Having some problems keeping up with the AI

[Bridger]

Hello, I'm wondering if I'm missing something. I have been playing pretty well i thought, but the AI gets soooo much farther ahead of me, and i'm not sure how.

I'm playing on conquistador (i think that's one step above normal? or maybe it is normal?). Does the AI get bonuses at this level?

What baffels me is when i look at the playback at the end, they found so many colonies so fast, it's almost as if they use every new colonist they get to found a new colony, whereas I usually try to get my colonies producing manufactured goods pretty quickly. Maybe this is my problem? by the time i have 2 colonies they'll have 5, and by the time i have 5 they're at 10.

Anybody knowledgable help?

 

[Androrc the Orc]

AFAIK the Explorer difficulty is the normal one. Maybe try playing at lower difficulty levels and then work your way up?

 

[Wheldrake]

What baffels me is when i look at the playback at the end, they found so many colonies so fast, it's almost as if they use every new colonist they get to found a new colony, whereas I usually try to get my colonies producing manufactured goods pretty quickly. Maybe this is my problem? by the time i have 2 colonies they'll have 5, and by the time i have 5 they're at 10.

Anybody knowledgable help?

Although it's possible to win against the king with only a couple of cities, I tend to expand rapidly in the beginning for a variety of reasons, not least of which the fact that I want to hog as many FFs for myself as possible. This means having 8-10 cities up and producing very quickly. Here's what I do, which may or may not work for you:
1) found two coastal cities with my first two colonists.
2) use my next 3-5 colonists as scouts, to get the initial cash flow going.
3) found several more early cities *if* I can do that without angering or having to pay the natives.
4) establish several missions to get a few converted natives.
5) use the cash flow from scouting to buy more population, especially any missing specialists.
6) Attack any nearby competing colonials in order to steal their population.

Initial growth is the key to success, as in any Civ-style game. Miss out on initial growth, and you'll be playing catch-up the whole time.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[craigdh]

You have to keep in mind as well that in AOD 1.10 the AI expansion is set to overdrive... it's almost impossible to keep up with them in the first hundred turns, considering they raise very little angst with the natives when expanding.

I believe Dale is turning their expansion down a notch or two in 1.11.

 

[Wheldrake]

I agree with Craig - even at the very lowest difficulty level, even if you pull out every trick in the book, competing with the AI on FF acquisition will be very very dodgy.

This said, even if the AI expands much bigger than you, even if the AI grabs 80% of the cool FFs, you can still defeat him militarily with little difficulty, if you're careful about deploying your attacking forces. But I hate missing out on all the high-end FFs.

This said, it does mean that the game has become a real challenge, even at the very lowest difficulty levels.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[Bridger]

I agree with Craig - even at the very lowest difficulty level, even if you pull out every trick in the book, competing with the AI on FF acquisition will be very very dodgy.

This said, even if the AI expands much bigger than you, even if the AI grabs 80% of the cool FFs, you can still defeat him militarily with little difficulty, if you're careful about deploying your attacking forces. But I hate missing out on all the high-end FFs.

This said, it does mean that the game has become a real challenge, even at the very lowest difficulty levels.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

Why does border expansion = more founding father grabs? Isn't that tied to your bell production for the most part?

 

[Wheldrake]

Why does border expansion = more founding father grabs? Isn't that tied to your bell production for the most part?

As far as I can figure it out, the AI makes loads of bigger cities faster. They also have insane production bonuses and seem to produce city buildings far faster than the player can. More population in more cities with more buildings faster means more points for founding fathers. My experience is that the AI makes a very stiff race for mid-range to upper-level FFs, even at the very lowest difficulty levels, whereas in vanilla Civ4Col or even in previous builds of AoD I pretty much had my pick of 80 to 90% of the good FFs.

This kind of competition could be a good thing, but IMHO the AI expansion goes a wee bit too far.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[craigdh]

A quick way to check how many bells the comp is producing... check out their rebel sentiment. On some of the harder levels, before you hit 10%, some of the comps have in the 70%'s... that means a . .. .. .. . load of bells.

They get lots of cities that grow and build quickly, and pump out massive bells. They also however don't defend them too well... it's almost an exploit, going to capture their super cities.

 

[RTSCombatForCiv]

If the ai cheats so much, dont be afraid to enter world builder to check out things like their expansion, and native zones of control. This can help with your own colony expansion ideas.

The good thing, from what I have seen, is that the ai nations cluster their settlements close to one another. They expand fast in the early game and then plateau, which alows the player to catch up. In the beta, you should be able to nab some mid-level FF depending on the map and the difficulty.