failed at tech brokering - what went wrong?

[morkaphi]

Originally posted by Ribannah
[2] 2-3 military units per city is far too many if you want to play peaceful. I have played and won peaceful games with no military units at all (after the barbs had gone). If you want to wage war, however, it's too few.

IMHO, 2-3 units per city is just about right (or maybe insufficient, depending on the AI civs you play with) to prevent the AI to think you're weak and vulnerable then wage wars against you. It's my belief that military force that can defend yourself is the major key to ensure peaceful games.

Won peaceful games with no military units at all??? Can't imagine that...

 

[Ribannah]

Just try it. You might have to give in to a few AI demands, but that's peanuts compared to what you save, and chances are you'll get it back anyway when you sell them your new tech.

 

[morkaphi]

I understand that giving in to AI demands buys you peace for a period of time, but a lot of times AI simply skips the threatening process and calls for wars directly... or you don't have evil neighbors like mine?

 

[billindenver]

Originally posted by Ribannah
Just try it. You might have to give in to a few AI demands, but that's peanuts compared to what you save, and chances are you'll get it back anyway when you sell them your new tech.

I have read of people doing that, especially in OCC's or challenge type games. I would think you would almost need a perfect map for that though.

However, in my current game, I was on a big continent together with China, the Zulus, and India, playing as Japan, and I had no iron. After expanding to the max by the end of the Ancient Age, I was looking at Horsemen against Pikes for an attack, or Knights against Spears on defense. Suddenly, this great flood of Riders floods through the Zulus and shows up on my border. China had been polite and trading through that time. I knew I was about to be sneak attacked, so I renegotiated the Peace Treaty with China, figuring to give in to ANY demand they made for peace.

They replied that there was NOTHING I could give them in exchange for a Peace Treaty. Now, if I hadn't had 2-3 spearmen in every city, I'd have been wiped out. You can't rush enough spearman to the attack points to defend against 20 Riders if you don't have them built.

 

[USMC]

Ribannah says "[3] Use diplomacy. It's one of the keys to master this game. I don't end a turn before I've checked with all rivals to see if there is a favourable trade to make. And if you know the preferences of your rivals, you know what they will research. Often it is very profitable to pick a path they won't choose."

I agree that diplomacy can make/break a game (especially if things are getting scary and you expect a world war), but I simply do not have the patience to check with everyone on every turn.

If I think there will be a huge world war, I usually start it and let the AI's slow down their research while I keep mine high!

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by billindenver
I knew I was about to be sneak attacked, so I renegotiated the Peace Treaty with China, figuring to give in to ANY demand they made for peace.

They replied that there was NOTHING I could give them in exchange for a Peace Treaty.

You should have tried that. Just give them NOTHING and you'd have your treaty.

Best is not to renegotiate peace treaties. Then they will prolly make demands and you can choose to comply.

But maybe you pissed them off earlier in the game?

 

[satchel]

Here's an update on my game, as I was inspired by Billindenver not to give up on it, and found a couple hours to play last night.

As a republic with a decent infrastructure, I started cranking on research again. Knowing from what I'd read on this board that the AI tends toward the top half of the middle ages tree first, I worked on the bottom half, and somehow managed to beat Egypt to Metallurgy. I immediately sold it to Egypt for several of the top half techs and some not inconsiderable gpt. I sold it around to other civs too, although no one had anything close to what Egypt had to offer. Egypt refused to sell me democracy. I researched Military Tradition, and sold that to Egypt too, for pretty much the rest of the essential middle ages techs (again, except democracy, and one other which I can't recall) and some more gold. No one would sell me democracy so I had to do that one on my own. When I got to democracy I immediately went into anarchy to switch to it. Afterwards I finally got Egypt to sell me the last middle ages tech for 1850 gold. Because I am scientific (Persia) I got nationalism for free and was hoping to sell it back to Egypt to recoup some of that gold, but they already have it. Again, Egypt is the only nation with anything to offer, so while I am often selling things to other civs, I don't get much from it.

So here's the situation in my first Monarch game: It's the dawn of the industrial age, I am second in points, and territory, and military strength, and culture - to Egypt of course. I am caught up in technology! Yay! But that won't last, with the AI's advantage in cheaper research. I am researching steam power and praying that I have coal so I can whip up my infrastructure with railroads right away.

Any suggestions on how I can maintain tech parity and ultimately beat Egypt? They are really my only serious rival at the moment.

 

[Grey Fox]

Originally posted by satchel
Any suggestions on how I can maintain tech parity and ultimately beat Egypt? They are really my only serious rival at the moment.

An Idea is to lower your research to 0%, and buy techs as everyone have them, and when you enter the INdustrial age, you research Sanitation, and tech broke with it, then you research towards Theory of Evolution. While building the ToE try researching Atomic Theory, and get Electronics and Radio in the ToE deal. BUild the Hoover and Factories all over. This should give you a tremendous advantage.

 

[billindenver]

Glad to hear you kept on playing. Sounds like you caught up pretty fast.

It sounds to me like you are doing everything you can. As Persia, you get cheap Sci improvements, so make sure you have universities in all your major cities of course. If you can get Theory of Evolution, obviously, that's a big help, but since Egypt got that tech first (I'm assuming) he may have a jump on you there. You might wanna investigate his city and see where how many turns he has left and see if you can maximize production in your city to beat him. While you investigate, check out what govt Egypt is in. If it's Democracy (which it probably is), any war is gonna cause them problems with WW, force them to switch govts, and that will kill their research.

I have no idea what your world looks like. Is Egypt right next to you? Are there civs next to Egypt but not to you? Say, for example, you are on one continent, Egypt another, and each of you has one other civ on their continent. You need to help the other civ get powerful enough to cause Egypt problems, and to keep Egypt from getting more powerful by killing them off. Hold off until you get Steam Power, and see if you have coal. If not, you should be able to trade a tech for it to somebody. If you have to trade for coal, make sure you have tons of workers so that your whole world can be railroaded within 20 turns!

My bet is that Egypt will research Steam Power, Industrialism, Communism, and Espionage. I usually do the first two, then switch to try to get to electronics line while building factories and coal plants. I'm sure other people do it differently.

Just remember that any Civ that doesn't have Saltpeter is still using Pikes to defend. If you give them Nationalism, they will be a much tougher nut to Egypt.

Good luck!

 

[billindenver]

Actually, Grey Fox made a good comment. Go down the bottom, get Sanitation, and trade Egypt for Industrialism. Then go for Hoover. Don't give Egypt any of the Hoover techs too quickly. Once you get Hoover, and are only 1 turn away from building the Dam, sell it too Egypt. They will pay through the nose, and you will already have it locked up.

 

[morkaphi]

Yep, ToE and Hoover are usually the turning point of my games. As a scientific civ, if you get ToE first and keep researching, the AI won't catch you again.