How do I achieve what is mentioned in the strat articles?

[tibbles]

I've been skimming the strategy forums for a bit here and I'm a bit confused by 2 issues: Tech speed and Diplomacy.

Bit of background on my playing first:
When I play I almost always match or outtech the AI on Noble or Prince, so I'm not totally incompetent. But when I win the space race it's always like the year 1950.

Also, while I win these wars, I always have the issue of 2-4 civ declaring war on me late game. 1 neighbor declares and inevitably within a couple turns several more AIs declare on me. I'm not sure if they see me as weak or too great a threat. I can never get the AI civs to fight each other.

Tech speed question:
I read the strategy article forums and people have gunpowder units by like 500ad or win a space race in the middle ages. How is this achieved?

-Am I spending too long on unnecessary techs? I shoot for the ones I want most first, but do waste a few turns going back to get the lesser stuff later when its cheap. I know I could save a good 20 or so turns here if I really wanted, but that's still not 1000 years of time.
-Is it game settings? I mostly play on Huge maps with 8-12 civs with standard game speed.
-Could my economy be seriously improved? I try to cottage spam as much as possible and run an average of 80%-90% tech depending on income.

Diplomacy question:
I read about getting AI civs to trade techs with you and to war with each other. Everything is always red to me, even civs that are friendly or pleased with me will never agree to be bribed into to war. What am I missing?

And why do the AIs declare war on me every game when I hit modern era?
I keep my military quantity fairly low, say 1-2 defenders per city and 1 stacks worth on call. But my military units are always even or more advanced than the AIs, so that's how I still beat it in wars. Does the AI just look at quantity and decide I'm weak? Is it thinking it needs to attack me cause I'm too far ahead in points/tech? Something else?

 

[godotnut]

I don't have time for a comprehensive answer to your questions, but one thing you may want to try to improve your tech speed is to focus more on researching only techs that you can trade with the AI. Don't research techs that the AI already has--instead research techs they don't prioritize and back trade to fill in the tech you need later with trades.

Also, beeline for alphabet much faster and trade for early techs that aren't absolutely essential. Then go for education quickly after that.

Always plan on building the Oracle and the Great Library in a tech-oriented game. And always ensure that you are first to Liberalism.

When you are far ahead in techs, trade for cash if they won't trade techs so that you can run your science bar at 100%.

In short, expand expand expand. Cottage, cottage, cottage. Trade, trade, trade. And don't waste time on wonders that don't help your tech rate. Only build wonders that directly advance your tech rate, esp GL and Oracle.

 

[tibbles]

I do sometimes miss the Oracle, but I'm pretty good at getting the Great Library and Liberalism first. That's a good idea to get techs the AI isn't and then swapping. I think I'm making the mistake of teching about the same path as the AI, just a few techs ahead.

I guess my old concern was if I'm purposely skipping certain techs to trade for later, what do I do if the AI won't trade (see my current issue with diplomacy)? Then I'm stuck being behind them if I want the same wonder or tech path myself.

Also, can someone link a list/post with what paths the AI usually takes? I've seen posts that reference their preferenced order, but I don't recall one that actually listed it...

 

[Sisiutil]

Welcome to CFC!

You haven't discussed your strategy regarding religion, which is, frankly, the key to diplomacy for most of the game. Civs that have a different faith than you will be inclined to dislike you, some more than others (Isabella of Spain being the primary example of this). Some other civs will take several turns to warm up to you, if ever. Also remember that the civs will dislike one another, and you can get diplomatic penalties for "trading with our worst enemy".

On the other hand, years of peace, open borders, and trade (of techs and/or resources) can all improve relations with an AI, as can acceding to requests/demands for help/tribute. The two biggies to improving relations, though, are first, a shared religion, and second, a "mutual military struggle"--fighting a common enemy. Even isolationist Tokugawa of Japan will become your bosom buddy thanks to these two factors.

Furthermore, the AIs respect power. Check the power graph frequently to see how you rate compared to your rivals. The power rating is based on a number of things, but mostly "number of soldiers"--which is a combination of the number of units you have and how modern they are (modern units contain more soldiers, you see). Other things such as military techs and the number of military buildings like barracks, drydocks, and stables you have also figure into it. Promotions, however, have no impact on the power rating, strangely.

The AI also seems to look for weak points--border/coastal cities that are poorly defended. So keep those cities stocked with many recent units, and leave old units in your central, land-locked cities. The AI also has a predilection for "low-hanging fruit". It will almost inevitably invade your closest territory to its own--so you can focus your forces at those points.

You should look into the strategy of triangle diplomacy, where you carefully select two friends and disregard everybody else.

 

[DaveMcW]

1. Build cottages on half of your tiles.
2. Conquer a neighbor.
3. Build cottages on half of their tiles.

And be sure to build enough workers to achieve 1 & 3 before 1950.

 

[Welnic]

The size of the map does affect the tech rate. It takes more beakers to do tech the larger the map is. But that is balanced by more room for more cities. If you really want to finish faster, play on a smaller map, then take over another civs cities so that you have the same amount that you have now on the huge map.

Space race games on higher difficulties will finish earlier. You have to do it earlier or the AI will beat you to it. As you have found, you can keep ahead of the AI technically in prince just by using cottages fully. But since you are ahead of the AI they are not helping you tech any faster. If you were doing the same techwise on higher levels then the AI would be ahead of you because of their bonuses. Since you would be scrambling to catch up you would have to research techs that they don't and trade them for the ones they have. So you would be doing the same amount of research plus trading for their techs. Voila, earlier space ship.

 

[Rashkaar]

The size of the map does affect the tech rate. It takes more beakers to do tech the larger the map is. But that is balanced by more room for more cities. If you really want to finish faster, play on a smaller map, then take over another civs cities so that you have the same amount that you have now on the huge map.

Huh?

I was unaware of this.

Is this true, and how exactly does it work?

 

[Welnic]

I looked in the xml file that deals with this, I think. It is Civilization IV:Assets:XML:GameInfo:CIV4WorldInfo.xml. This file has the six world sizes listed and the settings for each. For example the default number of players goes from 2 on Duel to 11 for Huge. Other things such as the distance maintenance cost and war weariness all change with the map size. War weariness gets smaller as the map gets larger since wars naturally take longer.

ResearchPercent goes from 100 in Duel to 150 in Huge in increments of 10.

 

[tibbles]

Thanks for the advice so far and that's interesting about the tech costs.

Where can I look up what path the AI likes to research first so I know what techs I can trade for and what to research to offer?


And I'm still struggling with this diplomacy thing. My newest game I'm sharing a smallish continent with only 1 other civ (Shaka), so I decided I wanted to be friendly with him until the landmass was full. Then of course I planned to crush him
Now, I'm the same faith as Shaka, at Pleased, several trade relations, and only a -1 from borders sparking tensions cause the idiot built a city right outside one of my major cities, but for the most part theres a good 5-6 tiles seperating our borders (dang desert ). Not only that, but I also have knights to his horse archers and there is still room for 4 more decent cities on our landmass to our north. And yet I cannot bribe him into attacking some other civ and instead he declares war on me. Even for a warlike civ, this seems odd.

 

[Sisiutil]

Many of the Civs are notoriously unreliable as friends--when "Pleased" or even "Friendly", many will nevertheless attack you out of the blue--even if you're more powerful than they are! Montezuma is notorious for this, and it sounds like Shaka is cut from the same cloth. I've also found Napoleon, Tokugawa, both Mongol leaders, and Qin to be unpredictable in this way.

Look on it as an opportunity--you were planning on crushing him anyway. Change civics if necessary, whip some units, and kill him. At least you won't get a "You declared war on our friend" demerit if someone out there likes him.

 

[Rashkaar]

The size of the map does affect the tech rate. It takes more beakers to do tech the larger the map is. But that is balanced by more room for more cities. If you really want to finish faster, play on a smaller map, then take over another civs cities so that you have the same amount that you have now on the huge map.

Or on the huge map take over 30 cities, vassalise your enemies and win backdoor domination by 1600 from extorting money and tech to beeline the UN