King Challenge: Mongolia Domination

[krc]

This post resulted from two facts: First, I've been reading lots of the discussions here about how hard domination is in BNW. Second, I've been playing most of my games on "random leader" and "random map". So, when Genghis popped up on the start screen, in seemed obvious that I should try for a domination victory. And I also decided to share the starting position to let others try their hand.

To give people something to shoot for, my domination victory came on Turn 234 (early 1600's). And I never spent a turn with happiness less than -10. But I am certain that that victory time can be greatly reduced, and am looking forward to hearing other people's reactions.

Here is a screenshot of the starting position:


And here is the initial save:
View attachment Genghis-Challenge_0000 BC-4000.Civ5Save

 

[zukenft]

domination isn't hard. It's just risky before bombers. on early eras, if you focus on military instead of science you could lose to a runaway on another continent later on. on pangaea maps domination is easier and faster though.

 

[Stellarnight]

Challenge accepted mainly because i have not gone for a Dom Victory for some time. Time for some Keshik loving

 

[krc]

domination isn't hard. It's just risky before bombers. on early eras, if you focus on military instead of science you could lose to a runaway on another continent later on. on pangaea maps domination is easier and faster though.

I agree. Which makes getting Genghis on a random map an interesting challenge.

I decided that I was a little tired of reading about how hard domination is after the fall patch of BNW (because of warmonger hate, and less money from trades, and problems with happiness, etc.). Instead, I wanted to get people to actually try domination and find out how easy it can be. So (assuming anyone tries the challenge), I'd like to hear not only how long it takes, but also how they manage their happiness and their economy while conquering the world.

 

[Acken]

Spoiler :

Took me 161 turns. King is obviously not my level but I still like to try it out to know what can be done at that level. Maybe I could have gone faster with liberty instead of tradition (extra hammers and free great scientist would probably have given me an army some turn earlier).
Morocco cost me an extra 10 turns because of how isolated his position was.

Everybody else fell like flies to Keshik. Made one group of 5Keshik + Horseman to kill the west (Ethiopia, Babylon, Indonesia, Brazil, Holland) and then the second production group went for Hiawatha and Morocco in the east.

Build was pretty standard (but like I said I think liberty would have been better).
Went 3 Cities fast (settlers at 3 pop just after building 2 scout and a worker). Rush bought a library, built GL around 60 (got philosophy) and then NC around 80. Later I got Oracle and extra policies went into left honor (since I know the game won't last).
Built some charriot (4 I think) which I upgraded into Keshik.
Cities built only libraries, granaries and stables and then units.
Built the statue of Zeus after getting honor with Oracle.

Like I said probably doable in around 145turns with a faster Chivalry (got it around 112, a liberty build can probably get it sub 100 with a great scientist to bulb it) and 2 groups already ready to go (only had one). Myabe some early kills with CB I don't know.
There is also a way to get gold through tributes early, but I don't know what is necessary at King level to be able to demand CS tributes. This extra gold would also decrease the turn number.

Stole 2 workers and one from a barb camp, built another one.

On the other hand, map is horrible. It's mostly jungle with very narrow passages between the main areas and starting area suck. I moved to the north east to settle next to the river. Probably wasn't really necessary either.

A few extra tips:
-Raze secondary city that block your path.
-If you're set on using a unit to kill everyone, go for it without pause. All in.
-If you think a unit will be good only for one kill, don't overproduce it and stop as soon as possible.
-Use promotion. Keshit can be upgraded from chariots and horsemen (chariots are cheaper to build). I don't know if one cost more than the other to promote. Chariot to Keshit is 130 gold.
-Conquering fast should give you some extra gold. Use that to fight unhapiness. I bought the two mercantile CS to allies in this game.
-Complete CS quests to have happiness.

 

[krc]

Took me 161 turns. King is obviously not my level but I still like to try it out to know what can be done at that level. Maybe I could have gone faster with liberty instead of tradition (extra hammers and free great scientist would probably have given me an army some turn earlier).

One of the reasons I knew that the time to victory could potentially be much faster than mine was that I made no real attempt to prioritize science. I took three policies in tradition (opener, free culture building, faster growth in capital) and then completely filled out the honor tree. Ended up with Keshiks having logistics, range, march, and cover 2.....

Everybody else fell like flies to Keshik. Made one group of 5Keshik + Horseman to kill the west (Ethiopia, Babylon, Indonesia, Brazil, Holland) and then the second production group went for Hiawatha and Morocco in the east.

The second reason I knew that victory could come faster was that I only built one group of Keshiks. And actually the hardest civ to take was Brazil. They built the Great Wall fairly quickly, and they also built a city that controlled the choke point to the part of the continent that they shared with the Netherlands. So I ended up taking (in order) Indonesia, Babylon, Iroquois, Morocco, Ethiopia (who I had preserved for a while as trading partners), Netherlands, and Brazil.

There is also a way to get gold through tributes early, but I don't know what is necessary at King level to be able to demand CS tributes. This extra gold would also decrease the turn number.

I built chariot archers and horsemen early. And instead of demanding tribute early, I went around declaring war on city-states (to use the Mongolian UA). However, I never conquered a city-state. Instead, I pillaged all their tiles for gold and allowed my units to get useful experience from killing all the CS troops. In the later game, when I was moving my keshik-horseman army all across the map, every time I passed another city-state, I demanded tribute. If they refused, they found war and pillage; if they gave in, I moved on.

Stole 2 workers and one from a barb camp, built another one.

Two of my workers came from AI settlers (one from Babylon and one from Indonesia) that had first been captured by barbarians. In both cases, I was getting ready to take the unprotected settlers myself when I saw the barbs approaching, so I simply waited for them to take the first step.

It would be really useful if the developers could somehow teach the AI not to send out unprotected settlers.

On the other hand, map is horrible. It's mostly jungle with very narrow passages between the main areas and starting area suck.

I assume it's a fractal map, which typically has those narrow choke points. But the extra movement points of keshiks means that you can still move into jungle, fire, and retreat to let the next unit in.

I moved to the north east to settle next to the river. Probably wasn't really necessary either.

I settled on the gold.

 

[Novalia]

i finished this one on turn 149..
settled in place and built a scout.. popped an archery ruin with warrior and he continued northwest.. popped a writing ruin with the scout to the SE.. immediately began building great library while accumulating gold from CSs for a worker.. stealing one didnt make much sense as the CSs were pretty far away taking terrain into consideration.. i preferred to use the CSs for food..

took philosophy and built NC right away.. built hanging gardens next so i could set my city on production focus and not starve.. allied the food CSs pretty quickly from quests like barb camps and denouncing babylon (after i traded for horses)..

my two scouts both got archer upgrades from ruins which helped with quests to the SE.. got a couple units and much needed food from CSs..

started by building two horse archers and buying another.. along with my two fast moving CB we took out halle... started with him as he settled the areas i might have settled.. they both had horses.. kept the city on the coast and razed the one to the west as he didnt settle close enough to the gems..

moved on to babylon.. upgraded to keshiks from there..
then indonesia.. then simultaneously hiawatha and william..
finished with brazil and morocco one turn from one another..

no happiness or gold problems at all..
babylon had built statue of zeus so cities went down fast.