Keep getting beat on building wonders

[blasto]

Demanding other AI to war with the one who is building what you want has served me well. Or if they scoff at the demand I'll bribe them. Even if the other AI is on the other side of the map, the wonder building AI always seems to slow down and expend some resources on the war.

At least it seems like it.

 

[Camikaze]

Adding to that the fairly well documented occurance of an AI that stacks combat units (I've even seen this happen myself), it is very likely that it cheats in 'unofficial' ways, be it intentional or not.

Huh, I didn't know about that one (that they stack combat units; unless you're talking about an occasional bug, which is an entirely different thing to a 'cheat'). Do you have a link?

 

[Helmling]

All I have to say is that Immortal drives me nuts.

I finally got all my wonders. GL, Mausoleum, Oracle, Hagia Sophia, Notre Dame, Porcelain Tower, and now it looks like I might get Himeji, too. Dream come true, EXCEPT for the near constant warfare. I've been invaded over and over again. Just now, as my defensive army was strained to the breaking point winning a dual war against Babylon and Rome, BOOM, stupid Siam invades from the north at my weakest spot. Now he's actually occupied one of my cities!

The AI is just too aggressive at this level and they have so, so, so many units. How does anybody play on Deity without ripping your hair out.

Okay, venting complete. The upside is: I finally got all my wonders on Immortal. The bad thing is that I don't think I care enough to finish the game if it's going to be like this for another two hundred turns.

 

[zevel]

Well you cant have it all you know, having all those wonders and still have enough units to survive the aggressive AI of the higher difficulties. Its a balancing act and having to sacrifice something like building the oracle in favor of some more ranged units is part of the fun.

The upside is: I finally got all my wonders on Immortal

That was your long-term goal in this specific game?

 

[ense7en]

All I have to say is that Immortal drives me nuts.

I finally got all my wonders. GL, Mausoleum, Oracle, Hagia Sophia, Notre Dame, Porcelain Tower, and now it looks like I might get Himeji, too. Dream come true, EXCEPT for the near constant warfare. I've been invaded over and over again. Just now, as my defensive army was strained to the breaking point winning a dual war against Babylon and Rome, BOOM, stupid Siam invades from the north at my weakest spot. Now he's actually occupied one of my cities!

The AI is just too aggressive at this level and they have so, so, so many units. How does anybody play on Deity without ripping your hair out.

Okay, venting complete. The upside is: I finally got all my wonders on Immortal. The bad thing is that I don't think I care enough to finish the game if it's going to be like this for another two hundred turns.

Getting all those WHILE being stuck in war @ Immortal is extremely impressive, to me anyway. I have great trouble not getting swarmed to the point of having to build only military for the first while @ Immortal, resulting in me falling behind in science, culture, etc. due to being unable to work on wonders.

That alone is a win IMHO.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

Yeah Helmling, I havn't finished my immortal wonder spam game either, despite my conviction that I could win the sheer amount of effort makes it feel more like a job then a game.
At the end of the day combat is just as consistent as filing, move wad of units, set up defensive positions, murder X, again and again and again.
Havn't lost a city yet, but my relatively lucky South African spawn position might have helped, and my opportunistic tendency to strike when their armies are out of position (this only works for the first DoW though as after that the entire world will hate you forever on immortal).

And Cami, can't hotlink right now due to mobile constraints but if you use the search function for "ai stacking" the first and third thread might be of interest.

 

[apocalypse105]

Huh, I didn't know about that one (that they stack combat units; unless you're talking about an occasional bug, which is an entirely different thing to a 'cheat'). Do you have a link?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i68VWR0wzA&feature=BFa&list=SP62E622863D309261&lf=list_related

at 20:30

 

[Camikaze]

Ah okay. That would be a bug though, not a 'cheat' (if it was a cheat they would consistently do it, no?). If you see this thread, you can see that a human can do the same. It's just buggy. Also, if you have a siege unit in a city and build another one, you can fire both of them from the city on the same turn. Again, it's evidently not an AI cheat when you can do it too, but a bug.

 

[LarryFitzJ]

One thing I used to do is save before starting each wonder and reloading if I miss it. It's really frustrating if you 1 or 2 turns from getting it and you lose out. I've even had it before where it was on the last turn and the A.I still got the wonder, I don't know what decides that but figure it must be they had more production towards it i.e mine was 190/200 with +11Prod/trn and they had 195/200 with +11. Or maybe even matched like both of us had 190/200 but they had +12/trn and I only had +11 or something like that.

My strategy now, because its a personal goal not to reload turns, is as soon as you choose your wonder focus completely on Production. Plummet your city into stagnation if you have to, don't starve them obviously, but get as much prod as you can. Also, If i go for the early wonders I don't settle until I have which wonders I want and try not to start building them until I have a worker out and at least 4 or 5 population. And if you have hills nearby then build as many mines as you can to up the production, or possibly even chop forests but I don't usually do that myself. I'm sure on some games that early mines were what got me the wonder instead of the A.I.

Hanging Garden is one of the toughest to beat the A.I to I think. I don't know why they get such a love for the Gardens but they've beat me to it so many times.

I got the Hanging Gardens (of Babylon) a bunch of times. (no offense)

 

[Helmling]

Getting all those WHILE being stuck in war @ Immortal is extremely impressive, to me anyway. I have great trouble not getting swarmed to the point of having to build only military for the first while @ Immortal, resulting in me falling behind in science, culture, etc. due to being unable to work on wonders.

That alone is a win IMHO.

I kept playing, though since it was my first Immortal game, I backed up and reloaded a save 3 turns earlier to keep from losing my city. I had the forces and resources to defend it, they just happened to be in the wrong places when he launched his invasion. It's cheap, I know, but I just didn't want to deal with the tedium of getting it back, much less lose every culture building in the city when I'm going for a culture win.

After I fended him off, Babylon invaded again. Babylon itself was right on my border, so I used my Rationalism and Porcelain Tower-boosted RAs to get riflemen and then went on the offensive. I didn't realize he had the Kremlin, so sacking it was harder than I thought. The economic boost once I finally got past its 14 turns of resistance really carried me into the modern era.

I've kept my head down as the game began to revolve around three run-away civs, one of them Persia right on my border. If they'd turned on me while I focused on catching up in tech, then there would have been nothing left for me to do. I managed to get the Louvre, Cristo Redentor, and the Sydney Opera House, but Eiffel Tower and Pentagon got away from me. I knew I'd never get Statue of Liberty since the AI always goes after that one.

Now I'm just watching the clock. I've unlocked Patronage and almost finished it off. I've just got Freedom to go, but I'm nervous somebody's going to finish a spaceship before I can go Utopian. I think I'm safe for a UN vote as I've got almost all the CSs I've met in my corner. I'm going to try it while still pumping out culture.

All in all, Immortal isn't that bad. If I hadn't been on a reckless, even foolhardy quest for wonders then I would've been better prepared for the early rush. (They would've been less willing to invade if I'd had a better army anyway.) Once I'd put Rome, Siam, and Babylon in their places, the game's been pretty peaceful. Still, I feel cheap for reloading and it bites at me knowing that it was only Persia's mercy that allowed me to survive several dozen turns. (I could survive them now, but it would cost me dearly.)

I've got a hankering to win on Deity now and maybe then I'll finally be done with the game...yeah, right.

 

[blasto]

Hmm, I play a map I made with 12 Great scientists and 18 Great Engineers in my starting zone and I have never been beat to a Wonder!

 

[Helmling]

Yeah Helmling, I havn't finished my immortal wonder spam game either, despite my conviction that I could win the sheer amount of effort makes it feel more like a job then a game.
At the end of the day combat is just as consistent as filing, move wad of units, set up defensive positions, murder X, again and again and again.
Havn't lost a city yet, but my relatively lucky South African spawn position might have helped, and my opportunistic tendency to strike when their armies are out of position (this only works for the first DoW though as after that the entire world will hate you forever on immortal).

And Cami, can't hotlink right now due to mobile constraints but if you use the search function for "ai stacking" the first and third thread might be of interest.

Yeah, the late game is so damned tedious. I just finished it up. Fortunately, I managed to stay out of wars until 1 turn before victory. The score wasn't anything to write home about, but I got my uber-wonder start so I'm pretty satisfied. I didn't win by culture. As it happened, somebody else built the UN and paved my way to victory.

Now...I just want to be able to say I've beat the game on Deity and so help me, I retire.