Playing on King, can do Domination victory with ease, struggle with peaceful victories

[JavaBaklava]

The last few King games I played follow a very consistent pattern. I rolled Mongolia on Continents, went full warmonger, and the amount of tanks I was throwing at the other continent was comical.

I rolled Babylon I lost the science race to Siam. I lost a science race as Babylon. By a mere turn, granted, but that may be my most embarrassing loss.

I roll Sweden on Pangaea, and it was disgusting how quickly I won with the enhanced siege unit movement.

I roll Venice, and I lose a Diplomatic victory against Germany's science. I made a save right before the last peace treaty with Germany, reloaded, stayed at war with them, and threw my entire army at him to stop him from building the rocket. I succeeded, but that victory still doesn't feel clean.

I roll Songhai on Pangaea, this time in 4UC, and win before I can upgrade my Lancer army to Landships.

Now, I'm playing Brazil, it's turn ~125, and I'm getting bogged down in a war by an aggressive Spain neighbor, and I can tell that this is going to be another rough game where I'm likely going to get my Cultural victory sniped at the 11th hour. I'm noticing in my domination games that I'm usually within the top three civs pretty quickly and I stay there, both in terms of score and in terms of the demographics tab, but in my peaceful games, I'm dead last until around Industrial era. I'll pull ahead and do a little conquering to expand, but I'm still struggling to cross the finish line first. I don't think I'm messing up my settling my 2-4 cities, nor do I think I'm doing terrible with my early game build order, but the score and demographic tab clearly paint a different picture.

In this particular instance, I'm way behind in production. I know I'm drowning in jungles as Brazil, and I'm going to be sending production trade routes when I get the opportunity, but I know this is going to bite me in the ass.

I honestly can't help but wonder if it's just that Authority is so damn strong, because that's the only thing that I can think of that I do differently between games in the beginning.

 

[Anarcomu]

I have the feeling that warmongering with economic benefit is really good, simply because you are not as pressed to found your city quickly, since you can invest in army, wage war, and get economic benefit from it.
Meanwhile, when playing pacifist (either Progress or Tradition), you really want to invest as few as possible in military, because military does not fuel your economy.
War, which is a way of expansion when simply settling is no longer possible, becomes a real investment with no payback on its own.
Also, but it is my point of view, 2-4 cities is very small, I usually try to get 5-6 by medieval, sometimes more than that. It might depend on map size thought.

 

[msw1]

Yeah, typically I play one difficulty level higher as a warmonger.

 

[JavaBaklava]

Also, but it is my point of view, 2-4 cities is very small, I usually try to get 5-6 by medieval, sometimes more than that. It might depend on map size thought.

2-4 is what I typically settle without conquest, although I sometimes I rarely do 5 or 6. I find by medieval era there's typically not any good city spots left and any expansion I do is through conquest. Maybe I'm still going by vanilla standards, but I would say anything past 4 is wide territory. I also prefer to have some distance between my cities, I usually only settle at the minimum allowed distance if absolutely necessary.

That being said, in this game in particular, there's only three city spots near my starting spot I really want because everywhere else has a complete dearth of forests and jungles.