How to proceed higher difficulty with victory options?

[Gamer1291]

Hey guys, I am just a average civ v player trying to be better at prince+ higher difficulties.

So far I am able to win 2-3 prince game on tiny,small maps with culture,science and domination victories.

I been thinking of practicing more on domination victory for higher difficulty but is it possible to get domination victory on maps standard/huge with so many AI civs?.

What settings do you guys use for higher difficulty/big maps? and what victory type do you guys prefer?.

And which map type is best to play overall for all difficulties?

 

[inthesomeday]

I think Pangaea is best, others will say continents.
To win domination above prince on a huge map you need to lower the speed, marathon or epic. Quick speed will work up to standard sized maps, but over that you need slower speed.

 

[Gamer1291]

OK so if i am playing king for first time should i start with tiny/small map size? instead of standard?.

And one more question is that which wonders should i try to aim for during domination?.

 

[sixty4half]

OK so if i am playing king for first time should i start with tiny/small map size? instead of standard?.

And one more question is that which wonders should i try to aim for during domination?.

Standard is fine. Going with Small is fine too. The smaller the map, the less capitals to take, the faster the game goes, the fewer Era's you war, the less you get to use more advanced units. This is a good or bad thing depending on which Era you want to war in, and how much warring you want to do, and how long you want your game to go. Tiny always seemed cheesy to me when going for a Domination Victory.

If you want domination, go Honor and then build Statue of Zeus. Maybe even Temple of Artemis. If you don't dominate quickly enough, go with Brandenburg Gate.

Secondary wonders; Colossus for the extra trade route so you get more Gold Per Turn so you can pay maintenance on that army. Maybe Great Wall so that you don't have to fight against it, not so much that you need it. Alhambra is nice.

Tertiary wonders; Machu Pichu, again for gold. And then, if you're having happiness issues, Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower.

 

[Gamer1291]

Standard is fine. Going with Small is fine too. The smaller the map, the less capitals to take, the faster the game goes, the fewer Era's you war, the less you get to use more advanced units. This is a good or bad thing depending on which Era you want to war in, and how much warring you want to do, and how long you want your game to go. Tiny always seemed cheesy to me when going for a Domination Victory.

If you want domination, go Honor and then build Statue of Zeus. Maybe even Temple of Artemis. If you don't dominate quickly enough, go with Brandenburg Gate.

Secondary wonders; Colossus for the extra trade route so you get more Gold Per Turn so you can pay maintenance on that army. Maybe Great Wall so that you don't have to fight against it, not so much that you need it. Alhambra is nice.

Tertiary wonders; Machu Pichu, again for gold. And then, if you're having happiness issues, Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower.

Nice,thanks for the information.

I was practicing on prince only for domination but i am starting to have more happiness and gold per turn issues.

annexing AI capitals is making happiness worse in medival+era.

I generally go to war after getting civ's UU to get max benefit of the war.

 

[sixty4half]

Nice,thanks for the information.

I was practicing on prince only for domination but i am starting to have more happiness and gold per turn issues.

annexing AI capitals is making happiness worse in medival+era.

I generally go to war after getting civ's UU to get max benefit of the war.

Annexing is generally a bad idea if you are going for a domination victory. It does cause quite a bit more unhappiness than Puppeting. However, if it's not a capital and doesn't have unique luxury resources then just Raze it and sell the buildings inside.

Waiting for an early UU is a good idea. Waiting on a Renaissance or later UU is wasting a lot of time.

At King Level you should be able to take your first capital with 2 Spearmen and 3-4 Archers. Set up all your archers 3 tiles away from the capital in a position where they can all move into flat land next turn. Then move all 4 archers in and hit the city with 4 shots. Keep the 2 Spearmen 3 tiles away. As your archers get knocked below 1/2 health, move them away and heal them. By the time you're down to 2 Archers the city health should be really low. Move the 2 Spearmen in. Next turn, hit the city with Archers and the city health should be 0, Spearmen attack for the win. Kill the rest of his military for the XP and then sue for peace and move on to the next civ.

This will allow you to level up your archers very quickly. What you want to do is select the same promotion 3 times in a row. Either the Flatland bonus or the rough terrain bonus. After 3 promos your 4th promo is +Range. This allows your (by then) Composite Bowmen/Crossbowman to sit 3 tiles away from the city and attack it from outside the city's barrage range. Then when you do get your UU you will have a stronger overall army to support those awesome new units.

Trying to level your Archers against a CS before you go against the other Civs is a waste of time at King. The CSs don't make enough units at that level to make it worth while. In fact, the AI Civs might not either at King. You might find that you don't get your 4th Promotion until the 3rd or 4th Capital simply due to them not making as many military units, so you're not getting as much XP, only City Attack XP.


Someone step in a correct me if I'm steering this guy in the wrong direction.

 

[Gamer1291]

Yea I know annexing is bad for non capital cities.

But i always annex capital cities for looting wonders.

But i am having issue of generating lots of unhappiness due to population overgrowth and mostly i have 3 of my own cities around 18-25 citizens.

Other cities which have luxury resources that i don't have are puppet which also grow pretty fast.

Any tips for maintaining happiness even during war?.

I don't want to waste GPT on happiness buildings and still stay unhappy.

sorry for noob questions but i am a noob at this anyway

 

[Chum]

If you want domination, go Honor and then build Statue of Zeus. Maybe even Temple of Artemis. If you don't dominate quickly enough, go with Brandenburg Gate.

This is pretty bad advice.

If you want to win via domination, why would you build wonders? Build UNITS. Take wonders.

 

[MightySpice]

OK so if i am playing king for first time should i start with tiny/small map size? instead of standard?.

And one more question is that which wonders should i try to aim for during domination?.

No. Just play the game. If you want to improve, don't make things easier. Make them harder.

 

[inthesomeday]

Smaller maps are not easier, there's less room to expand, larger penalties for settling, fewer city states, more choke points, and diplomatic penalties are larger because you have to forward settle aggressively.
I suppose these aren't problems for a cut and dry early domination victory but in almost any other game plan smaller maps are harder.

As to maintaining happiness, religion is your friend. So are stone/marble and horse/ivory in all/most expands, for stone works and circuses. Cultural and mercantile city-states also are very helpful.

 

[Acken]

Smaller maps are easier for the simple reason that you have less opponents. I'm not sure what there is more to say. You have access to more wonders on peaceful play and less to do for both culture and domination games.

To win domination above prince on a huge map you need to lower the speed, marathon or epic. Quick speed will work up to standard sized maps, but over that you need slower speed.

You don't NEED to slow the speed, especially at King. It only makes your life easier if you wish to but it certainly is not mandatory. Late game domination is so fast that all speeds have enough time to make you take all 10/12 capitals, especially with the information era units.

 

[Gamer1291]

I have been skipping religion but it seems i should concentrate on religion on higher difficulties.

I have been following honor,tradition,rationalism mostly but should i take up piety policy?.

 

[claudiupb]

At King Level you should be able to take your first capital with 2 Spearmen and 3-4 Archers. Set up all your archers 3 tiles away from the capital in a position where they can all move into flat land next turn. Then move all 4 archers in and hit the city with 4 shots. Keep the 2 Spearmen 3 tiles away. As your archers get knocked below 1/2 health, move them away and heal them. By the time you're down to 2 Archers the city health should be really low. Move the 2 Spearmen in. Next turn, hit the city with Archers and the city health should be 0, Spearmen attack for the win. Kill the rest of his military for the XP and then sue for peace and move on to the next civ.

This is not a really good advice regarding the troop maneuvering strategy. What happens if the AI spawns a spearmen while one of the archers is at 60 HP? You will lose it. You will also want to keep the archers at full hp the entire time so that they can keep hitting the city. This brings out the city much faster and will allow you to continue and take on other cities. In the long run you get the XP much faster because you keep using the units instead of waiting to heal half the time.

What I usually do is move the blocker units right next to the city tile (preferably on something improved) one turn before I move in my archer units. This way the AI will attack one of the blocker units because it doesn't have anything else to attack. The next turn I just fortify to get the 20% bonus and move in my archer units and start attacking the city. Most likely the AI will attack the blocker unit since it is not at 100HP, but since it is fortified it will take less damage and be able to stay there a lot longer than an archer. If the blocker unit becomes low on HP I can just pillage or retreat it and replace it with another. With enough blocker units I can even take a shot at the city to lower it's HP faster and ensure that I always have blocker units that have damage (so that the AI never targets my archers).

This way the archer units are also protected since they will be behind the blocker unis and even if the AI brings an unexpected unit, that unit can't reach my archers because of the Zone of Control.

 

[sugerdady87]

This is pretty bad advice.

If you want to win via domination, why would you build wonders? Build UNITS. Take wonders.

I build wonders. It's pretty easy to faith buy GEs to do so. Some wonders you want are sometimes acquired too late in captured cities. Big Ben, Brandenburg Gate, Proza and sometimes Oracle, Statue of Zeus, and Pentagon are all pretty solid choices.

 

[Chum]

I build wonders. It's pretty easy to faith buy GEs to do so. Some wonders you want are sometimes acquired too late in captured cities. Big Ben, Brandenburg Gate, Proza and sometimes Oracle, Statue of Zeus, and Pentagon are all pretty solid choices.

So you faith buy GE's to build Oracle and statue of zeus?

Pentagon is complete garbage always. You have almost no upgrading left to do by the time you can build it.

You also can't faith buy GE's if you go HCA or liberty dom, which are 2 of the most viable warmongering strategies. Your tradition bias is showing pretty heavily in this thread too.

 

[Browd]

If you can faith buy Oracle and Zeus, you are in an odd game. You can't buy GEs with faith until you are in the Industrial Era (assuming you have also completed Tradition). If you can still get Oracle and Zeus at that point in the game, you are playing on too low a level (or, in the case of Zeus, no other civ has opened Honor, in which case you probably don't need Zeus -- frankly, I find Zeus to be a waste of hammers in any event, but to each his own).

 

[donkeyfish]

I can't believe no one has mentioned my favourite domination wonder: The Pyramids

Worker speed makes life much easier. At the front, workers can build roads/repair/bait AI unit. Very useful to have a bunch of them around.

Besides that, I tend to build 0 other wonders during a domination game. Sometimes I rush a wonder with Liberty GE, usually my second favourite domination wonder: Machu Picchu

Happiness is always gonna be a problem. Try and settle next to Horse/Ivory for Circus, or Stone/Marble for Stone Works. Prioritise getting these buildings + Colosseums in your cities when necessary. I always need the happy-buildings in dom games. Try and trick the AI into giving you a religion if you don't have one, even something like "+1 from Shrine" is helpful.

I also tend to open Commerce, and try to finish it. +2 happy from each lux is massive.

Its possible to win Standard speed/Huge map/Deity difficulty, but the larger map/quicker speed - the more difficult.

 

[sugerdady87]

If you can faith buy Oracle and Zeus, you are in an odd game. You can't buy GEs with faith until you are in the Industrial Era (assuming you have also completed Tradition). If you can still get Oracle and Zeus at that point in the game, you are playing on too low a level (or, in the case of Zeus, no other civ has opened Honor, in which case you probably don't need Zeus -- frankly, I find Zeus to be a waste of hammers in any event, but to each his own).

Perhaps I didn't write correctly, but you would obviously build and not faith buy the early wonders. I simply stated that you could faith buy GE for wonders. I normally faith buy Big Ben, Brandenburg Gate, and/or Proza in many domination games.

I tested out Zeus a few months back with IGE and found it had a pretty big effect in the middle-late era.

 

[sugerdady87]

So you faith buy GE's to build Oracle and statue of zeus?

Pentagon is complete garbage always. You have almost no upgrading left to do by the time you can build it.

You also can't faith buy GE's if you go HCA or liberty dom, which are 2 of the most viable warmongering strategies. Your tradition bias is showing pretty heavily in this thread too.

Most deity games go down tradition.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I heavily agree with Chum in that you shouldn't attempt any Wonders if you are going for a domination victory. The more time you spend building buildings and wonders the more of a drag your game will be. Domination in the first let's say ~150 is a breeze, after that the AI will have lots of cities that will all be building units. You'll have to eat through insane amounts of (horribly deployed) units. It's not fun and it's not worth it.

There is however another type of domination victory. You could turtle with a 4 city Tradition empire until you get Artillery and go from there. You can turtle until Bombers (or Great War Bombers, but probably not on Deity) or you can turtle until Atomic Bombs + XCom. But at this point it's not a domination victory anymore, it's a science victory with a few turns of fighting.

If you however must build some Wonders for your domination victory then I'd say the following are the best:

Pyramids (Pillage-Repair strategy is clearly broken and should have been fixed a long time ago. I love abusing it personally)
Macchu Picchu (Can easily yield between 50GPT and 100GPT if you are playing on a standard/huge Pangea because you should have roads to every capital and prebuilt roads)
Alhambra (Hard to get, often times not even worth it, for example when going for an Artillery or Bomber rush)
Brandenburg Gate (At this point you're usually better off building units. If you have a spare Engineer by all means get it)

Every Wonder that gives happiness is decent enough. National Wonders are okay just because every Ideology can get happiness from them.

I definitely agree with Browd - putting Hammers into Statue of Zeus is a complete waste. If not a single AI went Honor you can wait until lategame and build it in three or four turns anyway.

Most deity games go down tradition.

This is completely untrue since we are talking about domination. Liberty is the most-used policy tree and Honor is just as good if not better, but you don't have a peaceful win condition to fall back on if domination fails.

I very rarely see people going for Tradition with domination in mind unless they are turtling towards Artillery, Bombers or XCom.