Going for Domination
At the end of the
First Summary it was 940 ad, the Romans had just discovered Astronomy, and we were at war with the Greeks, who had declared on us. Roman caravels were already out exploring the oceans and attempting to circumnavigate the globe for the +1 ship movement. Given the more powerful cultural borders in Civ4, I try to move units by ship whenever possible. It can take forever to get forces to an enemy city when you have to slog through 4 or 5 tiles of enemy culture. Ships are much faster. Circumnavigation was complete in 1070ad.
The Greek War, 800ad—1110ad
My force was made up of about 8 praetorians, 6 macemen and 10 catapults, with more cats on the way. I didn’t intentionally start building macemen so early—I hadn’t realized that Civil Service in combination with Machinery obsoletes Praetorians. 30 more hammers is a steep price to pay for only +50% vs. melee units.
One Greek city had been autorazed and another captured in the 900’s. A second became Roman in 1030ad, two more in 1070, and Athens fell in 1100. The tiny Greek civ was destroyed on the following turn.
War weariness reached 4 unhappy citizens by the end of the war, but since most cities could hold 5-8 more happy citizens, the empire never suffered from it. There was only one thing that disappointed me about the Greek war: they had marble, and I didn’t know that until near the end of the war. My very first warrior in the game had been eaten by a bear about two moves away from discovering it. If I had known, I probably would have killed the Greeks much, much sooner. When I have marble, I like chopping forests into wonders that go double speed with marble. +60 shields toward the Great Library or National Epic, for instance, is quite lovely.
Exploration and Contacts
It took a bit of time to find the other civs with my caravels, as I chose poorly with my exploration path—one caravel went NW from the NW corner of our continent, the other NE from the NE corner. That is pretty much a recipe to miss every AI in the game. Fortunately, I zigzagged a bit after a while, and met Mao in 980. We signed Open Borders. The western caravel met the Arabs a few turns later in 1010, and again we signed Open Borders; then the boat spotted Spain and the Aztecs. Both these civs hated us, so no trades. We met Bismarck, the last enemy civ, in 1090 ad. Unfortunately for Bismarck, my troops were all down in Greek lands, and that made him the nearest target. Even though he wanted to be friends, I didn’t sign any agreements with him.
All the AIs were hopelessly behind in tech (didn’t even have Monarchy), so there isn’t much to report on trading. Once I had a general idea of where everyone was, I decided I could afford to make agreements with Mao, the Arabs and the Spanish. It would take a while for me to attack them anyway. I picked up a resource trade with Mao and gave him Monotheism for his gold and World Map, picked up a resource trade with the Arabs, and gave the Arabs and Spain Alphabet in order to keep them friendly while I killed the Germans and the Aztecs.
Tech Research
It was tough for me to decide where to go technologically after Astronomy. In particular, I wanted to turn off research and use Universal Suffrage to rush new units and hit Domination as soon as possible. In looking over my economy in 1000ad, however, I didn’t think it was a viable strategy. At 90% science, I was making 260 science and 52 gold, but expenses were 78 gold per turn. I could make around 250 gold per turn, but every new city would decrease that amount by 10 gold or more. That wouldn’t allow for much unit rushing. I decided to leave research on and set the following research path:
1010ad Engineering; for faster troop movement
1030 Paper; in order to trade Maps
1060 Music; Surprisingly, no AI had Music, so I wanted the free artist. I had a great engineer sitting around, so I planned to use the artist to end resistance in an AI city overseas, then use the Engineer to rush Versailles.
1130 Guilds; felt I would need at least some mounted units in my forces in order to reach AIs faster. Also, I had decided Mercantilism (Banking) would be the best way to improve my economy for the least research investment.
1150 Banking; for the aforementioned Mercantilism
1190 Divine Right; for Versailles, although this was probably stupid, as I shall explain later. I got Islam too, but didn’t need it. I wasn’t even sending out Christian missionaries any more (too expensive in hammers vs. the 1 gold you get in return).
1200 Drama; theaters would be handy in getting my new cities to 100 culture and the critical third border expansion. Also had dye, so +1 happiness.
1240 Gunpowder; Decided the loads of cash I would soon be making from turning off research would be better spent on upgrading double and triple City Raiders to Grenadiers than on rushing new antiquated units.
1270 Chemistry; Grenadiers, yum!
1310 Steel; for cannons—overkill big time against these noble AIs. The last two turns (900 beakers), I rushed with a Great Engineer I got while going for an Artist. There really wasn’t anything else useful an Engineer could do for me at that time.
That was it for research until the last two turns of the game, when I turned it back on to get Nationalism and Education (and Philosophy via a Great Prophet) for a few extra points in score.
I forgot a critical economic factor when planning how far I would research. Lots of gold—around 180 per city—comes in during military conquest. I probably would have been fine without Banking or Steel, and maybe would have won a little sooner. In addition, many of the cities I captured were an economic asset the moment resistance ended due to the number of AI villages and towns.
The German War, 1130ad—1240ad
The first city to fall was Berlin in 1160. That city contained the bulk of the army, so the other cities fell very quickly thereafter. The main goal in this war was to take an inland city in order to use my free Great Artist (Music) and my Great Engineer to rush Versailles. The city needed to be inland, preferably, because otherwise the border expansion would be wasted on miles and miles of ocean.
As an aside, Civ4 is different than Civ3: coastal tiles do not count toward the domination limit. Here is a screeshot of Hamburg after I used my Great Artist. I am clueless as to what determines how borders expand when creating a great work. Some of the most bizarre patterns appear:
I left Germany with a tundra city in 1240. In the peace negotiations I picked up Archery, which I had never researched
, along with a truly fantastic World Map. That map enabled me to plan all my future military operations. By counting tiles, I saw I would be around 100 short of domination after taking the Aztecs, so either Spain or China (or both) would have to give up some land. On the turn the German ceasefire expired, I autorazed their last city and refounded it with a settler.
Throughout this war and those following, I would attempt to get as many chops done as I could before a captured city came out of revolt, in order to rush courthouses and theatres. It helped quite a bit to expand borders quickly and to reduce maintenance costs.
The Aztec War, 1290ad—1360ad
An AI longbow—the first I had seen—was spotted in an Aztec city about 2 turns before I declared. I thought that was going to make for a much slower war, but he never built more than 4 or so. Also, the upgrades from macemen/praetorian to Grenadier began before this war, and catapults to cannons a few turns later. Nine praetorians/macemen were upgraded to Grenadier the turn before I attacked. On average, I was able to upgrade about 2-4 per turn after that.
The Aztec capitol fell in 1310 along with another city, and three cities fell on the last turn of the war, eliminating them. I was a bit worried about this last city, as I didn’t have Open Borders with Spain anymore, and I wasn’t yet in a position to declare:
I needn’t have worried. As it turns out, triple City Raider, Combat I grenadiers have no trouble whatsoever making an amphibious assault on a longbow and a spearman.
The Chinese War, 1330ad—1430ad
Back around 1000ad, I had hoped to leave the Chinese alone. Proximity, however, made them a necessary target. I already had plenty of troops in the war theatre on the eastern continent, and Mao’s continent was very close to the productive core of my empire. I had four galleys stationed at the northern tip of the home continent just in case things turned out this way, so I didn’t have to wait on boats in order to attack. I sent a few cannons and grenadiers, but the bulk of my force was made up of knights because of the simple need for speed at this point. Mao was wiped out on the last turn of the game.
The Spanish War, 1390ad—1430ad
Attacking the Spanish was just gravy. I didn’t really need their territory, but I couldn’t resist. My troops were restless, and—with the exception of their capitol—their cities were defended by one longbow or archer and one spearman. I slowed down the domination victory by one turn, just so I could take Mao’s last city and Isabella’s capitol before the game ended. So if you intend to get a faster domination than me, please do it by more than one turn, else I shall
Great People
This was the only aspect of the game in which I had lousy luck. The only great person who was what I wanted was the first, a great prophet. But the chances of that were 100%, so luck wasn’t a factor. After that I was shooting for an early scientist and then lots of artists in order to expand borders in captured territory. In spite of having an 86% chance of getting Artists, I got 4 prophets and 3 engineers. The only artist I got was the freebie from Music.
The first two prophets made the shrines for Christianity and Confucianism early on.
The first engineer and the artist were used to end resistance in Hamburg and rush Versailles (1250ad)
The third prophet and second engineer were used to kick off my Golden Age in 1260. I almost used the Engineer to help research steel, but the end of the game was approaching too quickly, and I felt the increased production of a GA would be more valuable. If I waited any later to trigger a GA it would be completely wasted, as the troops I built would never make it to the other continents in time. It turned out to be a good decision since the next great person was another engineer anyway.
Last Engineer used to get 900 beakers toward Steel in 1310.
Last Prophet used to get Philosophy in 1420. At that late date, I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered if I had gotten the Artist anyway.
Economic Data
1000ad, 90% science, 260bpt (beakers per turn), 52 gpt (gold per turn, ie: taxes), 78 ept (expense per turn)
1150ad, 90% science, 367bpt, 78gpt, 136ept
This is just prior to adopting Mercantilism.
1160ad, 90% science, 398bpt, 91gpt, 151ept
After Mercantilism—and already running Representation which makes Mercantilism so much stronger. Most of the jump in expenses was due to capturing another city, not due to the civics change. The civics change only added 5ept. I could have brought in much more from Mercantilism, but I was running many engineers, at least for a few more turns.
1250ad, 406bpt, 177gpt, 159ept
Before building Versailles. I never built a Forbidden Palace. Perhaps it was a mistake, but I never seemed to need it. After Versailles, my maintenance dropped by 16gpt. Not very much at all! Certainly not worth using a great artist and a great engineer to accomplish it. Upon closer examination, I noted that distance maintenance had dropped by 30gpt, but number of cities maintenance had increased by 14gpt!?! I acquired no new cities during this turn, and none came out of revolt. It seems to me that all Versailles accomplished was to save me a miniscule amount of gold, and shift some expenses from distance to number of cities maintenance.
Has anyone else noticed that? Bug maybe?
1260ad 602bpt, 173gpt, 162ept
This is the start of my Golden Age.
1430ad (100% science) 1154bpt, 56gpt, 377ept (181 of that is city maintenance, 84 is from Civics)
This was the last turn of the game. I had turned up science just to get a tech or two before the end.
EndGame
68.5% of map captured in 1430ad for a domination win. Score was a little over 90k.
Thanks for the fun map Aeson! There seemed to be less food bonuses in our starting area than I see in my random games. Did you make that modification (which I liked)?
I hope you have given some thought to a scoring system for Civ 4. We are certain to need a new one in the worst possible way! I’m off to see if any myths mention Jason having a sibling…
