When do you throw the towel in?

Hello,

At what point in a game would you give up?

I'm playing only my second game in 5 years, and as such only my second game with BNW. In my first game, I played as England on Warlord and won a culture victory. One of the AI players in that game was Brazil, and I noticed and subsequently read about how good it was at Tourism, so in my next game I decided to play as Brazil and play for Tourism from the outset (now on Prince).

The map is Earth, and I started in the New Mexico sort of area. Also in North America is a city state, and in South America there are three other city states and China.

I know now that I developed far too slowly and by the time I had met the other AIs, it was clear that some of them were well ahead of me. I'm now on turn 350ish, and Rome has twice the score I do.

My tourism is not good enough, and I've been thinking that Science was a better option, however I'm pretty sure I'm behind on that score as well. The only crumb of hope is that I've not been at war with anyone and maybe I could gain a Diplomatic Victory. However, I'd be interested to know when other players decide that all is lost - what do you look for in making that decision? Or, should one never give up, and is there always some hope?

Thanks,
Ackoman

It sounds like it's early in the game. Usually, the AIs are ahead in score early on, but if you have a plan to accelerate your culture and go for various national wonders and world wonders you should be able to easily pass up the AI.

KevinLandwaster said:

It sounds like it's early in the game. Usually, the AIs are ahead in score early on, but if you have a plan to accelerate your culture and go for various national wonders and world wonders you should be able to easily pass up the AI.

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Is turn 350 early on?

ackoman said:

Is turn 350 early on?

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I guess I missed that. Well, in that case, I would probably start over if I knew I had made some serious blunders, or that I didn't know what the heck I was doing. If I have what I feel is a good plan to win, and it doesn't work, I like to start over and do it the right way - but that's just me.

Where are you at the game? What science did you just do?
Check the technology score for all the civs in the game and see how close you are?

I think if I decide I lose, it is usually early in the game. If I am hangining in there by the time we get into the Modern Age, I will probably not lose.

On Prince, you still have enough time to win after 350 and score in this game means very little. All you need to check is whether any AI has finished Apollo project and started building SS parts, then at that point you have less than 100 turns. Otherwise you can take as long as you want as no AI on that difficulty level is capable of winning any other victory condition. I've never lost any games below deity and even deity ones are salvageable if you know which AI are targeting a science victory and invade them before they launch.

When you're economically behind and at war with and struggling to hold back two aggressive neighbors, the a third with the highest military score decides to join in as well.

You're probably hooped unless it's a marathon length game.

Then again the AI on low difficulties folds pretty quickly if you alpha strike them even if their score is way higher than yours.

Take patronage policies as well as the tenets of your ideology that support increasing your rep with city states and try for a diplomacy victory. Maybe figure out what went wrong, too. If you aren't being hyper aggressive you should be angling for the science buildings as science in this game is king.

I think I might stand some chance on the diplomatic front - I've got several city states allied already and it won't take too much to get a lot of the others - I'm hammering gold production such that when the times comes I should have plenty in the coffers to get the support of the city states that are currently allied to Rome. I managed to get my religion voted as being the World Religion and at least two other AI players share the same religion (will this help out in the World Leader vote or not?). I'm just hoping that Rome or someone else doesn't get a Science or Culture victory before the World Leader vote - the United Nations has not even been created yet!

@OP, you are fine. Play it out, see what happens. I think the experience will convince you to keep bumping up the difficulty level! The game is more fun if there is a chance you might loose!

All CS allied + World Religion (yes, it helps) should be enough votes. Did you build Forbidden Palace? That would be two more votes, and it might still be available if none of the AI have opened Patronage. One thing nice about Diplo VC is that you can be way behind in technology and still win. One of the AI will unlock United Nations for you. (But Diplo VC is even easier if you can get to Globalization in a timely fashion.) If you don't win on the first vote, just hang in there, keeping the CS allied. You get more WL votes for the next vote every time you lead but don’t win.

As Sclb wrote, you are hardly in danger of losing. Game is over at 500 turns, and score determines at that point, but you have 150 turns left to buy up the remaining CS. It is also possible that an AI will get an SV.

Answering your OP question, even when I know I cannot win, late game I keep going until an AI wins as I like the closure. I quit early game if I loose my cap.

kamex said:

When you're economically behind and at war with and struggling to hold back two aggressive neighbors, the a third with the highest military score decides to join in as well.

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Been there, done (seen?) that. Wu Zetain to the west, but had nearly managed to take her capital, all reserves to the east just managing to stall Attilas battering rams. So, not great but might still get through it... then from the north my old friend Shaka with four or Impis and supporting composite bowmen. Game over man, Game over...

BigChiefLizzy said:

Been there, done (seen?) that. Wu Zetain to the west, but had nearly managed to take her capital, all reserves to the east just managing to stall Attilas battering rams. So, not great but might still get through it... then from the north my old friend Shaka with four or Impis and supporting composite bowmen. Game over man, Game over...

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This could only happen if your tech is so behind so early in the game. I've never seen battering rams used efficiently by AI where it is even a threat. In this case then it's easy to start over I guess. I have not lost major city/capital even if ALL AI DoW me simultaneously due to how bad they are at warfare.

Usually if you are behind at late game or very late (AI threatening to launch SS or culture on deity), the ONLY way out is through conquering the said civ. That is if you don't want to go for diplo V backdoor which I'll never take.

beetle said:

@OP, you are fine. Play it out, see what happens. I think the experience will convince you to keep bumping up the difficulty level! The game is more fun if there is a chance you might loose!

All CS allied + World Religion (yes, it helps) should be enough votes. Did you build Forbidden Palace? That would be two more votes, and it might still be available if none of the AI have opened Patronage. One thing nice about Diplo VC is that you can be way behind in technology and still win. One of the AI will unlock United Nations for you. (But Diplo VC is even easier if you can get to Globalization in a timely fashion.) If you don't win on the first vote, just hang in there, keeping the CS allied. You get more WL votes for the next vote every time you lead but don’t win.

As Sclb wrote, you are hardly in danger of losing. Game is over at 500 turns, and score determines at that point, but you have 150 turns left to buy up the remaining CS. It is also possible that an AI will get an SV.

Answering your OP question, even when I know I cannot win, late game I keep going until an AI wins as I like the closure. I quit early game if I loose my cap.

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I might just do it. I do have Forbidden Palace (I wish I could say that it was all part of the grand plan, but sadly that is not the case – not much thought went into it, but now it turns out it might have been a critical decision!) and I’ve garnered nearly all of the CS votes. There has already been one round of voting, which I won but without enough votes to secure victory (you need 36, and I got 28), and that has secured me another two votes. There are still 3 city states not allied to me and if I get them all I will just get to the magic number. The only problem is that one of the CS is heavily allied to Rome (I will need around 300 influence points to swing it), and it’s not clear whether I will manage it before the AI gets either a SV or a CV. Rome only needs to get one more civ in order to achieve the CV………

I did notice something daft – both Rome and Persia are sitting on pots and pots of money, so why aren’t they spending it and reversing all of my CS gains? Is it because the AI is just plain daft, or is it because of the difficulty level? i.e. would it make more sensible decisions if I was playing on a harder level?

ackoman said:

I did notice something daft – both Rome and Persia are sitting on pots and pots of money, so why aren’t they spending it and reversing all of my CS gains? Is it because the AI is just plain daft, or is it because of the difficulty level? i.e. would it make more sensible decisions if I was playing on a harder level?

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AI will not spend more than 500g to buy CS. However some AI will use spies to coup.

I throw in the towel whenever a game is not fun anymore. Why waste hours of spare time on a boring map when you can just roll another? This usually happen in somewhere in the mid game.

I also tend to quit or start over if I happen lose my capital or even a selfmade city.

Yeah I'm the same, losing doesn't make me quit but if I get a third of the way through a game and I find myself building the same wonders and opening the same policies on the same type of map/terrain as my last game I'll start again.

ackoman said:

The only problem is that one of the CS is heavily allied to Rome (I will need around 300 influence points to swing it)...

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Put a spy in that CS, it will close the gap quite a bit. Otherwise you need 6000 gold!

...it’s not clear whether I will manage it before the AI gets either a SV or a CV.

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Are any civs building SS parts?

Rome only needs to get one more civ in order to achieve the CV....

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There is more to it than that. Check the influence screen and you should be able to tell how many turns they have to influence on the last civs.

I did notice something daft – both Rome and Persia are sitting on pots and pots of money, so why aren’t they spending it and reversing all of my CS gains?

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There are constraints to when the AI is allowed to spend, thank goodness. It is part of play balance that looks clumsy, but works out okay.

beetle said:

There are constraints to when the AI is allowed to spend, thank goodness. It is part of play balance that looks clumsy, but works out okay.

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Otherwise it would be impossible to ally any CS on deity as AI often sits at 10k gold.

The AI also seems to have constraints on spending gold to rush buy units. Maybe buildings too? I am not sure on specifics. But I can war against an AI with 10k in the bank, and they do not seem to be fielding units like they could. (Sure, 1UPT is a big part of that, but they should be able to overwhelm me with a COD, but they don’t.)

And even as a runaway AI (or even two or three) will have a crazy money, others are near bankruptcy. So that is why I think the play balance is okay. I am of the opinion that if gold and gpt had a (reasonably high) cap, players would hardly notice that the AI sits on its wealth.

ackoman said:

At what point in a game would you give up?

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Usually, at this point:



As for your game, you can try and buy a few friendly AI's votes; you mentioned being on good terms with them. Just send your diplomats to their capitals (as diplomats, not spies! And well before the UN voting - it takes 6 or 7 turns of for them to settle in). If an AI agrees to accept the trade, it gives you 4 votes. The price may be arm and leg, but if those votes give you victory, it is not too much. It is better to bribe the AIs first and only then ally the few lacking CSs, otherwise the AI may 'sense' the danger and just refuse any bribe from you, however friendly it is - I've had such an experience. Also, get Globalization, if it is within reach.