Can anybody help me with this possibly lost game? Save file included!

[werdhertz]

Im in a real sticky position and dont seem to know of any way out of it.. so i would appreciate any help any CivFanatics could give me

A little back story before i post the Save file....

This is the first time i played as the Spanish. I wanted to try out the Conquistador for pillaging purposes so decided id give them a go. Soon as i started i knew this may be more difficult than usual. I had a rather bleak starting position, surrounded by mountains and forest pretty much entirely. I expanded quickly as usual, and soon discovered the Greeks to the north. After a few more turns i discovered that, yes, i was on a large continent by myself along with the Greeks and their pesky Hoplites.

I`m not a war monger so i waited awhile and explored my continent some more.. until i could say with certainty my worst fears...There were NO luxury resources ANYWHERES. Not 1. Its a pretty big continent too so thats pretty darn horrible I guess it was due to how hilly and mountainous it is.

After expanding fully, i sent a ship out and discovered a whole continent covered with Civs to my east, and later discovered the French and Ottomans to my west. I was quickly left behind in the tech race led by the East so put my science down to zero and decided to buy them. Unfortunatly, by this time all the techs were horribly overpriced by the neighboring Civs and then i began to really dispair...

No luxury resources, horrible terrain with very few bonus tiles. and lots and lots of mountains and hills. The greeks expanded very very slow because of their starting spot (which was even worse than mine) and decided i had to at LEAST get rid of them then try and figure out a way to win this. They were an easy fight, and i wiped them out quite easily the Hoplites putting up less of a fight than usual (probably cause they had so few). After conquering Athens i braced down and thought it out... What the hell do i do now?

I originally had my mind set on France, but then after, the East declared war on poor old China (my only friend over there) and wiped them out except for one city. I sent a few galleys over, and took it to get a foothold in the East for a war against some civ, ANY civ, that was inevitable for me to win. I had never even noticed but their were Gems within my radius and i became overjoyed

I was falling really far behind in tech now, so decided my next move. An invasion of Zululand. After transporting more troops across to my conquered Chinese city, i sent Conquistadors forth to cut off their Luxury resources and supply of Iron. Unfortunatly, they murdered my Conquistadors before they could reach the one single supply of Iron they had that was hidden to the very East of their kingdom. After capturing one Zulu city, the war went bad when the MONSTER Babylonians (who had dominated the whole game) declared war on me. Anyways, i had to abandon the Zulu city, lost and retook the Chinese city, finally losing it for good and was pushed off and back to my continent. Thats where i am now.

Everyone is at war with everyone. except me, the Babylonians scare the living daylights out of me, the Persians are the only nation that could possibly hope to stand up to them, and my dreams of conquest are crushed

I could really use anyones help.. if this is a waste of effort, or it could really be scraped together and won. Im 2nd in score but so veryfar behind in tech that i started researching myself because it was faster than building up money to buy 1 tech at a time. Everything was random (except my Civ, the Spaniards!)

Level: Regent
Map Size: Large
Civilization: Spain
Year Is: 1740 AD (i think)

My saved game is below............

 

[werdhertz]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Isabella_of_the_Spanish,_1740_AD.SAV

 

[Bamspeedy]

Well, I think you have a shot at a spaceship victory if you want to win that way werdhertz. Here's why/how:

Yes, you lack luxuries, but you have lots of strategics! Trade those strategics for luxuries (which you really need badly in this game) or for techs/gold. I see that you blew your reputation by breaking some sort of treaty with Greece. Because of the bad rep you can't trade strategics for techs. However, you can still trade the strategics for luxuries. I just ran through all those deals and I see after you have 6 luxuries, the price for buying the 7th and 8th luxury is way too steep. So get the luxuries that you will need to pay in cash for first before trading your strategics for the other ones.

Buy gems from babylon for world map and 260 gold. Buy Ivory from France for world map and 440 gold. Buy dyes from the Ottomans for world map, 11 gold/turn, and 260 gold. Give Aztecs saltpepper and 1 gold/turn for his incense. Give Persia coal and saltpepper for his wines. Give the Zulu Industrialization for his spices. Give Russia iron and any other strategic for her furs. You now have all 8 luxuries. Now that you have all 8 luxuries you can set luxury tax to 0% and have EVERY citizen happy, except in two cities (they lack marketplaces). And you can now fire all the entertainers and almost all cities will go into WLTK day in the next turn. And then you'll be making nearly +200 gold/turn if you leave science at 40%, or you can turn it up to 50%, or you can turn it to 0% and be making nearly +500 gold/turn! You should be able to buy techs every 2-3 turns when you're making that kind of money! I recommend doing 0% science and just buying techs. After you get caught up, then you might try and research yourself to get ahead.

Tblisi can build the Iron Works! Tblisi should build the iron works, not Corinth. Tblisi is producing more. Change the production in Corinth to factory, and change Tblisi to Iron works. Tblisi will be your biggest powerhouse after it gets the iron works.

You might still have a shot at a spaceship victory. You better build the UN, so you can guarantee no elections will be held (because of your bad rep).

Other notes about the game that may help you in future games:

1. Too few workers. This is a very common mistake, so don't feel bad. You have 11 workers for 23 cities. You should have a MINIMUM of 1 worker/city if industrious and more if not industrious. Now your workers will take forever to lay down railroads, especially with all those mountains you have to deal with.

Micromanagement issues. I'm guessing you are using automated workers. When you only have 11 workers is it not too much to ask to have you manually control them? If you had over 50-100 workers (huge map), then using some automation is certainly reasonable, IMO.
Toledo is maxed out at size 12. Take the cities off the irrigated grassland and place them on the mined grassland. After you get a hospital built, you can go back to the irrigation if you want to help speed up growth again.
Barcelona has the same problem, but doesn't really have many shield tiles to use anyways. Probably would be better to mine more of the tiles around Barcelona since it has an abundance of food.

Either build a harbor in Athens or work those plain tiles instead of the coast.

Many cities have such few grassland tiles it would be better to irrigate all of them (even the bonus grassland), so the cities have the surplus food to be able to work the hills and mountains. While in despotism you of course had no choice but to mine the grassland, but once you're out of despotism don't be afraid to change them back to irrigation (more easily done if you had more workers).

Harbors-Build them. They will let your cities grow in size, thus increasing your revenue, researh, etc. and be building Veteran ships. You have 14 or so coastal cities but only 2 harbors. Sparta is the city that can most benefit from a harbor because of the 3 fish it has (and would then easily be able to work that gold mountain!).

Valencia could really use an aqueduct. Probably should have built an aqueduct before the bank.

 

[Civ]

Nice reply BamSpeedy

 

[werdhertz]

Thanks for the reply! That was very in-depth!

As for the workers, actually, i NEVER automate workers but in this game i started getting bored and losing hope so i automated them all until they finished railroading my roads.

I actually enjoy micromanagement so i do it in all my games, but, alas, this game got me down so i got slack after awhile

I also was wondering why everyone was so mad at me! I couldnt do deals with anybody and didnt know i had broke any deals with Greece as i thought i had never made any deals with them....

Those tips on what to do with the resources are nice! I would never have thought of it, ill keep that in mind for a future game because i quit this one i played it for awhile longer than got sick of it and retired... ah well I dont usually/like to quit a game like that but ah well. Thanks for the tips anyways!

 

[Phantom Lord]

Well, Bamspeedy said almost all and very indepth, I agree especially that workers are the key to growth in your case.

You should research electricity asap (or trade it from the babylonians), because it lets you irrigate tiles that don't have rivers next to them.

Irrigate all planes and grasslands and mine those hundreds of mountains - it will take a little micromanagement to mine them in the right order that every mine can be used instantly, because the cities in question need enough food supply first.

Since mining and railroading mountains takes a long time you should have at least 50 workers, but 100 would be better. Produce them in cities that have 12 inhabitants, surplus food and no hospital yet, this way you can turn the food directly into workers without losing population.

You should think about conquering the Ottomans sooner or later, they have tons of dye and some ivory and seem to be small enough to capture them easily once you have a modern army of sufficient size. You could start to build that military after you have some factories finished. Once you're done with the Ottomans, maybe the french could be the second target.

Babylon seems almost impossible to take over, try to get the UN by palace prebuilding to avoid that they get it. In case they get it anyway, think about razing the city in question.

This leaves the space race victory possibility for Babylon, fortunately their capital lies at the border of their empire and not in the middle. This means you can conquer and raze their capital within one or two turns to destroy their spaceship once they go for the last component. You could use bombers and fast ground units. Disconnect all R/RR leading to Babylon and all R/RR leading to your landing spot with bombers before you land your troops. Otherwise they'll probably send anything they can afford to your landing spot within a single turn and crush your invasion force. I think 8-12 carriers should have a chance to accomplish disconnection within one round.

The last two points are about going to war with Babylon in the late game, at least for a short period. You should have some naval and air defense ready when they come for retaliation and they certainly will. Therefore you should try to convince every civ left on their continent to start war against Babylon to distract them a little as soon as you start war.

 

[werdhertz]

Thanks or another reply! I really enjoy reading what *other* people would do in my prediciments, so this is very interesting. This was one of the few games that the AI (Babylonians,in this case) really exposed its killer attitude. I wasnt ready for such a monster lol!

 

[LanceMan]

question, how are you guys seeing what these other civs have? Sorry, should probably post this to the n00b area where I belong...