Late game comp win

[dreamcrusader]

I have been playing as America, on Noble, with about 8 other civs for the last 2 games. I do very well in the begining of the game, mostly building wonders and working on expansion and culture. I have avioded wars often and until about 1700AD, I usually lead by around 200-300 points.

But once I hit the industrial era, the comp gives me a nice ass kicking in points.

The thing I dont understand, is that I have a slight lead in technology, far more culture and wonders, and even a larger land mass!

I look around their land(once I have gotten spy) and they usually have military units being built!

So my question is how are they getting so many points in the latter portain of the game, and why are my advantages in science and culture not showing pointwise to them?

Thanks if you can help.

 

[Luhh]

The computer team up a lot and trade technologies, so your technological advantage will seldom be great.

Also, most likely you don't build enough cottages. Cottages are huge once they become tows with womens suffrage and free speech civics. That's like 2 food, 1 shield, 7!!! commerce. 8 commerce if by a river and if you're america, another one for 9 commerce.

Farms and big cities isn't as important in civIV. You need to specialize cities a lot more for commerce, production etc. Also the mercantile civic is generally very bad, since open border agreements and trade from coastal cities are huge compared to the free specialist in your cities.

On noble you really should be able to mash your lategame with financial, so most likely you don't have enough trade, cottages. Hope it helps.

 

[kamigawan]

My guess would be one of two factors. First, compare the size of your cities. You may have more land mass, but if you have smaller cities spread out overall, your population may actually be less. Secondly, how big of an army do you have? You may be falling behind militarily...to test this, you can either use spies or simply keep playing. If the computer senses you are significantly weaker, someone will declare war on you.

 

[dreamcrusader]

Thanks for the info. I do use a ton of cottages btw(love it with Universal Sufferage), and my citys are in the 10-14 range in population. Is that ok?

Also, kamigawan will having a large military be good point wise? Becaus I often find that it just sucks up my income.