1840 AI has started the SETI Wonder

[Strong Reaction]

Difficulty is Monarch I think, but yeah getting my ass kicked here. I mean c'mon every other civ is neck and neck with me tech wise except the Indians and for some reason they just took off and started murdering me in tech. I am still in the Industrial age researching Steel and they're in the Modern age building the U.N. and SETI. I mean what are we doing here? A Diplomatic win is my only hope. Wish me luck.

 

[Theov]

Good luck!

 

[tjs282]

Can you get Alliances with some/all of the other AI-Leaders against Gandhi?

Forcing the Indians to revolt into Fascism (to avoid War-Weariness) would likely put the brakes on their progress — and giving Gandhi multiple enemies will also stop him from holding/ winning a UN-vote.

 

[Theov]

Declare war, ask everyone and anyone to join. Full scale all front war and war weariness and or another gov will hurt the Indians.
After declaring war the AI is more willing to join a fight.

Save the game first though.

 

[Strong Reaction]

Ha ha, yeah I actually did both suggestions it ended in 1996 with a Space Race Victory for the Indians. I was on a continent with the Romans, Maya, Spain and the Dutch. I had the lions share of territory, had a galley reach the second continent really early, made contact with all the civs to maximize the effect of the Great Library and I still fell behind in tech. Problem was the Indians had all the tech never shared it and the other civs were just not advanced. I was second in tech and far behind. In an effort to keep the Indian from building Adam Smith's Trading Co. I offered the Indians a ridiculous amount of gold, 200 per turn for Economics. I sealed the deal and declared war on them along with the Egyptians and Babylonians, the only other civs on the continent. The idea was to slow them down and pretty much in line with the suggestion that Theov offered. It back fired though and they ended up more powerful as they quickly wiped the floor with the Babylonians and took nearly all of their territory. In the end the Egyptians were too weak to fight the Indians and sued for peace while the Babylonians were left with two cities when the war ended. Typically, in a scenario like that I will send a strong military force to their continent, and house them in their rivals territory. That way if they attack I can help the weak AI civ defend itself and keep the Indians form taking the whole continent. But I was too weak and too far behind to ever get to that stage and they swallowed up the Egyptians and Babylonians later in the game. They were running around with destroyers at the time I had three galleons and four frigates. Lol I am surprised I made it to the end of the game.

In the end they had 4 tactical nukes and 6 ICBM, mech infantry and modern armor while I still had regular infantry and first generation tanks when they declared war on me. I was able to fend them off and surprisingly they never launched nukes. It was a moral victory just to make it to the end. I had fun though

 

[Strong Reaction]

Can you get Alliances with some/all of the other AI-Leaders against Gandhi?

Forcing the Indians to revolt into Fascism (to avoid War-Weariness) would likely put the brakes on their progress — and giving Gandhi multiple enemies will also stop him from holding/ winning a UN-vote.

In the above post I did get nearly everyone to declare war on them, they did indeed resort to Fascism and they never did hold a UN vote but that hurt me more than it hurt them in fact a Diplo win was my only hope.

 

[Theov]

That is a downside I forgot to mention
They might wipe out the other civs and become even more powerful.
Was there a chance you could make a landing and pillage their territory? That slows them down , too.
Land on a resource, pillage it.
Could you post some saves of this game? I would love to take a look.

 

[tjs282]

in fact a Diplo win was my only hope.

I'm curious how you were hoping to achieve this when Gandhi controlled the UN (and hence the ability to call an election — or not)?

Because AFAIK, when there is a high probability that the UN-owning AI-Civ will lose the UN-election (based on its current diplomatic relations compared to its election-rival's), it simply refuses to hold one. At least, I certainly don't remember ever winning an election that I didn't call myself (and I've also lost a few of those that I did call!).

 

[Strong Reaction]

Well, I did not know for sure. I was hoping they'd hold an election. But in hindsight, it seems the AI is smart enough not to shoot itself in the foot. Aside from that even if they did hold an election I would not have been surprised at a no majority found decision, in the end everyone was quite upset with me.

 

[Strong Reaction]

That is a downside I forgot to mention
They might wipe out the other civs and become even more powerful.
Was there a chance you could make a landing and pillage their territory? That slows them down , too.
Land on a resource, pillage it.
Could you post some saves of this game? I would love to take a look.

I wish I would have seen your post sooner. I like to keep my save game folder tidy and I deleted all the previous saves except the last. I can post that if you want to take a look at the aftermath. If you let it play out you can watch the replay. Not sure how exciting that would be though

v. Civ Conquest

 

[Lanzelot]

made contact with all the civs to maximize the effect of the Great Library and I still fell behind in tech.

Building the Great Library is a sure way to fall behind in tech. (Unless you are playing at Deity/Sid level.) Just think about it: the Great Library only gives you techs that the AIs already know. How can you get ahead of them, if you only lag behind these buggers? You need to do your own research, if you want to get ahead of them. That means lot's of (small) libraries and then universities asap. On Monarch level it is possible to build the space ship way before 1993 AD. Take a look at the Hall of Fame tables: fastest spaceship victory on Monarch level is 950 AD (a thousand years before the AI managed to do it in your game). Ok, that was with a super-duper start position, but I would say, with any "average" start position on Monarch level, a spaceship launch should be possible for the human player around 1500-1600 AD.

But in hindsight, it seems the AI is smart enough not to shoot itself in the foot.

Hehe, that might be true with respect to calling a UN election, but in general I doubt that...

I can post that if you want to take a look at the aftermath. If you let it play out you can watch the replay.

It is possible to extract the "seed number" from any given save file (for example using CivAssist) and then recreate the 4000 BC start file. I did that for the current game, the result is attached. Does that look familiar?

 

[justanick]

Ok, that was with a super-duper start position, but I would say, with any "average" start position on Monarch level, a spaceship launch should be possible for the human player around 1500-1600 AD.

Possible for an expert player yes. But for an average player this might be a bit too optimistic.

1950 AD till 2050 AD are the turns 440 to 540 at 1 year per turn.
1750 AD till 1950 AD are the turns 340 to 440 at 2 years per turn.
1250 AD till 1750 AD are the turns 240 to 340 at 5 years per turn.
0250 AD till 1250 AD are the turns 140 to 140 at 10 years per turn.
0750 BC till 0250 AD are the turns 090 to 140 at 20 years per turn.
1750 BC till 0750 BC are the turns 050 to 090 at 25 years per turn.
2750 BC till 1750 BC are the turns 025 to 050 at 40 years per turn.
4000 BC till 2750 BC are the turns 000 to 025 at 50 years per turn.

1500-1600 AD are the turns 290 to 310. Something between 1750 AD and 1950 AD should be possible for an average player. An average of 5 turns per tech, roughly 20 techs per age and 4 ages would mean that turn 400 and thus 1870 AD should be doable for nonexpert players. With tech trading and not doing any optional tech much earlier is of course possible.

 

[Lanzelot]

With tech trading and not doing any optional tech much earlier is of course possible.

That's right. Good tech trading and making good use of the scientific tribes is essential for fast research.

Admittedly, the starting position of the above Montezuma game is "on the mediocre side of average"... No food bonus and no luxury anywhere close by . So this is not a start that lends itself to an easy research game. A military victory might be the better choice here. Or 20K might be ok, as there is plenty of production. (But also for 20K, we would need a bit more food for faster growth. So it's definitely not an easy game, even if it's only Monarch )

 

[justanick]

Admittedly, the starting position of the above Montezuma game is "on the mediocre side of average"... No food bonus and no luxury anywhere close by . So this is not a start that lends itself to an easy research game.

Still the river is an essential boost to research and growth. If you reroll the dice a hundred times this starting position might still be above average.

 

[Strong Reaction]

Building the Great Library is a sure way to fall behind in tech. (Unless you are playing at Deity/Sid level.) Just think about it: the Great Library only gives you techs that the AIs already know. How can you get ahead of them, if you only lag behind these buggers? You need to do your own research, if you want to get ahead of them. That means lot's of (small) libraries and then universities asap. On Monarch level it is possible to build the space ship way before 1993 AD. Take a look at the Hall of Fame tables: fastest spaceship victory on Monarch level is 950 AD (a thousand years before the AI managed to do it in your game). Ok, that was with a super-duper start position, but I would say, with any "average" start position on Monarch level, a spaceship launch should be possible for the human player around 1500-1600 AD.


Hehe, that might be true with respect to calling a UN election, but in general I doubt that...


It is possible to extract the "seed number" from any given save file (for example using CivAssist) and then recreate the 4000 BC start file. I did that for the current game, the result is attached. Does that look familiar?

View attachment 626790

I completely disagree that the Great Library is a sure way to fall behind in tech. It is if you do no research after you build it, but it definitely does not slow your tech advancement unless you choose to do so yourself. It is tempting to just rake in money with the science beaker on low, but that is not the case in the game I played.

On another note you said you extracted the seed number of the game, what is it? Id like to try give that map a go again on a higher level.

Also the HoF tables are suspect in my book as far being a standard. You can have any size world, and land mass type i.e. rig the game to make it easier to achieve a goal. That is why I don't take people who play the game on Deity or Sid settings all that serious, its entirely subjective when it comes to the parameters you put on yourself and most likely its imperative to follow cheesing tactics to win because of the advantage the AI has at the more difficult levels.

The parameters I put on myself for a game are:
*no save scumming or no going back to previous saves to get a better result unless I make an obvious mistake, accidentally ending the turn etc.
*once I start a game I finish it regardless of starting position/ no fishing for prime starting positions. Die with your boots on and play it out to the bitter end.
*standard size map
*roaming barbarian
*continents 70% water
*normal climate
*temperate
*age 3 billion
* 7 rivals 8 total civs.
*Allow Conquest Victory
*Allow Cultural Victory
*allow Diplomatic Victory
*Allow Domination Victory
*Allow Space Race Victory
*Preserve Random Seed
*Allow Cultural Conversions
*no Respawn AI Players
*no Culturally Linked Starting Loc.
*Civ Specific Abilities
*scientific Leaders
*Wonder Victory


and no other cheats like scouting a map, replaying a map over and over i.e. finding and memorizing prime locations etc.

 

[justanick]

I completely disagree that the Great Library is a sure way to fall behind in tech. It is if you do no research after you build it, but it definitely does not slow your tech advancement unless you choose to do so yourself.

In that case however the Great Library is a bit useless. Building the Pyramids instead would be a way smarter investment.

 

[Strong Reaction]

In that case however the Great Library is a bit useless. Building the Pyramids instead would be a way smarter investment.

Saying its useless is hyperbolic, that's just not true.

 

[Lanzelot]

It depends on the difficulty level. On higher levels, the Great Lib may be worth it, but on Monarch, the AI is too slow for the GLib to be useful. It will at most give you a few ancient age techs (which you would get anyway for free by trading...), but already in the middle ages you'll have to research everything yourself (except for the freebees of the scientific AIs), if you don't want to wait forever until the slow-poke AI has come up with something useful.

On another note you said you extracted the seed number of the game, what is it? Id like to try give that map a go again on a higher level.

See the below screenshot (from CivAssistII). If you want to play the exact same map, you have to enter the seed and all other settings (size, landmass, etc.) and then select the opponents in exactly the given order (first one is the human player) as given in this picture.

I'm currently playing that map on Monarch (in order to try out, whether I have bitten off more than I can chew... ) Reached the middle ages in 510 BC. If you want to compare with the GLib-approach, I can post my progress here.

 

[Spoonwood]

You can have any size world, and land mass type i.e. rig the game to make it easier to achieve a goal. That is why I don't take people who play the game on Deity or Sid settings all that serious, its entirely subjective when it comes to the parameters you put on yourself and most likely its imperative to follow cheesing tactics to win because of the advantage the AI has at the more difficult levels.

You have a point, however, there exist HoF tables for all 5 size maps. So, the first part isn't true.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I play at a lower difficulty level, so I generally try for the Great Library as a defensive mechanism. I keep one of the AI from "riding on my coattails", and it is often built in the city where I will eventually build Copes and Newton.

I agree that -- in most cases -- the AI are teching too slowly for me to get much from the GL before it expires with Education. Since I like to play continents maps, one of the AI on the other land mass might have a really good, grassland start with rivers. If it's one of the Agri civs, then they have grown into several pop 7 cities in the Ancient Age and may have some techs for me... assuming that my galleys can make contact before I get to Education.

tl;dr Nice to get if I grab it, not game-breaking if I don't