Please play this game and tell me how you win a domination victory!

[hsmwrv]

I recently played this game as Japan and aimed for a domination victory as I always did. By turn 316, I conquered Arabia, Ethiopia, Polynesia, and The Netherlands completely (in this order). When I took over Byzantium's capital, my unhappiness went to 30 up. It was 17 before, and I had two or three waves of rebel barbarians rolled out from my capital already. Since I've build every possible building in every city for happiness, and allied every CS I could, I saw no way to recover the happiness. I gave up the game.

My police path was Liberty (all), Tradition (open), Commerce (all), and Order (Planned Economy and Socialism). I didn't take Honor since my finance was terrible at the point I could choose between Honor and Commerce. Again, by the time I chose Order, it saved me from happiness issue temporally.

I built HE in my capital, also having the Oracle, LT of Pisa, the PT, and a whole bunch other wonders I couldn't recall. This was the first time I had to give up a game due to happiness issue. I tried three times after, with Tradition and Liberty, none of them went as well as the first time. So, I'd like to invite you to play this game for a domination victory, and please tell me how you manage to win. Thanks!

The game is set on Pangaea and Immortal level. Everything else is standard.

 

[Merenptah]

Raze every single cities you conquer and doesn't have a unique Lux that you are missing and is not provided by your CS allies. You will never have happines problems.

 

[Moriarte]

Can you post a save from turn 316?

I'm pretty sure if you sold few cities to AI you could get your happiness back.

 

[dopingman]

Burn cities in bad locations, TP your puppets. Use religious believes with happiness bonuses (pagodas, +1 for shrine or +2 for temple, etc.) . Commerce gives ~20 if you go full domination (you usually don't see more then 10 unique luxes on the map until you conquered the last enemies). Rationalism gives the same + bonuses. Use Tradition instead of Lib or use both, the bonus is HUGE and is larger then the reduction provided by Lib until your empire is larger then 20 cities with 10 pop and your cap has pop >20 (no exact math here, don't nail me on the numbers here!). Ally mercantile CS and CS with luxes you don't have. Consider unlocking Honour and the 2 or 3 right side SoPols and park units you don't need at the frontlines as garrisons in cities, the from walls, castles, military bases is also huge as puppets are quite happy with building those def buildings. When I get home I will give the T316 save a shot if you load it up (unless it is with Korea and WOTAW, I don't have those DLCs).

 

[budweiser]

For point of reference, I came back from -60 happiness in the last Emperor level GoTM and finished on the plus side.

I'd like to play this out but, I pretty much dont have time. I'd say you need a little pre-planning to stay happy if you are going domination and want to keep many cities.

You probably want the Honor tree here. There is plenty of happiness in that tree from garrisons, walls etc.

 

[sufficiency]

I'm bored. I'll play this out and see what happens.

Dear mother of god this is a great start. I think I will restart and settle east of the hill instead.

 

[RedRover57]

It sounds like you are taking way too long to win by domination (turn 316+). If you push earlier and are more aggressive you can systematically take out the AI before they spam too many cities and before they grow their cities too tall. That will significantly improve your happiness situation. You will probably want to take out at least 2 civs (capitals) with composite bows by turn 100 and a large portion (if not all) of the remainder with crossbows. Even if it takes until turn 200 or so due to map conditions you should be in the driver's seat by that point with highly promoted gatlings plus artillery. Don't neglect science however. Usually you will want to tech to Education after getting composites and build the NC in your capital and universities to subsequently power your way up the bottom of the tech tree. With Japan, you may want to try Tradition opener, left side of Honor, finish Tradition, finish Honor for social policies. Steal workers, use money from selling lux to buy settlers when possible and keep churning out units.

 

[sufficiency]

It sounds like you are taking way too long to win by domination (turn 316+). If you push earlier and are more aggressive you can systematically take out the AI before they spam too many cities and before they grow their cities too tall. That will significantly improve your happiness situation. You will probably want to take out at least 2 civs (capitals) with composite bows by turn 100 and a large portion (if not all) of the remainder with crossbows. Even if it takes until turn 200 or so due to map conditions you should be in the driver's seat by that point with highly promoted gatlings plus artillery. Don't neglect science however. Usually you will want to tech to Education after getting composites and build the NC in your capital and universities to subsequently power your way up the bottom of the tech tree. With Japan, you may want to try Tradition opener, left side of Honor, finish Tradition, finish Honor for social policies. Steal workers, use money from selling lux to buy settlers when possible and keep churning out units.

Well the problem is that despite the good starting location:
1. It's Japan.
2. Bordered by Ethiopia.

Here's how it looks like for me at Turn 182:

Spoiler :

I founded the last religion at turn 102 with Ceremonial Burial, but it doesn't matter because Ethiopia's religion is crushing me to death. I had to take Damascus and Medina because they were in the way of Addis Abba and Mecca (lower right corner) respectively. Fighting Ethiopia was a huge pain, because

1. He had the 20% bonus on me
2. Defender of the Faith
3. He had prigrimage + holy warrior
3. I had -10 happiness on me

So much that my CBs were doing single-digit damage to Ethiopian Knights. This in addition to the rough terrain made the process a grind.

But regardless, the game is pretty much over because I am very close to a tech lead (no Public Education yet) and I have a very sizeable empire. But the process getting there was so slow that at this stage I might as well win by science instead.

If I was playing as the Celts on this map I would be in an extremely good position to win by domination (earlier religion than Ethiopia). But as Japan... meh... it will work out but it will be sort of painful.

 

[Novalia]

yeah the terrain is pretty brutal.. slow start with 3 cities and nc.. just finished it around turn 90 and now bee-lining education before i drop down to xbows.. will probably divert that once i scope out ethiopia.. they're likely next so i can halt the relgion spread and keep happiness in check..

got a religion about turn 90.. pantheon is quarries.. ceremonial burial and production.. nobody's spreading religion so far that i can see.. i could probably buy up the CS's if i wanted to push it.. ive got a lot of wine and salt to sell..

i went for arabia first because the map is a lovefest besides everyone hating on askia.. but askia is tucked in there pretty good and tough to get to atm.. i had to annihilate arabia because he only had two cities and one was blocking..

if i get ethiopia next i'll have a good strategic situation as i'll have half the map covered and wont have to worry about a flank gank..

i went tradition opener.. honor the left side.. then back to tradition for free monuments.. had some luck early with culture cs quests which snowballed into getting way more culture than i deserved..

i'm not such a great domination player.. i tend to lose interest once i turn the tide in my favor.. i also get lazy and dont wanna do the long treks necessary..

Spoiler :

 

[RedRover57]

This is a pretty interesting map. I would like to see if anyone can take out both Arabia and Ethiopia with composites (i.e., before reaching Machinery) - I think it would be difficult. I settled the river hill (for extra starting production) and went Scout-Monument-Shrine (probably not worth building)-Granary-Worker-Archers. I was able to take a pantheon (Stone Circles - the only one that would give me some additional faith) after grabbing a +20 faith ruin. I nabbed 2 extra workers from barbs and bought one settler after I had reached 500 gold (placed the city to the north on the copper/mountain). I'm not sure if this was a good idea as it delayed upgrading all of my archers to cbs due to lack of funds. Social policy order was Tradition opener - Honor opener - left side of Honor - Legalism. Next will be Monarchy then finish Honor.

My initial thought was to go after Arabia first, but Ethiopia spammed cities toward me so I went after them instead. Took his capital on T85 with 8 comp bows plus a horseman. It took longer than I had hoped due to the rough terrain, plus he had a lot of units. I'm not sure if it is possible to take him out faster before his religion has a stranglehold on the region. This is why I'm thinking that it isn't worth even attempting a religion on this map. His religion spread quickly and negated the quarry faith (from the stone) in my second city. It's going to be a pain to cleanse it at this stage (I don't even have my religion yet).

I'm not sure if I'll be able to re-locate my units quickly enough toward Arabia at this point to take him out with cbs. I will probably have to wait until crossbows. Currently finishing Philo to build the NC (hopefully near T100) and then will try to beeline for Machinery prior to Education. Will likely annex Addis Abbaba after the NC to start building a second army there to take out the civs to the NW.

I don't know if I will even bother with samurais or siege. Once my bows are well promoted I won't need those other units.

 

[Tabarnak]

Try a ''Moriarte''.

Spoiler :

Moriarte : Start a game on a pangea map. Build units. Conquer. Win before the turn 120.

 

[hsmwrv]

Thanks all for your advises and participating! Unfortunately, I did't keep the game save from my first play.

I did take over Arabia before turn 100. But then, every other AI except Songhai denounced and declared war on me. I pretty much fought with them all the way until I took them over completely. The second target Ethiopia took me too long to conquer due to the terrain. His religion spread wild. It aimed for culture and contributed nothing to happiness. His cities grew tall. It's a pain to wait his cities razed due to the unhappiness as I had to defense other AIs and their allied CSs meanwhile.

 

[Novalia]

while i was healing up and moving my guys west i noticed halle also moving west so i spent a few turns building more units and watching the grass grow somewhat deterred by the nasty terrain (and scouting halle's movement) when polynesia popped up with the great wall and also killed a cs..

i was already thinking that path might be stronger than trekking thru the jungle buzzsaw so i think i'm going to hit polynesia's great wall first and then hit halle from behind where the terrain isnt so ridiculous.. this way when i get denounced and gang banged from every direction after that i'll at least have the gw to slow them down until i can get myself sorted to defend...

i'll probably bring a settler up there so i can quickly upgrade to crossbows if i get stuck in a longer than i want battle.. i'm sort of regretting opening this save.. i much prefer counterattacking and playing a somewhat stronger social game.. looking at all that jungle just made me save and quit.. might have some workers prebuild some roads while i fight polynesia.. depends how my economy looks.. wont be much trading as soon as i declare on kame..

i told halle not to settle near me as he was about to trap a crossbow that just got upgraded from a ruin inside the mecca corner and he cowered in fear.. he must remember me from our last game =)

 

[sufficiency]

Thanks all for your advises and participating! Unfortunately, I did't keep the game save from my first play.

I did take over Arabia before turn 100. But then, every other AI except Songhai denounced and declared war on me. I pretty much fought with them all the way until I took them over completely. The second target Ethiopia took me too long to conquer due to the terrain. His religion spread wild. It aimed for culture and contributed nothing to happiness. His cities grew tall. It's a pain to wait his cities razed due to the unhappiness as I had to defense other AIs and their allied CSs meanwhile.

Funny. Only Ethiopia dow'ed me in my game. I took Mecca on turn 103.

I didn't meet Songhai until turn 180ish.