Honor/Autocracy 3 city Industrial era domination guide

[peddroelm]

Fallowing the last two deity challenges I've realized in the curent state of the game (air unit per city/limit nerf) it is possible to win domination games without ever reaching modern era even on continent maps (win with artilery / cavalry / lancers / frigate / privateer / rifle / units)

This has some massive implications: (severly reduced science requirements - past the cut off point)

- you save hammers/gold/faith by never building public schools , and gpt by not paying maintenence for those public schools (can even get some money by selling captured public schools in annexed cities). Same goes for universities past the science cut off point ..
- this means you no longer need growth (blasphemy!) - you can stagnate cities for maximum production/gold output
- no longer need great scientist (will need very few all game long) - you can then get a few awesome great merchants instead (science specialists converted to merchant specialists or hammer/gold tiles). Puppets can also produce great mearchants unhindered .
- food caravans - can be switched to gold/production
- since you won't need too many great generals to link up oil - you can waste more of them on offensive/defensive citadels

(by cutting science you gain a huge gold/hammer spike that translates in huge military power boom that quickly snowballs out of control ..)

All of this rests on top of Mercantilism/Big Ben/Mobilization combo (getting massive discounts for gold rushing (ridiculously well promoted) units) ... With gold power - this makes honor finisher even stronger (ability to buy units of the gold collected by killing units in the same turn - a form of unit leech that can really snowball out of control past a certain point in the game) ..

Even if the AI's on the other continents manage to reach flight and somehow have great wall (no artillery) in some city far from the coast - you can still out spam them and win (I have the video LP to prove it - did have observatory in capital and played america, strong warmongering civ so I'll try another LP without observatory) ..

Another advantage - in the fun department - is because you tech education first (delay contruction, machinery , knights, metal casting) - you will have the time to build and play with any of the ancient/classical unique units even on normal speed setting.. You get to play with things like chariot archers/companion cavalry/immortals/hoplites/pictish warriors/kriss swords/forest elephants/cataphracts/mohack warriors/ etc ...It is not the bland crossbow spam win (maybe not as efficent - but you also need to add some fun factor) ..(honor upgrade discounts allows you to carry a lot of low hammer ancient era units trough the ages - that is why you need 3 cites - not to go over the unit limit cap too early) .

Early honor tip - having a military unit in a new city mirrors the free monument from tradition for tile grabs ( yes honor doesn't get tradition tile discount still). After you get the monument you get up to 4 cpt for tile grabs (with unit) which again can save gold for early tile grabs when not playing shoshone/america ...

There is a bit of vulnerability to DOW in the early game - you will have a few units close training against the closest city state so you won't be completly naked against attack .. Chances for DOW should not be that high because you only settle 3 cities and build 2 early caravans that have good diplomatic modifiers to send to your neighbours ..

Workers steal related - you can steal 3 - 2 DOWs steal from AIs and 1 from nerest city state you will keep at perma war and farm XP and later gold of (pillage and then honor finisher) .. War with AIs should start by T110 with 6+ Xbows (after education - rush brough university in capital)... Then depending on the unique units you can upgrade horses/longswords/muschets/trebuchets with the gold from the war (pillaging/hornor finisher and city captures)..

The big bottleneck on this strategy after science cutoff will be culture - you will need to finish honor/commerce and get 1 to 5 policies in autocracy in a reasonable amount of time.. On a continets game you will need 1-2 in exploration tree. Getting a cultured city state allied would be highly advised (scout for it - a thing I always fail at )- otherwise don't neglect the writter/artist guild for too long ..Capturing sixtine chappel early - big help ..

Getting industrialization fast after oxfording artillery and saving ~2.5k gold to rush buy 3 factories is ideal getting 2 free autocracy policies and easing up on the culture bottleneck..

continents america example LP (should be fully uploaded/processed in the next 24 hours) will try add more LPs using this later .

 

[Olodune]

- this means you no longer need growth (blasphemy!) - you can stagnate cities for maximum production/gold output

This is true for any VC beginning at least 40 turns before winning. Food is an investment in the future, and the future is now. The tricky part (especially for a Domination game) is predicting when you are going to win. If you can't stagnate via specialists (or you don't have secularism) then Trading Post spam is remarkably effective.

 

[gnubbish]

i like your vids or the idea behind them and this thread too

but you need to provide more details, theres alot of mumbling in your vids and this thread doesnt really explain much, tech order and whatnot

i imagine people who understand the basics like getting exp off a city state dont really need a guide so its a superfluous thread as it stands



also in your vids why do you keep that city tab open in top left? i watch LPs to learn more about the game but your vids give literally 0 info, doesnt matter where in the vid im watching i cant see anything about your tech progress, religion, policies, caravans, trade deals, whatever

a civ lp is like 10+ hours long, it would be nice if at the start of every part you show your current progress, and what your current goal is


and most importantly, why do you cycle through every single unit, telling workers to keep working on whatever they are improving every single turn? telling garrisoned units to stay garrisoned every single turn

its maddening


im overly critical and probably not speaking for everyone, but you get where im going i hope

 

[Dehli]

and most importantly, why do you cycle through every single unit, telling workers to keep working on whatever they are improving every single turn? telling garrisoned units to stay garrisoned every single turn

hes not just doin that to annoy you. Say your working a lux tile that you are going to sell and you are on turn 100. You can manually finish the tile on turn 100 or wait for the worker to automatically finish the next turn. That one turn difference can mean a lot in this game. Also biuidling roads is very important to keep making the worker finish early.

I will agree though for this to be a full fledged guide for this style of play a lot of the finer details need to be written out. but peddroelm might be planning that already.

 

[peddroelm]

a lot of things to address gnubbish

A. regarding the "guide"

Because of the scope - want this to apply to all civs, most starting map scenarios - it needs quite a few things not overly specific (set build order) to allow for flexibility ..Once I play a few more games (different civs and maps) I might be able to add a few more specifics .

They say a picture says a thousand words. I thought a video LP would say everything (downside it is very time consuming without proper video player to fast forward to interesting bits) .


I did mention the policies - right honor/finish honor/left commerce/finish commerce/autocracy (maybe add a whif of exploration if culture situation allows it)

Science wise - try to get 3 city NC ~ turn 80 (probably impossible to do on most maps without 2-3 worker steals) - go education machinery (go to war ~T110), open astronomy for spy steal, go lower tech side (chemistry .. military science ) oxford artillery ~T180 beeline industrialization (buy/build factories ASAP for autocracy free policies), rifling , navigation DONE (~T200) (sell universities // re-purpose science specialists// stop growth //) .. Kill whomever is left with a swarm of artillery//cavalry//landchneckt-lancer blockers//frigates//privateers//rifles (if civ has some unique units) ..


B. regarding the LP

-"your vids give literally 0 info, doesn't matter where in the vid im watching i cant see anything about your tech progress, religion, policies, caravans, trade deals, whatever "

ouch . But I do it all "on camera", I don't hide moves in between videos - atm youtube doesn't have smooth in video navigation controls (fast forward/backward) so you'll need to download the vids and watch them with a proper video player - with the ability to quickly skip over the boring bits (or just skip skip skip - until tech tree or caravan screen or culture tree is up, etc)


- cycling units - keeping them on alert might awaken them when hostiles appear - but what of an incoming backstab - army silently marching at my border - cycling to the unit garrisoned in that "safe" border city every turn makes sure it is indeed safe .. Also allows me to check on the city and see if it picked up a new tile that need working on .. Also sometimes I rush into combat units before they are fully healed - situation demands it ..


- about the workers - like Dehli said it is a huge difference between moving a unit over land then having the worker finish a road underneath at the end of the turn or finishing the road tile first and then moving multiple units using the road bonus .. There is also the issue of strategics (finish and get a chance to sell and then even spend the money in the same turn) , or just regular tiles - my cities are on manual focus - when a tile is improved I need to manually re-asses situation in that city and see if its worth working the new tile


-city tab always open on the left - very important to me .

*Most importantly tells me when cities grow new citizens - you don't get notification past a certain city size 5? and it is very important when your citizens are on manual control to assign those new dudes.


*Allows to see growth related happiness issues the turn before they happen For example if I am at 2 happiness and have 4 cities about to grow next turn I will be at -2 unless I get at least 2 more happiness this turn (pay mercantile city state/garrison more units/ buy new garrisons/ buy luxury/ etc..)


*allows some optimizations (by shuffling citizens you can sometimes shave a turn of growth without losing time on production or else shave get the thing producing 1 turn faster while still growing in X turns).


*Allows me to sync workshops for ironworks/hermitage/etc (can I get more production in this city that is going to do finish it last ? No ? means I have time to put a few turns into something else maybe) ..

*allows to see at a glance what the empire is building - quick scroll - Ex. no happiness buildings in puppets queues - I might be running into happiness issues soon if I don't do something about it - time to get some happy.

Now I would switch it more often with other screens if there was a key shortcut to bring it back - but there isn't so that is why it ends staying up most of the time ..

 

[DingleBirdy]

@Peddroelm

Have you tried full honor/commerce/autoc with Keshiks or Camel Archers? Your philosophy inspired me to try out a game with Arabia. Instead of building numerous archers I built/bought six chariots (obviously horses are needed). I chose not to tech education, but to steal it from my neighbor neighbor instead. I didn't finish Chivalry until turn 119, but once I did I was able to upgrade my chariots into highly upgraded Camel Archers. I've cleared out the other three civs on my continent here at turn 169 and haven't lost a unit. It took a while for my economy to finally get rolling, but right now I'm making about 71gpt, which should just keep going up. My science is slow, and I don't have the tech to cross the ocean yet, so I'm kinda stuck at the moment.

 

[DingleBirdy]

also in your vids why do you keep that city tab open in top left?

I've wondered about this before. In my games I am constantly preoccupied by what I am researching, and I find it odd that peddrolem uses the gigantic city screen. IMO, the city screen is too big and interferes with the action. To each their own.

i watch LPs to learn more about the game but your vids give literally 0 info, doesnt matter where in the vid im watching i cant see anything about your tech progress, religion, policies, caravans, trade deals, whatever

Is there a screen that shows all these things? Op's videos are definitely not aimed at the inexperienced civ player. There are a ton of articles/videos online for liberty openers, tradition openers, fast science wins, etc etc etc. Op goes honor/commerce and does it like an assassin.

 

[reddishrecue]

Some of the videos shown here are good. I must say that I learned a lot from watching the lps on achieving a domination victory. The traditional way of achieving victory was old and even though I failed a few domination victories with the honor start, I have worked up to achieve domination victories with different civilizations.

 

[peddroelm]

@Peddroelm

Have you tried full honor/commerce/autoc with Keshiks or Camel Archers? Your philosophy inspired me to try out a game with Arabia. Instead of building numerous archers I built/bought six chariots (obviously horses are needed). I chose not to tech education, but to steal it from my neighbor neighbor instead. I didn't finish Chivalry until turn 119, but once I did I was able to upgrade my chariots into highly upgraded Camel Archers. I've cleared out the other three civs on my continent here at turn 169 and haven't lost a unit. It took a while for my economy to finally get rolling, but right now I'm making about 71gpt, which should just keep going up. My science is slow, and I don't have the tech to cross the ocean yet, so I'm kinda stuck at the moment.

did not try Arabia or Mongolia or Assyria because I expect them to wipe the floor with the opposition (too strong ) .. Will give it a try with Gandhi next

about the city screen I did list a few reasons in the post above

@Peddroelm
... My science is slow, and I don't have the tech to cross the ocean yet, so I'm kinda stuck at the moment.

problem with honor economy - you need to be at war melting units to be making a profit .. When at peace you lose gold due to huge army maintenance .. Next time with Arabia/Mongolia on a nonpangea map make it important to have the sea going techs fast (in time) so you can keep the momentum going ...

 

[reddishrecue]

Im kind of wondering how you're going to rank up the keshiks or camel archers since most of their ranged logistics or range promotion don't work with mobile units.

 

[peddroelm]

Im kind of wondering how you're going to rank up the keshiks or camel archers since most of their ranged logistics or range promotion don't work with mobile units.

logistics = blitz // march is march - with honor they get a huge amount of promotions - they're still going to make above average cavalry when upgraded.. And with March/Medic + khan they can heal ~30 HP at the end of each turn in enemy territory - to say nothing of the pillage heal .. Broken

 

[reddishrecue]

Im also wondering if you get another extra attack after you get both logistics and the blitz promotion for a total of 3 attacks unless logistics and blitz are the same promotions.

 

[peddroelm]

Im also wondering if you get another extra attack after you get both logistics and the blitz promotion for a total of 3 attacks unless logistics and blitz are the same promotions.

No - never pick blitz after logistics (does nothing ). Same things for the chinese unique xbow (never pick logistics, thow ranged units get maximum only 2 attack actions anyway) . Same case for repair after march on tanks ..

Blitz was nerfed down to 2 attacks at some point - used to be limited by the number of moves (crazy !) ..

 

[Gustavus Rex]

I love your LP:s and learn a lot from them.

I played honor games for a while and like the tree but mix with some tradition in early game. Also, i do it in good starts and i'm impressed that you pull it off with whatever map.

I think btw Ghandi is a killer for this. 2 deep cities and the OP megastrong elephants! He is one of my Honor favourites!

Can I make a wish?

Id like to see continents with Denmark!



Skickat från min iPhone med Tapatalk

 

[peddroelm]

I love your LP:s and learn a lot from them.

I played honor games for a while and like the tree but mix with some tradition in early game. Also, i do it in good starts and i'm impressed that you pull it off with whatever map.

I think btw Ghandi is a killer for this. 2 deep cities and the OP megastrong elephants! He is one of my Honor favourites!

Can I make a wish?

Id like to see continents with Denmark!



Skickat från min iPhone med Tapatalk

can't really do it on any map - heavy jungle/marsh starts are murder for honor (need ability to reposition troops) , stealing workers gets harder and takes forever to bring them back ..

I love Denmark but this guide doesn't quite exploit their power to the max - their great early advantage is 3 move longswords at metal casting (turn 75 ?) . This strategy delays metalcasting past T110.. Other than that it should still work decently - might do it soon ..

 

[Gustavus Rex]

can't really do it on any map - heavy jungle/marsh starts are murder for honor (need ability to reposition troops) , stealing workers gets harder and takes forever to bring them back ..

I love Denmark but this guide doesn't quite exploit their power to the max - their great early advantage is 3 move longswords at metal casting (turn 75 ?) . This strategy delays metalcasting past T110.. Other than that it should still work decently - might do it soon ..

Yeah! The land-unit attack on the other continent can be nice!

What is your favourite honor-civ? I like Sweden and Astecs with raging barbs!

//

 

[peddroelm]

Yeah! The land-unit attack on the other continent can be nice!

What is your favourite honor-civ? I like Sweden and Astecs with raging barbs!

hard to pick a favorite - I like most civs with Honor - I'm a bit weary of Pedro and his jungle start .

 

[gnubbish]

as i said im overly critical your vids are very good overall


id love to see inca as their mobility is crazy, i always play overly aggressive when im inca becouse the slingers are basically unkillable in any hill tiles, landing pot shots and automatically backing away if attacked

 

[Gustavus Rex]

What do you think about tradition opener early on?

 

[Flounder3345]

No - never pick blitz after logistics (does nothing ). Same things for the chinese unique xbow (never pick logistics, thow ranged units get maximum only 2 attack actions anyway) . Same case for repair after march on tanks ..

Blitz was nerfed down to 2 attacks at some point - used to be limited by the number of moves (crazy !) ..

I thought chu-ko-nu were capable of triple attack? it's hilariously impractical since you have to get a scout to scouting 3 (+1 movement), then pop a weapons ruin, get promotions up to logistics while upgrading towards c-k-n

the distinction is pretty irrelevant though, this strategy requires some divine intervention and a lot of luck for what is probably only gonna be one unit anyway