Could You Win This Game?

David McMurdo

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 8, 2013
Messages
23
Location
Scotland
Hey Everyone,

Thanks to your advice on focussing on science and food, I've improved my game significantly, gaining techs a hundred or more years ahead of when I usually would.
However I still end up in situations where I'm not sure how to tackle the enemy AI's. My problem isn't with deciding on a victory type and working towards it, it's with preventing my enemies with achieving theirs first.

In this game I'm playing as Byzantium (for the first time), and I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to try for a culture victory, so I've played accordingly. I'm a little over halfway through the game and there are some powerful empires out there. I've taken the capital of Indonesia after they refused to stop converting my cities, but that's all in terms of conquest. I've been focussing on religious policies. Seemed to make sense as Byzantium.

I'm not really sure what to focus on next, and this is the point I always reach in my games. The Iroquois have grown massive as usual, so I've settled a city near them so that I have a place to launch an attack from when the time comes.

I'm playing on a small fractal map, on Standard Pace, and King difficulty. I've attached the save below in case anyone wants to take a look and give me some feedback on my empire. I'm using the latest beta patch, in case anyone wants to try it and it causes issues.
 

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I read your previous thread and i felt happy to see you win a game. I am going to look at this in the meantime; might take awhile though since i have college work
 
As I thought, I've ended up in another seemingly impossible situation. This is why I can't understand how you can win the even larger maps.

I'm engaged in a difficult war with the Ottomans, and I've just been informed that the United Nations has been formed. The Iroquois have a gigantic empire and many city state allies. It's only a matter of time before they become World Leader, and there's nothing I can do about it while I'm struggling to even take a single city of the Ottomans.

Then there's Korea which is no doubt steaming ahead to a science victory.

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/YxDmTgW.jpg
 
Not really. I'd settle for just winning :lol:
 
You have aluminum, I'd get to Rocketry fast and upgrade those artillery fast. RA is much more robust against bombing than normal artillery. The infantry/RA combo is a force to be reckoned with and you'll be able to take most cities with only 3 RA(you have 8 aluminum so 8 RA would kick bottom) and 3 Infantry.
If you have armories in all unit producing cities give your infantry the cover promotion and the RA the +%50 against cities promotion, the Ottomans will soon fall shortly after.
You have oil so supplementing with battleships(with 2* +%33 against land units) and/or bombers( with 2* +%33 against land units) will greatly aid you.
I take it you've researched Refrigeration so supplementing with subs( with 2* +%33 against naval units) will mop up any navel/embarked units.
 
well I fired up the game and played some turns.

Lots of problems, but you can win this easily. unfortunately, a peaceful victory will take forever because tech is terribly neglected. Domination on the other hand is with in easy reach.

I have been meaning to record a domination LP, but the fall patch has put that on hold for the moment. This game is about perfect for problem that most players that are struggling, it has all the classic mistakes.

Give me a few hours and I will get a video up showing how to turn this around, I think it will be much more instructive in a video format rather than listing all the problems and how to fix them.
 
I downloaded the save, an has played until turn 387. After looking through the options available i opted for speeding through the lower part of the the tech tree, resulting in getting Brandenburg Gate, Broadway, Eiffeltower, Neuwenstein, Porcelain Tower in various cities, and then with a few artillery, great war infantry and a carrier with 3 GW planes and 1 triplane + 3 battleships, managed to invading the Iroques.

Current status is Hiawatha is crippled with only a few cities left, including the Mongolian Capital. And I have military, culture and research lead. Currently also only Civ with Autocracy.

But you should try to keep the trade routes to maximum either internal og external, that helps a lot late game.
 
Not really. I'd settle for just winning :lol:

IMHO thats the problem right there.
When i start a game i have allready a VC (or two to have a backup plan) in mind. And then FOCUS on that.
Best example is culture Victory. For a culture victory i build a small tall empire and focus everything on getting these culture/tourism points adding up. So first prio culture, second prio Food.
For culture you don't need a barrack but you do need a monument, you do not need the colossus but the sistine chapel is great, get a religion that gets you culture or food not happines etc etc.
Plus you need a high population (which means food) so you can get these specialists working so you get the great persons etc etc.

For me it was all about focusing on what you realy need and leave out what you don't.

Looking forward to the vid from joshua hopefully i can learn something too
 
Don't you find that tech and culture victories go hand in hand?

The tech allows you to get the culture buildings (and wonders) faster - and most of the tourism bonuses are late in the tech tree.

I find it hard to go for culture without tech and usually they are a byproduct of one another.
 
This game is winnable, albeit in a nasty way (for me, anyhow):

Spoiler :


I finished on T359 by Domination. I chose Domination because you had no CS allies and were far away from a Diplomatic win, you did not have the science to really get a Science win and you were already at war with Indonesia, having already taken his capitol. Also, all rival capitols were pretty close, and on a pangea. You might be able to win this game Culturally, though. I did not press that path.

Here is what I saw were your problems: :trouble:

1. You had not scouted the entire world
2. You had no CS allies and a lvl 3 spy in Seoul, which had no techs to steal
3. You were not working your science specialists
4. You settled your cities too far apart
5. You did not develop your land, especially luxury resources
6. You took beliefs that benefitted religious spread (ie Tithe, Texts), then did not spread your religion
7. You forward settled a city on an AI (Hiwatha) far away from your land with no real tactical benefit (not even a luxury)
8. You only had 1 trade route
9. You had no friends
10. None of your cities were specialized :)c5food:, :c5gold:, or :c5production:)
11. You were in a war and did not have much military

Here are good things: :goodjob:

1. Your cities had connections either by road or harbor
2. You managed to get Jakarta, and it had unique luxuries
3. You were #1 in science
4. Your culture was good

Here is how I did it.

After shifting production/scientists around, I started building cannons and cavalry. I teched to Dynamite and pressed the attack against Indonesia. I took the city SW of Jakarta (it had 2 unique luxuries), then made peace.

I friended Korea, paid Ottomons to DoW Mongolia, denounced Ottomons, then Dow'd the Ottomons (yeah, way mean of me). I took Krakorum (he already had it from Mongolia), took Ankara and took Istanbul with Artillery and Cavalry. Sued for peace and got another city, which I gave to Mongolia.

I then started having happiness problems, so I took the Autocracy Ideology (which Korea took too :confused:), and got happiness tenents from national wonders and the 2 for building military buildings (castles, arsenals, barracks, armories, etc). Happiness soared.

I started building a navy and allying CSes with Iron while attacking Ottomons. I had a fleet of 8 frigates and 1 privateer near Constantinople, and 6 artillery, 2 rifles and 3 cavalry near Instanbul. They all met in the middle at Turfan, and I Dow'd Hiwatha.

He was tough. He already had 3 battleships, 2 triplanes, 2 bombers and about 10 land units (a few great war infantry, some artillery and machine guns. I popped Biology (Oil) and Flight with a couple of great scientists, took Turfan and started building airplanes. Took and razed two of his junk cities too.

From Turfan, I took Hiwatha's cap (used a citadel), and Awkesame, then sued for peace. He gave me 4 cities in the trade, and I gave 3 to Mongolia. I left the one that was 7 tiles from Seoul and rebased my air fleet there (which by then was 7 units).

From there, I upgraded 4 frigates to battleships, and sent them to Seoul with a privateer. I popped radar with another great scientist, and upgraded 6 of my planes (had to leave one behind) to 1 fighter and 5 bombers. I then DoW'd Korea and took Jeoson, thinking I could move my land army through that city to meet the fleet and air planes in Seoul.

That proved unnecessary. Poor Korea, he had no air defense. :sad: GG!

The save is also attached:
 

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Recorded 2 hours of video and played to T321. First half hour or so is spent on in depth discussion of what is good and bad, and how to make it better with a lot of stuff on making sure that choices are consistent and work together. Rest is about pursuing domination and should have some good stuff for you on the basic strategies for moving and using units.

Youtube is running painfully slow atm. Will post a link once videos are up, looking like tomorrow :(
 
Don't you find that tech and culture victories go hand in hand?

The tech allows you to get the culture buildings (and wonders) faster - and most of the tourism bonuses are late in the tech tree.

I find it hard to go for culture without tech and usually they are a byproduct of one another.

This 1000 times over. Theming bonuses from France or aestethics won't mean much if you can't acquire the cultural wonders.

Also, the internet. You need to beeline to it swiftly to get the most out of it. I've just beaten my Incan game with a cultural victory and tech was the main factor in winning, because I built up to 11 cities early in game on hills, got messenger god pantheon, connected my roads, got the tech rolling, just about all the culture wonders, got religion rather early, got cathedrals to house the GWoA's, finished aestethics, finished piety, grabbed sacred sites reformation, got internet and ended up with 170 tourism before hotels and over 1000 tourism after internet. If the game went a little longer, I could have got 2000 tourism with international games. If I were Brazil, it'd be 4000 tourism.

That game also consisted of huge world (12 civs), but half the civs got wiped out. I also chose Order and had at least 100 production per turn in my first 5 cities.
 
...and how to make it better with a lot of stuff on making sure that choices are consistent and work together.

This is one more reason I went with Domination: the social policies chosen did not lend themselves to a single victory type. The OP took Tradition 2, Liberty 5, Piety 6, Commerce 1 and Rationalism 1. He was close to an ideology but had not filled out any single tree.

I took the final policy in liberty, then took secularism in rationalism. I was hoping to get to an ideology before I got another policy, but went ahead and picked up legalism when I did not get there. Would have taken monarchy next, but got to an ideology instead.

I probably could have finished earlier had I pressed religion a little harder. I had lots of unspent faith and could have used prophets, or bought industrial units to make better use of Tithe. One of the hardest parts of Domination games is keeping trade routes and :c5gold: flowing. Tithe would have helped. Of course, swords to plowshares did not help at all, as I was constantly at war.
 
Wow, thanks everyone. Don't think I've ever seen a forum so enthusiastic and pro-active.

It blows my mind that someone could win the game by turn 359. I've played past that already and haven't gained a single additional city. No idea what I'm doing so horribly wrong. I focussed on science as much as I could.

The reason I had only one trade route is that I was at war with almost everyone, including city-states. I couldn't seem to set up a trade route going anywhere without it being almost immediately plundered. Unless there's some way to assign protection to them that I'm unaware of.

It's true that I hadn't done much to spread my religion despite maxing out the piety policy tree, but then again I did as much as I could. Indonesia was being very aggressive with their great prophets which is why I took their capital. But after that it took a while to save up for missionaries, and many of them got stolen by the hostile city-states they had to bypass. Some times I feel like I'm wasting my time with religion. Kind of wish there was some kind of religious victory.

Looking forward to your video, Joshua.

Thanks all.
 
Standard and king? :lol:
I think it's always winnable (unless you screwed up really badly) AI won't launch until maybe t400?+
 
Don't you find that tech and culture victories go hand in hand?

The tech allows you to get the culture buildings (and wonders) faster - and most of the tourism bonuses are late in the tech tree.

I find it hard to go for culture without tech and usually they are a byproduct of one another.

Not especially, because i find tech is ALLWAYS important. It is absolutely key in Civ.
But for a culture victory, not as importante as in other vc such as Domination or Tech. I tried not to go into to much detail, but of course there are other things to keep a eye on. Tec is one of them, so is defence etc. But i don't want to confuse the poor guy too much.
My point is, focus on what you need neclect what you dont.
 
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