DoC Domination Challenge

[Fresol]

To get this challenge going, I give you Portuguese domination victory:

I founded Mellilla with my second settler and conquered Spain soon after I had gotten some siege weapons. I guess the independents got the conquerors with Arabic caravels, but they weren't needed anyways. I colonized Brazilia and the rest of South America quickly and vassalised Aztecs and Incas. Later I conquered China with Cantao as a beachhead and North America from New Orleans that I had founded early. I capitulated France and vassalised India and Mali. China respawned once, but they were quickly annihilated. Economy was the key to superioty as usually.

Spoiler :

I'm trying to play as Portugal. How do you conquer Spain "with some siege weapons"? Anytime I look they have lots of doubly promoted units, and mercenaries if at war with some other civs like Viking or Ottomans. Fetching the conquerors back would be kind of late and not enough. Should I start building siege weapons right from the beginning?

 

[strijder20]

I'm trying to play as Portugal. How do you conquer Spain "with some siege weapons"? Anytime I look they have lots of doubly promoted units, and mercenaries if at war with some other civs like Viking or Ottomans. Fetching the conquerors back would be kind of late and not enough. Should I start building siege weapons right from the beginning?

Actually, with a bit of luck and some mercenaries in the pool you can just rush them at spawn.

 

[Fresol]

Actually, with a bit of luck and some mercenaries in the pool you can just rush them at spawn.

I restarted a game because Spain built Notre Dame and the Sistine Chapel, and took Rome and Naples. In the new game I declared on them immediately and razed 2 of their cities, but was unable to annihilate them because I had to build library and research Optics for the historical goal. Maybe I should've kept the cities, but it's so crowded.

 

[Jusos2108]

I'm trying to play as Portugal. How do you conquer Spain "with some siege weapons"? Anytime I look they have lots of doubly promoted units, and mercenaries if at war with some other civs like Viking or Ottomans. Fetching the conquerors back would be kind of late and not enough. Should I start building siege weapons right from the beginning?

You have to be quick, use the whip and build them in Mellila too. Iirc I built library, barracks and then some siege. Gather every mercenary you can and crush them.

 

[Jusos2108]

I founded Sur and Carthago with my starting settlers and concentrated on building all the useful pantheon wonders. Later I took Jerusalem and settled Barca and Rusadir to get one the uhv conditions. I also had the largest map in 200AD to get the 2/3 uhvs GA. I founded catholicism and protestantism, while fighting off the Persian and later Arabs. I was miles ahead in tech and managed to keep the spawning civs in order with level 3 dumbos and cannons. Spain vassalised to me quickly and later Aztec and Russia followed. Surprisingly Rome crushed HRE from start became a monster only to be collapsed by my 200 year privateer blockade. Seljuks spawned conviently in my capital and took 20 points out of my stability just like that, at that point I was close to rage quitting, but I took it back and WBd my palace back in there. The stability slowly rebounded after taking Egypt and Angora and getting levees online.

Spoiler :

I settled my American monster cities after 1700, when I had finished the Christo Redentor and switched to resettlement. By then I had also capitulated Turkey, since better vassals weren't available. When Utica began to get the population in by itself, I took Iran and recently spawned Greece to get the land as well; Russia and Spain, who I allowed to take the Incan conquerors contributed huge chunks of land. Sur ended up having about 20 wonders.

Spoiler :

The empire:

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[Fresol]

It's really amazing you can research Ecology in 2 turns.

Edit: One of the pictures is repeated.

Any tips on playing Indian domination? It might be flaws in my play but I wasn't able to get good vassals, and their production and economy is not good enough to land grab all of the Americas before the European settlement. And I want to achieve historical victory first so I need to settle 10 cities rather early, some of them being not too helpful. I'm playing the SVN version but I guess tips on 1.81 would also work.

 

[Gruekiller]

Interesting American city choices. Are those spots much better than Chicago + Denver?

 

[Fresol]

I guess he didn't want to many cities there, just the resources and land.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I can't get Russia to vassalize to me.
I know they're willing, but they keep saying my land is too far away
when we share a border.

Or soon will anyway, with that Settler, when I settle it.

 

[Jusos2108]

Interesting American city choices. Are those spots much better than Chicago + Denver?

I guess he didn't want to many cities there, just the resources and land.

That and Utica is the best city in the game in terms of pop. Well nowdays there might better spot in India, but utilizing it would require massive razing. Thapsus has great production too. I also didn't want to screw Aztec by my culture by settling New Orleans and Denver tiles. I culture bombed both cities after the American spawn. You can barely see from the screenshot that Calitzhuaca is still quite screwed.

Edit: One of the pictures is repeated.

Any tips on playing Indian domination? It might be flaws in my play but I wasn't able to get good vassals, and their production and economy is not good enough to land grab all of the Americas before the European settlement. And I want to achieve historical victory first so I need to settle 10 cities rather early, some of them being not too helpful. I'm playing the SVN version but I guess tips on 1.81 would also work.

Thanks, fixed.

I haven't tried India, so I wouldn't now that much, but grabbing NA should definetly be a priority.

 

[Arizael]

Seljuks spawned conviently in my capital and took 20 points out of my stability just like that, at that point I was close to rage quitting, but I took it back and WBd my palace back in there. The stability slowly rebounded after taking Egypt and Angora and getting levees online.

This happened to my Byz game too. They just appear in Sur without any fighting. Should get changed imo.

 

[strijder20]

I can't get Russia to vassalize to me.
I know they're willing, but they keep saying my land is too far away
when we share a border.

Or soon will anyway, with that Settler, when I settle it.

IIRC, you need Astronomy to vassalize civs on a different continent. So maybe this is because Russia hasn't got any Asian cities yet?

 

[Leoreth]

All of Russia counts as Europe anyway.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

So I'm wondering why they keep saying "Your land is too far away"
if that's the case (That Russia counts as Europe)

 

[Leoreth]

India counts as East Asia ... "Your land is too far away" is the decline text for potential vassals from different continents.

 

[Fresol]

It was actually a game of Rome, not India.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

No, no, no, Leoreth.

If you check the save I uploaded,
I'm Rome, and I'm trying to vassalize Russia.
My power should be sufficient,
I have good relations with them,
and I tested the situation several times,
clearly, Russia was inclined to vassalize
because a few times, they vassalized to
the Vikings (so I had to pay the Vikings to DOW the Coreans).
And because Russia & Rome are both in Europe,
and I'm at peace+good relations, and Russia is willing,
what's keeping me from vassalizing Russia?

 

[Jusos2108]

Whoa, that required some work, but I managed to pull it off with some years to spare.

To the strategy:
Since Arabia flips Egypt, and I don't even start with the mess called India, there was only one direction to go from the start, Carthago. Luckily they had collapsed and I managed to take Carthago around 100AD. Meanwhile I concentrated on teching and I was among the tech leaders around 1000AD, I took Rome in 1400 and eventually I managed to get the conquerors in 1430 (BTW, Leoreth, Ethiopia doesn't get Askaris, only regular musketmen). I toyed with Aztecs and made peace with Incas. After getting Astronomy both vassalised to me.

Spoiler :

Naturally after that I sent my settlers to NA and settled the NAn triad before the Americans spawned. Meanwhile in Europe solid France had crushed/conquered/capitulated Germany, Portugal, Ottomans, the Netherlands and Russia. In 1900 Russia was devided between France and Ottomans, but France was still expanding in Middle East. I was building an army and teching. France was occasionally unstable, but never collapsed. Later France vassalised Mughals and Russia respawned, but got stomped by France yet again. Egypt vassalised to me. In 1938 a world war began between me and Spain + vassals and Incas conquered the spanish colonies in south America, after signing peace with them I declared war on England and conquered their holdings in NA.

Spoiler :

There was a brief peaceful perido for the Ethiopian Republic, but in 1972 I and my vassals (Incas, Aztecs and Egypt) declared war on France and her vassals Germany, Mughals, America, Arabia and Portugal. Just look at that France in the 1972 map, it is unreal and stable! I had been airlifting Main Battle Tanks to Rome for decades and every one of them was needed when France poured down the Italian peninsula (check the power graph). I threw in some nukes to collapse them, but nothing worked. I nuked Wien twice before rushing in to get the free civic change (it had Christo Redentor), but France quickly reconquered it. My air supremecy eventually turned things in my favor and I conquered mainland France before 1990. But France was still alive, stable and kicking. Meanwhile I had taken Philadelphia and Boston in NA while burning Washington.

I took Berlin, Wien, Split, Constantinople and Angora from France before they finally collapsed in 1995, I had also taken Wilna from Germany. After France collapsed Germany and America capitulated to me immeatidely and I gifted Germany Berlin and Wilna to prevent them from collapsing. Turkey respawned and I let them keep Istambul. I had almost the land, but I was way behind in population, so it was time to gether nukes, meanwhile I teased, once again respawned, Russia by nuking them and bombing every one of their improvements in order to keep their pop down. I also took couple of their cities. In 2002 I brought apocalypse on earth by launching 10-15 tactical nukes (almost everybody had SDI) and few ICBMs. That was enough to give me 33% of world's population.

Spoiler :

The empire:

Spoiler :

I ended up destroying 171 mech infantries.

Spoiler :

 

[Fresol]

Interesting read. Things could get really ugly when you go for domination victory.

I remember an aborted Persia game where I killed 200+ triremes and caravels. The AI never gets tired but I do.

 

[Cosmos1985]

Very impressive, Jusos! How did you manage to tech so well? And what civics did you run?