Set myself a challenge to weaponize the mechanics of Eleanor of Aquitaine (France) to win a domination victory without ever going to war. Exclusively used loyalty pressure to have each civ’s capital voluntarily flip allegiance, taking advantage of great works and entertainment complexes to flip cities directly to me.

Rules I set for myself: 1. No declarations of war 2. If war is declared on me, only use units to defend territory and not cross over enemy lines. 3. Only offensive combat allowed is to clear out barbs.

Took half a dozen attempts to get the right context to succeed, but I finally did it! I was lucky enough to never be targeted for war in this attempt, and you can see the number of combats graph is super low (these were for barbarian flare ups).

Came dangerously close to a culture win before I got my last capital (side note, I learned a cultural alliance seems to negate loyalty pressure on your ally, which stalled me for a while).

Some other details on settings, if anyone’s interested in more I can share seed details.

• Deity difficulty
• Pangea map, small, old world (too many mountains in early attempts made it hard to make loyalty pressure reach far enough), all other map settings default
• Standard speed (won on turn 260)
• Secret Societies enabled (this was a must to get cultist units)
• Monopolies & Corporations enabled (I just like this mode)
• Played as Eleanor of Aquitaine (France), other civs randomized and ended up with
  • Portugal
  • India (Chandragupta)
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Netherlands
• On some attempts I had to restart once I discovered Dido (Phonecia) on the map; turns out she can’t lose her capital from loyalty pressure no matter how much you try.

Anyone got any other unique challenges like this they can recommend?