The (Gamer) Who Would Be King

[siouxpermarket]

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Well, hell.

I've been playing for quite a while now, always at Chieftan. When I found this quite-cool board I got inspired to try my first upper-level game (King, big Custom world, 7 civs, raging).

It went pretty well most of the way. I stayed near the top in science, made a democracy, and got four key wonders (Great Library, Leo's Workshop, U.N., and Hoover). Cash flow and defense concerns forced a move to Fundamentalism around 1875.

By the endgame there were five civs left, and the difference between them in power was not huge. I had Alliances that had stood for millenia with the two most solid--Egypt and Babylon. The Carthaginians were third--behind in science but ahead militarily. I was fourth, and then the Persians.

When I saw that Egypt was about to complete the Apollo Program, I shifted my whole production to spaceship parts...I had about twenty cities, most of them quite productive. I was feeling pretty good about it when I went to go talk to Babylon about getting Fusion Power. They told me that the alliance had grown tedious, it was cancelled, and bugger off. I went to the Egyptians. SAME ANSWER.

In the end, even without Fusion, I only lost the space race by three years to Egypt. But in the meantime, Babylon attacked (straight from Worshipful/formerly Allied to Hostile War, no reason) and Carthage started nuking me out of a clear blue sky without provocation.

I was sure hacked at the AI.

It was if, in real life, I was Britain, and slightly ahead in the space race in 1956. For that slim margin, France and America turned their backs on me, and no one said a word when Russia starting lobbing U-bombs in my face. Makes no sense.

So I think I'll back off to Prince next time. Or maybe put the software away for a bit and hang on for Civ III--diplomacy seems to be an area they're addressing. Based on my recent experience, it could use some.

OK. End of rant, end of whine. Any ideas on what I could have done differently?

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"It's not true that all conservatives are stupid, but it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." --John Locke

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[This message has been edited by siouxpermarket (edited January 18, 2001).]

[stormerne]

My advice is to persevere on King level. (It's the level I usually play.)

However, there's quite a lot of information missing from your description (and which you could supply us with if you kept a trail of game saves.) First and foremost, what was your reputation? Was it spotless, or had you slipped down the ladder somewhat? If it had slipped - and that's quite possible if you had alliances - then they're more likely to turn against you.

Making alliances is usually NOT the thing to do? What, after all, is the point? What do you get from it that you can't get more easily some other way? Do you really want someone to go to war for you? They'll expect you to do it for them at some time, which is a problem all round: if you refuse, they turn sour on you, and if you agree your reputation suffers. Look at it this way: what were the civs getting from you that would have made it worth their while keeping these age-old alliances?

And who built Manhattan? Never do it yourself unless you want to be nuked in return. If someone else starts to do it, rush-build SDIs all over.

My advice is that at sometime during the game you should switch to Communism for a time. (In my personal opinion, Communism is the government with which to take over the world, not Fundamentalism, and Democracy is better for a space race. Anyway, that's beside the point.) You can switch back, of course, but meantime build yourself a huge load of veteran spies. Then at the start of the space race, go steal your fusion tech.

And if nukes worry you, go build the UN, or take over the city that has it. It won't guarantee you a quiet life, but provided your reputation is good then you may get fewer problems. Or take some of those veteran spies, find the city that's building Manhattan, and sabotage its production.

Your other problem may have been sticking to fundamentalism in the end-game, since the other civs will be expecting you to use the nukes against them as a matter of course.

HTH

[siouxpermarket]

Hey, thanks, Storm.

>information missing from your description

No gamesaves, but...

My rep may have slipped slightly, but it no lower than excellent. I'm not real Machiavellian--I like to build, for the most part.

Good point on them wanting me to war for them...Babylon asked twice for attacks on Carthage before they turned. Not Egypt, though...

I didn't build Manhattan. I think it was Carthage.

>go steal your fusion tech.

Ah. See, this is the kind of thing I need to know. I'm probably way too interested in being nice and keeping things friendly to succeed on King level yet. *s*

>Your other problem may have been sticking >to fundamentalism in the end-game, since >the other civs will be expecting you to use >the nukes against them as a matter of >course.

That makes a certain sense. Except if they were that bright, I'd also expect them to be knowing that I hadn't BUILT any, dammit. *L*

I'll give it another try.

[stormerne]

Something else that you may need to know is how stupid the AI civs are when it comes to the space race. This is quite important because it means that - provided you have fusion - you can ALWAYS overtake their ships even when they've launched first. As soon as a civ sees a launch button they seem to press it! So their ships take 15 years +/- 5 years to arrive. If I have fusion I can guarantee to arrive in just 5 years! To do that I need 3 (1+1+1) modules, 16 (8+8) components and about 34 (ish) structurals. Takes more time to build but always wins.

To build something like this quickly you need to have spare cash to rush build. So this means several things:
* You should be in democracy to maximise trade arrows that can be converted to cash.
* You should switch off all science (rate -> zero) as soon as you have all the tech to build the parts (or when you've stolen them). Switch to 20% luxury and 80% tax.
* You should sell all your libraries, universities and research labs over three turns.
* You should disband surplus military into SS building cities.

Let us know how you get on!

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Also build a SAM in your capital city. Build bombers to surround your city and fighters to pick off air strikes.Station AEGIS on coast outside city so that missiles must go around.

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"I do not know what weapons WW3 will be fought with, but WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones."

- A. Einstein.

[Smash]

Remember to consider the ai civs as a single entity.Especially if you are winning.The game will do what it is programmed to do.Try to beat you.The higher the level the more it will do.

I've seen 15+ city civs "annexed" in 2 turns by another civ as the game trys catch up.Maximum spaceships can be built in 2 or 3 turns by the ai on deity.

[siouxpermarket]

Thanks, guys. It helps.

I just finished a quick game on Prince and again lost the race by a very narrow margin. But between that game and your posts I learned a lot. I need to focus earlier on beefing up my science and economy. The advice about alliances helped too...I avoided them like the plague during the last game, it didn't hurt at all, and no one bothered me during the endgame. (I was quite a bit stronger militarily, too.)

The democracy part is a given for me now...I plan to wait for Fundy until after I win and can say yes to "Keep playing?" *s*

Please explain this to me:

>maximise trade arrows that can be converted >to cash.

How?

...and also this...

>Take all your settlers and engineers to >some spare inland patch of ground, build a >final city with one and add all the rest to >it

Add them by...(?) disbanding them while they stand on the city...(?)

What I've done is restarted the Prince game from the saved 4000 BC file--I'm up to about 500 AD now and again, a lot stronger than last time. It's kind of a cheat, of course, since I know some of the terrain outside the kingdom and the propensities of the opponents. But I'm looking at it as a learning experience. Besides, I love this big island. Heh.

[stormerne]

What I forgot to mention above is that the side effect of only having 5 years from launch to landing is that you only have 5 turns to survive any enemy onslaught. During that time you need to look to your capital more than anything else. Make sure it has:
* SDI if Manhattan has been built.
* Surface to Air missiles
* LOTS of good ground defenders (Mech. Inf preferably)
* A bunch of sleeping fighters
* City walls
* A bunch of veteran spies
* Coastal fortress if on the coast
Consider moving your capital away from the coast if it's on the coast (rush build a palace). And make sure you're in democracy and your cities and units can't be bribed.

Oh, and if you're going for a high score too and you've already quelled the possibility of pollution, you can also:
* Take all your settlers and engineers to some spare inland patch of ground, build a final city with one and add all the rest to it (though if someone nukes you that's bad luck). Do this at the very least on the final turn.
* Assuming you're in democracy, set the luxury rate as high as you can, science still zero and tax a minimum. If you have cash to spare and can pay your maintenance for 5 years, set luxuries to 100%.

[stormerne]

Glad to be of help so far!

The thing about maximising trade arrows... Democracy (like Republic) adds a extra trade arrow to each city square that is producing trade (and with no corruption). It's the trade arrows that convert into money, science and luxuries via the rates you set. This is why Democracy and Republic are better than the other government types for cash and science, though you usually have to divert 20% of your arrows into luxuries.

Also with Democracy (and Republic) you have the time honoured ploy available of setting luxuries as high as possible for a few turns and (providing the cities have food, more than half their people happy, and no discontent, AND they're not hampered by lack of Aquaduct or Sewage System) watching your cities grow by one population point every turn.

The thing about settlers adding to a city...
You obviously know that if you type 'b' when a settler or engineer is in focus, it turns into a city on that spot. What you may not have known is that if you move a settler/engineer to an existing city of size 7 or less and type 'b', the settler with disappear and one population size will be added to the existing city!

[siouxpermarket]

I did NOT know about the settler trick. Excellent.

I also didn't know about the mechanism of trade (although I sort of vaguely had it figured out).

What a great game. What a great site.

By the way, the restart Prince game is up to 1500, but it's very different this time. Babylon killed Egypt and then split into two itself in a civil war (I'd heard about that, but never seen it). Right now it looks as though I've got no serious competition, though I've only explored the north half of the world. The wonders menu says that the *Barbarians* are holding down Marco Polo. I think I'm going to run a full transport down there and see if I can "talk" them out of it.

*s*

[FearlessLeader2]

You wanna talk to the barbarians, all you gotta say is: Hi, I'm a Diplomat, and I'd like to buy this city from you. What? You're having a fire sale? It's only gonna cost me that much? Great!! Here's 50 gold, thanks for the wonder, the six units, and a great time. Y'all have a nice time sacking Babylon...

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by FearlessLeader2:
You wanna talk to the barbarians, all you gotta say is: Hi, I'm a Diplomat, and I'd like to buy this city from you. What? You're having a fire sale? It's only gonna cost me that much? Great!! Here's 50 gold, thanks for the wonder, the six units, and a great time. Y'all have a nice time sacking Babylon...

Arghh! Don't tell me it's that cheap to buy cities from the Barbies! I'm such an imbecile, it's frightening.

Early in my current game (also my first on King) they took a couple of my more poorly defended cities, so I spent several turns rush buying offense units in the nearest cities to go attack *MY OWN CITY* then another couple hundred years or so to build it back up

But now you tell me all I had to do was send one cheap little dip with a few gold dubloons in his pocket?? I don't know why I didn't think of it. I guess just too much of a "blow 'em up" mentality.

Next time I'll know better!

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There are some who call me...Tim

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by siouxpermarket:
[FONT=Tahoma]I got inspired to try my first upper-level game (King, big Custom world, 7 civs, raging).... In the end, even without Fusion, I only lost the space race by three years to Egypt.

As I just mentioned, I'm also on my first game at King. Prince did not seem like a huge step up from chieftan, but the difference going to king was noticiable.

HOWEVER, You have to figure, if you came that close on your first attempt, while you were still experimenting with gov'ts, diplomacy, trade and such, you probably can handle that level pretty well.

It sounds to me like you're ready to accept the challenge and keep playing at King.


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There are some who call me...Tim

[FearlessLeader2]

But now you tell me all I had to do was send one cheap little dip with a few gold dubloons in his pocket?? I don't know why I didn't think of it. I guess just too much of a "blow 'em up" mentality.

Next time I'll know better!

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There are some who call me...Tim


The reason is that Barbarians never have a capitol, so they are way distant from their cap, and they have no gold, so two of the variables in the cost of bribing the city are at the lowest limit.

[siouxpermarket]

Thanks, guys.

I ended up winning the prince game by a quite decent margin...AC in 1900 plus managing to wipe out one big civ and keep the rest small and behind in the tech race. The main noticeable difference throughout the game was how Hostile/Icy everybody stayed. I guess the higher up you go the bigger the jealousy problem. Heh.

King attempt part II, coming up.

[HIEROPHANT]

i never even let the computer get to the space race.