Is there a way of hindering the space race?
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Yzen Danek
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2005
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- 182
It really depends just how far back you are, and how many Civs are building the ship.
If you still need a lot of techs, it's going to be hard to hinder opponents' ships much. Spies can do great things, but you really need a huge treasury to use them, the kind of treasury you can really only build and maintain by turning Science way, way down.
Get your spies out so you know where key parts are being built. Once the AI starts building a part somewhere, it will try to finish it there, regardless of how slowly it's being built. You can really put a huge damper on their efforts by bombing that city's improvements into the Stone Age and intermittently using Spies to destroy what progress they have made. I had one Emporer game where my only hope to win was by building massive bomber fleets, stationing them in the cities of weaker, friendly Civs near my stronger opponents, and bombing the crap out of everything they had. I took out every tile of Aluminum to slow their production of space ship parts to half, and then bombed/sabotaged improvements for the 40-50 turns it took me to get my ship off the ground and win.
If you still need a lot of techs, it's going to be hard to hinder opponents' ships much. Spies can do great things, but you really need a huge treasury to use them, the kind of treasury you can really only build and maintain by turning Science way, way down.
Get your spies out so you know where key parts are being built. Once the AI starts building a part somewhere, it will try to finish it there, regardless of how slowly it's being built. You can really put a huge damper on their efforts by bombing that city's improvements into the Stone Age and intermittently using Spies to destroy what progress they have made. I had one Emporer game where my only hope to win was by building massive bomber fleets, stationing them in the cities of weaker, friendly Civs near my stronger opponents, and bombing the crap out of everything they had. I took out every tile of Aluminum to slow their production of space ship parts to half, and then bombed/sabotaged improvements for the 40-50 turns it took me to get my ship off the ground and win.
Hmm... I realise that my chances are slim.
Is it possible to destroy the space ship in some way? Wasn´t it possible to destroy the space ship by invading the capital in Civ3? I was aiming at a dominance victory and only need another 15 % of land. I must buy me some time.
Is it possible to destroy the space ship in some way? Wasn´t it possible to destroy the space ship by invading the capital in Civ3? I was aiming at a dominance victory and only need another 15 % of land. I must buy me some time.
You probably need to invade them. I do not know that you can destroy the spaceship, but you can seriously hinder their chances of completing it if you are taking their cities. You might get lucky and take the ones working on the parts too. Since you are trying for a Dom victory anyway, sounds like it would serve two purposes.
petey
Prince
If you send your military in to destroy their cities, then those cities won't be able to build spaceship parts. If you pillage their cottages and mines, then they won't be able to research the new techs they need or build the components they already know how to.
If you only need another 15% of the land, don't worry so much about capturing thier cities. Keep you main force expanding your own territory and send in pillaging units to run rampant over their territory. This will both cripple their production and research and force them to build military units to fight you off instead of spaceship parts to beat you.
If you only need another 15% of the land, don't worry so much about capturing thier cities. Keep you main force expanding your own territory and send in pillaging units to run rampant over their territory. This will both cripple their production and research and force them to build military units to fight you off instead of spaceship parts to beat you.
Bribe others to go to war against them. If asked to join in accept (since you said you have a good military) and let your allies do the dirty work while you try to raze a few cities.
If the AI is at war a lot of times it will slow down or stop building spaceship parts all together for the duration and they may research more military techs vs. ones that give more parts.
I've used this to good effect a couple times. Catherine was ahead of me by a couple techs and a few parts. Bribed half the known world to declare war on her and she didn't build another part the rest of the game. I was able to overtake her and finish the space ship first.
If the AI is at war a lot of times it will slow down or stop building spaceship parts all together for the duration and they may research more military techs vs. ones that give more parts.
I've used this to good effect a couple times. Catherine was ahead of me by a couple techs and a few parts. Bribed half the known world to declare war on her and she didn't build another part the rest of the game. I was able to overtake her and finish the space ship first.
Gyspsysmoke
Chieftain
War is the only way, if you are militarily superiour then take them out...probably the only way to "destroy their ship"
GoldenWheels
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2005
- Messages
- 71
I had Catherine about to win a space race later in the game, but it was a toss up whether or not she would make it. She needed three more of the single items with about 60 turns left.
i was terrified that the tramp would ruin what had been a good epic game for me by stealing it in the last 100 turns. i couldn't judge her production accurately enough to be sure, nor could I get anyone else to declare war on her. She was on a different continent from me, and my army was BARELy better than hers, while my navy was non existent. So actually attacking was a moot issue.
So I just declared war anyway, and didn't do anytihng. Does anyone know if declaring war makes hte Ai reroute production to units/defenses? Even without seeing a realistic threat?
I won anyway, she didn't even finish ONE of the three remaining items, but i would like to know if declaring war in name only had anything to do with it, or was simply a waste of time.
i was terrified that the tramp would ruin what had been a good epic game for me by stealing it in the last 100 turns. i couldn't judge her production accurately enough to be sure, nor could I get anyone else to declare war on her. She was on a different continent from me, and my army was BARELy better than hers, while my navy was non existent. So actually attacking was a moot issue.
So I just declared war anyway, and didn't do anytihng. Does anyone know if declaring war makes hte Ai reroute production to units/defenses? Even without seeing a realistic threat?
I won anyway, she didn't even finish ONE of the three remaining items, but i would like to know if declaring war in name only had anything to do with it, or was simply a waste of time.
GoldenWheels said:
I'm not sure if in name only works.. I've had civilizations put up spaceships as I'm picking off there outlying cities. When you say in name only, did you send your navy over to their territory or just declare war and promptly ignore them? One thing I've noticed is as long as I protect my fishing boats, ignore their navy completely, and let them send flotillas of invaders to land in my territory they'll keep kicking out military units like nobody's business. However, as soon as I wipe out their navy they start sending up spaceships until I land on their home continent with massive numbers of armor, gunships, SAM Infantry, and start bombing them into the stone age.
BubbaYeti
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2005
- Messages
- 130
Yzen Danek brings up the use of spies, I think they are critical for hindering an adversary's space race efforts. As he says, destroying space ship parts in the middle of production is possible, but very expensive. However, destroying improvements is only 200gold a pop. So first, find their sources of aluminum and destroy the associated mine(s). Aluminum speeds up certain space ship parts. They will keep trying to rebuild, you keep sabotaging. Also, find out what cities they are building space ship parts in. Usually these are the cities with the most hammer production. Destroy any and all improvements on squares producing hammers (mines, lumbermills, even windmills). This tends to dramatically slow their space ship production and give you loads of extra time. I have had one ai throw their hands up and stop space ship production entirely, and switch to military, I guess to try to cover all their improvements.
I had a similar problem a few games back but I managed to win. I was barely ahead in points but behind in the space race and behind in military strength. I concluded my only chance of victory was top score at 2050 but it seemed too risky to let the AIs build their space ships so I decided to beeline my tech research toward the Manhattan Project and ICBMs. Everything went well except one turn before completing the Manhattan project I lost my resolve and temporarily halted the project. I was afraid the AIs would bomb me knocking me out of first place on score and thus causing me to loose the game.
To my horror, a few turns later the AI in 3rd place completed the Manhattan Project! After frantically building nuke shelters in all my cities I began pumping out bombs. Once the first bomb was built I declared war on the first place AI and nuked one of his distant cities. That was a mistake because it did not wipe out that city and his near cities sent several stacks of doom toward me. He beat me badly with conventional ground and air but I managed to keep the front at my border cities as 2050 approached. Meanwhile I nuked many of his cities doing enormous damage each time. He stopped making progress on the space ship.
The closer I got to 2050 the more confident I felt (in spite of the global warming and green glowing cities. I had expected to be nuked by all the AIs but I was the only one to use the bomb. On the last turn, my last ICBM was intercepted (or something like that) but that was inconsequential as I won that turn.
In hind sight, I will always produce the SDI project if I suspect the Manhattan project.
I must say my real life biases certainly affect many of my in game decisions but my desire to win the game eventually dominates my anti-violence, anti-war, anti-nuclear, anti-pollution, religious, cultural, governmental, etc preferences.
My disappointment is that the AIs do not seem to display a desperation to prevent me from winning. They only seem to declare war on me when I am weak rather than prior to or when I start to dominate. Eventually I will have to try playing against real people but not until I get up to higher AI difficulty levels.
To my horror, a few turns later the AI in 3rd place completed the Manhattan Project! After frantically building nuke shelters in all my cities I began pumping out bombs. Once the first bomb was built I declared war on the first place AI and nuked one of his distant cities. That was a mistake because it did not wipe out that city and his near cities sent several stacks of doom toward me. He beat me badly with conventional ground and air but I managed to keep the front at my border cities as 2050 approached. Meanwhile I nuked many of his cities doing enormous damage each time. He stopped making progress on the space ship.
The closer I got to 2050 the more confident I felt (in spite of the global warming and green glowing cities. I had expected to be nuked by all the AIs but I was the only one to use the bomb. On the last turn, my last ICBM was intercepted (or something like that) but that was inconsequential as I won that turn.
In hind sight, I will always produce the SDI project if I suspect the Manhattan project.
I must say my real life biases certainly affect many of my in game decisions but my desire to win the game eventually dominates my anti-violence, anti-war, anti-nuclear, anti-pollution, religious, cultural, governmental, etc preferences.
My disappointment is that the AIs do not seem to display a desperation to prevent me from winning. They only seem to declare war on me when I am weak rather than prior to or when I start to dominate. Eventually I will have to try playing against real people but not until I get up to higher AI difficulty levels.
automator
King
heck of a game, paul57.
So, unlike Civ3, you can't destroy all the enemy's spaceship work by capuring/destroying their capitol?
I made the mistake last game of not putting enough emphasis on the space race. I was doing so well militarily that I thought I could get a domination win. Then Spain and Germany allied. I got a bit worried, but I was taking land here and there, spreading my power. They started building a spaceship, and I still wasn't worried, because it seemed to be taking a long time ... figured either I'd have a dom win or a time win before they finished. But they built too fast, and when I was at 58% of territory, they finished their ship.
So, unlike Civ3, you can't destroy all the enemy's spaceship work by capuring/destroying their capitol?
I made the mistake last game of not putting enough emphasis on the space race. I was doing so well militarily that I thought I could get a domination win. Then Spain and Germany allied. I got a bit worried, but I was taking land here and there, spreading my power. They started building a spaceship, and I still wasn't worried, because it seemed to be taking a long time ... figured either I'd have a dom win or a time win before they finished. But they built too fast, and when I was at 58% of territory, they finished their ship.
Take out aluminum sources, and if possible, capture the Space Elevator. That will cut the production speed in half (50% faster for alum. and 50% faster for Space Elev.) Assuming they have both of those, of course.
Apart from that, though, there's not much you can do, short of full-scale invasion and eradication.
Apart from that, though, there's not much you can do, short of full-scale invasion and eradication.
just nuke'em to death
i haven't got one nuke-attack in return. I just buy/rush me number of nukes (depends of his time finish the ss and the number of city's) and kill him off at once. When you are the dominant civ, you can hold off other civs or conquer enough for domination vic.
i haven't got one nuke-attack in return. I just buy/rush me number of nukes (depends of his time finish the ss and the number of city's) and kill him off at once. When you are the dominant civ, you can hold off other civs or conquer enough for domination vic.
If you declare war on them, they will stop producing spaceship components and go for military. You can test it out by having your spies go to cities that are building components so you can see their progress, then declare war (or have another civ declare war against it) and see their production switch to military. They still keep all the hammers so they will eventually build it should the war stop, but you can pretty much stall an opponent. I stopped Frederick from building the Apollo Program this way (bribing another civ to attack him)while concentrating on my own wars, got a dominating Diplomatic victory before he ever got back to building it.
I've stopped very strong competition to the space race (which I was just winning, but by a hair) through bribing another strong opponent to attack my main space race opponent. Worked, too. All those cities busily churning out nothing but ship parts were suddenly put to use developing units, instead. I easily led from then on without any danger.
ontopic:
no, short of wiping out the civilization building the ship.
offtopic:
I've searched the forums for it, but I haven't found one report of an AI nuking a player, either in retaliation or as a first strike. I have never seen an AI ICBM either. The AI does build SDI and manhattan though. Should we ever build SDI in single player?
no, short of wiping out the civilization building the ship.
offtopic:
I've searched the forums for it, but I haven't found one report of an AI nuking a player, either in retaliation or as a first strike. I have never seen an AI ICBM either. The AI does build SDI and manhattan though. Should we ever build SDI in single player?
