Hellenism Salesman
Emperor
For context, I'm not really a Domination player. But this time I had decided that I was going to finish a Domination game, and chose Suleiman, since his specialization to siege units seemed interesting. So, a Prince Domination game on a small Pangaea map as Suleiman. What could go wrong?
Everything.
The first hiccup of Domination is the Civs you have to fight. Fortunately there wasn't the Kongo to make ranged units worthless or Nubia to make ancient-era war a nightmare, but we did have a pretty bad lineup.
Canada, Macedon, Maori, Inca, and Germany.
Here's the issues with each:
I had captured all the Incan cities and was gathering freshly researched medieval units and advancing towards Canada. There were a couple complications with that already: the shortest route was a very small chokepoint thanks to the Macedonian empire's borders, some very unfortunate mountains, and a militaristic city-state right in the middle, too. And while that's annoying, I figured it wasn't something I couldn't deal with. Just push through the choke, take Canada's cities and be done with it. Simple.
But there was one very small, but very important problem. A single Maori settler. Now, I do not understand the AI and I doubt any of us every will, but this moment in particular was even more bewildering than usual. The Maori capital (and the rest of their empire) was on the other side of the continent, off in the east. Canada was up in the northwest part of the map. This means that Kupe dragged that poor little settler all the way from one side of the map to the other, past both my empire and Germany's empires and decided that here, right here would be the best place to settle.
Sandwiched between all of Canada, Macedon, and me. Fantastic city location, Kupe. I can't even remember if it had a water source or not.
Safe to say, that city never stood a chance thanks to loyalty pressure. And sure, that was a weird choice by the AI, but how does that factor into Domination?
Heheh... well...
My army was right up against Canada's borders when I could finally use the Formal War, and the moment I did things went horribly wrong. I wasn't just fighting Canada... I was fighting 3 people at once.
Kupe's horrible city inevitably became a free city, and while it was close enough to Canada's cities to fall to their loyalty pressure, it was also far enough away so the swordsmen it would spawn would attack exclusively my troops. So now I had an extra two swordsmen and who knows what else to deal with.
Next, there were northern barbarians. Since Canada settles on the tundra and just below the top of the map, they will be adjacent to snow barbarian camps. And of course, they too had on-level units. So, more crossbowmen and swordsman, this time from above.
And lastly, Canada themselves, who were able to gather walls and a heaping of ranged units while I fought off three wars at once.
Nice.
But I'm not done yet- it got worse. My army near Canada's borders simply was never prepared to deal with the combined strength of three armies, and quickly fell, but not after capturing a city.
And you see, I'd been in control of the Incan capital for a long, long time now, so if I had any diplo favor it would have already been drained well-past 0.
And of course, to make things worse for me, Canada decided to be Canada and declared a military emergency on me.
To sour things even more though, there wasn't just one military emergency proposed in that world congress meeting- there were two. One for me, and one for Barbarossa.
And of course, Barbarossa's one failed but mine passed.
Oh, and did I mention that Alexander had suddenly settled a city to block off the only passage to Canada's cities, and he'd already constructed walls in it? Or how about Canada snatching suzerain-ship of the military city-state between him and I, throwing another army for me to deal with.
How fun. Man, I just love going for Domination victories.
Safe to say, I didn't win that game.
Everything.
The first hiccup of Domination is the Civs you have to fight. Fortunately there wasn't the Kongo to make ranged units worthless or Nubia to make ancient-era war a nightmare, but we did have a pretty bad lineup.
Canada, Macedon, Maori, Inca, and Germany.
Here's the issues with each:
- Canada: No suprise wars. Maybe not the biggest hiccup but still annoying when your war declaration has to be delayed by 5 turns.
- Macedon: Despite the fact Alex likes war, I was denounced by him for a solid 100 turns. The man's hard to please and isn't afraid to go to war for arbitrary reasons.
- Maori: Another case where the leader just won't like you. I have no clue how or why Kupe thinks I'm ruining the environment when I haven't even discovered pollution but that's how his AI rolls.
- Germany: Not the worst opponent ever, it's just that the AI loves to stockpile units with him and then do absolutely nothing. It's just a big meatshield.
- Inca: This was the one Civ I had no issues with. I defeated them but was unable to defeat anyone else.
I had captured all the Incan cities and was gathering freshly researched medieval units and advancing towards Canada. There were a couple complications with that already: the shortest route was a very small chokepoint thanks to the Macedonian empire's borders, some very unfortunate mountains, and a militaristic city-state right in the middle, too. And while that's annoying, I figured it wasn't something I couldn't deal with. Just push through the choke, take Canada's cities and be done with it. Simple.
But there was one very small, but very important problem. A single Maori settler. Now, I do not understand the AI and I doubt any of us every will, but this moment in particular was even more bewildering than usual. The Maori capital (and the rest of their empire) was on the other side of the continent, off in the east. Canada was up in the northwest part of the map. This means that Kupe dragged that poor little settler all the way from one side of the map to the other, past both my empire and Germany's empires and decided that here, right here would be the best place to settle.
Sandwiched between all of Canada, Macedon, and me. Fantastic city location, Kupe. I can't even remember if it had a water source or not.
Safe to say, that city never stood a chance thanks to loyalty pressure. And sure, that was a weird choice by the AI, but how does that factor into Domination?
Heheh... well...
My army was right up against Canada's borders when I could finally use the Formal War, and the moment I did things went horribly wrong. I wasn't just fighting Canada... I was fighting 3 people at once.
Kupe's horrible city inevitably became a free city, and while it was close enough to Canada's cities to fall to their loyalty pressure, it was also far enough away so the swordsmen it would spawn would attack exclusively my troops. So now I had an extra two swordsmen and who knows what else to deal with.
Next, there were northern barbarians. Since Canada settles on the tundra and just below the top of the map, they will be adjacent to snow barbarian camps. And of course, they too had on-level units. So, more crossbowmen and swordsman, this time from above.
And lastly, Canada themselves, who were able to gather walls and a heaping of ranged units while I fought off three wars at once.
Nice.
But I'm not done yet- it got worse. My army near Canada's borders simply was never prepared to deal with the combined strength of three armies, and quickly fell, but not after capturing a city.
And you see, I'd been in control of the Incan capital for a long, long time now, so if I had any diplo favor it would have already been drained well-past 0.
And of course, to make things worse for me, Canada decided to be Canada and declared a military emergency on me.
To sour things even more though, there wasn't just one military emergency proposed in that world congress meeting- there were two. One for me, and one for Barbarossa.
And of course, Barbarossa's one failed but mine passed.
Oh, and did I mention that Alexander had suddenly settled a city to block off the only passage to Canada's cities, and he'd already constructed walls in it? Or how about Canada snatching suzerain-ship of the military city-state between him and I, throwing another army for me to deal with.
How fun. Man, I just love going for Domination victories.
Safe to say, I didn't win that game.
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