Hey all, I was just wondering if anyone had any advice for how to successfully compete with the AI at higher difficulty levels.

Where I am at, I can win every time at Noble, and can win on Prince most of the time, but have some trouble with extremely warmongering civs or civs that get their own island and just powerhouse in an unstoppable and untouchable way. I don't think I have win on a difficulty higher than Prince.

I usually play custom game and try different terrain types. Most of the time my settings will include:

Fractal map and lots of randomization settings (I've played a lot of games)
No Technology Brokering (its dumb)
No Vassal States (I don't like having them, and i really don't like the CPU having them)
Choose Religions
Random Personalities
Unrestricted Leaders
Time victory OFF (I hate it, worst way to win OR lose)

I have tried most civs at one point, and most leaders. Generally lately what I have been doing is ensuring I get a religion first, and getting masonry -> great wall so you can focus a little more on growth in the beginning and the great spies rolling in for the rest of the game.

The hardest thing about moving higher difficulty IMO is the unfair advantage the CPU players start to pick up, and in general their aggressiveness (from what often feels like a punitive AI that picks on the weakest person). I've often had friends who are of the same religion with no negative modifiers simply declare war just because. Really, for no reason. Its kind of frustrating.

Anyway, the worst thing about this game IMO has always been the horrible contact/relations UI and engine, it is incredibly shallow and stupid in general, and honestly I feel like it is this weakness that makes the higher difficulties even harder.

What are your secrets? how do you manage the poor contact system with warmongering, untrustworthy, overpowered AIs in the early game? Lastly I should say that in general I don't micromanage much, the only things I micromanage will be workers in the first 100 turns of the game, and change the "emphasis" for cities between food <-> production <-> cash. If further drilling down is required for success, please tell me how!

Each time I made a major jump in level, it wasn't because I learned how to do something better, it was because I learned to do something new.

When I made the jump from Cheiftain/Warlord to "real" Civ IV, it was because I finally realized that simply planting as many cities as possible without worrying about an economic crash was a bad idea. City maintenance gets expensive.

When I made the jump to Noble was when I learned to differentiate between production cities and economy cities (before the city was founded).

The jump to Monarch came when I understood what the Lightbulb was for (and what it wasn't for).

The jump to Emperor came when I finally understood how to manipulate the diplomacy screen and how to read the map to decide what my empire would look like (instead of just looking at what each city should look like).

I don't think the diplomacy system is poor. You just need to know how to play it right. It's deeper, IMO, than some people assume just looking at it... And funner, too. Playing aggressive Civs off against one another is a feeling of satisfaction little else in the game gives you. Turning off tech brokering takes away a big part of the game, IMO...

The thing on higher difficulties is the lack of personal mistakes, and getting used to lower pop caps, unhealthyness and restrictive early expanding.

The easiest advice I can give you is get either CoL or Currency (preferably), the moment your economy is almost going to crash.

Make sure your cities you build are actually contributing to your empire. Either by cottages or using the resources for which you setttled.
Early massive land is fine, as long as you dont crash completely. Don't overdo it though, know when to build military units, since massive land is higher points is lesser military units is tastier targets for AI.

Hope that this advice helps you at Prince. Later levels you should focus on diplomacy/specialist economy/maximum usage of your civ traits/plus maximum use of civics.

It does get annoying, when someone asks you for war that they started and you are not ready or willing, and then they come back and ask you again the NEXT TURN after you have already taken a relations hit for shutting them down.

Also, the AI won't trade you maps if you have too much to gain, but if the differences in your maps is not huge, they will always trade you their map with some gold to cover the difference. They will never do a straight map trade, they always want your map + 5g.

I also dislike the way you can't force a question on them if the options on their side are disabled pointlessly. It is far too often they won't trade techs, maps, or basically engage in anything productive even if they are Friendly rating with over +10 outweighing the negatives (if any). They will simply say "we don't like you enough" or some other bs.

In general, the diplomacy system is more of a tactical dance and hindrance because of all the limitations "why can't I do that???" rather than something you can skillfully leverage most of the time. I can see people disagreeing with this, but IMO its just too shallow and unrealistic.

Anyway, thanks for the tips if you have any, i'd like to move to a higher level but its often hard when one civ will neglect their success, power a rush at the start and fall way behind the other AIs, just to zerg someone (the player if your military isn't big enough, because it magically seems to know). Then they drag you down by forcing a counter rush / warly military game while all your rivals skyrocket in tech.

A few things from what you've said:

Generally lately what I have been doing is ensuring I get a religion first, and getting masonry -> great wall so you can focus a little more on growth in the beginning and the great spies rolling in for the rest of the game.

Early religions in particular slow down your expansion and economic growth leading to a weak position early in the game.
Prioritizng worker techs like Agriculture if there is corn by your capital, Animal Husbandry if cows and Bronze Working for slavery, Forest Chopping (big production boosts!), seeing copper and getting axes is an effective method for all levels.
Similarly early wonders and wonder techs will take vital :hammers: away from building setters, workers and military. After these pottery for cottages and writing for libraries are the way to go, religious techs are a serious drain early on.


in general their aggressiveness (from what often feels like a punitive AI that picks on the weakest person)
This is probably because you ARE the weakest! Or at least the weakest that AI doesn't like and is close to.
They get more aggressive at higher levels simply because they have more units to attack with, at Emperor its often more units than you could ever hope to build.
Have at least one early city set up to produce a lot of military units early and keep an eye on the power graphs on the Info Screen (F9).
Make sure your power is at least average so you are able to defend yourself if you do get attacked.

I've often had friends who are of the same religion with no negative modifiers simply declare war just because. Really, for no reason. Its kind of frustrating.
All AIs have a limit at which they cannot declare war, many can't declare at Pleased, only Cathy can declare at Friendly, and then only if she is bribed.

What are your secrets? how do you manage the poor contact system with warmongering, untrustworthy, overpowered AIs in the early game?
Giving in to demands and request helps a lot, in fact if someone is demanding something theres a good chance a stack of doom is waiting on your borders.
Giving tribute when they demand it will force a 10 turn peace treaty, and usually ensure peace for far longer than that.
Sometimes Shaka will comically go attack someone else and leave himself wide open for you to attack after the forced peace is up :lol:.

It does get annoying, when someone asks you for war that they started and you are not ready or willing, and then they come back and ask you again the NEXT TURN after you have already taken a relations hit for shutting them down.

Also, the AI won't trade you maps if you have too much to gain, but if the differences in your maps is not huge, they will always trade you their map with some gold to cover the difference. They will never do a straight map trade, they always want your map + 5g.

I also dislike the way you can't force a question on them if the options on their side are disabled pointlessly. It is far too often they won't trade techs, maps, or basically engage in anything productive even if they are Friendly rating with over +10 outweighing the negatives (if any). They will simply say "we don't like you enough" or some other bs.

In general, the diplomacy system is more of a tactical dance and hindrance because of all the limitations "why can't I do that???" rather than something you can skillfully leverage most of the time. I can see people disagreeing with this, but IMO its just too shallow and unrealistic.

Anyway, thanks for the tips if you have any, i'd like to move to a higher level but its often hard when one civ will neglect their success, power a rush at the start and fall way behind the other AIs, just to zerg someone (the player if your military isn't big enough, because it magically seems to know). Then they drag you down by forcing a counter rush / warly military game while all your rivals skyrocket in tech.

Well, I can see some of your complaints, sure, but if you have too much to gain, why WOULD they want to trade their map to you? And if they ask for +5 gold for the map... It's not that big of a deal. I don't think I've ever run into an issue where 5 goal really hurt me.

Besides that, I am not sure why they would refuse to trade technologies, etc, with you even when they are friendly or even pleased... I've never had that problem, except with certain Civilizations or at certain points of the game. Tokugawa HATES other nations, he's very isolationist, and generally will never trade with you. Each Civ has specific personalities, beyond what you see as their traits, and will behave in certain ways. Some are more warmongering than others, some are religiously obssessed (see: Isabella), etc. Also, if you're near winning at the end of the game, they will generally become more close handed in their dealings with you, of course.

Why do you want to force things on them if they refuse to do them? The option's blanked out so you don't have to go through the trouble of clicking a hundred different things when the AI will always reply "no" to it. It saves time in the end. Civ III was bad for this.

My advice would be to try turning technology brokering on, and spending a game trying to play around with the other civilizations. It is tougher, but a bigger aspect of the game, than I think you're giving it credit for. Giving in to demands from the more aggressive Civs can help, and knowing when you should demand things yourself, can help as well.

Give it a shot! Who knows, you may change your tune. ;) Having played all the Total War games, Galactic Civs, EUs, etc., I would rate Civilization IV's diplomacy model up there as one of the better ones for sure.

I'm going to start a new one now, maybe like 8 AIs, probably standard map size, maybe large. I will probably try Hayuna Cupac with Inca, i have a friend who SWEARS by Louis XIV with India because of the wonder production and worker benefit that lasts the whole game, plus the Mausoleum +spy bonus which really helps to get recon later in the game.

In general I go for one religion at least because once you get the special building for that, and if you plan your national wonders right, you can have a massive econ cash city that will be the backbone of your budget for eons.

I've read that people consider early wonders kind of a waste but IMO they pay off with continued culture throughout the game, expanding your borders and giving you some breathing room.

:/

Brennus won diplomatic victory 1050AD.
Going to try again I suppose :)

Do you guys use any specific military strat for taking towns early on? If you are in an early war (pre-catapult) do you find it feasible to wage war without gimping your economy?

In the late game, I usually:
a) try and have the counter units to my opponents, or better units
b) get defenses to 0 with siege weaps or ships
c) suicide some siege weaps for the collateral damage on the turn I want to take the town
d) move in my unit stack to wipe out the weakened defender units in the 0% def town.

Dunno, maybe you have even better strats, like causing a distraction that balanced the defender's units away from the town you want, or somehow managing to utilize the diplomacy system to your advantage (reliably every game).

It does get annoying, when someone asks you for war that they started and you are not ready or willing, and then they come back and ask you again the NEXT TURN after you have already taken a relations hit for shutting them down.

If the civ that they want you to go to war with isn't that close, you can agree and then never send a single unit to the war. Then you get +diplo AND those 2 will be fighting each other. Fake wars are cool, and not too risky in the early game. ESPECIALLY if they are across the ocean but don't have astronomy yet-then they can't attack you.

This is one of the many diplo decisions you have to make-you gotta pick your friends and your enemies.

Oh and shrines are great and all-but it's usually better to conquer them.

Usually at the higher levels it's early rush or renaissance war. A possible intermediate option is classical war with elephants and catapults.
I think the higher level I've waged a successfull medieval war was monarch.

Your late-game strategy seems ok. There are a lot of viable options.

Early renaissance:
- Spies + cuirassiers
- Cannons + muskets, maces, pikes (yes, medieval units, but you prebuild them while teching to cannons)

Late renaissance:
- Spies + cavalry
- Cannons + rifles. Another option is prebuilt trebs + rifles.
If you are attacking longbows you can skip the spies and go with mass cuirassiers.
- A nice option on water maps is cuirassiers or cavalry + frigates to bomb culture. You don't need spies if their cities are all coastal.

Industrial:
- Cannons + infantry
- Artillery + rifles
- Or you wait for both infantry and artillery

Later there are many more options. You can go with plain tanks, tanks+bombers, amphibious invasion with marines supported by fighters.

The goal is always the same anyway. Hopefully attack with a tech lead and have some way to reduce culture defense.

Usually a smart move when you declare war is waiting in your borders for their counter-stack and kill it on the open ground with collateral damage/flanking with mounted units.

Yeah, without learning to play diplomacy in the game, I would never have been able to survive the jump to emperor recently.

Some keys to higher levels: don't found a religion. I find it's counter-productive to get one of the early ones. If you have someone like Isabella next door, she'll spread her religion much better than you can spread yours. I'd rather spend all my hammers on units, settlers, and buildings, and let my neighbour build missionaries. If you're on a continent where none of the early 3 religions is founded, then I'd try for one of the next level ones.

You might find it easier to not play with random personalities. Then, if you find charts that people have on here, you can know when you're safe. So, you'll learn that if Hannibal is pleased with you, it doesn't matter if you power is 0.1 of his or 2X his, you're safe. Otherwise, you don't know if your neighbour is like Ghandi or like Monty (who will attack you pretty much for no reason).

Before that, my jump to Monarch wouldn't have been successful without having learned how to specialize my cities. Having been a long-time civ veteran, I used to build everything everywhere. Then, I learned that having one city that just builds units (pretty much the only buildings in it are granary, forge, and barracks) can be amazingly powerful. Also, I learned how slavery is the best thing to happen to mankind (at least in Civ).

If you want to take people out early (pre-catapult), you want to bring lots of units, but get them early. Expect to lose units. Especially trying to take out cities on hills or with protective archers. Later on, one thing you can do is if you build siege + protection, you can go to war with someone before having too many units. Send the siege in to bombard the defenses. Then by the time their defense is down, your stronger attackers (macemen, elephants, etc...) will be ready. Be careful, since the early declaration means they have time to build up units, but it might delay them a bit in tech. I know sometimes, I build up, but by the time I think I have enough units, they now have longbowmen, and walls and castles everywhere.

But in general, keep analyzing your game. Where you think something seems wrong (ie. diplomacy), then think, "How can I solve this?" You learn that if someone is on the opposite side of the world, their opinion of you is pretty meaningless, so when your neighbour asks you to declare war or cancel treaties, it might be worth it to give in.

Early renaissance:
- Spies + cuirassiers
- Cannons + muskets, maces, pikes (yes, medieval units, but you prebuild them while teching to cannons)

Late renaissance:
- Spies + cavalry
- Cannons + rifles. Another option is prebuilt trebs + rifles.
If you are attacking longbows you can skip the spies and go with mass cuirassiers.
- A nice option on water maps is cuirassiers or cavalry + frigates to bomb culture. You don't need spies if their cities are all coastal.

Industrial:
- Cannons + infantry
- Artillery + rifles
- Or you wait for both infantry and artillery

Interesting, how do you use your spies mostly during the Renaissance? Are you just using them for recon on cities to track troop movements and builds? Or are you sabotaging buildings at key times? I don't think i quite know how to use poison/unhappiness/revolt properly during an attack.

What I would probably do early game is that hopefully I got the great wall, and have gotten a couple great spies for scotland yard + added spy points from a join. I would have changed my spying to be on my neighbor countries or maybe heavily weighted on someone I know is going to be a problem. Other than occasional steal tech/steal cash/random poison I don't really use the spies that much.


Before that, my jump to Monarch wouldn't have been successful without having learned how to specialize my cities. Having been a long-time civ veteran, I used to build everything everywhere. Then, I learned that having one city that just builds units (pretty much the only buildings in it are granary, forge, and barracks) can be amazingly powerful. Also, I learned how slavery is the best thing to happen to mankind (at least in Civ).

This is good advice man. I still have the temptation to build lots of things in most cities when military units are not needed, and sometimes I think I overdo it. About the slavery thing, I'm all ears. I was just thinking today how I hate slavery and never use it, I don't even set it as a civic when discovered. How do you use this properly???

You use spies to incite city revolts and reduce culture defense to 0% for a turn.
Spies have 2 movement points so they are usually combined with cuirassiers or cavalry.
Start focusing EP early on your target, turn off research for a few turns to amass EP and send your spies in advance. A spy gets a 10% discount for each turn in the enemy city, up to 50%.

Some comments on your settings.

Fractal map and lots of randomization settings (I've played a lot of games)
No Technology Brokering (its dumb)
No Vassal States (I don't like having them, and i really don't like the CPU having them)
Choose Religions
Random Personalities
Unrestricted Leaders
Time victory OFF (I hate it, worst way to win OR lose)

Random map, unrestricted leaders and choose religion don't affect difficulty in any way. No vassals definitely changes the game, it makes the game easier in that wars are easier, and there is less chance of a runaway AI, but it also keeps you from abusing the mechanic. I would call it a wash as far as difficulty. Time victory off is irrelevant. If anyone ever wins a time victory, there are big problems with how you're playing the game. If you're at prince level, I would assume you're past the point where a game gets to 2050AD.

Random personalities and no tech brokering are where you're really hurting yourself. Knowledge of how AI's behave is one of you're biggest advantages. Say you know Boudica, Cyrus, Hannibal, Mehmed and Gilgamesh. Let's say Boudica, Hannibal and Gil are Buddhist, and Mehmed and Cyrus are Hindu. These are all very capable AI's, and very capable AI warmongers. The catch is that only Gil can declare at pleased. So how do you get them all to like you? In this situation, I would adopt Buddhism, and run vassalage and hereditary rule as civics. Sharing a religion and favorite civic (HR) with Gil will bump him up to friendly. Religion alone will take care of Hannibal and Boudica. Mehmed and Cyrus both like vassalage, and they will be near pleased even with you in a different religion. You may need some other positives, but that's what fair trade and giving in to demands are for. If you have random personalities on, you're only choice is to adopt Buddhism and plan for war against Meh and Cyrus as some point.

No tech brokering hurts you as well. When you get a civ to friendly, they will trade monopoly techs with you, that they won't trade with anyone else. Trading those techs around is how you catapult ahead of other AIs. Say you beelined rifling, while your friend teched off democracy. You can trade replacable parts (maybe some gold, I forget the beaker value,) for democracy, even if no other AI has that tech. Now you can trade democracy around for stuff like chemistry, scientific method, economics, any smaller techs that you skipped, and maybe even some bigger techs. Now your way in front as tech leader, and what did you lose? The AI is no closer to rifling, all you gave them was some civics. If you keep making trades like this all game, you and a friend or group of friends, can move way ahead of the other AIs. Later in the game, you can either kill your friends off (helps if you buddy up with weaklings,) or just kill everyone else, and try and win without fighting your friend.

It's your game, so play however you want, but if you're having a problem with difficulty, I would suggest learning to take advantage of these things you're disabling.

Interesting, how do you use your spies mostly during the Renaissance? Are you just using them for recon on cities to track troop movements and builds? Or are you sabotaging buildings at key times? I don't think i quite know how to use poison/unhappiness/revolt properly during an attack.

What I would probably do early game is that hopefully I got the great wall, and have gotten a couple great spies for scotland yard + added spy points from a join. I would have changed my spying to be on my neighbor countries or maybe heavily weighted on someone I know is going to be a problem. Other than occasional steal tech/steal cash/random poison I don't really use the spies that much.




This is good advice man. I still have the temptation to build lots of things in most cities when military units are not needed, and sometimes I think I overdo it. About the slavery thing, I'm all ears. I was just thinking today how I hate slavery and never use it, I don't even set it as a civic when discovered. How do you use this properly???

Especially if you get GW/GSpy, and focus it, the best thing for war is the "incite revolt", which for that turn, puts the city in revolt, causing there to be 0 cultural defenses. But it only lasts for one turn. So, build a lot of spies and cuirassiers, then when your cuirassiers are ready to attack, incite revolt and you don't have to worry about the 60% cultural defense.

As for slavery, early game, instead of working a bad tile, whip away. There's some good strategy articles about it if you look. Usually it's best to use to whip away 2 pop to finish a build + get some leftover. Usual uses: start on a monument in a city, when it gets to pop2, whip it to finish the monument, grow your borders faster. Or, build a granary. Usually at like 5 hammers a turn, it will take like 12 turns. Build it for 5 turns, putting 25 hammers into it. Then whip. It takes 2 pop, but you'll end up with finishing the granary the next turn and having like 30 hammers overflow. Yes, your city is 2 sizes smaller, and has an extra angry face, but if those were either unhappy people before, or working a crappy forest tile or something, you end up ahead. Don't whip away cottages too much unless if you need to. And it also depends on land. You grow slower, but build more things. Especially building up an army, one pop~= one more axeman or chariot, which can make a difference.

The best way is to experiment. A few basic points is whipping one pop when your city is unhappy isn't too helpful, but whipping 2-3 pop is useful. And working a good tile (eg mined hill) is probably better than whipping. Especially cities with lots of food, often it's best to work tiles for a few turns, then whip away the 2-3 pop to build something. Then grow back as the whip anger goes away, and repeat the cycle. It's also useful to whip into stuff. So if you want to build a wonder, whipping the wonder is bad. But whipping a granary for 2 pop with 30 hammers overflow can put those 30 overflow hammers into the wonder you will be building next :)

No tech brokering hurts you as well.

It's the opposite, this setting tends to make games markedly easier. You can still research trading techs, and then you can trade it to each AI in succession without worry for re-trades. The AIs, which tend to take a similar path anyway, are screwed and seldom wind up trading with each other.

A good example was LHC Ragnar (special viking edition) - one of the few LHC games not hosted by R_Rolo (don't confuse it with the current LHC). In that game, NTB was clicked on. In that game, I was a decent emperor player but nothing great yet...just usually won on emp/got trashed above. In that game, I invaded using infantry. Against longbows and muskets. From isolation.

Awesome, thanks for the info guys!

About the slavery, what is the anger length in turns for 1 pop whipped, and i guess it stacks the more you whip huh. I'll look it up.

It's your game, so play however you want, but if you're having a problem with difficulty, I would suggest learning to take advantage of these things you're disabling.

You made a really good point about these things, but I have them disabled for reasons.

I think the tech brokering forces me into the trade window too often just to see if I can pawn stuff around. If I didn't want to trade, the computers would anyway, with each other, keeping each other advanced and maybe trading before I decided to open the trade window. I don't want to feel like I always need to play this tech trade minigame in the trade window every couple turns.

The random personalities i realize makes things harder, but in general I don't want to play a kind of game where I am referencing a data mined (or whatever) spreadsheet to predict the actions of my rivals. I doesn't feel realistic, it kind of feels like a crutch where you use insane knowledge that is "too" involved to be able to strategize against your opponents because you already know how they will react. True, that is still a strategy-based kind of gameplay, but the difficulty of the AI should not be tuned around having this knowledge.

The random personalities i realize makes things harder, but in general I don't want to play a kind of game where I am referencing a data mined (or whatever) spreadsheet to predict the actions of my rivals. I doesn't feel realistic, it kind of feels like a crutch where you use insane knowledge that is "too" involved to be able to strategize against your opponents because you already know how they will react. True, that is still a strategy-based kind of gameplay, but the difficulty of the AI should not be tuned around having this knowledge.

What's sad is, if you play this game long enough, you can "recognize" the personalities anyway :p.

Another important thing to remember about diplomacy frustration is that it is in a way balancing out the "human" advantage. Often there are techs that you wouldn't trade, wars you wouldn't initiate, civs you wouldn't never trade with etc and it really wouldn't be fair if the AI couldn't do the same. If you could just about force the AI to do ANYTHING for the right price diplomacy (and AI personalities) would lose its meaning and become WAY too much of an advantage for the human. (ala GPT for techs in CivIII)

Also, something I learned recently about diplomacy. At least on Monarch, peaceful leaders like Mansa/Pacal will frequently gift you techs if you are pleased+ with them (I wouldn't try on cautious or below; you get a diplo demerit) if you beg for it. I've gotten a lot of the early useless religious techs easily this way. Not sure if it counts towards the WFYABTA limit though, might want to watch out for that.

Well I'm playing a game right now with randoms off on fractal monarch and I was doing kinda OK, i got the great wall and 2 great spies, some other wonders, founded Christianity and used a prophet for the building....

I only had space for 5 cities, most of my rivals similar sized, but Victoria got a lot of land and basically powered because there were only three civs (including me) on her island. The game isn't over yet, but I'm middle of the pack in score, I owned the 2rd civ (charlemagne) off our island, but am faced with a juggernaut now who completed apollo project in the 1800's before I could even build it.

In general with 5 cities at 80-90% tech continuously throughout my war with charlemagne, I still fell significantly behind. With brokering on, you have to hit the trade dialog all the time or else the comp will trade amongst themselves which I feel like they did in this game. This is probably a lose, and I'm not sure I learned anything, or at least... i still need to figure out the lesson :/

Well I'm playing a game right now with randoms off on fractal monarch and I was doing kinda OK, i got the great wall and 2 great spies, some other wonders, founded Christianity and used a prophet for the building....

I only had space for 5 cities, most of my rivals similar sized, but Victoria got a lot of land and basically powered because there were only three civs (including me) on her island. The game isn't over yet, but I'm middle of the pack in score, I owned the 2rd civ (charlemagne) off our island, but am faced with a juggernaut now who completed apollo project in the 1800's before I could even build it.

In general with 5 cities at 80-90% tech continuously throughout my war with charlemagne, I still fell significantly behind. With brokering on, you have to hit the trade dialog all the time or else the comp will trade amongst themselves which I feel like they did in this game. This is probably a lose, and I'm not sure I learned anything, or at least... i still need to figure out the lesson :/On standard sie 5 cities is on the light side. You will want to aim for 6 by 1AD, and if you can than just go ahead and put 8 or maybe even 10 cities in place. Just be careful when rexing, you will want to grab key economic techs when rexing because you will want to recover at some point. ;)

If you want you can always post a game by giving regular updates, wait for the feedback and proceed as you see fit. If you post screenshots people will give feedback, and your game will impove because you will now be aware of your flaws.

Heh, lets give it a shot. What would you do:

You're on an island with Charlemagne as England, Victoria as China, Playing as Peter (wanted to try something new) as Inca, and you have 5 cities well spaced for solid growth. Charlemagne has 6 cities, you go to war, and take him over. He expands to outlying islands (there are a lot of them), but you oust him from the main continent. Victoria has about 10+ cities and your border doesn't connect to hers until Charlemagne is pwnt.

Charlemagne wasn't too unhappy with me, he was on the positive political attitude actually, and I declared war on HIM because he was weaker and I wanted his land. No other civ was available to attack.

Would you have instead attacked Victoria as the obvious leader and the one most likely to powerhouse? She did indeed get too strong, but I don't know if attacking her earlier would have changed that. She was basically always ahead of me in land area and cities and technology.

Don't know actually, gotta think about it...there is such a fine balance to expanding a lot early (to grab the land) without blowing your economy and dropping to 40% science (if you go too far), but if you don't you can be left strangled inside your borders while overpowered/hard to reach AIs go to TOWN powering HARD.

:(

It depends... These type of questions are very hard to answer without actually seeing the screenshots of the situation. Even if Vicky gets powerful that does not mean the game is lost. You may still get a UN win or even a cultural one.

Your example is so generic that my answer would mean next to nothing because I cannot honestly assess the situation.

Edit: dropping to 40% is not bad at all. I am willing to drop as far as 0% with negative gold as long as I will get currency soonish. The beakers per turn that you can generate is more important than the slider.

Ah heh, oh well, I didn't think it was all that generic but it is such a complicated game. I suppose the general case is:

What do you do about powerhousing AIs ON your continent, in general what are the good ways to slow them down, or is there only that you simply must be better than they are, at least at technology, while not getting your arse whooped in a war?

What about if they are overseas and powering equally as bad? By powering I mean that, despite your best efforts at everything, economy, military, science, expansion, etc.... they still have significantly larger land area, maybe more immediately visible allies via religion, and their tech/econ is skyrocketing while you're left trying to figure out... how you could ever get a galleon fleet fast enough to drop a massive force over there, or somehow how you can politically slow them down before they pull away from the pack.

Rough!

you can always attempt to get back into the tech race by teching a tech that the opponents do not know and then trading that around by selling it for the techs you will need. If you get so far behind that this will not be possible, then you are in trouble.

You can also try to get a military advantage. It is well possible to jump the AI with maces + cannons or rifles + trebuchets. It is preferred to get a good advantage going so that even though the AI is more aqdvanced, you are military superior and you just pound him by taking his best cities. Do not forget to thank the AI for nurturing those cities for you! ;)

Once the AI ran away withthe game getting them back is very difficult. If you can bribe some one into war with them that would be great because war is bad for the economy - well in Civ anyway. You will need to play your diplomatic cards right if you want to do this.

Other than that you can always try to play nice and steal a UN win if you are comfortable playing a diplomatic game.

Other than that try to learn from what you did so that you will not get into these situations any more. :P

GAH! Well, I'm thinking about it. I know it was not...

That i expanded too slow

I think it could be related to...

Should have recognized power posture and attacked earlier
Researched techs in the wrong order
Did not get the apostolistic palace, nor the UN, and was not a candidate for either
Just random map . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. If the AI gets a freebie on launch, how can you counter that??

screenshots, screenshots and more screenshots :).

It is also sometimes hard to downsize into a lower difficulty. My experience in prince/monarch is often that I either massively outtech them in the long run, or kill enough civs so I am sure I will kill outtech them in the long run.

Make a riflemen war, it is highly likely that at least most civs wont have it the moment you do.
If you can not pick off the civ who does have riflemen, pick off the civs that dont which will guarantee you victory in modern age.

*snips jibberish :D: If the AI gets a freebie on launch, how can you counter that??You mean how to stop a space race victory? I am told you can capture the capital of the civ launcing the ship. This will stop them. It is unclear to me if the civ needs to build the entire ship again or not...

You mean how to stop a space race victory? I am told you can capture the capital of the civ launcing the ship.

Yeah maybe, but it might be hard in the heart of the most overpowered opponent, especially if you need to sail there, and even then, only for the top person. You'll still be war-lagged while other AIs will pick up where the leader left off while you gun for the #1 space city. You probably can't significantly slow the leader down in the first place TBH.

Yeah maybe, but it might be hard in the heart of the most overpowered opponent, especially if you need to sail there, and even then, only for the top person. You'll still be war-lagged while other AIs will pick up where the leader left off while you gun for the #1 space city. You probably can't significantly slow the leader down in the first place TBH.Maybe in the game that you are currently playing all is lost, but in general you can slow the leader of the board down just fine. It may require a lot of planning and it may require the best of your game to do it, but there are plenty of deity level players who demonstrate the ability to pull any AI back by the hairs time and time again.

It sounds to me like you failed to intervene when the Ai was still in reach and then when the win is secured you claim the AI cannot be stopped. You will want to intervene when you can. Read some walkthroughs on these boards to see how to play properly, learn from them and see if you can apply the tings you learned there.