Dealing with runaway AI

[cerk]

This is my first game of vox populi, playing as Japan, standard settings, standard pace, continents on difficulty level 2 as a trial run to learn how the game works. Despite this I feel like this game is beyond salvation. Russia is the runaway civ who is also my neighbour, with 17 cities blocking the only naval route for 2/3 of my coastal cities. Russia is friendly towards me and signed a defensive pact with me and even gave some gold and luxuries for that and i took up that offer when I had a bunch of samurai and she had lancers, hoping that a defensive pact might eventually lead to a DoF. Later when i asked for a DoF i was refused and she didnt offer to either. I took all german cities except hamburg when i unlocked samurai and he became my vassal. Since then he has settled a few more cities in locations i dont care about and is afraid of me. Venice and the shoshone are across the world and are afraid of me. Carthage is friendly and has paid me a lot (3 luxuries and 50gpt) multiple times to declare war on ethiopia which i accepted since ethiopia was on the other continent with carthage. Austria is friendly towards me and has bought all the city states and married with so many. Russia and I are competing with city states near me and the allied status keeps flipping every now and then.

For my social policies I finished tradition (for great people generation), 3 in liberty (thought i'd get those production bonuses), 3 in statecraft (mainly to get some extra spies and thought i would build the palace of westminster) and 2 in rationalism. My culture production is really low and doesnt really help me build wonders i want right now. I've built the hanging gardens, leaning tower, great library (I wouldn't build it in higher difficulties).

Now russia is ahead of me by 2 techs, has monopoly on cocoa and silver and horses, all their cities have a high CS, has the highest military power. Now in vanilla civ I would have warred against russia but my experience with germany showed that with equal strength my samurai march upgraded fusiliers would still lack the movement needed to invade properly as they can pick me off with hit and runs with their lancer. I have access to lancers myself now and have a decent army myself. Still with her insane gpt, production, land i dont think i can do a scientifc victory against her or a domination. Austria is blocking diplomatic victory. No one looks like they can be influential over other civs any time soon enough. I cant build the brandenburg gate because I am 2 social policies away (would take me 40 turns). In terms of demographics I am in the 4th position or the 5th. Is there anything I can do in this game or should start a new one.

Spoiler screenshots :

 

[tu_79]

Russia's only going to be harder to conquer later, when she builds Ostrogs. Right now, you can send trade routes towards all russian cities, so you get some of her science and culture back. Also try to steal some techs from her, placing spies in her weakest cities. Once you close the gap, try to use diplomacy. All other civs might be angry at Russia, but they know they can't do anything yet. This means that if you propose some anti-russian enactments in the world congress, you may get some support. Denouncing Russia might help you too.

Eventually, Russia will attack you, because she can. Use forts and citadels connected by roads in your borders, and keep enough melee to withstand any attack. There are some nice straits where you can defend forever. But don't attack Russia by land, use your fleet to cause damages to coastal cites, in case you get to war. If thing go awry, just wait for nukes.

 

[cerk]

We are in industrial era already so I am guessing she will build one should I attack her, and she opened her borders with ethiopia so im assuming they are on friendly terms. Can naval melee units capture cities in vox populi?

The movement penalty imposed by the ostrogs looks devastating considering i have unit cap and have mostly fusiliers. Would declaring war and defending kyoto work or would she simply not attack me because i am playing at too low a difficulty level.

About the trade routes. I managed to solve all boredom related unhappiness across my empire, so do I need to go after more culture from them and will a 2 tech difference make a huge difference considering i finished military academy in all my coastal cities and researched steam power while I know she went for steam power through her monopoly on coal.

Will attacking her give me any negative diplomatic modifiers because i broke a defensive pact?

 

[Greslin]

I pretty much play only Oda Nobunaga Japan. I'm not a Deity hardcore like many here, most of my games are Prince or so. And my advice here probably isn't going to help you in your current game, because it relies on early prep.

In my experience, Japan is all about winning the battle before fighting it. Train up a good army (abuse the hell out of respawning barbarian encampments) that holds pretty close to your unit cap, get those dojos as soon as you can, and don't let good troops sit around doing nothing while their armor rusts in the rain. Keep em alive, level their XP. If you're not at war currently, be thinking about how you plan to fight the next war. The idea is to stay at war forever in spirit, whether or not you're actually at war in reality.

Terrain is your first and best ally. Hills and mountains, rivers and oceans. Make the enemy fight you on rough ground, and tear the living daylights out of them. I absolutely love the Great Wall with Japan.

I've also found religion to be an absolutely DEADLY force multiplier for Japan, especially combined with full trees in Authority and Fealty. I usually blast into Shinto as soon as I can, God of All Creation pantheon to piggyback on early game science, with Zealotry for faith-based land unit purchasing, and Orders. If I can swing it, Jesuit Education to buy educational buildings with faith. Then lock down your cities, get them all onboard with your religion and have inquisitors stationed in them ALL. Send missionaries out when you can to pick off weak-faith neighbor cities.

Basically, whenever you're not fighting a war with weapons, be fighting one with dogma, and get that faith-per-turn up into the hundreds as soon as you can. When the arrogant, overconfident neighbor civ attacks, be in a position to whip out countless faith-based land units while you're still constructing culture buildings and using your gold reserves to speed them along. Holy wars for the win.

Religion also helps to build a diplomatic foundation that you can use to manipulate other civs and city states into helping you build a strong economy and wreck the world standings of the abusive runaways in the late game.

Can naval melee units capture cities in vox populi?

Yes, they can.

 

[TheBigFundamental]

I just wanted to say welcome to the VP experience, it's good to have another member here posting&reading I encourage you to not get discouraged by the early challenges you'll be facing, if you stick to it your game will improve, and we'll be here to try to help you every step of the way. Make sure you check out the "Playthroughs and photojournals" subforum, you'll see how players who play on higher difficulties approach the game, and you can learn from that as well.

 

[civplayer33]

Will attacking her give me any negative diplomatic modifiers because i broke a defensive pact?

Yes, attacking civs that you currently have a DoF or DP with will give you a backstabbing modifier with all civs.

IMO you should decide what victory condition you want to go for. Science Victory is likely going to be possible; you should finish Rationalism for that; Domination as well, though for that you picked the wrong trees so it wouldn't be easy; Diplomatic, too, but in that case you should finish out the Statecraft tree; Culture Victory probably less so, but you didn't give much data on that. Pick one and then focus on it.

Also, in the future you should try and finish your policy trees instead of mixing them like you did with Progress and Statecraft; in some cases it can make sense to mix, but those are emergency situations (usually picking Authority after having picked something else already, because you need to warmonger much more than expected).

 

[CrazyG]

You probably should have taken imperialism instead of rationalism. The only way to know if you can't beat Russia is to try. I would attempt to put all of your resources (technology, social policies, hammers and gold) towards military and see how far you can get.

Even if Russia is ahead in tech, if you have a key weapon such as cruisers or gatling guns before her, you can do some damage.

 

[cerk]

I've also found religion to be an absolutely DEADLY force multiplier for Japan, especially combined with full trees in Authority and Fealty. I usually blast into Shinto as soon as I can, God of All Creation pantheon to piggyback on early game science, with Zealotry for faith-based land unit purchasing, and Orders. If I can swing it, Jesuit Education to buy educational buildings with faith. Then lock down your cities, get them all onboard with your religion and have inquisitors stationed in them ALL. Send missionaries out when you can to pick off weak-faith neighbor cities.

I went for theocractic rule, mandirs, prophecy for good great person production.

You probably should have taken imperialism instead of rationalism

Rationalism offered some nice counterspy bonuses which i needed as my spies were elsewhere. I do have gatling guns but its reduced movement in enemy territory makes it look less appealing to me. Since russia has opened its borders to me should i send my workers and build roads in her territory to improve gatling gun mobility?

How many cities should i be settling early game. I settled only 2 cities including my capital and annexed the german capital and essen for uluru. Is settling more lands important in vox popuili?

 

[CrazyG]

Rationalism offered some nice counterspy bonuses which i needed as my spies were elsewhere. I do have gatling guns but its reduced movement in enemy territory makes it look less appealing to me. Since russia has opened its borders to me should i send my workers and build roads in her territory to improve gatling gun mobility?

How many cities should i be settling early game. I settled only 2 cities including my capital and annexed the german capital and essen for uluru. Is settling more lands important in vox popuili?

Imperialism will help war more than any other tree, every time. Its what its designed to do, if defeating Russia by war is how you win, its the right choice. I'd be shocked if that counterspy bonus helps that much.

Roads in territory you don't own won't help you. After you take a city, you will gain that road, but in general I don't think its an important thing to do.

Normally I settle more than two, but in a weird situation two could be correct.

 

[cerk]

Imperialism's opener, colonialism, regimental tradition all look like solid policies. A lot rationalism bonuses hinge on building the bletchley park. Guess I should have read the buffs more carefully. About maxing trees would you say its better to stock social policies points until industrial era, maybe just grab artistry opener and max out imperialism or rationalism.

 

[CrazyG]

Imperialism's opener, colonialism, regimental tradition all look like solid policies. A lot rationalism bonuses hinge on building the bletchley park. Guess I should have read the buffs more carefully. About maxing trees would you say its better to stock social policies points until industrial era, maybe just grab artistry opener and max out imperialism or rationalism.

The standard approach is to finish tradition/progress/authority
Then take Fealty/Statecraft/Artistry
Then take one of the final three.

Its standard because it works. The bonuses for finishing a policy tree are pretty big, therefore most of the time that's what you should do. There are a couple of situations to mix them up, but in general just moving through in a straightforward way, the same as the AI, is a good choice.

 

[cerk]

I see. I will let you know how my game goes. The hardest part is going to be making it through the week to play it.

 

[vyyt]

Correct me if I am wrong, but believe that you cannot build a road in a rival territory even if you have open borders with them (this is to prevent the exploit when you would make them pay the maintenance for these roads).

 

[vyyt]

Also, regarding the roads, what does work, is creating a network of roads (can even be sprinkled with forts and citadels) around your future frontier within your territory. It will make your forces more mobile and you will be able to rotate and retreat wounded units more easily, which will give you a big advantage of you end up in a grinding war of attrition.

 

[cerk]

you would make them pay the maintenance for these roads

Damn. This is exactly what I was hoping to do. But surely I can build roads in enemy territory when warring to move my troops faster. Who pays maintenance for these roads when 2 civs are at war?

I always have roads to enemy territory (don't remenber if I've built them in enemy territory) with a couple forts on them to heal my units or just get the AI to attack them in the vanilla game as they always typically went for the most damaged units.

 

[Rekk]

You can only build roads in: your territory, neutral territory, city-state territory, and vassal territory. The state of diplomacy between players doesn't matter.

 

[vyyt]

As @Rekk said, you CANNOT build roads in the enemy territory. I do not remember if it was possible in the vanilla Civ5, but if it was, you still could not use them to speed up your movement - your enemy could though.

 

[cerk]

you still could not use them to speed up your movement - your enemy could though

That's weird. I will check that out too then.

 

[cerk]

I played some more and I have a few more questions

1. My vassal germany seems to be constantly voting for proposals I vote nay for. Bismarck spammed great diplomats and has more delegates than I do now while I've just put spies in there. He comes to me with deals that say I will vote exactly what you do not want and in return give me my cities back. Is that even normal.

2. Is Eiffel tower a bad wonder. I built it because I needed a negative boredom modifier in all my cities and it gave me a meagre -5%, meanwhile pocatello builds the brandenburg which would given me a free great general that would have synergised nicely with my UA (japan).

Venice landed on my shores and took Jerusalem a religious cs and later bogota, a cultured cs that I was allied with. So I started a war also considering that bogota had a cs of 12 which I tore down with a fusilier alone and liberated it. Then I puppet another venice puppet that has borders next to carthage and I made a puppet out of venice and got me some silk. I own 3 capitals (mine, german, venetian) and carthage denounced me which makes her a backstabber, austria and the shoshone said that their opinion has reduced of me drastically however all of them are still friendly, russia offered me 3 luxes to stop warring when they had captured a cs I needed to be allied with badly. I refused the deal because another venetian puppet was my second source of aluminium totaling to a me re 6 units and only after puppeting samarkhand did venice become my vassal, when I had a war score of 100.

3. Austria keeps asking me to accept their embassy for 1gpt and I've always refused. Is there any point in an embassy? I can not get open borders or send diplomats there and manipulate world congress. It also means no DoF but is there an advantage to not accepting embassies?

I was bleeding 200 to 300 gpt and once I was 1 turn away from hitting zero gold. War weariness reduced my unit cap and with my conquests brought my happiness down to 1, this was when osaka had zero unhappiness. I am losing 99 gpt now. Russia, shoshone, Carthage adopted freedom and I went for autocracy opening with elite forces. It is ridiculous on my upgraded samurai and some of them have march, overrun, cover I and +1 movement. The other tenet is military industrial complex for the upgrade costs. I am building the prora as the only autocracy civ in 10 turns and getting another policy in 12. I definitely want to get the third alternative that doubles my strategic resources which should help with aluminium and give me a monopoly for other resources and total war as my second T2 tenet.

4. Should I go for Iron fist as I have 2 vassals now or lebensraum because I have 4 great generals and would likely build citadels in a war with russia. I might still go for science victory or diplomatic because I'm also considering getting the cs bullying tenets later. Also is 60 a good cap for 190 population and 9 cities or should I start spamming some citadels and armories?

While I was warring with venice every AI kept spamming the ban luxury proposals, world religion and scholars in residence. God I underestimated scholars in residence, people who were in industrial instantly went modern. They have now banned tea, cocoa, ivory, spices, jade, silk and I have one of everything.

5. Does a luxury ban mean the monopoly no longer give special yields and should I spend my proposals repealing these bans as I do not see a lot of happiness tenets in autocracy. I think I will repeal scholars in residence first and these bans later.

Spoiler World congress :

6. How do people use great scientists in vox populi? I am making 850 science a turn and the great scientist's instant yield is only 2800 and this after the rationalism tenet that boosts popping yields by 25%. In general I think great person improvements are better in vp.

I have founded Firaxite corporation for the +20% production and have a global monopoly on jade, porcelain and 7 franchises in russian cities and some city states.

7. Do franchises get destroyed when one civ declares war on the other?

8. I have 15 oil, 3 imported from kuala lampur the monopoly screen says direct control 7. Imported resources cs allies dont count? But they did for austria and germany. So is that a special UA?

Spoiler screenshots again :

Spoiler General state of the game right now. Pocatello has as many policies as I do and can finish the bletchley park when the time comes. Russia is still out of the world and as my neighbour still the greater threat :

I know this is a long post with a lot of questions and thank you all for helping a newbie out here.

 

[cerk]

Germany, my vassal is willing to vote yay to sanction me. I have adopted iron rule so that liberation and rebellion is impossible, he is afraid of me and yet he can try to sanction me in the world congress? Is this how vassals are supposed to work.