Open Competition: Fastest Domination Win

[futurehermit]

I've been wondering about this for awhile, so I'd like to call an open competition:

Fastest Domination Win

Settings: Continents, Normal Speed, Standard Size, Monarch difficulty (bonus pts. if you play at a higher level ), Rest of settings default (normal barbs, etc.).

Pick whatever leader you'd like.

Just post a screen shot of the victory screen and then talk about how the game went, your strategy, etc.

To make it fair, ideally everyone would work from the same map, but this isn't the olympics, and I'm not going to give out a medal (maybe a cookie though!), so if you get an absolutely amazing start (like 3 gold pits in your capital) then feel free to reload (same if your start is extra crappy).

Basically, I care more about just stimulating discussion about getting the earliest domination win possible than about making this strictly competition. Let's break out our warmaps, move into the war room, and talk shop for awhile

Good luck.

 

[ollj]

continents makes it a run for astronomy and a gamble for being on a much larger landmass with many others so that you win just after astronomy.

 

[Khalid]

continents makes it a run for astronomy and a gamble for being on a much larger landmass with many others so that you win just after astronomy.

Yes, that's true. I might try this as I love domination games. But I would say that if there's a larger landmass then it will score superior to all other games.

 

[GoodGame]

Are we talking Vanilla 1.61 here?

I'd like to give this a shot.

Just some pre-game discussion ideas:
1. SE vs. CE,
2. early UU.


1. SE:
go with Agg, Exp (big cities, Great merchants to pay);
or Agg, Ind (for a few choice dominating wonders like
Stonehenge, or Oracle-Forges);
or Phi, Agg (Great merchants to pay for the empire)
or Agg, Org (cheaper empire)

2. CE
go with Agg, Fin (obvious)
or Agg, Exp (big cities, more cottages).


3. Best early UU for a sustained rush?
I have to go with the Phalanx from my own
experience.


Alexander/Greece (had to stop at 800 AD---lag was killing me) no photo yet.
21.34% of 43% pop
16.60% of 64% land
Notes: just played them as a war machine. Completely ignored the PHI bent, but I should have went for GMs or GE's to at least settle. Phalanx actually proved to wear out it's welcome at about 8-10 cities captured, and I switched primarily to horse archers. Phalanx still was very easy to use with great stacks of 5+. Key to efficiency in conquest with move-1 units is to only heal a turn, and leave the badly hurt to garrison; Getting a few healers/March promotions is also a priority. Only built 2 cities total, captured the rest, and razed anything closer than 4 cities to another city. Lost out on bid to build Stonehenge. Build order was mainly Obelisk->Barracks-> units or ...>Barracks->Forge-> units

 

[zooropa86]

3. Best early UU for a sustained rush?
I have to go with the Phalanx from my own
experience.

woah! i did not see that coming.

personally, when i just wanna dominate, i play as qin. i mean seriously, fin and ind. i usually go for oracle and get either CS or construction, even if the later isnt the optimal choice. but yeah, after the first axe rush u've got the chokonus next in line and ooo baby. at least construction and machinery are on "opposite" sides of the tech tree, cause if not, i'd be too easy.