Help me win this game!

[automator]

Thanks to some suggestions on finding middle ground between Noble and Prince (I was finding Noble far too easy, yet would loose at Prince unless it was a Terra game where I populated the new world first and would win by domination), I've been playing with Aggressive AI -- and I think its the perfect level for me.

My current game is really sucking me in. I find I can only play for an hour or two at a time before I make myself leave it alone.

Situation: I'm Ceasar. I have the largest empire, fourth place score wise. My home continent is shared via an isthmus (which I control) with Saladin. I also share a continent north of a channel with Huyana, who is to my east, and Loius, who is south of Huyana. This continent is part of my empire after an 1,300 year war with Catherine. Across the ocean are Mansa and Cyrus, who have the two high scores and recently signed a PA. Also on that continent are some minor players such as Isabella and Roosevelt.

The Past: I destroyed Catherine over a period of 1,300 years (the first time I'd ever recognized the power of Police State). Catherine and Huyana were good friends, so Huyana declared on me during that war. Louis was good friends with the two them, so he declared too, but being separated from me, he didn't do much other than send in a few units. Even now that Catherine is gone, Huyana is furious at me and has been making limited battles. Mostly he comes in, pillages my roads and improvements in the two tiles bordering his land, tries to attack my border towns and after losing his units, pulls out and gives me some cash money for peace. I noticed once I got railroad that I had no coal, but that Saladin had some just to my north over the ithsmus. First I had to take the French city that separated the two of us. Louis had no protest and we made peace soon after. I took Saladin's city that had coal, as well as two bordering cities to make for defensible borders and to guard against culture flip. Then we made peace and he's still just "Annoyed" at me.

The political situation: The Mansa-Cyrus block is friendly with me and with the Civs I'm friendly with. They're so friendly that Cyrus piped up and gave me Education, without me even ever having traded with him! The "opposing side" is Louis and Huyana. The year is 1903, and the major powers are into rocketry and tanks and such.

I will not be able to beat Mansa-Cyrus in a battle, as they're a superpower on another continent, and they have a defensive pact with another secondary power on the continent. I have my defenses taken care of against Huyana/Saladin/Louis, but I have little to gain at this point by declaring a war on them, since I've turned off the domination win.

Is this a good spot for an attempt at a Space Win? I'll be finishing rocketry to build Apollo soon, and my Manufactured Goods level is second only to Cyrus. If I have aluminum in my territory, I'll bet I have a chance. Otherwise, I'm screwed, since I'd lose diplo, lose score, and can't imagine pulling out a conquest win.

Hints to rock a space win? How well do spies work at destroying partially built ship parts?

 

[Sisiutil]

Sounds like a Space Race win is feasible and under the circumstances may be your best option. A few tips:

• If you haven't done so already, research Industrialism to reveal Aluminum. If you own enough territory, you probably have it somewhere. If not, do your best to get it somehow.
• Start converting your economy from cottages and farms to production. In particular, look at river tiles you can improve with very productive watermills, and consider putting workshops on some grassland tiles.
• Look into setting up a "riverside Ironworks" city if you have the option. This city can build the most expensive wonders and SS parts. See the link in my sig to Intermediate Tactics and Gambits for more info.
• Recommended civics: Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Emancipation, State Property, Free Religion.
• Bee-line to Robotics and build the Space Elevator. Along the way, you'll pick up computers; build Laboratories in your most productive cities where you'll be building SS parts.
• Also try to nab Plastics fairly soon. The Three Gorges Dam is a very good production-booster on your largest continent.
• After that, bee-line to Fusion. Use the free GE to either finish one of the aforementioned wonders or, if you have another type of GP available, consider using them for a Golden Age while you're producing most of the space ship parts (especially while you're building the SS Casings and Thrusters).
• Use your spies to see how far along your AI rivals are. If needed, sabotage their supplies of Aluminum, not their SS builds; it's a lot cheaper and usually has a greater chance of success.

 

[automator]

Thanks for those helpful hints.

I actually was doing OK. Went straight for aluminum, on the way, building factories and coal plants (I'd already placed Ironworks in my top-notch production city) and was converting all cities for highest possible production. I was in luck; had one aluminum on the continent I'd gotten a piece of from defeating the Russians.

I finished Apollo two turns after the Cyrus/Mansa superpower, then my old enemies Louis and Huyana sign a PA and finish their own Apollo. So we got a three way space race between me, Cyrus/Mansa and Louis/Huyana. I beeline towards Computers, as I'm finishing my casings as Cyrus/Mansa has finished thier casings and have completed the cockpit. I need that space elevator, and I even have a great engineer ready to help. I have five cities doing 100+ hammers as my production cities.

Then Louis/Huyana get a bug up their butts and rush me. I could've faced one attacker. But as Huyana attacked my eastern front, Louis destroyed my destroyers and landed eight transports on my western shores. (For whatever reason, they completely ignored my richer, much less protected continent to the south.) Even by using a merchant for a 3500 gp influx, I couldn't upgrade my units fast enough. This was the best AI-based attack I'd ever seen: Louis in two stacks of Gunship/SAM/Artillery/Marine and Huyana in three stacks of the same, plus a wandering horde of gunships courtesy of Huyana. Even by suiciding my stocks of artillery units, I wasn't able to scare 'em off. And even though Cyrus/Mansa were friendly with me, they wouldn't help.

Remember how I said my aluminum was on that north continent? Well, that was taken out pretty quickly. Once the invasion landed on my southern continent, I was able to repel them with tanks and marines, but the damage had been done. I'd been reduced to two great and one OK production city, two of which had been redirected to military supply. I'd lost my aluminum, with the only other supplies in Cyrus/Mansa territory.

I tried, but ended up a life support system, two thrusters and a cockpit shy of a space race victory.

At the very least, this whole thing taught me how to quickly and effectively change from a cash/science economy to a good economy. I'd taken a coastal city set up with towns and farms (and two windmills) and within six turns (and a lot of workers) changed it to a mix of farms, workshops and mines that were giving 80some hammers per turn.

 

[Sisiutil]

Yeah, you have to be well ahead in military strength/power quite often to pull off a space race win, which is a little ironic (i.e. you could probably achieve a domination or a "back-door" diplomacy win if you wanted). I've also had the AI attack me when it felt I was getting closer to completing the space ship than it was.

 

[Bradlius]

Here's a Space Race victory strategy that works for me a lot on Noble. (I haven't tried it on higher levels, though). The strategy is: Don't let on that you're space-racing till the last possible moment. The AI civs sort of seem confused if they start a race and you don't join in. Maybe they think you might attack them or try for some other sort of victory, so they hold back, or maybe they just don't throw all their resources into it like they should. So here's what I do:

1) get many if not all of my cities up to modern production standards (factories, power, labs-- also the Three Gorges Dam is great if you have a single continent empire)
2) research all the space techs
3) then and only then do I build the Apollo Program
4) THEN kick out the SS parts, using EVERY city at your disposal, as FAST as possible. By that I mean, plan to finish them all at the SAME TIME, or at least within a few turns of one another. Assign the complicated pieces to your heavy-industrial cities and the lesser pieces to lesser cities. Depending on the number of cities you have, you may have to go two rounds with this, but my advice is to get the big pieces done by your big cities first. Leave the little pieces for clean-up at the end. Your opponents will be baffled when they see all those headlines about your space program, and by then it will be too late for them to kick into high gear.

Sometimes I build the Space Elevator concurrently with or just before the Apollo Program (if I'm lucky enough to have two cities that powerful). Also, I try to have a few Great Engineers around, either for the Dam, Elevator or Apollo itself. A Golden Age can also be quite helpful -- but I use mine to get all industrialized rather than during the Race itself. I don't know quite why I do that, but I do.
I have actually given the other civs quite a "head start" and still caught up with and passed them on my way to Space Race victory!
(Now if I could only figure out how to get a Cultural Victory