[G&K] Always One Breakaway AI Civ that Outtechs Me

I've been getting back into Civ5 since I've heard Civ 6 is coming out. And I've played quite a few games with this setup:

Celts, Pangaea, Large Map, Immortal (7), Marathon, with only Domination victories allowed.

For culture i usually go:
Full Liberty, Mercantilism till at least the +2 happy per luxury, then at least 1 rationalism and at least 1 in autocracy. Money is no problem. By the time i put some in autocracy I've usually encountered the break-away-science civ.

I play this setup because Domination is the only fun way for me to win and since this game also also not too much fun w/out happiness I go hardcore into religion so that I can have tons of cities. I like to paint the continent with my country's color like the good old school Civ versions, so I like wide empires. I also make it a point to build Notre Dame. But I almost never build other wonders unless i try for Macho Pichu. I like Marathon because I like to experience the ages more instead of whipping past them. I set it for domination only so that AI will hopefully know what's coming for them and give some challenge.

Anyway, with difficulties lower than 7 I have no problem. But in 7+ I mostly have no prob but there's always some punk Civ that's out of reach along with a few other civs I can't reach.. but this one civ just breaks away from the rest of us civs in Science by almost an entire era. This is pretty much every game i've seen.

So here I am having fun wasting civs like nothing with my new found range 3 artillery and by the time I reach this punk civ with my army they have planes. When a powerful enemy has planes and it will be almost 100 turns in Marathon before you get them it's not fun and usually quittin time.

Off topic but there is also a break-away civ with wonders.. every game.. sometimes it's the same civ. This wonder-civ will literally have 20+ wonders when the next highest civ has only 3 wonders. What's up with that?

Anyway, I'm wondering if this Science thing is happening as a result of my game setup combination, having a wide empire, or just me not working for science hard enough. I get science buildings asap in my non-puppet cities and put up specialists when I feel i can and also use great scientists to build their tile improvement. I even occasionally purchase great scientists with faith. I have read a few things here and there about how to increase science and work on it a lot but it's not enough. Is the 5% per city science penalty destroying me?

Any advice?

 

Probably more you are going liberty not tradition. I like trying liberty games, but fun as they are my science is always bad compared to a normal tradition game, and you are playing marathon... I try and kill off 2-3 AI quick but the happiness/5% science hit can wreck me. Why Celts? and why bother with religion? Sounds like Ghenghis Khan maybe better for you

At Immortal/Diety level if I see a tech leader I know I have to smash them quick (if I am using artillery) if they get to industrial era before me. Or see my arti get bombed to hell :/

 

I've been playing Celts a lot because to me it seems Happiness is king in this game and therefore religion is king. I choose the Celts because they can almost always choose the first pantheon which allows me to choose my fav benefits like Stone Circles or Desert Folklore which then often lets me be the firs to found a religion and grab Pagodas and Ceremonial Burial. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to enhance it before people can grab Mosques or Cathedrals along with Itinerant preachers. So i get tons of free buildings in the end that massively help happiness in my wide empire. Then, they have an awesome building Ciedle Hall or whatever it's called that adds even more happiness. I often have no happiness probs and can expand as much as I want. I totally dislike domination games where i'm stressed for happiness and have to leave giant gaps in my empire which are then instantly filled by borg ai with infinite happiness. Man that pisses me off how quickly they throw up tons of cities faster than I can take them down even with a massive army.
Ya if i could reach the tech leader I'd try to waste him asap. But I'm playing large or huge maps and the tech leader is always unreachable until it's too late.. and often they are hidden on some huge peninsula or something. This last game I couldn't even find them until late.. and it turned out to be Japan which dominated in all stats and they had about 20 islands and many on a giant peninsula. Ship techs often take a back seat in my games, but once I get frigate and privateer a whole other fun game begins of taking over their ships unless they have planes.
Anyway, this whole scenario has happened to me like 4x in a row. I can keep up or beat every other civ in science.. but there's always 1 break away civ that dominates. It's not even sciencey civs that do this.. it's like Japan and Sweden.
I'll take another look at tradition, but Freedom seems much better for wide empires.

 

Usually I take Stone circles and since I race to religion I first research Mining and Masonry for the quarries. This might be my prob. But dang, i need that religion

 

no on huge you should be able to get away with, and even thrive on science with large empires. The penalty on huge is reduced to only 2% per tech per city which is rarely more then a thriving extra city produces. On huge techs also cost 20% more then on standard to compensate.

My guess is just just aren't prioritizing science enough. With that many cities you should be overwhelming the AI with your science so the problem must be your emphasis. My guess is since you are going conquest you beeline military techs and only pick up science techs later. The proper order is to beeline science techs and then pick up military techs. You'll get to stuff like artillery faster that way anyway as you can then build or buy science buildings far sooner and then then all other techs in the era become significantly cheaper. Also, I find it hard to believe that you are really running your scientist specialists in most cities and yet still losing to AI on immortal. Especially with an empire THAT size. The AI is very bad at running science specialists, preferring engineers and merchants, and rarely picks rationalism either so this is usually a HUGE advantage the human has. And it's enough to win with large empires on Deity easily. You also are not opening rationalism soon enough. Mercantilism is fine, and powerful, but the flat 10% boost on science after all other modifiers as soon as possible is insanely powerful. As is +2 science from specialists, and extra science from trade posts and universities. I usually switch from commerce to rationalism and only switch back after I get those 3. Also, you may also be keeping too many puppets. I wouldn't know without an example. Puppets take a big hit on total science output for the empire so they can eat your happiness and gold maintenance but give less science and culture back. Annex them and build a courthouse if they start to get powerful. It'll help. Also, trade-posting more areas can also help. It gives extra gold AND science after the rationalism policy.

I hope some of that helped.

 

Thanks that's exactly the kind of advice i was looking for. Yes i usually do beeline important military first, i'll try changing to science. I wouldnt say i run scientist specialists in most cities.. just most or many of the non-puppeted cities. Good call on opening rationalism earlier as well. I do have tons of puppets so i could try annexing them and building a courthouse, but it hurts culture progress.

 

Yeah, that's right. Puppets actually have no culture penalty, I misspoke there. But it kicks in after you annex. However, while puppeted it is true their science output is nerfed (but you get some from them). Having some puppets is fine, but your science will suffer if you have only a few cities under your direct control as the science penalties stack up. I know it's not what you're going for (trying to spread your color all over the continent and all) but burning more cities so you can annex more of the good ones usually plays out better and it can allow you to produce more units too which might be necessary trying this on Deity. Consider using generals and religion culture to expand over bad settlement spots rather then keeping the crappy AI cities there. I admit theming-wise it doesn't feel as good but playing huge empires on immortal and deity you really have to be careful what cities you keep.

Honestly though, try the other two suggestions first before you change up the way you like to play. I think on immortal/huge you should be able to get away with keeping some worse puppeted cities. And if you know you'll never annex a city but it is growing uncontrollably and dragging you down, consider trade-posting some of the farmland around that puppet. It will become a gold and science producer and the growth can be controlled, making it a more productive puppet. Having a huge population puppet is usually not a great thing. Any big cities should be under your direct control for maximum effect.

 

Ya I'm more concerned with civs filling every single small gap around me with a city than me having tons of cities or even filling in the map with my color. Nothing is more irritating than some punk civ dropping 4 small worthless cities around you just to fill up space it seems because of their infinite happiness. And if you bash down every civ that does that you'll be considered Hitler very early in the game.

Do you go for tradition for the border expansion increase? I never choose that but maybe I should. My borders don't expand nearly as quick as ai's do.. they even pick on me about it hehe. I love it when they taunt you.. so funny.

 

not usually. Especially if I have a strong religion to make up the difference in culture. I will sometimes buy surrounding tiles on liberty games to speed up that acquisition. Exception might be a poland game where I'm running out of good choices early. Having extra religious cultural buildings is a great idea for liberty to combat this and make every city culturally effective.