What is the Best Civilization For a Domination Victory

[Aidan]

Any era, as well as any strategy, early, I think it is called sniping when you only take over a capital city, and my favorite wait until a Civ takes over almost every other civ and just take out them and whoever else before they are unbeatable.
Some suggestions:
Huns
Mongols
Zulu
Germany
Denmark (for archipelago)
Japan
Songhai

[zxcvbob]

Hiawatha is frequently the runaway AI on his continent in my games. And if he's on my continent, he gives me a run for my money. Always friendly though, and even generous sometimes... until about the industrial or modern era, when he fires up his war machine.

[Mr. Stockington]

The Huns are good for early-game rushes, but for everything else, they'll have to deal with a difficult time. The Mongols' unique ability only apply to City-States. The Zulus, combined with Military Tradition, can and will result in having a powerful army. Germany's reduced land unit maintance costs can be helpful for keeping a good economy without worrying about having a army too large for your civilisation. Plus, Panzers are better than Tanks. The Denmarks can be powerful if used correctly. Remember that Denmark's units take no movement point when pillaging. Japan's Unique Unit, the samurai, is said to be the strongest unit of its time, with the ability to spawn Great Generals faster and gets a combat bonus on flat land. Songhai might be useful if you want more gold than any civilisation, but otherwise, you might want to consider their other unique ability, which gives their land units a combat bonus when fighting over the sea or rivers.

[Crim]

What makes Japan insane for Dom is the fact you need to 100% kill their Siege, Everyone else you could shoot em once with city and basically make it useless. Samurai are crap compared to this insane bonus.

Germans (if they are lucky), Huns and Assyria are probably the best "snipers", they get their military going early enough and are strong enough to take out the capital before people can react.

Zulu, Mongol, Arabia, Iroquois, Ottoman, Songhai, Japan, Persia, China, and Rome have enough general military strength at their respective eras that they are able to more completely destroy a Civ and have momentum to destroy a few more near the 1st.

England, Denmark, Ottoman, Portugal, etc (Naval Specialists) will generally have enough Navy ot absolutely conquer every Coastal city, including the capital if you were lucky enough that the enemies placed them all coastally

A few Civs do not have enough military bonuses for constant and active domination, but enough that they always have enough army to defend themselves to the point that it is difficult to conquer them. Aztecs, Germans, Babylon, India, Korea, Ethiopia, Sweden etc

[Ryika]

Best Overall-Civ for domination is by far China. Very useful UA, insane UU which comes at the point where you can really start conquering.

[Acken]

The difficulty makes the choice very different.
Civs like arabia and mongolia (and China) are crazy good at immortal and below. You can basically win by turn 150 with them on emperor and immortal due to how overpowered Camel archers and keshiks are. But on the other hand it's pretty hard to win in medieval/renaissance with these in Deity so there, civs like China with a very good all game bonus will be better.

Finally, if you aim for a late game conquest any civ with a science bonus is a good option. Babylone, korea and maya.

If you play at a low difficulty (Prince, Warlord) you can win by turn 100 with civs that have a very good ancient UU like Egypt, Assyria Huns (on pangea).

[kafkaclone]

it depends on what level you play at and what size map you use. germany is great at high levels on small and midsize maps because you can build an army free of charge(barb joiners charge no maintainance :o). songhai is the only one ive won with on deity so far. that 75 gold for camps is invaluable...it saved me from running out of money. the more civs in the game(the larger the map) the harder it is to win obviously,.

[Mr. Ocean Colour Pants]

Now, although this may sound strange at first, I assure you they are one of the strongest civilizations in the game when speaking in terms of military power if you know how to manipulate their factors. Babylon. If you can balance high production rates and a strong science output, along with a reasonable economy, you will be unstoppable. Focus primiarily on science, and you will be fighting with gunpowder against sticks and stones.

[Twelvefield]

No, it's fairly well-known that the big science Civs will also be good at domination. But the big science Civs tend to be baby-peanut weak in the early game. Brainiacs make good slave population for the early dominators like the Assyrians. If you let the science civs have a run at the game, though, then good luck to you.

[di eshor ribly]

While I dont have Korea or Babylon, from what I hear they are nasty if left to their own research for a while. One game, I was playing as the Huns on a Pangaea map, and I took out Rome, China, Greece, Mongols, and the Aztecs all before turn 120-ish. And I did it with only 3 spearmen, two archers, and a battering ram.

The Huns definitely get my "Win The Game In The Stone Age" award.

[Acken]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

While I dont have Korea or Babylon, from what I hear they are nasty if left to their own research for a while. One game, I was playing as the Huns on a Pangaea map, and I took out Rome, China, Greece, Mongols, and the Aztecs all before turn 120-ish. And I did it with only 3 pikemen, two archers, and a battering ram.

The Huns definitely get my "Win The Game In The Stone Age" award.

Basically domination wise the metagame is pretty simple:
1. You either win with a strong range unit in ancient to medieval era.
2. or You rush artillery + cavalry and win due to 3 range siege units (and bombers after that), can be mixed with a CB or XB rush in the early stages to take out 1 or 2 opponent.

So for 1 you usually will preffer someone that has a strong such unit. The earlier the unit is (like chariot archer) the best it is for the lower levels of difficulty. If you play on Immortal or Deity, if you want to win with this strategy you're better with civs having medieval UU like Mongolia, China or Arabia.
For strategy number 2, science civs are king since they will reach artillery (and bombers) the fastest.

While both strategies are viable options at any difficulty levels it is obvious that #1 will be harder to pull off in Deity than number 2. And if you go down in difficulty the tendency reverses. Well actually #2 doesn't become hard, it just become slower if your purpose is to finish as fast as possible.

[contrabored]

Personally I'm a huge fan of Austria!
Earn a lot of gold and then annexing city-states is a piece of cake and helpful if you want to surround a powerful civ so you can attack from all angles when the time comes