I need advice on conquest/domination victories

[Jeiman]

I've been playing Civ IV for about 3 weeks now. I started with Noble difficulty, to get a feel for the game. I have to admit that it's taken me a long time to get the hang of this game, even though I'm a veteran of many RTS games (WCI, II III, Starcraft, C&C and others). I had to turn it down to settler to get my first (and only) victory. It was a space victory. Not much challenge there, but it was nice to become familiar with most of the units.
My next goal is a conquest or domination victory on Noble, and I'm having a little trouble with some aspects of taking new territory. The biggest peeve for me is when I'm taking over an AI civ and a land rush ensues. I generally begin the war by taking 2-3 cities. I'll usually set a goal of taking a few specific cities. I'll go for good production cities or holy cities. Then I see if I can extort any techs or money for peace. If I can't get any techs and it's early in the game, I will just eliminate a civ without ever making peace.
The problem I'm having is when I decide to go finish off a Civ, I usually want to raze the remaining junk cities so I don't end up with too much maintenance costs. This works out great except for... the remaining AI's. They drive me CRAZY with their lust for land. It seems like 9 times out of 10 I end up with the AI's running into even the smallest piece of territory with their settlers, often during the war or before my new cities have a chance to expand their borders. It's not usually a huge deal, it's just.... annoying because I look at the new city some AI on the other end of the continent just settled in the middle of a war zone and I think "How the hell does it make sense for the AI to settle there?" I just hope it's a friendly civ that I can get open borders with.
The best way around having the AI's squeeze in on my new territory I've found is culture bombing with a Great Artist, but I don't always go for great artists if I have a conquest victory in mind.
I'm wondering if it's better to take more cities? I've had better results taking more cities, but it seems like I inevitably reach a point where it's just not possible to take down the next civ because I'll never be able to afford it; or I'll have to raze so many cities (thus opening up a lot of free land) that I'll end up having nearly as much trouble chasing down expansions of the remaining civs.
Any advice on dealing with this idiotic AI land rush behavior would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jeiman]

I attached a recent save to my original post.
Noble Difficulty Balanced map.
In that game I'm playing Mansa Musa, and going for a conquest victory. At the time of the save I think it's pretty much a lost game. I've managed to eliminate Gandhi and Caesar, and I've divided Japan's lands. What I didn't notice before declaring my most recent war with Japan was that Alexander decided to sign a defensive pact with Japan. Even though I was successful in taking the Cities I wanted, Alexander gave me a tough time in my core cities. He came with a TON of calvary and all my calvary were tied up with Japan. I got all of Japan's gold for peace after taking Kyoto, but it took me almost 10 more turns to make peace with Alex. He seemed convinced that he could take Timbuktu. He did give me gold for peace though, and he took none of my cities. Now if I go to war with Japan again, I'm sure I can eliminate him quickly, but war with Alex at the same time is going to cost me dearly. I can't afford to take Alex's cities and I think when I take the remaining Japanese Cities, I'm gonna have to empty my treasury.
What made me realize for sure the game is over though is Saladin. I've left him alone most of the game and he's become a monster. Fustat and Yamama have started to push the borders of my capital. Not much I can do about it, He's got Infantry and Artillery Stacked up down there.... vs my Calvary and Cannon.
I don't usually play Mansa Musa, I just picked him at random. My favorite leader so far is Saladin. Probably because of Sulla's walkthrough. And yes I've read just about everything I can at the War Academy. A lot of it makes sense, but I've never played any Civilization game before this so it's taking some time for everything to sink in.

 

[mice]

Just a few quick notes after looking at your save. You have catapults in your interior cities. These should have been used up in your attacks to cause collateral damage either in city sieges or to smash a stack in the field.

You have a lot of obsolete units which cost in maintenance. Delete them or upgrade them ( expensive).

It's better to war early and grab some land. Do it with catapults, and wait for currency or CoL before you go to more than 4 cities. This way you won't go broke.

You can plan al your wars ahead sometimes, eg. Bismark with catapults/axes ,
Saladin with Catapults/maces/knights , Hatty with Grenadiers/Cannons.

Hopefully you get the timing right, matching your production with getting the techs that open up the new units.

 

[Jeiman]

Thanks for your advice mice.
I didn't even think about deleting the obsolete units. I have a bad habit of leaving old defensive stacks without upgrading them , and it just seems wrong somehow to delete em. In that game it nearly led to Alexander taking down Timbuktu. Thinking about it, that may be part of the reason Alex was so determined to take the city.
I do use siege weapons frequently, and tend to leave some behind with my garrison units in case of an unanticipated war.

I've played a few more games with a conquest victory in mind. I think I answered my own question about AI's squeezing new territory. I made my GP farm produce nothing but Great Artists to culture bomb key locations. I got pretty much the desired results. Culture bombing the new cities defiantly helps them from getting squeezed in early. I was even able to take some newly settled AI cities this way.

I'd still like to hear any alternatives (other than culture bombs) to keeping the AI squeeze off new territory.

 

[mice]

So at noble level you can get away with building gold in newly settled cities, to pay for them, and in this way denying the AI this land. It also denys the AI resources, which you can then sell back to other AI's for cash.

I used to do this, but it doesn't work so well after Noble. Instead of razing it, just keep it,build gold, maybe run an artist or merchant.

Whipping a theater in new cities would be better than farming Great artists.
Farm scientists, or Merchants to send on trade missions. This will boost your science rate.

Try that. Whip a theatre in new cities, keep them all, build gold till they are making money.

Check ou tthis thread if you havent already. It's all about pushing the AI
s borders around instead of them pushing yours. It taught me the importance of cultural buildings and aggressive city placement.

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/pahatty_1.html

 

[cabert]

about deleting units :
you get no war weariness from battles inside your cultural zone (it's about cultural domination really, so in recently captured cities, you may not be "at home").
So I never delete old units. I throw them on invader units, all at once.
It's very funny to kill cavalries with spearmen, archers, warriors...
You need a lot of course, but it's still more fun than deleting them

to the OP : about your game, the defensive pact is broken now. you can attack japan anytime you want. It won't prevent alex from attacking you but it's not certain.

 

[Rayss523]

Be carefull throwing old units at new ones, its a good way to give upgrades to your enemy.

 

[cabert]

Be carefull throwing old units at new ones, its a good way to give upgrades to your enemy.

sure, you need to finish him off after that
but I was able to kill an entire stack of cavalries and canons using only LB (defensively in a city), catapults, muskets and oldies.
This was made a lot easier by the AI's tendancy to spread his stack for pillaging duties.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

So I never delete old units. I throw them on invader units, all at once.
It's very funny to kill cavalries with spearmen, archers, warriors...
You need a lot of course, but it's still more fun than deleting them
QUOTE]

Pulling a Monty on the AI??

 

[cabert]

So I never delete old units. I throw them on invader units, all at once.
It's very funny to kill cavalries with spearmen, archers, warriors...
You need a lot of course, but it's still more fun than deleting them
QUOTE]

Pulling a Monty on the AI??

And if one of those old timer wins, he gets promoted a lot!
Of course, most die .

 

[UncleJJ]

One of the good things about attacking at low odds is the large amount of exp you get towards the next GG. Inside your own borders attacking and losing doesn't gain any WW so you don't have much to lose.

The downside is the exp you will probably give to the AI and they help the unit you're attacking if it gets to be promoted and will help the AI get its own GG. And the AI getting GGs can be an advantage if he uses it for a Military Academy in a city you later capture. I only attack with weak units if I'm sure I have enough back up of modern ones to kill the invading unit, then it never gets to be promoted.

Sometimes I have a few out of date units in my attacking stack. They help absorb collateral damage and can help finish off an already weakened enemy unit with lower odds, to get more exp for my own GG. I get sentimental if they do something heroic and I change their name to something silly like Tarzan or Conan and then upgrade them when the money becomes available

 

[cabert]

of course, if you attack enemy units in your territory with old timers, you need something to be sure to finish him off and not run away with his XPs.
Either really overwhelming numbers or an adequate modern counter to finish the job.

And if one of those low odds wins happens, I certainly upgrade the winner .

One quite common situation for me :
Tons of catapults left when I build enough level 4 cannons = no sense upgrading the catapults.

Those catapults go into 3 categories :
- cultural defense bombing
- medics (I usually have a medic catapult, rather than medic chariot. My stack moves 1 tile at a time anyway)
- defensive stack. When an army enters my land, it is attacked by those old timer colateral damagers, then hit with some serious troops. This works rather well against cavalries although the colateral damages are modest to start with (too much strength difference) : I often can kill the cavs with 70%+ odds with old timer muskets after the initial stack busting shot.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

You are spiritual - your problems in new cities can be solved with caste system - run as many artists as you can in each new city to expand culture quickly. Then build your infrastructure (you can switch back to slavery).

Running merchants can help with your financial pressures. Then raze the cities at the end of your conquest - those that will be on the border of the AIs and vulnerable to culture pressure. The AIs probably won't get space for another city.

You might want to see if Saladin can become your friend. You should be able to switch to his state religion. A defensive pact with Saladin might deter Alex from attacking you while you rebuild your economy. If your relations with Alex aren't too bad possibly you could switch to his religion and bribe him to attack Saladin, but thats probably a long shot.

How do you compare in production with Alex and Saladin. If you have around 2x the production, you can probably pull off a late domination win by building a massive army even if you aren't the tech leader. You build lots and lots of cannon for this.

If not, then conquest is probably out. You could probably still pull off a space race win.

Mansa was an odd choice for a conquest win. You want an aggressive civ for that and one that shines in the early game. Kublai Khan (Creative/Aggressive) is a good pick.