WOW, 1831 beakers / turn. I can never get that much in trade from any single trade route. I see you have some BtS, I wonder what the limit is on a Warlords game. A good science game hovers around 700 beakers/turn before the Modern Era for me. Maybe I need to experiment some with more cottages. They really seem like they are just too slow to develop though. OCC games feel like a rat race and I'm worried about the time investment.
Mantic0re,
Keep in mind I'm in a Golden Age and producing Science in that screenshot. I purposfully did that just to artifically inflate my BPT in that game.
I need help manipulating the AI into war. I just won a conquest game with cavalry and cannons against longbowman. I love how much I can pillage with the extra movement of cavalry. I could have easily won earlier if I could have triggered some wars but those options were either always red (we just don't like you enough) or too costly. I had the same religion as Wang Kon and gifted him 1 or 2 happiness resources and still he wanted nationhood, civil service, guilds and 2 other techs in order to wage war on a civilization he was "annoyed" with.
Manipulating the AI into war is pretty easy. Figure out who is worst enemy with who, and don't piss anybody off. In my game I noticed China was becoming a strong militant force while Monty ended up this meager little puppydog of a nation, and even though Freddy was nipping at my doorstep and my nearest neighbour, he was the worst enemy of like 3 other AIs. Given all this information I never opened Boarders with Freddy, I kept Monty Pleased, which was enough for him to attack others and leave me alone, and I made buddy-buddy with Qin. In fact, he came to my doorstep asking for a Defensive Pact more than once! Qin was quite the warmonger in that game, and we had to resign our Defensive Pacts like 3 times.
I gave into the AI virtually every time they wanted me to do something. The only times I didn't was for war. This pissed a few of them off but they got over it. Because I beelined the Cristco so early on I was able to adopt everyone's favourite Civic and/or Religion whenever they asked me to, providing at least a +2 bonus (+1 from the "You adopted our..." and no -1 "You refused to adopt our) vs denying them.
Oh yeah, I had almost NO resources. No Copper, no Iron, no Uranium, no Oil... I had to make a risky trade to Egypt, who Qin hated, for Iron as they were the only civ willing to trade away their Iron. They wanted a TON of gold per turn AND my Aluminum. So I did the trade, using the Cristco Redentor swapped to US and Slavery and bought/whipped a ton of units the units I needed as fast as I could. This also coincided with Tokugawa declaring war on me, so I got kinda blindsided and was lucky to have the Iron for sale from Egypt at all. Anyways, Toku declared on me and I spent a ton of gold rush-buying and upgrading my old HR Warriors to Infantry. His Musketmen and Grenaders didn't stand a chance, in fact I don't think I lost a single land unit. Though my guarding Triremes died to his Frigates, but that's okay, with the newly acquired Iron, I was able to rush-buy and rush-whip a few Ships of the Line which promptly tore through his navy...though disappointingly enough I lost one of them in a 95% battle.
I easily bribed Qin into war with the Japanese (this was in a time outside of a Defensive Pact) for only gold, which I still had plenty of left over. In a decent OCC, I usually have lots of settled GP and GMs, so I had a ton of +gold per turn between all my settled Great Persons and the +100% gold from my buildings. This is why I value the Cristco so much in an OCC, especially a Cottaged OCC. I can swap to US and/or Slavery and/or Organized Religion to quickly rush-buy and/or rush-whip something or somethings, and swap back the next turn. If you're going to end up with a ton of gold, you may as well find a way to use it all.
Anyways, as soon as I was done making all my railroads and started on the Apollo program, I got my Aluminum back and started fabricating spaceship parts.
Do you guys have any soft rules for tech trading to get war started?
Which techs will you not trade? (Gunpowder obviously, what else)
What techs will you always attempt to trade with? (philosophy, CoL?)
Do you hold out on Alphabet, Currency, or any other key growth techs?
In my games I'm usually the last to learn Alphabet. I usually get it from a friendly civ by simply asking for it. I see virtually no reason to ever self-tech Alphabet unless I'm planning on running an Espionage Economy. In an OCC the Globe Theatre is so very important, so once I tech Writing, I immedately head down the line to Aesthetics and Drama so I can get my Globe up and running ASAP. Not having to deal with happiness issues is very handy. Also, this opens up the ability to research Literature and Music for the free GA. Sure a GA isn't that great, but if you tech all the early religious techs and Monarchy, you can use him to instant-bulb Theology. That's extremely handy as having control over the AP can keep your bum out of trouble in an OCC.
In the above game I was able to tech to Music first, and Bulb Theology to found Christianity, and build the AP while Christian, and Christianity only spread to about 4 other cities the entire time. This permitted me to easily have control of the AP the entire game. I never even teched Mass Media (why would I want to?) so I could retain the +hammer bonus of the AP.
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have used one GP to build the Christian shrine. It would have given me +2 hammers from the AP, as well as over +5 Gold per turn, a touch more than a Great Prophet, and given me +1 (or was it +2?) Great Prophet Points per turn. Though I would be missing out on the +3 Beaker Per Turn bonus from Representation, I think that it would have given me one more Great Person in the game, so it would have all evened out eventually.
I think it is time to start climbing the difficulty ladder a bit and maybe trying more regular games with what I've learned as well. OCC games are great for learning some aspects of the game because of how fast they are but they are almost easy because they are so specific. If I can only carry over some of the specialization into an empire management game I can really improve.
Learn to manage a hybrid economy. One where you use both Specialists AND Cottages. If you noticed in my screenshot I was running Rep while having a ton of Cottages. A Spiritual leader can pull off the whole swap back and forth between US and Rep thing much earlier than others, even if there is a 5 turn delay (Marathon), and that opens up a LOT of doors in future games. Learn when to remove your Specialists, learn when to work Villages, or even Cottages instead of Towns. For example, lets say you just won the Liberalism race, and picked Nationalism. You are now researching Constitution and on your way to Democracy. Since you are in no tech rush, but you want more towns, pull your citizens off of the towns they are working on, and pull off your Specialists. Instead, work the Villages that will be Towns in a few turns. This will permit you to have many more Towns the turn you revolt to Universal Suffrage, and give you that many more hammers per turn.
