Help! How do you overcome the AIs?

[aelf]

I've won on Prince and I am currently trying out Monarch. I've decided not to use Romans (though the temptation is great) to train myself without the advantage of Praetorians. At any rate, I prefer to not embark on world conquest straight away but play a balance of power style I've favoured since Civ 2. Although I've pulled this off on Prince, I am meeting with what I find near impossible challenges on Monarch.

First, the AIs' research rate is crazy!! I tried with Washington and Roosevelt (Cyrus, before them, was a miserable failure), and I find that even Financial and Organized with a lot of cottages cannot beat them at a research rate of 70-90%. I catch up during late medieval but get surpassed in industrial age to the point where it is impossible to beat them in the space race. And it's not like my empire is small. It is either the largest or second largest. Attempts at the alternative diplomatic victory also turned out badly, where an important ally or two abstained and I can seem to never win. And by then the strongest AIs are too high tech and strong to be conquered.

You might say I should've kicked their butts at ancient or medieval ages. In ancient I find upkeep to be a killer. In medieval I simply don't have enough units to sustain a long war to capture more than two cities at a time. And I need long periods between wars to catch up in tech to not fall hopelessly behind.

Which brings me to my second problem... The AIs have millions of units!! It is impossible to try and match them. Maybe I can beat a smaller neighbour (who is small cause I've been attacking) who has fewer units than me, but I can't turn to most of the others after that. I don't get it. If I have to build so many units, I won't get much building done and I'll become backward and hopeless. The most annoying fact is that most advanced AI you are dying to attack often happens to be very strong and, worse, on good terms with everybody so that you can get anyone else as allies but incur diplomatic hits instead if you attack. Plus wars cost so much (and the AIs stubbornly fight on even if they are losing) and you get pillaged like crazy by irritating mounted units that just scuicide attack your valuable 40-turns-to-develop towns.

Thirdly, which is a given, but which Civ 4 has turned into an amazingly un-fun disadvantage for human players is the fact that the AIs always manage to expand to at least double your size but you more often than not get boxed in. Even with furious chop-rushing and even if I am prepared to pay for killer upkeep, I still can't get any close to the size of some of them. And the upkeep will probably cost me my whole game.

I really don't understand. I've won on Demigod on Civ 3, but I've not managed to win any of the 8 or 9 Monarch games I've played on Civ 4. I've tried some of the tricks posted here about winnning on Monarch or higher, but they don't seem to work for me. I certainly need some help from experts/better players here. Any advice or suggestions? Thanks so much!

 

[parmenion05]

Do you use great leader?? They are realy usefull to stay in the tech race. (Philosophical leader+ great library for example is kind of helpfull).

 

[ionimplant]

Thirdly, which is a given, but which Civ 4 has turned into an amazingly un-fun disadvantage for human players is the fact that the AIs always manage to expand to at least double your size but you more often than not get boxed in. Even with furious chop-rushing and even if I am prepared to pay for killer upkeep, I still can't get any close to the size of some of them. And the upkeep will probably cost me my whole game.

i've only played the civ4 GOTM and so don't have much experience. but i did win pretty easily in Monarch games. here're my 2 cents.

don't expect to out perform AI in the land-grabbing phase. it's OK to get boxed in. it actually makes AI spreads their units over more cities and make them prone to attack. once you get your first 2-4 cities, you can start to build up a small military (8 axemen or swordmen) and they should conquer 1-2 neighbor cities. this way, you not only get cheap populated and partially developed cities (8 axemen ~ 2-3 settlers?), you are no longer boxed in. with developed lands, your new cities shouldn't be too heavy a burden on your treasury. (yes, the science slide bar may need to drop, but the base gold is becoming larger).

 

[Scoticus]

Yes, early aggression is important. Strike them before they get too far ahead in techs. ionimplant is right, settle 4-6 cities, build some axemen, build a lot of swordmen, and strike the nearest neighbor. I usually hit the smaller cities first, as they have less units. This way your units can gain experience before you get to the heavily fortified capital.

Cottages help a lot. But also make sure you have enough workers to develop your cities to make use of your resources and to grow your city and increase production. Just before I go to war, I usually have about 6-8 workers.

For me (if not using Rome), Washington is a good leader, financial and organized. Use his traits to build courthouses and banks quickly. It really helps your income for research.

Don't forget diplomacy. Get on a leader's (or several leaders') good side by converting to their religion or giving them tribute.

 

[StackofDOOM]

You can't blindly go through Civ 4 with no goals.

 

[Matthevv]

You can't blindly go through Civ 4 with no goals.

Oh yes you can! It's more fun that way. I like to build a library in Byblos, even if it isn't the best thing to do to win the game. I never usually bother to find out what the leader traits do until far too late. I'm playing on Monarch level, so it can't be impossible to do it this way!

A trick to keep up with tech is to choose a tech somewhere deep in the tech tree and research only those things that lead to it. Once you have just one advanced tech, you can trade it to the AI civs for just about whatever they have got. There are lots of them so even if they only give you 2 techs each for it, you can get all the stuff you missed out on, and probably a big pile of cash too. Some other tips are to build all your cities on hills, and put walls round them, and get a barracks in one city where you build all your units. Archers in cities on hills behind walls with a city defender upgrade are cheap to build and difficult to dislodge. Barbarians will walk straight past and go to duff up the AI Civs instead! You need to do this because with all those cottages, your hammer production will be low, so you won't be able to stack many units in your cities.

Don't worry about grabbing land too much. A small number of good cities is fine. You pay maintenance increasing for each one, and you have to build units to defend them too. Quality is the key, not quantity. Be really careful about position. City growth will be limited by health, so favour healthy locations with fresh water and forests. Obviously you need to get any luxury and food resources you can too. Once you are established, you can expand by taking cities off the AI or Barbarians (or razing them and building a new one if they aren't well positioned). Because the AI adopts a fast expansion phase early, its cities are not usually well defended, and the Barbarians only keep two units in their cities at a time.

The size of the AI armies can sometimes be intimidating, but as the AI is both dumb and suicidal, it will lose most of those attacking your cities. You can easily get a kill rate of 4 to 1, which balances out the AI production bonuses. I find the easy way is to watch the attitude of neighboring Civs, so I know which might attack, and be ready on the border to defend. Golden age announcements are often a good clue! Once I have killed off their attacking army, then I counterattack using all the units that were upgraded while defending. taking two cities is usually enough for me, as it is a pain in the rump attacking the AI due to all its suicide catapaults and having to move units back and forth to heal and so on. It will attack again soon enough anyway! I think because I tend to keep a minimal military, the AI thinks I'm weak, even after I have beaten it before, it never learns

There is some discussion about the advisability of chopping all the trees right at the start. It seems to be a popular strategy. Personally I prefer to have the trees, as they allow bigger cities - especially early on you are quickly limited by health. Later in the game they are good production squares with lumbermills. If you have trees, you can also maintain a smaller army because you can chop down the trees to quickly build units if needed. Every coin spent on maintaining units that aren't actually fighting anyone is one that can't be spent on research.

 

[JerichoHill]

I too, would like to know how to keep up on Monarch

I did the above strategy, but I

a) cant seem to get enough Great People (and I use what I have for science resaerch)

b) can successfully war in the ancient and classical era, then maintenance kills me. I raze most every city except harbor towns or capitals, and I still get killed on maintenance....and then the AI from other civs settles in the empty terrain (AND I DIDNT TRADE THEM A MAP)

c) I chop like mad, but aside from some settlers, and 1 or two wonders, nada to show for it.

d) Super production cities? I'm lucky to have 25 hammer cities. (pre-rr) Try building the apollo program on that!

e) great engineer? damn!

f) if anyone can post a game or walk me through a monarch game, I would be really appreciative...Prince was getting too easy...now monarch is racking my brain

 

[Matthevv]

I think c) and d) could be related. Those trees would come in handy now! You can build workshops instead. Replace some farms or towns with workshops. Or go to universal suffrage and just buy stuff instead of building it.

Its easy to get over extended when warring, as you are spending too much on units and not enough on the banks, markets, and such like, that you must have to maintain a larger number of cities. I'm not much inclined to war, so can't suggest much apart from taking it in stages, and as soon as you are having to drop your research rate below about 60% make peace and consolidate.

To get great people getting Pacifism is useful as it doubles the rate. And put specialists in your cities as they produce GP points. If you put in engineer specialists, that probably increases your chances of getting a Great Engineer. Forge allows you to have an engineer specialist. You may want to build a few extra farms so that you can have the maximum specialists. Do it in the cities with the Wonders in, as they generate points too.

 

[ionimplant]

b)

do you build court house and forbidden palace? once your newly conquered city start to work on a few gold tiles, they should be able to pay for their own maintainance

d)
forge? factory? (not sure what pre-rr is)

 

[mutax2003]

Hi,

You can post some your saves (4000 BC and later ones), so that people on the forum can have a look at your game, and give some constructive advices.

 

[Firebot]

b) can successfully war in the ancient and classical era, then maintenance kills me. I raze most every city except harbor towns or capitals, and I still get killed on maintenance....and then the AI from other civs settles in the empty terrain (AND I DIDNT TRADE THEM A MAP)

I am pretty sure your money troubles are mainly due to unit supply and maintance, one of the biggest differences I saw from Prince to Monarch and one you might not realize. In Prince you won't notice unit cost much since you get so many free units, but on Monarch you get a very heavy fee placed on units in excess of your max free allowed, and also charged a distance fee when the units are out of your borders. I didn't notice it in my first Monarch game since I went until the end where my economy was so strong it didn't matter how much I lost on units. In my second monarch game though which was a REX game with Persia's Immortal, I immediatly felt it during my second war where I was in the negatives even at 0% science. I didn't think much about it until I moved a stack of units from my border to prepare for war, and saw my money drop from +5 to -10. I've now learned to disband excess units and to keep them inside my borders if at all possible.

Courthouse, Forbidden Palace and Versailles are also huge for Monarch games, much more meaningful since maintenance costs are quite a bit higher.

 

[aelf]

Ok, with Financial or Organized civs, I think upkeep is not so much of a big deal, except that they prevent early conquest extravaganza (unless you plan to kill 90% of the world).

The biggest problem, which unites all these issues I mentioned is having to fight your powerful nemesis in the game. If you elminate one puny civ, there's bound to be a bigger one out there who doesn't like you. And when that civ gets angry enough, it attacks.

In Monarch, I find this kind of war draggy, expensive and pointless. Because wars cost so much in Civ 4, you'll definitely be lagging compared to other civs not involved in the war. And the AIs units advantage serve only to lengthen the war and make it more painful for you (losing a city or two, losing all your army, getting pillaged). Even if you win and take his cities instead, by then you'd be left behind in the tech race.

So what then? How can I solve this?

 

[Strobe]

On the problem of the AI getting ahead I think you need to pick your AI friends as early as you can and be very nice to them. Preferably not the top AI in most cases.

Then ensure that the tech leading AI is at war whenever you can by bribing your friends to declare on him/her.

Using tactics like this it is often possible to slow down the tech rate drastically while you expand and can compete without war.

Or if I am going after the leading AI and he is powerful or has lots of units then get someone to declare war on him, wait 5-10 turns then attack him as well preferably from a different border. He will be weaker at this point, hopefully have moved units out of his cities and your friend(s) will love you even more for helping them.

This can be tricky though as the AI is a little fickle and you need to be careful with the aggressive civs as firends, but worked so well in one Monarch game I switched from domination to quickly build the UN and with my friends votes won in 1750.

I would like to have a more peaceful Monarch game but find without having about twice the land as the AI it can be very close in the space race. Anyone have tips for a relatively peaceful Monarch win ?

 

[Firebot]

Ok, with Financial or Organized civs, I think upkeep is not so much of a big deal, except that they prevent early conquest extravaganza (unless you plan to kill 90% of the world).

The biggest problem, which unites all these issues I mentioned is having to fight your powerful nemesis in the game. If you elminate one puny civ, there's bound to be a bigger one out there who doesn't like you. And when that civ gets angry enough, it attacks.

In Monarch, I find this kind of war draggy, expensive and pointless. Because wars cost so much in Civ 4, you'll definitely be lagging compared to other civs not involved in the war. And the AIs units advantage serve only to lengthen the war and make it more painful for you (losing a city or two, losing all your army, getting pillaged). Even if you win and take his cities instead, by then you'd be left behind in the tech race.

So what then? How can I solve this?

Have another civ or two declare war on the new aggressor to keep them occupied. Whenever I get in a fight I don't want yet, or someone joins in while I'm occupied in another war, I always look at my diplomatic options and see if anyone is angry enough with the agressive civ to go to war. Realize that the AIs which considers you a friend, will give a -1 modifier to the AI that attacked you for attacking a friend making it much easier to coax him into a war. I give him a tech or two in exchange for a war partner, and the agrresive civ is now fighting on two fronts. In my current test GotM3 game, I attacked Cyrus, but about 4-5 turns later Isabella decided it was a nice time to attack that Hinduist heretic! As soon as she declared war, I coaxed Julius Ceasar to go to war against her. Right after I took Cyrus's capital, I declared peace with him (giving me tons of money). Isabella sent about 25-30 horse archers, and they did do a fair bit of pillaging while my defense forces held the fort until my attacking force came back, but they were suiciding against my pikemen and samurais while I lost very little. She eventually stopped refusing to talk, and I asked her for peace in exchange for all her money, about 500 gold)

I also instigate fights with civs if I find two or three civs are too peaceful for my own good. The -1 modifier you get for bringing in a war ally is almost never enough for them to stop trading with me (Ghandi in one game was still trading with me even though I sent Mansa Musa, Egypt and France after him). At higher difficulties, you need to pick your fights and know when you have to stop, never drag a war further then your economy can manage.

 

[aelf]

Frankly, I don't like throwing a lot of 'but's into the question. BUT how do you bribe anyone when almost everybody beats you to techs? Bribes are so expensive, and while they work initially, they contribute to me falling behind in the end.

And I really hate allies who seem so nice to you but refuse to declare war on you enemy, with whom they are annoyed as well, when you ask for help. Gandhi seems to do this a lot.

In Civ 3 I like to start suing for peace when I've got what I need out of a war. Even if I couldn't, wars don't hurt so much. But the AIs in Civ 4 loves to fight on till both of us get poor and backward, even if it is losing (but usually not to the point of getting crushed, or else I'll just go ahead and kill it). And wars hurt very quickly. How annoying is that? How can I stop the war before it ruins my economy that way?

 

[civterror]

"I don't get it. If I have to build so many units, I won't get much building done and I'll become backward and hopeless."

This little line from the original post mostly gave me the clue to your problem. You are not specializing your cities, are you? In the beginning, your main production (actually your main everything) city will be your capital, but pretty early you will have to make an analysis of the best potential for your starting 3-5 cities and designate their role in your empire. Usually your capital will have the greates potential for economy\science, and I tend to let it go that way.

Pick 1 city with great potential for production and build only the required buildings to fulfill that potential, ignore all else. Use this city to churn out a never-ending stream of units. It may even be a coastal city with off-shore food resources and hills on land, that way it can take care of both navy and army.

That way your other cities can be built up to take care of economy\science.

 

[Strobe]

If you're falling way behind in tech then something else is probably wrong with your game. Try researching techs the AI doesn't go for very quickly like Alphabet itself and then trade them for lower techs. It would be a rare game on monarch that ALL the AI have ALL the techs you have.

The best way I find to stop wars is pillage, the AI hate it. Just pillage everything you can for a few turns then they should allow you to sue for peace.

 

[Artanis]

I too, would like to know how to keep up on Monarch

I did the above strategy, but I

a) cant seem to get enough Great People (and I use what I have for science resaerch)

b) can successfully war in the ancient and classical era, then maintenance kills me. I raze most every city except harbor towns or capitals, and I still get killed on maintenance....and then the AI from other civs settles in the empty terrain (AND I DIDNT TRADE THEM A MAP)

c) I chop like mad, but aside from some settlers, and 1 or two wonders, nada to show for it.

d) Super production cities? I'm lucky to have 25 hammer cities. (pre-rr) Try building the apollo program on that!

e) great engineer? damn!

f) if anyone can post a game or walk me through a monarch game, I would be really appreciative...Prince was getting too easy...now monarch is racking my brain

B) I actually kinda like that the AI sends settlers to other civs' war zone. It's actually fairly logical if you think about it:
--Civ A and Civ B are at war. Civ A is winning.
=> Civ A is going to clear the "native" culture off of the territory he's taking, and then have to start from scratch
=> A freshly-founded city won't be under cultural pressure
--Cities get razed during wartime
=> There'll likely be a city site or two opened up.
--Thus, it's probably a good idea to send a settler or two to try to poach a couple city sites while the poaching is good

D) D is the direct result of C. Every forest you chop is 30 hammers immediately at the cost of up to 9 hammers per turn* when you try to build the Apollo Program there later. You reap what you sow.





*1 for the forest, 1 for the lumbermill, 1 for a railroad, = 3 base hammers. +200% for Forge, Factory, Power, and Ironworks means 9 end hammers.

 

[aelf]

Right. I kinda get the notion of the specializing thing in my last game. I guess I was a bit too used to the Civ3-style of several core cities pumping out 3-turn tanks while contributing immensely to science and commerce. But still, the AI has way too many units to handle without bringing in an ally. Maybe it's cause the only continental neighbour left that I had was Alexander...

Anout the tech race, I find that the AIs zoom forward very greatly during the industrial era. I have no problems on ancient up to medieval. Is it cause of cottages? But by then I'd have lots of mature cottages too. It's heaven for Universal Sufferage, but not nearly enough for research. And I am at 80-90% research rate. When I trade with the AIs it gets worse cause they always cut me very bad deals. I remember it was even harder to keep up on demigod Civ3, but I could destroy them at my leisure and take a lot of cities and weaken them horribly. Not so now in Civ4. Is there an optimum number of cities on standard map at which you can compete decently in the tech race?

 

[JerichoHill]

in response to my concerns, i build courthouses, but its definitely the units not in my borders taht hurts me

its just that i kill a civ off, andbasically raze any city but the capital (or a really good othercity site) and then the other 5 civs settle in all the other areas.