Things I've learned from my first domination game

[Vajrajina]

Some remarks I made, and I would like to know if they are accurate:

1. Pre-Industrial war is pointless.

It seems to me that unless you are crammed into a corner and cannot expand as much as you would like early on, or there is only one or two other civs on the continent, you should definitely avoid any warfare until the industrial era to get Artillery, more happiness, and an Ideology which makes conquest in it's earnest possible. If you do go for conquest, even if you only take the capitals you will ram up way too much unhappiness, high maintenance costs for courthouse, and simply a useless city that is marginally better than one you would have founded yourself, not to mention the diplomatic consequences.

2. Science makes conquest possible.

Defending gives you huge advantages, and the AI will usually get the cheesy warmonger wonders before you do. So the only way to beat them is by out-teching them, since they can spam an endless horde of the current era-unit with no consequences, hence making your victory either very costly or impossible.

3. Artillery

Nuff said. Quite probably the best unit in the game.

4. Early warmongers....

Right now, I see Korea and Babylon as the best candidates for domination. I know that upgraded units can be cheesy (already heard the legend of the 2-tile ranged gatling gun that shoots twice), but why bother if you can shoot rockets at their musketmen? Is that correct? Is there a reason why you should choose an early warmongering civ (Huns, Mongols, Aztecs, Romans) apart from the chance to upgrade their units?

 

[tetley]

1. Pre-Industrial war is pointless.

Nope. Pre-Industrial war gives you unit promotions and Great Generals. The juicy promotions occur after Rough III and Open III. You can acquire cities in Peace deals which will preserve your diplomacy, and you can puppet cities instead of Annex, saving you the courthouse. It's not uncommon on Deity to make your move in Industrial, but to do that you need those uber-units BEFORE you make your move.

So the only way to beat them is by out-teching them, since they can spam an endless horde of the current era-unit with no consequences, hence making your victory either very costly or impossible

You can't out-tech them pre-industrial on Immortal and up. The endless horde is good-that gives you experienced units. As long as he's spinning on producing more and more units (only for you to kill them...), he is not developing his economy. So you ARE making progress; just not as quickly as you might have expected.

3. Artillery

Get some (pre-industrial) Crossbows with Range and Logistics promotions on them, and see if you still think Artillery is the best unit in the game. Don't get me wrong, Artillery is good, but.... Artillery can get Logistics, too, BTW. They can just be a little vulnerable to bombers and such.

Is there a reason why you should choose an early warmongering civ (Huns, Mongols, Aztecs, Romans)

All of the highest Hall-of-fame scores are posted as the Huns. And often they are getting the victory screen before they get a chance to upgrade their units.

 

[Chunkook]

1. Pre-Industrial war is pointless.

It isn't. I actually prefer earlier ear wars than later ones. That being said:
- You don't need Artillery to take a city, you need simple micromanagement and there - you haven't lost a unit and Alexander, a would-have-been a warmongering menace, has lost Athens.
- Happiness isn't a problem as long as you don't annex at once, and not every other city (You only need the best ones), have a few resources, a few happiness buildings, maybe a happiness pantheon, or an allied mercantile CS. Plenty of other options like religion, policies and trading.
- The city is not useless:
1)If it's a capital/good city, it's far better than founding one yourself since you have buildings built already, population grown and most likely a good location with nice tiles, which are already improved.
2) If it's a bad city, you can raze it or puppet it (Puppeting gives you an extra mediocre city, which in time pays for itself and the initial happiness problems. Razing it open up space for a city of your own, strategic paths or whatever.)
In both scenarios you looted a decent amount of gold (pillaging and the city), experience, a new good/bad city/open land, AND effectively hit the AI's progress, often enough, fatally.
- Diplomacy is a problem though,I agree with you on that one. Yet again, there is a guide in the Strategies' forum talking about war and diplomacy => even diplomacy isn't something gamebreaking and can be dealt with.

Science makes conquest possible.

Conquest is possible on its own. You don't need to outnumber or outtech the AI, just some basic micromanagement and preparation.

To get an earlier wonder, you need to:

1) Consider if you'll have enough food to grow quickly to a decent population while beelining the wonder. (You need to tech towards it from the start.)
2) Consider if you'll have enough production to be able to build it. Obviously with a flat grassland-river start you won't have the necessary production to beat the AI to it, but with a few hills or some plains, it's totally doable.

When it comes to the AI outnumbering you, it comes down to microing again. Maybe check out some LPers to get an idea.

3. Artillery

Of its Era? Sure. Other than that - no.
Some actually awesome units - Mangudai, Mandekalu, Impi, Ram, Ship of the Line, plenty more special units.

4. Early warmongers....

In order to be ahead of the AI in science, you need to invest your gold and production into that, which creates an imbalance, since if an AI attacks you while you are heading for that outteching (Which takes time obviously), you're going to be beaten. This tactic might pay out in the much later eras when the difference in technology would have become substantial.

Just watch a LP of a Civ like the Mongols and observer how are they used.


Anyways, excuse me if my post sounds rude, since I'm in disagreement with almost everything you said. That in now way implies that I'm right and you're wrong. I thought I'd make it clear, since my post does seem a bit cold.

 

[Ryika]

Juicy, juice horse archers. Move in, attack, move out... AI forgets that your units was even there. Repeat next turn. Imho it's easily the strongest and most reliable unit in the game in the hands of a player.

I think the biggest pro for later wars is the fact that they're really easy to do. Tech up like you do in just about any game, get the units ready, then go, outrange the AI and gg. Wel, except if Shaka actually conquered the other continent 100 turns earlier. Wars in the early game need somewhat decent unit control and also a balanced approach to empire management. I'm still extremely bad at deity domination.

 

[Vohbo]

Artillery is, in my opinion, only good if you have cannons ready to go and beeline for it, then go as soon as it is available. Artillery is so fragile against bombers it isn't even funny.
I'd say that Composite Bows are probably the best unit in the game

 

[Versaguy]

The early warmongering civs such as the Huns, Aztec, Mongol, Zulu are the 04 best civs for domination. I actually criticized ppl putting the battering ram as their favourite unit until one day I started playing the Huns. You can take out at least 3 immortal AI civs (and I mean not just regular AI, the warmonger AI that is) with just horse archer and rams.

 

[Trackmaster]

1: On the contrary, I find that if you're going to ever achieve a domination victory (assuming a higher difficulty level) you'll have to get it done quick, like have almost everything wrapped up before the Atomic age. Sure, your units will be better in the Atomic or Info age, but they'll have top notch units too, and probably Castles and Arsenals. Plus, there will be one or two other Civilizations that are spiraling out of control. Once that happens, you can't just flip on a light switch and decide to be a warmongerer out of the blue.

2: Yeah, I guess this kind of goes with #1. But, if you're going to be that technologically advanced and drag the game on that long, you might as well just go for a scientific victory. That's what its there for. As I said in #1, you won't be able to crack an empire that is 10 times as big as yours like flipping on a light switch.

3: I guess that this game is all about balance and trade-offs. The 3 range and the power is great for its era, but it comes at a cost. Usually at that point in the game you've wrapped up your land battles, and you need to switch continents (unless you're playing on a Pangaea map, and that's utter craziness). Which means that you need to focus on your navy, airforce, and melee units. Trying to set up an artillery on a beach is logistical nightmare, and if you could, you would obviously have total control of that shore and there would be no need for it.

4: This goes back to #2, they're science victory Civs, and while science helps, if the game has dragged on for that long, domination will be very difficult.



The key to domination is not just overpowering the other Civilizations, but how you handle assimilating their conquered cities into yours and how you handle diplomacy. Also, the maintenance costs will eat you alive for a massive horde, so you might not want to take many breaks. You need to be constantly pillaging and getting the gold from the Honor policy for killing units.

 

[Versaguy]

3: I guess that this game is all about balance and trade-offs. The 3 range and the power is great for its era, but it comes at a cost. Usually at that point in the game you've wrapped up your land battles, and you need to switch continents (unless you're playing on a Pangaea map, and that's utter craziness). Which means that you need to focus on your navy, airforce, and melee units. Trying to set up an artillery on a beach is logistical nightmare, and if you could, you would obviously have total control of that shore and there would be no need for it.

It would be possible to find a little piece of Normandy beach to settle a new city on the other continent to move all land units, upgrade then prepare to advance. However that can be quite a risky business due to lack of re-enforcement, plus their navy can also bombard from the sea. So to be safe I agree a good navy is still needed.

Army must start rolling as early as you feel confident but no later than the beginning of Renaissance in my opinion. I often played on large map with a basic rule that if I can not take out 4/9 civs fast enough before the industrial era ended I'd better prepare for other victory option

 

[Trackmaster]

It would be possible to find a little piece of Normandy beach to settle a new city on the other continent to move all land units, upgrade then prepare to advance. However that can be quite a risky business due to lack of re-enforcement, plus their navy can also bombard from the sea. So to be safe I agree a good navy is still needed.

Army must start rolling as early as you feel confident but no later than the beginning of Renaissance in my opinion. I often played on large map with a basic rule that if I can not take out 4/9 civs fast enough before the industrial era ended I'd better prepare for other victory option

But you have to keep in mind that you can't raze settled cities. So when you've decided to go domination, I usually like to minimize founded cities and rely on conquering them.

I guess that in real life, even though we the planet consists of continents and the east and west is separated by ocean, the majority of the first half of the 20th century wars, which are the basis that we think about modern fighting equipment, happened mostly around Europe, where you could have a lot of the good land combat with artillery, infantry, and Calvary. So that's kind of a failure of trying to have a "fair, balanced map" if you're trying to recreate history.

 

[civmaster17]

Juicy, juice horse archers. Move in, attack, move out... AI forgets that your units was even there. Repeat next turn. Imho it's easily the strongest and most reliable unit in the game in the hands of a player.

I think the biggest pro for later wars is the fact that they're really easy to do. Tech up like you do in just about any game, get the units ready, then go, outrange the AI and gg. Wel, except if Shaka actually conquered the other continent 100 turns earlier. Wars in the early game need somewhat decent unit control and also a balanced approach to empire management. I'm still extremely bad at deity domination.

Do you mean keshiks


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[Ryika]

Do you mean keshiks


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Oh... right. Yes, I do. Thanks for correcting.