From domination to conquest

[LAnkou]

Hi everyone,

just finished a domination victory (augustus) yesterday night. I wanted to get my first conquest, but Asoka was on another continent and it bothered me to get the navy go to him, etc...

would have taken too much time, so i raised the culture sliders, a couple turns later, it was done.

So i wanted to know for people going for conquest if they only play on pangea (i think i would have gone to conquest oin pangea, but it was fractal and the navy thing really bothered me), if they planned the navy before finishing the last opponent on the continent...

I think the thing that truly got me out of conquest was the fact that it was just because of 1 opponent. If there had been two AI civ on the last continent, I would have been motivated, but only Asoka was just boring...

Am i the only one to get the conquest goal and ending domination by lack of motivation?

Moreover, i was thinking that this domination win was my greatest score (having augustus with augustus is just fun), but it wasn't fair:

If i went to conquest, it would have taken me at least 20 more turns, a lot of point less and my final score would have decreased, but it would have been more difficult to achieve...

Is the final score taking account of the type of victory? I mean, criteria for score in a diplo victory should be totally different than a domination victory:
what i would propose is the following for main criteria:

Domination: Date (land and population shouldn't count since the goal of domination is getting more land and population than any other), number of vassals (more vassal is good, you dominate other people, you don't extinct them)
Conquest: Date (but not on the same scale, since you got to do more to win) water maps (it's easier to conquer on pangean maps than on archipelago maps)
Diplo: number of vote not from you (the famous backdoor domination effect), vassals (since vassals vote automatically for you, it's harder if you don't have any vassal)
Culture: Date (but on a different landmark than conquest and domination), population in the 3 cities, happiness in the cities
Space Race: Date (on his own landmark), size of empire (the larger the empire, the less points)

 

[madscientist]

I played on marathon speed, huge random maps (11 AIs!!!) with Warlords. Playing Washington I generated a continents map and ended up with a Conquest victory in 1809 score 24377.

While fighting wars I had 1 city chruning out fast extremely highly promoted (washington is Charasmatic) units. Built a large armada and just attacked all other continents one at a time razing all cities except one token which I used as a supply post to air-transport units.

I would have had a domination win much earlier but wanted the novelty of getting at least one conquest win on a huge map.

I am not convinced water maps are harded to conquer, but they are more tedious to play. It is harder for the AI to resupplya smaller island via sea than via land. Just slowly and methodically take one at a time.

 

[carl corey]

I did go for conquest a couple of times on Continent maps (I used to play those almost exclusively). The thing is, when you have a really military oriented AI on the other continent it's usually hard to keep their cities. So I usually ended up razing everything and moving on. And when the other continent is as big as mine it's pretty hard to get to the domination limit in land. It usually all starts with an amphibious attack on coastal cities (even prior to marines, if I got the Heroic Epic/West Point city to pump out sufficiently promoted units), then I move in with one or two stacks destroying everything in my way. If I get the AI to vassal it's ok. If close to the domination limit I might send out a settler or two, if not, I'll just start another war on the next AI and continue this way until either domination or conquest.

On Pangaea maps domination is probably easier than conquest by the way. Vassalizing AIs in a row gets you a bigger and bigger territory, and a bigger and bigger army. Every following war gets easier, especially if you gift all military techs to your vassals in exchange for them stopping trading with your enemies. That's how I got a domination win with Tokugawa: by the end I vassalized or killed all AIs but one, and I was already at war with that one. If it would have vassalized earlier it would have been a conquest victory, but I could have hit the domination limit by just waiting for the already conquered cities to extend borders instead.

 

[madscientist]

Here's a dumb question that I may have never realized. Can you win conquest while having a vassal? I always thought ALL AIs had to be eliminated but that is an assumption on my part.

 

[carl corey]

Vassals count as eliminated parties. Vassalizing all AIs leads to the same conquest victory as killing them all. As does any combination of vassalizing and killing. No "free" AI must exist, that's all.

 

[madscientist]

Doh!! Well I feel a little bad now killing a few former friends in that Washington game, not much but a little.

 

[LAnkou]

well, i was maybe unlucky, but the game i talked about was an almost pangea: everybody but one AI on one continent... I didn't wanted any vassals and i razed a lot of cities (maybe half of them) and when i finished washington, it just seems boring: it was Asoka, with a power graph feeling very low and it would have need such a logistic to get to him that i feel lazy and pump up the culture slider.
Maybe a quarter of my continent was unsettled cause I just ran into the AI (i aimed at a conquest victory) but the naval invasion was too much for me, the game was won and 2% of land was too little to keep me from domination.

I don't know why, but i feel like a poor player because of that.

 

[Sisiutil]

I don't know why, but i feel like a poor player because of that.

Don't! It's a game and you play it for fun. If it's not fun, if it's just a chore (as the end game sometimes is), then it's better to spend your hard-earned leisure time doing something else like spending time with your family, exercising, or... starting a new game of Civ.

Conquest is one of those victory conditions I did once to say I'd done it and haven't bothered with since. I think the Domination victory condition was included exactly for this reason, to avoid having players going through tedium to reach a foregone conclusion. Let's face it, if you're close to a domination win, the game is practically over anyway.