Domination Victory - Deity - Tips for a noob pls

[Grasp]

Hi all,

I'm really new at CIV, I've never played any Civ before and I only played a few games at civ5.

1: Settler - Random Map, Random Civ (Portugal). Endend lefting the game, it was too boring even for a total noob T_T
2: Prince - Random Map, The Huns. I tryed a dom victory but it was impossibile, always at 0 gold and 0 research..
3: Prince - Random Map, Babylon. Won by science.
4: King - Random Map, Byzantium. I tryed to win by tourism but I ended up winning by World Leader..
5: Emperor - Random Map, Venice. I tryed to win by domination but I lost..
6: Emperor - Random Map, Venice. I tryed to win by tourism and again i won by World Leader (right 4 turns before winning by tourims )

So, as you can see i only played 6 games and i really want to win by tourism and dominance.
I'm gonna play Brazil at Immortal, to finally get my tourism victory and for deity i absolutely want to win by domination.


So.. can you share any tip for me please?
I want to play on random map and i don't want to use the civs i've already picked up.
I checked the forum for domination victories and I found something, but you never mention if the civ is easy or hard to play. I think i need something easy to play at the moment..
What do you suggest? Thank you.

 

[Idleray]

For deity domination:

Early game:
1. Reload until you get a river start with mine resources.

2. Steal workers whether it's off CS or a nearby civ.

3. Go Tradition unless you are a Civ that is geared towards Liberty (Poland comes to mind, but other Civs with good UBs like Maya, Persia will work too)

4. (Assuming Tradition) Value food above all else, even production, in your Capital after you unlock 4-food farms.

5. Beeline for National College, then beeline for Universities, then Beeline for Artillery. Spam Artillery and play patient. Any war before Artillery will most likely only be won with the help of Great Generals and lots of luck.

Mid Game:

1. Convert all farms in conquered territories into trading posts to control growth in puppeted cities.

2. Get Commerce > Big Ben. AIs almost never go Commerce, so you can snatch this up with ease. -40% buy costs is a universally awesome bonus for any Civ/playstyle.

3. Play rivals against each other. Bribe them to go to war with each other. This way you can power ahead without worrying about building defense until you are ready to fight.

4. Make assloads of workers and set them to building roads on the frontlines so your Artillery can move freely, converting farms to trading posts etc. You should aim to get roads connected to an enemy city before you even conquer it. Bonus: Workers can't be killed so you can use them as spotters for your artys.

Late game (the part where you start winning)

1. In BNW Ideological Pressure will kill your Domination game. You can either beeline to found an Ideology or wait for early adopters and then get the one that will cause you least pressure.
I do not really advocate the latter since early adopter free tenets are too good (especially if you get 2 of them).

2. If you are at leisure to choose, go Order if your Civ has strong military traits, Autocracy if it has strong economic ones. This is so the ideology complements your strengths. However this doesn't really matter that much in the end. Autocracy will definitely help you win earlier, however.

3. The biggest draw of Order is Skyscrapers, which in combination with Commerce/BB allows you to buy buildings at 40% of the cost. Needless to say you should be annexing conquered cities and getting their economies turbo-charged. You will be building most of your troops.

4. The biggest draw of Autocracy, similarily, is Mobilization, which lets you buy units at 40% cost. Combined with Barracks/Armory/MA/Brandenburg in one city, allows you to instantly buy fleets of elite bombers with 3 promotions, meaning they can start with the all-important Repair promotion.

5. Whichever Ideology you go remember the happiness-generating ones are top priority.

6. Remember to switch out all great works out of cities you conquer, since those don't generate any culture/tourism for the duration of rioting. Make sure you're getting theming bonuses. Make sure you get at least a Hotel in your capital if you are getting pressured.

7. When running low on happines, don't be afraid to sell conquered cities to Civs that share a border and with whom you have a Declaration of Friendship with. Use the gold to annex/rush-buy courthouses and other Happiness buildings in your other puppeted cities.

 

[Idleray]

Poland is definitely a strong contender for best Deity Civ, btw.

 

[Grasp]

Thank you very much for the tips. You say reload until river etc. But why? Civil Service?
So you suggest Poland, Maya or Persian.
I think i can get the point, i just checked their traits.
You said it's better to wait until artillery, so what's the point of winged hussar and ducal stable? Aren't both useless after artillery?

 

[Browd]

Yes, settling near a river will allow you to improve riverside tiles with farms for extra food at Civil Service (otherwise the extra food doesn't come until you research Fertilizer, which is a loooooong time).

Settling on a river gives you that same benefit, plus you get extra defense (for AI melee units having to attack across the river and other AI units having to use movement points cross the river), it allows you to build a garden, water mill and hydro dam in that city, and it gives you a gold bonus for land trade routes originating in that city.

 

[Goldstar]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of lancers or their UUs, so I don't use the winged hussars even when I play Poland. Ducal stables still provide their bonus +1 gold even after cavalry becomes obsolete. However, Poland's biggest bonus is their UA. They gain a bonus social policy at the start of every era. This is essentially a free FULL social policy tree and then some. This makes Poland an great contender for every victory condition while not being specialized towards any of them right of the mark.

 

[Idleray]

Yea Poland UU is just pure fluff I didn't need to build a single one on my Deity win. (though I did build some to test out their effectiveness: they were ineffective. Just as Lancers are ineffective given their awkward position in the tech tree).

A river start is just too important on Deity. Like Browd points out; it gives you 4 food farm after civil service to turbo-charge the population of your capital which is always important but even more so on Deity, and also allows Watermills which are excellent.

Coastal starts might be playable depending on the number of sea resource tiles present (i'm thinking at least 4 here).

Jungle starts are generally not playable. On Immortal they are but not on Deity IMO.

Plantation and Camp luxuries are strictly worse compared to mine-able luxuries. Of the Plantation resources Wine is the best due to its Pantheon, but it's still kinda shabby. Camp luxuries are good ONLY if you get the Goddess of the Hunt (+1 food) pantheon.

In general +1 gold from camp/plantation is just so so much inferior compared to +1 production. Needless to say, +1 food +1 production from salt is GODLY

 

[joshua43214]

I would strongly suggest cutting your teeth on Immortal domination first. The strategies for Immortal and Deity are almost exactly the same, but the step up to Deity is pretty large.

Until you get a solid grip on working diplomacy, you will just get steam rolled in domination - it is the hardest VC imo. Probably the most reliable way to win it is to do an early composite bow rush on your nearest neighbor (you must focus on science when doing this), Follow a strict science focus after this to Plastics (possibly capturing a second civ or 3rd civ midgame), and then bulbing your way down to Stealth and Nanotech and drop the last caps with X-coms in 1 or 2 turns.

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

I usually chicken out and go science on Deity, but here are my two cents.

Even if you have a real good understanding of the game's mechanics (which I find hard to believe after six games total) luck is an important factor. If you get strong neighbors who can't be bribed and gang up on you, they are going to swarm you sooner or later. Even if you manage to beat them chances are you will be behind in everything and have massive unhappiness while another AI is running away like crazy.

But let's say this doesn't happen, you need to wade through armies and cities. This takes a lot of time and could fail horribly if the AI is ahead in tech. Timing is very important. You have certain windows in which a unit is effective. Composites, crossbows, artillery and bombers. Get them too late and you run out of time. From turn 300 onwards an enemy science victory is getting really close. Sniping that capital is your only option and it might not be possible.

 

[Grasp]

Ty everyone for the tips ^^
Btw, assuming Poland.. Tradition/Liberty, Commerce, the ideology, then? What else do you suggest?

Joshua maybe it's too soon and you are right, but i'll give it a try anyway
If i keep loosing, i'll surely follow your advise ^^

 

[Idleray]

Until you get a solid grip on working diplomacy, you will just get steam rolled in domination - it is the hardest VC imo.

Strangely enough I think Domination is the easiest victory condition. It's logical if you think about it; every other VC is a resource competition and you cannot outcompete Deity when it comes to resources, so your only recourse is to tactics, and when it comes to tactics the experienced human player will always outshine the AI every time in every incarnation of Civ.

Unless you're 2 full eras behind in military tech, you can always beat the AI if you play patient and smart (loss minimization, making Artillery death-zones, making well placed citadels with your Generals, utilizing bombers etc.)

assuming Poland.. Tradition/Liberty, Commerce, the ideology, then? What else do you suggest?

Tradition OR Liberty, not both. It is acceptable to dip a point or two into Patronage/Aesthetics if you're at the awkward stage of getting a policy but not in the right era to unlock Commerce. Piety is super weak, and Honor I imagine takes luck and experience to pull off successfully(an early war that is).

Commerce is definately recommended. Once you've taken all the Happiness tenets in your Ideology I recommend going back to finish Commerce. Rationalism is good but you only need about 3 policies from it (+2 science from specialists, +1 science from trading posts and improved Universities & the filler policy before it). However if you have a lot of faith to spare(for Great Scientests that unlock from finishing the tree) or if you're overflowing with cash and Happiness already, then I recommend finishing Rationalism and timing it so it nets you an expensive Tech.

 

[Idleray]

Also a word on Culture and Tourism: Do not neglect Tourism just because you're not going for a Cultural Victory. The balance between your Tourism and other Civs Culture (and vice versa) is what makes up Ideological Pressure.

Your goal while playing a Domination Victory is to minimise this Pressure and thus minimise unhappiness.

This means you need to make full use of the Great Works that you capture - the keyword here being capture. You're not going to make many of your own, since that's inefficient. That doesn't mean you neglect your Artist/Writer/Musician guilds. You get those just the same, but you will want to use Artists and Writers on Golden Ages and culture boosts(political treatise).

It's acceptable to use your first Writer for a great work, since political treatise at that stage will probably give you less culture than a great work can generate over the course of the game.

Use all your musicians for Great Works until their strength reaches 1000 or more, at which stage you can use them to Concert the Civ that's giving you the most pressure.

 

[joshua43214]

Strangely enough I think Domination is the easiest victory condition. It's logical if you think about it; every other VC is a resource competition and you cannot outcompete Deity when it comes to resources, so your only recourse is to tactics, and when it comes to tactics the experienced human player will always outshine the AI every time in every incarnation of Civ.

Unless you're 2 full eras behind in military tech, you can always beat the AI if you play patient and smart (loss minimization, making Artillery death-zones, making well placed citadels with your Generals, utilizing bombers etc.)



Tradition OR Liberty, not both. It is acceptable to dip a point or two into Patronage/Aesthetics if you're at the awkward stage of getting a policy but not in the right era to unlock Commerce. Piety is super weak, and Honor I imagine takes luck and experience to pull off successfully(an early war that is).

Commerce is definately recommended. Once you've taken all the Happiness tenets in your Ideology I recommend going back to finish Commerce. Rationalism is good but you only need about 3 policies from it (+2 science from specialists, +1 science from trading posts and improved Universities & the filler policy before it). However if you have a lot of faith to spare(for Great Scientests that unlock from finishing the tree) or if you're overflowing with cash and Happiness already, then I recommend finishing Rationalism and timing it so it nets you an expensive Tech.

Even having tech parity makes for a god-awful long slog at high difficulty. Once you hit that awkward point where the AI has GWB's the game just stretch's out as you try to get anti-aircraft arty up. If you can get through the AI before that, it is all good, but this alone can delay wins by up to 30 turns. Finding that fine balance between science and military tech can be hard, and there is no cookie cutter way since every map is different.

With Poland, taking both tradition and Liberty works very well. It is the only civ that I would ever do this with though.

After that, commerce for the reduced purchasing costs + Big Ben + Autocracy for reduced unit maintenance and purchase cost makes for a solid win combo. The problem I run into on most maps is that I end up at war with almost every one if not every on late in the game and TR's get pillages as fast as they can be made, so you need to have a huge gold stack going into the beginning of the final push.

 

[Grasp]

Oh my, i lost the post i just wrote :\
Btw, breefly..
I played 2 time brazil but i ended up loosing.
I tryed egypt the 3rd time and i took all the feats to speed up wonders.
I won on turn 407 being world leader, so again, i missed my tourism victory.

Ty everyone for the advises, now i'm going to try Dominance on Deity
I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[Syailendra]

Oh my, i lost the post i just wrote :\
Btw, breefly..
I played 2 time brazil but i ended up loosing.
I tryed egypt the 3rd time and i took all the feats to speed up wonders.
I won on turn 407 being world leader, so again, i missed my tourism victory.

Ty everyone for the advises, now i'm going to try Dominance on Deity
I'll let you know how it goes!

do you know that you can forfeit your votes? If you are close to winning cultural, do it, diplo vc is wrongly designed IMO, its too easy.
What civ are you using to beat deity? Personally i like babylon on land maps and korea on water maps. But honestly, i haven't won domination on deity.

 

[Grasp]

do you know that you can forfeit your votes? If you are close to winning cultural, do it, diplo vc is wrongly designed IMO, its too easy.
What civ are you using to beat deity? Personally i like babylon on land maps and korea on water maps. But honestly, i haven't won domination on deity.

Yes, I know, but I was about to lose. We were 5 at the end and Inca had 4/5 tourism, i was the last one, so i was afraid to lose the game. Btw, it makes no sense to me "winning by diplomacy, skipping the vote and waiting to win in some other way.."

I just finished my first game.. i surrendered becouse i clearly made some mistake..
I was using poland.. random map. I think it was a great landmass. Surely not archipelago

I had a good start, as you suggested Idleray. Beeline to what needed and so.. but, should i build towns before start attacking??
At turn 70 or so, i already was totally sorrounded by enemies. I bribed them to kill each others but persia became too strong.. I mean, something about 20 towns and 400 gold income when i only had 50 T_T
I also tryed to pay them to declare war on the entire world but they won T_T
It was 6 vs 1 and me as spectator but they kept conquering everything T_T
At turn 300 with only 1 town i tryed to attack their closest city with about 20 artillery but i lost a few turns later :\
How can i build more cities at the start? Could you please tell me when is the right time to settle? and more, choosing tradition i also have to build the settler and it takes ages..
I'm reading the replay, so i cant tell you my timings to see what's wrong.

I had a lot of grasslands with a very long river. No mines... Elephant and 3 sugars as resources. Cows and only 2 hills for mines..
Turn 21: I stole a worker. So 21 turns without building..
Turn 65: I had enough faith to found my pantheon. God of hunt.
Turn 134: Bribed Persia (at my right, top and bottom side...) vs England (at my top left and left side. They were plotting against me..)
Turn 177: Persia and England made peace. Persia won almost all the fights and at the end they had more then 10 towns..
Turn 180: Bribed persia to go agains everyone, randomless.
They always won and they become the kings of the world T_T
More than 100 turns bribing them agains everyone but they never lost :\
Assyria was very strong too but they were to far to engage a real battle.
Btw, i learned a lot about diplomacy in this game.. Persia was always plotting against me and i managed to never fight
I took a screen of my policies and the map.

Oh i forgot. I only took 2 liberty becouse i was sorrounded and i couldn't settle anymore, so it was useless to grab the other 3..
So i took consulates but it wasn't enough..

 

[joshua43214]

There are so many things wrong in those two screen shots that I am not really sure where to begin.
I admire your determination to take Deity on, but you are not quite ready for it I think.

The only way you can run basically no science is to take Autocracy and steal the techs you are missing. It looks to me like you just bee lined for Artillery, and got pasted in return for it.

I think MadDjinn's Venice LP is the only Deity level LP up at the moment showing how to go about using Autocracy to win (apologies to anyone who has posted an LP I missed). It takes a lot of artistry and requires that you really know the tech tree and the timings.

Comments,
You did not finish Liberty, you have to just get it done and get out there.
Liberty is weak for inexperienced players, tradition is much safer and stronger.
Full commerce is generally not worth while.
You have no tourism,
You have no culture
you have no ideology
You have no science output
You need all of these things to survive high level play.

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

I think it might be time for funny meme pictures to enter the thread.

 

[Idleray]

Ok a few thoughts after looking at your pictures.

1. The point of going Liberty is to get the GP as soon as possible for the early game boost, as well as for its happiness boost, neither of which you got.

2. You only had 1 city. Although I admit I wasn't specific, you definately want 4 cities with a Tradition start and more than that with Liberty before you start attacking.

3. You took my advice for spamming artillery abit too literally, but that's probably my fault. You need to have a balanced army that - compared to most conventional setups - would lean heavily enough towards Artillery to be called "spam", but you can't get anywhere if you literally ONLY get Artys. You still need a balanced composition in addition to copious siege units. I will make a large post with pictures to illustrate examples from my most recent Deity German playthru

 

[Grasp]

There are so many things wrong in those two screen shots that I am not really sure where to begin.
I admire your determination to take Deity on, but you are not quite ready for it I think.

The only way you can run basically no science is to take Autocracy and steal the techs you are missing. It looks to me like you just bee lined for Artillery, and got pasted in return for it.

I think MadDjinn's Venice LP is the only Deity level LP up at the moment showing how to go about using Autocracy to win (apologies to anyone who has posted an LP I missed). It takes a lot of artistry and requires that you really know the tech tree and the timings.

Comments,
You did not finish Liberty, you have to just get it done and get out there.
Liberty is weak for inexperienced players, tradition is much safer and stronger.
Full commerce is generally not worth while.
You have no tourism,
You have no culture
you have no ideology
You have no science output
You need all of these things to survive high level play.

Yes, you are right.. I was not used to only play 1 city, for that reason i'm trying to understand when to build/buy/get free Settlers.
I didn't beeline artilley. I beelined NC, then University.
The point isn't reading the "low numbers" on the screen. I can do it myselft too
Winning immortal is impossible with 200 research 11 culture 0 tourism.. so that means that i can play better than this, otherwise i would have never won on immortal... the real problem is:
1) Expansionist civ on the left, expansionist civ on the right.. at turn 40 i already am sorrounded... what can i do to counter that?
2) My start location is good for gold, becouse i have 3 sugars and i can start immediately to sell stuff, i had a lot of gold at the start.. but totally no hammers.. I built on a grassland and i only had 1 mine near.. I also was forced to buy that tile becouse the border growth chose other tiles.. so again, what can i do?
3) I couldn't fill liberty, what's the point grabbing collective rule when i already am sorrounded and i can't move from my little town? same for meritocraticy and and representation.. I got so many benefits grabbing an early consulates.. The problem is that Persia annexed all the sorrounding CSs too, so i lost all those benefits.. and this bring us back at the first point..
I can't let them sorround me, i have to build settlers and get that free settler asap, but how? They are so fast to settle and they always move the settler with at least 2 armies. I tried to steal settlers moving around my city but their army was too strong for my warriors.. I also used scouts/warriors to block the way of their settlers, trying to gain some time, but they still managed to settle soon.. Maybe should i try to build a stronger army at the start to steal their settlers?