Total War!

[northernscribe]

I'm a warmonger and I haven't noticed a huge difference in domination victories. Granted there's more you have to do (get ALL the capitals, control WC so your enemies don't embargo you), but it's still very doable. I'm an emperor/immortal player, I usually use Arabia and its camel archers to dominate on a pangea map. England used to be a good one too, on continents, I haven't tried them yet (does anyone know if the long bow range weirdness has been fixed). By the way, good tip about reviving the civs to gift cities to. You won't necessarily need all the cities to hopscotch your bombers through, so that's an idea I'll try. Science can be a small problem late game. I usually beeline to dynamite while the AI usually beelines to flight. So I get artillery, and can do some good damage, (usually this is where I win), but if there's a tough civ, maybe started to run away, and my artillery isn't good enough, they'll get flight before me then I have to bide my time to get bombers and fighters. Also the AI doesn't use their bombers very well. When this happened to me I just balked and took a diplo victory, but I think I could have won if I had diplo turned off. The other thing that you have to be wary of is your trade routes. These are a pain in the ASS now because you have to guard your sea routes as the AI loves to plunder them. You can quickly go from 100+ gpt down to 15 gpt if you don't take care of that.

 

[Lord Alexander]

I am actually doing this right now I set it to Domination victory only. The map is a large continents with 14 Civs and 12 city States. The Civs I have in game are Aztecs(Myself), Mongolia, Huns, Zulu, Indonesia, Rome, Hiawatha, America, Greece, Russia, China, Japan, Babylon, Inca.

I started on a continent With Mongolia, The Huns, Rome, Iroquois,Indonesia, America and the Zulu plus myself so 8 civs. I found the Zulus right next to me and he was focusing on workers and expanding rather than building units early. Mongolia was also close to me but they where building Archers and gearing to attack nearby city states like they always do. Rome was to the south of me. I quickly built a force and took over The Zulu capital right away and eliminated them.

During my quick war With the Zulus I found that the Iroquois, Indonesia, America and Atilla where all on this continent as well. The next thing I did was go after Rome since it was right to the south and it was all flat land leading to it and it was flat around the city it was quite easy to take I also took atrium from them and they made peace with me but gave me another 1 pop city in the deal leaving them with one last city which they had ever since.

Mongolia was still focused on city states and Atilla eventually declared War on him but while this was happening I got triple denounced from Indonesia, Iroquois and America they all DOW on me Indonesia and America really where not threats as they where too far south and America was also at war with Indonesia taking their Capital in the process. Indonesia made peace with me and gave me a small pop city even though he never once fought me. Both Indonesia and Rome have their last cities right next to each but they are also surrounded by cities I own. Hiawatha tried to attack my capital but I built the Therocatta Army in the city which gave me a Archer, Composite Bowman, Spearman, Juargar, Chariot Archer which was enough to defend my city from Hiawatha. He then made peace with me but he also gave me Osinika in his peace deal.

I stopped fighting for a long time to get happiness in line but from all the luxury resources it was not hard to get the empire happy again. Though I was also not far in the science race but I don't think anyone was doing well in science as I saw a unmet player has lost there capital message pop up twice so there is defiantly alot of fighting going on where the other civs are. America and myself seem to be the real powerhouses on my current continent. Mongolia and Atilla still fight eachother but I'm thinking of attacking Atilla he has the same amount of military as me and has a big chunk of the east side right next to me. America seems to like attacking the smaller civs and taking stuff from them and making peace. Everyone hates Mongolia but me. We are like best friends.

Well that's a long post but its a interesting and a fun game. I can't wait till the later battles with the other continents should be fun. Also the difficulty is only on King next time I think I may raise it up one since its not too hard if you know what you're doing.

 

[Doviello]

Taking ideas for this thread, i started a belicous game last night. I rolled random civ, Large, King, standard, raging barbs, used the Tectonics mod map script, with 12 AI (all the warmongers: shaka, montezuma, atilla, gengis khan, etc you name it) and 18 CS. I also picked "sparse resources", just for fun.

I rolled Russia - a GREAT PICK for a sparse resources games - but after a little scouting i realized that sparse means no luxuries, srsly. I had multiple sources of iron and horses, but only crab - 3 crabs in my capital and that's it! The nearest resources were silk and marble, both next to Zulu's capital, about 30 tiles away from me. I've never had such a happiness poor game before. So i went for tradition then piety, and quickly improved my religion. I think i picked +2 from temples, and Pagodas, so my 4 cities had +4 each from religion alone, not bad, even though i only had crabs (lol).

I was bleeding money, so i invested in 3 triremes to protect my trading ships, which worked quite nicely, they were never plundered. Barbs attacked me from the east, oh god so many - like, 6 axethrowers, 6 warriors, 4 horsemen, just in the first wave. They pillaged everything and left 2 cities in the red, but without warriors (i shot them first) they couldn't take my cities.

But after fortifing my borders against barbarians, Shaka came. He planted like 4 cities near me at once and invaded with 20 units. After fighting him off 3 or 4 times, i had to gave up. I was still at 4 cities, all size 5-12, with hordes of barbarians spawning from the east and hordes of impis from the west. Shaka had 12 cities, ALL size 10+ (a few 20's), an infinite army, and was starting to pump muskets and cannons, while i was still at crossbow.

Basically, after planting 4 cities and building up my religion infastructure, i did nothing but build units. I had no libraries, no granaries, no unpillaged roads, just shrines, temples, and units. All my cities were, in the best case, at half health. All improvements were burning, so without a chance to repair them i deleted my workers to save gold. SO MANY barbarians, oh god. and shaka was such a runaway, 2 ages ahead of me, with a carpet of units. He wasn't even the stronger AI in the score board.

Argh.

Gotta try again.