New challenge: Conquest victories

[kbk]

Russia gets a lot of big cities without many great people due to being so land locked I found, but those cities become juggernauts.

Take advantage of getting your research institutes with Electricity as opposed to computers, they're a great boon to keeping you current. I've learned this with a few emperor attempts on Russia, by the 1900s you can be competitive despite a sprawling empire and a very poor trade power rating.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

It's fine now (1910). Spain was collapsed, Vikings respawned and became my vassals, while Portugal was capitulated. England was easily captured and liberated to the Vikings after 3-4 nukes, while I'm now against France, Mongolia, Japan, Khmer, Mali.

Vikings, Incans were induced to adopt police state and nationhood with no less than the gift of communism. The only unfortunate thing about state property is that whenever you capture a city with corporations, they disappear. Standard Ethanol has already been eradicated in Cork.

I had some really incestuous defensive pacts to start with (multiple triangles) which I basically used to get at least 1 ally in my wars, usually Turkey.

The vulnerability of the AI to get their oils nuked/occupied makes it simple--e.g. I declared war soon after England had plastics, and sure enough, it had just built a platform on the oil in the North Sea, but it hasn't upgraded any of its numerous ships yet.

And it really doesn't prioritize Assembly Plant which is often their downfall. (what's the use of steel/railroad/combustion if you don't have industrialization? Fission without rocketry is useless but often prioritized by the AI.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Pictures say it all. The Diplomatic Victory was passed the turn after I won Conquest. I cleaned up after myself with all the captured workers scrubbing. Note the last Independent lone Grenadier against the might of the USSR.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

...is just that, the whole world speaks English.

I have always hated London's position. It's only on the east coast, which means you have to build a useless port on the western end to get your settlers going 1 turn less. My solution was to build Southampton on one of the cows, which gets all the resources and puts cultural pressure on France, beside being a good seaport. This even leaves enough space for Newcastle to be relatively productive so you don't waste the Midlands.

Since England doesn't have Europe to start with, the secret is to get technology very quickly (I had assembly line in around 1750 and industrialism, fission by 1800, I think) and colonize America but NOT Australia (due to the land you don't want to get in order not to win domination). Everybody was at least 2 eras behind me.

Utrecht's importance can't be stressed enough. If you stay on the British Isles you won't have a chance to conquer France and then Germany. All those Dutch cities popping up in Africa and elsewhere will make your land area too large. In fact I had to reload multiple times near the end due to my land area exceeding that for domination (and I had to give away very good cities in New York, St. John, Caracas and Durban--see all those unhappy faces there about leaving the English civ?). The tiny Arctic colony that the Russians built delayed my victory by 3 turns (I actually had it once ceded to me by the Russians but gave it away immediately to Spain).

A couple factoids:
1. How would you use those unwanted great engineers that spawn near the end due to all your industrial parks? You send them to a small colony in the middle of South America, use him to build an Olympic Park and liberate it to the Incans the next turn. See how many turns of golden age I have left?

2. Conquest trumps domination (see stats screen--I turned the culture up to 100% at the end).

3. Paratroopers are great after nuking a city.

4. Nukes do not need to hit a city to kill its defenders--it just kills everything in the 3x3 box. Good thing to know when your troops are right next to a city, or if you want to kill two cities next to each other (e.g. Beijing and Qufu).

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The Spanish were not to be outdone by the English, and now the whole world speaks Spanish.

I think I've found the optimal city placement for Spain. Pamplona (with Ironworks) is as productive as Denver, while Oporto as the capital will envelop the necessary tiles to prevent Portuguese city founding. Granada is as good as it can get (large but as productive as any Irish city). Murcia (Marseilles) was founded as a bridge to conquer Rome, while the Sardinian city was an experiment to see if I could culture flip Rome (NOT!). Argel was placed just in between and catches most of the resources in North Africa, and could have been more productive if I didn't found the Sardinian city.

France and Netherlands were collapsed early, both Paris and Amsterdam were very productive, while England was choked to death with privateers and frigates.

Both Aztecs and Maya couldn't respawn because there is only one city in their spawn area. The Dutch did respawn once but I think that's because they had built a city in South Africa.

I was becoming a little desperate when I couldn't flip Frankfurt, but I left open a slot for Germany to become my vassal after I've embroiled them in conflicts against Russia and Turkey. They were able to absorb a lot of cities in Russia and Scandinavia for me, while Khmer was a good little vassal for China and Japan, even some in the Middle East. America was my research bank, and Inca got several cities with newly built Olympic Parks (one was about to be built in Santiago in Chile).

I didn't forget about the tiny Arctic outposts that Russia built before it died, and that saved me about 10 moves.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Used a Neapolis squat to get Rome out of the picture (their capital was Mediolanum which was pretty quickly captured by the Celts, and their second capital was obliterated by the French spawn). Couldn't get Babylon since Hammurabi had archery already, but was able to keep Egypt throughout without respawn. Didn't try to kill any civs at spawn nor did I use the multiple Olympic Park trick. Got very lucky in that both Russia and Turkey wanted me to be their master, which made things much easier absorbing Asia. Even had a stable Ethiopia at the end propped up by my techs and liberated cities.

The Historical Victory must be a bug for the 3000 BC start (blizzrd noted it too with Egypt).

 

[kravixon]

What were your stability ratings for the greek game?

I'm assuming you ran with police state-nationalism-mercantilism/state property to keep from collapsing.

 

[kbk]

AP: 50% land area makes me squirm when I just try to think about it on my emperor domination games. Ouch.

Truly epic.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

What were your stability ratings for the greek game?

I'm assuming you ran with police state-nationalism-mercantilism/state property to keep from collapsing.

You know, I was 3 stars in happiness, 5 in economy, 5 in expansion, 5 in civics, 1 in foreign (which was the one that only made me stable). I was alternating in very solid and unstable all the time, depending on how many cities I was able to liberate to my vassals. This whole conquest enterprise would not be possible if it were not the fact that the more cities you have, the more stability you gain when you give away one, EVEN with 5 star civics.

If you play the replay, you'll notice that at one point I realized I needed a non-vassal to absorb my trash cities so that I won't win domination. So I made peace with Portugal and gave them York Factory, Sefadu, Accra, and even Lisbon, and gave some central Asian cities to Khmer and Japan (the farthest one usually for that civ to make their science slower). The AI is so stupid that the first they build is always culture, and then their most advanced military unit. Which means that when I'm done with the Chinese and Mongols, they still left their cities empty, so I came back and captured/razed them.

 

[kbk]

Which reminds me. If you're really a masochist, you should do one on emperor.

I'm thinking Rome or England would be the easiest. Maybe Germany. You'd have to follow my early game strategy for getting to the Americas in time, but after that it would be mostly the same, except you wouldn't have the same tech edge.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Nah, I'll stick with Monarch for now, at least until I manage to do an American civ, a Middle Eastern civ and a Far East Asian civ. Having no tech edge and having nukes rain on my territory gives me me the chills.

Chinese or Japanese vassals to get: Inca, Aztecs or America, Mali or Egypt, and Russia or Germany. No 2/3 UHV for the Chinese, and a Japanese city to be sacrificed to the natives.
Turkey/Arabia: Inca, Aztecs or America, definitely Mali (you want to keep Egypt), and China. Beeline optics and hope you're the first to America.
America/Aztecs/Incans: problem is that you don't have a second base of production. It would be easier to choose vassals, but it means you have to pry them from their masters. Also, by the time you're ready to conquer the world, the rest of the world will already have fission and some even rocketry.

 

[kbk]

I think I've had about 2 nukes actually hit me in my emperor games, and one of those was after I had already won, and palyed through a turn to take screen shots. The AI doesn't usually build stockpiles, and when they do build nukes, its usually just tactical nukes. Good intelligence and a proper modern army will get you where you need to go.

Also, its possible to attempt to control access to uranium in the same way you can control oil access, although probably slightly harder. Its really only important you lock out uranium for Germany and Russia. Turkey and Mongolia never seem to be tech competitors late game, and they collapse easy. Although I've seen the Americans do scary things with nukes, but they're always my vassal or knocked back into the eastern seaboard.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Germany was a pain in the ass. I had formed an alliance with Turkey and Arabia against France/Russia/Germany (a really unholy triad boosting stability in Europe) and then involved Turkey in an unwinnable war. Well, Germany hated me so much that not only did it build the Taj Mahal 6 turns before me (and that's me with liberalism first in 1600! then constitution), but it owned Rome and made a AP trade embargo against me when I was unstable. So I had to declare war again on Khmer (Germany's vassal) and involve the same players again, this time destabilizing Germany (who collapsed right when they were about to learn Assembly Line), Turkey (who's barely alive with cities captured by former Germans), and Arabia (who's collapsed already). I think I've finally understood what blasphemous meant being a Kingpin--I've always played either isolator or partisan.

America is a pain in the ass also (currently 1815). I only had 1 vassal (Inca) and gave America a good map, and there was no reason for America to choose Spain (who had Mali) as their master. Now I can't build Olympic Parks all over NAm but I will have to kill them both...since I do have the tech lead and am about to build Pentagon (5 turns).

And there are soooo many cities to conquer since almost all the civs are alive (except Aztecs, Mongolians and Arabia)...

 

[cider]

I just took a closer look at the Bismarck save you posted to learn something. Now I do have two questions:

1. what is the point in building the national park and ironworks in the same city (Faustindorf) ? The national park removes coal from the city, and ironworks needs coal for 50% more hammers ?

2. I thought only 2 national wonders per city are allowed. now Faustindorf has three. is that an exploit connected with national park and ironworks ?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, I was so sick of the unhealthy city that since I had enough production anyway, I sometimes build both the National Park and Ironworks in the same city, especially when you have a monopoly of iron in the world. The National Park is best built where there's lots of trees, but by the time you build it you have chopped most of them, and jungle doesn't give good production. I had actually saved my National Park to be built in Edmonton, but by the time I acquired my German empire I didn't need a great people factory, and it was a cheap wonder (I couldn't generate enough great people points for another one).

You know, I didn't even notice the 3 national wonders thing. I checked my current Chinese game and yes, it seems you can build 3 national wonders in 1 city. This might have something to do with the recent patch.

 

[kbk]

I just took a closer look at the Bismarck save you posted to learn something. Now I do have two questions:

1. what is the point in building the national park and ironworks in the same city (Faustindorf) ? The national park removes coal from the city, and ironworks needs coal for 50% more hammers ?

2. I thought only 2 national wonders per city are allowed. now Faustindorf has three. is that an exploit connected with national park and ironworks ?

Sometimes I use the national park to make a city healthy (AP posted this). If you have a city with a lot of access to food, and build both the Opera House, and National park (but level the forests for irrigaiton), you can get massive cities. Doing this got me a size 36 Chiacgo once that was still growing when I won.


More than 2 national wonders? I will have to test this more, because that's an important change.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

From the update log:

v1.90/1.40
CHANGES
- Max number of National Wonders per city is 3*

This makes Wall Street/Trading Company/National Park potentially very lucrative (large cities with no population cap).

 

[AnotherPacifist]

...means the First Emperor, after he defeated the other 6 Kingdoms and united China. Well, this is almost as good.

One vassal per continent was what I planned, but in the end Egypt could not vassalize to me because I already had 4. France turned out to be a good choice because their area is so big, and they absorbed some African cities for me too.

At the end France tried to pull a Diplo victory on me (since he had quite of bit of territory I conquered for him), but he didn't have enough votes. In retrospect I could have easily given him Mass Media and solved the problem.

Mongolians were quite useful. They respawned in Chach (middle of Asia) since I was solid at the time. So after the Russians collapsed, they were more than happy to capitulate, and their Middle East empire was formed. (In real life the Chinese with their Great Wall were probably the cause of the migration of barbarian tribes towards Central Asia and west to Europe, so this is not so unhistorical).

Very interestingly, the game pushed me into declaring war against Japan with an event that made THEM the aggressor (some silly spy business) and gave me 9 free tanks (unpromoted unfortunately). I've never seen this event before but it was interesting.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I found the event I was talking about:

Event162
Spy Discovered
Prereq: INDUSTRIALISM and contact with another player AND at least 4 cities AND Capital
Obsolete: ROBOTICS
Active/Weight: 60/100
Result:
1.gain 400 Espionage points AND mutual +2 Attitude modifier with other player
2.pay gold (300 base) AND gain 1 Great Spy unit
3.declare war on other player AND gain free unit support for 20 units AND +1 happy face for 30 turns AND 1 Tank unit for every 4 cities

So that means I had 4x9= 36 (maybe even 37-39) cities at that time. At least some good things happen when you have plenty of cities, even if you can't catch up in science.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Had the usual squat Germany (built on Berlin) and England (built on London). As usual, when England had 3 extra swordsmen and longbowmen after I refused to evacuate London, they sent their longbowmen home! (I had 2 axemen and 2 archers waiting right off shore in galleys, and until they approached, I didn't go into London to avoid desertions).

Germany will collapse if you deprive them of their resources and put cultural pressure on them. England will not open borders, which drains their trade, and I was really surprised how late it took them to collapse.

Had a really lucky game where Spain and France were in the longest war, and France collapsed. Inca, Mali, Turkey and America were my vassals until Mali collapsed, then I killed Spain to get Egypt to be my vassal to absorb Africa.

Used only 1 nuke to kill the (newly) independent stack in the middle of Asia (the AI is so stupid sometimes and instead of sending their troops to the frontline, they hide them in the middle of their empire).

First time with Nelson Mandela the warlike pacifist.