New challenge: domination victories for civs

[AnotherPacifist]

You're right, Arabia did knock my stability down for a sec, but I razed 1 of their cities, and should have razed Al-Mukalla which had no production. All you need is Makkah. Declaring war on them even before they found any cities will prevent them from getting free troops, and when Jerusalem wants to flip, let it and capture it right back with a preloaded troop. Then it's all war elephants and catapults. You will also notice I made the "mistake" of not razing Ninua which cut my production and population from Babylon and Shush, although it was outside the Turk's flip zone which is why I kept it.

If you already have a large empire to start with (e.g. Arabia, Persia, Rome, Carthage, China), you must stagnate in terms of land area for about 800 years before you can expand in the US, and found cities one by one. Once you get New Orleans, you basically have all of NAm to yourself because you can expand NE and NW, and any cities on the East Coast will eventually flip to America which can be boxed in with your Chicago, New Orleans and Fort Albany. New Orleans is also the ideal location for your Summer Palace or Forbidden Palace (if you have a saved Great Engineer).

Let other civs like Spain, England, Portugal, Netherlands and France build their cities in the Americas, South Africa and Australia--you can conquer them easily with the tanks you produce in Denver. The only exception iis that if I can spare a settler, I build on the oil in Caracas and gift it to Inca to prevent Spain from getting oil later.

 

[Cossack Captain]

And when stability was knocked down as you say I assume you just stayed put and build the usual infrastructure until you were stable?

So when it comes to expansion no mad land rush?? I once thought about saving 4-5 settlers to do some land grabbing in North America once I get Astronomy but I take it you would not agree with that strategy.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

And when stability was knocked down as you say I assume you just stayed put and build the usual infrastructure until you were stable?

So when it comes to expansion no mad land rush?? I once thought about saving 4-5 settlers to do some land grabbing in North America once I get Astronomy but I take it you would not agree with that strategy.

Yes to both questions. I build New Orleans early (as soon as I get Astronomy), then I wait until the late 1500's for Chicago, then Denver in 1650 or so. When I've built a courthouse in a colony, it's time to build another city again in NAm, and these are all 3 of the cities I found until I get to Cristo Redentor, when I switch back and forth from resettlement (mass city founding/gifting to vassals in Canada, Australia, middle of Africa and maybe middle of South America), occupation and viceroyalty. (India was the only exception when I needed commonwealth more than viceroyalty.)

Load one of my games and do a replay, you'll see.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I forgot to add that land grab is necessary for small civs (Netherlands, Portugal, even England and Spain). South Africa (on the gold), NAm (same 3 cities) the oil in Caracas and Australia are necessary.

 

[kbk]

I honestly prefer universal suffrage to representation when you can make really good use of it. If you are in a situation where you rely heavily on cottages, (which I do whenever I can), getting production out of them is really awesome for your economic stability. Eventually you will have to go to police state and nationhood though.

Conquests can be a little different. Some unique powers are more suited to conquests, and I think sometimes you just can't possibly advance fast enough to settle the right cities in the Americas. In this case, you have to have access to oil, and you still need vassals. The advantage is that you don't have to be large until late, but there are some serious disadvantages. You will have more tiles in other civilization's core areas which costs you more stability. Each rival that you eliminate drives up the land mass percent required to pull off the victory.

I've used AP's strategy with taking out Arabia with Babylon to deal with both Arabia, Persia, and Turkey, but I still haven't been able to win with Babylon. It's on my ever growing list.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I do US when I become shaky due to the number of cities and to get my colonies up to snuff (buying granaries, harbors or forges), but in general representation will mean 1-2 moves earlier per tech; multiply that by 10-15 techs and it means almost half an era with advancing techs.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So I really want to play Ethiopia, but from my previous spaceship experience, it's going to be tough battling imaginary destabilizing forces (due to agriculture). When Rhye fixes this, here's my plan:
1. Send 2nd settler south to get copper and iron to fight those impi and barbs. Send workboat to meet Persia and India (both of whom are very obliging in opening borders) for techs.
2. Capture Egypt when they collapse
3. 1st most important tech: code of laws. Why? For a courthouse and a great spy so that when Arabia spawns, I can steal machinery, feudalism and guilds from them, while I research paper and compass, and hence early optics. Don't care about Divine Right which I can get from Mali.
4. Need 2 Great Scientists for philosophy and education and early liberalism (I'm already able to get it before first). Astronomy for my free tech so I can sail to the New World for New Orleans. Free speech and free religion for more science and happiness later on.
5. 2nd most important tech: constitution for commonwealth and Taj Mahal.

 

[kbk]

Seems solid. I know from my UHV victory on Ethiopia its almost impossible to just hold onto Africa, let alone settle another continent. I do wonder how much extra early development you can manage by not having to found Islam.

 

[kbk]

Okay, I haven't finished this yet, and the attempt I'm showing you I'm aborting, but I think I can make this work, if I'm a bit more careful in a number of ways, and a bit luckier.

In 1650 I've got 10% of the land area and 18% of the population in this Turkish game on Emperor. I managed to get both conqueror events for the Aztecs and Inca, and conquer a massive land empire, as you can see in the attached thumbnail. While I'm behind in technology, I've got plenty of empire to devote to espionage.

However, I ran into some problems: Just as I was expanding into the Americas with my conquerors, and finishing up the independents in India, the Germans and Russians declared war on me. This left my troops displaced, and they managed to overwhelm my cities on the Northern Black Sea. I took over the Inca lands and forced them into capitulation, and then they collapsed. The Arabs collapsed too, but I managed to force the Aztecs into capitulation, and they stayed alive.

But, after liberating 4 cities (Yes, I have over 15) to the Aztecs, I didn't see a dent in my expansion stability numbers. It may be that the losing war with the Russians and Germans masked it, or it may be that the stability bonus for liberating cities is lower in emperor.

I staved off the inevitable with a golden age, but now its over and I'm on the verge of collapse again. My economy and cities are fine, but right now foreign stability and expansion are killing me. In the future attempts I'd need to be more careful about expansion into India, and try to watch out for the unexpected: Russia and Germany working together.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Yeah, when playing as Arabia/Turkey/Persia, be sure to foment some conflict between Russia and Germany, because if they gang up on you in force (and they did in my Persian game), it's going to cost you some turns building troops, and Greece is not very defensible unless you abandon Dirac (I razed a Greek city there). I got peace by killing a Russian stack and a couple stray German invaders.

How did you get conquerors in Emperor playing as Turkey?? I thought France or Spain (or even Japan or Arabia) would have surely gotten them having discovered optics long ago.

 

[kbk]

I just beelined for optics and got that in 1505. I got a caravel to Aztec and Inca before 1550. I even had my first caravel sank by independents. Its surprisingly not that hard.

I also got it for the Aztecs but not the Inca in a Mongolian emperor attempt.

Its not as reliable, but if you can get even one event, that's a good start. Starting with Guilds is a huge advantage in the race for optics. However, you won't be able to vassalize them peacefully since you have no hope of getting Astronomy before a European civ gets it. Whipping out a Settler from the Aztec land and settling in New Orleans will make you competitive in the rush for the Americas. Once you found New Orleans, no one really tries to get Chicago or Denver. If you have some left over troops from the event, you can also usually take out a Spanish Caracas.

I've gotten into the habit of founding Dirac myself because its a great city site, and is another city in the Greek area for the UHV. I've found that Germany usually likes to attack Istanbul or Killia instead.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, I forgot that Rhye did slow down the Emperor AI research rate. Before it was usually impossible to get to the New World before France or Rome (depending on scenario I played).

 

[The Q-Meister]

First attempt at Domination: I tried it with the French. Not because I thought they were the best civ to do it with but only because I typically played them as a mostly builder/colonizer civ and not very military-intense so it would be something different for me.

The French homeland has to be one of the worst for military production so it almost forces the player to expand in Europe: I first tried for independent Rome but that had too much culture so I sent the army to Germany where I took Frankfurt. Germany later collapsed so I then took Berlin and Krakow. Rome and Milan came next.

From then on I consolidated my Central European base until I was stable/solid and geared up for colonization where I was a little behind. Founded New Orleans, and Quebec then moved to Argentina (I love that spot!), 3 cities in South Africa, eventually 5 in Australia and then maybe 4 more in N. America. 2 more in South America. Oh and 2 conquered in North Africa. Was given Hanoi via a Conference.

I had Mali and later on England as my vassals. But Spain was a powerhouse; it had 19% of the world and 4 vassals while I had over 20%. I could have taken them out with Musketeers as I had gunpowder before them but I decided against it as I did not want to expand too quickly and my German/Poland cities were sandwiched between Russia, Netherlands, and Byzantines (they lasted until the late 1800s)

I collapsed around the early 1900s with 21% of land and 15% of population...not bad I don't think considering this was my first time playing militaristically with this civ. I could load up an auto save but I'd rather start over again since there are many things I could have done differently first with getting the Church of the Nativity and using spies more aggressively; I stole 2 from the Netherlands but could have done more. Probably settled too fast but like I said I started late so needed to make up for lost time...or so I thought.

I was thinking Mongolia would be a relatively easy civ to try out for a domination-wannabe like myself.

EDIT: Ever wanted to see a collapsing civ with a 5 star economy?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The Church was moved to Jerusalem long ago...it must have been a while since you played, Q.

Your civics needed police state and nationhood.

If I were to play France again for domination (by intention, not by accident), I would have killed the Germans from the start (even before Berlin was founded), steal lots of techs from the Dutch, let them colonize South Africa, and get the triad of New Orleans, Fort Detroit and Denver (whatever it's called in French). Incans/Mali/America and Khmer as vassals are easy (with France's UP). Then it's police state/nationhood, conquering South America for the Aztecs, North America for America, and founding lots of cities in Australia for Khmer.

EDIT: in fact that's exactly what I'm going to do, it's maddening to have to wait for RFC RAND without a game.

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

EDIT: in fact that's exactly what I'm going to do, it's maddening to have to wait for RFC RAND without a game.

You have no idea how I suffer, I can play RFC but knowing that Rand is coming out it just seems less interesting. Also I won't be able to play RFC Random until August 1st, 3rd or 4rth depending on some things. Aaaaargh

P.S.-Once your done with Domination victories try my Maya challenge, no ones done it so far though Sedna 17 came very close and Archontophoenix did alot of experiments resulting in some useful strategies.

 

[kbk]

I tried a few experiments with France on emperor today. The lesson I learned was pretty simple:

Don't squat Amsterdam. This will cost you too much stability on emperor.
Don't try to build Tours by razing Bordeaux. I thought maybe Tours would be better because I can use one city by founding it (1 tile SW of Paris), and get all of the resources in France. And late game, its all about keeping the big cities, and getting rid of the small ones, but you don't have the early stability to pull it off.

Don't bother with trying for the 2/3 UHV. You won't get engineering for Notre Dame in time, or if you do, it will cost you too much by skipping other things.

Also, since everyone loved me so much, in an attempt where I didn't try to do anything sneaky, I managed to get Germany to gift me Rome just after they captured it. How awesome is that? Got to love that UP.

 

[The Q-Meister]

EDIT: I get them now. had to upload to 3.17.

Your Persian Domination victory is masterful. You didn't really start to colonize until the early 1700s; most of the colonization occurred early 1800s. Before that you had the Conquistador event in the 3 American nations, vassalized 2 of them, and only settled New Orleans. You distributed cities to your vassals very cleverly. The deceptive thing is that on the map itself, aside from North America, it doesn't look like something much greater than a typical Persian UHV game. The difference was the way you picked your vassals, gifted them cities and timed your colonization efforts until you had the techs so that it would not destroy your stability/economy. Very well done! Congrats on a superbly played game...the Shahs of Persia look down on you with pride.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Thank you Q. I thought those Persian city names might have given you a hint which cities I gifted.

New Orleans is really the key to North America. I wish France or England would give me more of a challenge in founding Detroit sometimes without New Orleans, or Spain founding Denver (and not Las Cruces which is useless) without Monterrey.

 

[The Q-Meister]

Looked at a couple more: Carthage and Khmer. Amazed at how few troops you build. Some of your cities, including some big ones, had just a knight or spearman guarding it..you weren't concerned at all about a AI sneak attack? Did any of the countries you conquered respawn? Didn't notice that in any of your games.

Also it seems that acquiring 4 vassals is just as important (to a domination win) as founding cities yourself, would you agree? Do you think it would be possible for a domination win without any vassals?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Often I only had a warrior guarding my capital just because I know other cities needed more happiness or security. I had more troops in Carthage than in Rome simply because to get to Rome you have to get through Mediolanum (which was garrisoned), while barb camels and elephants can tromp to Carthage unimpeded.

The AI is either pleased with me or I had signed a peace treaty with them; if not (like my current game as France), I had 14 troops guarding my German/Russian border, and sure enough, Russia declares war, and I crush them with my allies Turkey and Vikings.

My first discovery was: Hitler was right--world domination needs partners (or vassals). Mongolia is probably the only possible nation that might dominate without vassals (because its entitled land area is so large, often on top of other civs' areas).