Is there hope?

[Mysterious Dr.X]

Hi guys!

After I've read many articles and beginner guides and managed the easier difficulties very well I thought going on with "Prince" might be a good idea. But now I'm stuck! The AI just runs away...

I hope you can and want to help me a bit. Situation is like this:

Difficulty: Prince
Map: Terra (all options on "average")
Civ: Germany

Diplomacy
I couldn't make the "triangle diplomacy" work, so I traded everything with everyone. Till now noone claimed because of that.
- We're good with Montezuma and the Khan
- We had war with Isabella and Mr. Musa, so they're pretty pissed.
- Khan just changed his religion some turns before, so on the longrun we're running into difficulties here.
- I estimate some conflicts with Montezuma, because the world is just too small for both of us . Unfortunately he is the top-dog at the moment.

Technology
- I tried to research uncommon techs, to be able to trade, but they just don't want to trade their cool techs with me, or they allready got mine.
- The Malinese and Isabella are behind us the rest is in fortune.

Military
- There lies my last hope, I got a "good" army I just don't know wether it will be enough for Montezuma.

So my fellows . Shall we attack Mansa first or try something else? I'm awaiting your suggestions!


Thanks in advance!

 

[gallego]

You seem a little bit behind where you should be. You are in the 1500's and 1600's; you should have Cavalry, Grenadiers, Trebuchets, etc. instead of the medieval units you have. (Edit: Those are Montezuma's not yours...sorry about that, but your units that I can see still appear to be behind the times somewhat.) Getting ahead in technology requires planning and trading; did you simply try to get all the basic techs, then intermediate, etc. before moving on to more advanced ones? The key is to get key expensive technologies--alphabet, metal casting, philosophy, etc. and trade them to each person quickly to backfill all the techs you missed. On prince, if you focus towards particular techs like that, you should have no problem getting to them to trade as long as you have a decent level of science.

Also, you have only a few cities. You need to expand earlier; with only that many cities you will stagnate. Try to expand faster at the beginning, or conquer a few from your nearest neighbor as soon as possible to get a solid 6-8 cities running. When you get courthouses everywhere, push again to get more cities.

 

[AnitaGaribaldi]

You played with Frederick and haven't produced any Great People. Frederick is Philosophical, this means you can produce Great People faster. You should always try to use your leader traits.

You have waited too long to fight the war. You have a big army with maceman, axeman and swordman. You pay money for keeping all these troops, slow down your research. The cost depends on the level.

I think you can still save the game. Berlin has a rice, this means food suplus. A good city to run specialists. If you build more farms, you can run at least 3 specialists without loosing food.
You may try this:
- switch to Caste System
- run three merchants in Berlin, it does no matter if Berlin starts to lose food, just move all your workers to it and farm it up

You will get a Great Merchant. You should send it to the friendly city that is far way. The foreign trade mission will give you money. Two Great Merchants should be enough to upgrade your troops and have some money. Your army will be a lot of stronger after that. Montezuma already have Maceman, his maceman will destroy your axeman and swordsman easily.

Tech lighbulbing is used a lot to keep up with AI. That is a fast way to get a expensive tech that you can trade later. It requires planning. Many players uses Great Scientists to get Philosophy and Education. You cannot get all techs this way. Take a look in this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

You can trade a tech for money too. You can get the money, deficit research (it's faster), get a n expensive tech, sell it again for more money/more techs,... You can sell techs to upgrade troops, too.

 

[Morgrad]

In addition, I recommend bribing Montezuma to attack someone else, and letting him do so for about 8 turns.

Then crash your army into his cities after he's thrown a bunch of his units at his enemy. Rule #1 when dealing with a close Monty - either kill him fast and early, or make him a pet attack-dog. He *will* attack you eventually, which is why there is no time like the present to make him use all of those units up beating up someone else......

 

[Mysterious Dr.X]

Hi guys!

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll try to push out some GP in Berlin, although I thought the production would be more important.
Perhaps you can't see it on the screenshot but I got some maceman, so I'm not that far behind. I also have like 5 or 6 catapults (no Warlords = no trebuchet). I've only put the mouse over Monty's city so that you could see his garrison and estimate the strength of his troops, so that you could tell me whether a war is winnable at all.

 

[xanadux]

I would say diplomatically you made a huge blunder earlier in the game, and you are paying for it dearly now. Monty and Genghis are aggressive and stingy with techs. Mansa and Isabella are great tech trading partners. This game would have been pretty simple to win by making friends with mansa and isabella and trading with them (run no state religion or be of isabella's religion or she will hate you). Montezuma and Genghis will tend to be backward because they don't trade as much, and you take them out with the tech lead you got from trading with MM and Izzy. Anyway, where is your commerce coming from? Looks like all you have is production cities with a couple random cottages. You have to get commerce. On prince, 1545, you should have cavalry with cannons and be not far from artillery and a little later, infantry and tanks. You should have been at war with Monty with Axes!

 

[Cam_H]

Is there hope?

Absolutely! ... But it didn't dawn on me for a while.

You're playing a Terra map ... so there's 'probably' a huge landmass out there somewhere ripe for the taking.

Bee-line as best as you can to Astonomy, and emmigrate.

Completely agree with Anita on the lack of Great People. The Parthenon's also still in play.

 

[DrewTate]

Whenever Monty pulls his trusty 'for no reason attack' on me I punish him and take him down to about one city, destroy all his things like copper and iron and horses and basically take take him out of contention, that is if i leave him in the game. he is a douche bag