How do you stop Alex?

joncnunn said:

Top five counter measures to Alex:

5. Reduce the city state ratio from the default 2:1 ratio (which I found too crowded anyway) down to 1:1.

4. Use spies to protect key allies. The AI tends to use the bare minimum cash that would become an ally, and so even a raw recruit would have 85% chance of flipping it back if it were already present.

3. Accept an AIs war invitation against Alex; Alex can't bribe your city state allies when he's at war with them.

2. If playing Austria and Alex is in the game, I'd make marrying city states a higher priority than when he's not in it.

1. And the ultimate counter is to be playing Venice and using Great Merchants of Venice to take over his city states.

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Good points ...and I particularly like the last one....as Venice....when I play as Venice...grabbing CSs from Alex, or Ram....those megapoint-influence CSs they seem to be able to get so early in the game... There is something decidedly "schadenfreude" about it ..

When I have Alex in a game I hope that he is close so I can nail him early.... I usually let him start the war, but if not I try not to wait too long to start it myself....

I've gone after him with just composite bows and spearmen....but than can be tough, depending on how easy he is to get at...I usually prefer to have crossbows and pikemen.....

thanks for your response. I don't think the requirements are too extreme myself, just pointing out how it is easy to steal the win from an AI player. They are rarely smart enough to use liberation to their advantage.

For the human, there are several options if you lose the win.

1. Suck it up for 80 turns or so and get that +2 with every near miss until you get it.
Con: run the risk of a science victory stealing the crown
2. Go and declare war and liberate the lost CS's.
Con: this can be difficult as the ones you lose are usually halfway across the world and belong to warmongers with huge military. There is kindof an abuse with this though if you're just missing one. I've won by declaring war and liberating a CS 2 turns before vote. He didn't have time to mobilize the troops before it was over.
3. Liberate an extinct civ. This gives you double the votes of a normal CS and is often a bit safer...especially if the wiped out guy has old cities near you.

That being said, since the AI (other than Alex and a few exceptions) sucks at playing for the diplo win it is often an easier route to go and a fallback plan. It's probably the easiest win on Deity. I often turn it off just so that I can not worry about it, but lately I've been feeling like this nerfs alex and a few other civs too much. Better to leave them all on and handle things as they develop. Any victory strategy can be combated and makes the late game pretty fun.

If you're going for diplo win to begin with and alex is in the game you have to come to terms that it's going to be a slow grind. You have to take the strat that you can only do what you can when you can. You can't be winning all game with Alex but can win when it counts. So don't stress about what is happening throughout the mid portion and set yourself up for the endgame.

Focus early on science and economy.
You want to be first one to printing press so you can be first world leader.
You want to be the first one to banking so you can build forbidden palace.
You want to be first one to ideology so you can propose your ideology at the second counsel vote. Use spies to secure the votes needed to pass it.

Along the way you're maximizing your economy by building gold buildings and maximizing trade routes and selling resources. By the end you should be in a good position to buy all the needed CS votes.

If by mid game you foresee that your economy will not be strong enough to buy all the votes needed at the end then choose autocracy, build units, and move them around the map so that every CS fears your military and the pick the appropriate policy.

Novalia said:

If you're going for diplo win to begin with and alex is in the game you have to come to terms that it's going to be a slow grind.

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I would go so far as to recommend seeking some other form of victory when Alex is present simply since one of the others is bound to be quicker and just keep the focus on keeping enough city state allies to deny him a diplomatic victory from city states alone.

(Similarly, there are others AIs who if present are strong signals that cultural victory should be avoided.)