The empty world challenge

[AnotherPacifist]

Being a pacifist, I'm not the one to try this game. But just an idea about how to avoid the redundant domination/conquest victory conditions:

Start as Greece (squat Rome of course, kill Babylon and Egypt with the blizzrd technique and then Carthage) or Rome (kill Carthage and Greece quickly and then kill Egypt and Babylon). NO VASSALS. Roads are essential. The key is to leave no cities behind for respawns.

Build up 4 stacks, which will kill the following civs respectively before any cities are founded:

1. Asia/Africa stack (whatever it takes, but will need lots of pikemen for Arabia): kills Ethiopia, then Persia, then Arabia. Raze all Ethiopian cities (so that they will never reappear), keep one Persian city to get to India. Split force to get to Mali in time. When India collapses, raze most cities but keep Delhi, when Biology available chop your way through to Khmer and then China.

2. European stack 1: kills Spain, then France (with some help from European stack 2), then Germany and recover in time for Netherlands. Then off to get reinforcements to kill Turkey.

3. European stack 2: kills Vikings (550 AD), then make it to Moscow in time for Russia (same spawn time as Germans so need 2 stacks). Trek to Mongolia.

4. European stack 3: Just need 1 cannon and 4-5 troops for England's 4 longbowmen. Raze Inverness of course before England spawns.

Build a fleet to get to China and Japan and combine European stacks 1, 3.

Obviously get conquistidors for Aztecs and Incans.

If done correctly America will not even have a chance to spawn, but by that time you can probably send your upgraded/native-killing conquistidors to wait around Washington.

There, empty Europe (except your cities), Africa (except Egypt), most of Asia, and definitely empty America and Australia.

Essential wonders are colosseum, great wall in Europe (but kill all barbs so that they won't flip to the spawning civs). Other will be nice but not essential. Essential techs are all military (math, guilds, gunpowder, early rifling).

 

[Theodorick]

I did this before, but I left Ethiopia, China, Inca, and America alone, so the game would be interesting in the modern age. One empire per continent basically--except for Australia and Antartica--and each empire eventually got fairly powerful, and dominated the continent; even Ethiopia surprised me.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

With the most recent patch it's probably not possible to have lots of cities in other people's turf, but your 4 empires are probably the most logical ones (maybe substitute Mongolia for China). There's still a big chance for usually unstable empires like Ethiopia to collapse or have respawns of other civs (Egypt).

Has anybody ever won conquest without triggering domination?

 

[blizzrd]

I've thought about trying this approach, but the stability hit for razing cities caused my nation (Russia) to collapse before I got very far into the implementation of the "scorched earth" policy. I had razed the English, Viking and German cities and was on the brink of collapse. When I razed a few Mongolian cities I went into civil war before even reaching the Siberian UHV condition.

A suggestion I have since received though was to use the Occupation civic (which I had not considered). I don't think I've ever used the Occupation civic in fact, not even sure exactly which tech opens it up as a civic choice. But if the "+2" given by Occupation is the same magnitude as the penalty for razing (which is not clear to me) then it probably would have made the difference in stablising for my Russian game.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

That's why I proposed killing the civs at the moment they spawn (i.e. before they ever found any cities). It's doable with catapults and cannons, all you need is to damage their starting units and have more units that can kill their starting units. (That is how France is able to kill Germany and Germany/Netherlands in my "killing from GO" series)

E.g. with Mongolia (7 keshiks, 2 horse archers, 3 crossbowmen), you need something like 2-3 cannons, all promoted to 10% collateral damage, 3 elephants (to kill the crossbowmen), and then all knights or pikemen (9 should do it, but 2 more for safety). If a city does get founded, it will only be one that you have to raze, not 10.

 

[Edungeon]

In older versions it was possible to raze all civs with Babylon, the Ashitaru Bowman could pass by jungle... i really don't know now, but it was cool as hell killing everybody in 50 turns xD!

 

[wr4th]

In older versions it was possible to raze all civs with Babylon, the Ashitaru Bowman could pass by jungle... i really don't know now, but it was cool as hell killing everybody in 50 turns xD!

I've done it in this version with egypt and war chariots. Although i took me until after the greek spawn to kill off china, so i had to raze them as well.

 

[Úmarth]

Is it a challenge if you tell us how to do it...?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I've done it in this version with egypt and war chariots. Although i took me until after the greek spawn to kill off china, so i had to raze them as well.

Some pictures??

 

[wr4th]

Some pictures??

Sry, i don't have the save game any more. But it was pretty straight forward. Found 1 N. worker. barracks. chariots...
Tech: animal husbandry and then all other worker techs to increase production.
You need about 2 chariots per archer. First kill babylon ofc (actually i kept babylon). 3 chariots head to china, 2 to india. Then kill off the independents. Don't forget Samarkand.
When greece spawns wait until he moves out the phalanxes and raze athens and byzantion.

EDIT
I got a screenshot from the hall of fame. Strangely it was counted as a historical victory.

 

[Al-Iskander]

Good timing on that Chinese archer upgrade event

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Must be a bug, it would have been nice to have a Conquest victory on your board.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Tried it with Greece, didn't make it in time. Roman roads are so much better to get from Spain to France to Germany to Russia. Building Hagia Sophia enabled our workers to be much more efficient.
So now that the Romans have conquered and left Europe and Russia empty (maybe they'll build Amsterdam and a Russian city since some of their stray horse archers/galleys are still alive, and therefore can't be reborn and take away my cities), they'll try to get gunpowder and maybe even military tradition before the Mongolians and Turks appear. Of course the Portuguese will need to be dealt with. Mali and Ethiopia are probably going to die anyway so I won't bother until later. There's still our traditional enemies, the Persians and Arabs to take care of when we have rifles and infantry...

PS Canusium is known as "La Piccola Roma"--not so piccola if you have the Moai Statues. I see now when Mediolanum's alway so cramped when Rome's built and Frankfurt/Mainz are in the way.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

It's 1500 and I've killed everybody except the 3 far East civs, Persia, Mali, and Ethiopia. But the Independents are counted as an extra civ! Which means that even if China, who's close to collapsing, were to collapse, I still have to raze their cities. Which is not good (I'm only at 1 star expansion now). All the Americas are empty except for Oaxaca which I kept for its canal.

BTW, if you raze a city under occupation, is the effect essentially neutral? (Or does the instability from razing outweigh the stability from conquering the city?)

 

[blizzrd]

BTW, if you raze a city under occupation, is the effect essentially neutral? (Or does the instability from razing outweigh the stability from conquering the city?)

A good question for sure. Rhye?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Here's the code for razing cities in stability.py:

def onCityRazed(self, iOwner, playerType, city):

if (iOwner < con.iNumPlayers):
self.setStability(iOwner, self.getStability(iOwner) - 3 )
#print("Stability - city razed", -3, iOwner)
self.setParameter(iOwner, iParExpansionE, True, - 3)

if (playerType < con.iNumPlayers):
iTempExpansionThreshold = self.getStability(playerType)
if (gc.getPlayer(playerType).getCivics(5) == 28):
self.setStability(playerType, self.getStability(playerType) - 2 ) #balance the +2 and makes 0 for city razed
self.setParameter(playerType, iParExpansionE, True, self.getStability(playerType) - iTempExpansionThreshold)


So basically you don't get the +2 stability on capturing a city, but the -3 is already deducted, which means net -3 stability.

I.e. it is IMPOSSIBLE to raze all those tiny Persian, Malian, Khmer and Japanese cities. I'm already at -91 expansion, buffered by an unending golden age.

Unfair to say the least, after all this work (I've even prepared 8 cannon, 10 riflemen around future Washington's site)...

 

[blizzrd]

I've thought about this some more. I think the solution is that you have to time the razing to be all in the same turn. You won't collapse mid-way through one of your turns if you raze 30 cities during the same turn.

Once you knock all but the last defender in those independent cities, you just need to keep one unit nearby for a while and pause. I think you are going to need at least Tanks, if not Modern Armor to pull it off though. Bombers would help to be sure that the last defender was softened up appropriately.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Maybe the independents don't count?? Because as of last count, the victory screen only counts 6 rivals left (Mali, Persia, China, Japan, Khmer, Ethiopia)

I also mistakenly vassalized China, thinking it would collapse eventually. Is there any way to undo a vassalization other than forcing a collapse?

Another idea would be to send an army of spies to destroy a lot of improvements (which causes instability) and cause unhappiness in all the cities. That would fit with police state (more spy points).

 

[blizzrd]

I think that the independents don't count for the Conquest victory condition. Whether they count for your "empty world" definition is probably up to you to determine I would have thought.

From my experience, if your capitulated vassal has satisfied 2 out of the 3 conditions for freedom and you demand a resource from them, they will break the vassal agreement and rebel.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

From my experience, if your capitulated vassal has satisfied 2 out of the 3 conditions for freedom and you demand a resource from them, they will break the vassal agreement and rebel.

But I got China as a voluntary vassal (even after I declared war on them and made peace)...I was too greedy for some happy faces.

So I can still collapse my rivals and hope win a conquest victory, even though the Old World won't be empty (the New World certainly is, since the remaining AIs don't have any plans to found cities there).