Space Race in a Permanent Alliance

[Fabius]

In my last game I was in a permanent alliance with Germany and headed for the Space Race victory. I started work on the Apollo Project and when it was done I built a couple SS Casings and saw it became grayed out. Then I noticed Frederick was building a few also. I didn't get uptight at that point as the casings can be built pretty much anywhere and will be done well before the spaceship is ready for launch.

So we kept plugging on and I got Fusion (I think that's the one that allows you to build the engine). The engine takes forever to build, so I had been grooming one of my cities with tons of hammers, Engineer specialists (for the extra hammers), a lab, factory, I already had the Space Elevator, I had the whole nine-yards. With only like 20 turns in the game I got Fusion and was happy to know it would only take 18 turns to build the engine in my special city. The happiness faded when I saw the option was grayed out.

Then I saw Frederick had queued it up the instant we both learned the tech. And he queued it up in a city that, at best, was a third of my production. It would take him 60 years to build the engine when I could do it in 18 with only 20 turns left! There was no option to talk to him about it, to unqueue it from his city so I could queue it up in mine, nothing.

In a fit of frustration I went into the World Builder hoping I could unqueue his production in there, but there was no option to do anything of the sort. Not knowing what else to do, and figuring I already had won the game anyway I deleted his city, then queued the engine up in mine.

My methods may be questionable, but the point is be very careful going into a permanent alliance with the AI if you plan on going for a space race victory. For a dominantion of conquest victory it would be fantastic to have a permanent alliance, but for the space race it's a potential disaster.

Anyone else had something similar happen? Is there a way to knock your ally on the head and tell him or her to just sit there and look pretty and let you handle the hard work?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

This is a definite problem, they should be letting you build the parts in multiple cities at once (and when all parts of one type are complete, the excess ones are all converted to gold)
Then all you would need would be some type of warning next to any projects/Wonders/Parts that are being 'excess built' telling you it might be better to cancel these (a red EXCESS PROJECT flag or something like that....which when clicked on would list the cities already working on that project)

 

[spiceant]

cant you ask him for his citys?

 

[Fabius]

I don't know about asking for his cities. But there needs to be a better mechanism than how it exists now. It's great when you can build three casings in your top three cities and he can build the other two in his, but when there's a single one, it should at least be smart enough to suggest you build it when he can see you can do it in 18 turns while he will take 40.

At least there could be a screen that comes on and says, "I notice we still need to build the engine of our spaceship. It would take me 40 years to build but your city X could build it in 18, do you want to build it?"

The game asks me to build settlers enough times, you'd think it would ask me to build an engine. And if I tell it "No thanks," then my ally could say, "Very well, then I'll build it in city Y."

I was a little bit miffed as the instant the tech was learned he switched Frankfurt's production to the engine. At the very least it should allow you to override his production. He's your ally, so there's no reason you'd be trying to jerk him around. Allow him to select the engine, then if you select your engine he would automatically "lose the bid" to build that part. How hard would that be?