Dom victory/War support

[danhynes]

I am trying to go for a dom victory and eliminate all the other civs. I understand having a lot of cities can cause penalties until I can start combining them. But the issue I am having is war support where AI gets to 0, and mine isn't in the hundreds. Accordingly, I am forced to end the war and often give back cities I already captured. What is the best way to increase my war support so I can demand all their cities?

 

[Siptah]

1) start with 80+ war support. War score is your war support + a score for each foreign territory you hold (does anyone know the numbers on that? In the attached screenshot I get a lot for holding the capital, but comparing it with other situations, the value for holding that seem volatile). Being militarist and some religious tenets help with getting this up.

2) get some of the demands, either the faith one or the influence ones and press them. Each territory you have such a claim on is just 10 war score compared to 40 for ones you have no reason to take.

3) as each territory and city you hold decreases enemy war support, once and per turn. Pillaging stuff on the other hand raises their war support. As the opponent surrenders at 0 support, try to keep it above 10 until you‘ve conquered some stuff.

4) once the enemy is close to 0 but not at 0, they can send you surrender terms. You can ignore them, accept them or refuse them. If you refuse, they gain +8 war support, which can prolong the war per 1 or 2 turns. They send these offers repeatedly. Granted, this does really only help in smaller wars as each city you hold is -4 per turn for them.

The system takes some time to get used to, but it is quite neat once you understand it mechanically and also have an immersive vision of what the terminology is supposed to mean. I also like that even for a very militaristic approach, you need to be reasonably strong in not just that aspect of the game.

Spoiler :

that said, I hope for a little bit of flexibility: pay (much) influence to continue a war for some turns after the opponent surrendered. Pay (even) more influence for taking more than your warscore allows. Increase the stability penalty from having negative influence.

 

[mrjepson]

One key thing it to have demands before starting a war. Cities seem to cost about 80 while territories are around 40. But these can drop to just 10 if demanded before the war starts. If you can pile up a bunch of demands before starting a war I've had the AI just give in on a few territories to keep me from starting the war in the first place which can be nice.

 

[Cakeathon]

At 80 for a city and 40ish for a territory you won't be able to get enough warscore to ask for all their stuff unless they are tiny, or at least I've never managed to reach such extreme warscores, Some AI would require well over a thousand to fully assimilate in a surrender. You can get maybe a few territories with demands(stop oppressing my people or don't settle near me) but in my experience this just gets you a couple of border territories rather than the main bulk of their land.

However, you don't need to and probably shouldn't rely on warscore for domV. You can pillage the city center of captured cities which will raze them and immediately place your outpost on the razed city center, this will keep all the districts, you can then attach it to a city. Warscore is nice if you want another city(if cap allows) with buildings but it would take forever to conquer everything that way not to mention you would probably have no choice but to ignore city cap and just go negative influence for the whole game if you wanted to accomplish domv at a competitive pace. It's just better/faster to raze->outpost->attach everything but maybe the capital and ask for the capital in the surrender terms.

Also since you no longer technically "occupy" one of their cities after razing it, this can help prolong the war.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That is a exploit that needs fixing. Razing a city/region should give the enemy a boost in their war support.

 

[Cakeathon]

It does, it gives them +10. But boosting their war support is what you want, the war ends when they hit 0 which is what you want to avoid. Ideally, you want your enemy to stay at war until you are done taking everything they have except for the last city(capturing all cities is insta-surrender reguardless of support anyway).

So by razing not only do you give them +10 but you also remove the ticking -4 from occupied cities.

Getting 3 star warrior badge also helps a lot, a captured city ticks -4 but if you have the badge it gives your opponent +3 for a net -1

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It does, it gives them +10. But boosting their war support is what you want, the war ends when they hit 0 which is what you want to avoid. Ideally, you want your enemy to stay at war until you are done taking everything they have except for the last city(capturing all cities is insta-surrender reguardless of support anyway).

So by razing not only do you give them +10 but you also remove the ticking -4 from occupied cities.

Getting 3 star warrior badge also helps a lot, a captured city ticks -4 but if you have the badge it gives your opponent +3 for a net -1

Maybe it should give you a large penalty as well (say 20…since you basically took one of their cities off the surrender menu)

 

[fortydayweekend]

A couple of extra tips for prolonging a war -

- Raze things (resources / admin centres) which gives them war support, and then build your own outposts
- Attack and retreat
- Avoid unnecessary attacks - leave those 1 unit stacks alone
- Raze cities as Cakeathon said

It's a bit of a balancing act but you can extend a war quite a few turns and take more territories than you could get in a surrender, though you have to raze & claim.