I tend to give up, unless... (passive dominant play style)

My playing style is (what I'd call) passive dominant: non-aggressive but trying to be dominant anyway. My typical victory would be a win-on-points at the max number of turns. Maybe a science-victory once in a while but never the last civ standing.

I admit, this playing style is risk-avoiding, maybe even boring. In this current game I run into a problem I've seen before: another civ is getting bigger and I don't know how to change course. Unless I change, I'll keep playing and lose interest (or the game) eventually.

Game summary:
I'm playing with Ashurbanipal of the Assyrians. Nebuchadnezzar is beating me on points (very slowly).
My army is the largest in the world, though not very large. I consider it large enough for good defense. I'm not rich, but the rest of the world is virtually bankrupt. Resources (and thus money) are scarce. Happiness is becoming quite a problem in my empire (lowest approval rate). Starting a war would make it even worse.

All other civs (except Nebuchadnezzar) are kinda weak. My relations with Harun, Darius, Washington and Catherine are positive. They're either friendly or afraid. Relations with Odu Nabunaga are neutral to unfriendly.

Right now, I think, my options are:
- Creating more happiness and starting a war
- Persuade other civs into a war with Nebuchadnezzar (and taking the risk Nebuchadnezzar wins)
- Provoke Nebuchadnezzar until he attacks me, to decimate his army
- Go to war with enemies I can beat quite fast (even though they're my friends)
- Focus on Great Works and hope I'm quick enough

What would you do? What should I do?
I've attached my savegame for anyone interested.
Tell me my opportunities and weaknesses

I can't load your save. What level are you playing on? On anything less than Deity, the AI is nearly always bankrupt.

If you're not playing on Deity, I recommend trying it as you will be forced to change your play style somewhat, and you might enjoy the challenge more.

Sounds like you are completely without challenge in your current games?

consentient said:

I can't load your save. What level are you playing on? On anything less than Deity, the AI is nearly always bankrupt.

If you're not playing on Deity, I recommend trying it as you will be forced to change your play style somewhat, and you might enjoy the challenge more.

Sounds like you are completely without challenge in your current games?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure. I'm playing either Prince or King. Playing at a higher level is indeed something I should do. I like challenge and it would force me to be a bit more creative. Thanks

Don't understand why the save is not working. Can't check the file right now..

Probably because you have the map packs enabled. Not everyone has them.

Anyway, I recommend reading some guides:

Tich's Shoshone science
Acken's science
Moriarte's Liberty Domination
Tabarnak tradition food caravans

and some videos

Acken, Moriarte, Peddroelm, MadDjinn, etc.

and see what kind of play style and strategy appeals to you.

Some people like peaceful play where they grow big cities (sounds like more what you are into), others (like me) want to wipe the map clean and become dominant militarily (maybe you could give it a try, for fun!)

Anyway, there is a series on here called the Deity Challenge Line-up. It posts maps every 10 days and it's casual and aimed at bringing new players into the Deity game. Players post write-ups of their games and share funny stories, etc. Maybe you could give it a go? The current map is probably the most accessible one yet posted, as well. Perfect for newcomers

I think the only viable choice is to take Nebby's stuff. You have ample military to handle that; trying to ally other civs in that war is just going to be an expensive distraction. Get all your subs, battleships, missile carriers, destroyers, stealth bombers and XCom units in range of Babylon. Put your nuclear missile on your missile carrier to nuke Babylon itself and get your atomic bomb over there as well (Akkad seems like a worthy target). Sink his subs first and then take his capital.

By the way, this late in the game, unit maintenance is killing you -- about 15 gpt per unit. I would disband a few land units to stay gpt positive. That will allow you take a few cities off gold production to build happiness buildings - you're going to need them soon.

Here's my thoughts looking at your game.

• Your relations are far from good, everyone is guarded apart from Cathy who is afraid
• Really late, never play that far, don't know when last turn occurs and how long you still have.
• Apart from war, i don't see what else you can do. Other AIs are probably not strong enough (he already conquered a lot of cities)
• You have wasted plenty of social policies taking the honor tree if you don't go to war
• Same is true for Autocracy and you didn't even take total war that could have helped you here to produce new units with more XP. At least you took Mobilization but your GPT is negative while it should be way in the positive with so much cities.
• You missed plenty of wonders for a passive prince game. Those are important to your score
• Nineveh is your capital??
• As tech leader you should have voted against Scholars in Residence
• What the ... with those 1 tile island cities. You settled like the G&K AI

Best option for war would be to use those Stealth Bombers and X-Coms. Bomb a city from far away and drop X-Coms to take it the next turn. You should be able to take a number of his cities. Unfortunately your units are really low level. That far in the game you should at least have all buildings for 45XP worth of units (level 3), ideally 60 with Brandeburg Gate or Total War. Level 4 units out of the production line means Bombers that can attack and heal, very efficient. Your poor level 2 units will have a hard time taking strenght 195 babylon, but it should be possible.
Target the big cities (capital of course) and liberate some cities from the other AIs so you don't have too much cities and the AIs will like you more. Be the good warmonger to oppose this bad warmonger who conquered them. Happiness will be an issue as you already have most luxes and you are so far away from the last commerce policy.

You kept way too many level 1 and 2 units. You should have disbanded some rather than upgrade and produce fewer, more experienced units. You don't need those mobile SAMs (again : don't play like the G&K AI). One Jet Fighter per city is most of the time all you need. A few Mobile SAMs to go with an invasion would be useful on a land map but with so those islands your Destroyers are better. With your production it will take 5 to 6 turns from your best cities to get a new X-Com, you should have tons of gold to buy them quickly with Mobilization.

Browd was faster to post. There was no answser when i started typing. Didn't even saw that Nuclear Missile BTW, yes using it might be a good idea.

Standard speed, but he's well beyond turn 500 (year is 2170). All victory conditions except domination are disabled, so he can't win a time victory in any event. Domination is the only way to win this game.

I recently had a game with Assyria, I played in an active dominant way as maybe you would define it, in king difficulty, and in my opinion, based on your description, is that maybe Assyria is a civ that doesn't suit your play style, basically because Ashurbanipal is the bad cousin of Nebuchadnezzar, stealing tech from others instead of working hard to have it, so, in a peaceful game, is expected that Nebuchadnezzar can lead the scoreboard pretty easily.

So, it's simple, or you change your play style when joining the dark side of the force with Ashurbanipal, unleashing a rain of fire and fear over your foes, or you keep playing in the light side with other civ, that serves more well your style, maybe if you had played this game as Nebuchadnezzar it would be over now.

Here I let you some screens of my game, I conquer 6 cities and won 6 free techs, the strength that I got from the techs and the cities + the weakening of the strongest civs made this.

Thanks for the replies!

I've sold all my nonsense buildings and units, built a few happiness buildings and dropped the bomb on Babylon. It will soon be mine

How should I chose my capital?

I will check out the Deity Challenge after this game I feel more excited about playing again

From the sounds of it (reading other people's posts) I don't think you have much choice but going to war in this case -- particularly since domination is apparently the only victory type!

I can put together a video of conquering the world using your save over the next day or two if you'd like.

Edit:

SanderThomas said:

How should I chose my capital?

Click to expand...

You don't, his point is apparently you LOST your original capital.

And then presumably recaptured it -- Assur is on the map and owned by him.

Browd said:

And then presumably recaptured it -- Assur is on the map and owned by him.

Click to expand...

Ah. Still, that's losing any national wonder built in it, losing a lot of population, and losing several buildings, no?

Yep, not the best plan.

Browd said:

And then presumably recaptured it -- Assur is on the map and owned by him.

Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but if you lost your original capital and recapture it, doesn't it become your capital again?

Don't know. Never had it happen before. All I know (from loading the save file) is that he owns both Assur and Nineveh, and Nineveh is his capital.

Well, in theory, if Assyria was on the map twice then Nineveh could be the capital by default for one of them...but that doesn't seem likely.

Or you could rename Assur to Nineveh before founding a second city I guess?

But I'm guessing it's more likely he simply lost his capital.

Maybe he just swap names because he want's to have Nineveh as the capital instead of Assur. In actual history Nineveh was a more significant city than Assur, besides the Assyrians had Assur as their capital and religious center, the biggest city, the center of all knowledge, and arts in the empire, and finally the place that gave the name of the Assyrian UA, was Nineveh.

Salvatierra said:

Maybe he just swap names because he want's to have Nineveh as the capital instead of Assur. In actual history Nineveh was a more significant city than Assur, besides the Assyrians had Assur as their capital and religious center, the biggest city, the center of all knowledge, and arts in the empire, and finally the place that gave the name of the Assyrian UA, was Nineveh.

Click to expand...

Bingo!

During the reign of Ashurbanipal Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and it has indeed been more significant.

Babylon and Akkad have fallen Not too many casualties (on my side). Happiness is much higher, not sure if this happened after nuking or taking the cities. Don't really understand how that happened. World Wonders maybe. Now Harun has become hostile, so guess who's next to lose his capital

SanderThomas said:

Bingo!

During the reign of Ashurbanipal Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and it has indeed been more significant.

Click to expand...

I knew that I wasn't the only guy doing that kind of things , I really enjoy history and I get very personal when playing some civs.

SanderThomas said:

Babylon and Akkad have fallen Not too many casualties (on my side). Happiness is much higher, not sure if this happened after nuking or taking the cities. Don't really understand how that happened. World Wonders maybe. Now Harun has become hostile, so guess who's next to lose his capital

Click to expand...

Maybe they had some happiness wonders like Notre Dame, Chichen Itza, Eiffel Tower or so, but if the happiness gap it's very substantial, that may respond to changes on the public opition related to Ideologies.