a bit, and here's the improved result.

Nice finish date, can you give a detailed strategy?

 

[Fresol]

Nice finish date, can you give a detailed strategy?

Sure, I'll add in more details shortly after.

 

[mykeedee]

Yeah I meant to add no Russia. Not sure how hard England would be without Canada as it is a lot of land.

Go for Africa and the Middle East, I was able to contribute 22% land on my own without even touching NA in a British game, of course Kongo needs to die to ensure there is enough empty space for you.

 

[Barbuesque]

I was working on a France no NA no vassals domination win, but I overexpanded in europe too fast and got bogged down, too bad as the start was really promising. So instead I tried an England game. Just like my french game, it started as a UHV game, but I got domination before the 1800 mark.

Finish date 1769, score 10575. Earlier finish date than Jusos's but no go on the score.

I settled Southampton on the cow as the capital, and Edinburgh and the 2nd english city. I figured that I would gain one tile (not working the wheat, but gaining one grassland and the crabs, and I'd get some hammers earlier with the cow. I also revolted out of agrarianism on the first turn.

I sent 2 settlers and 2 longbows toward Africa. I landed them off the coast in Congo, one settler Durban, the other settled Zanzibar. Both took a while to get going with pirates blocking off the workboats but eventually contributed.

I went civil service first and switched to absolutism to speed up research and get extra hammers out of the capitol to build wonders faster. I then worked the patronage and optics path, trading for aesthetics, guilds and compass on the way to save some time. I got marble from the turks and built Versailles and the sistine chapel in Edinburgh while southampton was building the leaning tower and whatever the banking wonder is called. I got the conquerors but just moved them out after capturing a few workers, then made peace.

I then traded for paper from Mali, and researched education-liberalism, bulbing economics, and using a great engineer to build the trading company right away, in 1515 which is real early in my experience. I took the war option, and reinforced with troops from Africa, crushed the mughals pretty fast with 35 units. I kept 4 cities: Delhi, Padna, Mumbai and Vishnawhatever south of the cow on the southeast coast, gradually disbanding the other cities as they flipped

Astronomy was next to be researched. I had some settlers and galleys ready, but not enough for the 8 cities required in the americas, so for the next few turns I whipped out the required units from Ireland and Scotland. I also switched to Resettlement/capitalism/free market/republic as soon as I got astronomy. I also peacevassaled Incas and Aztezs

I sent islamic missionaries from India to england, and built the Great Fort in Southampton, then later the taj mahal in Edinburgh. China also spread confucianism in India, and I sent a missionary in England to build the Porcelain Tower, as I had no competition for it once China collapsed. My capitol was quite the city by the end.

The indian veterans along with some African levy pushed north in Africa, grabbing Aksum, then invading and conquering independent Cairo. I also razed Alexandria (I had corporation already) right as the turks were poised to take the city, as that would have meant Cairo being choked by the annoying turkish UP. At the same time more troops were sent east and grabbed Canton from the Portugese for my 5th asian city, and also peacevassaling Kongo who were at war with the portugese. I took the opportunity to sink a few ships, then made peace. By the late 1600s I had all the land requirements for the UHV except Oceania.

At this point, stability took a -25 pts nosedive. I had been hovering a little above zero for a while, then dipped gradually to -23 over a few turns, so I had to trigger a golden age, losing an engineer and a great artist. As the economic stability display is broken, it's hard to figure out what happened as I didn't really do anything over these few turns except research, and I didn't get any new cities or had religions spread (except confucianism in Southampthon).

I waited until 1730 to settle the Oceania cities, also settling 3 more NA cities and 3 SA cities on the same turn, increasing to 29 cities, then promptly ceding 4 of these back to the incas and the aztecs, for a big boost in stability and solving my issues for the rest of the game.

The rest of the game was spent researching until mass media, building SOTLs, then settling remote and useless cities and turning the culture slider to the max.

 

[jammerculture]

I love this thread! You guys really play these civs "out of character" to accomplish these goals, strategies I never would have though of as I am often stuck in a historic frame of mind. It's like a whole new game for me.

so many civs, so little time