Please critique my 2nd BtS game (Prince, Epic)

[6K Man]

This game seems to be typical of my Civ4 games - I'm way ahead in score, but I don't feel entirely secure and wonder if there is something I should be doing differently, and where I should go from here.

The save is attached, but I'll provide some context: I am at the top of the PG, about 2700-1900 ahead of Pacal and Sitting Bull scorewise, researching Industrialism and about 6 or 7 techs ahead of everyone else. I'm well in front in GDP and production. I was attacked by Roosevelt a while back and took a few of his cities before he came crawling to the negotiating table and asked to be my bitc.. sorry, vassal. Besides that relationship, I have a defensive alliance with the Persians, who have only 3 cities and aren't really a factor.

On the other hand, the BullSitter has a very large army, far ahead of me in Power (3:2 advantage over me in power on the demographics screen, I am in second). Pacal and Suryavarman and their vassals, Napoleon and Ragnar, have attacked Asoka, with whom I'm Friendly but have no formal relationships. Asoka also appears to be the #2 guy tech-wise.

Right now, I feel comfortable but not too comfortable. I'm worried about getting dogpiled later on, frankly. Pacal and Surya dont get along with the BullSitter, but if that changes, the three of them would have a sizeable military advantage over me (of course right now, the mutual dislike there may be preventing one of them from attacking me). I also don't have access to Uranium (all 3 of them do), which might be a problem later on. So, specifically...

Should I enter into the current war between Asoka and Pacal/Surya? If so, on whose side? Pacal and Surya are fairly far away from me, but I could probably grab all of Napoleon's lands fairly easily and either keep them or give them to Roosevelt. Or would it be worthwhile to dogpile onto Asoka and grab some territory?

Should I continue my defensive alliance with Darius? He's not really bringing anything to the table, and I'd get dragged into a war I might not want if anyone attacks him. Of course, if I abandon him, someone else will probably swoop in and vassalize him.

Another issue - how do I stop chasing the "shiny things"? In the early part of most games, I have some defined goals - get Bronze Working/Copper/Slavery asap, then get the Great Library, then get one of the later religions, Liberalism, etc. But by the midgame, I seem to start gallivanting all over the tech tree chasing techs that come with special advantages. For example, I want Music first for the GA, Economics first for the GM, Physics for the GS. I want to get to Radio first and build the Eiffel and all the entertainment wonders, and I want the Pentagon and the Crispy Redeemer too. In essence, I turn into a wonder-whore and I don't beeline to any techs anymore - I just want to be first in everything. I suspect this is making winning space races harder. Any advice on how I should handle this? What are the really key mid game techs?

And finally - any other general advice would be appreciated. Am I doing well in this game? What should I do differently? Am I in the right civics given the situation I'm in? What should I watch out for, going forward?

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

First of all, why are you in a defensive pact with Darius? If you're attacked there is no way of them being able to help you, and if someone doesn't like Darius you'll be dragged into war. It's a very on-sided alliance. Secondly, you have enough production and GNP to win peacefully via Space Race. Ask yourself: what do I gain from going to war? If you're going for Domination then sure, or if you desperately need to keep Asoka happy, which you don't because you're miles ahead of him. Only go to war when you need to.

Is there any particular reason why Darius deicded to stop settling cities after the third one? It's weird he didn't grab Sury's sites or the one in the south of his landmass.

 

[6K Man]

First of all, why are you in a defensive pact with Darius? If you're attacked there is no way of them being able to help you, and if someone doesn't like Darius you'll be dragged into war. It's a very on-sided alliance. Secondly, you have enough production and GNP to win peacefully via Space Race. Ask yourself: what do I gain from going to war? If you're going for Domination then sure, or if you desperately need to keep Asoka happy, which you don't because you're miles ahead of him. Only go to war when you need to.

Is there any particular reason why Darius deicded to stop settling cities after the third one? It's weird he didn't grab Sury's sites or the one in the south of his landmass.

Darius has been kicked to the curb. My thought process when I made the pact with him was to keep him sweet for trade purposes, but I can see now that those considerations are outweighed by his uselessness as a war ally.

And I don't know why Darius didn't settle any more cities, especially to the south - I guess if he was someone else's colony, the city names wouldn't be Persian? But if he wasn't a colony, how did the Khmer manage to plant cities on the Persian home island, without there being Persian cities in those sites first?

Anyways... *bump*

Any other suggestions, anyone? Or am I that good that I should just quit this game and start a new one on Emperor?

 

[cripp7]

I wouldn't say quit yet. You have the UN building ready so go ahead and build that and vote no nukes I think he are in a good position to run a space race You have a far enough tech lead drop the science slider for a few runs and upgrade some of your military. You can gift sitting bull, and get him pleased. You could possibly get a defense pact with sitting bull, and Osaka

 

[CivCorpse]

You need more land. This late in the game, your SE will start to fall behind to CE's. And your production will drop as well. Once you have industrialism teched, then switch to Police State and start cranking tanks. Then i would absorb what's left of the french empire. That little city on the flood plains the french are misusing will make a nice lil science city. As the AI closes the gap in techs their superior land will let them crank out a lot more units. Tanks vs riflemen at this stage will gain you a lot of land for farms/mines/workshops. If you don't have any corporations i would switch to state property or the maint will eat you up. At this stage in the game you can make some great wars. tanks and bombers rule

 

[6K Man]

Well, the game is complete - a 1965 Space Race victory. Not terribly impressive, but then, that's my second game on BtS.

(Question - have spaceship parts been changed to require more hammers since Vanilla? This was the slowest spaceship build sequence I can remember, but maybe that's my fault and not a game change.)

Anyway, some thoughts: I turtled somewhat, told Darius to go away (Bull vassaled him later on) and gradually built my military up while still working away on spaceship parts. I never really had a problem with losing my tech advantage, in the end - I was at the top of the PG in GNP and in production for the rest of the game. That may be because I wasn't, strictly speaking, running a SE - it just looked like it because I got a long string of Great Scientists and settled almost all of them in my capital, which induced me to stay in Representation and Bureaucracy. Despite that, I was cottaging away in a few places - in any event, I wasn't farming or running specialists as much as you'd see in a "classic" SE, I think. That made my civics inefficient, of course, but that's something to work on for next game.

I kept Sitting Bull fairly happy (without giving him too much stuff) and stayed within screaming distance of him on the military power demographic. Perhaps fortunately for me, he didn't get along very well with Pacalhead and Assoka, his neighbours on the big landmass. After I launched my spaceship, I decided to take out Napoleon and his 4 cities on the island next to me. He was a pushover, but I had some nasty naval battles with Pacal (note to self: Submarines are worse than useless unless in large packs) before taking his sole city NW of New York. I made peace after that (I only wanted Napoleon's 4 cities and the 2 Mayan ones on or near landmasses I occupied - mission accomplished) with Pacal, and a couple of turns later Bull attacked him and took Mutal. The turn after that, my spaceship landed.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Gooblah]

in BTS, I have three main beelines:

1) Code of Laws/Civil Service. Same as Vanilla, same benefits.
2) Rifling. It involves key techs like:
Replaceable Parts. Gives Mills and Shops a nice boost.
Printing Press: Extra commerce is always handy
Gunpowder: Duh.

3) Liberalism. If I have a tech lead, put Liberalism on one turn, research Astronomy, then lightbulb Chemistry. This enables Privateers.
4) Military. Tradition and Science enable Military Academies, Grenadiers, and Cavalry
5) Combustion. We can build Oil Wells, and it picks up Railroad for Mine and Shop bonuses, and Steel for Cannons, Iron Works, and Drydocks.

Finally, whip/draft/rush-buy some Rifles, Grenadiers, Cannons, and Cavalry, put em on Drydock Galleons, and attack.

 

[pigswill]

In terms of 'chasing the shiny things' i.e. having no clear goals in the second part of the game maybe the solution is to decide on your victory condition and keep focussed on that. So if you're chasing space do you really need the culture enhancing techs and wonders, do you really need to have the largest army etc.