HELP - The Mongol is No.1, has built UN, loads of gold n is researching espionage...

[DaveSuper]

And I am No.2, lead in tech but is plain BROKE

Time is 1930s, Deity level, large map w raging hords, 6 civs.

Save file is attached - I am playing Commie which is my usual end-game govt. No.1 (Mongols) and No.3 (Zulu) are both funddies. I spent too much time dealing with the Romans who was right next door to me. I did engage Zulu n they are now wasting at least a quarter of their resources attacking two cities which are well-defended. But by the time I found the Mongols, they already have UN and a big lead in population, production and land area. After taking two of their cities, I was forced into a cease fire.

What troubles me is that they are now researching espionage and given how low it is on AI's research priority, I assume the Mongols plan to bribe my units and cities. I hate to switch to Democracy because while in Demo, my units and cities could not be bribed, it would make maintaining a war with Mongols even more difficult. If I switch to Funddie, I may lose my lead on tech.

I have looked at the tips on this forum (btw - GREAT source of info on anything Civ ) My obvious problem is I need money for fast-building units n making it difficult for having my cities defected due to bribes. But is there a way to stay in Commie; if not, should I go with Demo or Fundie?

Any advice or comment would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Dave

 

[mackerel]

I can't load your save, probably because you're playing MGE instead of 2.42 (which is fine, just means diplomacy is useless), so I can only give general advice and guesses.

Being broke means you've most likely been neglecting Trade. Caravans and Freight give cash and science based on the number of trade arrows being produced in the source and destination cities, the distance between them, and a few other significant factors. In addition, each city can have up to 3 trade routes which produce additional tax/science/luxuries each turn. These forums are full of tips and details on abusing Trade.

In any sort of Civ warfare, you'll want to expend few resources while causing the enemy to waste many. If you want to do conventional warfare, howitzers on railroads come highly recommended as attack forces, and mech.inf (1 per city, at most, behind walls) as defense. That said, the most remarkable turnaround I've seen in a modern war scenario was almost entirely due to the work of spies.

If you're staying in Communism and playing MGE, your reputation basically only matters as much as you want it to. Your citizens won't care if you break a cease fire, and the opponents should already hate you.

Communism also lets you produce veteran spies. That's great for both causing and preventing bribery. Stacked units can't be bribed, also.

Fundy is a great government for war. You can somewhat overcome the science penalty by delivering freight; you can get one tech per turn with 0% science rate by filling the beaker box with caravans, and having one scientist in one city. In contrast, Democracy can achieve 3 techs per turn in the mid to late game. Any of those choices can work very well.

Basically, concentrate on fixing the money problem. The rest is much easier when you can throw cash at it.

 

[DaveSuper]

Thank YOU, mackerel, for the quick reply! Sorry yes I am playing MGE...didnt know there was a difference until I read about it on this forum last night - I did notice the AIs are more aggreesive and gang up on me early in MGE games.

Yes, I have not been good in setting up 3 trade routes for each city. A few of my largest cities have them but not all. With corruption in earier game, trade route in smaller city generated 1 or 0(!) gold so I have ignored it. I guess they do add up n w/ no corruption, I should get more out of it now.

Aye on the two big adv for commie - reputation doesnt matter n vet spies That is why I dont wanna switch to Demo or Fundie. I will see if trade routes alone could solve my $$$ prob! Thanks!


Dave

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I've looked at your game, and I have some remarks:

Trade:
There are two aspects to using caravans and freight. The first is the delivery bonus, and the second is the ongoing trade bonus. Focus on the delivery bonus; it gives you gold (and science) up front, usually in sufficient quantities to dwarf the benefits of the ongoing trade route bonus.

Things that impact the delivery bonus:

The bonus increases with the combined trade arrows of both cities.
The bonus increases with the distance between the participating cities.
Bonus doubled if the delivery is to a foreign city.
Bonus doubled if the cities are on different islands (or "continents").
The bonus is increased (x2 to x4, depending on the commodity) if the city demands the commodity delivered.

+50% if one city has superhighways, +100% if they both do.
+100% if both cities have airports and are on separate islands.

You want to deliver to foreign cities as far away as you can get to, on separate islands from your source city. Preferably to a city in republic or democracy, because the city will probably be producing more trade arrows.

From what I can tell, you have mostly been delivering caravans and freight to nearby domestic cities, resulting in small payouts.

Beyond trade, I think you are putting too many resources into city improvements. The biggest offenders are those expensive Colosseums. If you want to stay communist, use riflemen, and if necessary convert your citizens to specialists if the city starts getting too large.

The other big offenders are universities. Canton, for example, is producing a university that will give 9 extra beakers per turn. It will have a maintenance cost of 3 gold per turn, you will net 6 beakers/gold per turn. When complete, it could be sold for 160 gold, so it will take you 27 turns to break even; more if you consider that the shields could have been put to a unit you might now have to rushbuild.

I would suggest that you either entertain a switch to democracy, which might give you more from your city improvements, or you go through your cities and ask yourself if you really need those improvements, or if some extra gold would serve you better.

 

[DaveSuper]

Thanks, Prof.!!! More trade routes and demo it is.....

Its kinda easy to decide - in the following round after the save, Zulu hitted me w their spies before even Mongols Whole front line on their continent was lost; along w a bunch of techs

Even fundie would not save me...now I need to read up on the 1-turn govt change n see if I can switch to demo soon eough....


Dave


PS: The colos are from my original idea of building some mega cities but u are right - 12x seem a lil too many. The Univs are from a poor attempt of building some "science" cities...but I did not do a very good job in setting up the trade routes like you have noted. Thanks again!

 

[mackerel]

Bribe those cities right back from the Zulus. They'll be cheap since they were yours already, and you'll get the Zulu army thrown in.

When switching to Demo, beware the shield cost for unit support, and unhappiness for having armies outside your cities.

 

[DaveSuper]

Bribe those cities right back from the Zulus. They'll be cheap since they were yours already, and you'll get the Zulu army thrown in.

When switching to Demo, beware the shield cost for unit support, and unhappiness for having armies outside your cities.

I cant I am THAT broke I cant even switch to Demo in time - according to the table, 1933 should be an Oedo year but I started the Revolution in 1932 and still stuck in anarchy in 1934?! I am in real trouble now


Edit: Nevermind - I am stupid...read the wrong column in the Oedo table...should be 1931...now I have to find an old save...

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I don't know what table you read, but the one here give the years as 1931 and 1935 for deity level.

Managing a democracy does take some getting used to. You have to pay a lot of attention to your cities and especially pay attention to how you deploy your troops. When you move a unit out of a city, it is good practice to check the home city to make sure you haven't tipped the scales to disorder.

Use your attitude adviser to check if any of your cities are set to fall into disorder, and, if so, correct the situation (rush a structure, hire an entertainer, or for widespread problems increase the luxury rate). Activate the option to notify for cities in disorder; a city in disorder for 2 turns will cause your government to collapse, which is not fun (and I think lasts twice as long as normal).

Save your game in 1935; you can switch between governments instantly on the turn you finish a revolution, so if you have big troubles managing the democracy, you can try fundamentalism instead.

 

[Giftless]

It's an interesting colonial situation you have there; it reminds me of a game I'm just finishing up where I was facing a three front war while staying in communism. Not sure if you have enough time to turn things around, but here's what I would recommend:

Concern #1. The population of your cities is too low--this is problem for a couple of reasons from a monetary standpoint A) The established trade routes don't start getting good until your city size hits 18-21. Look at Rome for instance and you can see the number of ocean squares which aren't being worked, if they were--the value of your +2 Antium Gems route would increase. B) Smaller cities have a harder time supporting taxmen; though if you get up to size 28 say with a Stock Exchange each taxman will yield you 7-8 gold each.

Solution: Without Democracy and We Love the President Day, basically what I did in my game was use settlers to set up "food colonies" all around my empire. These are little size one cities where you'll be disbanding Riflemen to then Rush Buy food caravans; if you get this process running smoothly you can make each of your largest cities grow by 1 pop per turn for a cost of about 75-85 gold each.

Something else you might want to consider in Communism is going without Science for a time, in combination with the large cities you can set your Taxes & Luxury to 60/40% (or 70/30% later on) to invoke celebrations. What this gives you is the extra trade arrow per square, without having the corruption of a Republic or the unhappiness of a Democracy. These arrows will also give a nice boost to your trade routes, and moreover you can use Superhighways with celebrating cities for even more trade.

For trade routes themselves, I'd focus on getting a few of your cities larger first, and then running any of these goods between them (according to demand of course):

silver, cloth, wine, coal = 50% bonus
silk, spice, gems, gold = 100% bonus
oil = 150% bonus
uranium = 200% bonus

From what I'm seeing your internal trade route potential isn't the greatest; you may want to send Gold from Shanghai to Rome though. Not only would it be a decent route but it could shuffle up the goods which are available. If 99% of your Civ is supplying Salt and Oil I'd personally ship around the oddball resources first.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@OP: Do you have Espionage? If not, you need it. Find a civ that has it, and use a Diplomat to steal it.

Keeping a Spy in each of your cities will lessen your chances of that city being bribed, sabotaged, or other nasty stuff.

 

[DaveSuper]

Thank you ALL for your great suggestion!! Got some updates over the weekend - found an old save n converted to Demo in 1931. So my cities are now safe from being bribed n I have enough spies to protect against tech thieft. Atached is the save that I will work on now.

I plan to follow the great advices about trade routes (I have no idea the instant payoff could be over 200 golds AND the same in SCIENCE ) It will take time to get those set-up though. With demo, major wars on 2 fronts are out - I will probably trade w/ Monguls n HOPE that I can beat Zulus and gain enough land n pop to catch up. If that is not enough, then I will boost Lux to get celebration in my large cities in the finishing turns.

Is there a way to see how far I am behind Mongols? Even in cheat mode, the powergraph is max'd out already so I cant tell.

It's an interesting colonial situation you have there; it reminds me of a game I'm just finishing up where I was facing a three front war while staying in communism.....

Giftless - I am VERY curious to hear about ur game! Did u stay in commie n won ur game? In my case, I cant stay in commie cuz' of the upcoming spy threats from AIs when they get Espionage - I have seen how the Zulus would wipe my entire frontline in the one turn after they got Espionage and I suspect I would lose my tech lead over the Mongols when they had Espionage themselves.

So at this point I have decided to switch to Demo and live w the Mongols as my trading partner But I am curious to see if you are able to stay commie n beat the AIs in ur game.

@OP: Do you have Espionage? If not, you need it. Find a civ that has it, and use a Diplomat to steal it.

Keeping a Spy in each of your cities will lessen your chances of that city being bribed, sabotaged, or other nasty stuff.

I have Espionage n had all vet spies as commie. My problem was that Mongols and Zulus were researching Espionage n I was too poor to prevent my cities from being bribed.

 

[mackerel]

I think you made the right choice. History is often rewritten by the victor. Your Zulu doomsday scenario must have scared the comrades terribly, to cause your sudden election.

A word of celebration advice. In Democracy, every city size 3 and up can grow one population per turn. Don't just celebrate your largest cities, aim for 80% at a time if you can't celebrate them all. Remember to have no unhappy citizens, more happy than not, and at least one extra food in each city. Roads on grassland work nicely, water is great if you have harbors or whales, and trade routes make celebration easy. Growing from size 3 to 8 takes 6 turns and shouldn't require any special buildings. If you can, rush aqueducts and take 4 more turns to reach size 12. You'll be amazed at the payouts as well as how much production your cities will crank out.

If you have Bach's Cathedral, you'll be able to field one assault unit per city without happiness issues. Otherwise, try to avoid war during the celebration.

 

[DaveSuper]

I think you made the right choice. History is often rewritten by the victor. Your Zulu doomsday scenario must have scared the comrades terribly, to cause your sudden election.

A word of celebration advice. In Democracy, every city size 3 and up can grow one population per turn. Don't just celebrate your largest cities, aim for 80% at a time if you can't celebrate them all. Remember to have no unhappy citizens, more happy than not, and at least one extra food in each city. Roads on grassland work nicely, water is great if you have harbors or whales, and trade routes make celebration easy. Growing from size 3 to 8 takes 6 turns and shouldn't require any special buildings. If you can, rush aqueducts and take 4 more turns to reach size 12. You'll be amazed at the payouts as well as how much production your cities will crank out.

If you have Bach's Cathedral, you'll be able to field one assault unit per city without happiness issues. Otherwise, try to avoid war during the celebration.

Hahahaa, it is a strange case of Civ2 "what-if" scenario mimicing real-life: the Chinese Communist Govt, concerned with increasing domestic uprisings under foreign influence (from an unnamed coutry), has decided to opt for political reform and convert to Democracy...

Thanks to the tip on celebration! Demo is more tricky and will take some getting used to. It doesnt help that I havent got some wonders which would be nice to have for demo, e.g. Women Suffrage, SOL, UN or even the JS Bach. Only nice thing is the Senate is most likely to go along with this war against Zulu since it has been going on for some time now. I have given up on war against the Mongols

 

[Giftless]

Giftless - I am VERY curious to hear about ur game! Did u stay in commie n won ur game? In my case, I cant stay in commie cuz' of the upcoming spy threats from AIs when they get Espionage - I have seen how the Zulus would wipe my entire frontline in the one turn after they got Espionage and I suspect I would lose my tech lead over the Mongols when they had Espionage themselves.

So at this point I have decided to switch to Demo and live w the Mongols as my trading partner But I am curious to see if you are able to stay commie n beat the AIs in ur game.

I did, I'll send it to you by private message. Actually I'd like to give your game a try and see if I can turn it around under communism.

 

[Giftless]

Here's my game, I couldn't find the button in pm.

 

[DaveSuper]

Here's my game, I couldn't find the button in pm.

NICE, thanks, Giftless!! I can see those very well-built cities of yours; looks like you were ahead early and became supreme even before the Industrial Age. My city build sequence sucks...actually I dont have any particular sequence n have to learn or re-learn how to do it right. Were you in Monarchy or Republic before switching to Commie? Nevertheless nicely done!!!

Not sure how far you can stay in Commie in my case - Zulu will finish researching espionage in a turn n then will start bribing the two frontline cities away. There were some spies parked in those cities n they promptly bribed the rest of the cities in the continent. I couldnt think of a way to turn that around; not w the little golds I had

In any case, please DO let me know how it goes if you decide to take it on


Dave

 

[Giftless]

NICE, thanks, Giftless!! I can see those very well-built cities of yours; looks like you were ahead early and became supreme even before the Industrial Age. My city build sequence sucks...actually I dont have any particular sequence n have to learn or re-learn how to do it right. Were you in Monarchy or Republic before switching to Commie? Nevertheless nicely done!!!

Not sure how far you can stay in Commie in my case - Zulu will finish researching espionage in a turn n then will start bribing the two frontline cities away. There were some spies parked in those cities n they promptly bribed the rest of the cities in the continent. I couldnt think of a way to turn that around; not w the little golds I had

In any case, please DO let me know how it goes if you decide to take it on


Dave

I think government sequence went something like Monarchy -> Republic + Great Wall (cease fires were very useful for early expansion) -> then Commie through the Statue of Liberty.

I got to admit to a small amount of early game fudging as well; I used another save to scout around maybe a 15-hex radius for prime city locations. Another thing is you have to be very careful about how you proceed down the tech tree, sometimes I'll try to avoid technologies from early goodie hut popping so I won't lose turns going down a bad tech path.

Your Zulu situation is very tricky for sure. I might have lucked out knocking off a spy or two in a unit stack, and another thing that may have helped was using your engineers to partially wall off Pharsalos. So far only Paoting was lost to spies and I managed to bribe it back with the help of a drastic shift in your economy.

Still, your overall military situation is so ballsy and crazy that I'm inclined to sell the improvements in those two cities, cut the railroad ties (down to roads at least) and fall back to more defensible positions. I think that front could even be slowly lost--if it meant jump-starting your core infrastructure and coming back with bombers.

Speaking of changes to your infrastructure... I sold all your Universities and Colosseums, shifted the tax sliders to 80% cash / 20% luxuries, and have embarked on a massive rush buy program of banks, oil platforms, and food caravans. Basically the idea is to snowball your cash, production, and population growth--at this stage in the game the science can always be brought back later.

P.S. Also all of our spies in Paoting had to be disbanded (after use) as a defensive measure; nothing spells fun like purging your own troops to save the motherland

 

[DaveSuper]

I think government sequence went something like Monarchy -> Republic + Great Wall (cease fires were very useful for early expansion) -> then Commie through the Statue of Liberty.

I got to admit to a small amount of early game fudging as well; I used another save to scout around maybe a 15-hex radius for prime city locations. Another thing is you have to be very careful about how you proceed down the tech tree, sometimes I'll try to avoid technologies from early goodie hut popping so I won't lose turns going down a bad tech path.

Your Zulu situation is very tricky for sure. I might have lucked out knocking off a spy or two in a unit stack, and another thing that may have helped was using your engineers to partially wall off Pharsalos. So far only Paoting was lost to spies and I managed to bribe it back with the help of a drastic shift in your economy.

Still, your overall military situation is so ballsy and crazy that I'm inclined to sell the improvements in those two cities, cut the railroad ties (down to roads at least) and fall back to more defensible positions. I think that front could even be slowly lost--if it meant jump-starting your core infrastructure and coming back with bombers.

Speaking of changes to your infrastructure... I sold all your Universities and Colosseums, shifted the tax sliders to 80% cash / 20% luxuries, and have embarked on a massive rush buy program of banks, oil platforms, and food caravans. Basically the idea is to snowball your cash, production, and population growth--at this stage in the game the science can always be brought back later.

P.S. Also all of our spies in Paoting had to be disbanded (after use) as a defensive measure; nothing spells fun like purging your own troops to save the motherland

Sorry for the mess - it is typical when I play at Deity to fall behind early. In this case, the starting island was relatively small, had an early war w/ Rome, n not switching from Monarchy to Commie till late (AI snatched the SOL). Wasted lots of time n resources as Monarchy but I dont know how to rule as a Republic

GREAT job in holding Paoting and Pharsalos!!! Wish I had thought of disbanding the spies pre-emptively...but I love those sexy lil ladies too much. But as u said, it was for the "Greater Good" of the motherland!

If (and that is a big IF) you can hold onto those two cities, Zulu will have to give up on the war soon (more on that later.) They are wasting so much resources every turn. We have fighters and bomber is next on the tech tree (may take a while since you drop science to zero.)


An update from my current game as Demo, there have only been a few spies from AIs. It has been fun watching them scratching their heads outside my cities, wondering why their bribes are not working I waited till I got Advanced Flight then switched to 70 Tax 30 Lux; netting 500 gold plus freight deliveries per turn. Big cities are celebrating n I just took the Zulu city w/ bombers east of Pharsalos - looted 300 gold from their fat coffer! Zulus offered cease fire n my Sensate took it over my objection

I plan to make a few more freight deliveries, build up some gold n a fleet of bombers in the next few turns. Then it is all-out war against Zulu as either Commie or Fundie. Need to hurry as the Mongol is taking down the Egyptian empire...


Dave

 

[mackerel]

Great work with the turnaround. To maintain the war in democracy, park a cheap unit or caravan near a Zulu city. They'll take the bait in a turn or two, then it's back to the slaughter.

Your senate takes action after you capture a city, when you have a unit next to an enemy unit. If you kill everything in 2 cities before capturing the first (and no partisans spawn), you can move right into the second city.

After you take down their capital, have your spies check out bribery prices. Everything's half off when they have no palace, and half again if they're in disorder.

Republic takes a little getting used to. Sending troops out makes their home city unhappy, every troop costs a shield per turn, and settlers cost more to maintain. You can adapt to this situation by limiting your offensive force to one unit from each city (more from the city with Shakespeare, if you like), and, at least in the early game, avoid war by appeasing the enemy with tech advances. Organized celebrations mean you'll turn a modest empire into a huge one very quickly.

 

[Giftless]

Sorry for the mess - it is typical when I play at Deity to fall behind early. In this case, the starting island was relatively small, had an early war w/ Rome, n not switching from Monarchy to Commie till late (AI snatched the SOL). Wasted lots of time n resources as Monarchy but I dont know how to rule as a Republic

GREAT job in holding Paoting and Pharsalos!!! Wish I had thought of disbanding the spies pre-emptively...but I love those sexy lil ladies too much. But as u said, it was for the "Greater Good" of the motherland!

If (and that is a big IF) you can hold onto those two cities, Zulu will have to give up on the war soon (more on that later.) They are wasting so much resources every turn. We have fighters and bomber is next on the tech tree (may take a while since you drop science to zero.)


An update from my current game as Demo, there have only been a few spies from AIs. It has been fun watching them scratching their heads outside my cities, wondering why their bribes are not working I waited till I got Advanced Flight then switched to 70 Tax 30 Lux; netting 500 gold plus freight deliveries per turn. Big cities are celebrating n I just took the Zulu city w/ bombers east of Pharsalos - looted 300 gold from their fat coffer! Zulus offered cease fire n my Sensate took over my objection

I plan to make a few more freight deliveries, build up some gold n a fleet of bombers in the next few turns. Then it is all-out war as either Commie or Fundie. Need to hurry as the Mongol is taking down the Egyptian empire...


Dave

It sounds like you're doing really well, if you can handle the Senate and Unhappiness issues you should be able to grow and build a cash reserve even faster than what the super communism effect would allow.