New challenge: domination victories for civs

[Úmarth]

Well Constantinople was founded four hundred years after Carthage was razed

 

[kbk]

Yeah, this leaves me with very few Carthaginian names for places. Although, since Carthage was originally a Greek colony, you could always go with the Greek names for places.

Anyways, I'm giving up, I got to the unstable-collapsing level, even in a golden age, which I never thought was possible before. Maybe I'll try an Indian game next.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

India is actually a good challenge: lots of time, no need for Radio due to its UP, and you can beeline straight for assembly line and fascism. The problem again is its small entitled space which is not very productive until biology, and Persia isn't much more productive than India (maybe one or 2 more cities). And of course my pet peeve of the useless 3000 BC stone age settler (no granary, harbor, much less forge or aqueduct).

 

[Úmarth]

Yeah, this leaves me with very few Carthaginian names for places. Although, since Carthage was originally a Greek colony, you could always go with the Greek names for places.

Anyways, I'm giving up, I got to the unstable-collapsing level, even in a golden age, which I never thought was possible before. Maybe I'll try an Indian game next.

It was a Phoenician not a Greek colony. And I don't think there are many extant examples of the Phoenician language.

 

[jessiecat]

It was a Phoenician not a Greek colony. And I don't think there are many extant examples of the Phoenician language.

According to wiki, it was called Punic by them and was closely related to Hebrew. The only
surviving dialects which include examples of it are in Libya and Morocco esp. among the Berbers
and Tuaregs. But of course it was mostly absorbed into Arabic after the 7th.C conquest of
North Africa. So I guess you could use the Arabic names instead.

 

[kbk]

India is actually a good challenge: lots of time, no need for Radio due to its UP, and you can beeline straight for assembly line and fascism. The problem again is its small entitled space which is not very productive until biology, and Persia isn't much more productive than India (maybe one or 2 more cities). And of course my pet peeve of the useless 3000 BC stone age settler (no granary, harbor, much less forge or aqueduct).

Yeah, I actually got my Carthaginian cities up to speed thanks to chopping in America. Plenty of forests abound in Louisiana/Ohio. I would really love to see bigger cities for older civilizations from settlers as you advance your research.

The advantage with India will be founding 5 religions and getting an easy +100 gold a turn from shrines, along with easy access to marble for early wonders. One of the difficulties I think is the rather poor trade/research rate. We'll see how it goes.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

First game with the 3.17 patch. Very annoying now that we can't use biology to buy whatever you want. Physics is so not worth it now except that we need to get Cristo Redentor; airships are almost useless now. Went for New Orleans, Chicago and Denver to start, got lucky with getting monarchy from a goody hut and thus beelined for feudalism which provides protection against dog soldiers. Only vassal for the longest time was America. Had to make Mali, Japan and Mongolia capitulate which just brought me up the score, helped at the end by mass city founding and China respawning which drove the population criteria down 1%. Numerous nukes and finally collapsed Spain after capturing all their extra-European cities.

Germany has got to be befriended whenver you're doing a non-European domination game--they simply cannot be at war with you. They were quite annoying in vassalizing Incans, Khmer, and India, but eventually all these broke off. It's simply the nature of the game to be in the Axis with Hitler.

 

[kbk]

Very nice. I tried one of these earlier, and could still go back to it I suppose. I was even luckier than you. I didn't goody hut any technology, BUT I did get the peace with the natives agreement. This resulted in swarms of friendly native units who built up, and wiped out barbarian spawns and European colonies.
I even avoided the invaders by finding a European colony before they found me.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, it is possible, and indeed, crucial to collapse the Byzantines as a prelude to an Arabian domination game, in anticipation of the rise of the Ottomans. Notice the ruins of the former Byzantine cities, all achieved with lucky strikes against the 2 cataphracts. Once it loses access to the horse in eastern Anatolia, it can't build any more horses! The two sieges of Constantinople were unsuccessful in real life (674-678, 717-718) mainly because of the impregnable walls. This was also true in my game, except because Hesperides and Tripolis all defected to us (I didn't even conquer them), the Byzantine Empire collapsed, so since independents do not have promotions, and I was lucky with a few stray barb horse archers from the west attacking, I was able to capture the city with the loss of 1 camel archer. Hama was founded just beyond the flip zone for the Turks. Now we'll see if we can hold Anatolia from the Turks...

 

[kbk]

Well, it is possible, and indeed, crucial to collapse the Byzantines as a prelude to an Arabian domination game, in anticipation of the rise of the Ottomans. Notice the ruins of the former Byzantine cities, all achieved with lucky strikes against the 2 cataphracts. Once it loses access to the horse in eastern Anatolia, it can't build any more horses! The two sieges of Constantinople were unsuccessful in real life (674-678, 717-718) mainly because of the impregnable walls. This was also true in my game, except because Hesperides and Tripolis all defected to us (I didn't even conquer them), the Byzantine Empire collapsed, so since independents do not have promotions, and I was lucky with a few stray barb horse archers from the west attacking, I was able to capture the city with the loss of 1 camel archer. Hama was founded just beyond the flip zone for the Turks. Now we'll see if we can hold Anatolia from the Turks...

Interesting. I'm actually working on an Arabian domination myself. I ignored Anatolia until very late. Admittedly, Turkey is a pain in the ass because I left them for so long.

But, its 1956, I'm very Solid, and I have 25% population and 20% land area.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The problem with a large empire is that you are so unstable, that you have to waste 2+3+4 of your great people to get golden ages to prevent civil war. You also can't get to fascism until the 1800's. I was at 15% and 25% area and population for the longest time, and just went over the hump in the last 50 years. Of course vassalized Incans, Mali, Khmer and I also had Netherlands at one point, but all you need are the big 3. Founding a city under resettlement, and immediately liberating it (if you have 15+ cities) has the effect of boosting your stability by almost a full level.
Then again, since I had tanks and all the oil in the world (except for Russia's and Mongolia's but they were nowhere close to combustion), I could have just conquered Europe under occupation.

 

[kbk]

I took a bit of a different track, and left Anatolia open until very late, and conquered Europe on my push to the end game.

I was entirely pacifist until very late game. I took over the normal independents, but left Ethiopia and North Africa and Iberia. I of course vassalized Khmer, Mali, Aztec and Inca. Despite having a massive empire, I found I had an easy tech lead with the University of Sankore and the Spiral Minaret.

Turkey was a real pain in the ass, and I even had to cede Jerusalem to them to keep them happy until I could get the technology I needed. When I did, I went after them more out of vindication than anything else. I wasn't lucky enough to have an early collapse of the Byzantines, so Turkey was a mega-power for a long time, and before that I had a constant headache of byzantine cataprachts.


Interestingly, France, Germany, AND England all collapsed, leaving the dutch a massive european empire, as well as Africa, Australlia, and S. America. While the Vikings took England (They were my only ally, as I had previously allied with the collapsed Germany and France). Conversely, the other axis of power was Turkey, Russia, Netherlands, Spain, Mongolia and China, leaving me with a massive war.

You can see in the screenshots that the Russians and Mongolians were almost as large as I was, and this was a nasty fight, long drawn out fight. I eventaually realized that I would have no chance in making a dent in Russia, so I ate up the former Dutch colonies and continental Europe to get there.

I found that even after taking over Turkey, Ethiopia, Egypt, North Africa, India and Samarqand, I was still in the solid-very solid range. I didn't have to waste great people on golden ages, so this made the end push a bit more bearable.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Wow, really big Arab empire there. It helps not to have civs collapse (in fact, in my game Netherlands respawning helped me not to have to conquer another 1% of land). You must have had something like 30% of land and 35% of population (I only had 27% and 30%).
I notice you're almost solidly Islamic while I took the opposite route (went from pacifism to free religion, not after liberalism in 1200 or so but in the 1500's when it took forever to get another great person). Almost all my cities have 5 religions--the happiness probably saved my city stability.

 

[kbk]

Yep, started with organized religion and then picked up with Theocracy for that overpowered military. I did not want to swap to free religion because I had the Spiral Minerat and the University of Sankore, so every time I took a city, I automatically got a temple and mosque built, which work with those wonders. I had cristo, so I was preparing to swap theocracy for free religion if I ever had to, but I was able to save myself with liberating to the Mali and Inca and never had to. As far as happiness, this wasn't a problem because I dropped my research to 0 and filled up my cultural slider after I built the internet.

I think I had 40% population and 30% land area. I won at the very end when England respawned and the land area went from 32 to 30. You may not see it in the screenshots, but I had captured Australlia and Brazil, but they were in resistance so they didn't really contribute to my land area.

Now I'm working on Babylon. I'm doing pretty good, but I can't seem to get my economy category above one star in this one. Any suggestions (other than commonwealth, I have to run resettlement/occupation once the empire really gets going)?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

This was the hardest so far. Not that Carthage lacks science--I was fully 2 eras ahead of everybody until the 1800's. It's the fact that you cannot found any cities at all except very VERY slowly, so that your economy doesn't tank. In fact, Universal Suffrage is crucial because you can build up the lack of infrastructure quickly until you get nationalism/fascism. In the end I had to choke my vassals (Ethiopia, America, Mali and Inca) down with so seriously far flung conquests (Far East, Middle East, most of Africa). I myself have most of Europe except for the tiny sliver of Germany and Scandinavia; could have conquered England except that I keep collapsing civs which raised my percent of land to control higher!!

 

[AnotherPacifist]

If anybody's interested, here are 2 saves when I'm alternating between capturing cities, giving them to vassals and founding cities to give. The save in 1900 is just at the moment when I'm winning.
Even though I fought my war from a 1 star expansion (-60) all the way to 3 stars (20), perpetual war does horrible things to your foreign relationships (-140!!).

 

[kbk]

Very nice.

No, I still regret not building the mausoleum (don't know who beat me to it, I'm so tired) which could have basically given me 7x4=28! more turns of golden age. But I won anyway despite my instability. (see the domination thread).
The strong economy doesn't take off as much in Carthage because I had to expand really REALLY slowly until I got fascism.

I had built it in mine, along with a religious shrine, its about the only wonder I would argue as musts when you try an ancient era domination, but I ultimately gave up after running out of golden ages, and finding I was in a Golden Age and still near collapse. Strangely, I never had any problems with my economy. I probably could have forced the issue by giving away American colonies to my vassals, as I had the same massive tech lead you had.

By the way, the trick I found with building colonies as ancient civs, is to send over at least 2 workers per settler. Chopping and good infrastructure will make up for not having a forge or granary.

How did you start? I initially took Egypt and Greece over, and founded cities connecting NW Africa near the ivory into Egypt.

 

[kbk]

My recent military endeavors gave me an idea: how about trying to get domination victories for all civs (not just the usual sprawling empires)? I'm going to try a game as Khmer
*means I've done it
+done by others

Easy:
*France
*Germany
*Rome
+Russia
*Arabia
+Turkey
*America
*Spain
*Portugal
*England
*Greece
*Japan
*China

Medium:
*Netherlands
Khmer
Ethiopia
Inca
*Aztecs
Maya
*Vikings

Hard (small historic size):
Babylon
Egypt
India
Mali
*Carthage

You should add Mongolia and Persia to the list, both under easy for large historic size. Yes they have UHVs related to domination victories, but a true domination victory requires so much more.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

By the way, the trick I found with building colonies as ancient civs, is to send over at least 2 workers per settler. Chopping and good infrastructure will make up for not having a forge or granary.

How did you start? I initially took Egypt and Greece over, and founded cities connecting NW Africa near the ivory into Egypt.

The colonies were built purely for land, not for resources (the Australian ones were founded near the end with a flown in missionary for more culture); they've been sitting there until I felt it was safe that 4 extra cities would make me just tip over the edge and not collapse.

I avoided Egypt and the Middle East initially like the plague. Greece is a must (I restarted one promising game even though I popped monarchy from a hut, because Greece had iron working and had 5 phalanxes, something I never see). I almost thought of not founding Carthage and go straight for an extra city in the Adriatic, but in the end it was just 2 cities to defend rather than 4 in Africa. Had several starts where if I didn't found Rome, Rome would found Brindisium or even Pisa (on the marble) which will eventually lead to war. Only by founding Rome could their starting units go north. I think it's hard coded that Rome declares war on you eventually even though they have no units to be a menace to me later on.

Yes, I tried the Mausoleum, but half way through somebody beat me to it, before I could whip it out.

 

[kbk]

I just completely ignored Rome, and they collapsed near 1700. They declared war on me a few times, but by around 400 AD we were close friends.

I've got a promising Incan game going. One of the great things about the Inca, is I have a good 10 cities in S. America, and 6 along the Rockies in N. America, and am still stable/solid. Further, you can make freaking huge cities along major mountain lines with your unique power. I bet I can get a 30+ San Francisco before the game is up.

Now its just a rush to see if I can militarize and take over enough land before time runs completely out. I still need to take out a number of Spanish, French, and Portuguese cities in S. America, probably squish the Aztecs, and then find an other 10% land area somewhere. Maybe I can take Australia and S. Africa from the Dutch.