AI pumping out missionaries & diplomats

[Jednooki_John]

I agree, most of the times it is getting ridiculous - they horsehocky out both diplomats and missionaries seemingly every turn.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I guess I haven't actually tried getting spheres of influence much. I thought everyone would vote against them as they clearly help me more than anyone else.
Do the AI not turn against you once you have a bunch of alliances? I suppose your strategy of focusing on city-states from one person in particular helps with that.

To minimize negative diplomatic effects, you can try to ally a CS short before you want to ask the WC for a sphere over it. The AI cares much less or even zero, if that CS is an ally of you at the moment of the proposal. The AI might increase its tension to vote against it, if you have lost the alliance at the moment of the vote, but the diplomatic penalty seems to happen only, if you propose a sphere over a CS that is allied with someone else.

A good strategy is to focus sphere proposals first over "2nd ring"-CS, those which are not directly bordering your empire (cause AIs are less interested in those and easier to hold by normal diplomats). Ally those which are not strongly contested and ask for a sphere after allying them by a diplomat rush. Asking for spheres for directly bordering CS should be done only, if AIs are very aggressiv trying to ally those, cause the amount of spheres you can do in the late game is limited. Pissing of others by sphering far away CS with high foreign influence should be done only as last tasks, after getting sure, you will get them by the sheer amount of votes you have.

Its a pretty solid strategy when I go for it. Honestly the main downside is the "boring nature" of it. When your using it, the vast majority of WC votes for me are spheres, so I don't get to play around with the other proposals as much.

I fully agree. In the late game, focusing on a DV, all you do is proposing spheres over spheres, making it a really boring repetitive way to win the game.

 

[Soupy Delicious]

To minimize negative diplomatic effects, you can try to ally a CS short before you want to ask the WC for a sphere over it. The AI cares much less or even zero, if that CS is an ally of you at the moment of the proposal. The AI might increase its tension to vote against it, if you have lost the alliance at the moment of the vote, but the diplomatic penalty seems to happen only, if you propose a sphere over a CS that is allied with someone else.

A good strategy is to focus sphere proposals first over "2nd ring"-CS, those which are not directly bordering your empire (cause AIs are less interested in those and easier to hold by normal diplomats). Ally those which are not strongly contested and ask for a sphere after allying them by a diplomat rush. Asking for spheres for directly bordering CS should be done only, if AIs are very aggressiv trying to ally those, cause the amount of spheres you can do in the late game is limited. Pissing of others by sphering far away CS with high foreign influence should be done only as last tasks, after getting sure, you will get them by the sheer amount of votes you have.

I fully agree. In the late game, focusing on a DV, all you do is proposing spheres over spheres, making it a really boring repetitive way to win the game.

Yeah... I think I'll go back to my perfectly balanced Realism Invictus for now. But I'll be back, mark my words! VP has still improved so much since I last played, and I had a ball.

 

[JamesNinelives]

To minimize negative diplomatic effects, you can try to ally a CS short before you want to ask the WC for a sphere over it. The AI cares much less or even zero, if that CS is an ally of you at the moment of the proposal. The AI might increase its tension to vote against it, if you have lost the alliance at the moment of the vote, but the diplomatic penalty seems to happen only, if you propose a sphere over a CS that is allied with someone else.

I feel like the AI really should care, given the power a sphere of influence gives :|. I always vote against when the AI proposes them.

In the late game, focusing on a DV, all you do is proposing spheres over spheres, making it a really boring repetitive way to win the game.

Yeah. I feel like DV should have other mechanisms to help it. I do play with Community Events which is nice because it adds a World Trade Center world wonder that gives you votes in the world congress if you build it.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I feel like the AI really should care, given the power a sphere of influence gives :|. I always vote against when the AI proposes them.

Sometimes its advicable to help other peoples spheres, if they are no real threat in DV competition (and/or your friend), but steal a CS from a major DV competitor. Standard size and above, you normally cant sphere every remaining CS, so using a foreign sphere proposal to harm your biggest enemies is a good option.

Yeah. I feel like DV should have other mechanisms to help it. I do play with Community Events which is nice because it adds a World Trade Center world wonder that gives you votes in the world congress if you build it.

In most other aspects of the game, you can outplay the AI, especially in war, but not in production. Killing 10 units while only losing 1 is a normal thing in my games. But I cant send one diplomat unit to counter 10 AI diplomats. The production bonuses for the AI makes it very likely, that in peace, they are able to outproduce you easily. There simply exists no way how you could generate more diplomats against several AIs. This makes spheres unfortunatly to such a core of a DV.

 

[Cokolwiek]

Killing 10 units while only losing 1 is a normal thing in my games.

Then you are really efficient (or slow) at war. I don't think I surpass 4 to 1 ratio in most of my games, especially those warmongering ones when I have a lot of production to train units anyway, and when capturing cities is more important than retaining all units, in those ones it could not exceed 3 to 1. Defensive tradition is of course a different thing, but I am sure I would still be far away from 10 to 1, more like 6 or 7 to 1 at best.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Then you are really efficient (or slow) at war. I don't think I surpass 4 to 1 ratio in most of my games, especially those warmongering ones when I have a lot of production to train units anyway, and when capturing cities is more important than retaining all units, in those ones it could not exceed 3 to 1. Defensive tradition is of course a different thing, but I am sure I would still be far away from 10 to 1, more like 6 or 7 to 1 at best.

Slow but efficiant. In most times my production is too valuable to be thrown away for stupid wars, so keeping my units alive has the highest priority. In most cases I fight defensive wars, so 1 to 10 is a likely ratio, while going effectivly into attack, 1 to 7-8 is more likely.
I remember one game where I was able to lose only 2 units through a devastating suprise attack but lost afterwards not one unit, but killed around 60+ of the enemy by using kill zones and indirect fire over mountains. (Even I was happy to do this, it was annyoing, cause even the giant losses I have done to my enemy, my warscore was only around +10 and they didnt wanted to make peace, even it was impossible for them to attack any of my cities).

More annyoing is only the war weariness, which hits me as much as my enemy (checked by ingame editor), even Iam succeding greatly in war, making in my eyes this mechanic such a crappy and terrible one.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Then you are really efficient (or slow) at war. I don't think I surpass 4 to 1 ratio in most of my games, especially those warmongering ones when I have a lot of production to train units anyway, and when capturing cities is more important than retaining all units, in those ones it could not exceed 3 to 1. Defensive tradition is of course a different thing, but I am sure I would still be far away from 10 to 1, more like 6 or 7 to 1 at best.

What difficulty do you play on? I imagine that if a Deity player were doing my war strategy (on King/Emperor) I would never loose a unit lol. Normally I'm at about the same ratio as you (4 to 1 or 3 to 1, or lower sometimes). I don't mind though, I kinda like that wars are bloody - feels realistic .

 

[Cokolwiek]

What difficulty do you play on?

Deity.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Deity.

Sounds like you're doing alright then .