How to dominate on the huge map with 16 civs

[Lord Merciless]

Next, the power graph:

[Lord Merciless]

Atlanta 12 turns after its capture:

[Theseus]

Good job getting them to mix it up.

Declare war on Germany, and purchase alliances with China, France, and Japan.

At some point, you should take part yourself. Does Germany have any juicy target cities on its west coast?

[Arrian]

Oh, I think you can interefere on the mainland. You now have a powerful strike force. 43 Cavalry will pack a serious punch. 2 armies of Cavalry, right? Those are your nutcrackers - please tell me you only have 3 cavs in each army (the Pentagon will allow you to add a fourth to each... but they won't fit in galleons then). Ok, so 6 cavs in the armies, plus 37 others... that's about 10 galleon loads. Add in the 3 cannon, a settler, and say... 16 riflemen. That's 5 more galleon loads.

There has been a lot of war on the main continent. I can see from the map that, as usual, gaps have opened up in the AI's cultural borders. Pick a good spot, close to something valueable like a luxury or resource, and stick a city there. Get it a barracks/walls/harbor/temple and pour in your entire army. If you haven't been attacked by the time it's assembled, pick the fight yourself. Looks like there is a nice coastal gap area where England used to be.

Call in allies. Whether the initial German assault on your "colony" and then counterattack - grab luxuries. Cities on the mainland will not be productive, so they have to pay for themselves in other ways: forward bases to continue beating on the AI, and sources of resources/luxuries for your people.

Clearly, you could decide to wipe the floor with Persia/Babylon instead.

-Arrian

[jshelr]

"My research has been going really well. Since the AI Civs focuse much their energies on war fighting, I was able to get ahead in tech and regularly sell them for cash. My extra income ranges from 300 to 600 gpt."

The other option, appealing to a child of the 60s, is to declare victory after a job well done and reload. This one's over.

[MJW]

What level are you playing on?

[Bambul]

How did you capture a Greek settler?

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by MJW
What level are you playing on?

Settings:
Emperor level
Huge Map
16 Civs

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Bambul
How did you capture a Greek settler?

I didn't capture it, I built the settler in a city full of Greeks.

[Lord Merciless]

Here is the conclusion to this game. I failed to achieve the Domination victory by 2-3 turns and won through culture in year 1780AD. Some comments on this game:

- AI is too easy to manipulate if you have extra techs available. They will agree to anything ranging from MPP to ROP to Military Alliance. In the later stage of this game, the AI Civs should be GANGING up on me, but they didn't. I was always able to form military alliances on a 3:1 basis.

- Commercial civ is very useful for large empires on bigger maps. Despite my many newly conquered cities, the corruption didn't exceed 25% overall. In the end, I have 100+ cities.

- MAs are brutal. They cut through Infantries like knife through butter. In year 1776AD, France had 20 cities. By the end of that year, they were eliminated. With current MA force, I should be able to wipe our the remaining 2 civs in 1 turn.

- The end game was very tedious and micromanagement intensive. Moving all those workers to clean up pollutions was really painful. Another benefit of Industrious civs is that you need to move fewer workers later in the game.

- The advice several posters gave me are quite useful. The game was executed almost like a program.

[Lord Merciless]

I think the winning picture is really funny:

[Lord Merciless]

The corruption is quite tame:

[Lord Merciless]

The military has grown quite large and it takes forever to get them moved. Stack movements would be nice.

[Lord Merciless]

The second part of the military:

[Lord Merciless]

This game had been quite vicious. 13 Civs were destroyed in an endless war of acquisitions. I had eliminated 8 of them: Americans, Egyptians, Aztecs, Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, Indians, and French.