Help on Winning that Conquest / domination game

[Makaz]

Hi All,

I started this game a few days ago - King level / continents / 8 players.

After a rough start with both Gengis and Oda very close spamming cities all around, I took control of their cities and pushed over to take over France and Russia. In the meantime, Bismark conquered Greece and is sharing is continent with Caesar, my long date allied.

Despite the size of my empire, both Bismark and Caesar have grown big enough to get in advance on tech while I lead with cities, population, land and gold. They have both completed Apollo and Manathan.

Since I am seeking a Conquest / domination victory, I pulled out an amphibious ninja attack on Berlin, which succeeded and grabbed peace with Bismark to consolidate my position.

From there I would normally finish bismark before turning against the romans but Augustus (despite having being nuked down by Bismark) is threatening to start a space race.

Of course, I could also build the UN and easily buyout 7 city states... but I was looking at domination / conquest victory.


So to you more experienced players, what would you recommend as course of action?

also,

If you notice any mistake / failure in my empire or things I could improve for future games, please let me know...


Attached is the evil save.


Mak

 

[w a i n y]

The end-game should be fairly easy. Get nukes and bombers, rebase to Berlin, and push forward with some melee units towards Rome.
More importantly, though, up to now you've made some serious mistakes. This game has gone on way too long, and you're not teching as fast as you could be.
- Set manual specialist control on in all cities (you have a lot of artists and merchants better used elsewhere), and only use scientists and the odd engineer. You've got like 11 GPs already through the game, and I bet most of them were not scientists. GSs are incredibly useful at bulbing to artillery and nukes. Speaking of which, I didn't see science buildings in many cities.
- Improve more tiles. I think I remember seeing a river with no improved farms, and your citizens working non-riverside farms. That's a few GPT right there.
- Set more cities to production focus to crank out units faster.
- Build fewer 'advanced' buildings. You should basically never build stock exchanges or even banks when going for conquest. Ask yourself: is this building really going to give me more benefit than
- Don't annex so many cities! I think you've annexed every single one! This will screw up your policy acquisition and drain your coffers to a certain extent (4 GPT per city for a courthouse!) The policies are necessary to keep happiness up, even more so after the patch, and allows you to avoid having to build lots of expensive stadiums like you're doing now. You don't really need to annex cities unless you want to build units in them or run lots of specialists, since puppets will build most good buildings anyway.
- Speaking of policies: tradition is terrible for your strategy. Tradition is great if you want a size 40 capital (more growth and +20 happiness from monarchy!) but mediocre for conquest victories. Honour is great for mass-puppet empires because (aside from military bonuses) it has two policies that aid happiness, one of which relies on buildings puppets love to build anyway (though the other requires you to build cheap units to garrison in all cities). Piety's organized religion, Patronage's cultural diplomacy and Commerce's protectionism will also give respectable boosts.
You've taken all of liberty and most of order, which is fine, but not taking any classical to renaissance era policies is not good.
- Army composition is not optimal. Sure it's a water map, but do you really need 20 odd ships? You'd have been better off building more artillery.
- Deals: you've sold lux for lux and OB for OB throughout the game. Exploit AIs for gold! Always sell OB for 50 and extra lux for 240, and use policies to compensate for not getting traded lux.
I can't comment on your tactical strategy but judging by your conquests to date, it's probably fine. Just remember not to neglect ranged units, especially siege.

Hope this helps you move up a level or two.

 

[Makaz]

This is all awesome feedback wainy and I think you are right about all of it.

+ I did not micromanage specialists in cities, just what they are building - which is a mistake partly due to the fact that I have too many and grow bored quickly - which is due to too much annexing - which is another mistake of mine and I shall correct both. Noted thanks

+ Noted - what ratio worker / city you would recommend. I think after 1000 AD I just turned them all "auto". Should I not do it without control like in Civ 4 ?

+ Noted - How many "managed" cities (not puppet) do you recommend on std maps at normal speed ? What ratio gold vs produciton vs science ? It has always been difficult for me to assess ? Also I imagine I should cover all puppets with tp ?

+ Noted

+ Noted: Annexing has been my big interrogation for so long. Since I have never been lacking money, I tend to Annex, Rushbuy courthouse then rushbuy happiness building to allow my war effort to carry on and compensate for the impact of multiple revolting cities. As you say; I should make better use of policy and move slower forward in my conquests instead of trying to blitz over.

+ Noted - can't remember why I picked tradition, maybe because I was building lots of wonders at some point but it seems a big mistake now.

+ My artilleries got all screwed a few turns before as I tried a first attack on Bismark through Lhasa - he had more than I thought. The Bships proved incredibly useful to clear out most of his units allowing me to take over Berlin but it is only after building so much that I realised they were not going to help much on conquering cities.

+ Noted on deals... didn't know you could exploit AI that way.


Many thanks again for taking the time to check the save and comment ont it. It should help me get better.

Mak

 

[w a i n y]

+ Noted on deals... didn't know you could exploit AI that way.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=430503

Probably you should be fine with one worker per city, but the workers you capture should be more than sufficient after your first few cities, allowing you to use them as cheap scouts/artillery recon units if you want . I tend to not automate my workers, since the improvements you want are quite specific to particular cities (most or all tiles should be trading posts in puppets) and, with production scarcer than Civ4, you can't afford bad automation choices. Also, since lumbermills come two eras earlier in Civ5, flatland forests are good production tiles from the early game, and should rarely be cut down.
As for number of non-puppet cities, it's a matter of personal preference. It's a question of, for built cities, how many high-production or high-lux sites are there near the capital (you want to sell lots of lux early for income boost)? For annexed cities, it's mainly a question of production, since by then you'll have access to many luxuries anyways. Don't be afraid to raze cities, particularly large ones with not many resources near them. See MadDjinn's Rome game or my Babylon game, since both maintained happiness at comfortably high levels (+10-30) for most of the game.
Any non-puppet city will be a production powerhouse (no such thing as a science city in this game, since you'll be running universities in all cities anyways with filled specialist slots). Any puppet city will be a gold city. Instead of rushbuying a courthouse (high ratio of gold/production cost) rushbuy units (low ratio, lower than any buildings) to help with the war effort.
Also, I didn't say you should "move slower forward in my conquests instead of trying to blitz over." Feel free to conquer as fast as you can - in fact, strive for it! Just don't be in a situation where you have to hold back on the speed of conquest for happiness.
Don't build any non-essential wonders. Hagia Sophia gets you a free Great engineer for the two best wonders in the game for conquest: Porcelain Tower for faster science from RAs followed by Notre Dame. Everything else can be captured from someone else. If you hardbuild HS and get a free great engineer from liberty, you can hurry the production of both. No need to build any other wonders all game .

Could some other experienced players comment?

 

[Vo01985]

Porcelain Tower for warmongering...are RAs not kind of ineffective when you are warmongering and probably guarded or hostile with most opponents; they tend to cost a lot more?

 

[w a i n y]

Porcelain Tower for warmongering...are RAs not kind of ineffective when you are warmongering and probably guarded or hostile with most opponents; they tend to cost a lot more?

That's what I thought, too, but surprisingly in my most recent Babylon game, two AIs far away from me were willing to sign DoFs with me. I'll have to play more to see if this is an aberration.
But, to be fair, the GS is a huge bonus (1 free tech!), and the 2 GS points are extremely helpful too.

 

[Makaz]

About to kick off another standard continent game with aim of conquest / domination.

Any rough suggestion on the number of science / production / gold cities I should aim to manage manually (and not keep as puppet) ? I would go for 1/4/1 - would that sound right ?

Mak