Planning Domination from 4000 BC

[Hermann the Lombard]

OK, I got up this morning and I'm *tired* of being a cultured builder. "Patience my *ss I just want to kill something!" I'm also outright tired so I'll play one level lower than usual (i.e. Prince instead of Monarch).

We have a zillion threads about the CS Slingshot and Pyramid Grabbing and mid-game strategy and Neo-Liberalism...but how about outright warmongering from an early Age?

I'm sure this topic must have been beaten to death, so can someone point me to some useful threads for the bloodthirsty? [The AU early warfare game comes to mind.]

Oh, Aeson...this sounds right up your alley!

[rah]

Take Romans, find iron, build lots of prets. Go crazy before others get longbowmen and maces. QED

[Arrian]

The pyramids are a really nice bonus for this, actually, so you can run Police State (+25% troop production, -50% war weariness).

The Romans are hardcore. Another good option (IMO) is Japan. Then again, a Spiritual civ would allow you to switch in/out of Police State & Theocracy for oscillating warfare.

-Arrian

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by rah
Take Romans, find iron, build lots of prets. Go crazy before others get longbowmen and maces. QED

QED and SPQR!

That's approximately what I did in Devel's Workshop Ia, though I suppose I took my sweet time about it since I did the CS Sling (the point of the Workshop, after all).

Re: Pyramids & Japan. Having just done the Romans that's precisely the civ I had in mind. Then I suppose it's "...build lots of samurai. Go crazy."

Now that we've decided on a civ and a very high-level strategy, how about some operational guidance on tech path as in the CS Sling threads? I assume this has been beaten to death before, but you know just how good the search engine is. We can play with it in this thread but I'd be happy to follow links to existing threads.

[samspock]

Try what I have been doing lately: Play a tiny pangea map with 6 AI's. You will get sqeezed early on and have to go kill something to get anywhere. You probably will only be able to found two or three cities then go whack someone. I found that playing the civs with financial is a nice way to go (I love commerce!) and then kill one with axemen, one or more with macemen and the finish the domination with cavs. The best game I played that way so far had me win in 840ad (I had not gotten to cavs!)

How I start out is regen the map until I am in a spot with floodplains and an early commerce producer (gold hill, gems etc.) the aim for the cs slingshot. I pull that off about 1400-1200 bc. While that is being hashed out I get some axes built (or quecha's if incan) and find a weak neighbor and pound them. You pretty much need to be fighting from the first war on with only about 10-20 turns between wars. When not building units, concentrate on commerce. There was a thread about harbors and I have become convinced they are a must first build on a captured city.

I have played 4 games this way and won at 960ad, 840ad, 1340ad and 1550ad (got lazy!)

Another thing I have started doing is pretty much ignoring religion. I don't declare one. I make sure each city has one (I don't care which) and switch to free religion after I get libralisim. I find I like the culture you get from any religion more than the benifits of a state one. It's nice to capture an ai city that is the holy city for two relgions and see it's culture run up fast!

[One_more_turn]

Qin Shi Huang is ultra dangerous, too: industrious means lots of wonders and culture, and financial means tech lead and a really big army. Chu-Ko-Nu is not too shabby for a special unit, although not nearly as good as the Praets.

I find Roosevelt to be another dangerous warmonger. The only drawback with FDR is his lack of a decent special unit.

I have yet to play the Russians, but I think they will make good domination type civs given their traits and special unit. Both Cathy and Peter seem to have decent advantages.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard

Now that we've decided on a civ and a very high-level strategy, how about some operational guidance on tech path as in the CS Sling threads? I assume this has been beaten to death before, but you know just how good the search engine is. We can play with it in this thread but I'd be happy to follow links to existing threads.

Well it's quite similar with Toku as CS is needed for Samurai (as well as Machinery). You start with the prereqs for Pottery so fuel research with cottages.

You need Iron too, but if you get workable Copper you might take the Iron by force. No need to build too many cities - 2 or 3 should do and the rest will follow.

Early warpath: 1 - axes, 2 - axes & cats, 3 - samurai & cats.

Alternatively, Cathy is extremely powerful mid-game (Cossacks and cheap banks). If you're playing a Continents map then domination becomes a bit of a chore if you need to launch a massive overseas campaign.

[fed1943]

I think Aeson already told something about: the stop and go. Stop to tender the economy, infraestructure, go with expansion/conquest.
So, if I got it right, domination must be always one of the goals even when a player wants another path to victory, because domination is the way not to lose. Then every leader will be good for domination (from my experience Caesar,Catherine,Cyrus,Washington,Louis are good).
Best regards,

[couerdelion]

For some interesting threads you might want to look at Vel’s Jaguar Rush to see how you want to manage the preparation, execution and recovery from an early conquest spree. This also demonstrates that early conquest can be done quite simply with Axemen so anyone can do it.

If you want to try it with the easiest civs then I would recommend either Washington or Tokugawa. Both are organised so will help control costs once you start taking cities. Washington is Financial which will help drive tech while Tokugawa is aggressive and has a very powerful UU. Don’t worry about Washington’s lack of a decent UU, the invasions can be done perfectly adequately with standard units with you basic invasion force starting with Axemen, supplemented by Cats and late Macemen. Take some spearmen if your target has horses.

The twin problems of early conquests are unit costs and city maintenance/civic costs so you will need to get the basic techs in place to deal with these problems. Also, do not underestimate how many units you will need to break a city. Anything with culture/on a hill/city defender archers will need at least 2 City Raider Axemen for each archer to be a safe kill. Also learn to strike hard and fast so that your target has little time to regroup and defend. Once you find that a city has 6+ defenders you’ll probably need to wait for catapults before you can finish the job.

An even early gambit is to use Huayna Capac and enact a Quecha rush. There is at least one thread on this and this can be a lot of fun.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

With the Romans, I like to chop in the oracle immediatly and sling to iron working. If you do this on marathon, you will have super dominant praets and can basically kill with impunity. The early acquisition of cities coupled with pottery and organzied will be sufficient to keep the science output relatively high. This approach is very similar to the jaguar rush workshop and I would argue that it works much better with the Romans, since the organized traits puts you in a much better position to start taking cities. I usuallly don't bother with a CS slingshot when planning domination so early.

Any thoughts on Genghis? I imagine he would be a really powerful early warmonger, but I haven't had the chance to try him out yet. I think his expansive trait would work really well with aggresive if used to chop in lots of units and barracks.

[Hermann the Lombard]

I looked at the Jag Rush thread and then executed one myself (to Vel's defined point of profitability). It wasn't much fun, meaning that it was a bit dull. There's nothing really special about that special unit (unless, of course, you lack metal!)

I have a game going with Japan...which I'm embarassed to say is on Noble (I think I must have clicked the wrong button--that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) I'm in my "normal" mod of oscillating war. Took three Roman cities with Axemen (keeping two), and am now beating on Kublai Khan with Samurai and Catapults. Started with a CS sling then drove toward Engineering, picking up some side techs through trade.

In this sort of situation would you divert a hybrid production/commerce city (i.e. my capital) to build the Great Library? I decided not to, influenced by my lack of Marble. Basically I'm planning to capture Wonders rather than build them (and just relieved the Mongols of the burden of the Parthenon, as I earlier took on Stonehenge from the Romans). [It's odd to have such tiny production of GPP compared to my usual games.]

[One_more_turn]

I'm going to start a new domination game next week with Qin Shi Huang at Emperor level. Other game settings will include Epic speed and Standard Pangea map.

My early strategy may use an early axemen rush and the CS Slingshot . I will report a detailed game progress. Stay tuned.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard
In this sort of situation would you divert a hybrid production/commerce city (i.e. my capital) to build the Great Library? I decided not to, influenced by my lack of Marble. Basically I'm planning to capture Wonders rather than build them (and just relieved the Mongols of the burden of the Parthenon, as I earlier took on Stonehenge from the Romans). [It's odd to have such tiny production of GPP compared to my usual games.]

At Noble you could probably have your cake and eat it by building the Great Library whilst conquering. I'd normally build it on Monarch even without marble because it just goes so well with BUR.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Yes, you're right, though the cake tastes a bit too sweet when it's this easy. My best friend G. Washington just finished the GL so I don't have to worry about it until I'm ready to break the friendship. I built the Hanging Gardens instead (not that one has anything to do with the other).

In terms of "too easy" I ripped all the way through Mongolia, capturing or destroying all K.K.'s cities. At the point when only his two biggest cities remained I was at -10 gpt at 50 or 60% and thought I might have to chill out for a bit, but I wanted The Pyramids (at Karakorum) so I went ahead and took it, then his last city was Just Sitting There (with the Great Lighthouse) so I took that too...and discovered that I was at +10 gpt at 60% and +4 gpt at 70%. That wouldn't happen at higher levels! Next target: Montezuma. The next target should be Washington because America is the strongest opponent, but Washington is Pleased and I'm inclined to delay abusing his trust. For now.

[fed1943]

Hermann: I noticed the diference, at the gold, when the enemy civ.have fallen. Why? Did you changed the culture slider? Had you red unhappy citizens?
Best regards,