Immortal Domination

[TheBlackHole]

I'm having some problem with Immortal Domination. For reference, my skill level is generally: win Emperor every time and every victory condition, win Immortal most of time but only Diplo/Science.

So anyway, I'm trying to hone my skills on Immortal and playing with a powerful domination Civ to get the hang of it. So I'm going Zulu.

Anyway, as the game progresses, I have no problems fighting any individual civ -- I go to town with my ranged units early on getting the Logistics/Range/etc. promotions and when the Impis roll around each Civ is easy to take over. So at this point I typically take 2-3 capitals, razing most cities except key resource cities, usually don't completely kill a civ unless I really need to.

However, there comes a point, though, when everyone hates my guts (understandably so, since I am an unabashed warmonger). But then I have a problem. They all DoW on me and attack me from every angle. At this point I've conquered a few capitals so my empire is wide. Money is hard to come by for me as a warmonger so I can't bribe many CS allies. Every civ declares war on me so THEIR CS allies are also declaring war on me -- I'm literally fighting the entire world.

Now, I certainly have some superior units and superior tactics (the AI being not-so-smart), but I simply do not have enough units to defend all my capitals all across the map. Any INDIVIDUAL fight I can certainly win if my units are there, but when everyone is against me, I'm just spread far too thin. And of course I would love to just pump out a million units in a million cities, but happiness/money is an issue as a full-on warmonger in BNW.

I've played a couple games now and the same process... I roll through some civs (easily) and then every civ attacks me and I just get spread too thin (I keep only capitals or key cities, but of course those capitals are increasingly distant from each other). I guess I could benefit more if I had some more snaky Pangaea map (the maps I've had lately have been generally ball-like, not snaky or long), but I guess I don't want to have to DEPEND on a certain map style to get my victory.

Is there any general advice against this "Me Against The World" scenario? Am I doing something wrong on an overall game-long strategy level (e.g. should I not attack as quickly)? Or am I just not playing well enough such that if I were a better player I should be steamrolling despite everyone hating my guts and declaring war on me?

 

[Browd]

This Zulu domination guide should be useful (ignore the Deity label):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=504129

 

[dragonxxx]

Maybe you are not choosing your targets in the correct order. Before you crush everybody, you have to make the other AIs to hate each other. So you have to pay them to fight each other ASAP.
So then you start killing em off one by one.

At least thats what I have learned from the domination LPs I watched recently
My only domination game on Immortal is not over yet, but after taking 4 other capitals, I still have friends and noone hates me, except the ppl I already crippled. So that strategy seems to work ...

 

[dragonxxx]

And btw - razing cities pisses the AI off a lot. So its better to concentrate on the good cities. If you have to take others and cannot take the happiness hit - just sell em or gift em to far away AI, that is not going to cause problem.

Liberation of city stats helps a lot too.

 

[joshua43214]

Are you taking Autocracy and Commerce? Between those two you should not have any serious gold issues. Remember you are focusing on getting to artillery with Shaka. You do need some early science focus, but I would probably not bother with Rationalism. I just put two points into Patronage, 3 into Commerce, and the rest into Autocracy. You should be able to lock down a few CS allies if not quite a few depending on the AI's. Center starts go faster, but you end up spread too thin. I prefer to have an end start, or atleast conquer to one end, then back. It helps not having to fight on opposite ends of the map

 

[TheBlackHole]

Before you crush everybody, you have to make the other AIs to hate each other. So you have to pay them to fight each other ASAP.

Hmmm... I guess that might be a problem for me. I've never actually gotten a civ to attack another civ (though frankly, I haven't tried all that much), but if I really want to bribe them, I guess that would take money... which I am always in short supply of, unfortunately.

Are you taking Autocracy and Commerce? Between those two you should not have any serious gold issues. Remember you are focusing on getting to artillery with Shaka. You do need some early science focus, but I would probably not bother with Rationalism. I just put two points into Patronage, 3 into Commerce, and the rest into Autocracy. You should be able to lock down a few CS allies if not quite a few depending on the AI's. Center starts go faster, but you end up spread too thin. I prefer to have an end start, or atleast conquer to one end, then back. It helps not having to fight on opposite ends of the map

Hmm OK. Yeah, I never ever have money issues with Peaceful high-level games -- I'm usually overflowing with money in those games -- so in those types of games it's certainly not a problem... but I guess with less infrastructure focus and trading partners, I might have to look into pursuing other methods of getting my money (aside from plundering).

 

[Steeltank]

Your domination game is not quite there. It's not very hard defending a border city with 2 crossbow. It's seem that you barely leading when they start to DOW you. You need to defend your key border cities and keep on steam rolling. Once you have a big point gap like example 700 to 300 or later on 1000 to 400. hardly anyone will DOW on you anymore.
Do station at least 1 Crossbow though sometime they will DOW if your border city is empty and it's their capital but rarely.

 

[Teadrinker]

For domination, you need to actively manage your relations with every civ, not just the target.

In particular you have to understand warmonger penalties are now based a lot more on capturing cities, modified by the number of cities in the game. The gist of this is if you capture a few cities early, the AIs will probably hate your guts forever.

It'll get easier with the next patch, but essentially you really have to manage your war strategy from the beginning for the whole game, including targets, timing, and techniques for manipulating the AIs to like you.

 

[Ninakoru]

Domination is the hardest win condition by far. You will easily get a Diplo win instead just by getting the lead and buying all CS.

- Surprisingly enough, you need much much more diplomacy in a domination vic than in a diplo win, just to avoid those mass denounces that can easily lead to mass DoWing.

- You need to plan carefully, and way ahead.

- You need to be an expert in combat management and tactics, so you can roll over the oponents with in less time and losses possible.

- You need to know when to build troops or infrastructure.

- you need to get the best science possible out of a warmongering style (science buildings = less troops, city growth = less production)

- You need to get culture in decent levels if you plan to keep a desired ideology up at all costs, to stand ideologic pressure.

It's the most complete victory and every bit of knowledge about the game is useful for your goals.

The best way I found to get a domination win, is to focus on science and gold playing totally peaceful until industrial. As you get more varied units for warfare, combat against AI get easier. Artillery and Planes make things much easier, and you can conquer really quick on industrial and modern.

Last game gone domination with Monty on Immortal Fractal, and on medieval I has containing three fronts while trying to get some capitals. The distribution was 7 on one landmass and russia far away, thanks to that I could at least trade with Cathy for quite some time, everyone else was always on denunciation/war for the entire game. Diplomatic relations are much harder if you are surrounded by land-coveters.

 

[isau]

Something that can help is bribing your target to war prior to your own declaration. Ideally, bribe them into backstabbing the civs they have Dec of Friendships with. The world will hate them for it. I've taken world leaders out this way.

Also, in whatever way possible always undermine the person in the lead. This buys you time. I usually try to do this while maintaining a façade of friendship with the leader. Coming up on the first World Congress vote you want them to be hated by as many people as possible. That's when you show your true colors and propose an Embargo.

One thing to be super careful about is taking cities right after meeting a new civ. If you do this they have no opinion of you yet except that you took a city. This can wreck your diplo instantly. If you just met someone and they don't yet have an opinion do what you can to turn them against your target. If you don't it can get ugly.