Help on Sid Game

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

From the minimap, this doesn't look too bad - at least, there is not one KAI.
Actually, now comes the ugliest part of Sid - the AI has tons of Cavs, and your best defender is the Musket. While the AIs all have Rifles, if not Inf. Unless you're France, keep low profile. Get up an economy (research won't help), to have cash for steals and the occasional trade with the weaklings.
I wouldn't actively consider attacking one of the stronger Civs before you have Flak and Tanks.
Your best bet in this stage is smart diplomacy; things like vasal states and MAs against Civs close to get extinct to catch up in techs.
Then, you somehow need to get the English and Dutch beating the gulp out of each others; maybe found a couple of nonsense cities towards the Dutch borders, gift them to Lizzy, sign a MPP with her and declare on Dutch. Something tricky along that line; you can never actively fight one of the superpowers.

 

[Own]

Do you think I'll be able to get to tanks before the Spaceship is launched? What's a vasal state? Do you mean vassal state?

 

[DaveMcW]

I would set up dogpiles to kill off the weaker AIs. Every civ eliminated is one less to fund the tech leaders. And you can often get good tech deals from a dying civ.

Try to keep the English and Dutch strong, so you can play one off the other when they are the only civs left.

You will eventually need to declare war on one of the big guys, but let them fight someone else while you are building.

 

[Own]

Thx for the tips, all (keep posting them, though). I'm already nervous about playing this game.

Problems with dogpiling: I don't know Germany, Spain has conquistadors, and Russia is next to me. I guess I'll buy contact for Germany and build up a small defense force til Russia's dead.

 

[Pentium]

I can't trade gpt for techs. What should I do?

Go to a civ which terroitory map you already have and trade 1gpt for that map. After 20 turns, they might consider giving you techs for gpt.

Or, you could even research by yourself. With tons of Libs&Unis under constuction, you should use them. I don't like stealing, so with broken rep self-research is often a good option.

Also, build the FP.

 

[Own]

I think stealing is the best option. I'll steal from Portugal. England is between me and Portugal, and they aren't best buddies. It could easily get an MA and stay alive.

 

[Own]

So my current plan, pieced together from different tips so far is:
Eliminate Germany and Russia with MA with Dutch (Dutch are annoyed with me now so a MA with them would help). Go into a builder mode, save up money for steals against Portugal. When I get RP, I'll build up enough defense to last a while against England so they can be gassed by The Dutch and Portugese, which afterwords I can make an invasion of England. Will this work?

 

[Pentium]

Get the full WM. You still have some empty spaces there. I hope you have the Dutch TM, because if you have it, I'd rather attack the Dutch. Their territory looks split in two, and with a MA with the civ between its parts cutting their supply, you could get a large chunk of the top part.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I would set up dogpiles to kill off the weaker AIs. Every civ eliminated is one less to fund the tech leaders. And you can often get good tech deals from a dying civ.

There are two problems with that:
1) With a broken reputaion, he won't get any good deals from the dying Civ itself - but more important, his rep would be shoot in that case anyway. Of course, he can sign a MA coupled to a tech for gpt deal with a civ about to eliminate the weakling; maybe you meant that anyway.
2) As soon as he's the weakest Civ on this landmass, chances are high the AI will simply attack him. And, Russia is SCI, another reason to stay around (especially if they're not in the IA already). Looks like a prime candidate for a OCC vasall state to me.
Just be creative - declare on Cathy, sign in England or Dutch, and surround the last Russian city with units until the MAs run out; that should keep the AIs in wartime mode. Found a useless chunk town in the N tundra, and gift it to Russia the turn before you declare - and use this as last retreat.

It makes absolutely sense to eliminate the weaklings ASAP up to Deity, since that'll make the tech costs drop. But, on Sid that reason is non-existant; you'll have to steal or trick the AI for all techs anyway. Research is completely out here.

The Magnificient 7+1 is still the only public standard pangea Sid game I'm aware of, and this was all about AI manipulation.

 

[brennan]

You don't need artillery to beat Infantry. If your defences are good enough, declare on someone. Play defensive war and concentrate on using Treb stacks to redline attackers, then destroy. You want to get Elites, then Armies. Armies are the key. If you can get them.

Its either that or go for Diplo... ah but your rep is already shot...

(occasional Deity player, butting in like a smartass... )

 

[Pentium]

Its either that or go for Diplo... ah but your rep is already shot...

You can sign RoP's, so that could make them polite. You won't be able to build the UN, but if you steal it before the vote, you can win. I see it as your only chance to win. SS & Culture are out of option, and Dom/Conq would be very, very hard.

(occasional Deity player, butting in like a smartass... )

Not the only one

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

You don't need artillery to beat Infantry. If your defences are good enough, declare on someone. Play defensive war and concentrate on using Treb stacks to redline attackers, then destroy. You want to get Elites, then Armies. Armies are the key. If you can get them.

Its either that or go for Diplo... ah but your rep is already shot...

(occasional Deity player, butting in like a smartass... )

Actually, that REALLY won't work. Unless we're talking about a real weakling here. The difference between army strengths from Deity to Sid are insane. I'd guess England has like 200 spare Infantry/Guerilla, not counting the city defenders.
Trebs may suffice to attack an AI, especially an AI on another landmass - if you trick the spare defenders out of the city.
But you can not defend with Trebs. You'd need several hundered of them. You really need Aris for the range and RoF.
With Aris and Inf, you can start thinking about a war (except for Russia; but Russia will declare sooner or later anyway, because of that aggressive settlement).

Launch? They cannot build Apollo in mobilization. And, the late game is about resources anyway - we don't want the AI to have Uranium for several reasons.

 

[Drakan]

There are two problems with that:
1) With a broken reputaion, he won't get any good deals from the dying Civ itself - but more important, his rep would be shoot in that case anyway. Of course, he can sign a MA coupled to a tech for gpt deal with a civ about to eliminate the weakling; maybe you meant that anyway.

Doc I'm interested in this point. I posted a strat last year (ailing civ strat, my signature) regarding tech deals from a dying civ.

Are you implying that if you sign a trade tech for gpt and they get wiped out by someone your rep gets hit ? Then why has nobody corrected me on this point. The article has been posted there a long time now (CFC strat articles).

As far as I know I'm still able to make deals once they are wiped out. I thought my rep didn't get shot cause of it. Is this so ?

 

[Pentium]

Launch? They cannot build Apollo in mobilization.

Uh, I forgot that. The same applies to UN, so you might be able to dare to dream about building it.

 

[Own]

The Magnificent 7+1 inspired me to give this a real shot. Also, the Hall of Fame games were a part of the inspiration. The difference between this and 7+1 is that you guys captured the GL and got techs up to late industrial, I only got techs to education. This wil be tough, RP is farther away than I thought it was before. I'm 10 techs away. An average safe steal costs 2000 gold, so I'll need 20000 gold to get all those (but, of course some steals will fail).

About Victory Conditions-
The only VC I can shoot for is conquest or domination. Diplo is impossible, unless it's down to 3 civs, I captured it then signed MA with the voter vs. other candidate. But if I'm in position to capture it or be a candidate, I could, more easily go for conquest. Cultural is out of the picture. SS doesn't matter, cause if I could get the resources and produce SS parts faster than a Sid AI, I could just as easily kill them.

 

[brennan]

I wouldn't have suggested taking England on yet. More like picking on the Portuguese. The best way to do it would be to wait until they have been at war for a while elsewhere, to get rid of the scary SOD of Sidness. Then he has to deal only with the trickle units. Max output would be 1 unit per city per turn, he might have 20/turn to destroy, much more manageable with Trebs.

He needs to do something or its squishing time...

 

[Own]

The problem with Portugal is they are surrounded by England, so if I raze a city and try to replace it, England will get there first. If I capture a city, it will almost automatically flip.

 

[Gyathaar]

The Magnificent 7+1 inspired me to give this a real shot. Also, the Hall of Fame games were a part of the inspiration.

If you look at HoF games you will find that they are usually rigged in some way or another...
Usually you will find that they are playing with the minimum allowed number of civs (except possibly when going for space or diplomacy)
This means usually only 4 AI opponents on a standard map (6 on large and 8 on huge)
This allows the human player more room for the initial expansion, which is usually made easier by having AI agression at the lowest. And the human can sometimes keep up with AI city count on pangea even with just 1 settler factory (by building cities closer than the AIs will)

Thou.. you may also find that in some sid games all the AIs are scientific and goodie huts are in just to make the tech pace even faster..

A fast win in HoF can be achieved if you manage to create one tech leading AI to do 4 turn research for you.. you then buy the techs for gpt from the tech leading AI to fuel his research even more..
The rest of the AIs you want to be behind you so you can sell them your newly gotten techs to them cheaper than the researching AI is willing to sell them....
Once you get to the where you have cavs and rails, you can blitz all the weak AIs with cavs and cav armies while they are still defending with pikes, muskets and perhaps rifles (and sometimes just spears if they lack iron).

Ofcourse this dont work too well once your rep is ruined and you are already behind in techs

 

[Own]

Well, Isabella doesn't have banking, so I am going to steal that first, then trade it for astronomy. But the more and more I look at the situation, the more and more impossible it seems. I have to get to RP before the AI launches their spaceship or wins diplo and then destroy their infantry (and possibly mech infantry) with artillery and infantry/calvalry (or even guerillas if I don't have resources for these).

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Doc I'm interested in this point. I posted a strat last year (ailing civ strat, my signature) regarding tech deals from a dying civ.

Are you implying that if you sign a trade tech for gpt and they get wiped out by someone your rep gets hit ? Then why has nobody corrected me on this point. The article has been posted there a long time now (CFC strat articles).

As far as I know I'm still able to make deals once they are wiped out. I thought my rep didn't get shot cause of it. Is this so ?

Good point. Very good point; one should always demand evidence if someone makes such a claim .

Fact is, I knew I shot my rep in such a deal. So, I made a short test scenario (pm me if needed, but it ain't fancy at all):

You can make a pure gpt deal without any risk for your reputation.
However, if you include resources, your reputation gets killed if the recieving Civ dies within 20 turns.

And exactly that was the problem in 7+1; we had made peace with Babylon, and sold them Horses in the same turn...