Pacing of Domination Victories

[vorlon_mi]

I'm working my way up the difficulty levels -- currently winning at Prince, mostly Science victories. In my most recent game, I've picked Japan on a fractal map and am trying to build my warring skills.

I know that one has to play the map (and opponents) that you're given, but I feel like I'm struggling to find the balance between attacking aggressively, and building up the right number of units to take out my opponent. I have a builder mindset most of the time, so I hate wasting units ... losing battles I don't need to lose. But if I wait to build more units, I'm giving the AI time to research the techs that will provide better defenses.

1. In your last N domination victories (N = 3 or 4), did you just take out the opponents' capitals, or did you have to blast through other cities first?

2. Do your wars come in waves? I find that my forces are nearly all redlined after taking a city or two; I negotiate peace, heal up, and then re-declare when the 10 turns are over. Do most of you just bring *more* units, and keep up the attack?

3. Are there inflection points in the tech tree that you plan for? I waited to take my first capital with composite bows and swords, and the second soon after with some trebs. The third capital waited until I had muskets, rifles and cannon.

4. When invading, do you hang back at the border and let the AI come to you? After destroying his offensive wave with your ranged units, then move to lay siege to a city?
Or rush in and start pounding the city, knowing you will lose some melee units?
For this one, I think I may just need to watch some MadDjinn videos.

 

[jlim201]

1. When intentionally going for Dom Victory, I try to go straight for capital, but if there are cities in the way, I take them, and raze every other one ( the ai cities are too close for me). When I am not, I basically take one major city- more than 10 pop by medieval.

2) Build a few backup units- two melee, 1 siege and a few bowmen. That way you can destroy a civ much quicker. Everytime a unit dies, buy or build a new one unless you are building something more important (eg: a wonder)

3) It depends how long the ai takes to get those units. So I basically take 2 capitals per era starting with catapults, comp bowmen and swords, then X bows, trebs and lswords. Another factor is the distance and the terrain. Get rid of person with great wall after artillery.

4) Declare war when just outside borders, let his army come to you.

Don't take every city, you will be crippled for happiness/ gold.

 

[civ54lyfe]

4) is a great strategy... but if my units have to first deal with a kind of brand new city w/o walls.. i tend to get straight to business because they will typically rush buy Walls in a couple of turns if not.

 

[darden]

depends a bit on the map... I usually sit quiet and focus on tech until relatively late in the game, but once I develop my fleet of bombers and battleships before the AI's had time to build anti-flight units, I unleash the blitz.

capitals on the coast are first to go, and in those instances, I'll largely ignore the AI's other cities unless they've got resources I want or are in prime locations. park my carriers/ships and wear down the AI's defenses before sending in 1-2 melee units.

land wars are a bit more of a slog. if it's a neighbor, I'll declare war and let them come to me. if it's not a neighbor, I'll invade through a friendly/allied city state and slug it out till I reach their capital, razing cities as I go. don't want to leave my units in a position where they could get bombarded by 2 cities or have enemy units spawning behind me.

 

[Pepo]

1capitals and big cities near my borders
2I normally go for the big victory-that normally mean defeating all enemy army,taking cities and pillaging.horewer if i need to figth an unexpected war,i often prefered peace after i take one-two cities
3normally not,i often attack when enemies are weaken or they are far behind.the only exceptions are airplanes or nukes,those things win wars
4again depends.if in my borders there are important resources,i will attack the enemy cities .if i had a good position ,i will prefer to wait

 

[joshua43214]

I do suggest you watch Maddjinn's older vanilla and G&K videos. His Rome video is a classic. Also check out LightCleric's China video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovaTaYrhMaI . It has the classic nightmare scenario and some very excellent gameplay.

On your difficulty, do not wait around. The AI will totally fail to make a meaningful amount of units until you hit Immortal. Just get 3 bows and work them hard on your closest neighbor. Pick a city that has some nice flat terrain around it. Step your archer in, take a shot, get hit, step back and heal. Rinse and repeat until you get range. Then plink away from 3 tiles out sending a horse unit in to get vision and then back the horse back out.
Pick up BW, build a couple of spears (do not bother with IW). Then just do a regular science focus tech path to get education and then down to machinery. You will want to grab construction at some point to upgrade your archers.
If you got range on your archers, they should get logistics before they are x-bows. 3 logistics x-bows and 2 pikes will take an entire Pangaea map easily up to King, you will need another on x-bow on Emperor.

Do not bother with cats or trebs, they mostly suck. x-bows are much better. With a 3 city start, you should be able to just head for artillery once universities are up. But if you get there on King you are moving too slow.

For SP, full liberty or tradition, commerce 3 to get discount purchasing, rationalism>secularism and autocracy. Tradition will give you a faster start, more happiness and gold. Liberty will give you a chance at pyramids, faster workers, and happiness if you have cities close enough for roads.

I just torch everything except caps

 

[Js_9001]

What kind of units are you using? The problem with health might be because of too many melee units. The focus should be on ranged units because they're better, with melee units being used for capturing cities with 0 health and as distraction so your ranged units aren't bombarded. The specific focus for units should be range advantages with bows/frigates with the Range promotion, artillery, battleships, Great War bombers, and anything like that that allows you to bombard cities with impunity from 3+ tiles away and then sweep in with a horse/tank unit to take the city.

 

[paralistalon]

My last game was a dom victory on immortal. My wars definitely came in waves. The first war is usually to take out the capital of the neighbor that hates you the most, or the most aggressive civ. When I war at this point, I really like to wipe those civs from the game so I won't have to watch my back the rest of the game. My next goal is securing my backside and clearing to the coast in one direction. When I do this, I can more comfortably march my entire army to a single front without having to hold back troops for defense. I plan my next waves around my UU and artillery. Artillery is the best attack unit in the game for me, so I prepare to advance my territory as soon as I have enough of them. Then i just march forward in waves, a couple cities at a time, until I capture a capital I really want, then negotiate peace and rebuild my army and get my happiness up.

I usually like to pay a neighbor to DoW the same civ with me. Sometimes when you get lucky, the target civ will march most of their troops away from the capital and you can quickly move in and secure it with minimal resistance.

 

[Matoro]

Yeah, waves are a good way to do it. Beat AI:s one after one, don't let them form a coalition against you.

Warmonger only when you've got adventange. For example, if you're first to discover cannons, artillery or GW bombers, dominate with them. Also, if you have good UU, try to wage your decisive wars when you can use your UU. For example, Attila should kill things right in the start, while Sweden or US should wait for pre-industral to get their awesome unique units.