Realism Invictus

[sami_snow]

One diplomatic strategy I am currently using is to give a per-turn gold sum to a civ that you want to see expand that is your friend already... for example the mongols were stuck on about 6 cities, and they were my friends surrounded by a bunch of non-friends, I had just had my banking revolution and was at the top of the tech tree (i don't like to spend much money on research when the bar is green...), so lots of money floating around, I gave them 100 gold per turn (and conquered some cities and gave them to mongols along with some bowmen) and they quickly expanded to 14 cities and are now a power in the region balancing out my enemies... worth thinking about, rather than try to make friends with powerful civs you can just make your friends powerful...

 

[Manco Capac]

One diplomatic strategy I am currently using is to give a per-turn gold sum to a civ that you want to see expand that is your friend already... for example the mongols were stuck on about 6 cities, and they were my friends surrounded by a bunch of non-friends, I had just had my banking revolution and was at the top of the tech tree, so lots of money floating around, I gave them 100 gold per turn (and conquered some cities and gave them to mongols along with some bowmen) and they quickly expanded to 14 cities and are now a power in the region balancing out my enemies... worth thinking about, rather than try to make friends with powerful civs you can just make your friends powerful...

If that was vanilla BTS or RI 3.1 (without K-mod), that strategy would be more than sound because a FRIENDLY AI never betrays. Unless the mongols remain small, if that one keeps growing and gobble everybody, you'll be the next to his list, FRIENDLY or not.

Man, that so ridiculous in my game where I was so strong compared to Shaka who were my friend for millenia and just because I was one of the two remaining players (the other were the romans stuck on a little island allowing 4 cities) and despite he was FRIENDLY only to me, he betrayed me (and paid dearly for that).
In K-mod settings, never I would help the AI unless I very know I'll get all my investments back at some point.

But that also depends of the difficulty. I think Monarch and below, the AI isn't capable to steamroll everbody, thus will be stuck in wars without end, which is good.

EDIT: And rereading fast made me realized you were the top in techs. Ok, in that situation, I think it's fine to have someone else to do the dirty work if you want to play as a builder.

 

[sami_snow]

I have 44 cities and the nearest person is (friendly) japanese with 17 and my enemy polish with 16. I conquered western europe early on but I couldn't expand any more because of maintenance. I was just sad because all my enemies were bigger than all my friends emperor difficulty. he won't backstab me because he has 1/5 my army size.

also it occurs to me that it would be cool to have a wonder called "wal-mart" which gave you a retail store in all your cities

 

[Manco Capac]

I have 44 cities and the nearest person is (friendly) japanese with 17 and my enemy polish with 16. I conquered western europe early on but I couldn't expand any more because of maintenance. I was just sad because all my enemies were bigger than all my friends emperor difficulty. he won't backstab me because he has 1/5 my army size.

also it occurs to me that it would be cool to have a wonder called "wal-mart" which gave you a retail store in all your cities

Oh ok, that's a whole different situation of what I'm thinking. I was more geared towards in a survival situation when I have difficulty to keep up with the AI, I won't give up anything to someone that might backstab, as small the RNG can be.

But in that case, no problem.

Oh it was emperor, did someone is rolling over others? Or not? I wonder if it has to do with my Tech Enabled Option. Everytime, it ends up with two AIs rolling and growing really strong (Not World map btw). Perhaps that helps some AI to become too hardcore in techs and thus makes them superpower.

 

[sami_snow]

I pretty much smashed everybody... I think spain is overpowered... I am letting poland survive (on my borders) so that I can have something to do in the late game... I basically won the game thousands of years ago but it takes a long time to actually achieve victory without vassal states

besides me there is no superpower (it might have something to do with the fact that I controlled most of the holy cities during the game after conquering england which had founded two of them)

my diplomacy suggestion was more in terms of: you can't expand anymore, and you can't use vassal states to control territory, but you want to make a friendly state to oppose the rise of your enemies in a far-off part of the world

 

[Manco Capac]

Or you can spam propaganda missions to everyone with such an amount of cities.
You know men in power always like to play with weaklings.

 

[sami_snow]

yes at this point i am just playing with my food i think

edit: has anybody won with inca or maya? how do you possibly do it if you can't get tech diffusion

 

[teks]

I have 44 cities and the nearest person is (friendly) japanese with 17 and my enemy polish with 16. I conquered western europe early on but I couldn't expand any more because of maintenance. I was just sad because all my enemies were bigger than all my friends emperor difficulty. he won't backstab me because he has 1/5 my army size.

also it occurs to me that it would be cool to have a wonder called "wal-mart" which gave you a retail store in all your cities

Yeah and it expires when you research amazon.

 

[Manco Capac]

yes at this point i am just playing with my food i think

edit: has anybody won with inca or maya? how do you possibly do it if you can't get tech diffusion

Well, if Inca, isn't the Mayans the one you should try to make partner with and vice-versa? IIRC, the first OB gives 50% and the succeeding ones gives 25% less and 25% of that 25%.

 

[sami_snow]

yes but in the old world I often get research bonuses >200%

 

[Manco Capac]

I can't say things with certainty since I can't play the World Map, but have you tried before? Perhaps it's easier to pull it off than you might think.

Otherwise, the only solution may be a combination of:
Good partnership with the Mayans (because it's better to play as the Incans because the Mayans have an inherent -40% )
Excellent economical build-up and I reiterate, everthing that helps your economy to get better
Wonderwhoring (if the start is decent production wise) as it disallows the AI to get it and each GPeople could be used into bulbing techs to keep up. Perhaps with an excellent play, it's possible to beat the Old World to atlantic explorations. But those are ifs.

 

[sami_snow]

i haven't tried yet but I'm thinking about trying them once I finish the spanish game. It just seems impossible...

 

[Manco Capac]

Never say impossible!
I've seen crazy sh-t over the forums over the years I thought it was impossible but made possible by some individuals.

And perhaps, you may get the feeling of accomplishment after winning such a challenging game. Good luck!

 

[teks]

I wouldn't say impossible, but I would say boring. In 3.1 I was thinking about it, but in 3.2 all the minor tribes have tribal forts in their cities, which makes their early game pretty boring. Before they did this the aztecs would roll over north america. Guess its still possible to make huge suicide stacks to kill tribal forts. heh, not like you'd have anything better to do. You might be able to secure some early wonders before the tech disparity kicks in. Your best bet is to try to secure a large and lucrative empire that is ready to play catch up once you find the other civs. It might be a cool challange with a powerful late game, which is the opposite of how most games go.

I'm sure success here hangs on the game difficulty, I'd be interested to see someone beat it on one of the higher tiers.

 

[civman110]

edit: has anybody won with inca or maya? how do you possibly do it if you can't get tech diffusion

Never tried playing Inca, but I've won with Aztecs before on emperor, large world map, no tech trading.

Basically my strategy was to wonderwhore in the early game, farm GP, and go for a cultural victory. I also made sure to build everything I could that would boost my science. I kept a very small army and ran Pacifism and Republic and any other civics that boosted GP production and culture.

Once I discovered gunpowder I began invading the Native tribes and took most of NA and started expanding into SA. I did this very gradually so the maintenance costs wouldn't have a negative impact on my research, which I maintained around 80% - 90%.

Once the Europeans started finding me I was about 1/2 to 2/3 of an age behind tech wise, which was really good and I quickly caught up do to some friendly civs. After that I was 0.4 of the average European's military power, so I started building my military up. Then basically do to my size and culture I had the choice of either going for cultural victory, or try for a conquest victory.

I attacked England who was trying to settle SA and was my biggest rival in terms of culture. So, I killed 2 birds with one stone there and sailed to a cultural victory invading anyone who was convenient to invade.

 

[DSChapin]

Thx for the back up.

How'bout a new type of hammer process but with food instead?

Instead of converting hammers into something else, perhaps food into hammers or commerce (with a ratio of less than 1:1).

It's simple to code, will symbolicly represent the mass of artisans and make our early growth limited, preserving the city population under the happy cap.
As it is for now, making workers after workers, or settlers or food 4 warriors will dwindle the economy more and more.

Well, food into hammers is what rushing with population historically did, so one option would be to reintroduce that in some useful form. Does anyone even bother to rush under slavery now? Seems like it's no longer worth the return...

 

[teks]

Never tried playing Inca, but I've won with Aztecs before on emperor, large world map, no tech trading.

Basically my strategy was to wonderwhore in the early game, farm GP, and go for a cultural victory. I also made sure to build everything I could that would boost my science. I kept a very small army and ran Pacifism and Republic and any other civics that boosted GP production and culture.

Once I discovered gunpowder I began invading the Native tribes and took most of NA and started expanding into SA. I did this very gradually so the maintenance costs wouldn't have a negative impact on my research, which I maintained around 80% - 90%.

Once the Europeans started finding me I was about 1/2 to 2/3 of an age behind tech wise, which was really good and I quickly caught up do to some friendly civs. After that I was 0.4 of the average European's military power, so I started building my military up. Then basically do to my size and culture I had the choice of either going for cultural victory, or try for a conquest victory.

I attacked England who was trying to settle SA and was my biggest rival in terms of culture. So, I killed 2 birds with one stone there and sailed to a cultural victory invading anyone who was convenient to invade.

Bravo!

 

[sami_snow]

I wouldn't say impossible, but I would say boring. In 3.1 I was thinking about it, but in 3.2 all the minor tribes have tribal forts in their cities, which makes their early game pretty boring. Before they did this the aztecs would roll over north america. Guess its still possible to make huge suicide stacks to kill tribal forts. heh, not like you'd have anything better to do. You might be able to secure some early wonders before the tech disparity kicks in. Your best bet is to try to secure a large and lucrative empire that is ready to play catch up once you find the other civs. It might be a cool challange with a powerful late game, which is the opposite of how most games go.

I'm sure success here hangs on the game difficulty, I'd be interested to see someone beat it on one of the higher tiers.

I'd be trying it on emperor. I used to play immortal in BTS, but found that level rather impossible with RI as the AI's bonuses compounded with the tech diffusion mechanic made things completely intractable.

I have some fantasy about building up a huge gold reserve and then spending it all on research once I make contact... but idk if that would work. It seems the caribbean is not settled so perhaps you could use boats to eke out extra cities places where the tribes are not settled...

Well, food into hammers is what rushing with population historically did, so one option would be to reintroduce that in some useful form. Does anyone even bother to rush under slavery now? Seems like it's no longer worth the return...

I use it sometimes, almost as much as population control as for rushing... it's not something you can base a strategy around, but if you have granaries and smokehouses then it can be useful

Never tried playing Inca, but I've won with Aztecs before on emperor, large world map, no tech trading.

Basically my strategy was to wonderwhore in the early game, farm GP, and go for a cultural victory. I also made sure to build everything I could that would boost my science. I kept a very small army and ran Pacifism and Republic and any other civics that boosted GP production and culture.

Once I discovered gunpowder I began invading the Native tribes and took most of NA and started expanding into SA. I did this very gradually so the maintenance costs wouldn't have a negative impact on my research, which I maintained around 80% - 90%.

Once the Europeans started finding me I was about 1/2 to 2/3 of an age behind tech wise, which was really good and I quickly caught up do to some friendly civs. After that I was 0.4 of the average European's military power, so I started building my military up. Then basically do to my size and culture I had the choice of either going for cultural victory, or try for a conquest victory.

I attacked England who was trying to settle SA and was my biggest rival in terms of culture. So, I killed 2 birds with one stone there and sailed to a cultural victory invading anyone who was convenient to invade.

nice, it does seem as though cultural victory may be the correct way to go

perhaps with an emphasis on culture you could convert the tribal cities? along with espionage??

 

[Manco Capac]

nice, it does seem as though cultural victory may be the correct way to go

perhaps with an emphasis on culture you could convert the tribal cities? along with espionage??

If you use espionage for winning cultural, then I think even Titan-Deity would be even possible to win.

Of course, the idea is to crush one AI to almost oblivion while giving two of your cities next to your capital for being crush by your wonders culture, thus allowing huge discounts in future culture missions with espionage. It's just a shame there is no Politician trait for the new World.

The idea is simple: get 4 GArtists and bomb them in those two culturally crushed cities then gift them. I think it needs not so much cultural missions afterwards to get 2LCities.

As example, it may be not RI, but in vanilla BTS, with the classical approach, a superbly played cultural victory is won best around 1200 AD. With espionage, you can get earlier than 600 AD with excellent play.

 

[sami_snow]

culture bomb does not exist in RI... (?)

anyway that strategy sounds a little too exploit-y for my taste, not really how I like to play civ. thanks for the tips though