Domination victory deity

Sykes179

Warlord
Joined
May 13, 2018
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114
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UK
Why am I so bad at war? Every thread I read on here says how bad the AI is at war and how ridiculously easy it is to win.

I've won all the other victories on deity but I cannot get a domination victory. I think a lot of the problem is that I'm a very 'slow' player. As in I don't care what turn I win on; it's just not something I'm interested in. I couldn't even tell you in how many turns I win. I've no idea. I also play more role playing so I don't use any of the 'exploits' i've read about on here.

Whenever I play I'm always out gunned early on so in a normal game I just try and hang on and eventually in the mid game I can get ahead but that doesn't seem to work for a domination. From what I've read you've got to start early but I'm always missing iron or behind on tech or up against a couple of city states as the AI gets political philosophy very early on.

Some talk about rushing to archers or spamming something but it takes **turns to produce 1 so I cant see how you can 'spam' it.

I always think about the war but I always think i need something else, another unit, more tech etc. and by the time I get round to it the AI has advanced as well and flattens me.

When people talk about winning, how many games do they have to play to get the right situatuion so they can win. Every game? Almost every game? Or are you starting again because you don't get the right start? You don't get iron or something doesn't quite fall for you.
 
When people talk about winning, how many games do they have to play to get the right situatuion so they can win. Every game? Almost every game?
Almost, but it is deity and you need to take most opportunities to exploit situations. You sound like an immersive player so why bother with deity. for domination, it is about destroying their troops before taking their cities, let them come to you in the early game. I often on deity do not attack until much later, you do not have to do it early, you just have to have decent science so your troops are on a level playing field. You can just rush to bombers amd hope one civ has not dominated too much.
To be good at war you need to appreciate that defending is normally stronger than attacking so even if you declare war, getting them to attack you is the better option.
Understand the AI’s need for visibility, it lack of memory, it’s ability to expose weak units, inability to understand when it is losing, it’s targeted approach to attacking a specific city, it’s targeting preferences. There is just so much, it is only in the midst of a battle when a key unit of theirs does something clearly odd that you realise it is hard to explain exactly what one issue is with the AI combat, so much they do wrong but general combat behaviour alone is enough.
The real key is to be cautiously optimistic, they will mess up, as long as I do not get too rash in approach. Less troops does not mean you will lose, quite the opposite, the AI is more likely to declare on you and blindly walk into a death trap, especially if you forward settle a city or similar.

On deity the opposition will not win until around T300 so as long as you can get your science going solidly, you should be fine but it is about taking advantage of everything on deity to increase your odds.
 
You don't always have to war right away but if you're going to, It's a good idea to go animal husbandry first. It'll get you to archery quicker and tell you if you have horse. In general, and I know it isn't a rule, but more often than not if you don't have horses nearby you'll have iron. That'll tell you what to rush in the classical. It's a pretty rare misfortune to have neither. Oftentimes if you uncover multiple horse nodes it's an indication that you're in an iron poor start. If you only uncover 1 or two you might get lucky going for bronzeworking. It's a bit of a gamble.

In a rush game I usually plan to self settle three cities. Your second city needs good production because it and your capital are going to be the main production centers. Your third city should be forward settled near your victim...er target I mean, and hopefully in a spot where you can claim iron or horse. Use it to fight defensively or retreat and heal If necessary.

If you're really planning a rush and not a long game you can ignore infrastructure for most of the ancient other than a builder or two to improve yields, strategics/amenities and get eurekas/inspirations. A district or two for eurekas/inspirations is fine but plan on capturing a lot of that from deity AI that can build that stuff faster than you, just for you to take it all away from them. Focus on units, lots of units. Early on your population science is enough to get you what you need. Major exception is if you have some 4+ adj campus spot, that'll speed things up significantly.

If you wind up without iron don't worry, you'll get some. Just build horse and archers to counter their troops and use spear and warriors to siege cities. Deity AI will build walls asap and horse are garbage v walls. A combination of maybe 3 warriors and a spear or two using a ram will wreck ancient walls. You won't need swords until medieval walls start popping up. You can use archers to whittle walls down but that's slow. Their main purpose is keeping units off your infantry's backs. Horse should use their mobility to pillage for gold, culture and science, leave farms to heal your infantry. Pillage liberally, the AI often has a builder socked away in the city center you can repair with.

Tech progression should be straightforward. Rush archers and either horse or swords depending on strategic resource availability. Use a slinger or two to boost archery. It's quicker to hard build slingers and upgrade them than to build archers. I might not build a single campus early on in a rush. You will capture them and so much more. For civics rushing political science is standard for any game. Then you need to get your flanking bonus since that'll help negate the deity str bonus.

Sumeria, Aztec or Nubia are great for this. I've even done it unconventionally with Cree and their scout UU, it's basically a highly mobile warrior that's stronger than a swordsman once it gets ambush. If you want a more generic intro to early rush America is a great choice. You'll almost always get that home continent bonus vs your first two victims...er adversaries I mean. There are a number of other civs with great early rushes too, Persia, Gaul, Greece, Macedon, etc but I find Sumeria, Aztec and Nubia to be the most straightforward.

The other option is like Victoria said. Focus on production or science while playing defensive and plan on global domination with air units or siege units paired with the balloon/drone support units. Anything with 3+ range baffles the AI. Just keep their units off your siege/air with some cavalry (heavy or light doesn't matter) and swoop in to cap cities after they've been bombed to oblivion.
 
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I've won a few domination victories on huge continents maps / 12 civs / marathon speed. The slower marathon speed helps (as everything is slower except your troops movements) but 12 civs on two or three large, faraway landmasses make it a long process.

The trick is to survive the early rush - if you can make that happen (50 "normal" turns or 150 marathon turns) and you succeed in playing defensively and build walls around your main 2 to 3 cities, you're good to go. You might grab an attacking civ or two in the early game, but that's opportunistic. Then in mid-game you can focus on building your infrastructure, CH / ports for gold and campuses for science are useful. Then near the end-game, you use airforce and bombers to defeat the capitals and cities you need: AI is helpless both attacking by air and defending against. I'll usually finish off my adversaries in the 700-750-ish turns (marathon, divide by three for normal speed), it usually ends up in a tedious slow grind but I'm unstoppable by then.

Right now I'm over 3,000 military strength with roughly ten modern tank armies, eight fighters and three bombers: two turns at most to thrash any city (some AI civs had discovered flight long before me, built airports, but not one airplane in sight?!), four more civs to go across the ocean, my six aircraft carriers will help deliver my planes to the doorstep... all purchased directly using gold, and despite the maintenance cost I'm making over 1 kgpt. Don't underestimate gold! Nor pillaging as much as you can, you get yields upfront, it's valuable even if you need to repair later.
 
I've won a few domination victories on huge continents maps / 12 civs / marathon speed. The slower marathon speed helps (as everything is slower except your troops movements) but 12 civs on two or three large, faraway landmasses make it a long process.

The trick is to survive the early rush - if you can make that happen (50 "normal" turns or 150 marathon turns) and you succeed in playing defensively and build walls around your main 2 to 3 cities, you're good to go. You might grab an attacking civ or two in the early game, but that's opportunistic. Then in mid-game you can focus on building your infrastructure, CH / ports for gold and campuses for science are useful. Then near the end-game, you use airforce and bombers to defeat the capitals and cities you need: AI is helpless both attacking by air and defending against. I'll usually finish off my adversaries in the 700-750-ish turns (marathon, divide by three for normal speed), it usually ends up in a tedious slow grind but I'm unstoppable by then.

Right now I'm over 3,000 military strength with roughly ten modern tank armies, eight fighters and three bombers: two turns at most to thrash any city (some AI civs had discovered flight long before me, built airports, but not one airplane in sight?!), four more civs to go across the ocean, my six aircraft carriers will help deliver my planes to the doorstep... all purchased directly using gold, and despite the maintenance cost I'm making over 1 kgpt. Don't underestimate gold! Nor pillaging as much as you can, you get yields upfront, it's valuable even if you need to repair later.

700 Turns for one game!!
 
700 Turns for one game!!

Quite short for a Marathon game, actually! One game takes me several weeks to finish (as I also have a real life, unfortunately) but I get the full pace of time...
 
Many good tips here already, especially by @Socrates99 regarding the importance of production, number of cities and forward settling the target.
As another small tip following that thread, try to get a trader up early in case the target has very rough terrain.
If you can build a road through his forests and hills, you will have a much easier time getting into position and reinforcing any losses.
Also a governor promotion is key.
You dont need it immediately, but try to have a governor ready for when you are likely going to occupy the first city.
If you cannot get a governor up, the city is in most cases lost after a few turns, and you want to avoid that in order to get a "loyalty foothold" in the area.

That being said, I generally follow two separate routes for domination victory.
The early ancient era rush (where you keep pushing in the classical era with the units you built, upgrading as necessary), or a delayed buildup.
The ancient era rush is easy to execute (not necessarily early to succeed with though), whereas the delayed buildup is mostly a peaceful science game up until the renaissance where it becomes easier to catch up again (tech wise).
Of the two, I prefer the rush strategy, as the second delayed push usually foregoes a large portion of the game in favour of infrastructure buildup, and is quite boring to play.
If you do the latter, spam campuses and comm hubs, then build up some siege type units with the goal of eventually getting balloons and bombers - those two things combined really destroy the AI.

One problem is playing the rush strategy with randomized tech tree.
You cannot rely on horses, swordsmen and even battering rams/archers (in case you get some really bad RNG on the tech tree, and even Political Philosophy in the civics tree).
In that case I heavily advise going 2 cities (occasionally 3) and just spamming as many warriors as you can off of those two, as your window of opportunity will close fast.
Try to look for battering rams (if the AI gets walls up, you're boned), archery tech, and swordsmen/horsemen through eureka unlocking, but be prepared to adjust on the fly depending on the RNG you get.
In some cases you will just lose outright if the RNG is really bad, but it can be mitigated somewhat by going for an extremely risky opener - builder first.
With that builder you potentially can unlock the eurekas for later key techs (bronze working, masonry etc.), steering you towards the right tech choices for early warfare.
The goal in any ancient era rush btw is imo to conquer at least two cities, because at that point you can often sustain the negative loyalty, as well as hampering the AI significantly in case further pushing fails.

Anyway, this is about as general as I can be in any advice, because the rest really depends on the kind of RNG that you face (map, tile yields and tech tree especially).
A good tip is to play something OP though, and learn to execute an ancient era rush off of that (Sumeria).
Once you get comfy with that, you can start using warriors like most other civs have to rely on.
 
Just one other thing. Ignore religion. It's just not necessary for dom and saps resources. Get a pantheon asap though. God of the forge rocks for rushing. You'll capture plenty of holy sites and may accidentally found, it happens. Build the GMC in your govt plaza then you can faith dump into troops or generals. Some people build small armies and focus on one front at a time but the more units you have the more cities you can take at once.
 
I agree with others here that the AI can be easily gutted with any range 3 siege unit. No need to wait for balloons though. Forward observers promotion on a couple of catapults or trebs (acquire these on enemies or cities that don't fire back at your siege units - this is the only part of the strategy that needs some careful planning) together with a handful of melee units is enough to rampage across a continent. Then just figure out loyalty issues and defend your cities against barb hordes and you should be able to own your continent completely by the end of medieval era. The world will be done by renaissance/industrial.

As an aside for this particular strategy, Ottomans' bonus with Serasker promotion for Ibrahim are particularly useful.
 
Just one other thing. Ignore religion. It's just not necessary for dom and saps resources.

... except for civ's which benefit greatly from it for dom (Basil II and Spain come to mind). Otherwise, fully agree.
 
you should be able to own your continent completely by the end of medieval era

That never happened to me, not even close. Not that I'm such a good player, but it probably depends on the size of the map and the difficulty level (advantages the AI gets from start)? I can't imagine this happening on huge maps / 12 civs / deity, although with an excellent RNG it may be possible?
 
Thanks for the input. I must add that I play randomised tech tree because that seems more authentic.

The problem I have is highlighted by all the answers. There's about half a dozen things mentuioned that I should be 'focusing' on. From getting a pantheon to settlers to military units etc. I find that if I turn up at a city with a handful of warriors and an archer the AI has walls, archers, swordsmen and more. If I switch focus to science I have the science but I have 1 warrior and a slinger. I know that this plate spinning is in efefct the entire game but I'm frustrated it's the one victory I haven't maanged. But as Robert the Bruce himself said ...
 
"That never happened to me, not even close. Not that I'm such a good player, but it probably depends on the size of the map and the difficulty level (advantages the AI gets from start)? I can't imagine this happening on huge maps / 12 civs / deity, although with an excellent RNG it may be possible?"

I play normal map, 6-8 civs, marathon...so perhaps this strategy is less reliable on larger maps as you suggested. I shall have to experiment to confirm that. A brutal mix of enemies can also upset things. Any 2 or 3 of Tomyris, Hammurabi, Tamar, Genghis, Gilgamesh ....possibly Shaka...will certainly force a tactic change to a long game approach.
 
@Alaindor...Marathon timing also "buys time for ancient/classical/medieval warfare" as has been mentioned by others. So on normal speed, it is - as you infer - probably harder to plan a continent wide blitz with a single expeditionary group and a couple of souped up siege units. I must confess I only ever play Marathon because of the pleasure I derive from older era immersiveness, only now becoming aware of the advantage it provides for warmongering against the AI.

I suspect that on marathon, beelining catapults and using them on defenceless cities to gain the XP for that magical tier 3 upgrade works because on marathon, you can get to a number of cities that haven't got walls up. On normal speed, I imagine walls are ready on most - if not all - enemy cities to decimate catapults when you have built up your military for that all important first war?
 
... except for civ's which benefit greatly from it for dom (Basil II and Spain come to mind). Otherwise, fully agree.
Ah yeah, I should've said it pertained to my rush strategy.

Thanks for the input. I must add that I play randomised tech tree because that seems more authentic.

The problem I have is highlighted by all the answers. There's about half a dozen things mentuioned that I should be 'focusing' on. From getting a pantheon to settlers to military units etc. I find that if I turn up at a city with a handful of warriors and an archer the AI has walls, archers, swordsmen and more. If I switch focus to science I have the science but I have 1 warrior and a slinger. I know that this plate spinning is in efefct the entire game but I'm frustrated it's the one victory I haven't maanged. But as Robert the Bruce himself said ...
Its not too terrible. You have time to put it together as long as you dont get sidetracked. Getting a pantheon is as easy as popping a goody hut with faith or running the policy that gives faith.

I generally queue a couple slingers right off the bat and watch my pop. As soon as I hit 2 pop I'll push a settler to the front of the queue to get it out quickly as possible. While this is going on do some exploring with your first warrior. Dont worry about barbs, you'll have slingers soon enough. After the settler and slingers I'll build a builder to hopefully improve some pastures, luxuries or mines. Then you really should crank out warriors.

Most of it flows like that. The one thing that always trips me up or slows me down is getting masonry for the ram. You dont always get stone and hard researching stinks. This'll be especially punishing with Shuffle on since you have to find it.
 
@Alaindor...Marathon timing also "buys time for ancient/classical/medieval warfare" as has been mentioned by others. So on normal speed, it is - as you infer - probably harder to plan a continent wide blitz with a single expeditionary group and a couple of souped up siege units. I must confess I only ever play Marathon because of the pleasure I derive from older era immersiveness, only now becoming aware of the advantage it provides for warmongering against the AI.

I suspect that on marathon, beelining catapults and using them on defenceless cities to gain the XP for that magical tier 3 upgrade works because on marathon, you can get to a number of cities that haven't got walls up. On normal speed, I imagine walls are ready on most - if not all - enemy cities to decimate catapults when you have built up your military for that all important first war?

Very true... however I myself only play Marathon for the very same reason as you. Maybe I'm too conservative and not I'm not taking enough risks, when it works it's very rewarding, sure thing.
 
I only play on huge maps, so ignore this post if you use smaller ones...

The method that works consistently for me involves the following strategies:

a) You need patience. Be prepared to play 440+ turns, so (depending on how many hours a day you play) it will take between 3 days and 3 weeks.
b) Find land suitable to build between 6 and 8 productive cities as your core empire. If such land isn't available, or you start too near another civ, pull the plug and try again.
c) Don't attempt to found a religion; it's a distraction. Ditto wonders.
d) Don't forget regular workers: you need to keep building those farms, mines, etc.
e) Build enough military units to defend yourself, but make no attempt to expand beyond your core empire.
f) Concentrate early on science and city centre development. Thereafter, balance development between culture, industry, and commerce, with the aim eventually of putting all in every city.
g) Leave encampment development till later, though eventually you will need them for military engineers and resource accumulation.
h) Beeline chemistry for the essential research labs; followed by computers for flood defences if you're coastal.
i) En route to these, try and get industrialisation and steam power, to develop a comprehensive rail network.
j) You need to find uranium. Either build the spaceport and earth satellite or - generally easier - have a longterm (from as early as possible) military alliance and piggyback the ally's satellite.
k) Once you have the view of the whole earth, find and note where all the uranium is (there will never be fewer than 8, and rarely more than 13).
l) If the is any uranium in unoccupied land (if there is, it will normally be in tundra/snow), send a settler to build near (not on) it, and accumulate the resource.
l) Aim for the Venture Politics civic. You need the Corporate Libertarianism government for the extra uranium accumulation.
m) Likewise, aim if possible for a golden age in the future era (taking dark in the information era may help). As well as a free GDR, you get another extra accumulation.
n) With both these, every 3 uraniums will support 5 GDRs, plus the free one. Build (or if you can afford to, buy) as many GDRs as you can support.
o) Get the War Department; it makes fighting easier.
p) Go for Advanced Power Cells. You won't take down strong cities without it.
q) Only now do you go into expansion mode. Declare war, preferably one power at a time, but you'll probably soon be the pariah of the world anyway.
r) Keep only capital cities (no choice) and cities with uranium in their radius (to get more GDRs). Raze any others.
s) Time permitting, try and wipe the victim off the map. He can then cause no more problems!
t) Keep on doing this, till averyone else is eliminiated.
 
I only play on huge maps, so ignore this post if you use smaller ones...

The method that works consistently for me involves the following strategies:

a) You need patience. Be prepared to play 440+ turns, so (depending on how many hours a day you play) it will take between 3 days and 3 weeks.
b) Find land suitable to build between 6 and 8 productive cities as your core empire. If such land isn't available, or you start too near another civ, pull the plug and try again.
c) Don't attempt to found a religion; it's a distraction. Ditto wonders.
d) Don't forget regular workers: you need to keep building those farms, mines, etc.
e) Build enough military units to defend yourself, but make no attempt to expand beyond your core empire.
f) Concentrate early on science and city centre development. Thereafter, balance development between culture, industry, and commerce, with the aim eventually of putting all in every city.
g) Leave encampment development till later, though eventually you will need them for military engineers and resource accumulation.
h) Beeline chemistry for the essential research labs; followed by computers for flood defences if you're coastal.
i) En route to these, try and get industrialisation and steam power, to develop a comprehensive rail network.
j) You need to find uranium. Either build the spaceport and earth satellite or - generally easier - have a longterm (from as early as possible) military alliance and piggyback the ally's satellite.
k) Once you have the view of the whole earth, find and note where all the uranium is (there will never be fewer than 8, and rarely more than 13).
l) If the is any uranium in unoccupied land (if there is, it will normally be in tundra/snow), send a settler to build near (not on) it, and accumulate the resource.
l) Aim for the Venture Politics civic. You need the Corporate Libertarianism government for the extra uranium accumulation.
m) Likewise, aim if possible for a golden age in the future era (taking dark in the information era may help). As well as a free GDR, you get another extra accumulation.
n) With both these, every 3 uraniums will support 5 GDRs, plus the free one. Build (or if you can afford to, buy) as many GDRs as you can support.
o) Get the War Department; it makes fighting easier.
p) Go for Advanced Power Cells. You won't take down strong cities without it.
q) Only now do you go into expansion mode. Declare war, preferably one power at a time, but you'll probably soon be the pariah of the world anyway.
r) Keep only capital cities (no choice) and cities with uranium in their radius (to get more GDRs). Raze any others.
s) Time permitting, try and wipe the victim off the map. He can then cause no more problems!
t) Keep on doing this, till averyone else is eliminiated.

Very interesting... and aggressive (but for domination you need to be!).

I also always play on huge maps, but Marathon / Deity. I usually find I don't need to wait for GDR's and aircraft bombers are very sufficient to conquer cities (with a few tanks for pillaging and finishing them off), if you can get enough aluminium that is. I also never raze a city (there's usually something useful in them) and it's not too hard to keep the amenities up, especially as the more you conquer, the more luxury resources you can improve (and you need to become autonomous as trading is no longer an option when you're at war with everyone). I don't usually wipe a Civ off the map, it's usually time consuming and useless as once the first wave of defense is broken, AI counter-attacks very poorly or not even at all.
 
Interesting. I've never tried marathon as my assumption is that it just takes too long to play. I'm open to being convinced otherwise.

I did, fairly early in the Civ 6 era, try the airforce route, and found it too slow. Again, I'm interested if this has changed with the new versions and patches.

Sometimes, just for a lark, I do keep all cities, to see if I can beat my PB score. The big drawback is that it takes too long every turn just going through the city development (which you don't really need anyway as your core provides all you need bar uranium). If (as in earlier incarnations of civ) you could have a fully automated governor, then it would be less of a pain.
 
Yes, Marathon does take a long time... I like it because otherwise I find whipping through the ages is too fast to enjoy each of them. But it gives you an advantage as you have - relatively - three times more turns to move your troops around (everything is three times slower, except unit movements).
 
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