So many choices , which direction to victory

totalnastiness

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 29, 2007
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BTS, Noble, Fractal, standard size, normal speed, Random leader/civ got Mansu Musa. I have been managing the whip more carefully than usual, and have what I think may be a solid start. Typicaly, around 1000 AD, I struggle with transition from expansion to pursuit of victory. Posting my save seeking advice on how to proceed. Any advice appreciated.
 

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From your current position you could win any type of victory quite easily - it's really just a question of making a choice and focusing your efforts. In fact, unless you decide to go for an early win (by Culture or Domination - both are well within reach), you won't even need to make the decision for some time yet.

By the looks of things, your early game is too good for Noble, but maybe you lack the killer instinct and/or focus to finish things off. I'd suggest playing to the point where you choose your victory condition, and then report back with another save to get advice on how to approach it. Your next game should be on Prince.

Some more specific points:

* You could benefit from specialising your cities a bit more thoroughly, imo. All-purpose or partially specialised cities aren't a terrible thing - and are usually necessary in the early game - but they aren't as efficient as fully specialised ones.

*What's with the Espionage and Castles? If the purpose is tech-stealing or war, you'll need to focus your EPs on one (or, at a push, two) civs to take advantage. Besides, you could easily out-tech the AI with normal research, and, if war is your object, achieve a decisive military advantage before attacking. A few turns of full-on EP generation against your target could make things easier, but I don't think it'll be necessary here.

* I seem to say this every time I look at someone's game, but... EXPLORE!! It's so much easier to plan your game when you know what you're up against. As it is, I struggled to decide what I would do next in your position, because I'm not used to having so little knowledge of my opponents. As it is, Hammy is prepared to gift you his World Map, which reveals a lot. But you really should've explored more widely early on.

Hope that helps. :)
 
Thanks for response. The first time I even thought about espionage was when I read your response. I was building castles for the trade routes.

I think I am the point of going after a domination victory. I have never won a game in this way, and I am certainly not an accomplished war-monger, though. My military is filled with obsolescent units (9 warriors and 9 skirmishers), it would take around 2600 gold to upgrade them all, that would take me 14 turns at 100% gold. I had hoped to get Justinian as a peaceful vassal when I gave him back the citiy the barbs took. but it was only +1.
 
Going for domination, played 300 years since last post. Justinian vassaled peacefully. declared war on Boudica and drove a wedge of conqeured cities down the middle of her civ. She capitulated after I took a city i needed for a quest. I have enough population for domination victory, but am a long way from the land area I need. (currently at 37%, ned 64%) Changed civics to support wartime.seems like i need to research optics and send out some exploration caravels. I never'd an AP resolution, so I may be the villian soon.
 

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Nice work. This game is all but won. :goodjob:

Take out Rome first, to prevent any possibility of Pacal winning an AP victory - you could raze Antium (the AP city), just to be on the safe side (and to prevent any other AP-related irritations).

It's possible that Pacal will accept Rome as a vassal during the war, and thus join the fight against you and your vassals. If this does happen, Justinian will be in a very precarious position, so make sure he has the techs and resources to put up an effective defence. If you can spare a few, you could even gift him some more modern units as an insurance against this eventuality. However, I think it more likely that Pacal will take one look at your power graph, and go hide in the corner.

Once Jules is destroyed or vassalised, turn your attentions to Pacal. Conquering his lands (in addition to Rome) would probably put you over the finishing line. Alternatively, you could vassalise him as well, and end the game with a naval invasion of the as-yet-undiscovered 7th civ. Whether you'd get to domination or conquest (by vassalising that last civ) first, I'm not sure. But by that point it doesn't really matter, does it? ;)

After that, it's time to move up to Prince, which, from the looks of this game, shouldn't pose too big a challenge. :yeah:

btw, sorry about the espionage comment in my previous post, that was a mistake. I had misread the sliders and thought you were running 100% espionage. :blush:
 
with a score of 87000. domination? (% pop and land ) vassalized 5 civs
year 1660
that crushes my previous high score of 49000.

Thanks for the assist.
 
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