Is a comeback possible?

[Evi]

It's 1822 on a Pangaea map. I'm in the middle of the map. To the right is my ally the entire game (+16 happiness). To my left are another four civs, all fairly weak by themselves, but they're all allied and together they cover a good 2/3 of the map with average military force. I'm at war with most of them, but that's not too big of a problem. The problem is that the war has been going on for a long time, during which my ally to the right has taken quite a lead over me in score (My 1677 to his 1936) due to me taking to bulk of the attacks and acting as a buffer between him and the enemies. Only one of my cities is big enough to possibly hit 50k, and I'm still around Steel on the tech tree, so I don't think Space Victory will be possible within the time limit. I just captured an enemy city near my borders, but quickly lost it to a large enemy force heading towards my capital. I have enough units to defend, but I don't think it's worth it. The game doesn't seem to show any signs of tipping in my favor and there's definitely not enough time to conquer the left side of the map, and my ally is growing steadily. I can't go to war with him, because I'd get crushed by his army, especially with the enemies coming from behind as well.

Is there any hope for this game, or is it too far gone? If the latter, what could I have done earlier to prevent this situation from happening?

 

[JujuLautre]

Not enough information to say anything, except that it looks pretty bad. At least provide a save

 

[Refar]

Unless your economy it in very terrible shape, i do not see nothing making a win impossible. Beeing 250 point behind in the score does not say nothing. (Score is only very rough indication). The time from 1822 (its what ? ~150 turns left on Normal ?) is definitely enought to win by any chosen way. You have to build up troops anyway, so military might make the most sense. Corp-powered culture and space should be viable as well.

What difficultie are you playing on ? I suppose not to high, as you worry about running out of time, rather than a AI winning.

Post a save - you can attach it to the post via "Go Advanced->Manage Attachments" buttons below the text-editing field - then we can tell you more.

 

[Jabba]

during which my ally to the right has taken quite a lead over me in score (My 1677 to his 1936)

I would regard that as an infinitisimal lead at this stage of the game. You still have plenty of time to catch up.

In my current emperor game (around 1340 AD), the top civ has a score of around 2800(!), while I'm on about 1500. Now THAT's what I call a lead!

I'm still playing on though. Actually I'm quite pleased with the way things are going! My civ was at the bottom of the league for most of the game, but now I'm rising rapidly...

 

[Evi]

Okay, well if there's still hope, how should I go about this? I've attached a save so you can laugh at my poor civ skills as well.

 

[Llacheu]

A comeback in score is definitively possible if you can manage to vassalize some of the other civs. Your score will then make a jump

 

[Evi]

India is already vassaled to my ally

 

[Evi]

Any more advice before I start it up again?

 

[Refar]

Would love to, unfortunately i cant load the save (seems my warlords somehow got messed up, after installing bts )

 

[Evi]

Well I give up @ 1846 AD. Non-military victories are pretty much impossible for me at this point, because I wasn't planning for them, and now I need my few towns to go solely towards putting out military units for defense, so I can't dedicate any work towards them. The only way I could win is by wiping out the enemies to the left, and I simply can't take out all four of them at once. I'm at a standstill already vs two of them because they just put out so many units I can't kill them fast enough, and even if I could, I'd have to declare war on the other two to get to their cities, and then I'd probably get crushed because Ragnar (my ally) is lazy and refuses to ever send troops.

I'm sure a better player could work this out somehow, but I just can't comprehend how a victory here is possible. I'll take my chances on a new game and maybe get a better start.

 

[Anemia]

For what it's worth, I played your save through to a late Conquest victory with everyone as a vassal including your "ally" Ragnar. If you begin by switching all builds over to Calvary, you should be able to quickly amass enough of an army to fend off the obsolete units your current enemies are throwing at you, then sue for peace on favorable terms. (Switch out of Police State and into Representation right away; it's doing you more harm than good.)

Then build the Heroic Epic in your production city down south, and continue to build units in your capital and military city until you have enough of a deterrent force (15 calvary or so). And you need more cities, so while you are doing that, spam 3-4 settlers from your other cities to fill in productive but currently unused spaces in your territory and cottage & lumbermill them up. (Take your workers off automation so you can control what they are doing.)

Continue building only military units in your Heroic Epic city. You can build whatever you like in your capital, depending on the type of victory you want to pursue.

You can quickly achieve a significant tech lead and fairly easily fend off the squirmishes that crop up. From there, you should be able to get whatever type of victory you desire. After the pounding your neighbors to the west were giving you, though, I couldn't bring myself to do anything but CONQUEST! Have fun!