Noble help?

Not having a good enough navy is a mistake I have learned the hard way (more than once - I'm a slow learner). When someone declares war out of the blue and trashes all your fishing nets, it's a major pain.
 
Loads of boats. Drydocks + barracks = 6xp new boats, you can get a Visibility +1 promotion, to cut down on the number you need to sentry. Now I really want to see - could you please post a screenshot?

OK, lots and lots and lots of boats, then.

Screenshot will have to be tomorrow, sorry, as I have put the CD back in the cupboard so my wife doesn't see it. ;)
 
easiest is a ship (submarines preferable) with sentry promotion. needs two promotions to get it. or what I ussually do is build enough destroyers to put them in a ring around my continent 2 spaces apart on the edge of my border. and some battleships behind. send some subs to your ai cities. the moment you don't see there troop ships in the port it is time to search them and prepare your navy, to sink them when they get too close.
you can use fighters to scout every turn.

circumnavigation bonus is just that. a bonus. not important, but nice to have.
you will master the art of circumnavigating without ever leaving your continent. ;)
 
about the anti navy thing, I know 2 main ways of early warning :
1) spying the enemy coast :
- it requires to identify your most likely enemy before hand (or to be really rich :lol:)
- build a handful of caravels or submarines
- check the coastal cities of the enemy
- when you see a coastal city massing boats, you know there will be an invasion coming from there. Just keep checking this city, try to find which of your cities is the nearest, and start protecting this one (includes putting a good navy in the way)

2) coast guards :
the easiest way to do this is a carrier full of fighters :
- you post your carrier a few tiles into the ocean towards the potential enemy (again, it's easier if you know who you're trying to keep at bay)
- every turn you send each fighter on a recon mission in different directions.
With this you should cover your whole coast line at a long enough range to mass your navy and intercept the incoming boats. + the fighters will soften the escorting boats ;)
 
OK, here's the first screenshot. It's the top half of my continent, showing what used to be the American empire (there are actually five cities here, but Boston is hidden underneath the bottom-right display).

The other continent is to the west of mine, and that's where all my competitors are. (Theoretically they could also come from the east, but it's a longer trip.)

I'm having difficulty uploading the second screenshot (bottom half of continent), but you can see my point about having a very long coastline to defend. I'll post it when I can.

(Sorry, can't work out how to do a thumbnail of this.)

Picture_1.png
 
the AIs are very predictable, they will attack the nearest city.
So regardless of your long coast, you only have the western most city to defend, really.
I'd scout (caravel!) the other continent's coast asap.
You should trade for a map asap too, I don't like it when I don't know the layout of the other continent.
 
I've put scouts and explorers in the other continent, so I now know it all. I've reinforced my westernmost city.

It's now nineteen thirty-something. Basil II (of Byzantium) has narrowly beaten me to Apollo Program, so it's a race. I have a city with Ironworks + Factory + Coal Plant, and several others with factories, so we'll see who makes it. I'm still top of the points list and my new techs are coming every 7-8 turns. I hope I have enough military to withstand any unwelcome attention.
 
if they are going for space race. they are not going to declare war.
get those factories and coalplants up,
the cities with highest production should build the most expansive parts of your space ship
 
space race it is then
my 2 cents for those :
- it's all about teching speed : 7/8 turns is a bit too long IMHO, but can do. If you can sell some older techs for gold, it will allow you to deficit research faster (although I see you have a bunch of money to spend)
- state property is THE production civic
- don't be shy on the $rushing of labs and factories. It's easy enough to build the casings in secondary cities, with those improvements
- a few spies can give you a better sight of your enemies situation = less stress ;)
 
Thanks, I hadn't thought about State Property - good tip.

I don't think I have any old techs that everyone else doesn't have.

I'm building Scotland Yard at the moment - a strategically placed bomb in one of Basil's cities would be just the ticket. Failing that, I'll have to bribe someone to go to war with him...
 
Thanks, I hadn't thought about State Property - good tip.

I don't think I have any old techs that everyone else doesn't have.
You just need to sell one tech, even a not so old one, but to a slow paced AI with a good bunch of money.

I'm building Scotland Yard at the moment - a strategically placed bomb in one of Basil's cities would be just the ticket. Failing that, I'll have to bribe someone to go to war with him...
I don't think so.
just find where he is building the slowest parts, and sabotage all the tiles (farms, mines, windmills, watermills, workshops). A starving city, working unimproved tiles will be a lot slower ;)
 
Costs a lot of money to sabotage. Wouldn't I be better spending that money rushing the spaceship parts? (Or can't they be rushed with money?)

[EDIT: Ignore last question, I see they can't.]
 
at this stage money shouldn't be a problem. every tile you sabotage, is like putting the ai 10 turns back for that tile. even greater with cottages. sabotaging tiles has 2 effects. you hamper his production, and slow his teching capability while you will get ahead in the space race.
 
It's irrelevant now; everyone has built Apollo Program. I'm still going to try and sabotage Basil's production but it looks like victory will depend on whoever builds the Space Elevator first. I've got Robotics and I'm working on it, but I don't know who else can build the SE.

(Is there a quick way to see who's got Robotics, and therefore who else might be able to build it, or do I have to go into the Diplomacy screen for each leader to find out who else has it?)
 
F4 under technoligies. and then click every leader to see who has robotics.
if you have an engineer (you get one for bieng first to fussion) you can use it to rush a big part and then buy it.
 
The best thing to sabotage to slow the space ship is aluminum. It doesn't stop it but it slows it down a lot. There are also some parts that use copper. If he only has one or two aluminum sources have your spies keep taking those out.
 
F4 under technoligies. and then click every leader to see who has robotics.
if you have an engineer (you get one for bieng first to fussion) you can use it to rush a big part and then buy it.

I knew about F4 for techs, but I didn't know about clicking each leader. You learn something new every post, don't you?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought a Great Engineer could only be used to rush a building, not a spaceship part. I'm tempted to research fusion next, in order to get the GE and rush either the Space Elevator or the 3 Gorges Dam.
 
PS I've just read Orion071's article about winning the space race and it looks as if I may have got some of my priorities wrong. TBH there isn't much point in farming out the SS casing production to my smaller cities, because my bigger ones are left idle while I try to research the next tech.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought a Great Engineer could only be used to rush a building, not a spaceship part. I'm tempted to research fusion next, in order to get the GE and rush either the Space Elevator or the 3 Gorges Dam.

Same thing with buying them off. I think he was talking about the Space Elevator.

Anyway, your screenshot answered my thought about navies. Sometimes the continents are aligned so that you can keep an eye on a few straits rather than just having to line across the ocean, if there are decently trustworthy civs on the right shores. That was probably clear as mud, so a crappy real-world example would be if you're India, you really only need sentries south of Africa, throughout Indonesia, and south of Australia, assuming East Africa, Saudi Arabia, and other such neighbors are relatively peaceful (!). Open ocean is a different situation, though.
 
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