Runaway Civs on Sid Difficulty

[dreamvirus]

I have played a few games on Sid level now - I won my first (barely) with the Byzantines through having a very lucky starting location on my own very large island. Since then I've had a couple of non-starters where I'm totally hemmed in by powerful civs before I've even built 3 cities. My latest game is a bit more successful - using the Byzantines again on an archipelago map - but barring a miracle I'm going to lose to a spaceship victory by the Persians, who are the runaway leader in size, culture, science...pretty much everything (I am trying to get Physics to get into the Industrial Ages, meanwhile Xerxes has built The United Nations and SETI program).

It seems that one of the biggest problems in Sid level is this "runaway civ" - 1 civ that starts to get bigger than the others around the Middle Ages, and just accelerates out of control due to the huge AI bonuses on sid level, which magnify small advantages, allowing these big civs to crush their rivals much faster than usual, hence gaining land and cities and therefore a monstrous science research rate. I had the same problem with the Zulu in the game that I won but I was able to beat them to the spaceship win through some lucky tech stealing and the fact that Shaka wasted quite a few turns researching Genetics.

I feel that I play as well as I can and make slow inroads on the other (still formidable) civs around me, but there is always a big monster who is in a totally unassailable position by the time I am even close to ready to make a move. I currently have cavalry, muskets and cannons and if I go to war with Xerxes (which I will have to do very soon) I will be fighting Modern Armour and Mech Infantry, Bombers...my only hope is to try and arrange a dogpile and then to capture the UN and hold it long enough for a vote, as Xerxes is pretty unpopular while I have kept my rep intact. Only problem is I will have to ship vast numbers of troops halfway across the world to Xerxes' continent...in galleons. I don't think it can be done but I will try.

My question is: does anyone else have experience of this problem in Sid level? It seems that it only really happens on Sid that 1 civ becomes so much more powerful than the others so quickly. Does anyone have any advice on dealing with it - get a dogpile on that civ early on when they begin to accelerate ahead of the others? There may not be an easy answer but I would love to be able to beat this level consistently and this is my biggest problem.

 

[Bad Brett]

Yes. Therefore, my advice is to launch a giant pact against that civ as early as possible. How many opponents do you play against? If you only play against 3 this WILL happen, I would recommend you play against 7 on a standard map.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I wouldn't say its necessarily an exclusive Sid problem, the same sometimes happens on Deity or even DG. Especially AGR Civs tend to complete get out of controll. Most likely, this only is a new C3C problem because now a huge AI Civ actually benefits from the FP...
Advices? Not really. Getting that Civ into Fascism may delay the end, but often enough a dogpile results only in an even larger Civ.
Up to Deity, you simply have to take care no AI outnumbers the others, but on Sid, this is nothing easily done.

 

[Gargantutron]

yep, make alliances early. as soon as you meet other civs, declare war on the largest that also cannot reach your land directly. then ally with all others aginst him. usually after 20 turns have passed, you wont have fought at all. heheh. then sign peace. that doesnt mean the war will end. the AI civs will continue to fight, and sign alliances with eachother.

in my current game, there were 3 very strong civs on another continent, +3 half strong. i incited a war between the 3, and pretty soon they were all at war over there. i soon started to catch up and overtake, and am now in a comfortable lead.

i started the war in ~300 AD. it did not end until ~1700 AD when Spain was destroyed... by me. heheh.

 

[Offa]

The same thing happened to me in my only concerted attempt. I just gave up on the game when the monster (Russians) sneak attacked me with modern armour. That and frustration after bad luck in tech stealing. Sid games seem to require at least a bit of luck, and you have to play a game for a long time before you can tell whether it is a goer or not.

Why aren't you using an Agricultural Civ?

 

[Bad Brett]

All my good games have been stopped by ONE nation.

The ROMANS.

That's why I play as them myself nowadays. Monsters.

 

[dreamvirus]

I am playing on a large archipelago map with 10 civs. I chose a seafaring/scientific civ because I figured that the archipelago setup would give me an advantage - agricultural and expansionist are better on pangaea/continents (I think - could be wrong as I haven't tried a agricultural/archipelago combination yet).

I think I will just have to do what some have said and try to spot a runaway civ early and make alliances etc. I agree that on Sid it seems that there is no way to get around the fact that you need some luck. On every other level up to Deity I think you can say that there is a way to win pretty much every game, almost anyway, but it seems that on Sid the AI bonuses are so huge that you do need to be lucky with your initial placement, or in the later game with tech stealing, AI-AI wars etc.

I have never had trouble with the Romans, Brett - my nemesis civ seems to be the Zulu, actually. Shaka is just so...unreasonable ;-)

 

[sabo]

That happened to me once, I was America and it was also Persia in this game that grew to this incredible size territory and military. I was able to pull it off because I got the SDI before he did and I stoled his military plans and just nuked those masses of troops.

 

[Bad Brett]

I have never had trouble with the Romans, Brett - my nemesis civ seems to be the Zulu, actually. Shaka is just so...unreasonable ;-)

Really, in my last game I met them shortly after I got feudalism from the Great library. Three stacks, with about 15-20 of units in each stack, attacked me. Every stack contained longbowmen, musketmen, legionaries and medaevil infantry. I was fooling around with 15 swordmen didn't stand a chance against these beasts. I tride to bribe them with various deals, but nothing could stop them.