Domination Victory and Happiness problems

[Fried Egg]

I read somewhere in a guide to the different victory types that Domination is the easiest to play for but I seem to find it incredibly difficult.

I play at prince level and have won the game quite easily with the other three victory types (cultural, diplomatic & scientific) but domination eludes me again and again. Maybe the other victory types suit my natural play style more.

My economy is my strong point, I usually have plenty of money rolling in to spend on upgrading units and I usually get a religion going with bonuses aimed at science and economy, plus I try to get pagodas, mainly for benefits of maintenance free happiness buildings. Which brings me on to my big problem: Happiness, or rather unhappiness.

This is one thing that really holds me back, particularly when you I start conquering cities. I tend to puppet most cities I conquer but will raze the completely useless ones or annex the really useful ones. Either way, my happiness plummets and I really struggle to reverse it. My expansion inevitably grinds to a halt while I deal with it.

Can anyone offer any advice?

 

[sufficiency]

1. Get Ceremonial Burial, Ascetics, Religious Center, Pagoda, and/or Peace Garden.
2. Run Meritocracy, Military Caste, Humanism, Order, and/or Police State
3. Sell unneeded cities to other AIs, or raze them
4. Don't take over cities that are too big and not providing you with anything useful.
5. Build happiness buildings

 

[Fried Egg]

Interesting your suggestion of social polices as they are all quite spread out in different groups.

I've tended to fully uncover the "Liberty" group (which encompasses "Meritocracy") and then take stuff from the "Commerce" group until "Autocracy" becomes available and then go for as many of those as I can get. Perhaps I should go for "Military Caste" instead of delving into "Commerce"...

 

[Cedbird]

Don 't forget to ally up the city states especially the ones that give u happys . Forgot their name /type starts with an M . But they will give u crazy happy . Also your religion will also get u more happies .
Try to stay friendly with the other Ai 's for as long as possible . That way you will have more trading partners for resources you don 't have

 

[fufie]

Sufficiency has (as usual) very good advice. Adding some happiness boosters:

- Goddess of love as pantheon is also an option if you plan to go wide/ics when conquering.
- Trade as much as possible, even if you don't get as much money as you'd like. Money buys happiness buildings, etc.
- Buy/trade lux resources you lack or to fulfill CS quests.
- Use money, fulfill CS quests or use spies for mercantile CS states. Keep them at least friendly, preferably allied.
- Keep growth under control in cities - this is necessary for ICS and useful for happiness during DV. If your cities are small there are fewer unhappy citizens. With ceremonial burial, meritocracy and order opener you negate the happiness cost of a new city and only population unhappiness applies. Smaller population can then be handled by basic happiness buildings for smaller cost. If you have a high fpt and pagodas, spam them.

 

[Fried Egg]

Don 't forget to ally up the city states especially the ones that give u happys . Forgot their name /type starts with an M . But they will give u crazy happy . Also your religion will also get u more happies .
Try to stay friendly with the other Ai 's for as long as possible . That way you will have more trading partners for resources you don 't have

Yes, I did bribe the mercantile city states for happiness but it still seemed to be a struggle to keep my people happy. Especially once I'd taken out a couple of enemy civs, everyone regards me as a warmongering menace and won't trade anymore.

 

[joncnunn]

1. Get Ceremonial Burial, Ascetics, Religious Center, Pagoda, and/or Peace Garden.
2. Run Meritocracy, Military Caste, Humanism, Order, and/or Police State
3. Sell unneeded cities to other AIs, or raze them
4. Don't take over cities that are too big and not providing you with anything useful.
5. Build happiness buildings

Among Religious Beliefs, I prefer the 2 per city with a Temple (& 5 followers). The problem with Garden is that it requires the city to have been either along a river or adjoining a fresh water lake (or for you to have built Hanging Gardens world wonder), while Temples can be built by every city.

Among social policies, Monarchy is my favorite; 50% unhappiness from population in the capital, which is still likely to be your biggest city. This is in the same tree as the one less unhappiness for every 10 citizens in the same city. But that by itself isn't enough; if you have a puppet empire Military Caste is useful, Humanism is in a very good tree for all conditions, (Order / Police State / the one in Freedom [pupets will fill the merchant specalists] are all kind of late.)

#3 Raze bad city locations is perhaps more important, given the number of junk cities the AI likes to found. Selling is for when the city is far away from the cities you intend to keep.

#5 This is also important; you don't want to be hovering near zero the turn your planning an offensive war to start. And if it looks like your winning and your missing happiness structures, you need the missing happiness structures more than you do additional units if your planning on taking over enemy cities.

 

[fuzzatron717]

Instead of just fumbling around and killing who and whatever. You wait for an opportunity such as look in the global politics screen find a civ everyone is denouncing and declaring war and there is a good target and don't worry they will find another civ after so don't worry about running out of targets but BEWARE after 3-4 civs this alliance pack will turn on each other pick new allies and start a cold war and eventually one of two things will happen either everything will die down or allies and enemies will start small wars which might or might not make big wars. And during all this while your busy your either 1. Rebuilding and picking a target or attacking civs on of the cold war sides. Now some say this may not happen that is true if your not neutral through the first hundred turns and don't take over any civ within the first hundred turns and wait for happiness stuff then attack once you're full of happiness.

 

[Dogmouth]

There is no need to abandon commerce. Protectionism and mercantilism are extremely good policies for a wide empire. Protectionism is self-explanatory; mercantilism is your path to cheap courthouses and happiness buildings (Big Ben plus mercantilism is a great approach to domination). The opener also helps with happiness purchases and CS relations (mercantile CSs are awesome; don't ignore them). Trade unions is also synergistic with meritocracy.

 

[khdou]

Feel free to message me with any questions, I love playing domination victories

The main thing to note in domination victories is the era where your UU is the strongest. I'll use the Mongols as an example since they're my favorite civ to play with (and the keshiks are hands down the best unit in the game).

- Always perform trades with the AI. If you have luxury resources, you should be selling it to them for as much gold as you can get (240 for standard, 200 for quick)
- In the beginning of the game, focus on going tall. Lock in the tiles with the best resources (with preferences set to production, to gain that extra hammer when growing)
- Buy a worker as soon as you can. This includes trading gpt for lump sum to AIs so you can get that worker and start improving tiles
- Steal workers if necessary (Only do this once- any more and the city states will hate you)
- I usually open up with Liberty, I find the free settler and worker + GP is very strong, and someone like a GS might just be all you need to bulb into chivalry to get your keshiks
- Manage your cities wisely. You only need 1 hardcore production city that'll pump out military units. Save the cost of barracks/armory for your other cities and let them focus on gold or GP generation
- Rush NC. In prince you should be able to rush a GL as well quite easily, so do that to get the philosophy as well into the NC. In the meantime, you should have enough techs researched that will allow your workers to finish improving the tiles around your cities while you're waiting
- Build build build your units' predecessors. In this case it would be horse archers. As soon as you tech up to chivalry, you should have at least 4-5 ready to upgrade and ready to raze the land. You don't want to lose any speed at all when you're at your strongest
- Faith is not that important. It's nice to get a pantheon and maybe some beliefs, but it's not necessary. Don't overcommit to building faith over your precious horse archers- you are going for a domination victory after all

So those were some basic ways to micromanage your civ before you begin the war. So, now that war has erupted, what do you do?

- Get familiar with the combat system, in particular, zone of control. An enemy unit will use up all their movement points if they walk adjacent to you. Use this to your advantage to keep high-value units safe.
- Get familiar with the combat system regarding ranged units. Keshiks can shoot in a radius of 2 unless their vision is blocked by rough terrain. On the other hand, placing a keshik on a hill will grant it 2 range regardless of terrain (except mountains of course)
- Keshiks are extremely easy to micro. Use them to walk in range, attack, and walk back out. It's virtually impossible for them to get hurt. That being said, play cautiously, so they won't get hurt. If it means sacrificing an attack because you may be hurt the next turn, so be it and move into a better position.
- A team of 4-5 Keshiks can easily take down a city without getting hurt either. Simply move them to the borders of a city (2+ tiles away), move then in, attack, and move them back out of range. You won't get hurt and it's ridiculously broken
- When conquering, make sure to build 1 horseman as well. Keshiks can't conquer, so you need a quick melee unit that can sweep up the remains of a city. The horsemen are convenient, 5 movement troops, perfect in that regard.
- Always go 3 deep into the shock/drill promotions, and their ranged equivalents. Double attack (unlocked after accuracy/barrage III) is too good. You will essentially gain xp at double the rate with double attack, not to mention Quick Study(Keshik Unique ability +50%xp). The only other alternative is March(unlocked after accuracy/barrage II), but since keshiks won't be getting hurt, don't bother with that.
- Assuming you've done all that and are just about to conquer a civ, they will have that "last resort" peace treaty, which is usually all of their money and resources just to have peace. Take that offer, use the temporary 10 turns to regroup/ make an even larger army in preparation to take over the world. After the peace is done, you may choose to eliminate them as you see fit.
- Always raze cities or find a way to get rid of them (trade them away). You don't need them and the unhappiness isn't worth it. The only reason I would keep them would be if they are in range of a luxury resource (to pay for the unhappiness they are generating), and even then, I would raze them until they have 1 Pop and then puppet them to minimize unhappiness.
- Never conquer city states, it'll generate too much unhappiness which gets annoying because you can't raze them since they are capitols

Hope that helps! Let me know how you do

 

[compwiz1202]

Awesome. Now I'm in the mood for a Mongolian Keshik dance of death game. One thing about ranged on a hill is that forested hills will also block line of sight.

 

[sufficiency]

Among Religious Beliefs, I prefer the 2 per city with a Temple (& 5 followers). The problem with Garden is that it requires the city to have been either along a river or adjoining a fresh water lake (or for you to have built Hanging Gardens world wonder), while Temples can be built by every city.

Among social policies, Monarchy is my favorite; 50% unhappiness from population in the capital, which is still likely to be your biggest city. This is in the same tree as the one less unhappiness for every 10 citizens in the same city. But that by itself isn't enough; if you have a puppet empire Military Caste is useful, Humanism is in a very good tree for all conditions, (Order / Police State / the one in Freedom [pupets will fill the merchant specalists] are all kind of late.)

#3 Raze bad city locations is perhaps more important, given the number of junk cities the AI likes to found. Selling is for when the city is far away from the cities you intend to keep.

#5 This is also important; you don't want to be hovering near zero the turn your planning an offensive war to start. And if it looks like your winning and your missing happiness structures, you need the missing happiness structures more than you do additional units if your planning on taking over enemy cities.

Peace Garden is definitely not as good as the other ones, because it is expensive to build and requires fresh water. But sometimes there is nothing left except Peace Garden..... in which case it can be considered. Puppets love to build it when available though.

 

[regeneration64]

A few other hints from my latest huge map pure-domination game...

* From the mid-game (when your economy starts to really pick up) start investing in culture. The amount of culture you can acquire from certain SPs is immense. My personal favourite is Protectionism in the Commerce tree (+2 happiness per luxury resource)
* Settle and take cities with unique luxuries first
* Aim for the AI capitals that have happiness wonders in. Taking out capitals also gives you the advantage of a unique luxury or two as well (especially early on)
* Stay allies with the one or two mercantile CSs which have unique resources and friends with all the others (friendly mercantile CSs give you +3 happiness)
* Later on, annex a few more cities if happiness becomes an issue because large puppeted cities generate more unhappiness than an annexed one with a courthouse and happiness buildings which you can rush-buy

 

[Fried Egg]

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

I probably should point out that so far I've tried (for domination) only with Germany. They seemed like a strong race to go for due to their reduced unit maintenance and having two unique units (although I'm wondering whether the Panzer comes a bit too late).

 

[krc]

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

I probably should point out that so far I've tried (for domination) only with Germany. They seemed like a strong race to go for due to their reduced unit maintenance and having two unique units (although I'm wondering whether the Panzer comes a bit too late).

The Panzer comes too late. And landsknecht are cheap but otherwise not worth very much (especially when the upgrade to lancers).

Try China (chu-ko-nus), Mongolia (keshiks), or Arabia (camel archers).

 

[Sequitor]

This tread is very timely for me. Like Fried Egg, I prefer the non-domination victories. With that in mind I forced myself to play a domination game as the Mongols. While I have been been amazed at the power of the Keshiks, I am starting to confront serious happiness problems, which is a new experience.

One question, should I try to win the game during the period while the Keshiks rule the battlefield (standard map and turns, prince difficulty)? I have only met 4 of my 8 opponents, so I'm starting to build a fleet to find the rest. I've been assuming that these highly trained units will do just fine in later eras once promoted.

 

[Nials]

The amount of culture you can acquire from certain SPs is immense. My personal favourite is Protectionism in the Commerce tree (+2 happiness per luxury resource)

I think you mean happiness from SP's?

Everything else is true though, and I definitely agree.

 

[Wir0s]

I use to puppet a lot too, but if u have enought money, its better to annexe and build all happyness buildings.

u will get more happines than with all puppeted

 

[khdou]

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

I probably should point out that so far I've tried (for domination) only with Germany. They seemed like a strong race to go for due to their reduced unit maintenance and having two unique units (although I'm wondering whether the Panzer comes a bit too late).

Germany isn't too bad for a domination victory. Their main perk is that with a few lucky barbs early on, you can quickly support a huge army. In addition, the landscknecht spam is very powerful, especially when overwhelming your opponent. However at higher difficulties such as immortal, this becomes less and less effective, mainly because you want your armies to be mostly comprised of ranged units and you cannot out-spam the enemy in terms of units.

The panzer does come too late if you start from the ancient era. By that time your air force wins the war. Some other good suggestions for domination victory are Songhai (strategy similar to Mongols but the Madekalu cavalry are far inferior), China (double attack cho-ko-nus have great synergy in this game, especially in the very high levels where you need to rush archers to survive), Japan (Bushido is very useful for having a balanced army, and they're very versatile)

One question, should I try to win the game during the period while the Keshiks rule the battlefield (standard map and turns, prince difficulty)? I have only met 4 of my 8 opponents, so I'm starting to build a fleet to find the rest. I've been assuming that these highly trained units will do just fine in later eras once promoted.

The one disadvantage of keshiks is that they promote into melee cavalry units (which is fine bc if it werent then that would be broken). The awkwardness is that you're better off not promoting your keshiks since they are much stronger than their cavalry counterpart. So logically, yes you want to win the game as early as you can, or your keshiks will get more and more outdated. A level 8 Keshik will still do great during the Renaissance era, but when the stronger units start coming in, they'll fall off fast.

So yes, in your case, research embarkation and send your keshiks overseas to kill everyone. If you have happiness issues, just raze more cities and spend money (you should have tons if you conquer your opponents) on city states and more units

 

[regeneration64]

I think you mean happiness from SP's?

Everything else is true though, and I definitely agree.

I thought I put that? Either way, I meant that you can net a lot of happiness from different social policies; especially if you pick the ones that fit your playstyle.

I use to puppet a lot too, but if u have enought money, its better to annexe and build all happyness buildings.

u will get more happines than with all puppeted

I think that this is so important and something that is easily missed through ignorance. It would be good if someone could work out the optimal time to annex a puppet. That is presuming there is an optimal time to annex? It would be based on population and the happiness modifiers but I'll let someone else do the maths!

EDIT:

Ah, looks like the discussion about that is already starting to emerge elsewhere...