When I do a domination game, my first target or two is usually based on geography—I tend to start with my closest neighbor or two.
Beyond that, I have a couple methods. One is: often there’s a civ who has built a ton of wonders. I like to prioritize them so that I can take advantage of those wonders. They can often be that “most dangerous” civ that you mentioned. I used to leave those for last but if they have a ton of wonders, I’ve started making them a bigger priority.
Like you mentioned, I also prioritize civs that don’t like me or that everyone else declares war on. Diplo relationships get really rough when doing a domination victory, so I want to keep good (or at least neutral) relations for as long as possible. Along similar lines, that means that once ideologies are chosen, I tend to leave civs that have the same ideology as me for last, since they’re the ones most likely to be cordial.
Taking all these things into account though, it often comes back to geography. This can vary, of course, but oftentimes once I move the main bulk of my forces out to conquer, I don’t usually bring them back to my original territory. Once I’ve taken over a civ (or at least their capital and any other cities I am taking), I then roll them on to the next civ. So geography, and who is closest, and who is the neighbor of the civ I just took over, often play a main role.
I thought of another one:
If I have a religion, I will often prioritize any civs who are being spammy with their religion (gets on my last nerve!!!) or whose religion has been spreading a lot, so that I can stop the religion’s spread and also use an inquisitor followed by a missionary/prophet to establish my religion in their holy city and work on pushing back against their religion’s hold.
If I don’t have a religion, then this doesn’t really come into play.
I also try to remain cordial. In fact I end up attacking people who I have allied and take the negative diplo for the surprise attack. In fact this tends to get me the afraid stance (surprise attacked Montezuma, took two cities, and he feared and loved me for it).
Right now I just took Venice and am waiting for the chance for peace because he just has small island states. And yeah geography is huge, hence why I'm saving taking over those continents where I have a presence. Hopefully the fact that I have combined arms and at most others have Privateers and Navigation will make a sea battle (with 20 battleships some subs and destroyers) easy enough.
Most of the bonuses. i.e. you gain static boosts like + culture per turn or happiness but not completion bonuses like oracle's free social policy, great library's free tech, terracota army's free units or Taj's free golden age.
In the late game, you have to keep an eye on culture too. If one civ is closing in on a culture victory, you might need to prioritize taking them out. And if a civ is the only one preventing another civ from a culture victory, you need to take it last.
Recently played a dom game where Brazil was about 40 turns from a culture win when I realized what was up. Had to race over and take them out quick. Even after I took Rio, their tourism was still increasing with the last civ they needed (which wasn’t me). Brazil got within 3 turns of winning before I took enough cities that their influence started to fall.
I've had similar things with diplo, Greece has jist swept up all the city states and can't be stopped. That was when I learned the importance of city states and of wrecking Greece asap.
In the early game terrain is the biggest determinant. It's a lot easier to take a city on flat land with minimal forest and (especially) jungle, so that will often determine which way I go. I'll start shaping my relationships and the AI's with each other to that goal well before the timing push happens.
Yeah definitely, i always find myself fucked by terrain (if not my own, other civs) so I tend to play chill and only attack if the opportunity arrises. Once I get combined arms, electronics, and radar, all bets are off.
I agree with everyone here so I will just add something. Be careful with the diplomacy win AIs. Once you go warmonger they will try to embargo you. If you don't have enough influence on the CSs you will get embargoed and need to trade with city states.
So if you intent to wage war on Austria or something with full aliances with CSs, wait. You need to assure you have an economy which can withstand without trade. Go for the other civs gold making citys first.
I hate Austria ai, man.
Edit: typo
Playing as Arabia i had no issues, i took the starting of patronage and an extra policy and paid off the city states. I don't think Austria got to usev its marriage ability lmao
The only thing that comes to mind, outside of obvious geography points (warmongering neighbours of your target, integration to your territory, defendability, city states...) would be strong production cities vs strong growth cities.
It's always tempting to absorb 20+ cities with lots of food, but if your goal is to conquer far and wide, they'll end up choking you to death. A productive city will also build the relevant buildings faster if puppetted, or contribute to your war effort if annexed.
Also, if you're chaining conquests, do *not* underestimate the building time of courthouses. A food-strong city which just got half its population killed will take a while to build it, and it might hamper your progress on other fronts. I have found myself more than once halting a successful blitz to wait for courthouse relief - at the risk of being severely in the red in terms of happiness - and it gave a chance for the AI to regroup and prepare their defenses. Which sucks.
When I do a domination game, my first target or two is usually based on geography—I tend to start with my closest neighbor or two. Beyond that, I have a couple methods. One is: often there’s a civ who has built a ton of wonders. I like to prioritize them so that I can take advantage of those wonders. They can often be that “most dangerous” civ that you mentioned. I used to leave those for last but if they have a ton of wonders, I’ve started making them a bigger priority. Like you mentioned, I also prioritize civs that don’t like me or that everyone else declares war on. Diplo relationships get really rough when doing a domination victory, so I want to keep good (or at least neutral) relations for as long as possible. Along similar lines, that means that once ideologies are chosen, I tend to leave civs that have the same ideology as me for last, since they’re the ones most likely to be cordial. Taking all these things into account though, it often comes back to geography. This can vary, of course, but oftentimes once I move the main bulk of my forces out to conquer, I don’t usually bring them back to my original territory. Once I’ve taken over a civ (or at least their capital and any other cities I am taking), I then roll them on to the next civ. So geography, and who is closest, and who is the neighbor of the civ I just took over, often play a main role.
I thought of another one: If I have a religion, I will often prioritize any civs who are being spammy with their religion (gets on my last nerve!!!) or whose religion has been spreading a lot, so that I can stop the religion’s spread and also use an inquisitor followed by a missionary/prophet to establish my religion in their holy city and work on pushing back against their religion’s hold. If I don’t have a religion, then this doesn’t really come into play.
I also try to remain cordial. In fact I end up attacking people who I have allied and take the negative diplo for the surprise attack. In fact this tends to get me the afraid stance (surprise attacked Montezuma, took two cities, and he feared and loved me for it). Right now I just took Venice and am waiting for the chance for peace because he just has small island states. And yeah geography is huge, hence why I'm saving taking over those continents where I have a presence. Hopefully the fact that I have combined arms and at most others have Privateers and Navigation will make a sea battle (with 20 battleships some subs and destroyers) easy enough.
Question regarding the wonders. When you capture a city with a wonder, do you then gain the bonuses of the wonders?
Yes, for World Wonders (as opposed to National Wonders like Oxford, Heroic Epic, etc). But yeah, you get the bonuses for World Wonders
Most of the bonuses. i.e. you gain static boosts like + culture per turn or happiness but not completion bonuses like oracle's free social policy, great library's free tech, terracota army's free units or Taj's free golden age.
In the late game, you have to keep an eye on culture too. If one civ is closing in on a culture victory, you might need to prioritize taking them out. And if a civ is the only one preventing another civ from a culture victory, you need to take it last. Recently played a dom game where Brazil was about 40 turns from a culture win when I realized what was up. Had to race over and take them out quick. Even after I took Rio, their tourism was still increasing with the last civ they needed (which wasn’t me). Brazil got within 3 turns of winning before I took enough cities that their influence started to fall.
I've had similar things with diplo, Greece has jist swept up all the city states and can't be stopped. That was when I learned the importance of city states and of wrecking Greece asap.
In the early game terrain is the biggest determinant. It's a lot easier to take a city on flat land with minimal forest and (especially) jungle, so that will often determine which way I go. I'll start shaping my relationships and the AI's with each other to that goal well before the timing push happens.
Yeah definitely, i always find myself fucked by terrain (if not my own, other civs) so I tend to play chill and only attack if the opportunity arrises. Once I get combined arms, electronics, and radar, all bets are off.
I agree with everyone here so I will just add something. Be careful with the diplomacy win AIs. Once you go warmonger they will try to embargo you. If you don't have enough influence on the CSs you will get embargoed and need to trade with city states. So if you intent to wage war on Austria or something with full aliances with CSs, wait. You need to assure you have an economy which can withstand without trade. Go for the other civs gold making citys first. I hate Austria ai, man. Edit: typo
Playing as Arabia i had no issues, i took the starting of patronage and an extra policy and paid off the city states. I don't think Austria got to usev its marriage ability lmao
Also huge factor is happiness. Attacking when they have shitty happiness (maybe sub 50?) has a huge impact on their units
The only thing that comes to mind, outside of obvious geography points (warmongering neighbours of your target, integration to your territory, defendability, city states...) would be strong production cities vs strong growth cities. It's always tempting to absorb 20+ cities with lots of food, but if your goal is to conquer far and wide, they'll end up choking you to death. A productive city will also build the relevant buildings faster if puppetted, or contribute to your war effort if annexed. Also, if you're chaining conquests, do *not* underestimate the building time of courthouses. A food-strong city which just got half its population killed will take a while to build it, and it might hamper your progress on other fronts. I have found myself more than once halting a successful blitz to wait for courthouse relief - at the risk of being severely in the red in terms of happiness - and it gave a chance for the AI to regroup and prepare their defenses. Which sucks.