New challenge: Conquest victories

[AnotherPacifist]

Germany beat me to the Eiffel Tower and Graceland, and I almost got beat to Pentagon, Chunnel, and Cristo, and these were all bought with a turn of anarchy switching to US and turning research to 0%. Freaking impossible.

I almost have the Americas all to myself, but Germany already has computers, and I had to destroy our longstanding pact by nuking them when they were about to build the internet. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY wants to vassalize! The Americans were down to 1 last infantry and would not vassalize (they are doing fine on their own).

Stalin got elected to UN even though at that time I was still relatively liked by half the world. And guess what, the first resolution he decided to call is: ban nukes!



Oh, and the everlasting plague in Chile is making me sick. I think I'll probably give up soon.

 

[Deego3]

How can you have that many cities and still be solid

 

[blizzrd]

When you liberate a city, you get a temporary boost to your stability. The trick is knowing when to liberate cities and how many to liberate to whom.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I might be overly pessemistic after all. I beat the Germans to the Internet and now they (along with the unstable Portuguese) are my research people. I capitulated England, Mali, and Russia (yay!) and will hopefully do Mongolia soon. I'm now elected the UN secretary (no more no nukes votes!). I am about to eradicate the Aztecs from history and then hopefully China next after they lose Aztecs as their vassal. The only threats to world dominance are:

1. Time!
2. Germany needs to be massively destabilized (they are so big that if I capture a city or two or if France, Rome or Greece respawns they should collapse).
3. Turkey is unstable and very advanced, almost has plastics. An Arabian/Persian respawn would make me win domination prematurely.

I would be seriously pissed if I can't get it after all this hard work.

 

[Deego3]

Good luck.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So after a protracted war, China still wouldn't capitulate, and in the end it was the Mongolians who did so. Unfortunately, I forgot to kill India first, and Rome respawned, taking my area needed control down to 36%. I call this a proof of concept for an Incan conquest (as the German AI is so stupid that they never built any ICBMs or bomb shelters, and I could have nuked every single production site they have).

It would really be nice to be able to turn off certain victories.

 

[blizzrd]

It would really be nice to be able to turn off certain victories.

Apparently you can, although I haven't ever tried to do this.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300917&highlight=Nocustomscenario

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Thanks to the new patch, no tech brokering means that the Dutch cannot spread their knowledge out to all the Euros (in fact they were enemies of the Germans and was able to stand up to them until the very last moment when I decimated them). Otherwise it would be pretty much impossible since Japan can't really get to Europe quick enough, and developing America is kinda slow due to poor settlers. (I got to New Orleans around 1530 when nobody else had astronomy). The Mongolians were terrible as a vassal (only accepted 3 cities) while the Arabians were phenomenal. Americans were OK and Incans were as usual (I had to liberate Montevideo with Creative Constructions to them).

Behold the great Incan...no, Arabian...no, JAPANESE empire.

 

[blizzrd]

The Mongolians were terrible as a vassal (only accepted 3 cities) while the Arabians were phenomenal.

The Mongolian settler map was recently nerfed by Rhye.

 

[Hangly Man]

I think it would be cool to see a strategy page dedicated to generic conquest and domination victory hints

Yes, like how you keep from completely collapsing. I've never had a stable empire even a third that size.

 

[blizzrd]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301599

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=302194

 

[Hangly Man]

When you liberate a city, you get a temporary boost to your stability. The trick is knowing when to liberate cities and how many to liberate to whom.

Yes, but doesn't liberating a lot of cities also drive down your expansion score?

My last game playing as Japan I controlled all of East Asia from Seoul to Samarkand. I started to become shaky and gave all of central Asia and Southern India the Khmer (my vassal.) Three turns later I had collapsed.

Is there a difference perhaps between liberating cities and just giving them to people?

 

[blizzrd]

Yes, but doesn't liberating a lot of cities also drive down your expansion score?

No. Liberation improves your expansion stability component on the following turn. The liberation bonus is negligible when you have a small number of cities but substantial when you have a large number of cities (>~20).

My last game playing as Japan I controlled all of East Asia from Seoul to Samarkand. I started to become shaky and gave all of central Asia and Southern India the Khmer (my vassal.) Three turns later I had collapsed.

Well, you don't collapse when you are Shaky. You must have been a lot worse than Shaky to have totally collapsed 3 turns later.
Your overall stability is what matters, not just your expansion stability component. Liberating cities would have potentially done two things:

1. Improve your expansion stability rating
2. Remove some of the penalties that you would have been incurring for occupying the core areas of other civs.

Is there a difference perhaps between liberating cities and just giving them to people?

No. My experience is that gifting a city or liberating a city (i.e. when the trade screen says Qufu (Liberate) as opposed to just Qufu) give the same boost to your expansion stability.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Actually it's more like 25 cities to be getting any benefit from liberating/giving away cities.

And actually, the liberating benefit appears right away at the same turn (just liberating and see what it does to your expansion).

Speaking of conquest, I'm trying to do a Khmer one here...what happened to the courthouse in Patna (or did I destroy it when I captured it)?

 

[blizzrd]

Actually it's more like 25 cities to be getting any benefit from liberating/giving away cities.

Can this be more exactly determined, by Rhye for instance?

And actually, the liberating benefit appears right away at the same turn (just liberating and see what it does to your expansion).

Right. But the benefit to your stability of removing the penalties that you were incurring for occupying another civ's area appears the following turn (or perhaps it might be checked every 3 turns I seem to recall).

 

[Hangly Man]

No. Liberation improves your expansion stability component on the following turn. The liberation bonus is negligible when you have a small number of cities but substantial when you have a large number of cities (>~20).


Well, you don't collapse when you are Shaky. You must have been a lot worse than Shaky to have totally collapsed 3 turns later.
Your overall stability is what matters, not just your expansion stability component. Liberating cities would have potentially done two things:

1. Improve your expansion stability rating
2. Remove some of the penalties that you would have been incurring for occupying the core areas of other civs.

I read the entire Turkish succession game thread and figured out what I've been doing wrong.

1. Been neglecting my economy. Didn't know world maps had an effect.

2. Have been changing civics pretty frequently (usually in an effort to find a stable combination, ironically.) I'm used to vanilla Civ where there isn't any long-term penalty for doing this.

So what actually happened was:
become shaky -> civics change -> no improvement -> civics change -> no improvement -> liberated tons of cities -> collapse.

 

[blizzrd]

I read the entire Turkish succession game thread and figured out what I've been doing wrong.

1. Been neglecting my economy. Didn't know world maps had an effect.

2. Have been changing civics pretty frequently (usually in an effort to find a stable combination, ironically.) I'm used to vanilla Civ where there isn't any long-term penalty for doing this.

So what actually happened was:
become shaky -> civics change -> no improvement -> civics change -> no improvement -> liberated tons of cities -> collapse.

One thing I should point out from that Turkish SG was that the initial civic choice of HR/Bureaucracy/Slavery/OR should have been to HR/Vassalage/Slavery/OR. The problem was just Bureaucracy really and it took us a long while to get out of this problem. Burueacracy gives penalties if your empire is more than 3 cities (I think), which is a hassle when you're Turkey because you start with way more than 3 cities. HR/Vassalage would have given bonuses as a civic combination also.

 

[Hangly Man]

One thing I should point out from that Turkish SG was that the initial civic choice of HR/Bureaucracy/Slavery/OR should have been to HR/Vassalage/Slavery/OR. The problem was just Bureaucracy really and it took us a long while to get out of this problem. Burueacracy gives penalties if your empire is more than 3 cities (I think), which is a hassle when you're Turkey because you start with way more than 3 cities. HR/Vassalage would have given bonuses as a civic combination also.

I noticed this. I used to favor civics that were "historically appropriate" over those that conferred the greatest advantage. Which means if I played China I would always use Bureaucracy, or if playing the Netherlands, Republic. Now I avoid both of these like the 100-year plague

 

[AnotherPacifist]

OK, I need some advice here. Here's the situation with Khmer (1914). I have fission, industrialism, combustion and flight but no plastics, radio or rocketry, in police state/nationhood/communism/free religion/emancipation/viceroyalty. Of course I control North America and Montevideo, and China/Inca and Mali are my vassals. I'm at war with a super advanced England who's 6 turns to Robotics (and also has Caracas which I'm aiming for next) and master of Netherlands (who's 5 turns from Rocketry), Portugal who's hooked up the oil in Brazil so he's harassing me with destroyers. I just made peace with Germany who's unstable and master of America, Persia and Arabia (so potential oil there). France is a nonissue right now because they haven't hooked up the oil in North Africa yet, and I can easily send some tanks over there and liberate cities for Mali. I'm about to capture Vancouver and York Factory.

Do I:
1. Try the Cannae tactic and go straight for London and Amsterdam after capturing their 2 North American cities (most likely will sustain lots of lost ships en route), or
2. eliminate Portugal and England's presence in South America first while stealing rocketry from the Dutch and plastics from England, or
3. Try to vassalize the (still weak) French first to get a foothold in Europe?

 

[blizzrd]

Do I:
1. Try the Cannae tactic and go straight for London and Amsterdam after capturing their 2 North American cities (most likely will sustain lots of lost ships en route), or
2. eliminate Portugal and England's presence in South America first while stealing rocketry from the Dutch and plastics from England, or
3. Try to vassalize the (still weak) French first to get a foothold in Europe?

I would use strategy 2.

If you can't (or don't want to) build a big enough navy to control all of the seas from your technically superior enemies, fight them by land instead.