Total Domination Challenge

[JeanBaptiste]

Maybe try Polynesia. Hope that you are on the 2 civ continent in a 2-6 split map. Meet the 6 civs on the 2nd continent ASAP and stay friendly for trading luxes and RA's. Try to get to Stealth by 200ish, then wipe out the map. It's likely that you will get DOWed by the other civ on your continent, but should be easy to defend in an OCC. Possibly use Tradition - Rationalism - Patronage - Freedom or Autocracy. Important wonders: HS/PT (of course), HG if at all possible, Kremlin. Brandenburg Gate would be nice to have as well, as would the Oracle. GL if you have a really ideal start, but I would prefer HG instead (probably impossible to get both on Deity). Worst case scenario - the other civ on your continent starts a perma-war with you and buys up all of the city states at the same time (greatly limiting your potential for oil/aluminum later in the game). This would be a reason for Patronage (policy to always start at 20 faction, so you could more easily ally CS with oil/aluminum later). Need: coastal river start with decent luxes to sell.

The problem with SBs and OCC is that you must have them based in your capital and won't be able to reach all cities. They would have to be complemented with carriers w. bombers/nukes and strong land units. You'll probably need missile cruisers loaded with nuclear missiles as well.

Korea is best suited for a GL-HG slingshot.

The Patronage route seems smart for the extra resources,

But seriously, this challenge is insane

 

[snarzberry]

yeah it's pretty frustrating, I've had several attempts now.

I'm starting to think of weird plans like Polynesia or Korea isolated and beelining all the way to giant death robots supported by regular bombers on carriers. lol.

My first strategy was involving heavy use of helicopter gunships, but I haven't been able to get it to work. With the ottomans, upgrading sipihai to copters gives you a 6 move unit that doesn't pay a move point to pillage. In a OCC you never keep any enemy lands so with loads of these bad boys you can literally pillage every tile in enemy lands. I've managed to take out a fairly large continent, but getting over to the other didn't work out.

 

[JeanBaptiste]

My first strategy was involving heavy use of helicopter gunships, but I haven't been able to get it to work. With the ottomans, upgrading sipihai to copters gives you a 6 move unit that doesn't pay a move point to pillage. In a OCC you never keep any enemy lands so with loads of these bad boys you can literally pillage every tile in enemy lands. I've managed to take out a fairly large continent, but getting over to the other didn't work out.

I like this approach. Do you have a bunch of jannisary-mech's as well?

I haven't started with something yet as I'm still struggling with my gaming laptop doing clean installs etc. But I'm kind of thinking a Sotl-rush with England, trying to have at least 10-12 of them taking out the coastal cities on the other continent. Something to start with at least

 

[Tabarnak]

SotL with +2 move might do the dirty work. I'Ve just finished the last G-Major(deity, tiny islands, large, epic) and finished at turn 203(approx. 400AD). But i did some insane moves like selling capitals right away and burning down cities without touching any units.

I dunno if it can more or less work for this challenge. But here is my toughts(high sea level is primordial) :

Beeline iron working with 3-4 cities(as usual). Don't kill everybody on your continent yet. Keep some of them for RAs to clean Steel as fast as possible while you beeline Navigation for turn 100. Throw SotL and longswordmen and clean the foreign coast. I suspect that below 180 turns might be possible with this approach if you can dodge runaway civs. You probably need 20+ iron for this though. It's all theorical but i might try this for next days(in fact i didn't really try yet...too much online poker ).

 

[snarzberry]

I like this approach. Do you have a bunch of jannisary-mech's as well?

Yeah that was the plan. The long time you have to wait before you can start conquering makes it difficult. Helicopter units still have to cross oceans like land units and it will be quite late in the game once you get over to the second continent which can prove problematic. Perhaps some mid game conquering with janissaries, but that delays the later stronger units and is pretty difficult on deity especially considering you're limited in actual unit numbers. I've given up on this for the time being. Probably could just go with mongolia and do it with keshiks but that's against the spirit of the challenge.

 

[Grendeldef]

If the OCC contest proves too hard to achieve we could swap it to something more manageable whilst keeping the original task in mind.
I'm suggesting something in the line of:

- map:terra
- standard settings apart from quick combat obviously allowed

target: total domination as previously

with extra rules of

1) you're only allowed to settle/annex one city on the starting landmass including anything you can reach before astronomy
2) for each city you settle on the other continent you may settle or annex one city on the starting continent
3) no restrictions on puppets, razing or selling cities
4) Polynesia & Mongols banned and if everyone is thinking of Babs their opening choice let's ban them, too as we want variety like Snarz's original challenge proved.

This shouldn't be impossible but the practises will be at least different from last challenge.
Views & suggestions are welcomed.

G

 

[Tabarnak]

Good idea. I just want to add that we shoud start with balanced ressources to ensure iron and horses everytime. This can let us at least defend properly, or better, kill a very close opponent for better survival later.

 

[Grendeldef]

I've never actually ticked the 'balanced resources' but if peeps agree with that it's fine by me.

G

 

[JeanBaptiste]

@Redrover57

Will you start a new thread with the OCC challenge? "Deity Challenge 5" perhaps?

 

[Tabarnak]

The ultimate challenge before switching to G&K

 

[Grendeldef]

OK, actually let's keep this simple & only one challenge per thread. I'll make new one as well.

G

 

[Grendeldef]

Reviving the old thread with G&K in mind - is this still doable or just much harder than it used to be. I admit that after few days of G&K there're obviously some L2P issues and gathered data from empiric testing is hardly sufficient to make anything but slightly educated guesses.
However, I've tried this only with new civs, mainly with Attila & Theodora to have wildly different approaches neither of which seemed to get me much of anywhere. One game with Attila a win seemed pausible but it'd been well over T300 and I fear that one of civs would have found other means of winning before that since they still manage industrial T140-150 and that point they're generally are well ahead of me.

Few observations:

- Tradition seems very viable for domination since the minor swap in Liberty makes a huge difference especially @deity.
- religion or not - either way it makes life easier for AI. Making succesful war can leave one without any religious bonuses for 150 and trying to even get a pantheon is away from building something else especially since pottery is then a must.
- teching is slower than before and there're no (early) RAs to cover it and usually I find myself much more below par than before - this is made worse by the relative crappines of highly promoted older units vs modern ones. I approve of the change, though. Generally @T150 when AIs have gone into industrial I feel comeback like Lazarus' is needed to overcome from behind.
- start is everything. Basically every position was winnable before but now it really doesn't seem so. Hammers are even more valuable than they were & map scripts seem to have stolen my riverside starts.
- stealing a worker from CS will get you warmongering status which doesn't help
- AI is a bit less likely to attack all and much less likely to DoW before T30. Also they have less units but since units can take more hits now it's roughly the same. Not much of visible improvement in their behaviour, though.
- AI coups can make your life with CS allies very expensive. In general spying is cool but it helps AI more.
- AI seems a bit less keen on REXing and in general there fewer cities in the world in any given time.
- there's huge difference between one's & AI's CS allies when it comes to aggressivity & sanity - nothing new here but very often I feel like shooting my own
- not sure anymore what wonders if any one should pursue - oddly enough Oracle has been easiest to get so far

So, anyone succeeded with this or just doing something else ? In general even a domination victory seems much harder than before which is good thing and it might even be that SBs are not a solution to every problem in the game.

G

 

[smallfish]

- there's huge difference between one's & AI's CS allies when it comes to aggressivity & sanity - nothing new here but very often I feel like shooting my own

This is something I've been noticing for sometime. CS allied with AI civs will tend to be far more aggressive than your own allies.

Like the CSes will charge into your flanks with 3 horsemen, kill as many units as possible, snatch a worker, while the main AI civ goes on and hammer your front. I don't see that happening much when THEY are my allies.

e: SBs are not a solution anymore, I fear. The last trump card a human player might have against those runaway types is gone for good.

 

[Grendeldef]

After messing around a bit I returned to this challenge with less than pacifistic attitude & decided to take 1st map with a possibility of riverside start & got it at once with one turn move. Otherwise nothing much, wine on 2nd & gold on 3rd ring. Teching straight for horse archers with worker from liberty.
Bismarck DoW'ed on T51, pushed him back with 3 HAs, took a city with 4 & ram few turns later when Monte joined the party on my doorsteps. Killed off his troops, took another city from Germany & got denounced by Dido for building too many cities.
Managed to settle my 2nd city & wiped Bis out @T80 after an impressive army of landsknechts. Bismarck was so keen on getting his cities back that a single barb managed to pillage 3 of Berlin's mines.
Few turns later Monte lost his capital to me & 2nd city to Dido but squeezed through the lines to settle an another city so I made peace with him. Waited few turns to heal up & DoW'ed Dido, took the Monte's original city, killed all units in sight & headed to Carthage & Utica - she didn't settle more than two cities. At this point I had 3 logistics + range HAs & 3 more with logistics so I took Utica, had a target practice session with her fleet & made peace for cash. This was T98 and at that point could've killed both off & have my own continent but lack of money & even more so, happiness.
Eventually I killed Dido @T115 and Monte when I made 1st contact with the other continent ~T140. Surprisingly noone is industrial @T150 so I might catch up eventually - wait & see.
The conquest part was ridiculously easy but maintaining happiness is not as I can't pay CSs nor are there barbs or other doable quests enough.

So I've cleared my continent faster than in any of my vanilla games due to huge capacity of HAs but there's no way this can be turned into sub T200 or even close but suddenly everything seems at least doable again but if I had to guess HAs are gonna get nerfed in some way and rightfully so but meanwhile these mini-keshiks are here for enjoyment.
5+3 start would've been nice but can't get everything. NC was finished ~T110 which is way too late but I took seaside location over production when settling the 2nd city. Hopefully I'll have time to finish this one soon.

G

 

[Grendeldef]

The game above is yet to be finished but after playing few sci games to check what's the AI is capable of I returned to this old challenge. As I wanted to use the new civs I took the Huns as I was familiar them and they're quite suited to this.

The Game, short version. Start was one of the best I've seen so far apart from lack of pastures. America DoW'd ~T30, Arabs ~T40 after I settled 2nd city near them and Japan completed the trio few turns later. America was easily pushed back but too far to make any offensive plans. Arabs wanted a 0-0 peace 10 turns later so I wiped Japan out apart from one city. Much land, few lux but as Korea was my only trade partner I was in constant lack of cash. At the same time Harun wiped Korea off totally and was becoming a runaway. I managed to ally 3 closest CSs but when Harun bought one them I DoW'd him ~T85 & started a very slow campaign with HAs. As good as they are terrain can slow them a lot and the time of rams was gone - nothing to keep them alive even for a single attack.
I reached Mecca ~T150 when HAs did 3-6 dmg per hit but before artillery they were the only thing that stayed alive. T180 I left Harun with one city. Meanwhile I suddenly made DoF with Washington and eventually with Nappy from the continent. Unluckily the was a coastal passage between continents so Harun & Washington made contact with the rest 100 turns before me.
While beating Harun Egypt was #1 in everything and hostile to me. After getting few frigates I DoW'd and was planning to make his fleet mine. Decent plan, crappy result as he only had privateers. Slowly getting xp while teching for battleships nothing much happened but when battleships arrived everything changed. Even without logistics hal a dozen of them can wipe a city with 150def into smithereens in one or two turns; the troops nearby are optional extra xp.
Due to happiness issues I had to sell one city to Nappy and let Ramesses to recatch a city once. Unfortunately Nappy made peace with Ram after that deal which screwed my plans for several turns. After getting Thebes ~T240 it was practically over even though Ram built Manhattan few turns earlier.
The rest of the game was just simple catch & raze within limits of happiness. I wanted a CS to finish the game so I waited few turns in the end with negative happiness otherwise it wasn't too bad.

Harder than before ? Not sure, slower for sure and different in many ways but I wasn't in any danger of losing a city even with 3 early simultaneous wars. I also managed to get a religion, almost cleared tech tree with total of 3 RAs which gave me next to nothing.
Hardly a focused game nor brilliantly played but more of an experimental one. Something of a par for games to come. 25 turns could easily be shaved off and 50 with a bit of luck but sub-T250 could be hard.

G

 

[Slvynn]

Cities are much harder to take now, post-GnK
Also units harder to kill

I may try this with Danes in GnK setup

 

[Gagonite]

I'm already doing this somewhat in my current game - playing on the Earth map as Japan, and I've almost completely conquered all of North America, while owning the entirety of South America (Where I started - silly random placement!) I must say, it was challenging as all hell to uproot Sweden from the Amazon Basin in the late Medieval/Early Rennaissance era. So much jungle... hills.. and river.. and he had so much ranged uphill of me.. bleargh. So many Samurai Musketmen died. Now Persia, my technological rival, who controlled the good parts of North America, he was steamrolled. Soon.. I will begin the conquest of the old world..

But yes, happiness is a very, very important factor when you control this many cities. I literally own at least 20 cities.. reminds me of my old Civ 4 days. Every building puts priority on happiness buildings.. which makes it bearable. Plus the +6 happiness from every resource due to the commerce tree, and I own most of the types of luxury resources... I'm about at even with happiness. Granted, a city is burning and two puppet cities don't yet have courthouses or happiness buldings.. so I'm a tad lower than I should be.

 

[snarzberry]

The game above is yet to be finished but after playing few sci games to check what's the AI is capable of I returned to this old challenge. As I wanted to use the new civs I took the Huns as I was familiar them and they're quite suited to this.

The Game, short version. Start was one of the best I've seen so far apart from lack of pastures. America DoW'd ~T30, Arabs ~T40 after I settled 2nd city near them and Japan completed the trio few turns later. America was easily pushed back but too far to make any offensive plans. Arabs wanted a 0-0 peace 10 turns later so I wiped Japan out apart from one city. Much land, few lux but as Korea was my only trade partner I was in constant lack of cash. At the same time Harun wiped Korea off totally and was becoming a runaway. I managed to ally 3 closest CSs but when Harun bought one them I DoW'd him ~T85 & started a very slow campaign with HAs. As good as they are terrain can slow them a lot and the time of rams was gone - nothing to keep them alive even for a single attack.
I reached Mecca ~T150 when HAs did 3-6 dmg per hit but before artillery they were the only thing that stayed alive. T180 I left Harun with one city. Meanwhile I suddenly made DoF with Washington and eventually with Nappy from the continent. Unluckily the was a coastal passage between continents so Harun & Washington made contact with the rest 100 turns before me.
While beating Harun Egypt was #1 in everything and hostile to me. After getting few frigates I DoW'd and was planning to make his fleet mine. Decent plan, crappy result as he only had privateers. Slowly getting xp while teching for battleships nothing much happened but when battleships arrived everything changed. Even without logistics hal a dozen of them can wipe a city with 150def into smithereens in one or two turns; the troops nearby are optional extra xp.
Due to happiness issues I had to sell one city to Nappy and let Ramesses to recatch a city once. Unfortunately Nappy made peace with Ram after that deal which screwed my plans for several turns. After getting Thebes ~T240 it was practically over even though Ram built Manhattan few turns earlier.
The rest of the game was just simple catch & raze within limits of happiness. I wanted a CS to finish the game so I waited few turns in the end with negative happiness otherwise it wasn't too bad.

Harder than before ? Not sure, slower for sure and different in many ways but I wasn't in any danger of losing a city even with 3 early simultaneous wars. I also managed to get a religion, almost cleared tech tree with total of 3 RAs which gave me next to nothing.
Hardly a focused game nor brilliantly played but more of an experimental one. Something of a par for games to come. 25 turns could easily be shaved off and 50 with a bit of luck but sub-T250 could be hard.

G

Well done. I'm playing peaceful games atm, but when I'm done with science and culture I'll begin playing domination games. That's what I always do when a new civ comes out. I try to get the peaceful games perfected for my own satisfaction and then I play domination games over and over, because that's where the real challenge and fun lies imo.

How did you go about setting up the horse archer attack at the start of the game?

 

[peddroelm]

Would like to see results on the original challenge with G&K ...

- sword rush nerfed (cb rush the new rave)
- piety happy nerfed (but religion//mercantile CS can balance)
- no more endless GA from great generals (take that Persia)
- need DOFs for RAs - and fewer people will DOF with the Warmonger Scourge of the universe... (with a wide empire you will still get a lots of raw bpt)
- stealth pushed a bit further down the tech tree

 

[RedRover57]

Seems like the Mayans would be a good choice for this challenge. Good chance for a religion and early free Great Admiral to scout the other continent. Plus their UB is great for a wide empire, of course.