I have a question for the Emperors and Deities

[JT415]

I play on 'king' , mostly because I'm still exploring the intricacies of Civ5, and I have a question for all the players who play on the hardest settings. Basically, I don't war-monger I like to build my empire thru diplomacy and city-states and economy. However, there are times when war is inevitable. Usually its because another Civ declares war on me. When this happens I build some units and prepare to defend myself. Then the AI attacks me with warriors and spearmen, and I'm clearly capable of building knights, swordsmen, and trebuchets. The AI stands no chance. Does this happen on harder difficulties? I have read that the AI needs tweaking as far as war goes, but why would the AI declare war on me and have access to horses and even Iron and still send the weakest units against me. Then I capture 1 of their cities and they suddenly offer a truce.

 

[firecat318]

They still don't tech up fast on higher levels, but they will simply spam more units at you.

 

[milk steak]

The AI tends to keep at least tech parity or better from what I've experienced. A few wars had me with Swordsman vs. a neighbor with Longswordsman.

The problem is that the AI sometimes does some very compromising moves. For example, last night I had a Swordsman on a hill waiting for his Longswordsman to move out of a forest. Well, instead of that Longswordsman moving to another rough terrain area (to get defensive cover bonus), the AI moves into a marsh within striking range of my Chu-Ko-Nu and Swordsman...

Edit- And what firecat318 said. They tend to have a crapton of units.

 

[Trickster7135]

I play on 'king' , mostly because I'm still exploring the intricacies of Civ5, and I have a question for all the players who play on the hardest settings. Basically, I don't war-monger I like to build my empire thru diplomacy and city-states and economy. However, there are times when war is inevitable. Usually its because another Civ declares war on me. When this happens I build some units and prepare to defend myself. Then the AI attacks me with warriors and spearmen, and I'm clearly capable of building knights, swordsmen, and trebuchets. The AI stands no chance. Does this happen on harder difficulties? I have read that the AI needs tweaking as far as war goes, but why would the AI declare war on me and have access to horses and even Iron and still send the weakest units against me. Then I capture 1 of their cities and they suddenly offer a truce.

On higher difficulties the AI will out tech you unless you conquer a continent yourself, but their zerg-rush strategies leave them open to proper tactics. You will have to have a standing army to defend yourself with though, as the AI will have LOTS of units to throw at you.

Defensive wars are very easy in Civ5, even against higher tech units. Use mountains, lakes, an ocean to bottleneck the enemy so they can only attack with two or three units at a time. Have a large squadron of siege units (or archers/crossbows if its pre-renaissance) positioned around the bottleneck, and use ranged to kill every attacker coming through. A couple melee units in a fort to stop any incomers that arn't killed by the ranged will keep the enemy units stationary thanks to zone of control.

 

[biohazard72]

The big difference is that in running wars, you have to massacre an army through superior tactics before you can start taking their cities.

On both difficulties however your opponent won't be using the optimal units. Lots of spearmen even if they can build horsemen, for example...

 

[kossmikman]

The big difference is that in running wars, you have to massacre an army through superior tactics before you can start taking their cities.

Your tactics don't need to be THAT superior, just stick with conservative maneuvers.

They still don't tech up fast on higher levels, but they will simply spam more units at you.

they will simply spam more units at you.

spam more units

spam

THIS.

 

[LDiCesare]

On emperor I'm FAR ahead of the ai tech-wise. I'm pretty sure it'll be the same on Deity because tech research has very little to do with your beakers production and everything with your gold and research pacts. When you strike research pacts with 6 civs who maybe strike 1 pact among them all, you tech 2 or 3 times as fast as them.
this ends up with my having 5 or 6 units (I usually wait for musketeers or infantry) and slaughtering their spam of inferior pikemen.

 

[Guardian_PL]

On emperor I'm FAR ahead of the ai tech-wise. I'm pretty sure it'll be the same on Deity because tech research has very little to do with your beakers production and everything with your gold and research pacts. When you strike research pacts with 6 civs who maybe strike 1 pact among them all, you tech 2 or 3 times as fast as them.
this ends up with my having 5 or 6 units (I usually wait for musketeers or infantry) and slaughtering their spam of inferior pikemen.

Go on Deity then and land next to Alexander - then you'll see him having 15 cities and conquering two AI's before 500BC and being in Renaissance already. Deity is challenging, if only for the mad AI growth and its Blankets of Doom.

 

[LDiCesare]

I certainly hope Alexander will be more of a challenge on Deity than on emperor where he was a cakewalk.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

I certainly hope Alexander will be more of a challenge on Deity than on emperor where he was a cakewalk.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9688417&postcount=24

I don't know about challenge, but yeah it's a totally different game on deity.

 

[R3dKnight]

Ahahah. I can't wait. I'm in the midst of a Domination pangea game of Deity with Alexander and his Hoplites are already being obsolete so soon. It will be glorious!