Winning military victory on Emperor

[Nostradam]

I've had a few playtroughs now on Emperor and won about every time of victory except for the military one.

Most of the time it's because I alienate everyone and everyone declares war right about at the same time... If you start a conquest early (pre-medieval), everybody sees you for a warmonger (even if the other AI just settled right next to you on happy resources you needed...)

Even worse is the choice of ideology, most of the times if i dare take autocracy about half the map declares war at the same time.... And if that's not already a pain, you get like a zillion dissidents because the rest of the makes take freedom or order... (the penalties are very high which makes you wonder if you really have a choice in ideology at all...)

Any tips or help?

 

[Xyuta]

First, for a military victory you "only" need to capture the other civ 's capitol, so try to focus on those cities because for every city you conquer the warmonger diplo hit increases.

Try to look at DOF made by the AI, if you denounce your opponents prior to the attack you'll get messages from the other civs that don't like him, you can make friends by attacking the right AI, but anyway if you are planning the military victory you 'll get the warmonger status eventually.

For ideologies, you get unhappiness because of civs with a different ideology from yours that have a high tourism, to minimize this, you can deny them open borders (25% bonus to tourism) and if they really have to much tourism for your culture you will need to attack them or increase your culture a lot to avoid their influence.

You can also try to impose world ideology through the world council to impose your own ideology.

 

[Vidszhite]

Do what you can to stall warmonger penalty -- have a war partner in all your conflicts, preferably the same person. Your best friend should be your war partner, same ideology and everything, but at the opposite end of the world, so no contested borders. If possible, befriend another warmonger, so that his hate is higher than yours. The mass declare will therefore happen to him, and then once the others are dead, betray him and take his capital(s).

 

[Nostradam]

So it seems to me that culture is almost as important as producing military units etc.

 

[MantaRevan]

I've had a few playtroughs now on Emperor and won about every time of victory except for the military one.

Most of the time it's because I alienate everyone and everyone declares war right about at the same time... If you start a conquest early (pre-medieval), everybody sees you for a warmonger (even if the other AI just settled right next to you on happy resources you needed...)

Even worse is the choice of ideology, most of the times if i dare take autocracy about half the map declares war at the same time.... And if that's not already a pain, you get like a zillion dissidents because the rest of the makes take freedom or order... (the penalties are very high which makes you wonder if you really have a choice in ideology at all...)

Any tips or help?

I'm in the exact same spot as you, trying to win domination on emperor and getting clobbered by mass dows around mid game. Check out my thread about it.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=507234.

Anyway, the above posters seem to provide good advice. Also, continue with your games even if they seem doomed. I've surprised myself with comebacks before.

 

[leadtothehead]

I recently won a domination victory on Emperor difficulty as Bismarck (Huge, continents, 12 Civs, 26 CS), all of what has been said is true, the AI hates Autocratic Civs (2 Civs took it me and Spain), this creates a problem with Ideological pressure I never lost cities but I did have to delay military campaigns to bolster happiness. The one lesson I learned is try to target the highest tourism civ as soon as the ideologies are adopted, looting as many of his great works and artifacts as possible.

Oh and one other thing for all the beating Germany takes as being underpowered I can tell you swarms of Panzers with the Autocracy polices are great for sweeping through enemy territory to take out Capitals without taking too many other cities, which will harm short term happiness and thus continued conquest.

 

[homegrown]

So it seems to me that culture is almost as important as producing military units etc.

It kinda is. You're going to want quite a few policies and tenets as you go to buff happiness (giant puppet empire) and gold (lack of trade partners cuz you conquered them all). And it depends on difficulty, ie. I need to take more policies in Rationalism on Immortal than on Prince because I'm farther behind in science from the get go.

otoh, you're also going to be capturing some wonders and great works as you go. If you are puppeting those cities, fine you can leave them there, but if you want to raze them, you gotta have slots available in your cities for the works you just stole before they are destroyed with the city.

 

[sadv]

Most of the time it's because I alienate everyone and everyone declares war right about at the same time... If you start a conquest early (pre-medieval), everybody sees you for a warmonger (even if the other AI just settled right next to you on happy resources you needed...)

Early warmonger status doesn't stick afaik. As long as you aren't taking out CS and Capitals left and right, then you should be fine. Also, try to avoid wars with Civs which have lots of friends, or at least go to war with an ally or two yourself.

Even worse is the choice of ideology, most of the times if i dare take autocracy about half the map declares war at the same time.... And if that's not already a pain, you get like a zillion dissidents because the rest of the makes take freedom or order... (the penalties are very high which makes you wonder if you really have a choice in ideology at all...)

Then don't take autocracy if it will be a problem. Order and freedom also have policies to help your pursue a domination victory. I usually don't have this problem with Autocracy anyways because of all the happiness boosters an autocracy. Unless you have neglected artists all game, then you should have enough cultural protection. Plus, you can always take out that super influential civ to stop the pressure for good.

 

[FrostK]

On Emperor you may not pay attention on what AI thinks about you. Just go fight. No DoF, RA, No deals. Just WAR.

 

[redwings1340]

One thing I did recently as Spain was to was to play wide (and settle the natural wonders to make this possible), ally city states, and basically play a standard tech/production/food game for a while (mostly ignoring culture aside from allying cultural city states). I rushed industrialization and radio, and managed to quickly pass autocracy as the world ideology before enough civs were able to get their own ideology to block it. This was on king difficulty (I was playing for fun, just to see if I could colonize all the natural wonders), but I've done this before as China on Emperor too, passing order before anyone else got an ideology.

After you have autocracy and a tech lead, military buildings are really nice to get, happiness isn't a problem, and bombers become amazing. Basically just use those to kill everyone. I didn't kill everyone because I was playing a 22 civ game, and the map was too big to win domination style, but I'm guessing I could have pretty easily in a standard map.

 

[burfmeister31]

I won a domination victory as Indonesia last night. Standard size map, archipelago, BNW, emperor difficulty. The other civs on the map listed in order to closeness to my starting position: Celts, Ottomans, Aztecs, Poland, Babylon, America, Ethiopia.

Things just worked out for me on this one in that there were a fair number of other civs who don't mind warmongers at all (Babylon, America, Aztecs). I took out the Celts and Ottomans before turn 200 (by this I mean taking their capitals, did not completely wipe them out, I let other AIs do that for me) and the only warmonger hate I was getting was from Poland and Ethiopia, which just made them my next targets in that order.

It wasn't until I had access to submarines that I really supersized my navy though. I was fairly limited in the early game by iron, only two from a city state ally despite having five core cities.

By the end I had 6-7 each of battleships, submarines, and destroyers and all this together made mincemeat of AI navies and cities.

The only proxy war I started was between Babylon and America, which made it easier when they became my targets.

In the end Babylon was the second to last capital and while I was taking it I bought the uranium off of Monty to build nuclear weapons which were used to take Monty's capital.

My advice, pick your targets, save other warmongers (or those who do not dislike warmonger) until the end, and start proxy wars when you can.

 

[MantaRevan]

Wow. I finally did it. I was a able to win domination on Emperor tonight as the Zulus. One thing I messed up on was letting Spain get and ideology before me. I got unlucky and they took autocracy, and built Prora. Don't let that happen. I had happiness problems for the rest of the late game because I wasn't able to pop it. Also, Industrial Espionage is just downright ridiculous. You almost always want this policy, it got me caught up with the other AIs in less than 50 turns.

 

[isau]

I avoid the penalty by diplomatically isolating the target of a potential strike as much as possible before invading. To do this I often play a Faustian role in the game. I offer them the world to declare war on another civ (the person I don't want to upset by DoW myself). Ideally, this other civ also has a DoF with the target civ, causing the diplomatic "backstab" penalty. When you declare war, you then get all your stuff back.

In terms of the invasion itself, it can go one of three ways:

- If I can't take the capital, I start harassing a city on the outskirts. I send in fast moving units to plunder every resource and cause as many problems as possible. If I'm lucky they eventually hand me one of their cities for peace. Usually (especially early in the game) I immediately raze it to avoid science penalties. Later in the game it's not as big a deal. The important thing here though is not to physically capture a city if you can get them to give it you in a peace deal. In BNW the penalty for declaring is much lower than for seizing, in most cases (this isn't always true later in the game if the AI has many cities.)

- If I can grab the capital, I do. This nearly always nets a peace deal with a second city. That city usually gets insta-razed. Note that if you don't think you can hold onto the capital because of the happiness penalty or you can't sue for peace, you can always gift it to a fairly weak civ and let them eat the happiness penalty. You still get the 5% science penalty for having owned the city but you dodge the issue of your happiness tanking. Later in the game you easily just return and snatch the city back (which is why you give it someone weak.) The best part of all this is if the original civ wants their capital back they have to declare war on the "peaceful" third civ and eat that diplo penalty too. Which is why, to be extra evil, you should consider giving it to someone who is their friend.

- If I'm extra lucky, the target civ will take a city from the rival I pitted them against. Thus further isolates them diplomatically. I then, if possible, capture this city back and return it to its former owner.

Naturally you should avoid having DoF with the target civ. DoF lasts 50 turns, so I form fake friendships with long-off targets while declining my future targets.

I also never denounce a civ. It doesn't seem to be worth it. Denouncing in BNW seems to carry much more negativity than it did in GNK.

 

[z284pwr]

On Emperor you may not pay attention on what AI thinks about you. Just go fight. No DoF, RA, No deals. Just WAR.

If you can get a nice tech lead, then yeah. Just finished a game with a 21 tech lead over 2nd. It's pretty easy to mop the floor with everyone when you are fighting with Stealth/Rocket Artillery/Missile Cruisers when they are fighting with pre-Infantry units and Frigates.