Playing US and others on harder difficulties

[GuitarDemon]

Usually I play on monarch and marathon. And while I usually run into some difficulty at a certain point I just walk all over the AI. Trying to go back and beat my favorite CIVS on harder difficulties and I’m getting curb stomped every where I go.

Right now I’m trying US on emperor. My tried and true strategies are not working.

I’ve read some suggestions of conquering a europes core but they usually have rifles by the time I’m ready.

England tech rate is insane and usually 6-8 techs ahead of me. I know at some point the US economy and industrialization really takes off and I can become tech leader by 1920s or earlier. Last monarch game I played I beat the game at 1920 ad.

But on emperor I’m getting beat to my UHV buildings ridiculously fast.

Some how I need to get my economy off the ground much earlier if I’m to compete with the other civs. Or commit to conquering England core? I usually try to play more historical but harder difficulties don’t allow for it

Anyways tldr need help with US on harder difficulties. Also other CIVS as well, SPAIN is another favorite of mine that I can’t even come close to beating on emperor anymore

Edit: forgot to mention there’s an additional layer of difficulty added to playing US now. For some reason no matter what I cannot trigger England to declare war on spawn in the latest version. That means we’re missing out on a something like 8 additional military units which really hurts even more so on harder difficulty. Which means conquering a Europe core early almost impossible

Also one less settler.

Gonna try another roll over the weekend or maybe next week and see how it goes


AAR:

Had my best game yet but still got beat to empire building by England.

I made two grave mistakes. One England has to be destroyed in emperor. I’m convinced there’s no other way.

Two, I used defense pact with Russia to create chaos I Europe but underestimated how easily they would steam roll over my rivals. They created an early soviet bloc out of Europe vassalizing Germany, Spanish, Poland, and france. The last issue was with france. Becuase they still owned 3 carribean cities (they got them from world congress) so I would have to fight all of Europe tanking my diplomacy and breaking the defense pact

But I’m convinced only through destroying England can the game be even remotely winnable

 

[xijinping]

The old strategy for America worth a try, RNG to England declaire war on you, sneak your free units to capture london. By doing that you gain a mega citiy that produce milk and eliminating your by far the biggest competitor. After that all there left to challenge you is Prussia's Frankfurt, which can be captured (and gift to france if you dont want to risk congress decisions or cultural flipping over) to the ground in a surprise war after your remaining army healed in London, and the turn limit, which is somewhat challenging but manageable.

If you dont like initial war chesseing, this strategy may still work with initial units ( you dont have to have guards in most of your cities due to the sufficiency of happiness from UP) but not on paragon as you will have no chance to seize Frankfurt in this scenario and Prussia will build one, if not all, of your required wonders there. In lower difficulties disssolving prussia isnt a must.

I havent played this for a few years so some ( if not all) part may need tuning. But from my understanding I think it will overall still work fine.

 

[Dracosolon]

I thought you couldn't get AI to declare war on spawn anymore on the latest versions.

 

[xijinping]

I thought you couldn't get AI to declare war on spawn anymore on the latest versions.

huh sorry im kinda obsolete. will be curious of the new strategy to pass Americe at diffucult level

 

[DanLT3]

I have been playing America lately on Marathon/Paragon, game speed/difficulty.
After a few tries I concluded that collapsing England is now a must. As soon as you got Ballistics go for London and then Edinburgh.
Taking those two cities is enough to collapse England.
You can land your troops on the south western tip of England without having to enter their borders with your transports.
Having an open border with another European country like Portugal then allows you to get away safely with your transports, and ship them back for more troops.
Because England is going to rule the sea's since you are way behind in tech.