I was inspired by the new Julius Caesar to try domination on Deity difficulty Large map. Needless to say it's not going so hot. I've never done it before, so it took me till Medieval to attack my first city. It took a long time and a ton of fighting, but I finally captured the capital of Portugal, only to have it rebel in 5 turns and spawn musketmen that are far more powerful than my legions, knights, crossbowmen, and trebuchets. Now I'm on the edge of throwing in the towel and trying a new game, but I just don't see how the hell you're supposed to turn around -11 loyalty in 5 turns in any city you try to capture. It's insane. How are you supposed to counter that and keep the cities you capture?
How do you deal with loyalty in domination?
- Thread starter Bleddyn
- Start date
-
- Tags
- deity domination help
Planktonic
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2021
- Messages
- 263
hmmm... is that -11 loyalty after governors, policies etc?
because just putting in a governor will give you +8. Victor with Garrison Commander promotion will give you +12 after 3 turns. Limitanei policy can add +2 for a garrisoned unit. There is a diplomatic policy that can give you +2 for a governor as well. Buying a monument gives you +1. And while there is a state of wsr you typically get +5 in any case for a garrisoned unit. Later on cities on foreign continents can get +3 loyalty from another diplomatic policy.
there are other tricks as well. you can conquer cities with ECs or water parks and immediately run Bread and Circuses to reduce population pressure. You can chop a marsh tile to boost population to do the same thing. Etc.
A capital city should be pretty high population. I would think you should be able to manage this with correct governors and policies....
because just putting in a governor will give you +8. Victor with Garrison Commander promotion will give you +12 after 3 turns. Limitanei policy can add +2 for a garrisoned unit. There is a diplomatic policy that can give you +2 for a governor as well. Buying a monument gives you +1. And while there is a state of wsr you typically get +5 in any case for a garrisoned unit. Later on cities on foreign continents can get +3 loyalty from another diplomatic policy.
there are other tricks as well. you can conquer cities with ECs or water parks and immediately run Bread and Circuses to reduce population pressure. You can chop a marsh tile to boost population to do the same thing. Etc.
A capital city should be pretty high population. I would think you should be able to manage this with correct governors and policies....
Noble Zarkon
Elite Quattromaster - Immortal (BTS)
Super Moderator
Hall of Fame Staff
GOTM Staff
Supporter
I'm not an expert on Deity but this seems very late for your first attack. At King/Emperor I'd be looking to start my first war in the Classical era before they are too built up.
Yeah I guess I wasn't even thinking about these things cause I didn't realize it would be an issue. It was kinda already too late. Good tips though.
I really should have, but somehow I just ended up there, I guess I didn't focus on military enough.
DeckerdJames
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2019
- Messages
- 235
I am not that good at war because I have not practiced it much. That being said and taken with a few grains of salt, you could try different plans. Instead of taking one city at the time, maybe you could fight to control at least half or more of their land, perhaps all of it, before you take any cities. That means, first you are going to defeat their standing army and that stage of the campaign can probably be started many turns before you actually plan to invade. When you do invade, you probably want to pillage everything that gives them production and happiness and gold. Districts take time to repair so, you may or may not want to pillage them. It depends on how long it would take to control their land. Improvements can be repaired very quickly if you have a few builders and repairs don't take charges.
Taking control of the land first means you have to deal with the walls first, everywhere you plan to occupy. That means you need enough rams or siege to disable the walls. Say you are in the classical era, and they have 5 cities. Suppose you start the war at the beginning of the classical era, and it goes well. Once you invade, suppose you have 3 rams, and you have enough units to attack three cities at once. If you can get the walls down, you don't have to capture the cities immediately. Yes, they will produce units and what the AI will do is try to produce a very advanced unit. If they don't have resources, they will try get produce a pike, if the game is still early. That is how the AI tries to deal with prolonged wars. They try to tech out of it. So, can this sort of plan work? It just depends on whether they can get a tech advantage on you. If they get a pike, a knight, or a man-at-arms and you have swords and archers, you will probably have to retreat.
Well, if you can take enough cities at once, you can probably put your governors into the cities that are closest to their remaining cities. I don't think you have a lot of flexibility with what your empire can accomplish early in the game. That means that if you try to conquer a neighbor and you fail, you probably are so far behind on your own development that you might as well resign. You really need to be successful in the early game. Later in the game, you can probably fight a war and in other parts of your empire be developing your cities because by then you probably have plenty of them.
I wish I was better at the game. I really don't know if a larger scale attack can work in the early game. I hate having to deal with city flipping too. An alternate approach may be to move through the enemy empire as quickly as possible and flip the entire empire to free cities. Then you can go back and capture the free cities when you can, but even if you don't do that quickly, at least the AI empire would be eliminated. Free cities won't mount a concerted effort to defeat you and can't win the game. So, you don't need to capture the whole world. You just have to free it and then capture the original capitals. If you are going for this strategy, perhaps you could try towers and just go over the walls and move to the next city as fast as possible. That might be problematic for your lines of reinforcement though since free cities spawn couple of defenders.
If you find any larger scale strategies that work, will you post them?
Taking control of the land first means you have to deal with the walls first, everywhere you plan to occupy. That means you need enough rams or siege to disable the walls. Say you are in the classical era, and they have 5 cities. Suppose you start the war at the beginning of the classical era, and it goes well. Once you invade, suppose you have 3 rams, and you have enough units to attack three cities at once. If you can get the walls down, you don't have to capture the cities immediately. Yes, they will produce units and what the AI will do is try to produce a very advanced unit. If they don't have resources, they will try get produce a pike, if the game is still early. That is how the AI tries to deal with prolonged wars. They try to tech out of it. So, can this sort of plan work? It just depends on whether they can get a tech advantage on you. If they get a pike, a knight, or a man-at-arms and you have swords and archers, you will probably have to retreat.
Well, if you can take enough cities at once, you can probably put your governors into the cities that are closest to their remaining cities. I don't think you have a lot of flexibility with what your empire can accomplish early in the game. That means that if you try to conquer a neighbor and you fail, you probably are so far behind on your own development that you might as well resign. You really need to be successful in the early game. Later in the game, you can probably fight a war and in other parts of your empire be developing your cities because by then you probably have plenty of them.
I wish I was better at the game. I really don't know if a larger scale attack can work in the early game. I hate having to deal with city flipping too. An alternate approach may be to move through the enemy empire as quickly as possible and flip the entire empire to free cities. Then you can go back and capture the free cities when you can, but even if you don't do that quickly, at least the AI empire would be eliminated. Free cities won't mount a concerted effort to defeat you and can't win the game. So, you don't need to capture the whole world. You just have to free it and then capture the original capitals. If you are going for this strategy, perhaps you could try towers and just go over the walls and move to the next city as fast as possible. That might be problematic for your lines of reinforcement though since free cities spawn couple of defenders.
If you find any larger scale strategies that work, will you post them?
Last edited:
MartinMcMartin
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2019
- Messages
- 25
hmmm, indeed late for the 1st attack. what i generally do is go asap for 2 warriors and 3/4 archers and attack.pillage everything! if you take a city and it will turn again in 4/5 turns, then raze it. if it is more turns, put governor in it, that will increase turnover time to 10-15 turns. long enough to conquer next city.
throw everything at one city at the time, do not attack multiple cities only if you have enough units. if you keep city that will turn in 15 turns, raze other cities around it to increase loyalty.
if you really are out of options and you cannot keep any city, just leave them be barbs. city turns, you kill spawning units so they cannot attack you and move to next city. take next city, let it go barb and repeat until you take capital.
now you have 4 cities owned by barbs. no more loyalty issues! conquer all of them again and you are boss....
so, easy peasy. conquer, let it go barb, move on, conquer, let it go barb. some times a city goes to rejoin the civ you are kicking a$$. don't care, conquer it again on way back...
don't be afraid of pillaging and razing. lots of extra gold, faith. sometimes I just wait with razing a city to get everything pillaged for max profit. that library or holy site will be gone anyway after the raze so take what you can! deity is no problem, just make sure you move fast from the start. so no scouts, workers or settlers in build cue, only slingers and warriors... build 4 slingers before archery, upgrade with money and start attacking. even wait with discovery of archery until you have 3/4 slingers.
big helps at start:
- find a militaristic CS first to get boost build units . scout with your only unit, the warrior.
- find money CS for extra boost so you can pay the upgrades for archers. goody hut with money also nice.
- steal workers and settlers from target! I often take one or two workers just with my scouting warrior. yea, that means war from early on with no defence, but hey what the heck. if I see a nice choke point I just put the warrior there and bring home the worker(s) to improve the lands.
MC
throw everything at one city at the time, do not attack multiple cities only if you have enough units. if you keep city that will turn in 15 turns, raze other cities around it to increase loyalty.
if you really are out of options and you cannot keep any city, just leave them be barbs. city turns, you kill spawning units so they cannot attack you and move to next city. take next city, let it go barb and repeat until you take capital.
now you have 4 cities owned by barbs. no more loyalty issues! conquer all of them again and you are boss....
so, easy peasy. conquer, let it go barb, move on, conquer, let it go barb. some times a city goes to rejoin the civ you are kicking a$$. don't care, conquer it again on way back...
don't be afraid of pillaging and razing. lots of extra gold, faith. sometimes I just wait with razing a city to get everything pillaged for max profit. that library or holy site will be gone anyway after the raze so take what you can! deity is no problem, just make sure you move fast from the start. so no scouts, workers or settlers in build cue, only slingers and warriors... build 4 slingers before archery, upgrade with money and start attacking. even wait with discovery of archery until you have 3/4 slingers.
big helps at start:
- find a militaristic CS first to get boost build units . scout with your only unit, the warrior.
- find money CS for extra boost so you can pay the upgrades for archers. goody hut with money also nice.
- steal workers and settlers from target! I often take one or two workers just with my scouting warrior. yea, that means war from early on with no defence, but hey what the heck. if I see a nice choke point I just put the warrior there and bring home the worker(s) to improve the lands.
MC
