Poland strategy guide

Buccaneer said:

I was thinking more along the lines of having to get Astronomy whereas on Pangaea, you don't until Industrial (if I got my eras right).

Click to expand...

Well, sure, but what are you going to research after Machinery when doing XB rush? You just beeline Navigation while you clean out your continent, build Galleas when you hit Compass, build a few Caraval at Astronomey, and voila, you're at Navigation by t140. Probably earlier. I find it easier than clearing out a whole pangaea. There's always some nasty choke point.

I play Poland very similar to this... Never tried a three scout opening though. I'll definitely have to, esp if I'm on Pangaea/luck out with an early culture ruin.

On another note, you should do more guides, tommy! There is a lot of really good insight in here, I am bummed that the only guide you have is for a civ I play similarly :/

For me the problem really is that I got problems understanding where others struggle as many things are just "normal".

Also the "optimal" ways to play a game are so different depending on difficulty lvl.
I m actually a wonder fan, but on deity there are so few of them reliably to get.
So one have to play kinda totaly different on deity compared to king.

I think the main concepts everyone should do are in this guide:
- scouting of all map asap
- getting 3-5 cities up asap
- completing CS quests (barb camps!)
- selling abundant lux and resources
- going for some faith based pantheon depending on land
- stealing workers to boost early eco (and possibly slowing neighbours)

also I think that many people dont understand how easy its to kill ais, its really usually not a question if one can do it, but more if its helpful. AIs no matter the difficulty lvl are so bad at shifting their units to the "right" spots. And up to immortal 4-5 archers and 2 melee really do the job like allways.

tommynt said:

- stealing workers to boost early eco (and possibly slowing neighbours)

Click to expand...

Do you have the same experience that I do that stealing the workers from major AIs kinda "breaks" them sometimes? It seems more than slowing them down, it's flat out bizarre. This is the main reason I steal from CS instead of neighbors, the major AIs react really really badly to unexpected early DoWs and spend like the rest of the game just vegetating(let's put aside whether they already do in some games...) until you put them out of their misery.

if u steal all workers they got at some point it really sometimes breaks them.
But getting everthing civs have isnt that easy at immortal and deity.
Whats a bit weired about worker stealing is that pretty often ais got like 3-4 guarding units up to turn 30+- and suddenly they move these away and then its really easy.
If one ant steal before its really a matter of chances to get some mobving between cities or at their 2/3rd ones

tommynt said:

also I think that many people dont understand how easy its to kill ais, its really usually not a question if one can do it, but more if its helpful. AIs no matter the difficulty lvl are so bad at shifting their units to the "right" spots. And up to immortal 4-5 archers and 2 melee really do the job like allways.

Click to expand...

I think this is the advice that made me able to up the difficulty and consistently beat Deity. Many players, including myself, are kind of nervous declaring war, particularly on higher difficulties where the initial tech difference seems so daunting. This leads to those endless completely peaceful games where you try and play out the AI against each other - which can work, sure, but realizing war is a tool just like diplomacy and science helps a lot. Particularly because it's probably the easiest factor to overcome on Deity, as the AI is easily exploited and kind of dumb.

Light Cleric said:

It seems more than slowing them down, it's flat out bizarre. This is the main reason I steal from CS instead of neighbors, the major AIs react really really badly to unexpected early DoWs and spend like the rest of the game just vegetating(let's put aside whether they already do in some games...) until you put them out of their misery.

Click to expand...

By vegetating you mean they plop 3 cities max and sit on them for the rest of the game? Because that has been the case for me ever since BNW came out. Most of the time AI will pick Tradition/Piety, hardly ever expand until Industrial Era (!) and never become a threat for any particular VC until like turn 350...

My guess is that with all the changes in BNW some AI flavours were overtuned so now they all try to gun for a Culture Victory and fail miserably because the competition for crucial CV wonders is so high.

Paszczak said:

By vegetating you mean they plop 3 cities max and sit on them for the rest of the game? Because that has been the case for me ever since BNW came out. Most of the time AI will pick Tradition/Piety, hardly ever expand until Industrial Era (!) and never become a threat for any particular VC until like turn 350...

My guess is that with all the changes in BNW some AI flavours were overtuned so now they all try to gun for a Culture Victory and fail miserably because the competition for crucial CV wonders is so high.

Click to expand...

No I mean sit there and don't even build the third city, don't really build much of anything and fall well behind the other AIs. Ever accidentally bumped an anthill and see the ants run around in chaos? It kinda feels like that.

And yes, it's fairly well established that the AI places, far, far too much emphasis on culture and religion, like 6 civs in a game will go Piety and gimp themselves and not accomplish anything. I find the more civs go Piety the easier a given game becomes.

I've seen AI civs kinda "give up" and stop building anything, sort of "rage quitting" the game, but that's only after I'd taken a number of cities from that particular civ. Your worker steals must have been terrifying

On a more serious note, seeing how lazy some parts of the game are written, I wouldn't be surprised if Deity AI was coded to never build extra workes until 3rd city is up, so if they lose their all their initial workers and settlers to barbs and/or the player they break

I've seen AI civs kinda "give up" and stop building anything, sort of "rage quitting" the game, but that's only after I'd taken a number of cities from that particular civ. Your worker steals must have been terrifying

On a more serious note, seeing how lazy some parts of the game are written, I wouldn't be surprised if Deity AI was coded to never build extra workes until 3rd city is up, so if they lose their all their initial workers and settlers to barbs and/or the player they break

Click to expand...

well if u take workers before they improve lux or pillage lux while doing they are happy starved. Pretty lickly ai is coded not to build new settler when low on happynes and instead takes it time building happynes buildings.
And before that they shift their bo to units/walls when being dowed.
So obviously replacement workers come too late.

Thats why I say that a deity ai isnt THAT much damaged, espacially if a worker is left, while an emperor one might be really cripled.
But emperor ais are crippled anyway ...

Meh, it does vary by game in my experience, some Deity AIs take it better than others. Sometimes they do move on like nothing happened, sometimes they "break", but regardless it does seem to slow their Settler output. Then again maybe I'm just stealing from Piety AIs which seem to really gimp themselves compared to other AIs; imo Piety is a bad opening tree even for the AI with its bonuses and it's something you do for "fun" but I suppose that's another topic.

Do we know what the AI's starting happiness is in BNW, actually? I know their overall happiness was lowered from the stupid G&K levels(where they were in a Golden Age like half the time as a result) but my impression was they still have basically zero happiness issues until maybe ideologies.

I recently played a immortal game where ais were pretty often unhappy when fighting.
Even before I pillaged every single tile from them.

So they definatly didnt have a very high starting happy lvl.

In BNW, AI plays on Handicap_AI_Default (rather than Chieftain), which provides for no unhappiness discount (AIUnhappinessPercent = 100%). Deity moves that to 75% of normal unhappiness from cities and population (immortal is 85%).

So the AI still gets a modest unhappiness discount, but nothing like the old Chieftain 60% discount stacked with the Deity discount -- net 45% unhappiness vs. what the human player would experience.

Browd said:

In BNW, AI plays on Handicap_AI_Default (rather than Chieftain), which provides for no unhappiness discount (AIUnhappinessPercent = 100%). Deity moves that to 75% of normal unhappiness from cities and population (immortal is 85%).

So the AI still gets a modest unhappiness discount, but nothing like the old Chieftain 60% discount stacked with the Deity discount -- net 45% unhappiness vs. what the human player would experience.

Click to expand...

If interpret this correctly, they purposely handicapped the AI compared to pre-BNW? Was it because they wanted to force the game into the new, late-game BNW features (i.e., not having the AI win pre-300) or perhaps they listened to all those that complained about how hard the AI was?

Hello, Tommy! I tried this strategy twice so far, and I can say I am pleased with my result. http://oi59.tinypic.com/vobls1.jpg

Take a look here. That's from the first time I tried. I could've hit Modern at least 7-8 turns before I did, but I felt using the Oxford or burning a scientist just for Radio would not be as good... What do you use Oxford and Rationalism Finisher for?

I used the finisher for Radio this time around, then I opened up Commerce and rushed Big Ben with my engineer. That made buying up factories/hydro plants so much more affordable. The above questions are for everyone, of course. Thanks again for this awesome, brutal strategy.

I do have one last remark to make regarding the Tradition opener. I saw in a post of yours that you said to skip the 3rd scout and go for a monument, if you aren't getting any cultural ruins. I tried the strategy in a 2nd game, and I think that not only do you need to do that, but also grab the Free settler from Liberty ASAP. I tried the same game, going Tradition opener first, and my Free Settler came by on turn ~50 (I was friends with 2 cultural CS when that happened, I think). I restarted and went for the Settler asap. He came by on turn 33, (no cultural ruins again) and then I opened up Tradition and went on to finish it.

PS. Sorry for the "thread necromancy", but I believe this is one of the most insightful threads in the forums and needs to be bumped every now and then.

Buccaneer said:

If interpret this correctly, they purposely handicapped the AI compared to pre-BNW? Was it because they wanted to force the game into the new, late-game BNW features (i.e., not having the AI win pre-300) or perhaps they listened to all those that complained about how hard the AI was?

Click to expand...

Probably more that with the old happiness bonuses, the AI would never be affected by ideological unhappiness at the higher levels, making the whole feature useless.

Take a look here. That's from the first time I tried. I could've hit Modern at least 7-8 turns before I did, but I felt using the Oxford or burning a scientist just for Radio would not be as good... What do you use Oxford and Rationalism Finisher for?

I used the finisher for Radio this time around, then I opened up Commerce and rushed Big Ben with my engineer. That made buying up factories/hydro plants so much more affordable. The above questions are for everyone, of course. Thanks again for this awesome, brutal strategy.

Click to expand...

its like allways good to get the 2 free tenents asap - espacially if its still a race vs ais - but even if its not - a 33% discount - free 8 happyness or 25% faster people is allways good.

I usually prefer order and build facts myself, like that big ben is strong but not like "needed", for a freedom empire its really kickass.

So either of both i ll usually use on radio and the rati finisher - well when it comes ... doesnt have much choise often, sp speed is so much influenced my map and game that its hard to plan ahead.

Radio and then tech to Plastics could work.. plastics give the laboratory which always helps improve science in the civilization.

Traditon starter --> 3x Liberty to colective rule --> +15% wonder bonus (should come about when u start oracle --> rest of tradition --> liberty till GA --> rationalism

Click to expand...

Sorry can someone fill me in on what GA means? Does this mean you finish off the whole liberty tree too?

Mattheusss said:

Sorry can someone fill me in on what GA means? Does this mean you finish off the whole liberty tree too?

Click to expand...

GA is Golden Age policy from liberty tree