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Settler
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Apr 2004
time: 20:40
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Guys,
Don't we all stick to what we know best too often?
I, for one, aways seem to race towards a space race or cultural victory. it just suits my game play best to build up some good working cities, get ahead in tech and build up a good "defensive" army.
Of course there is the odd early start wipe out of a weak neighbor, but apart from that it' just building and growing on a keep-everybody(AI)-nice-and-cooperating-strategy.
So after a couple of wins, I thought : time for a change: let's go dominating the world using Mr Wilhem Van Oranje! At this point I am only 3% away on landmass from victory, so I only need a couple of turns more.
The problem that I have here is that I'm such a tech-addict, that I just started to build my nice peace-based empire (with a nice vassal : the Zulu) until I got far enough ahead in tech and power.
This resulted in only going to war for the first time by the early 1900's . On a continental map, this means building tons of ships (transports and battleships) to get my modern armors and stuff across the globe. It is taking me up and above 10 minutes for each turn to do the necessary! (I micromanage quite a bit)
Now the question: How does anyone of you guys deal with a domination strategy? (and how are goals to be achieved quicker...)
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Prince
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Oct 2002
time: 21:40
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Well, dominitation is usually a victory that just comes to me. In fact, I hardly finish a game before I start a new one, so if I decide to win, it's all situational  . But, how it usually turns out, is that someone declare war on me. I defend, counterattack and counterinvade. If my empire can afford the cost of war, I will fight untill the enemy has no cities left. I will not vassalize them if I'm force to stop cause of war weariness or just producing units is halting my growth. Then I will have peace for a while and then take out the remaining cities. Again it's situational if I'll vassalize an emeny.
And so it goes on. Normally a new enemy will declare war on me and I will invade him/ her. I might also find an nearby civ to "integrate" and often try to do this by a surprise attack.
Summa summarum, I gain land and will get closer and closer to a domination victory. When it's time for tanks and planes, you should be large enough in land to produce a relative huge invasion force to suprise attack a powerful neighbour even on a separate continent.
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Emperor
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Dec 2005
time: 20:40
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What's wrong about taking 10 or more minutes for each turn? We are
not payed by turn, it just means we take more profit from the money
we spent to buy the game.
About domination... wars must be started much before 1900'.
Just expand, protect yourself and take care of the economy and
resources,then more military to conquer or vassalize (and diplomacy
to trade and not to be ganged on).
Best regards,
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Prince
State Of Denial
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Apr 2007
time: 14:40
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Airports can be useful for inter-continental wars. You still need an initial invasion force, but after that you just buy/whip airports in conquered cities and air-lift/rebase everything. Of course, this works much better if you have a significant tech lead, if they can kill your units quickly you may need to cart over more units than the airports can allow, and you run the risk of your airlifts being shot down (I think)
What I do for domination victory: Make an early war either with axes or an early UU, it's easy to get a large army before the AI (at least on the settings I play). Take out one or two civs, hopefully get 2 great generals. Now, the best value is to settle them, but that's boring, and it means you need to build lots of units, but the point here is to have an elite force that is much quicker to use than a large army. So attach them to your best axes/swordsmen/maces. First priority is leadership, then city raider, then one goes for medic3, the other for woodsman3. After I've cleared out my immediate area, I cool on the warmonger, both because my economy is usually tanking, and because I hate medieval warfare. Use your size lead to your advantage and out-tech the AI. Once you have steel, build some cannons and maces, and try to get to about 10 maces with City Raider3. Upgrade all your city raider3 units to riflemen/infantry. Assuming you are tech leader, it is physically impossible to lose a war at this point. And 10 cityraider infantry (one of which is probably combat6 at this point, and the other has 5-8 first strikes from drill/woodsman) will take any city defended by rifles or less, you might need seige/air support for civs with tech parity. The point being, set your self up to need a 10 man offensive army, easy to transport, easy to use, easy on the budget. Though if you go for domination rather than conquest, you'll still need to build defensive units for the new cities, obviously.
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Co-Owner/ Administrator (Reasonable One)
Lord of the Ferrets
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Nov 1999
time: 14:40
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Used to MP so 10 minutes a turn is not possible.
STACK ATTACKS (at least by catagory), and not giving commands to workers during wars. (unless they're just connecting auto)
Only look at cities when something is finished building and use queues. Thinking about overall strat only while waiting for other cives to finish their turns.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
I'll do a bit more city Maint during SP, but I keep it moving.
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Technical Assistant
Of the Peanuts Gallery
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Apr 2004
time: 14:40
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MP time limit starts at a bit under 1 minute per turn on Normal timer speed, faster for Blazing slower for Slow. It goes up with certain things - I think it's like 1 second per unit or something odd like that, and some time per city, etc. By the Ren. era it's maybe 2 minutes a turn.
You can manage all of your workers with no trouble, you do need to do stack attack and not manage every city every single turn, but that shouldn't be necessary anyway.
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King
Saskatoon, SK, CA
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Oct 1999
time: 14:40
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Warmongering is very map dependent, so this is a generalization. I play standard map with 7 AI civs, and I tend to take out one with axes/cats. One with maces/trebs. Then the finishing push with rifles/cannon, I get infantry during this stage but it's not usually essential. Basically keep expanding as your economy can support it.
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Technical Assistant
Of the Peanuts Gallery
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Apr 2004
time: 14:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Another world entirely! Sometimes I just like to admire/evaluate for a couple of minutes. I look through the graphs, check the F1, rearrange my tech study order, check out the Demographicsm and Top 5/Wonders screens, look over the resource and tech trade option screens, and study the map a bit. None of this would be possible in one to two minutes.
Does the stack attack process work well? I would think you would end up assaulting before your seige weapons had worn down the defenses in cities. |
Stack attack works fine. You just have to be intelligent about it I'd use it for SP just as much as for MP.
You use the control-click feature to select all of your siege, then attack, then select all of your macemen, then attack, etc.  You also use ctrl-H to select hurt units, 'fortify' them, then select the rest of the units to get only Healed units.
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Emperor
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Dec 2005
time: 20:40
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I never played simultaneous MP.
If I understood right the most important skill is a perfect domain
over the interface. Is that?
Best regards,
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Deity
of Spam
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Dec 2003
time: 20:40
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Not really; in the team games the overall skill is being able to develop ones economy without dying from a rush and knowing how to handle a choke. After that the most important skill is the team work within a team.
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Blaupanzer
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King
Fairfax, VA
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Oct 2000
time: 15:40
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We went a bit off subject. My fault. I tend to play a builder's game with a good-size army and fight only for resources in the early game (up to cannons and riflemen). In response, I usually find that one AI opponent builds a big army and vassalizes a couple of other AIs while another (usually financial) roars thru the techs so that civ has infantry and is studying artillery by the point I get rifles/cannons. At that point only a cultural win is dimly possible and in fact the big bad guy (with vassals and possibly allies) soon comes to put me out of my misery. Obviously, this strategy is not working.
So ..., the question is how do I switch over, which traits should I look for, which techs should I emphasize on a large, epic map? Is one map-type better than another (I usually use fractal, low water)? which special units are best. I have had luck with the Romans, the Ethiopians, and if I can last long enough, the Dutch. Monty lets me go after everyone like a wargame. I had thought that either the Incas or the Japanese might help. No real luck. I also tried the Native Americans with their masterful archers, and they kept me from being overwhelmed, but I still was stuck with only an outside chance at cultural. I want someone to convey some useful clues on that domination strategy thinking!! 
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Emperor
Maryland Heights, MO
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Sep 2002
time: 14:40
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Well, the last couple times I won via military I ended up with a Diplomatic victory instead, so I'm not sure it really counts.
The earliest though was an AP victory. I played the Germans, one civ voultary became my vassal and I foricably turned the other 2 into vassals as well; Calvary was my most advanced unit in that last war.
I used a few missionaries to get the AP religion over to the other landmass, that was before the change came down from missonary gifts to be refused from those running Theocracy.
I did have to grant one of my subjucated vasals Liberalism and then bribe him to switch to Free Religion as well.
I think it amounts to having an army size week enough for the AI to singly declare war on you but with enough of one + a strong enough economy to keep your cities from being overrun while you crash-mobilze your economy for war.
That other was a late game UN victory just below territory threshold needed for domination.
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Prince
Vaasa, Finland
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Nov 2005
time: 20:40
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I used to be all about "civilized" victories, meaning that I'd build a small and effective nation and just tech, tech, tech. My most common victory used to be space, followed by cultural and diplomatic and I simply did not even try to win the game by domination or conquest back in the day.
Then, one day I decided that it's time to warmonger and so I did. I started playing rush strategies (Quechua rush on Continents to get a full continent), Praetorians, Immortals, a simple Axe rush... you name it, I tried it and in the end I believe that thanks to this change I became more versatile as a player. I no longer feel the need to simply tech to win and can make warring a natural part of my strategy.
Also, a good way to pick up on military is playing MP because there you simply can't survive if you can't live up to the balance of power.
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You're still sore about that aren't you. 
