DoC Domination Challenge

[Jusos2108]

I utilised the same tactic, as in my China game, with Greece and managed to pull off the victory even earlier. My core city placement was Korinthos, Ilion and Salonae on the copper few turns before Roman spawn. I flipped a couple Hulugannis and sent them with one Phalanx (or are they hoplites in this version) to take Babylon in which they succeeded with loss of both Hulugannis. I sent the rest UUs to Egypt companied with a merc chariot and they took Diospolis Megale. Then I focused on building the wonders and teching quickly to Odeons and teathres for artist slots. Ilion was my GA city, while Korinthos' GP pool was more polluted. I think I got one GA from there too.

I conquered Roma and Parsa later and focused on teching and spawning the GAs. Sadly Theology cuts out the Greek UP. I fought stubbornly against the barbarians, who were a real nuisance, especially in Egypt. I also vassalised Ethiopia quite early and capitulated Arabs after taking Mecca. England, Russia and India were vassals as well and I fed Russia with settlers as much as I could. Around 1100 I sent my last settling parties on their ways and was determined to win before the Mughals screw up India, which turned out to be possible.

The World in 500, 1010 and 1180:

Spoiler :

Other pics:

Spoiler :

 

[mykeedee]

What is....I don't even...

 

[iOnlySignIn]

What a great victory!

If for any Civilization a Domination Victory via Great Artists is Historical, it is Greece.

Someone (TD for example) should write a story for this.

 

[jammerculture]

*bows down*

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

What a great victory!

If for any Civilization a Domination Victory via Great Artists is Historical, it is Greece.

Someone (TD for example) should write a story for this.

Or Jusos could write them.

They're not in the signature, but Jusos has written some excellent RFC AARs long before I started;
the Arabia story being my favorite, but the Egypt story more masterful in terms of gameplay.

 

[Barbuesque]

Ok I'm officially out of the race!

I had some pretty good starts with Phoenicia, I failed to collapse Rome 3 games in a row after completely occupying Italy and Byzantium spawned on me. But 1180? Probably out of my reach

 

[youtien]

The Greeks has best UP and research rate in the game.

 

[mykeedee]

Or Jusos could write them.

They're not in the signature, but Jusos has written some excellent RFC AARs long before I started;
the Arabia story being my favorite, but the Egypt story more masterful in terms of gameplay.

Thanks for bringing that up TD, Why did you stop writing Jusos?

@youtien I'm pretty sure some later civs have a slightly higher research rate than the Greeks to mitigate the advantage Greece and the other ancient civs have by their early start.

 

[calad]

Is domination victory too easy? To me it seems you can achive it on every civ, just spam cities in America in Siberia.

 

[blizzrd]

Have you done it recently? Why don't you try and give us your opinion.

 

[calad]

Have you done it recently? Why don't you try and give us your opinion.

I just got that feeling when pretty much every player built cities in empty America.

 

[blizzrd]

The point remains, why don't you try it for yourself and let us know your opinion.

If you're not in the game of trying Domination games yourself, probably shouldn't offer your opinion on how difficult they are?

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I've been failing quite a few of them with my more recent games.

Part of it is that it's really hard to keep track of your stability with the more recent screen;
the other reason is that I haven't been playing DoC much and unlike Jusos, it's more difficult for me to get back into the swing of things

 

[calad]

The point remains, why don't you try it for yourself and let us know your opinion.

If you're not in the game of trying Domination games yourself, probably shouldn't offer your opinion on how difficult they are?

Woah! I guess I need to stop giving feedback to Leo also since Im not a modder

 

[blizzrd]

Woah! I guess I need to stop giving feedback to Leo also since Im not a modder

No. You don't make sense, if you play his mod, giving feedback on your opinion is appropriate.

Just like if you play for Domination, giving feedback on your opinion is appropriate. Or at the very least you could give it a try.

 

[Barbuesque]

Is domination victory too easy? To me it seems you can achive it on every civ, just spam cities in America in Siberia.

You're actually right about an aspect of it, but resuming it to that is oversimplifying it.

Also, people posts successful games, not failures. It's like publication bias.

 

[jammerculture]

Sure domination with France or china could be considered easy, but phoenicia, Maya, Greece etc. Give me a break. Not easy at all and especially not as handidly as these guys do it.

Yeah all you have to do is colonize America, but try to stay stable while doing it us another story. For some civs just getting to astronomy without collapsing is a challenge!

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I feel like I could use a refresher course.

In my last France game I found myself struggle to hit the Population percentile, while my land limit had been achieved.
Collapsed one turn from victory.

Generally, I can reliably win Domination with most civs, but I typically finish late 1800s/1900s.
Admittedly, many of my recent failures were due to me breaking my neck trying to get a place on the Leaderboards, when they could've been won much later.
Looking for ways to improve my speed now, essentially.
Economy is starting to be an issue lately as well, made harder by the new stability screen.
Sometimes, I know exactly what I'm doing and can grow my Economy properly (+3) every 3 turns,
others, are a bit of a struggle.
I'm aware of some of the sources of my issues like trying to prepare for war and build infrastructure simultaneously (when sometimes, the course of judgment demands no other recourse)
and not judging correctly in just how much infrastructure is enough and when I should relegate a city to Wealth building.

I actually have two specific questions for both Jusos, and blizzrd:

To Jusos:

I've noticed that your tech path is pretty nuanced, something I've observed in some of the vanilla BtS games posted around here as well.
Some techs are skipped completely, which I'm guessing is the result of slingshotting,
which I've only done once in DoC in the form of a Machinery+Engineering slingshot for China for early Trebs+CKNs.
I've also noticed you achieve a rather great beaker per turn rate; which I've only managed to do as ancient civs, but not able to replicate with medieval and onwards civs.
Even stacking Academies in my science cities doesn't seem to reproduce the same results.
I've only really achieved a similar tech rate before as China, Persia & Phoenicia, where I could run a 90/100% science slider and still have a GPT surplus.
But I don't think I was completely conscious of what I was doing; apart from Shrine building, really.
IIRC, the tech rate quickens sometime around the Arab spawn for ancient civs, which helps a lot,
and also the techs during the Medieval/Renaissance Era when that happens don't have too high of a cost, but I'm just wondering how to get the same effects as a non-ancient civ.

With post-ancient civs, I have a more difficult time to raise as much infrastructure as I do with early civs, mostly because of the later start date.
I find myself often rushing out infrastructure, and probably more than I need to, (Gold% buildings in Science cities, Science% buildings in Gold cities) as a result.
I think the question I'm trying to pose to you here, is, what is typically your "ceiling" for infrastructure in an individual city?
Before it is relegated to pumping units or Wealth, the latter of which I've noticed, sometimes actually improves my Economy score.

To blizzrd:

Not a general question, but I am very curious as to the methodology used to produce the results you've shown in your
Russia and Aztec games (UHV, not Domination), since it appears that most of it can be applied to Domination.

 

[jammerculture]

Td, what do you mean grow your economy properly +3 every 3 turns? Lately I have been playing with the stability screen, but don't really know how to influence the economy rating.

 

[Jusos2108]

Thanks everybody!

Thanks for bringing that up TD, Why did you stop writing Jusos?

I guess I don't have enough time or interest in them anymore.

To Jusos:

I've noticed that your tech path is pretty nuanced, something I've observed in some of the vanilla BtS games posted around here as well.
Some techs are skipped completely, which I'm guessing is the result of slingshotting,
which I've only done once in DoC in the form of a Machinery+Engineering slingshot for China for early Trebs+CKNs.
I've also noticed you achieve a rather great beaker per turn rate; which I've only managed to do as ancient civs, but not able to replicate with medieval and onwards civs.
Even stacking Academies in my science cities doesn't seem to reproduce the same results.
I've only really achieved a similar tech rate before as China, Persia & Phoenicia, where I could run a 90/100% science slider and still have a GPT surplus.
But I don't think I was completely conscious of what I was doing; apart from Shrine building, really.
IIRC, the tech rate quickens sometime around the Arab spawn for ancient civs, which helps a lot,
and also the techs during the Medieval/Renaissance Era when that happens don't have too high of a cost, but I'm just wondering how to get the same effects as a non-ancient civ.

With post-ancient civs, I have a more difficult time to raise as much infrastructure as I do with early civs, mostly because of the later start date.
I find myself often rushing out infrastructure, and probably more than I need to, (Gold% buildings in Science cities, Science% buildings in Gold cities) as a result.
I think the question I'm trying to pose to you here, is, what is typically your "ceiling" for infrastructure in an individual city?
Before it is relegated to pumping units or Wealth, the latter of which I've noticed, sometimes actually improves my Economy score.

I always try to keep my science slider as high as possible, even if it means running net loss. Net loss can be accumulated by other means, for example trading resources, techs and map or just by demanding money from other civs. I rarely build wealth. If I am behind in tech I beeline for expensive techs that only 1-2 civs have and trade them around after that to everybody for pretty much anything (like in my soon to be posted Congo game. In the same game foreign income accumulated 1/3 of my overall income for centuries, which means ~30% higher science slider). If a civ is willing to trade a tech and you have something to give for it, but not enough, I usually switch my research towards that tech until the other civ trades it. I might build two Academies in 3000BC games, but in 600AD games I only build one (or none) in my science center. Tech cost are cut in 600AD, so before that an ancient civ should just tech about half of the Medieval techs, unless you really want them or are way ahead anyways. Also tech (or money) stealing is very important. Direct your vassals to tech something that you can later trade from them. I usually build a lot of infrastructure.