New challenge: domination victories for civs

[AnotherPacifist]

Sorry coko, beat you to it.

I retrieved a save from my experiments in squatting Lisboa, razing Bordeaux and Marseilles with starting units, and founding Utrecht and allowing the Netherlands to live on after they exhaust their initial units (so that they won't flip Utrecht from me when I'm unstable). France in the 1100's decided to vassalize to me, which means I only needed to beeline military science to choke England to death with privateers. England and France finally had astronomy in the late 1600's, so I had to declare war on England to kill 2 ships of settlers. Keeping small civs like Ethiopia and America alive was good since I didn't have to kill all their troops and it kept the 25% land criteria alive (otherwise it would have been 27 or 28%).

I had the horns of the Strait of Gibraltar by chance. It was an unfortunate incident where I forgot to found Ceuta earlier, and I had to found Cadiz to prevent the Portuguese (who declared war on me after sitting around Portugal for 150 years) to have access to Spanish land (which would have decimated my flimsily-defended cities). They founded Ceuta on the sheep and on the 2nd turn I captured an empty city (they always leave the city undefended for some reason). Razing it would have cost me some stability so I decided to keep it. It was a good bridge between Africa and Europe with a galley.

Mali collapsed early so I was in search of another vassal, and finally India and Ethiopia did so in the late 1700's. Inca and France were slowly built up (France, or the "autonomus community of France," even had a Spanish East Africa to their name) with trash cities.

This was one of the hardest games to avoid instability, due to the fact that I had a large empire to start with, and getting to fascism wasn't done till 1800. 2 plagues hit me within 20 years of the end.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Key is of course not to piss off Spain...in fact I could have obliterated them in the 1800's, but I was too lazy and was waiting for Cadiz and La Coruna to flip (which they never did). I played a mostly pacifist game (conquering independents) until France and Turkey declared war on me.

This ended up being much longer because I stupidly forgot to not get the 11 open borders criteria, which means that I had to rely on conquest (and not build my 13th colony). Note the mighty (not as mighty as mine) Aztec/Japanese-Khmer empire. Also is a save if somebody wants to see if UHV trumps every other victory (certainly trumps conquest).

 

[reverend oats]

Monty invaded Japan?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Monty invaded Japan?

Yup, he was there at the same time I was going for Jayakarta (he got Padang first). Then I gave him Singapore and Kagoshima, plus other small cities up north.

 

[Dabur]

Monty invaded Japan?

Hi ,

wow Rhye will love to hear that , nice victory


Have a nice day

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The particular problem of China is that it's a top scorer easily in early game (of course I used the 600 AD start) due to lots of cities and population, but that to catch up in science you basically have to ignore the 1st and 3rd UHV's (otherwise your economy will be in the dumps). Also, killing Mongolia from start is essential. 5 chu-ko-nu and 5 catapults did the trick after they moved all their keshiks out of Karakorum.
I had Inca, Mali and Khmer as vassals, and for the longest time I had no 4th vassal (even though Arabia, Babylon, and Persia all clamored for protection against Turkey--no thanks, smallish cities aren't what's needed here).
Eventually America (who was vassal to Russia) defected to me even before Russia collapsed under the weight of an industrialized Germany. Good for me because I was having trouble getting the population and area, so I was able gave the usual trash cities in Alaska and southern California to America while pursuing the endgame (war against Spain who didn't even have assembly line).
I've found the best way for science when you have a large empire is essentially to get a city close to the science leaders (in my case Netherlands had 3 cities in India), devote all your espionage towards them and turn the science slider down to 0%, and since a resting spy has 50% discount, you basically researched your tech in half the cost. In that way I was able to get 3 techs when I had gazillions of cities (35000 beakers cost for fission became a little less than 17000 spy points, and I was generating about 2000 espionage points per move).
Even so, this was one of the harder domination wins since China has absolutely no territorial claims in Mongolia and Eastern Russia, much less the Americas. I was barely stable at the end (most of my recent Spanish conquests still in revolt).

 

[Úmarth]

I wonder how effective that spy technique would be in normal games.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I wonder how effective that spy technique would be in normal games.

Probably not very since non-RFC games large empires are good for science, plus you can stay in representation forever.

 

[kbk]

Probably not very since non-RFC games large empires are good for science, plus you can stay in representation forever.

Yeah, normal games don't have tech costs that scale with empire size, so larger empires = massive research boost. Its how Rhye keeps small nations like the Dutch competitive.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Started with 600 AD, very strange happenings...England only had St. John, France built 2 cities in my flip area and Quebec BUT no New Orleans, and Netherlands builds New York. Spain didn't have any cities in Southern America until very late, but there are 2 Dutch cities in the northern part of SAm. Aztecs fighting against Netherlands with stone age technology and became my willing vassal from the start. Inca was a Chinese vassal for the longest time until world war 1 broke out after I vassalized India. Netherlands was slowly but surely deprived of her overseas empire, and I just barely won by vassalizing China with 6 or 7 nukes.

Very interestingly, India asked for liberating Rome (which I gave) and Mekkah (which I didn't). Maybe it's interested in all those holy cities after all.

I think the AI is prone to declare war when you have a golden age (see the save which was just before vassalizing China and when I have 10 oils, giving me a GA). I would have died with all those Dutch and English mechanized infantry.

 

[kbk]

I did this one with conquests and no colonies, and only liberated 2 cities! Warren G. Harding, with a late victory.

I started out taking over Istanbul for my capitol, and advanced into Greece and founded 2 cities on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Then I collapsed Arabia (the highest score at that time), and took over Egyptian cities and all the independent cities along north Africa up to Tripoli.

Along the way I vassalized the Netherlands and Portugal, who were frankly, awful vasaals. Spain had evicted the Portuguese from Lisboa, and the dutch were consistently denied their overseas colonies until very late. I had some other offers for vassals, but I didn't want to accidently win a UHV, so I turned them down until after 1870.

After this expansion, I rested, got Nationalism and Fascism, and repelled some very powerful Russian invasions via drafting Azak and Kilia from 15+ to ~6s. After Fascism, I got radio and flight, and built my bombers and tanks. Then I went on an about 150 years of war against the Russian axis. Russia had Germany, Spain, and Mongolia as allies. Russia collapsed almost immediately, Germany took some consistent bombing, but when you deprive them of oil near Budapest, they don't put up much threat. Of course, during this war, the Dutch lost Amsterdam, but that was fine, because when my tanks rolled in, I got to liberate it for a much needed stability boost.

Now I had allied myself with France and China via defensive pacts. Around this time Egypt respawned for the second time (The first one was put down quickly). I left them for another stability boost, while I nuked the crap out of Spain (I was generous enough to leave Lisboa clean of radiation). My tanks rolled through my open borders with France, claimed Spain quickly, and I liberated Lisboa for my Portuguese vassals.

Next I reclaimed my north African cities and Egypt, who had vasalized to Japan. I ended that war by Nuking Tokyo, Seoul, Hiroshima, and some other Japanese city (but they still wouldn't vassalize).

Now on to Respawned India, who had mechanized infantry, and were vasalized to England! They took some heavy bombing, but I didn't want to nuke their population heavy cities, but my bombers did the trick. England had also vasalized America, so I dropped a nuke on London and Kansas city to end that war. I also dropped a nuke on Karakorum, and threw some tactical nukes at some Mongolian cities which got them to capitulate (3rd vassal). Of course, now Russia respawned (which knocked my from collapsing to Very Solid for a good 5 turns, long enough to take them back, and secure victory). Its a good thing too, I was preparing to nuke Paris if I had to.

Stability was a big problem, and I only kept above collapse by liberating Amsterdam and Lisboa, and by having my tanks just not stop rolling, ever. I was frequently between collapsing and unstable, though respawns sometimes knocked me up to solid or higher. I never collapsed, or had to reload from a collapse. I faced 2 Egyptian respawns, a Persian respawn, an Indian respawn, and a Russian respawn. The romans respawned and vasallized to Spain before my world conquest started.

Edit: I seem to be having problems getting the screenshots put up. I'll link them from another site when I get them up.

 

[kbk]

Sorry for no thumbs, but here we go:

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Very nice. Though I try not to turn on my allies like France (just for the principle) unless they declare on me first.

France is like the lynchpin for an aggressively expansive Europe. In any game that they collapse, all the other civs are held back for quite some time. In my current Japanese game they didn't even have Astronomy until the late 1500's. They went more for military techs to try to conquer the indy cities. And their trade was so bad (so they are isolated without France being in the center) that England lost 2 cities from instability, while Vikings (who had opened borders with me early) were in the tech lead and vassalized Netherlands and Portugal.

Small civilizations are hard--I'm doing well with Japan in 1750 but only have 1 star for expansion, although having Incans, Aztecs, Khmer and England as vassals helps a lot with future liberation. Now I just have to choose which city to lose to the natives to avoid the UHV...

 

[kbk]

Well, I normally wouldn't turn on my allies either, but I was so close to both making the domination goal, and to utter collapse, that a one turn blitz would win the game. And in that situation, who wouldn't? France was THE power in Europe, until I claimed most of Europe, anyways. They had managed to block in most of America with Louisiana and Quebec too.

I had tried Japan earlier, but gave up after I realized I was so utterly behind on my colonies in Europe and no one would vassalize to me. Getting those vassals to liberate to should make it just a matter of time.

I'm not sure who I will try next, but I plan to try a much more pacifist route than Turkey. Turkey's just plain built for an aggressive domination win. They're large, centrally located, and have the power of assimilation (one of the best conquest powers in the game). Incidentally, I think assimilation made for a much smoother battle with stability. I never had a city declare independence, though I did have civ respawns. The thing is with a respawn you keep your military, but with a declaration of independence you lose it. I can remember a German game where a city with several ICBMs declared independence, and the independents started a nuclear winter.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I never cease to amaze at how accurate sometimes RFC is. I started out as HR (Tokugawa Shogunate), then moved to representation (Meiji Restoration), then Universal Suffrage (Taisho democracy--US is actually quite stabilizing when you have a large empire and combined with Kremlin can turn the most unproductive cities into moneybags), then to police state (Showa period). And guess who my partner in world conquest was? Germany (a friendly one no less).

Japan's main problem is lack of oil, and if you colonize America you'll never lack oil. If you preempt the Spanish and go for northern SAm, you'll save yourself a lot of Spanish naval grief.
Got 4 useful vassals: Khmer will absorb anything from Mongolia to Afghanistan to Australia; England likes to build useless cities in Canada but unfortunately I couldn't liberate anything to them; Inca is all of South America, although they lost 2 cities from declaring independence due to them asking for a Spanish city without enough culture around it. And Aztecs were also quite useful, and accepted even New York.
Due to the small Japanese area, I had to basically cheat at the end by founding 3 remote cities and turning up culture to 100% to get from 25 to 26%.
And let's not forget the willing kamikaze of the people of Suo to be captured by the natives to defeat the 3rd UHV criteria.

 

[kbk]

Nice pacificst. I'm working on Carthage right now, and already have mali, Ethiopia, Inca and the Aztecs as vassals. I ended up giving up on Khmer after Japan vasalized them about three times over.

The thing is, I am about 8 techs ahead of the next civilization with Carthage's research lead, and built the Mausoleum of Mausolus. So I know I will have some stability problems, but I have another 40 turns of golden age coming to me just with great people sitting in Carthage.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Nice pacificst. I'm working on Carthage right now, and already have mali, Ethiopia, Inca and the Aztecs as vassals. I ended up giving up on Khmer after Japan vasalized them about three times over.

The thing is, I am about 8 techs ahead of the next civilization with Carthage's research lead, and built the Mausoleum of Mausolus. So I know I will have some stability problems, but I have another 40 turns of golden age coming to me just with great people sitting in Carthage.

Well, good luck, I'm going to wait for Rhye to "fix" the 4-vassal limit first before picking up my Carthage game in the 900's AD.

 

[kbk]

Well, good luck, I'm going to wait for Rhye to "fix" the 4-vassal limit first before picking up my Carthage game in the 900's AD.

I've decided I need to go back a few turns because after as few as 6 or 7 additional cities in the Americas my research is at a crawl (even in a golden age). This may mean I have to let other civs colonize the Americas, while I just get Australia, the Philippines and Jakarta. Then later I'd have to leverage my tech advantage into military action.

One major issue is that you don't get any structures or population in settled cities as Carthage, while other civs get a lot out of their just settled cities.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I've decided I need to go back a few turns because after as few as 6 or 7 additional cities in the Americas my research is at a crawl (even in a golden age). This may mean I have to let other civs colonize the Americas, while I just get Australia, the Philippines and Jakarta. Then later I'd have to leverage my tech advantage into military action.

One major issue is that you don't get any structures or population in settled cities as Carthage, while other civs get a lot out of their just settled cities.

You only need 3 cities in North America and 1 in South America:
New Orleans
Chicago
Denver
Caracas

Let England build Fort Albany (to block off the Americans in the north). Caracas is so that Spain will not get oil. Once you get these 3 cities, you can expand northward (maybe 1 more city for your National Park, and 1 to the west and Alaska to gift to your Aztec vassal). South America should not be colonized further (you need to conquer it for your Incan vassal; conquering under occupation is much more stabilizing than resettlement, and as you pointed out, your settlers are worthless with not even a granary).

But in my Carthage game I also squatted in eastern Poland, Bulgaria and Frankfurt, and that is what making me so unstable. These 3 cities absolutely kill off Germany's living space and makes Russia a nonfactor in world affairs (no contact with the western Europeans)

 

[kbk]

I will try those cities, and I find you can almost always leave Australia until very late anyways.

As far as my start, I took out Greece on my third turn, and had to found Constantinople (which apparently is called Utica for me; there must not be a proper Carthaginian name). After Greece, I used mercenaries to take out Egypt, and colonized all of North Africa. I founded Christianity, and am running pacifism to mass produce great people.