New challenge: Conquest victories

[AnotherPacifist]

Retrieved a save from a Rome squat. The really hard part was not tech but stability, so for the longest time I stagnated in terms of land growth. Spain was limited to Hispania for the longest time because I blockaded the Meditteranean west end with privateers. By a stroke of luck, my useless vassal Mali collapsed and I was able to get Mongolia to capitulate just after China respawned, and the war enmity quickly faded (they were friendly 3 moves after our war ended).

I've concluded that the best vassals are those that are large in historical area and have multiple cultures where they live (e.g. Turkey, Russia, Mongolia). "Native" vassals like Inca and Aztecs are OK but not very expansive. Japan, China, and Europeans are the worst.



Just for fun, I liberated all my conquests at the end and here's my stability:

 

[kbk]

Nice. Carthage's small size has always been an issue for me. So you'd argue that you want different vassals for conquest than domination? In domination you want vassals who will eat up massive tracts of land in the America and Africa for instance. But in conquest, you'd probably just raze a number of Amerindian cities and just not let them respawn?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

What I'm trying to say is, if it were up to me whether I can choose between

A. a vassal who can eat up lots of potential conquests (like Inca, Mongolia, Russia, Turkey--who was built up from just Asia Minor to own all of Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa, Arabia, Persia, middle of Asia and even India at the end) vs.

B. a vassal who can eat up a lot of land but is inherently unstable if they do (e.g. Ethiopia, Mali, China, Khmer, Maya),

I would choose the former, just because it would allow me to liberate cities to them without the risk of

1. jeopardizing their stability with new useless cities, and
2. reaching domination land limit prematurely.

In domination you want the land as soon as you can leaving as many civs alive as possible, while in conquest you have to kill every last one of them.

The Aztecs and Americans are a special case for conquests since you want to build multiple OPs in NAm quickly, which means that you have to have at least one of them to liberate OP cities to, even if they can't take too many conquests.

 

[Quotey]

Did you take on the Euros as they spawned or later? It looks like the Scandanavia and GB/Ire were taken later because of the buildings, and obviously Spain was too.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Did you take on the Euros as they spawned or later? It looks like the Scandanavia and GB/Ire were taken later because of the buildings, and obviously Spain was too.

I did not declare war on anybody until after AL/Fascism. Then all the Euros were subdued after they declared on me after conferences (France was first). You will note I razed Amsterdam. Viking land was passed back and forth to England and India (for the stability of course) then easily reconquered at the very end.

Ireland had an independent Brennus up till the time I conquered it.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Remembering my spaceship victory, Persia is so hard not to win domination. I got Mongolia early as a voluntary vassal which helps with not conquering them later, but their large land (together with Aztecs and Incans) is driving me nuts (already have to raze almost all cities in Egypt and Siberia). China collapsed twice and respawned twice which helped taking away Khmer's land, but they have oil (unlike everybody else with the techs). Just up to 26% now for domination (i.e. have to kill at least 2 more civs to be safe occupying western Russia).

That is why it would be nice to build in the option to disable certain victories, since I don't like to tinker with the code (feels like cheating).

 

[blizzrd]

Lonewolf keeps posting that it is possible to turn off certain victories. I haven't tried myself...

 

[JujuLautre]

That's not complicated; you just have to modify the ini file to allow the "custom game" menu, and from there you modify the options. Just don't touch sensitive ones (such as always peace or always war)

 

[Muz]

You guys make me feel like I suck at this game. I thought I was doing well when conquering half a continent

 

[AnotherPacifist]

To quote wikipedia on Cyrus the Great:

In short, the figure of Cyrus has survived throughout history as more than a great man who founded an empire. He became the epitome of the great qualities expected of a ruler in antiquity, and he assumed heroic features as a conqueror who was tolerant and magnanimous as well as brave and daring. His personality as seen by the Greeks influenced them and Alexander the Great, and, as the tradition was transmitted by the Romans, may be considered to influence our thinking even now. In the year 1971, Iran celebrated the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the monarchy by Cyrus.

One of the few surviving sources of information that can be dated directly to Cyrus's time is the Cyrus cylinder, a document issued by Cyrus the Great in the form of a clay cylinder inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform. The cylinder was created following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC. The text of the cylinder denounces Nabonidus as impious and portrays the victorious Cyrus as pleasing to the chief god Marduk. It goes on to describe how Cyrus had improved the lives of the citizens of Babylonia, repatriated displaced peoples and restored temples and cult sanctuaries.

Yeah right. I only got Shaka Zulu.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I think the closest best city for the Dutch to send a city to EARLY (not necessarily the best city) is Carthage:
1. It's got marble for later Taj Mahal in case Frankfurt's culture is too strong
2. It's close enough to Rome if that's what you want (I decided not to do it in this game)
3. Maintenance is much lower than Winburg
4. It can help you maintain contact with Mali, Spain, Turkey and Arabia
5. It's close enough that if you open borders with the French, you can ferry your workers over to work tiles earlier
6. Your pikemen can actually gain some experience killing barbs in Africa rather than sit idly around.
7. You deprive Spain of a possible source of oil in the future.

Stole the majority of "hard" techs from the Vikings (plastics, flight, railroad, combustion). They're so stupid that even after they got combustion, they kept on building their cannon rather than a quick workboat to get the oil in the North Sea (and they had Inverness too). Since their cities are so close, nukes are especially useful, and they only built one bomb shelter in Inverness long after they learned fission.

So I expanded mainly in the Americas, and unfortunately Aztecs didn't want to vassalize so I had to kill them, and the 2nd turn after the American showed up they vassalized to Spain, and the 1st world conference pitted them against me. So there was only 1 OP, and I won just as Belem was about to build another.

Another mistake I made was to capitulate Spain rather than collapse them, and they never accepted any cities (rather, I had conquered Lisbon, and the option for them to liberate La Coruna, Toledo and Madrid came up, since they lost Madrid as a capital). Thankfully China was super stable after they respawned and was willing to be a voluntary vassal.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So I started a game for French domination as emperor. Founded Breme, killed Germany at start (with much luck) and unfortunately Russia has built a city right in the middle of Reval and Kiev, and we had an early war. I'm probably top in score now in 1400 (got Aztecs as a voluntary vassal but unfortunately the Incan workboat met everybody else). Just spawned a great spy and stole civil service from Spain (next up is Astronomy from them--got to expand in America soon). Thanks to a stroke of luck with Mali finding me first, I got divine right with 4 techs that every European already knew, and I've built the Spiral Minaret and Forbidden Palace. I'm in positive cash flow with 60% science, and will probably have better stability once I switch to pacifism and viceroyalty or resettlement with some great people.
I plan to get Khmer and probably a respawned Egypt or Ethiopia as vassals.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So it's 1730, I encounter the Americans and they're friendly with me. I'm still top score, but England is rapidly outpacing my science. Remind me NEVER to get Japan as a vassal in the future--they don't trade techs and don't expand enough. I do have Inca, Khmer and Aztecs as voluntary vassals too. About to found my Hudson Bay cities for another GA (which I badly need due to my tanking economy).

 

[Jet]

Well... suicide raze London?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, no, the English are bound to die soon (they never get oil quickly enough in Edmonton, and their flimsy offshore platforms are so, well, flimsy). They're a good source to steal techs from (London is a stone's throw from Breme). In fact, after I steal rifling next turn I'm devoting all espionage to England.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, it's 1878, I've just learned Electricity and solid (without any OP's built), and England already has Industrialism, flight, freaking plastics but (thankfully) no fission; America (who has broken free after the English gave them techs) has artillery and is researching Rocketry, and (thankfully) no fission. I built the Pentagon and Mt. Rushmore and will probably declare on England soon, before they get fission since they still have Fort Albany and didn't build any cities in Australia.

 

[Cornelio]

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So it's 1947, it's down to the final showdown between Turkey/Vikings and me. (I've made peace with Mongolia who's down to 1 desert city, all the easier for them to accept some Turkish conquests; Mali's about to die but I'll spare them with Wadan left so that they can absorb some African conquests). The Turks have flight and combustion, but no fission or assembly line, while the Vikings (their vassals) have assembly line but no fission either. I'm stockpiling nukes like mad.

The French must be the easiest to play since the Turks are still pleased with me despite lots of negative modifiers--I still have a defensive pact with them. You can choose to kill whomever you want without interference by a war in behind your front lines.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Turkey wasn't much of a challenge after all, even with their bomb shelters and bunkers. They were 2 turns from industrialism when I declared on them.
Some crazy facts in emperor mode:
At then end I had built 125 tanks and 35 nukes (ICBMs), besides all the bombers, fighters, infantry and destroyers.
I had killed 230 infantry plus countless rifles, cannons and cavalry.
Superconductors cost 100000 beakers.
My expansion was a whopping + 600, but I was only stable (+3) at the end.
Cristo Redentor cost 2 turns to build in Denver while in GA.

If anybody's interested I can email them the saved game in 1960.

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

Do you have access to an extra time dimension to get all of this done?

Cheers, Luke