Always #2 on King Difficulty by a huge margin.. = (

[DirkDiggler36]

Hey I have now played 3 games on King difficulty and I know that's not enough but I'm not as dominant as I was on Prince. I used to easily be ahead of the best AI Civ by at least 200-300 points, now I always have one AI that is at least 300 points ahead of me. I feel like they are getting an advantage of some sort that i can't change no matter how well I play, I used to think that it was because I played a game with at least 16+ other civs on a Huge map but the current game I am in is making think otherwise.. For example I am currently playing as Mongolia for the Game of the Month (TSG28) from couple months ago which had only 8 civs and I think a standard map. I am far better than any other Civ in the scenario except Rome who is about 350 points ahead, and the latest ingame poll showed civs with the pointiest stick and rome not only had 4X better Military score than me they also had more GPT, more advanced milittary and probably more CPT. I find the game a bit too easy on Prince. But I find it a bit too hard on King. I'm not saying that its not fun.. it is but It would be a lot more interesting if Rome was a lot closer to my score and maybe the other civs weren't so far behind.. what should I do in my game play.

I started by being really aggressive since I was mongol I rushed the tech to get Kashiks easly took out 2 civs.. alexander and the aztecs.. I only had 4 main cities 1 of which was annexed and 3 settled and i had rest as puppets and later about turn 200 i annexed couple more. Early game bot Gold and Happiness was a problem I sold of every extra resource and anything I could so that I wont get bankrupt. I am about 275 turns in 3 civs have been wiped I have 130 GPT which is about 100 less than Rome. Its getting close to Industrial era and I will soon lose the mounted unit benefit and Rome is way too powerful if I attack them I need to train a lot more troops.. I don't think I will win.

What should I do different?

By the way Rome is 600 points ahead of me and the closest person behind me is Bismark who is 300 behind.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Well, generally I'd say don't worry about the score. It means nothing. But if Rome has x4 troops than you, much higher gold and production, then it probably indicates the situation quite accurately. AI gets some bonuses at king level unlike on prince where you're more or less even. Although I don't think the difference is that significant. In such cases it's always a good idea to provide a save file so people can take a closer look and give some specific advices.

 

[Dan4GS]

Simplest thing to do is watch some LP's posted by some of the great GOTM players like DaveMcW, Tabarnak, or Mazer Rakham. Or you could watch Wainy, who is also an excellent player. I've learned a ton from them and regularly win on Immortal now. That said, I'm not at their caliber.

Hard to diagnose your problems without seeing what you did, but you should be able to get Chivalry by turn 80-90 if you do it right. There's other threads that detail how to do this, so I won't attempt to recreate their explanations.

After you get Chivalry, hopefully you've pre-built 6-7 chariot archers and have $ to upgrade them to Keshiks. Make sure you keep 2-3 horseman to capture cities as well. From there, it's a very quick run around the world to win. You shouldn't really even get past musketmen before you win.

Sounds like you're concentrating too much on generating GPT...I don't think I ever get that high until the very end game when I have very well deveoped cities. Also, make sure the military you do build has a purpose and isn't just sitting around for nothing. Sell off all resources for LSG to keep you afloat. I usually run a GPT of -5 to +10, at least for the first 2/3 of the game.

Not sure how helpful that is, but like I said, watch the experts in some LP's...great way to learn.

 

[JeanBaptiste]

do not forget MadDjinn

 

[DirkDiggler36]

Well here is the File, I guess i will watch some replays of some people.

 

[MasterMishi]

4x army is not a clear picture. Hammers and tech is more important. How many cities does rome have?
maybe you should have razed the non capital cities and settled yourself if a really good city spot, would help happiness, and grow your own cities. Maybe dont go to war with 2 civs and stop, either keep pushing (even with less units you can kill the dumb ai unless they have arty) or stop at the first civ and build up to compete with the hammers and sci of rome.
im sure it comes down to the size of your cities and as a result the hammers and the buildings that multiply the tile yields and give happy.

 

[kell_the_kyuss]

king will always have one dominant civ to leapfrog you.

if you take them out another will leapfrog you. if the civ is on the other side of the world then you will need ships. its the computers way of maintaining the challenge for you, since it assumes that you cant see it, then it will just go nuts.

emperor it just gets sillier. last game at 1500ad on emperor, water world, large, standard, sully was up to artillery and infantry, half a world a way.

you will figure out what to build and what not to build in order to win it, and its all about the start and resource control. 10-11 cities by year 0 is a good start.

 

[DirkDiggler36]

Ok so few things I should have done diffrent were :

Raze more cities rather than making them puppets, and this way i could have had a few cities grow faster and bigger rather than too many cities?
Shouldn't have stopped attacking after conquering Alexander and I should have kept using my army regardless.

So seeign the current game file, Do you think I can win?

 

[snarzberry]

So seeign the current game file, Do you think I can win?

I took a look at your game and played it for 30 turns.

There's a lot of advice I can give you from this point onwards in the game, but it's in the early game where there were opportunities missed. Mongolia has the most beastly UU and on king it's kinda trivial for top players to wipe the map in about 150 turns. Not saying you're to be expected to be able to do that but you probably should have got a lot more bang for your keshik buck, so maybe practice with them a bit to get the hang of owning with keshiks.

But you can't go backwards now, you have to play what is left of the game, and it is looking grim. Rome has grown so large and has such a massive tech lead on you that you will not be able to pull it back.

Looking at your game there are some good things and some not so good things. You have great gpt, and a lot of units which is good. But your science is pretty woeful, and taking a look at your cities I see you haven't built any universities. This is the first thing you should adjust in your playstyle. University is probably the single most important building in the entire game. You've let the science lead go so strongly to Rome that you won't be able to catch up as you don't have the infrastructure in place and the diplo situation is not good either.

You have good gold, but it could be even better. There are many unsold resources, even though your diplo situation isn't too good it is possible to sell everything available that you don't need and build up your bankroll to about 2.5K.

Looking at your adversaries I can see that your current army is going to be strong enough to take out China and Siam without much difficulty. However, from the save position on turn 267 your unit control is showing signs of awkwardness. The units aren't arrayed in a way that makes conquering easy, they're just in a sort of haphazard mess. So I would rearrange them into positions where the keshiks can dart in and out and bring attacks on your enemies without taking damage.

A couple of points about the keshiks. Avoid upgrading them to cavalry, especially when your enemies are rolling units like pikes and knights and city strength is around the 20 - 30 mark. Your keshiks are much better fighters. Also, when promoting keshiks give each unit the promotions along a single line. Flat terrain 1,2,3 etc. Don't mix and match. It's better having each unit specialize in one type of terrain than having jack of all trades, and even more importantly you want to open up the logistics promotion (fire twice), and the plus 1 range, which are only available after terrain3.

I played the game for 30 turns, I will post some screen shots of things that happened. My first play was to build two universities in your main two cities and post scientists. You had some gpp built up from wonders so it only took a little while to pop a couple of GS. My plan was to use those guys to bulb for artillery and infantry, as that is your only hope of beating Rome from this position and with your limited capacity for science due to few universities etc. In the meantime I used your nice gold stockpile and gpt to purchase about 8 or 9 cannon, and upgraded all melee units to rifles (which you had research set to beeline - good thinking).

I have stopped playing now, no quick combat is doing my head in , but I got into a semi-decent position. Anyway, hopefully that was helpful to you and if you have any questions then fire away.



Build universities immediately




Rearrange units so keshiks can do their work.




Take out China.




Take out Siam.




Get Artillery.




Start fighting Rome.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Ok so few things I should have done diffrent were :

Raze more cities rather than making them puppets, and this way i could have had a few cities grow faster and bigger rather than too many cities?
Shouldn't have stopped attacking after conquering Alexander and I should have kept using my army regardless.

So seeign the current game file, Do you think I can win?

Puppeting many cities isn't usually a problem as long as you manage to control the happiness. And you do.
I can see two major issues that brought you to this unfortunate situation. First, as snarzberry said, ignoring scientific buildings. Not only universities but also National College which is the most important thing at the beginning of the game. You need to build it asap when you have 1-4 cities max in pretty much every game. It allows you to clear classical-early medieval part of the tree quickly and unlock key military techs early enough to gain some advantage. As for universities you don't necessary need them in such game when the goal is fast domination. And by fast I mean really fast. And that's the second issue. See, mongols are all about the speed. By any mean it was not supposed to take more than 200 turns and face such resistance. In fast domination games you build units and happiness buildings to prevent from unhappiness dropping under -9 mark (which gives units combat penalty). That's basically it. They are not very strong as big scientific/cultural empire. So you definitely shouldn't stop fighting. Once you've got keshiks don't ever look back. Just keep pushing. Make sure you don't lose your keshiks, promote them the way snarzberry suggested and you'll end up with invincible army till the very end of the Renaissance. In any other game when you don't think you can finish it really early (or like in this case when things got bad) you do need universities, at least a couple of them.

As for the rest of the game I'd take Freedom as you next SP to speed up great scientists and then Mercantilism. August will gladly attack Arabia, so pay him pennies he wants for that. With a bit of luck he'll take out both Germany and Arabia. You can take out China and Siam right now.
Also you should probably rush buy a university at Athens and start building public school immediately. Although you can get two scientists from your capital and the second city I'm not convinced crashing Rome by row power is possible at this point. You may need plan B. If you fill three scientists slots there (grow a bit first) you'll be able to use Oxford University to unlock Atomic Theory and get third GS in time for Nuclear Fission. And then assuming you successfully followed snarzberry's plan and grabbed Setia you can nuke your way into Roman capital.

Good luck! Keep us posted.