what level do you play at?

Started 3 more mostly-random DG games since the Russian game above. In the first, as the Koreans, I got stomped by Hittite Axes ~50T in (3 towns founded, 2 lost, including Seoul). In the second, as the Egyptians, I got left behind. Although I expanded slightly better than Korea (due to a Despotic GA :rolleyes: ) I had no freshwater, and the tech-pace was crazy: the Hittites — again! — got Muskets and then Cavs before I got Knights; and Carthage was already well into the Industrial by that point, so I gave up.

Current game is as the Ottomans. Got lots of lovely rivers round my start point, and lots of Forest (on Grassland) to chop into buildings, but only 1 Spice resource (out on the fringe, controlled by a second-ringer) and no StratRes. The Dutch got Mapmaking (from a Hut?) ridiculously early and forward-Settled (what turned out to be) an Iron-Hill on the far side of my territory from theirs — but my first Archer-assault was a failure, because by the time I'd got them built and into position, there were already 3-4 Spears in there. Using only Axes+Spears+Archers, I've survived 2 wars without losing any towns so far: vs. Archers+Swords and recently Pikes+Maces (the second also vs. a Franco-Dutch alliance!), but my research has been severely hampered by missing the Philo-sling (again), and getting declared on just as I was about to finish Republic the hard way (I got immediate WW when I switched govs). I'm now doing Maths, but my neighbours are well into the Medieval, so the next war will likely kill me unless I can finally buy some Iron (d'ja fink Willy'll sell me some...?), and/or topple the Dutch Iron-town (currently Pop7, and guarded by a SMerc and FreeWalls...).
 
What serious people are here. One plays DGAW, one pwns AI at Deity... I feel ashamed playing "only" at Monarch. But I have found that vanilla is harder than Conquests, at least when it comes to diplomacy, so maybe this is worth me start at Emperor once I would land my hands on C3C.

I just hate playing metagame instead of playing the game. I have all cities garrisoned instead of having exposed core when in Rep/Dem. I build all that my citizens need, including unnecessary stuff like banks (they however provide enough money to justify being placed) or mass transits if at peace (not sure if they do something when everyone else are fuming the coal up to the sky). I do two-directional attacks instead of plain spearheading the enemy. I don't understand how to maintain a MA, or why do AIs go furious at me all of a sudden. I don't declare wars unless the opponent is obviously too weak to pose any threat, I prefer them declaring at me to wage a defensive war, and if they lose some cities, they should have learned to not go at me beforehand. I don't trade maps each turn, I don't bother my rivals with "hey did you have researched that tech already?", I don't even do proper lux trades except one on one, and go furious should they ask for two luxes on my one and then some GPT. I don't see an effect in bribing the AI for say a hundred gold then trading a tech - the thing I've read a lot over here, it just doesn't seem to work for me. I don't do espionage (except last game where I seem to have to go that route as I'm being sabotaged by my enemies all the way, and I'm still behind in tech so I might just play Soviet India), and embassies just stay there for a bit of politeness, as they anyway create some. I do army moves, however, I can secure a beachhead, whack a mole or stomp an enemy SoD of a not too serious power, so I think I'm at my current top with Monarch, and probably I won't go any further.
 
vesperbot said:
What serious people are here. One plays DGAW, one pwns AI at Deity... I feel ashamed playing "only" at Monarch. But I have found that vanilla is harder than Conquests, at least when it comes to diplomacy, so maybe this is worth me start at Emperor once I would land my hands on C3C.

I just hate playing metagame instead of playing the game. I have all cities garrisoned instead of having exposed core when in Rep/Dem. I build all that my citizens need, including unnecessary stuff like banks (they however provide enough money to justify being placed) or mass transits if at peace (not sure if they do something when everyone else are fuming the coal up to the sky). I do two-directional attacks instead of plain spearheading the enemy. I don't understand how to maintain a MA, or why do AIs go furious at me all of a sudden. I don't declare wars unless the opponent is obviously too weak to pose any threat, I prefer them declaring at me to wage a defensive war, and if they lose some cities, they should have learned to not go at me beforehand. I don't trade maps each turn, I don't bother my rivals with "hey did you have researched that tech already?", I don't even do proper lux trades except one on one, and go furious should they ask for two luxes on my one and then some GPT. I don't see an effect in bribing the AI for say a hundred gold then trading a tech - the thing I've read a lot over here, it just doesn't seem to work for me. I don't do espionage (except last game where I seem to have to go that route as I'm being sabotaged by my enemies all the way, and I'm still behind in tech so I might just play Soviet India), and embassies just stay there for a bit of politeness, as they anyway create some. I do army moves, however, I can secure a beachhead, whack a mole or stomp an enemy SoD of a not too serious power, so I think I'm at my current top with Monarch, and probably I won't go any further.
Click to expand...
Follow-up question -- what's your favorite, or preferred, way to win? I like to mix that up. Mostly I go for space, and occasionally go for culture. I usually make too many enemies to get a UN victory, but maybe I will try that next.
 
At Emperor or below used to go for Space win almost exclusively. Less hassle moving units around. But after barely losing an 80-plus hour Demigod marathon (Genghis, of all people, won a Cultural Victory just 3 turns before launching the Ship) I've switched to Domination. It's more certain that way. At Demigod you're much less likely to have the time to research all those required Modern techs before the AI wins Cultural or even Diplomatic.
 
vorlon_mi said:
Follow-up question -- what's your favorite, or preferred, way to win?
Click to expand...
Neither :) I am too new of a player to have a preferred win condition. However, I prefer science win the most, if speaking about possible ways. Cultural aligns with my playstyle pretty nicely, so if I'm still afloat by the end of the game I can almost easily win with that. 100k one, of course. I won one 20k waaay long ago on warlord with Babylon, didn't like that one. Out of 4 games I've played on Monarch I won twice with culture, once with domination (accidentally, I don't like this type of win, it feels like you hyper-expanded and everyone does like "oh god" while in reality you can't even protect your expansion), the fourth game is a serious struggle with a runaway KI and is already into the space race, so maybe I'll have a chance at trying the space win. But if wrecking a civ's capital will NOT wreck their SS, I'll go for culture because I only have one opponent to eliminate to get it. UN victory here is kind of a joke with a broken diplomacy favoring AIs, so I don't like it as well.
 
vesperbot said:
But if wrecking a civ's capital will NOT wreck their SS
Click to expand...
If you only wreck it with nukes, their ship can still be launched. But if you can follow up a nuking (or preferably, a plain ol' [Stealth] Bomber-blitz) with actual boots on the ground, their ship will be destroyed (bear in mind, though: even for a SEA-Civ with a coastal capital, an invasion will require some forward-planning).

Even if you then gift them their former capital back again (or they recapture it), they'll have to start rebuilding their ship from scratch — which they can only do if you also left all their Ship-resources hooked (but of course you didn't, right? ;) ).

And if you're really lucky, then they also built their Apollo Program in their capital, so they'll have to rebuild that as well, before they can re-start building Ship-parts.
vesperbot said:
UN victory here is kind of a joke with a broken diplomacy favoring AIs
Click to expand...
Provided that you're in the running for the election (this can be assured by [pre]building the UN yourself, or controlling at least 25% of the total land or population) and a majority-result is still possible, this one's actually pretty easily exploitable by the human!

In order to vote for you, the other AI-Civs need to be Polite or Gracious towards you, and Annoyed or preferably Furious at your most likely rival(s). You can help assure this happy state of affairs by gifting gold and/or Techs and/or Resources to your would-be friends, and/or signing RoPs, and/or MAs with them — and if you're still not sure that will be enough, then just before an election's due, declare war on your likely closest rival(s) and then sign MAs (or MPPs) with everyone else. Caveat: if your rival already has active MPPs running [check your Foreign Advisor, F4 screen], DO NOT attack them: let them attack you, to activate your MPPs, and break theirs.

Even if you still somehow don't win the vote outright (e.g. because an un-cooperative AI-Civ abstains), you won't lose it either, because your allies will never vote for someone they're at war with.
 
Jivilov said:
At Emperor or below used to go for Space win almost exclusively. Less hassle moving units around. But after barely losing an 80-plus hour Demigod marathon (Genghis, of all people, won a Cultural Victory just 3 turns before launching the Ship) I've switched to Domination. It's more certain that way. At Demigod you're much less likely to have the time to research all those required Modern techs before the AI wins Cultural or even Diplomatic.
Click to expand...
At Demigod (and above), a Space win is even easier, because the AI gets a big research bonus, so can research faster than on the lower levels. That means they can help you better to get all those required techs... ;)
 
Ha! A space win is faster, but not easier. At demigod, I can usually acquire the techs that the AI research, but above that, the result of their faster research is not usually more techs for me.
 
tjs282 said:
Provided that you're in the running for the election (this can be assured by [pre]building the UN yourself, or controlling at least 25% of the total land or population) and a majority-result is still possible, this one's actually pretty easily exploitable by the human!

In order to vote for you, the other AI-Civs need to be Polite or Gracious towards you, and Annoyed or preferably Furious at your most likely rival(s). You can help assure this happy state of affairs by gifting gold and/or Techs and/or Resources to your would-be friends, and/or signing RoPs, and/or MAs with them — and if you're still not sure that will be enough, then just before an election's due, declare war on your likely closest rival(s) and then sign MAs (or MPPs) with everyone else. Caveat: if your rival already has active MPPs running [check your Foreign Advisor, F4 screen], DO NOT attack them: let them attack you, to activate your MPPs, and break theirs.

Even if you still somehow don't win the vote outright (e.g. because an un-cooperative AI-Civ abstains), you won't lose it either, because your allies will never vote for someone they're at war with.
Click to expand...
In my last effort on Demigod had the UN plus MAs with Theodora and Henry against Pachacuti. Henry voted for me but not Theodora. Couldn't figure why. Gave her free Resources, Luxes, gpt, but she was always Furious. Had a brief war during earlier Industrial based on her MPP with Portugal at the time but other than that it's a mystery. And if she was Furious why wasn't Henry?
 
Maybe you had an embargo vs her at the time? In attitude topic they say it gives +10 to attitude.
 
Lanzelot said:
At Demigod (and above), a Space win is even easier, because the AI gets a big research bonus,
Click to expand...

At Demigod research cost of AI are the same as on Regent and Sid.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/research-cost-formula-v1-29f.29485/

The implication is that it can occur that AI research on regent is no slower than on demigod. Usually AI reaches a high research output much earlier at Demigod than Regent. But there is the catch of overbuilding the military, which would reduce the research output due to high unit support.
 
Yes, for research the AI doesn't get a bonus while the human gets a malus. However, since the AI grows so much faster on higher levels, the effect is that the AI researches faster, unless you can drown them in unit support costs, which is the only way I've managed to win on Sid.
 
Lanzelot said:
So that means it is the other way around? On higher levels the human player gets a malus, but the AI no bonus?!
Click to expand...

Exactly. At Sid the human player has to pay twice as many beakers per tech than on Emperor. The step from Deity to Sid is quite steep.
 
I play demigod o deity but i m able to win just with a nice territory and Russia as civilisation because i do need polite barb village for tech at the begin. I struggle at the begin, but if i m the most advance in the early middle age i win. I play in a really different way compare to what you normally suggest in this forum. But i m trying your metods as well in these days just to change (but i am trying them at monarch). I normally keep between my first 6 cities 4 tiels of distance because i want that they could grow nicely. I always use monarchy as government because i spent a lot of time in war, and i hardly ever grow diplomacy because i do a lot of suprise wars. Poor culture and infrastructures normally except for Moscow and san Pietroburgo (i have never built a chatedral or a colosseum) Normally i m the most advance, and i always keep science at 100%. And a lot of other difference. I tend to win for domination or space (i have never won for culture). Now i m playing with russian at deity and with France at monarch (just for fun is nice but not challenging so i can build wonders and try your suggestion like repubblic,c city etc). I m going well i ll post a photo i d love your tips i have already learned so much. I was "disappointed" for the lack of an analysis of russian in the civilisations category, i d like reading your opinion about
 
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I usually play on warlord. I've tried reagent a few times but I've never beat the game on that level. I have a tough time expanding faster than the ai and somehow I often get stuck with really really bad land when I spawn. When that happens it's good night early for me, especially if I don't have an agricultural civ.
 
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