Help on Sid Game

I've been playing the greatest sid game I've ever played. I'm the Mayans. I had an incredible expansion phase, and a very good early war, managed to get a couple cities and the GL, gettin me to education. But now, the game has come to a halt. I've built no culture until recently, and flip risks for each city was about 1 out of 10, so it's a miracle only one flip has occured. I just ended war with Portugal (purple) allied with England. They're still fighting, but they are both gassed. England is in industrial age. Currently researching metallurgy for miltrad for cav. I think I won't be able to attack again until RP. Or am I wrong? I have almost no military, but I must eliminate culture threat. By the way, my rep is ruined, cause Portugal took a city of mine, messing up a trade route. But I can still sign alliances, thank goodness, but I can't trade gpt for techs. What should I do?
Settings are
Pangaea
Standard
6 of 7 opponents
Default rules, no respawn


I just finished war with Portugal, so disorder will clean up


The almighty and possibly runaway England

Hm, update your signature
I've tried a Sid game as Mayans too, but after a succesful exp phase, I was attacked and destroyed.

Why are you researching at +107 per turn? Either move the slider up or no research at all.

Edit: Your cities look a bit underdeveloped, building Libs and Aquas in late MA. Maybe you should focus on military instead, with Cavalry coming soon.

It looks like he's doing one scientist research. If you can predict the AI correctly, you more often than not end up with a monopoly tech while funneling almost all of your cash into your treasury. Considering he's playing as a republic, he's gonna need that for unit support and happiness.

I'm doing minimal research, with one scientist (at maximum it only shaves off 5 turns or so). My cities are undeveloped because I've been warring since the beginning. There's not much military action I can do, I need artillery to take Englands infantry (by the time I get miltrad), Portugal is a problem because
a. Too much culture threat, if I capture a city it will flip soon
b. If I raze a city, England will get it way before me.

Spain has conquistadors, so each city would need numerous defensive units, which I can't afford. The Dutch seem the most logical opponent to attack, but they have lots of units, and doesn't have a superpower near them to help me (Spain is next to them, but Spain is rather small, and the Dutch could make quick work of them, making them even stronger).

My current plan is to research to RP, praying I don't get attacked, then attack the English with MA with Portugal.

Sig updated, Pentium .

I wish I could help, but frankly I have not manage to win at pangea, only islands and contients.

I would suggest that you forget culture that is a no win at Sid. I have tried mostly to do what you are doing on pangea, but that has not worked the few times I tried it.

The only thing that I can think of in that spot is to not evn build any libs and switch to zero research and go into Mob. Make endless trebs and troops and find a target.

Best if you can join an on going war.

Well the Dutch look strong as well, having made the Russians and Germans nonfactors. Portugal should be your friend and is your only viable source of saltpeter that I saw, so keep them that way.

Culture- dont try to outculture them. Its a losing proposition sucking up money and shields. If your cities flip, they flip, theres just nothing you can really do.

Military- talk about rebuilding! The Great Rebuilding Project of 110 AD should take 2 warriors and a 1 HP knight army and turn it into many many artillery devices, cavs, and rifles/infantry. You'll need em. With enough arty and rails you can take on anyone.

Build up a lot. Take out the Russians they have incense I see. Once you are strong enough pit the Dutch vs. England; the trick is keeping them both strong until you have enough troops to take one of them out. I would build artillery rather than libraries in the corrupt regions. More markets and banks are needed in the core. Have you had your golden age yet? Oh and theres two city spots to the SW that could be settled for what its worth.

Each city's culture flip risk was 1 out of 10, but maybe I'll get lucky some more. I've explained why I can't attack each civ. But if I had a gun to my head and had to choose one it would be England.

I'm not trying to out culture them, I'm just trying to prevent flips. I know that a flip will never come in my favor.

Killercane- By artillery do you mean trebs/cannons or do you mean the unit "artillery." I have had my golden age from javalins. They're actually pretty good.

trebs and cannons for upgrade. I meant dont try to rush culture in your culturally threatened cities. You can win this one though I think. Just keep everyone happy til you're stronger.

I knew this game was winnable, I just don't know if it's winnable if "I" play it. I guess it's military time . I'll get a good nights sleep tonight and play tomorrow.

Thx for the tips, everyone, keep the advice coming, my goal is to beat Sid non cop-out style (i.e. tiny 2 civs as Aztecs) by civ4.

Oh and you can chop some forests all around with your slaves, that might help a bit. Take it to em and let us know how it comes out.

Now I'm under CivFanatics pressure, excellent, pressure makes me play better, cause I'm more careful and micromanage better.

Any more tips, please tell me, even if you haven't beaten Sid. I need all the help I can get.

Why are half your cities riotting btw?

I was just in a war and there was a lot of war wariness (that 100% luxury couldn't control), but I just got out so they'll be fine next turn.

killercane said:

Military- talk about rebuilding! The Great Rebuilding Project of 110 AD should take 2 warriors and a 1 HP knight army and turn it into many many artillery devices, cavs, and rifles/infantry. You'll need em. With enough arty and rails you can take on anyone.

Click to expand...

I doubt that this can be true. By the time you get rails and artillery, they will at least have bombers and they will use them unmercilessly.

They could have tanks as well. The whole thing about island games with lots of water for Sid is to slow down the research. On pangea they will have contacts very soon and the race is on.

You need all the tricks you can muster to try to slow down the research, mainly wars. Wars are sort a cheat at an island sid game as they will not do invasions all that well. Not so good on pangea as they can get to you in numbers and can afford to bring friends and you can't do either most of the time.

The one thing you can have to try to offset them is armies and that is why Mil is so useful on Contients or Pangea at Sid (IMO). The promotions are very much needed.

Hope to see you make some progress, keep us lurkers update please.

I won't play at all today, cause I'm tired, I need to be fully awake to play this game. I have tried archi a lot, and even though AI's can trade like crazy, I think it's easier cause of military alliances. Archi conquest takes way too long. You have to get leaders from 30 muskets on a hill with walls, then use army walls, bring in trebs and attackers, arrange your armies and pillage and place bait to get the 100s of units out of the cities, just one island of 6 cities takes something like 50 turns. Also, whoever gets the Great Lighthouse will probably become a runaway.

@ VMXA: Maybe. Their research pace needs to be slowed for sure, but with only England and the Dutch looking extremely killer, and Portugal and Spain as middle powers, I think theres enough gameplay options to minimize bomber and tank risk. It depends on how far they are into the IA, getting Russia and Germany's free techs, and grabbing maybe one or two MA techs from someone to speed to RP. Otherwise they'll be to space in no time.

vmxa said:

I wish I could help, but frankly I have not manage to win at pangea, only islands and contients.

Click to expand...

Is it that much harder?

Now I see the research, you're right to do it. Would you mind me continuing from your save?

About the sig: Where's Deity? I feel so important when I post in thread full of Sid players

No, I don't mind, just don't post a spoiler here.

To be honest I made only 3 attempts iirc and those were before I finally won on contients.
So it could be I could do better now with a lot more Sid games under by belt.

There are a lot of issue to figure for me. The traits that would work best and the tactics to try. Based on my attempts and the dirth of wins posted on pangea and even contients for that matter. I would say it is harder.

You just cannot over look the lack of early contacts. In an archi map, you may make a contact or two and even get in a trade. The biggest thing to me is that you can get to war with one or two civs and deal with a few units landing. This is so huge in that you have a chance to get a leader. You can do this with very little risk.

On a contient, you are going to have to eliminate that civ and fight it to the death. If you try to make peace, it will recover so much faster than you, that you will soon be farher behind them, than before.

On a pangea it is even more of an issue as you can be eliminated before you get your pants pull all the way up. In fact I was eliminated by barbs in my first attempt.

The lazy AI did not do a good job of clearing them out. Well to be fair it was shocking to see a bunch of barbs on turn 7, not sure what could have been done and I have not seen that again.

But the fact is on a pangea, you could be toast nearly any time the AI wants your butt in the early game. This is not true on archi and is not so true on a contient.