Earth 18 civ early dominations

[MrFelony]

Ever since I got a 1685 dom win on accident with Germany on emperor, i've been wondering what would be the best path towards getting the earliest domination victory on the earth 18 civ map in BTS. right now i've been playing with rome, just cause praets are fun. I've moved up to immortal since the AI is so dumb/easy on emperor. the move up has made it a little more difficult, but the fact that the AIs (in the map in scenarios atleast) don't start out with archers/archery is what makes it so damn easy.

The three candidates for earliest dom victories in my book are egypt, persia, and rome. egypt and persia are easy because of their UUs, and Rome is in great position to conqueur all of Europe by 1000 BC.

The strategy that I've been going with Rome is move the capital east to the copper and beeline copper. this is a must because frederick has copper and if he's given enough time (on immortal at least), he will build up a sizable force of axemen himself. patrial work a barracks until the copper is up and then chop 2 axemen to take care of germany. this is easily done by turn 50. then sort of move counterclockwise taking care to get to isabella before she gets archery. then get IW online and send over a nice stack of praets to take out alex (who for some reason always gets archers). you can backfill finland/sweden pretty easily (i messed up and let barbs raze a city). then get to salasin and cyrus before they get LBs. Cyrus and Qin are your only real "competition" at this point. Russia wont have LBs for a while still, so start up a nice stack of praets to sweep through her territory.


has anyone here achieved an extremely early domination victory on the earth 18 civ map? and does anyone know why the civs don't start with archery

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

On Monarch+, all opponent civs start with Archery. I achieved a domination victory in the 1600's on Prince with Persia (Epic speed).

You claim horses on Persepolis's third border pop, which you can hurry by building a Monument or Stonehenge, In the meantime build barracks, grow you city and pump out a few scouts to find your enemy. Get a road build all the way to horses by the third border pop so you can pasture them immediately, and pump out Immortals for dear life. You should be able to easily conquer India (3 cities by then) and Arabia, and maybe Egypt if they don't have War Chariots.

What I did afterwards was conquer Egypt with Maces/Catapults (they don't have Iron) and tech to Cavalry, which shouldn't be hard with all those grasslands in India which should be cottaged. I then teched to Democracy, turned off research and rush-bought Cavalry until I won.

 

[MrFelony]

I'm not sure, but i highly doubt that the AI starts with archery because WHY would it build only warriors for 50-80 turns . i mean that's just DUMB. you may be right though, maybe i'll have a peak into WB and check on this. maybe they're designed to do this to make conquering that much easier . my aversion to playing persia is that I dont like where their start is. 1 tile from the coast annoys the bejeezes out of me. I've been thinking that a 1SW along the lake grabbing the coast+some FPs might be a good choice and quickly settle a hill near the horses...I almost think playing with immortals is unfair on this map.

 

[LlamaCat]

as it happens I am playing this scenario right now as Rome but it's just Prince level. I am going to win domination but it's about 1895 and I will need another 30-50 turns I think.

I am mopping up Qin with my tanks and have a huge tech lead over everyone. Qin had about 4 vassals at one point. I made Egpyt and eventually Saladin my vassals in Africa.

One fun strategic part: taking over the Middle East to get a fort build where the Suez Canal really is, as this is a key shortcut to getting your naval units to the Far East.

This is a fun scenario as Rome, I agree the Praetorians are the key to taking over Europe and I did it in a similar fashion as you. But the map is so big that even with a big tech lead (I have tanks and stealth bombers, Qin has rifles at best) it's just taking a long time, because he spams units and even with tanks and blitz promotion, it takes a lot of units to take each city and then wait for borders to pop.

 

[shyuhe]

If you want an early domination, you'd have to play with marathon... It's the same reason why all the earliest dates in the HOF are marathon games That being said, I've pushed 1600's with Egypt on epic. A vast majority of your conquests will be conducted using 2 move units. If you want the early domination, you should not vassalize anybody on Eurasia but take their cities (no matter how poorly placed) and just pump the economy to keep it aflot up to MT/rifling and colonize all of the land. I think Eurasia alone has enough land to trigger a domination victory. Pyramids will help for police state - Louis generally builds these and you can conquer him around the early AD's.

 

[nealhunt]

Persia on 18 civ can wipe out Arabia, Egypt and India (in that order) with just an immortal rush. Settle 1N, AnHus, Wheel, Immortals. Most of the times I did it, I ended up with at least 2 holy cities (Hin/Bud in India, Jud in Egypt). A scramble to get the economy under control (frequently netting confucianism as well from the CoL beeline) is followed by a second rush across southern europe.

Up to Monarch level it was a slam dunk - close to double the score of the next closest competitor.

 

[Kietharr]

Persia is the best set to gain an easy domination victory, close proximity to a lot of starts but with enough room to expand a bit. Just spam the best horsemen you can and conquer the middle east, then Egypt and India, then move up through Europe and destroy them all before turning back around to hit Russia, Mongolia, and finally China. Japan is usually dicking around on the islands, take anything they have on the mainland and probably the home islands to stop their culture from bleeding into China. then finally REX, Europe, Asia, and Africa have enough territory for a win.

 

[illram]

No love for China? Qin's start is equivalent to having all of Europe to himself and it is easily defensible once Genghis is out of the way. The start has tons of resources and production, and the route west through India is easily defensible as it's basically a straight shot beneath the almost continuous mountain ridge running from China to Turkey. I would say Qin may actually have the best start in the map.

 

[MrFelony]

I thought about china, but went with early UU's that give you an advantage. China also isnt that close to any of the other civs. with rome, I can wipe out 6 and vassalize 2 of the other civs by 400AD. the only problem is coming against LBs in persia. Also, with the exception of razing madrid just because ihate wher it's situated, i get that many cities at the cost of getting some xp for my axemen.

and shyuhe, you're definitely right. if this was marathon, it'd be very easy to take extreme advantage of these praets . things are looking good. at war with catherine and cyrus right now. cyrus is a tough nut to crack since he has LBs. Catherine has a large army, but no LBs and none for a while. my highly advanced praets being pumped out very fast should overwhelm her.

if anyone is interested, I can probably do a write up for a domination with rome. I'll probably play it through at least 2 more times.

oh and the funniest thing? i dont think i got agriculture until 1AD

 

[LlamaCat]

I would be interested to see your Rome writeup. I think Rome is great to play because Paris builds a lot of wonders and you can easily capture it and make that city a wonder powerhouse. Also, Europe has so many great resources packed tightly together that it's ridiculous.

I finally finished off my epic speed domination victory last night (1911). Whew, that was a long game... I didn't do it very efficiently but I don't think the game was ever in doubt after I eliminated all the European civs and then Russia.

 

[MrFelony]

depending on how things go, europe can be conquered very quickly, or you'll hit a stall if spain gets archers. it all depends on what level you play at too. It definitely can get pretty tedious. there are several paths i'm debating. if playing on immortal+, frederick must be your first target seeing that he has bronze. but it's possible on immortal to rush him before he gets it hooked up since he's not on a capital. by the time Louis is rushed he only has stonehenge built, GW if you're lucky. moving the capital blocks greece in so he can be taken care of whenever. Currently i'm wondering which path is the best after conquering europe:

1) rush russia with praets. this shouldnt be too hard seeing as how they should only have archers. with a strict military focus, we should be able to also start invading egypt/greece.
2)leave russia alone and poor military into egypt and then move up to saladin who has hopefully built the kashi vishwanath. It may be possible to get to cyrus on immortal before he has LBs. definitely possible on levels below immortal.
3) rush saladin and cyrus right away. they have the most hills so putting them off longer risks them getting LBs. Africa also sucks to settle/improve yourself so letting egypt do all the work seems tempting. also egypt may continue to build wonders during this time (same said for cyrus). I think I may just skip liberalism and go straight for astro to start settling/conquering the new world. I dont think one needs rifles at all. praets/cats/trebs/spies should be able to handle the whole game due to the terribly slow tech rate the map seems to have (is it emulating history or something?)

I think i'll do a europe rush write up after lunch. Caesar is literally the perfect personality to take over the world. Imp+ord is a wonder and praets.... i wish there was a nother civ with Imp+ord since I think praets are over powerd and dont usually like playing them.

 

[illram]

I almost never take over all of Russia; there is too much land and you get really bogged down unless you are using units that can move 2 turns exclusively. (I.e. no seige weapons, just cav rush or something similar.) I find it much easier to vassalize them after taking over/razing their western cities and moving on to Persia, India, Africa and China. The route under the mountains is great because, as I said before, it's basically one front the whole way.

As for China, all that matters in Dom games is the amount of land you control and your population, so proximity to numerous civs isn't as important as the amount of land you can control and pop you can grow/ capture in the quickest amount of time possible. China still allows you to control almost half of Asia right off the bat without much effort, it's close to Genghis, Japan, and India, and then once you get on a roll through India and Persia you are basically doing what a European civ would do, just backwards.

And I am also in the process of learning that India is NOT good domination civ with this map!

edit: included LlamaCat's reminder that pop also matters. Still say China is among the top civs for dom on this map, though.

 

[LlamaCat]

don't forget you need population threshold for domination victory as well - it's not just about land. so you can't afford too many vassals. I took over all of Russia but used state property from there on out.

 

[illram]

@LlamaCat

You are right, I didn't correctly address population. Edited my post to correct this.

But as far as vassals go, it's cheaper to vassalize them than to control all of their empire yourself. Although you only get 50% of their totals tallied in your pop and land %'s, in some cases its more efficient (and quicker) to vassalize and move on.

 

[MrFelony]

The main reason why I believe it's important to knock out as many civs as early as possible is because they're at their weakest in teh first 100 turns. It's so much more cost effective to fight axes vs warriors and praets vs archers than it is to fight w/e+siege vs LBs+. I tried praeting russia, but found that it just takes too long to get praets over there and that by the time you conquer all of russia, i'm pretty sure cyrus/saladin will get LBs (on immortal) and your crusade will be drawn to a slow halt.

 

[illram]

The main reason why I believe it's important to knock out as many civs as early as possible is because they're at their weakest in teh first 100 turns. It's so much more cost effective to fight axes vs warriors and praets vs archers than it is to fight w/e+siege vs LBs+. I tried praeting russia, but found that it just takes too long to get praets over there and that by the time you conquer all of russia, i'm pretty sure cyrus/saladin will get LBs (on immortal) and your crusade will be drawn to a slow halt.

Ah, I see. This is a good point and I agree with you on this, definitely.

 

[MrFelony]

This is kind of picture heavy

Spoiler :

So here's the start. Rome, Immortal, Normal speed. Marathon's for the scared!

what a great start, no? too bad we don't want it. move your settler to the Grass hill with forests on it 3E 1N. This is where we will settle. also move your warrior south to grab that goody hut.

I kind of skipped this part here picture wise. basically what i did was build a WB then work a barracks until size 2 and then switch to a worker. I'm still debating the WB>size 2>worker or WB>worker. haven't dont the time calculations thoroughly enough. I decided to try the size 2 this game. When your worker is built, send him to the hill 1E of the capital to mine it. after he finishes the mine, just send him in a counter clockwise path chopping every forest along the way. i ignore improving the pig despite having AH. As soon as you can start an Axeman (preferably after the barracks is done). The barracks is actually a big part of the strategy. DON'T promote your units. you dont need to. once your first axeman is done, send him up to Germany. you should get a 2nd one done very shortly afterwards. you should DoW on germany in early 40's and have him conquered before turn 50.

as you can see, Frederick is very poorly defended. the goal isn't to just take his cities. we want to maximize our worker stealing as well. so send the axeman up north to his second city (which he wont have on monarch probably) and try to scare the workers into the city or grab them. then conquer

You also want to build a spearman at some point. I've found that Isabella usually gets either chariots or archers. If she does gets chariots instead of archers, you dont want your axes to be sitting ducks.

On immortal, louis conveniently builds a city where we want one (consistently), so your 3rd axeman over there with your spear. if the city hasnt grown to size 2 yet, ignore it and move on to his capital. we want the city so we have to wait for it to grow to not be razed.

at some point after the first 2 axes are sent to freddy, I revolt to slavery. I usually wait until a convenient point (such as finishing an axe and after researching IW) to revolt to slavery.

Here you can see Isabella went the archery path. sucks for us. however, louis did actually build chariots, so our spearman paid off. This stack of archers is a little much for our axes, so we start whipping praets and building roads over to madrid while researching sailing for a galley to send to england.

you can definitely see the power of the whip here

darn, we got the GW. at least we have religions in most of our cities to expand their boarders. I value the henge as greater than the GW just because we wont want to waste hammers on boarder popping buildings for a while. luckily we have Judaism spread to most of our cities.

happiness is a problem so we switch over after military builds are done

our army

our country

and a lucky barb city right where we want one. you can also see the effect my poor computer sometimes has on my graphics in the upper left hand corner.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/93140/AutoSave_BC-0975.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[MrFelony]

a couple of notes:

Tech order is usually something along the lines of

BW>hunting>AH>roads>Sailing>Pottery>Writing in the first stages. you'll want to get CoL as soon as possible. It's very pleasing to see how much your GNP shoots up after spamming cheap court houses everywhere.

Build

WB>barracks until size 2>worker>barracks>Axeman>axe>axe>spear>axes all the way down>Praets everything after worker chopped if it can be.

 

[tycoonist]

wow, impressive might give this one a try myself

 

[tycoonist]

well i got to about to conquer germany when the random event horde appeared 6 archers vs. my one warrior. the game ended before it started...