What to do after securing my own continent?

[Wizzerdrix]

I've only played huge continental maps so far. I like that. I play on difficulty 4, can't remember what it's called. Once I beat the three other civs on my continent, what do I do? I've heard that having a whole continent to yourself is a huge bonus, but when I try to spread cities all over it (which is what I'd love to do) my happiness and my economy goes to hell. And yet I see the AI doing it: Completely coloring a whole continent while raking in hundreds of per turn and at the same time wielding the biggest army in the world. Little help mates? Having all this space and not using it seems wrong to me.

 

[Bibor]

With a whole continent, your economy should be booming... Not every city should have every building and you should seriously consider aiming for a certain victory type (probably space or UN).

 

[Wizzerdrix]

I'm thinking domination. Does that mix up bad with coloring all of my home continent?

 

[neilkaz]

While I don't care for continents since there's military little threat from the AI on the other continents I will suggest a few things to do.

1) Yes by all means ICS your controlled continent. If this is causing unhappiness due the basic things to control happiness in large empires. For me it is extremely important to have Meritocracy and connect all my cities by trade routes. This gives lots of $$$ and 1 per connected city. Also get banking quickly and build the Forbidden Palace as I think on this difficulty level you'll beat even a runaway AI to it.

2) If you want to win by UN vote (something I consider to be extremely unsatisfying and would remove from the game if it was my say) then hopefully there are a few CS left to ally with (sometimes a run away AI on another continent may have killed all that were there) and anyhow you should have liberated a few on your continent rather than pup/annex them.

3) With an ICS and specialists and rationalism you should clearly out tech what ever if left on the other other continent. Then a space ship should be easy or just make some GDR's and go invade and count their casualties.

4) If you can ally a CS or two over there you have a base to land your invasion forces.

5) It is also possible that there remain a couple civs over there and you can find a spot to land and work to keep one of them from dominating militarily or just conquer a couple of weaklings (but build a harbor for trade route).

.. neilkaz ..

 

[Wulf38]

If you're going domination you don't need to coat your continent with cities. Just puppet whatever the AIs on your continent build, and found a few extra cities if you have a lot of excess happiness and don't care about getting more SPs. But keep in mind that you'll need to save some of that excess happiness for when you start capturing cities on the other continent. If you're hurting for happiness in general, the Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy are your friends, as they're both basically +1 happy per city.

 

[stormerne]

If you're going for Domination and you've already secured your home continent:
1. Send out exploring ships. Don't know where you are in tech. Caravels are the perfect Renaissance unit for this. Map the other coastlines, make contact with civs and city states and find landing points (allying with a city state if you have to).
2. Embark a few scouts and send them to the landing points. Map out the terrain.
3. Check the demographics screen. Where are you militarily compared to the others? How do you rank? Are there any runaways? Do you need to build more units? Do you need to tech faster? Do you need to upgrade what you have?
4. Plan your invasion!

 

[Tabarnak]

Think about annexing some good production cities to get more hammers available for a future invasion or space race.

 

[Nocturno14]

I love securing a continent and spreading all over. Max out the "Order" social policies. Especially Planned Economy if you have a lot of cities. If not, go for Piety and boost your culture.. after that make alliances with CS on other continents and invade capitals.

 

[trueblue]

if you own the continent then relax.

build your buildings, build your cities. you cant go wrong. bang, happiness buildings. bang, science buildings. bang, gold buildings. bang, culture buildings.

play the game.

choose your vic type and go for it.




really, the mind boggles.

 

[basta]

What to do after securing my own continent?

Quickly wrap it up, because the endgame is appallingly tedious. Sell off your army--sell everything, in fact--to buy your way to a cheezy "diplomatic" victory so you can start a new game.

I'm quite serious, I must add.

 

[Perfect909]

I suggest a trip to Disneyland. Just another way to go.

See ya.

 

[diz2]

I have been playing continents/emperor. I generally try to take control of my home continent with horsemen, beeline for caravels, while I cover my continent with cities and pumping up the science. From there you can either take the easy Spaceship win or go for the more difficult Domination win. If you're going for Domination, at some point you take most of your science specialists out and have them work gold.

One big variable is how many civs are on each continent. Usually it's two continents with 3 civs on each. One civ will typically dominate the other continent and you will be in for a difficult invasion. I have seen 4 civs on one continent and 2 on another, and even a 3-2-1. When you are on the 4 civ continent wiping out 3 other civs with horsemen is a lot tougher, but you can coast to victory easier once you have. The real challenge is when you are on the smaller continent with 2 civs and there is a dominant AI on the continent with 4 civs.

Naval invasions of a mature and powerful civ are difficult things. I try to create a zone of death on a beachhead with battleships/bombers/stealth bombers and hopefully some technologically superior units. Most often I beeline for Mech Infantry and use them (until Giant Death Robots come along) because I want to spend my oil and aluminum on ships and aircraft. (If you can, plan your landing near cities with strategic resources and take them first - but I wouldn't sacrifice a lot of distance from the homeland to do this.)

During the invasion you want to use good tactics to preserve your units. Don't overextend them, end turns on hills, etc. I find that taking out artillery when you see it so they can't gang up on a single unit helps a lot. I would guess you want to kill 5 or so units for every one you lose. After a while, they just sort of stop coming and you win.