Preventing a Spaceship win from AI on Monarch and higher

[SonOfYogSothoth]

I've been having troubles lately with powerful Financial AIs like Catherine of the Russians. It seems very difficult to prevent them from winning the late game with their spaceship.

Of course, I'm no pro-player and my micro could certainly use some improvement, but I'm working on that. What I wanna know is this: what do you do on higher levels when one or several AI techs the Appolo Program? Are you able to counter them withouth ruining your economy with all-out war or hyper-expensive spy missions?

 

[dfg26]

I'm no pro-player either but I'd say you nuke them. That usually seems to be the only way to counter runaway AI's in the late game on the higher levels.

 

[georgjorge]

I agree with dfg26 - that's usually the best solution when the AI is already that powerful.

The other answer for anything below Deity is to win the game long before they can build the Apollo Program, and the way you do it is by being more aggressive with warring (meaning making more troops and attacking far earlier, thus having more cities earlier, which again leads to more troops etc). There are some things to consider when doing that (lots of whipping, lots of chopping, little infrastructure etc.) but there are more detailed threads for those things.

 

[SonOfYogSothoth]

Thanks for your input guys!

Bottomline, don't let the AI play their build game and be as aggressive as possible, as early as possible. And if you fail preventing them from getting to the top of the tech tree, try to nuke them out of their plans (more like a failsafe solution).

 

[Emperor Ukunaka Kukvlkana]

this is why i always turn that victory condition off, i remember in civ 3 i was about to take over the world and then a rocket goes flying into space and i lost!

 

[shakabrade]

If you capture their capital while Spaceship is already launched, they lose the Spaceship. They need to rebuild it again.

 

[SonOfYogSothoth]

@shakabrade not true in Civ4. Slamming the capitol does'nt destroy the spaceship like in Civ3. Even destroying their Appolo Program doesn't work. You gotta destroy entirely their hammer production basically.

In one of my lost games, the good ol' Americans were going off and I destroyed 8 coastal cities above 15 pop in roughly 10 turns, including their capitol and Appolo city. Guess what came out of New York (that survived the onslaught) a couple of turns after? Stasis module FTW.

 

[SonOfYogSothoth]

@emperor Ukana that's tempting but feels a bit like cheating doesn't it?

 

[Tatran]

We are talking about civ 4 vanilla, right?
This means : launch spaceship -> game over. Unlike in BTS where you have to wait x turns to arrive at AC to win the game.
I haven't played civ 4 vanilla since Warlords was available, but I do think you can sabotage SS parts when your spies occupying the right cities where SS parts are being built.

 

[SonOfYogSothoth]

@Tatran Yeah we are talking about the vanilla version, thanks for clarifying. I didn't know that it wasn't the same with BTS. But does it changes anything? Can you actually destroy the capitol to prevent the win? Cause that would be awesome (I liked the way it played out in Civ3).

 

[georgjorge]

In Civ 4 BTS you can. You can also found corps and get Great Generals and many other nice things, so highly recommended.

 

[Tatran]

In BTS you can sabotage SS parts with spies through espionage. EPs (espionage points) has been added to the commerce slider besides gold, science and culture.
You can also get vision in the AI cities which will make it easier to see where and how long the AI is building SS parts.
When an enemy spaceship has been launched the only solution to stop them from winning the game is to capture their capital. The Apollo Program can never be destroyed once it has been built, you can only eliminate that civ from game.
Winning a space victory in BTS is similar like it was in civ 2, after lauch you will have to wait x turns. (30 turns at marathon speed.)

 

[SonOfYogSothoth]

Thanks a lot for the precise info, and may I add, it sounds awesome! I bought the bundle on Steam and never actually playedthe expansions. I wanted to get good at the original game first before adding stuff. But it looks like it makes a huge diffence on the gameplay itself. I'll jump right into it!

 

[rah]

Another critical item when you move to BTS is that siege units can no longer kill units. (except on defense) The can only lower the hit points down to certain % based on the siege unit. But the devs never bothered to program this logic for the AI so the AI still thinks it can kill units with them. Which makes for some hilarious situations. (An enemy fleet surprises one of your core coastal cities and while you swearing, only siege units are unloaded from the transports and attack your city with no possibility of ever taking it.)