SoI Domination Challenge

[dmitrytrue]

Armenia domination.
1310AD, 13467 score.
25% land area without vassals.
Victory was achieved on second turn after the end of golden age, with stability almost -200 ;D
The main thing in Armenia games to build second or even first city in hills near pigs, iron, copper. That city produce horse archer every 4~ turns or vishap infantry every 2-3 turns(btw vishaps are infinite power, forified in hills they are invincible) Also horse archers mercenaries are frequently available for Armenia. With such amount of units we can easily conquer mesopotamia, not even need to wait until Buids will be able to help.
After you done with abbasids it is only matter of time, or maybe matter of rushing, then you will be able to achieve domination.
The screenshots:

 

[dmitrytrue]

Abbasid domination. "Suleiman the Magnificent" at last ;D
1141AD, score 36619
25% land area with 3 vassals(fatiminds by conquest, makuria, rum)
Easiest domination. I am sure that it is possible to make it even faster and even on caliph difficulty.
1.The main thing is access to horses and fast tech to selective breeding, adopting slavery and producing ghulams, especially ghulams horse archers. But access to horses near Medina may be easily broken by war with Yemen or independent Yerusalim. Also source of horses is available in Armenia. Conquer Armenia in a beginning is a wise choise, because it is contested area with decent production and horses ;D
2.Since cityplacing on food resourses provide full yield, it is better to build Baghdad right on wheat. In that place 3 mines in hills/plains and quarry will be available for city. With heroic epic built, Baghdad produces 1 regular lancer per turn ;D
3.Abbasids have huge reserve of stability, most part of game i was very solid/solid and only in last few turns became unstable and started golden age.
The screenshots:

 

[youtien]

Market economy, because +1 specialist per city better, than +1 trade route with 1 commerce ;D
--
Is your Armenia game, with 17.000 score was won on caliph?
I've just ended my game, ended few turns earlier, but score only 13.000.

No, just sultan, but I had many more population than you, because I massed farms, and I had Roman emperor.... don't know how it calculates.

 

[Jusos2108]

This rather easy and I really took the time, since I hadn't played SoI in a while and had forgotten some tricks. Anyways, I took out the Byzantines and Antioch stopped to tech and then rolled down the Levant and Iraq simultaniously. I moved on to Egypt and Nubia and Greater Iran to get rest of the land. Zengids vassalised and Georgia was capitulated.

This can be easily improved to about 1350 at least. Ak Kouynly spawn slowed the process significantly and I still had one Great Artist to use when I won.

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

This was pretty much straight forward conquering without stopping to heal too much. The early conquering is very important, if it goes badly, you might as well restart. After getting Light Cavalry the only thing you need to do is to avoid winning the URV or UHV before Domination. Only vassal was Ak Kouynly through capitulation.

Spoiler :

 

[dmitrytrue]

This was pretty much straight forward conquering without stopping to heal too much. The early conquering is very important, if it goes badly, you might as well restart. After getting Light Cavalry the only thing you need to do is to avoid winning the URV or UHV before Domination. Only vassal was Ak Kouynly through capitulation.

how does overall score calculates?
20.000 score in 1636...
Maybe it is something except population, techs, worldwonders, winning date?

 

[Jusos2108]

Embryodead fixed the scoring so that it counts the number of turns played per civ or something like that, as a result it is more RFC friendly.

 

[Jusos2108]

I see. One should go cottage economy, free labor for long run. And which one is better, market economy or merchant capitalism?

I usually go for Free Labor and Agrarianism. The cottages on the food rich areas grow quickly enough and food poor areas still contribute to Economy.

 

[Jusos2108]

If there are too many Castles in Greater Iran the initial push becomes slow and the overall victory even slower. However, I am quite happy with this, since Timurids have a really hard time teching and expanding at the same time. Also the Shaybanid invasion is really annoying.

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

The starting situation was bad and the Ayyubids killed one of my precious Royal Mamluks before I could even move. I managed to crush them fairly quickly though due to their decreasing stability. In conquered Levant and Iraq first and capitulated Ak Kouynly after their spawn. AK is a great vassal due to their big stability map. Rûm vassalised and Ottomans were also capitulated, but I kept Constantinople for the title to work. I was close to winning before the Safavids spawned, but they flipped few of AK's cities and I had to capitulate them to win. Got a Suleiman score nontheless.


The development of the world:

Spoiler :

Other pics:

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

Although I managed to take Constantinople early, the starting situation was bad due to the really strong Mamluks (with vassals Cilicia and Rûm), who controlled everything south of Antioch. I did a slight overkill, while preparing to fight them, but my eccessive troops managed to conquer Levant, Egypt, Hejaz, Nobatia, Bahrain and Yemen really quickly after their collapse, which was due to my spy operations and smashing their main army. Ak Kouynly, Oman and Safavids were vassals.
Anyways, without strong Mamluks this can done a lot quicker.


The Development of the world:

Spoiler :

Constantinople grabbed Kizil Kule early, so it became a monster wonder spammer:

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

It was soon pretty clear that Fatimids are too weak to prevent the Ayyubid spawn, so I couldn't take Damascus early, which in the end costs many turns. Anyways, I prepared for their spawn and I was able collapse them quite some time before the Mamluks came around. After taking Egypt PoA offered to peace vassalise and I accepted, because I already had Tripoli. I took Iraq before Ak Kouynly's spawn and then capitulated them as well as I feared for PoA to collapse, but feeding them few cities buffed them to survive. Soon after Ottomans declared war and I capitulated them as well, after which my crusader army rallied to Iran to capitulate Safavidss as well, which was enough to win.

The development of the world:

Spoiler :

Other pics:

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

From the beginning Egypt produced troops and the quickly conquered Levant focused on economy. After crushing the Mamluks, Zengids vassalised and I took Yemen for the incense and coffee, while marching to Iraq. The Seljuks came two turns short of providing me enough silk to complete the Kutlug-Timur, so I took Constantinople and Ravy to finish it and further buff the corporations.

I also vassalised Rûm and capitulated Ottomans and Ak Kouynly, I was only few decimals of winning when the Safavids spawned and set me back for a while, but finishing them was enough for the win.

The development of the Middle East:

Spoiler :

Other pics, companies yielded nicely in the end:

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

The first priority is securing Hindustan, which is fairly simple, I capitulated Bahmanis to avoid UHV and to keep the crappy cities into a minimum. Meanwhile, I was able to tech all the way to Musketman, so my huge army was prepared to fight on every front. First I secured my northern border by smashing the Shaybanid stack wondering around Eastern Khorasan and taking few of their cities, while threathening to more, they capitulated. I did the same to Ak Kouynly, although they capitulated even faster. For my surprise, I noticed that I had enough land, but I was slightly short of population, so I declared war on the Fatimids and vassal Ottomans. Together they formed quite a formidable foe, Ottomans even had Heavy Cavalry.

I fought a great battle against main Fatimid stack outside Baghdad, which resulted in my decisive victory: I lost 2 Heavy Cavalries, 1 Siege Elephant and two Musketmen, while they lost 11 Heavy Lancers, 13 Noble Horsemen, 4 Arqebusiers, 3 Marksmen, 2 Ghulam Horse Archers, 5 Heavy Infantry and 5 Pikemen. I also devoured an Ottoman stack, while taking control of Iraq (check the power rankings). That was enough to to make the Fatimids to sign peace for a city, which I took and fulfilled the population margin as well.

This was a really nice game!

My army and power rankings:

Spoiler :

The development of Middle East:

Spoiler :

Other stuff:

Spoiler :

 

[dmitrytrue]

wow. such a nice python exception :sarcasm;
But minimap looks impressive. Congratulations with another domination victory

 

[Jusos2108]

Thanks dmitrytrue! From this page I could judge that we are the only ones following this thread.

 

[dmitrytrue]

Yes. But it is even strange. Unusual and unique mod. Wonder why it is not so popular like DoC.

 

[Jusos2108]

From the start I took the Shahanshah-provinces and after getting my economy started I focused on teching towards Heavy Horse Archers to counter the Mongols. I had around 60 of them when Mongols came, so they were easily crsuhed with couple suicide catapults per stack. At this point Estafan also produced skirmish HHAs. Right after the Mongols had terrorised Iraq, I came in to mop up them and the surviving indies. Simultaniously PoA and Ayyubids offered to vassalise, Ayyubids for war against Mamluks which I gladly took and crushed them before they became a threat. Liberating cities to Ayyubids kept them from collapsing although this cost me some stability.

Karaman had also vassalised at some point, so I was close to victory and focusing on culture gave it to me fairly quickly.


The development of the Middle East:

Spoiler :

Other stuff:

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

Yes. But it is even strange. Unusual and unique mod. Wonder why it is not so popular like DoC.

I think that the civs are too unknown for most of the people here. Although it was voted as the best rfc mod, but strangely I can't seem to find the poll anywhere. EDIT: here

 

[alpav]

I love to play this mod, but I have no interest in domination victories.