Getting mired in war and bouncing back

[rantzzz]

Hi all,

As we all know, war is expensive in this game. It causes war weariness and causes us to divert production to military units. During this period, your peace loving neighbours would have surged ahead in tech and growth.

I would like to ask, has anyone managed to bounce back from a huge deficit to smash the rest of the AIs?

I'm currently in a Noble game with 4 AIs. I'm crushing Stalin now, but the other civs have surged ahead in their score. I'm 1200 points vs the top AI, who has 1800 points.

How do I bridge this gap

 

[mystyfly]

one way is atu tacking an advanced civ who didnt focus on military techs. attack, take/raze some cities, sue for peace and get some techs, best some techs not everyone but you has, so you can trade for others. rinse and repeat.
in a early war, you should only keep capitals/wonders/holy cities, the others should burn to resettle, in order to keep at least SOME research rate. after your land is developed, you research much faster so you can keep up to the AIs pace or you focus on production to capture another civ, gaining even more land.

 

[tycoonist]

well, after conquesting stalin, you should have more land. get your economy up and running (ie build cottages) and the excess land you have over your opponents should do the rest. the more land you have, the bigger your economy can get, so you GNP is potentially higher than your opponents. or you could prioritize military techs and smash the rest while they are floundering aroound with economic ones.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I would like to ask, has anyone managed to bounce back from a huge deficit to smash the rest of the AIs?

I've done it a few times, but the most impressive and educational examples I've seen on the forum can be found in some of aelf's Emperor and Immortal challenges (played with the Warlords xpack).

Check out one or both of these:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204202

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=219422

In each case, a combination of brilliant diplomacy and tech-trading, sound late-game economic development and research, and the Internet (the ultimate comeback wonder) allowed him to steal a win from what looked like an impossible position.

In BtS, I've found the numerous additions to the late game have made it easier to catch up than it was in Vanilla or Warlords. Corporations in particular can transform weaker cities into powerhouses, and supercharge your economy. The propensity of AIs to pursue cultural victories presents a new danger, though, so keep an eye on that victory screen and be ready to take action when necessary.

 

[Verge]

I'm 1200 points vs the top AI, who has 1800 points.

How do I bridge this gap

Don't worry about score, worry about winning.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I have. The main thing is after you're done your conquering, to focus on getting your economy rolling. Land is power and you've probably conquered a decent amount of it from your costly war. I was playing as Cyrus and was so very far behind in tech because of nearly non-stop war from the beggining of the game. I didn't even have Philosophy in the 19th centurary! But after finally conquering my continent I was able to put all the resources of my Empire into the economy and became a teching machine, coupled with some smart trades, I easily bacame tech leader and won a Space Race victory.

I did this on Prince, so it's definitly doable on Noble, just use all that land you grabbed for teching and you'll be able to catch up.

 

[Iranon]

There's another factor, that will unfortunately involve plenty of micromanagement:

If you need to turn up the culture slider, commerce becomes ineffective so I switch emphasis to something else.
Some cities might support specialists as a replacement, but usually I'll emphasise production. If I'm not cranking out units everywhere, at least I'll get those improvements done and worry about commerce once that becomes un-gimped, which is far more efficient than balancing commerce and production throughout.

This approach will be initially harder on your economy (and works best if you amass a comfortable amount of gold in the treasury before going to war) but means your cities will have done something useful during wartime, allowing for an easier recovery.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I've used Espionage to recover from an 8 tech deficit on the leaders on the other continent (after conquering my own but being drawn into a very long and brutal war). Gearing up your economy for maximum espionage (nationalism, castles everywhere, jails everywhere etc) and running max espionage slider is the fastest way to catch yourself out of a massive tech deficit.

 

[Gwil]

Might sound a bit odd but surely if you're taking Stalin to the cleaners, theres nothing to stop you (unless economy has ground to 0% with deficit) to continue the steam roller effect onto your next neighbour. I often find that if I was pushed into war by somebody, bounce back and take them out, I am left in a good position to continue the surge elsewhere.

Did this recently against Monty - he declared war, I steamrollered him and continued onto Huayna who was points leader but a big pussycat in the military stakes. Took him (he was in my buddhist bloc alongside Monty so no odds there), which gave me enough land to take 3 cities off Qin (2nd largest) and vassalise him.

By this point I was just reaching the early industrial and settled down for a space victory with my extra cash and new cities - tech catch up was easy with the preoduction boost. Of course, I could have continued to move across the continent and take out more as my army by the end of continuous war was 4 times larger than Roosevelt, the nearest rival.

 

[MrG]

I find if you have loads of spare units floating around go and crush everyone you can as quickly as you can, basically keep your steam roller going, and wreck your opposnents economy that way you'll find it easier to catch up tech wise.

I do this lots in noble, so it is doable.

depend on how you want to win of course...

Tech trading is a very valuable way of doing it as well if you;ve go the diplomacy right...

 

[futurehermit]

It's important to have a plan. Usually that plan involves around getting currency and/or col to pay the bills and instigating quick, decisive wars so you aren't totally crippled with WW. Later in the game, it's important to have police state, jails, and Mount Rushmore. Mid-game the culture slider can help a lot.

But, basically, you don't want to be in centuries-long warfare if you can help it. I usually try and strike at the enemy capital first and a couple other core cities, then take a short ceasefire to heal, then take out their weaker cities next. Later in the game I try and have 2-3 very large stacks of units, preferably more advanced than my opponent, and then rip through their empire striking the most important targets first.

However, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I remember one deity game being played out by top players where they had all the happiness buildings and were pushing the culture slider nearly to the max and have I don't remember exactly but like 50-60 or something but were still dealing with because of extreme WW scores LOTS of whipping and drafting and dying going on against Shaka and others. Good times.

The key to economic recovery imo is to have the war pay dividends, even if you do end up seriously behind after the war. To me (obviously, see my sig) that means you have ended up with a large land mass, preferably larger than any of your opponents. At this point, you can cottage spam and with proper lightbulbing, beelining, and tech trading you can catch up and then surpass your opponents because of your larger land mass. Basically, you will know you will win the game when you are able to push your science slider up past 50% and you are at tech parity and no AI has started building space parts yet.

Some holes you can't escape, however, and that is a sign that you have to go back to the drawing board a bit.

 

[King of Town]

as long as you can build courthouses there is almost no hole large enough in my experience. I will usually look at the civ's area I am at war with befoire hand and decide wchih cities I am going to level because of their uselessness. Also a great way to reduce costs you get from war, and help you bounce back quicker is to change your palace city.

 

[futurehermit]

and don't forget the forbidden palace