Speeding up mid-game domination game? (Long Post)

[RaidandTrade]

I'm normally a peaceful guy but this time I'm Assyria (King difficulty on Continents - no patch, I’m on a Mac) and me and my towers are going a different path to victory. I won in turn 445, but want some tips on how to speed up the bloodshed in the mid-game.

Post is divided into short and long version. Long version is the walk-through to put the question into context.

THE SHORT VERSION

My continent under control by turn 215 (2 divs eliminated, 1 crippled) so I want to export my carnage to foreign shores but it’s taken until turn 364 before my first war starts because it’s taken so long to tech to aircraft carriers…

How do you guys wage war across the sea with low tech units? (Particularly bearing in mind I’m near the Dutch with a fleet of Sea Beggars).

THE LONG VERSION

PART 1 - CARVE UP MY CONTINENT

Steal CS worker - check
Temple of Artemis - check
Second city - check
Everyone happy - check

Time to meet the neighbours.

Carthage through the jungle to my south east.
Rome to my south below Carthage.
Amsterdam in what I thought at the time was the continent's south east corner with a tight four city line across the bottom.

Carthage DOWs Rome (turn 76). No towers yet - oh well. Pile in anyway. Time it right and we can pick up the scraps. Troops in position. DOW.

That very turn Carthage and Rome go peaceful (turn 82). Great. Was counting on my next conquest helping with my first and am so not ready. Oh well, hang about, pillage, get shot and XP up a little. I must have been a pain in the ... because Rome offers Antium in turn 91.

Oh, okay. See, Antium's all location location location: sandwiched between Rome, Amsterdam and Carthage's second city that has a nice road up to Carthage.

Time to shatter ten turns of peace. Unfortunately Rome hasn't been idle in that time and has popped two cities on Carthages's borders (one of them near me as well).

But this time I've got towers: two in Antium and two nearly done.

Rome falls down like a house of cards (121) and it's little outposts (offered but rejected in peace negotiations) succumb even faster (by turn 129). Raze one, keep one as it was handy to Carthage.

Once my troops made it through the jungle (turn 138) it was time to DOW Carthage and tease Amsterdam by popping a Cidatel south of Antium in the mountain pass.

Carthage ceases to exist as a civilisation in turn 141.

A period of consolidation ensues to tech up and build up for the Netherlands but gets interrupted by Indonesia trying to settle near me in turn 189. War over the death of a settler ensues with no further casualties on either side and I then get paid for peace. Sweet. Although I'm a warmonger to them for the rest of the game and can't buy Nutmeg.

Having not learned from the Indonesians, a Dutch settler takes a few too many arrows or crossbow bolts (can't remember and not important) and it's time for Amsterdam in turn 206 until it falls in turn 215. At least William was kind enough to leave me the Forbidden Palace as well as the Great Wall (which slowed down Amsterdam’s capture).

I didn’t wipe out Bill’s other 3 cities as I wanted to get off my continent and find the next wave of conquests.

Question: In this position (i.e., most of his army done, cities surrounded BUT knowing that Indonesia is sailing around and that world congress isn't far away), would have you wiped out William or tempered your aggression?

PART 2 - THE INTERLUDE

So from turn 215 to turn 364 I’m building and researching. Hiawatha puts a city down on my continent so we have a brief skirmish and I lose a couple of Privateers for my trouble for no net gain.

William decides to DOW me while I’m fighting Hiawatha. I resist the temptation to finish the job and content myself with XPing my border units and pillaging his trade routes. (I didn’t want to be branded a warmonger by other civs too early).

Question: Would you have risked the warmonger tag at this point? Only the Dutch and Indonesians tagged me at this point.

PART 3 - FOREIGN SKIRMISH

Turn 364 arrives and Hiawatha invites me to invade the Celts so I send a carrier with 2 bombers, a destroyer and a landship to Edinburgh. I muck about waiting for Hiawatha but he’s a no show and two units pay for my delay. I’ve finally teched up to rocket artillery and that (eventually) takes care of Edinburgh in turn 384.

Babylon invites me to invade Hiawatha in turn 409. He’s on Edinburgh’s northern border so am happy to agree and take his capital in turn 416. Yay me.

At this point I’ve already abstained from voting for World Leader 3 times and continue to do so for the rest of the game.

PART 4 - MOP UP / BLITZ

Indonesia gets it then. They’ve been slandering me the whole game with this warmonger thing so Jakarta gets a couple of nukes and a visit from the XCOM squad in turns 440 - 442. We never reach peace but really my city state allies and William are pounding him enough so I don’t care.

I could have done so earlier but I complete the Apollo program in turn 443 just because. I have enough production to build the spaceship at a whim.

Turns 443 - 445 are for Babylon. I watch from the deck of my missile cruiser (which sits idle) as the Stealth Bombers and Giant Death Robots take care of or ignore the modern era units and Babylon falls hailing my first domination victory.

I probably wasted some time between turn 416 and 440 building a stupid number of units but really want to know: How do I avoid sitting around for so much of the mid-game and losing 149 turns to consolidation and research?

 

[FromBirth]

Only read the short post but...
Ally a CS or 2 which creates a beach head for you to land. No need to wait for air support at all.
Don't even need a CS beach head if there's enough space to land a few defensive units first though the allied CS will help to distract your soon to be crushed oponent.

 

[joshua43214]

Short Answer: You are waiting way to long.

Longer Answer:
The AI on your difficulty does not build enough units or tech fast enough to be a threat.
A general strat that works well up to King difficulty (do not use on Emperor or above):
Settle a hill (does not need to be a river or mountain), settle a mining lux if possible.
tech order: Archery, Pottery, Writing, Calendar, Mining, then beeline to Construction.
BO: 2 scouts, shrine (only if you can get +4 fpt, otherwise ignore), Archers (you should be able to build 2 and buy 1), GL, NC (interrupt to build the HG). You will want to pick up BW fairly early and make a couple of spears, and make a couple of horseman.

Take your three archers and go kill your closest neighbor, ignore the warmonger penalty. This is much easier on Pangaea maps, after construction just head for machinery then artillery. If you play a continents map, head to machinery, then education, then Astronomy (this slows you down by 30ish turns), and then back down to artillery. Make a second army as you go and just embark the whole lot (including a worker) and start killing on the other continent. Waiting to get boats just slows things down unless you get lucky and all the caps are coastal.

You should be able to win in under 200 turns once you get the hang of it. On prince and King, you will probably not even get to cannons before you are done.

Stick to one or 2 cities, make sure the second city has 2 unique lux's or do not settle it. Raze all cities except caps. You do not need them since you will finish the game before they help you. Take Tradition: Legalism, Monarchy only. Full Honor going right side first. You must keep momentum going, you will be running a large gold per turn deficit and you need to just keep capturing cities and pillaging tiles to make your money.

 

[FrostK]

I guess u have very low science.