Early Domination?

[omfgpeanuts]

Everyone on these boards seems to be praising how OP Crossbowmen/some range units are and taking civs really early with them, but I have yet to repeat the same results(I play on Immortal and BNW). Whenever I try to war, my units always get destroyed by the cities/garrisons and end up having to suicide a ton of my troops. Like I've played both China and the Zulu and always end up losing 3+ troops when attempting to take over a civ.


So I have a few questions
1. How do you make sure your units don't die?
2. I know some people bring workers along but I don't know why.
3. What do you do after you take out a Civ? Annex or Puppet?
4. How do you cope with the unhappiness?
5. What should you bring to a campaign?
6. Social Policies?

 

[Moriarte]

1. Watch a let's play. There are plenty good ones in LP section of this forum.
2. Repair pilaged improvements, connect your new cities with road to your capital.
3. Puppet, maybe later annexe, if the city is really good, or if you need to rush buy something in there. Annexe only if happiness allows for it.
4. Build happiness buildings in advance, not when you're already unhappy. Mercantile city state allies, exchanging luxuries with other civs, happiness wonders: Notre Dame, Forbidden Palace, Chichen Itza, Taj Mahal, Eiffel - all that can help. Religion is another source, namely, pagodas.
5. 5 Crossbows, 3 - 4 cannons, 3 - 4 horses, scout, worker, or similar.
6. Traditiron or Liberty, later - either full commerce with detour to rationalism, or just rationalism until you can strart adopting ideologies. Order and autocracy are best for total war.

 

[bbbt]

I don't think losing 3-4 troops to take out an entire civilization is actually that bad. Or did you mean 3-4 per city?

But basically, pillage for health. Rotate damaged troops out of the line of fire, rotate in fresh ones. If you have some old, useless units (i.e. like warriors) use them as cannon fodder - the AI generally goes for damaged units first.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

1. How do you make sure your units don't die? Turn your infantry into meatshields. Aim for cover promotions on your swordsman types and medic on your spear/pikes (you can do all one or the other it's just one way I keep 'em straight and lancers as mobile medics is one way they can be useful during that time that any attack they make is a suicide attempt) Move your meatshields in adjacent to a city and your ranged or siege units in behind them. Try to make sure at least one of your "cover types" is injured all the time so the AI focuses on them and not your ranged. Then just bombard the city until it's done.

2. I know some people bring workers along but I don't know why. Another reason not mentioned is to chop forests or jungle that may be in the way of your ranged units.

3. What do you do after you take out a Civ? Annex or Puppet? I raze almost everything in the early game. Courthouse maintenance is too hard to absorb early on anymore and puppets are almost worthless early on because they take a 20% hit to their science output and add that 5% increase to research costs. There also isn't much gold for them to work until you get trading posts up in them. Even then I don't really like to puppet and raze more than I annex. Your goal is to weaken the enemy and open up space for your own expansion. Capitals I'll puppet until the resistance is over then annex.

4. How do you cope with the unhappiness? Raze! Religion and SoPols help too.

5. What should you bring to a campaign? At least 2 melee, I prefer 3 or 4 and 4 or more ranged units, catapults are worthless but once you get physics you should make one or two of those trebuchets. Once you get chemistry start phasing out the crossbows and shift to cannons.

6. Social Policies? For early domination I like to combine tradition and honor. Tradition has some good economic policies to help pay for your troops and honor is kind of self explanatory. I usually go tradition opener-honor opener-oligarchy or legalism(order is interchangeable)-Monarchy-Discipline-Military Caste-Warrior Code-Military Tradition-Professional Army-Landed Elite-Aristocracy. It's kind of late for finishing tradition but having the honor finisher is pretty important to help pay for your armies in the early game when trade is only so so. I used to like Liberty more but it doesn't have anything to help cashflow like tradition does and that's the main problem early warmongers face anymore.