How to win Domination?

[Stickerbrush]

I've been playing Emperor lately, trying different stuff with Austria.

I've been going Authority and then settling 6-7 cities everygame and relying on God of All creation to aid my expansion everything seems to go alright until my pantheon goes away thanks to other religions. My happiness just plummets at like -15 and i don't see a way to pull the happiness back to 0.
Also i feel like every single game i'm just SO far behind on tech compared to everyone else. Most of the time the tech leader has like 10% more than me on demographics when it comes to tech

Any advice on how to get better, any general tips for Domination?
Here's a save of my current game, where everything was going alright until my happiness went away

 

[Dawnpromise]

Well first I'd recommend a civ that does well with conquest. Rome, Songhai, Aztecs, Greece are a few I can think of off the top of my head.
Rome in particular is noted for a good Progress/Authority synergy, not sure how that'll compare once the next patch hits with the new medieval trees though.

As for religion I'd recommend whichever pantheon you'd prefer for playing a wide civ, such as commerce as you will be going wide once the conquest starts.
Also I think 'God-King' or whichever has the +1 yields per 5 followers is a good one for conquest as you just let your warpath follow the pressure spread of your religion.

EDIT: Didn't fully read that you're mainly playing with Austria. Derp. I'd play Austria like you normally would going for diplo-victory, keeping an eye out to befirend militaristic City-states. Domination is usually one of the later win conditions so you can put off going Authority and focus on getting a stable infrastructure while you wait till Imperialism opens up.

 

[CrazyG]

God of All Creation provides 8 happiness. When a foreign religion becomes the majority, you will no longer have that happiness, that is causing your sudden, massive drop off. You should try to anticipate that drop off

If happiness is an issue, hover over your city and see what is causing it. You might want to build barracks earlier, they reduce unhappiness from crime. They also produce science, which also fights unhappiness and can help you not fall so far behind. Austria is a pretty hard civ to play in my opinion, so I'd consider someone else until you are more comfortable with managing happiness

 

[Emufarmers]

I've been going Authority and then settling 6-7 cities everygame and relying on God of All creation to aid my expansion everything seems to go alright until my pantheon goes away thanks to other religions. My happiness just plummets at like -15 and i don't see a way to pull the happiness back to 0.

Are you getting to the stage of conquering cities, or just settling them? When you conquer cities, puppeting them eliminates most of the happiness problems you would face if you annexed them.

 

[Enginseer]

You want to vassal as much as possible. This is what I'm seeing little in AI that want to win domination. They should have civs capitulating to them as soon as possible when the capital is captured.

Domination is all about securing the original capital. Nothing less, nothing more.