Interface Q: Relative Military Power

[Tennyson]

How do I find out the relative military power of another civ? The military advisor seems limited to units I've seen, but the AI knows my dispositions in detail.

What I would basically like to see is a numerical readout like the espionage ratio or the power rankings. Is there such a beast?

 

[axident]

How do I find out the relative military power of another civ? The military advisor seems limited to units I've seen, but the AI knows my dispositions in detail.

What I would basically like to see is a numerical readout like the espionage ratio or the power rankings. Is there such a beast?

With full espionage the Mil Advisor is best. Power Rating is okay but contaminated by other factors like wonders and such; nevertheless it's reasonable to use it as a proxy for military power.

 

[Alsn]

I dont know if this is a stupid question to your question but do you know about the statistics screen on F9 i believe where you can view a bunch of different graphs and "power" is one of them? I cant tell by your post if you already know about it but want something else or if thats what youre looking for.

In any case, you need some espionage for other civs to actually show up there, but as long as you build courthouses and a few other EP buildings(or spy specialists here and there) most civs will show up on that graph.

 

[Coast]

Espionage doesn't just open up the military power graph. A relatively obtainable amount of espionage points will allow you to see into an opponent's cities, like religion used to. Assign some slider to spying before a war, and/or change the weighting of your espionage points towards your target. Startlingly effective!

 

[axident]

Espionage doesn't just open up the military power graph. A relatively obtainable amount of espionage points will allow you to see into an opponent's cities, like religion used to. Assign some slider to spying before a war, and/or change the weighting of your espionage points towards your target. Startlingly effective!

I actually often turn my EP allotment off against someone I'm about to war with, because I know they are about to die utterly and I want my EP points to go against civs that will survive my next war. The time to do your spying is waaaaaaaay before warring with someone. Isn't there that Civ IV quote from Sun Tzu? About how victorious generals win before they go to war, rather than go to war and try to win?

 

[Coast]

I actually often turn my EP allotment off against someone I'm about to war with, because I know they are about to die utterly and I want my EP points to go against civs that will survive my next war. The time to do your spying is waaaaaaaay before warring with someone. Isn't there that Civ IV quote from Sun Tzu? About how victorious generals win before they go to war, rather than go to war and try to win?

Notice I did say 'before'


Either way, at least now the AI has a reasonable excuse for knowing the board in advance!

 

[Tennyson]

Espionage doesn't just open up the military power graph. A relatively obtainable amount of espionage points will allow you to see into an opponent's cities, like religion used to. Assign some slider to spying before a war, and/or change the weighting of your espionage points towards your target. Startlingly effective!

Yeah, the problem is I moved up a difficulty level, and for the first time they've outspent me on EPs so I don't have any direct visibility options. So I was hoping there was another screen where I could get a rough estimate even without having an espionage advantage. I'll see if the F9 screen has what I want.

 

[Tennyson]

F9 is a winner. The power graph seems linked to espionage results, so I don't have power information on each individual civ, but the demographics page has my rating versus the average and high/low civs. That's the kind of information I was hoping to find.

 

[WTBCzero]

Anyone else noticed that the graphs of things like power now only show civs that border you? This makes the game much harder, as you have no idea as to how large the armies of far away civs are.

Edit: Ah, must have skim read the thread- looks like you need to use espionage now.

 

[Tennyson]

Anyone else noticed that the graphs of things like power now only show civs that border you? This makes the game much harder, as you have no idea as to how large the armies of far away civs are.

Edit: Ah, must have skim read the thread- looks like you need to use espionage now.

Now that you say it, it could be a border issue. I was assuming it was espionage based.

 

[Alsn]

It's not border based, its espionage based, the thing with why it could seem to be border based is because those are the civs you generally meet first(and thus are the only civs you generate any EP towards at all the first ~50 or so turns usually).

 

[WTBCzero]

The reason why it only showed stats for my neighbours is because i like to focus my espionage on civs that pose the greatest threat to me (i.e ones that border me).

Do most of you focus your espionage points on certain civs or spread them out to everyone?

 

[Tennyson]

Once I have visibility into a neighboring civ I tend to rebalance them into overseas civs. Neighboring civs are normally the ones that sabotage me anyway, which lowers their points against me.