Projecting Military Force on Continents Map

[vorlon_mi]

I understand that a lot of players who want to win by Domination use a Pangaea map... all one land mass. This means that one can continue expanding the borders to one's neighbors without embarking, plus reaping the benefit of loyalty from proximity to your homeland.

What are some strategies and tactics when using other map types, especially Continents? I've done naval invastions in earlier games in the franchise, so I have a basic understanding of projecting power. Indeed, Civ6 has the advantage that all the units can embark, unlike Civ3 and Civ4 where I'm limited in the earlier eras by the small capacity of transport ships. If I wait long enough, I can use carriers to project air power along with my ground troops.

How does one handle loyalty? The first city I conquer on the other land mass could have that -20 loyalty pressure from their home cities, which a governor alone can't fix. Conquering a second city would help, but the first city is likely to revolt in 2 or 3 turns which hinders the progress of my reinforcements. Even if I brought a settler, razed the first opponent city I take, and replaced it, that new baby city would also be subject to loyalty pressure. I could envision a scorched earth / "burn it all down" / raze everything strategy, leading eventually to conquering the original capital. Maybe replant cities after the capital is conquered?

Or do you always pursue a different victory condition (not Domination) on Continents maps?

 

[Planktonic]

Domination isn't really my jam, but here's my take:

1. Be prepared to conquer cities fast. Usually try to plan to capture at least 2 within the 1st 5 turns. Have Victor with Garrison Commander ready.
2. Prioritize conquering cities with Entertainment Complexes so you can immediately run Bread and Circuses. Do not pillage ECs for health. Don't waste time on tiny peripheral cities- go immediately for the populous ones.
3. Buy a builder and immediately chop any marsh or rainforest for the population boost.
4. If there's a district spot available, chop out an EC and run Bread and Circuses.
5. -20 loyalty can still be dealt with. Victor gets you +12. Limitanei gets you +2. Monument is +1. Praetorium gets you +2. There is another diplomatic policy card for +3 loyalty on foreign continent. That's +20 already.
6. Take an Inquisitor along with the invasion force to try to negate the penalty for different religions.

Really with a little planning it shouldn't be that difficult to hold a few cities until you can stabilize things....

 

[vorlon_mi]

Thanks! Items 2, 3, and 4 I had not fully appreciated. Will add them to my list of preparations. 6 is also good.
I don't play Roman leaders often, but preparing my policy cards (as you write in 5) is an aspect I hadn't fully thought out.

Item 1 is where I am currently struggling... conquering fast. If I'm going for populous cities, they will probably have walls up. That means I will need to bring siege weapons and work the terrain. I struggle to conquer a walled city in less than 5 turns. Waiting until I can use carriers and bombers means that I'm not invading early (obviously), but invading later also means that I can have corps and armies to hit harder and conquer faster.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

I have found the easiest approach is to play as Gitjara, and use Jongs to transport military and civilian (and religious?) units across the map quickly. They pack a huge punch to quickly knock out coastal cities, and a couple Settlers can start new cities if needed. You can also set up really long "shuck" operations, using their likely 6 moves you can pass a unit off in a chain only limited by the # of Jongs. (You may want to practice this first so you don't misclick and waste a turn.) If the home cities together create a unit every 2 turns, the shuck can reposition itself the 2nd turn for max efficiency.

Another tip has always been to attack right when a new advanced military unit comes online - but you can sail your weaker forces early, then upgrade just as you get to the other continent, either by being Suz of a CS, or possibly by having an Alliance with a civ on the other continent who neighbors the target. This is much harder as you often end up with traffic jams of AI units.

 

[Planktonic]

Item 1 is where I am currently struggling... conquering fast. If I'm going for populous cities, they will probably have walls up. That means I will need to bring siege weapons and work the terrain. I struggle to conquer a walled city in less than 5 turns. Waiting until I can use carriers and bombers means that I'm not invading early (obviously), but invading later also means that I can have corps and armies to hit harder and conquer faster.

Actually, notwithstanding what I wrote earlier, it can actually be very useful to conquer a small peripheral, especially coastal city.

If you are invading another continent across an ocean, you have cartography and probably a tier 2 government. I almost always run a high faith empire, and always take Grandmasters Chapel no matter what victory condition I'm going for. So in any invasion, I'm usually looking for a small, unwalled city to conquer with cavalry units or caravels. If I can do that, I can then faith-buy any siege or other units I need on site. I don't care if the city rebels 5 turns later, as its only purpose is to generate a large army on the invaded continent without my having to schlep it all the way across the ocean. I can always reconquer the free city and then generate another 4 units out of it. So my usual invasion force is not large at all: just 3-4 terrestrial military units, and usually 2 caravels, with 1 frigate if I can manage it. Oftentimes I'll invade with just caravels and a frigate and then generate the entire land army on site.

I'll usually also hoard envoys so that I might be able to immediately suzerain any discovered city state and then levy their troops. Even if not strong enough to take cities, they can absorb attacks and pillage.

Grandmasters Chapel just crushes any mid or late game warmongering. Even if you don't have high faith per turn you can use it to pillage yourself an army much more efficiently even than gold, especially if you have theocracy government.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I have found the easiest approach is to play as Gitjara, and use Jongs to transport military and civilian (and religious?) units across the map quickly. They pack a huge punch to quickly knock out coastal cities, and a couple Settlers can start new cities if needed. You can also set up really long "shuck" operations, using their likely 6 moves you can pass a unit off in a chain only limited by the # of Jongs. (You may want to practice this first so you don't misclick and waste a turn.) If the home cities together create a unit every 2 turns, the shuck can reposition itself the 2nd turn for max efficiency.

Another tip has always been to attack right when a new advanced military unit comes online - but you can sail your weaker forces early, then upgrade just as you get to the other continent, either by being Suz of a CS, or possibly by having an Alliance with a civ on the other continent who neighbors the target. This is much harder as you often end up with traffic jams of AI units.

Thanks! I have not played as Gitjara yet. The "chain of boats" is a tactic that I remember from Civ2 and Civ3. So fun to see it make a comeback, in a manner of speaking, by buffing movement while in a formation.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Alright, time to use what I've learned. My current game is with Peter (Russia), where I took out two civs on my landmass (Mongols and Netherlands). Although I'm tempted to roll over Egypt -- neighbor to the southeast -- I can't see a clear benefit in doing so. The other capitals are on the other land mass, separated by a medium-sized ocean (if I sail east) or a larger ocean (if I sail west).
I've built the Grandmaster's Chapel, nearly built the Royal Society, and have tons of faith income. Moksha is promoted to be able to buy Aerodromes and Spaceports as I intend to win by science. Turn 320 -- other opponents include Hungary, Japan, and Gilga Bro, all on the other land mass.

The more pressing issue is that Georgia has around 15 diplo victory points. Her landlocked capital is on the other landmass, meaning that I will need to invade. While the other AI may well vote to take away her last few VP, that won't last forever. I built the Statue of Liberty to keep it from her. She has some coastal cities but her core is inland.

Fortunately, her military score (at the top of the screen) is MUCH lower than mine. Once my troops land, I'm hopeful for swift progress. I will need to bring along a builder and a missionary/apostle. My religion is dominant on my landmass, with Hungary trying to make some inroads with Egypts smaller, southeastern cities.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Bulletin from the front: Tamar noticed my gathering ships and troops on her border, so she asked the big question, "war or just passing through?" I was still bringing in a builder and religious units, so I would have preferred to wait a couple more turns. So I declared and dove in.

First target was a pop 2 coastal city on a southern peninusula. Conquered it in 2 turns with naval bombardment and a melee ship fleet. Loyalty was really bad, so I razed it and set my sights for the pop 4 and pop 5 cities a few tiles inland. My landed troops overwhelmed one of them, sent Victor in, and shifted the forces west. The western city of the pair could be bombarded by my battleships, so it fell quickly, too.

Back to the point of this thread -- loyalty in these two cities, became much more manageable, when they were not pressuring each other. My missionary and inquisitor visited each city -- in that order -- so that both were mostly following my religion. With governors, their loyalty started going up. My troops headed north, taking out a pop 11 city in a couple turns.

Being somewhat risk-averse, I put governors in all 3 conquered cities while the war proceeds.
I faith-bought garrisons for each of the conquered cities. I'm now wondering whether I can bring the governors home, since I can make better use of them on my home continent. Perhaps I just shift them north, following the front? I'm interested to see if/when the conquered cities become self-reinforcing for loyalty... do I need to wipe out Georgia, or just put enough distance between those cities and the ever-shrinking homeland?

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Nice work - If you keep conquering you will want to keep leap-frogging Governors there.

(Btw, I've always assumed it should be Inquisitor 1st to remove foreign religion, then Missionary to spread yours, at least that's what I do.)

 

[vorlon_mi]

Nice work - If you keep conquering you will want to keep leap-frogging Governors there.

(Btw, I've always assumed it should be Inquisitor 1st to remove foreign religion, then Missionary to spread yours, at least that's what I do.)

Yes, I've been leapfrogging governors.

Since it's a different landmass, which my missionaries/apostles haven't really visited yet, I felt it was important to do one spread of my religion before sending in the inquisitor. Once my invasion took hold, and the southern cities were converted to my religion, I'm less concerned about the order. The northern cities (freshly conquered) are starting to feel some religious pressure from the southern cities, so I could do inquisitor first, followed by a missionary/apostle to strengthen.

If I did the inquisitor first, I'm not sure that it would wipe out all of the religious followers of the other religions in those cities -- leaving them worshipping nothing. But I've been wrong before...

Postscript: It took me about 12 turns total to roll up Georgia. Other than the initial razed city, loyalty has not been an issue. I used the suggestion from @Planktonic to hoard envoys, then blanketed the one city-state that Tamar was suz of. They flipped their allegiance to me, which has stayed (so far) after I wiped out Georgia.

 

[Airey]

Domination isn't really my jam, but here's my take:

1. Be prepared to conquer cities fast. Usually try to plan to capture at least 2 within the 1st 5 turns. Have Victor with Garrison Commander ready.
2. Prioritize conquering cities with Entertainment Complexes so you can immediately run Bread and Circuses. Do not pillage ECs for health. Don't waste time on tiny peripheral cities- go immediately for the populous ones.
3. Buy a builder and immediately chop any marsh or rainforest for the population boost.
4. If there's a district spot available, chop out an EC and run Bread and Circuses.
5. -20 loyalty can still be dealt with. Victor gets you +12. Limitanei gets you +2. Monument is +1. Praetorium gets you +2. There is another diplomatic policy card for +3 loyalty on foreign continent. That's +20 already.
6. Take an Inquisitor along with the invasion force to try to negate the penalty for different religions.

Really with a little planning it shouldn't be that difficult to hold a few cities until you can stabilize things....

These are excellent remedies if you want to keep the AI city. If situation allows, it's always better to take their capital first, and take just enough near by cities to keep AI capital loyal.
Assuming OP means going for Domination game from turn uno, not those science turn domination games.
My understanding is to use captured AI cities to buy siege units, and/or build cheap units (<4 turns before revolt).
Other than capital cities, I just let it revolt, move on and let target AI deal with the rebels, while I march in directly to their CAP.

That means I will need to bring siege weapons and work the terrain. I struggle to conquer a walled city in less than 5 turns. Waiting until I can use carriers and bombers means that I'm not invading early (obviously), but invading later also means that I can have corps and armies to hit harder and conquer faster.

don't bring siege weapons. buy them in the revolting city, you have at least 3 turn window.
don't worry too much about loosing siege units, they are disposables, their primary purpose is to take out or damage city walls.

I have found the easiest approach is to play as Gitjara, and use Jongs to transport military and civilian (and religious?) units across the map quickly. They pack a huge punch to quickly knock out coastal cities, and a couple Settlers can start new cities if needed. You can also set up really long "shuck" operations, using their likely 6 moves you can pass a unit off in a chain only limited by the # of Jongs. (You may want to practice this first so you don't misclick and waste a turn.) If the home cities together create a unit every 2 turns, the shuck can reposition itself the 2nd turn for max efficiency.

Another tip has always been to attack right when a new advanced military unit comes online - but you can sail your weaker forces early, then upgrade just as you get to the other continent, either by being Suz of a CS, or possibly by having an Alliance with a civ on the other continent who neighbors the target. This is much harder as you often end up with traffic jams of AI units.

It works, but that's alot of investment just to fight against 1 AI loyalty.
IF the science/culture they bring to the empire is insignificant. (ie. only shaves 1 turn off research a tech/civic, but cost a lot of resource to keep that city).
Resources can be put into assembling another attacking line.
May I suggest using 1 charge builder for early scout (shallow water) and Suz CS from another continent.
Use Amani to levy and re-levy. It'll make the CS to make military units like crazy.
After sending out the initial army, the core cities can focus on GG projects or gain a science advantage.
Swim across the ocean is...the army is outdated by the time it gets there. Maybe pick off a satellite city and upgrade, or bring a settler with you.