Two New Domination Submissions

[BlackBetsy]

I have noticed there are (relatively) few domination submissions in the HOF, which surprises me to some extent given that I originally thought domination wins are very close to conquest wins.

After completing my 3rd domination win under HOF conditions, I think that domination and conquest are more like cousins (maybe even second cousins) than they are like siblings. [I think SS and Diplo are probably siblings of a different family altogether, whereas cultural 20k is its own bizarre creature. But I digress]. Conquest is killing the AI's as fast as you can. Domination is capturing the AI's and holding their towns and expanding your cultural borders as fast as you can. The holding other civ's towns and organic growth aspects make it somewhat different.

I now have 3 HOF dominations submissions accepted:

(1) Tiny Monarch Persia - 730 AD
(2) Small Monarch Persia - 670 AD
(3) Standard Monarch Persia -580 AD

As the maps have gotten bigger, my dominations have actually happened quicker (granted, however, that #2's slow pace was about 90% attributable to raging barbs unlike I've ever seen). Mostly this is due to the fabulous information available in the War Academy as well as the best suggestion there is from HOF submitters - have a goal, and focus all of your efforts on that goal. I note that the fastest Monarch Domination win was Darkness in 370 AD on a large map...an impressive feat given my understanding and recent efforts. Bedhead_7's C3C Deity domination on a standard map at 30 BC is truly impressive as well.

Here are what I found to have been my key strategies to a fast domination win:

(1) A killer AA UU like the Persian Immortals. Let's face it - upgrading a bunch of 1/1/1 warriors for 4/2/1 Immortals is something of an exploit. The Gallic Swordsman at 3/2/2 is also intriguing.

(2) The Temple of Artemis. This is critical - it not only expands your borders 133% in a few turns after founding or capturing a town, it jump starts your total civ culture, reducing the chance of cultural flips by towns you capture and increasing flips to you. The free temples also keep the economy humming along, and you get to deal with less disorder.

(3) Building and upgrading warriors and horsemen. They are both obscenely cheap and upgrade to magnificent units like the Immortal and the Knight. Hooking up Iron and upgrading 15+ warriors to Immortals for the first round of wars are two critical things IMHO.

(4) Don't be afraid to fight multiple wars contemporaneously. One of the reasons my first two wins were slower was that I simply would only fight one AI at a time. That is stupid for a couple of reasons (1) you are costing yourself time at the expense of sure victories; (2) moving the troops from front to front after a war is over costs too many turns.

(5) Slow the tech pace down after Polytheism. Chivalry is the last tech you should need. Immortals fighting at a 4 offense vs. 2 defense spearman is an overwhelming advantage compared to 6 offensive cavalry vs. 4 defense musketmen or 4 offensive cavalry vs. 3 defense pikemen.

(6) Settler factories are critical. You need to have a huge empire already - one capable of defeating any 2 close AIs in 10 turns before you even go to war.

(7) Pangaea is pretty much a must. No time lost searching for the next continent or some hidden island chain.

In my standard game, I had a couple of early advantages, and would have won probably 20 turns earlier had I capitalized as much as I could:

(1) Great start with 3 cows - one grassland and two plains. Persepolis was a fantastic settler factory throughout (it was a 4-turn settler factory even at size 3)

(2) Popped a settler from second goody hut. Immediately set it to work on the Pyramids as a pre-build for ToA.

(3) Got a SGL with Polytheism. A lot of work had been done on ToA by then (20 turns away), so I switched the town that had been building ToA to Pyramids and rushed ToA in a third town.

My biggest problems were (1) not using a couple of suicide galleys loaded with settlers to find a substantial island pair with about 7-9% land mass. Settling those islands would have saved me 10 turns; (2) warring to the south, then north after shifting troops. I should have sent the Immortals north first, and let them continue their march while I built up another base of immortals in the south to fight the third civ while also taking on the second civ in the far north. Would have saved 10-15 turns minimum; and (3) not getting my settlers out to unclaimed lands as quickly as possible. Having to fight for those lands later probably cost me another 10-15 turns. So I can definitely see a BC finish simply by being more aggressive and more systematic in taking other AI's cities.

All in all, I often feel like these HOF runs are made at a breakneck pace, but the truth of the matter is that I haven't been acting at enough of a breakneck pace.

Your thoughts and feedback are appreciated.

Here's my 1000 BC screenshot from my Standard game:

 

[boogaboo]

Happy domination takeovers

 

[Sandman2003]

I would have thought that you are over-emphasing ToA. Don't get me wrong, I totally agree that you need it, but I don't understand why you want it so early. I would prefer a second settler pump as my second city. Imho ToA really only needs to be built 5 turns prior to your expected finish date (for territory), or maybe a little earlier, if you are in serious flip risk.

Good luck with your future HoF submissions.

 

[Smirk]

I agree with Sandman, while getting the TOA earlier means you do not have to think about city placement as much since you can more easily see where border gains are to be had, its not an early priority. If you get an early leader I would do it, otherwise plan it out.


So a question about your standard game, what turn did you get the leader. I think I would have kept the city building ToA as is and just rushed pyramids, but that depends on when exactly that happened.

 

[BlackBetsy]

@Sandman and Smirk-

I think the ToA has many purposes. Obviously, territorial expansion makes the whole endeavor quicker as you need to throw out fewer settlers to hit the goal, but as you note, you don't need it until 5 turns before your win. But there are many more points to getting it early.

You get the cultural flip protection from having so many temples and, if you can get ToA before 1000 BC, it's likely that you have temples with 2x culture bonuses during the end game (which I consider AD). In the Large game I'm playing now, my culture from the ToA is so high it is not uncommon for me to be able to leave a city defended with a spear without worrying about a culture flip while all troops move on. Since I don't really build any other culture, just troops, the ToA is critical for the culture I do generate.

In addition, the ToA often gives you good border configurations against your enemies. See the screenshot above - Bapedi's border is on its city square (as was the case with the city opposite Gordium). Being able to declar war, attack, and take a city in a single turn and avail yourself of the enemy's road network immediately is terrific.

Culture flips to your civ - these are important. You want to take as few cities as you can. Taking one more city means one more expenditure of resources and opportunity costs.

And you can't wait to build ToA. Although an AI can't cascade into ToA, if they were close to Pyramids, they may be a very few turns away from it and if you lose it to a city on the other side of the world, you might never get it through conquest, either.

@smirk - I got my SGL in 1025 BC, so I rushed ToA right away to maximize cultural benefits

 

[BlackBetsy]

Ok, I just submitted my Large Monarch Domination victory, which was achieved at a very disappointing 690 AD, breaking my larger-the-map-earlier-the-victory streak. It even was a lower Firaxis score than the 570 AD standard monarch domination.

A couple of new thoughts from this submission:

(1) I selected 6 opponents, none of whom had good defensive AA UU's - I mostly selected opponents so that I wouldn't be facing Hoplites or Numidian Mercenaries. I picked America (pathetic F-15 UU), England (Seaborn UU), Zulu (Impi not a defensive value improvement over spears), Germany (industrial UU, and we wouldn't be getting to the IA), Babylon (non aggressive civ, weak AA UU and likes to build handy wonders), and France (Musketeer UU would never show as it requires gunpowder). In retrospect, I'd rather not have an expansionsist civ like America or the Inca on the board simply because they pop goody huts. America was right next door and got a ton of tech on goody huts right around Persia. Sure, they were conquered easily, but I was massively behind in the tech race early, meaning that I had little chance at SGL's. I'll swap out America for the Byzantines and the Zulu for the Spanish if I take another run at the Large Map.

(2) I lost a massive amount of time because I was on the far edge of the pangaea continent. My core cities were essentially useless at the end because they were producing knights that were 6 turns from the front. Must select a map with a centralized location.

(3) I had climate and age set to random. This is not a good idea. England and France were huge jungles that slowed my knights down. At least 5 turns lost to the jungle. I'll probably select temperate from now on. Also had huge mountains ranges in between Persia & the rest of the world. Roading them to speed up the domination took forever. I'll pick a 5 billion year old world next time.

(3) Got hung up on an offensive at Ellipi, which was built on a hill. Damn thing took a bunch of turns to take. Also blew a turn by not offering peace to Babylon for a couple of towns once I took Babylon. Just dumb, dumb, dumb.

(4) Never got an SGL b/c of tech lag problem. Only techs I ever got first (other than free tech Feudalism) were Iron Working, Literature and Polytheism -- that is before I started blowing the AI away through wars. Only a 14.3% chance of getting an SGL by getting 3 techs first with the Persians.

(5) Did not pop a settler early. Huge difference in the start - only had 9 cities this time at 1000 BC vs. 14 in standard game. Also, the tech lag made it impossible to buy a granary early, such that I wasted 5-10 turns producing warriors/workers in Persepolis.

Other than that, made a mistake by signing peace with America and then honoring the deal for too long before breaking it with 8 turns left. Breaking the deal didn't hurt me too much - I had a rather productive military alliance with the Zulu at the end.

I think I'll probably revisit the Tiny and Small worlds (small was dominated with raging barbs, costing me untold turns) as well as complete the quintet with a huge monarch domination. I'll probably take another run at Large again correcting the mistakes I made in opponent, climate, age, and map selection. It's definitely a learning process.

I'll probably make the Tiny run with the Celts to see what the pure speed of the Gallic Swordsman will do for the game. The 4/2/1 for 3/2/2 trade is intriguing.

GOTM 41 has Persia, too, so I'll feel right at home, hope to have a good source of Iron, and try the domination on that, too.

 

[Svar]

BlackBetsy,

I needed some fast finish games to fill out my Quartermaster requirements and used the Persians for fast finish Domination games in Small Monarch and Tiny Regent. The Temple of Artemis played a key role in both games. The Regent game was completed in 110 AD because I got a SGL and rushed ToA in 690 BC. In the Monarch game I had to hand build ToA which was completed in 410 AD and the game was completed in 460 AD when all the cities expanded their borders. In the final save I had 71% of the land and 81% of the population so an earlier build of ToA would have resulted in an earlier win. In Fact I never attacked the Germans who were my ally in a early war against the English who sneak attacked me and their territory wouldn't have put me over the 66% land anyway so I just waited for the completion of ToA. My rough guess is that a 10 AD build of ToA could have shaved 200 years off the completion date because I would have attacked the Germans and used their cities for the 66% land requirement.

 

[BlackBetsy]

@Svar

The other suggest w/r/t ToA is to essentially plan out your borders before you build your ToA late in the game...that way they fill it out when you build it. True enough, but I also like the cultural benefits it provides as well as the happiness.

I think playing a victory condition over and over really focuses your attention on what is critical. I just played another Tiny Monarch with the Celts and won at 170 BC...which was about 300 years after it should have been. The Tiny Pangaea I played on only had 65% of the land once I left 5 squares for the English. I realized this way too late. I actually had to research mapmaking (4 turns) and then five suicide galleys later, I found a rock to plant a settler on and it was over.

I look at my first submission, the 740 AD Tiny Monarch and that is really a poor performance in retrospect.

It strikes me that tiny domination is essentially a quasi-milked early conquest game. I could have had a conquest victory well before 1500 BC. After a while, you are just waiting for your settlers to get in place and expand borders. The settler factory is critical.

Gallic Swordsman are very interesting. The speed is impressive, but they are underpowered vs. Immortals. I actually lost a couple of battles to Spears! The speed factor makes up for a lot, though. The HUGE negative is the 90 gold upgrade price. 30 gold more than upgrading Immortals.

 

[killercane]

Well I just finished what was originally going to be a test game but it went well enough to where I submitted it. I played as Hiawatha the war monger, pang, 80% water, on emperor, winning at 300 AD. I was shooting for a BC finish but made too many mistakes. I learned a lot from it and will be back for more.

What worked well:
-picking a cold and harsh environment. The AIs (Germany, Mongols, Ottos, Babs, Aztecs, and Vikes) never got pikemen that I saw, let alone muskets, because of their slow growth and inability to get workers to go hook up their iron. However, I did get a captured Mongol town destroyed by a volcano eruption, killing to MWs; why do the stupid AIs place their towns in places like that??

-chariot to MW upgrade with 15 chariots. this was enough to quickly take over my closest neighbors Germany and Scandinavia around 800 BC.

-letting the AI spend the 600 shields on the ToA. On Emperor they will usually always build it rather quickly, and even on Monarch. Even if its on the other side of the world you can get there by 10 AD at the latest to take it off their hands.

-having as bad a reputation as possible. I didnt ROP rape anyone due to the lack of roads in the jungle and such, but peacing out for techs, cities, and to regroup and going in 5 turns later to redeclare is nice for land grab purposes.

What didnt:
-researching writing on min. Dont know why I did it, I should have done warrior code or just pointy stick research.

-didnt get monarchy until the late BCs. With research by warfare Im stuck getting only mysticism, and then only poly, and then monarchy and sometimes they wont even part with monarchy even if a civ is on its dying breath. I need to do better trading and take advantage of gpt deals.

-picking the Aztecs as an AI. Their jags and swordsmen accounted for numerous losses, with the 1 defense of those mounted warriors.

-not getting together some galleys to get around the jungles quickly enough. If I had started on galleys around 500 BC my date would have been better by 200 years. A 3 move galley is great to get around a frontier land with jungles/mountains or just unimproved tiles.

All in all pretty fun, and a nice break from the deity and sid 100K games ive been working on. Any ideas on how to get to monarchy quicker such as civ choices etc? I was thinking throw in Spain and Arabia for cheaper trades for CB, mysticism, etc. but other than that Im still thinking.

 

[superslug]

Registered back in November, eh? Well, let me put it this way then:
WELCOME TO POSTING AT CFC!!!

 

[killercane]

hey what can i say im a lurker

 

[BlackBetsy]

Well I just finished what was originally going to be a test game but it went well enough to where I submitted it. I played as Hiawatha the war monger, pang, 80% water, on emperor, winning at 300 AD. I was shooting for a BC finish but made too many mistakes. I learned a lot from it and will be back for more.

Was that Tiny Emperor Pangaea?

-letting the AI spend the 600 shields on the ToA. On Emperor they will usually always build it rather quickly, and even on Monarch. Even if its on the other side of the world you can get there by 10 AD at the latest to take it off their hands.

On Emperor, the build ToA/not build ToA margin is a lot closer. The AI builds it VERY fast. If the closest or second closest AI builds it, it's much better than building it yourself. If the farthest Civ builds it, you lose a lot of time putting extra troops into garrisoning cities, moving troops up from the core to replace the ones in garrisons. If you have a couple of GREAT settler factories, you can raze the closest couple of AI's towns anyway. But I'd rather have Immortals/Settler factories than Settler only factories.

In fact, I'd rather just have Immortals factories. The AI builds cheaper towns anyway.

 

[killercane]

@ BB- No standard Emperor Pang.

Well as soon as I open my mouth about not building ToA on Emperor and above it comes to bite me. I just got done with a Deity game on tiny pangea(I have no job right now and little else to do, can you tell?) where at 450 BC the Arabs were building ToA in 73 friggin turns when I investigated and it would take me at least 40 if I could get Salamanca up to 12 spt. I had eliminated the Mongols already, and the silly Arabs built the Great Library rather than ToA. I had my armies in place to take 4 of their 7 cities including the capital with a mother of an ROP rape. Hiawatha was much chagrined and saved and exited to ponder whether he should just conquest the silly Arabians rather than doing the domination he had in mind.

But ALAS, his people were agricultural and they would soon have all the luxuries in the world when he relegated the Arabs to a tundra city in the North. Therefore the despot proclaimed that his people would 1) attack the Arabs; 2) build temples all across his land by sacrificing the population; 3) send settlers on forced marches into enemy territory to gain new land; and 4) crank the kingdom wide luxuries up to 80%. The plan was realized and the tyrant Hiawatha dominated the world in 250 BC. 16,759 points but if the Arabs had built the stupid Temple it would have been a bit better. Heres a screenie of 450 BC before the Hiawathan New Deal (if I can figure out how to resize screenshots):

 

[killercane]

ah that looks better than i thought it would, you can see all the land I have to fill in at the bottom in my kingdom. I barely got it all and was just 7 tiles over when I won. Thank goodness for flood plains.