Conquest possible?

[Rook]

Is a world conquest victory possible on Marathon, Large map, 10 civs and noble level?

I haven't really gone after a conquest victory yet. from what I have seen, it would be pretty hard with the difficulty settings I have described above.

If I concentrate just on war, I will get behind in the tech race so badly that I lose in the end?

If I try to keep a balance, will I have enough infrastructure to keep the army I will need running?

Any success stories before I try this fruitlessly?

[Solver]

On Noble, quite possible. I would argue it's actually easier on Marathon - load of turns and cheap (relatively to everything else) units.

Of course, you'd probably reach Domination, not Conquests. But you can maintain good enough tech on Noble no problem. My personal favorites for conquest are Isabella, Napoleon and Huayna Capac.

You want to be warring most of the time, of course, but that doesn't mean you need to always be at war. Taking a break now or then is a good idea. Of course, you'll want State Property late in the game.

[LordShiva]

Re: Conquest possible?

Originally posted by Rook
Is a world conquest victory possible on Marathon, Large map, 10 civs and noble level?

Yes.

[The keeper]

Only keep certain cities - raze most of them. By keeping a few - you can give a place for your troops to return to heal.

In my one conquest win (standard size) - the last 2 civs to go were France and Rome on their own continent. I dropped a force in and took a French city on the coast and kept it. Then, I made a charge for Paris and kept it because it was in the middle of the continent. Then, I had 2 forces. They would go conquer, and return to Paris to heal. They rotated back and forth for about 20 turns until the whole continent was razed.

[Adagio]

Re: Conquest possible?

Originally posted by Rook
Is a world conquest victory possible on Marathon, Large map, 10 civs and noble level?

I'm trying this on prince (my second game on prince) and damn it's hard. I got the smallest civ, the 3rd smallest army, lots of friends nearby, lots of enemies farther away. I'm currently at war with America, who's got the lowest score, but the highest number of units. Unfortunatly it takes 10-15 turns to get new units from my cities, to my newly taken cities. Also the americans are not happy to sign a peace-treaty, so when taking one of their cities I have to hold on to it for a long time (and with the number of units they have, it's a very long fight)
The year is ~1500 AD, and I have yet only taken two cities

[LordShiva]

You should have made the cities of the friends nearby your own cities by now...

[Tattila the Hun]

So, world conquest is impossible... World genocide isn't? Seems rather wrong...

It seems, that by adding additional cost to cities to curb settler hemorage and warmongering, the game has become more violent... Razing cities does not even give you workers, so I assume the citizens of the metropolis you just burned to the ground were butchered?

(Or does one get workers? I never burn anything...)

Could it be possible to add refugees? As city is conquered, plundered and razed, it's citizens have a chance to flee, and appear as additional citizen, or "food" towards additional citizens, in another city?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by LordShiva
You should have made the cities of the friends nearby your own cities by now...

Usually I would have, but as things turned out, all the nearby civs adopted my religion, so attacking one of them, would get all of them to turn against me. And if it wasn't because of the civs from far away (who kept attacking me) I would probably have had enough units to fight the civs nearby... but noooo, they had to keep attacking me, if not Persia, then America... I didn't lose any cities to them though

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
As city is conquered, plundered and razed, it's citizens have a chance to flee, and appear as additional citizen, or "food" towards additional citizens, in another city?

As food ?! What kind of sick idea is that ?

[Tattila the Hun]

Soylent Green?

No, but a bunch of refugees isn't a whole population point, atleast not in late game. Few bars of wheat (bread?) would simulate the few people towards additional population.

[faustus]

I'm playing a noble, large world marathon speed continents game right now, and am almost at a conquest victory in ~1800 ad, would have had domination already, but I want to get conquest so I'm razing pretty much everything. I used CS-slingshot and then rushed to macemen to blitz the other civilization on my continent with macemen, then turtled until I had cavalry, cannons and galleons and began waging a war of annihilation against the main continent... my tech lead was enough that by the time they got cavalry, I was already on to tanks etc. No-one I was at war with ever even got a chance to leave their continent as I would blockade them with destroyers. My tech lead was probably helped by being whichever of the english is philosophical/financial, but other then that nothing about my position was that spectacular. (There are no proper trade resources on my whole continent, lots of iron, copper, cows, coal etc, no gold or silver or fur) I've always found it was very easy to get a massive enough tech lead on noble (baring starts with many many civiliazations very closeby) that conquering with a 100year tech lead in the mid-late game is easy. Oh yeah, I bankroll all of this by founding 2 religions, and spreading them the length and breadth of the map once I got caravals... no-one on the main continent converted, but most gave me open borders so the 2 shrine cities are producing 120+gpt easily between the 2 of them.

[Rook]

So I am trying it now. I did a random leader and I got Catherine, so that will be good when I get Cossacks. Right now it is like 200 AD and I just finished off Spain. I am behind in score, but not by much and I lag in techs some, but I have more advances in military. I'm just out of the war, so my army is pretty beaten up. I will replenish and then go for Saladin next.

I am raizing most of the cities I kill, but I am still hurting financially. I'm thinking of setting some cities just to create wealth after I get currency. As I conquer more, I can set more. I'm not sure if that strat will work though.

Anyone have an idea how to stop the other civs from settling the lands vacant when I raize a city? If I place my own city, the burden will be too much and if I attack the settler, I'll be in a war with multiple opponents.

[faustus]

Personally, I just built up a strong enough core of my own cities, and then razed everything I conquered. It depends on whether you have your own area or whether other civs border you directly, if they do then keep border cities until you have a good base, using wealth creating or whatever until your economy restabilises. Then raze everything else. Dont worry too much about settlers resettling. If you pillage everything as you raze stuff (not roads, but all improvements) they'll settle it less quickly as they see it as less choice land (at least I've observed this) and their cities wont grow too fast. Just pick a target, raze cities till its dead, pick your next one etc. Sure, the later targets will have a lot of small cities in the demolished zones, but those are easy kills with only a few defenders and no cultural defence. Start near the big cities to hurt them the most as quick as you can, and you'll mop up those little cities in no time.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Rook
So I am trying it now. I did a random leader and I got Catherine, so that will be good when I get Cossacks. Right now it is like 200 AD and I just finished off Spain. I am behind in score, but not by much and I lag in techs some, but I have more advances in military. I'm just out of the war, so my army is pretty beaten up. I will replenish and then go for Saladin next.

I am raizing most of the cities I kill, but I am still hurting financially. I'm thinking of setting some cities just to create wealth after I get currency. As I conquer more, I can set more. I'm not sure if that strat will work though.

Anyone have an idea how to stop the other civs from settling the lands vacant when I raize a city? If I place my own city, the burden will be too much and if I attack the settler, I'll be in a war with multiple opponents.

Remember that in order to win, you don't have to kill all your opponents right away; if you can cripple an opponent and take or raze his capital and most of his cities, but leave him with a few minor cities and make peace (especeally if you can get a tech or some gold from him in the process), then he'll never be a threat to you, he'll fall farther and farther behind in tech and millitary force, and the other AI's will most likely ignore him. I often leave 1 or 2 "pocket empires" of a few cities until I can afford to expand later; they're not a threat, they won't give the other AI's much in the way of trade, and they limit the other AI's spread. I might bring Rome down to two minor costal cities, and then not bother to grab those until my economy is much stronger; sometimes for 1000 years or more.

[Rook]

OK, good advice. I like it.