How to get into Domination victories?

[purple]

I'm really enjoying Civ, so far I've been following the cultural, religious, and technological victories in particular, and I think I now have a good understanding of the mechanics behind them. Diplomatic victories don't excite me that much.

What I struggle with is the pursuit of military strategies. In each of my games I am totally inferior militarily and actually only survive because I kiss the ass of all other civilizations so hard. When I invade a city, I often find upon arriving that I'm not doing enough damage and lose my units there in a war I can't win. Except at the very beginning or late endgame with nukes, I'm unable to capture other cities even if I'm spamming units. My units are interfering with each other on the tiles and are slow to pass each other. It seems that every time I choose exactly the units that are weak against my opponents. I keep ending up in awkward positions where my units just get killed in a few turns. I have a hard time remembering which units are strong against others. There are so many different ones.

It happens very often that someone suddenly declares war on me and only then do I realize that I need units - for which I then lack everything possible, which usually means that I have lost. I constantly seem to lack resources, money, research or buildings to upgrade my units or build new ones. I always miss the moment when you're supposed to train military units. Buildings, districts or wonders always make more sense to me. In my last game, I even got killed by barbarians because they were superior to me...

As you can probably read, I'm doing something fundamentally wrong. I think there is simply a lack of knowledge and an idea of the right approach at this point. Does anyone have any tips on how to win a domination victory and how to get a better understanding for military strategies?

[Stormwinds]

The key to Domination is understanding timing pushes. You need to understand which units will give you the most advantage when fielded. Domination is also a snowball victory just like the rest of them. The earlier you start the better, but if you start too early, you can hit a wall that will make you irrelevant.

The most common, and arguably the most effective, strategy is to rush swordsmen and use them to run over your neighbor. Swordsmen + a battering ram and a Great General will give you a big advantage. After you take over one civ, upgrade your units and repeat. Once your opponent has built Renaissance Walls, you will need to choose between using siege weaponry or planes to break their defenses as they run along opposite ends of the tech tree.

[grognardgary]

Begin before your opponents start building walls, Archers and clubbers can do just fine when properly balance Ie 3-4 of the former 2 of the latter Don't use the latter until the former have weakened them enough to to make it a one shot deal, Also kill any defending units before you try to take down the city

[gdshore]

Stormwinds is correct for the most part, rushing swordsmen is good, but only if you have iron, if they have walls you need to soften them. Archers, crossbow or catapults great in early - mid game, canon, artillery in ren./ind. ages, tanks and air in late game or if it is your bent Giant Death Robots. Avoid nukes,,, a poisoned world is a pyrric victory.

[Stormwinds]

Originally posted by gdshore:

Stormwinds is correct for the most part, rushing swordsmen is good, but only if you have iron, if they have walls you need to soften them. Archers, crossbow or catapults great in early - mid game, canon, artillery in ren./ind. ages, tanks and air in late game or if it is your bent Giant Death Robots. Avoid nukes,,, a poisoned world is a pyrric victory.

I mean the poison goes away after 6-7 turns on standard speed, which by that point in the game is a decade or two at most.

[purple]

Originally posted by Stormwinds:

The key to Domination is understanding timing pushes. You need to understand which units will give you the most advantage when fielded. Domination is also a snowball victory just like the rest of them. The earlier you start the better, but if you start too early, you can hit a wall that will make you irrelevant.

The most common, and arguably the most effective, strategy is to rush swordsmen and use them to run over your neighbor. Swordsmen + a battering ram and a Great General will give you a big advantage. After you take over one civ, upgrade your units and repeat. Once your opponent has built Renaissance Walls, you will need to choose between using siege weaponry or planes to break their defenses as they run along opposite ends of the tech tree.

Your comment was really helpful to me. I’ve started a new game with Trajan as a leader. Instead of spamming units, I tried to keep the same small group so I was able to promote and upgrade them. Along with a battering ram and a great general I’ve sent them towards my closest neighbour who was Kupe and took him out of the game quite easily. Afterwards I took a small rest in my new city to heal my units, improve my empire, save some gold and move forward in the tech tree. After I got the units of the next era, I started to conquer Pericles’ cities. Eventually I got a little bit overexcited about the fact that my new knowledge was working out and messed up the right timing to invade Barbarossa, so I lost my units to him. He (or actually his city wall) was way stronger than I expected. I suppose I could’ve just go on like that and once I learned more about the right timings, it will get easier for me. I still have a hard time to recognize a cities strength, can you give me any tips on that? Also, sometimes I ran into units and got surprised how much damage they made. How can I plan this better in advance?

[guard65]

The thing that I found best is to have two or three forces. Not to attack with exactly, but to rotate the units out and allow the injured to retreat safely. Do not be afraid to retreat after a unit takes 1 hit if you can rotate it out with another unit.

-1) Use your ranged troupes to lure the enemy and place you warriors fortified in between them.
-2) bring a worker along in the battle and build roads or lure enemy troupes. The fact is if an archer can step up to shoot a city walls and the retreat on a road to safety is good planning.
-3) protect promoted troupes at all costs, even at the cost of other units.
-4) whenever possible take every city of an enemy, leave no one behind.
-5) if you want an ally declare war on them take a city. Wait for it to rebel and then declare peace. Then liberate the city and get a +10 from that civ from then on.

I could go on but these are some samples of a few methods I use.

[Stormwinds]

Originally posted by purple:

Originally posted by Stormwinds:

The key to Domination is understanding timing pushes. You need to understand which units will give you the most advantage when fielded. Domination is also a snowball victory just like the rest of them. The earlier you start the better, but if you start too early, you can hit a wall that will make you irrelevant.

The most common, and arguably the most effective, strategy is to rush swordsmen and use them to run over your neighbor. Swordsmen + a battering ram and a Great General will give you a big advantage. After you take over one civ, upgrade your units and repeat. Once your opponent has built Renaissance Walls, you will need to choose between using siege weaponry or planes to break their defenses as they run along opposite ends of the tech tree.

Your comment was really helpful to me. I’ve started a new game with Trajan as a leader. Instead of spamming units, I tried to keep the same small group so I was able to promote and upgrade them. Along with a battering ram and a great general I’ve sent them towards my closest neighbour who was Kupe and took him out of the game quite easily. Afterwards I took a small rest in my new city to heal my units, improve my empire, save some gold and move forward in the tech tree. After I got the units of the next era, I started to conquer Pericles’ cities. Eventually I got a little bit overexcited about the fact that my new knowledge was working out and messed up the right timing to invade Barbarossa, so I lost my units to him. He (or actually his city wall) was way stronger than I expected. I suppose I could’ve just go on like that and once I learned more about the right timings, it will get easier for me. I still have a hard time to recognize a cities strength, can you give me any tips on that? Also, sometimes I ran into units and got surprised how much damage they made. How can I plan this better in advance?

City combat strength is mostly affected by the strongest melee unit the civ has built - 10, +3 for each district built, and another 3 for each layer of walls built in addition to the other modifiers such as being on a hill or floodplains or across a river. A civ with high science is likely to have built stronger units, which in turn increases the base strength of their cities. You can see their base combat strength at any time as it is right above the city banner. Keep in mind, though, that just because they have high science doesn't mean they will have the production or resources necessary to make stronger units. I played a game yesterday where Scotland was making mad science per turn having built Great Library, Oxford, and Etemenanki in the capital. However, their city combat strength was low either due to science greed or bad strategic resource RNG, so I was able to roll through them easily using Man-at-Arms and Trebuchets as the Ottomans.

The strongest ranged unit dictates how strong a city's ranged combat strength is, so, again, a civ making a lot of science per turn is likely to have unlocked stronger ranged units.

The combat formula is rather complicated, but the general gist is that 30 combat strength over is a one-shot and 15 over is half health. A difference of 10 can mean you only take 20 vs their 45. This is why fighting from behind is awkward, so you need to squeeze as much combat strength out of your units as possible. There is an element of randomness too, so I'll link the wiki if you want to see the entire combat formula.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Combat_(Civ6)

Edit: Another tip: It helps if you can get an early military alliance with someone who is willing to join your war as that's another +5 combat strength. It's even better if it's Gilgamesh as he is guaranteed to accept your friendship as long as he hasn't denounced you and gives another +5 combat strength to allies at war with the same people he is. You will be blocked from declaring war on them while the alliance is up and the combat strength bonus only lasts as long as both of you are at war with your target, so keep a strategy in the back of your mind on how you will deal with them

[Maya-Neko]

You've to pretty much concentrate on 3 parts:
- science, so that you get to stronger units faster than the other civs
- money to keep up your military and to upgrade it on a regular basis, also buying building definitely helps too to concentrate more on the military stuff
- production output to build these units faster and also to keep up with the other important buildings.

Also a few culture buildings here and there are good too, as some of the important military techs are behind that tree too (especially the corps and army techs)

All the combat tips doesn't really help, if your economy can't keep your military on top of the list.

And if you plan to do ships, you might also plan for the Venetian Arsenal (needs to be next to an industrial zone). Definitely the strongest military wonder in the game, as it just duplicates any ship you build without additional costs.

[Solitus]

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

And if you plan to do ships, you might also plan for the Venetian Arsenal (needs to be next to an industrial zone). Definitely the strongest military wonder in the game, as it just duplicates any ship you build without additional costs.

Unless you're on an archipelago map where control of the seas is vital, this is a trap and a waste of production. Especially since city centers no longer have to be on the coast directly.

The production spent on the venetian arsenal (or almost any wonder) could have been spent on building more military to capture the other cities that have built those wonders for you.

[JerBeware]

Originally posted by Solitus:

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

And if you plan to do ships, you might also plan for the Venetian Arsenal (needs to be next to an industrial zone). Definitely the strongest military wonder in the game, as it just duplicates any ship you build without additional costs.

Unless you're on an archipelago map where control of the seas is vital, this is a trap and a waste of production. Especially since city centers no longer have to be on the coast directly.

The production spent on the venetian arsenal (or almost any wonder) could have been spent on building more military to capture the other cities that have built those wonders for you.

Yeah, but then you're relying on the AI to have built the wonder in the right location/city.

[Solitus]

Originally posted by JerBeware:

Originally posted by Solitus:

Unless you're on an archipelago map where control of the seas is vital, this is a trap and a waste of production. Especially since city centers no longer have to be on the coast directly.

The production spent on the venetian arsenal (or almost any wonder) could have been spent on building more military to capture the other cities that have built those wonders for you.

Yeah, but then you're relying on the AI to have built the wonder in the right location/city.

Very true. But to be effective at domination (or like OP, f you're struggling with it) you need to change your mindset. You win the game when you have their capitals. You don't win if you build nice looking cities full of wonders (which admittedly is my favorite part of the game)

You aren't building wonders. You are killing civs. You are capturing cities. Wonders are a distraction. You can't take over enemy civs with a wonder.

[purple]

Originally posted by Solitus:

Very true. But to be effective at domination (or like OP, f you're struggling with it) you need to change your mindset. You win the game when you have their capitals. You don't win if you build nice looking cities full of wonders (which admittedly is my favorite part of the game)

You aren't building wonders. You are killing civs. You are capturing cities. Wonders are a distraction. You can't take over enemy civs with a wonder.

I love your comment, you're so right. I needed to hear that.

[:) m Ö r Ö n (:]

Kill few barbarians to get unit promotions - do not use them just yet, because you need them at close distance range of an enemy city. Using promotion gives lots of health. Remember to heal unit instead of going straight to unit promotion.

Wait their archers - they come out sooner or later after starting your war and player must cross their borders at right direction to clear enemies at right spot.

Search enemy farms - where they are and raid at correct timing.

Building of wonder failed and no another option? When using hero mode can rush hero with lost hammers to get reinforce if player lost too much units.

My learning to play this game is stuck, because I´m helpless against advanced walls. Most usual have one battering ram, but upgrading it does not help. There is empty time between advanced walls, and before get medic units or even to invent Steel technology.

My greatest mistakes are with those enemy encampment districts - played this game at last Christmas at offline - it is easy to forget those encampment areas and sometimes they are behind of enemy city.

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by Solitus:

Very true. But to be effective at domination (or like OP, f you're struggling with it) you need to change your mindset. You win the game when you have their capitals. You don't win if you build nice looking cities full of wonders (which admittedly is my favorite part of the game)

You aren't building wonders. You are killing civs. You are capturing cities. Wonders are a distraction. You can't take over enemy civs with a wonder.

It's undeniable, that building units twice as fast is quite a strong buff You only need to build 3-5 ships to get your investment back already, given how expensive ships are to begin with. So if you start to do ships late in the game, then it's definitely better to build it first, if you need a strong raiding fleet for getting your first few coastal cities.

But obviously scouting is key here, as with everything else as well, but once you know, that you need many ships, then better just plan out things properly and don't just discard something, just because you never did the math on it. And that's btw true on every wonder.

There will eventually be a situation, where sending 20 troops to an enemy city won't win you anything (especially when you've a very hilly or or woody area, slowing you down quite hard) and where you have time to build something else, so better choose the things, that will properly snowball into the lategame and not just the 21st troop, which will just sit around doing nothing as well. And these situations will obviously occour more often, if you're not min-maxing so hard, that you've already won in the renaissance

[gesundheit]

My key tool is artillery. While cities can be easy to take early, especially if not garrisoned, when walls go up you need to take out their offensive capability. For that you can use a few archers and a couple warriors for ancient walls. For medieval walls you'll need artillery units.

I try to get artillery units in service ASAP. "Safely" use those first artillery units early. Get them promoted quickly to the point they get an extra range promotion. Just having a couple artillery units with a 3 range will make your city taking unstoppable. Have a couple flanked archers to defend from enemy units attacking your artillery and a couple mele units nearby for blocking. Sometimes you'll need more or less of these units depending on the capability of your foe but this is my general formula.

“The first shot is for the Devil, the second for God, and only the third for the King.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte

Artillery is the god of war.
– Stalin