Spaceship Strategies

[harrisp]

At the lower levels I played Persians and used a strategy of;
1. Expand with settlers and exploit terrain
2. Find iron
3. Build Immortals
4. Expand by conquest
5. Switch to republic or democracy
6. Reach a critical mass of cities, land, resource & pop. that is..usually more than any other AI
7. Build Forbidden Palace at other end of my territory to the capital - this reduces corruption greatly (needs GL usually)
6. Switch focus of towns to defense, science and production
7. Build spaceship

Policy on science - trade and keep up, in early game ..be ahead in later game to ensure spaceship build ahead of AI
Policy on wonders - opportunistic when I have GLs ..otherwise I don't bother with Great wonders

This works well up to Monarch ..but less so on Emperor and Deity because the AI civs rapidly take the land and resouce..even when I could find the (at these levels scarce) iron and build an army I found my cities often defected to the reigious civs....SO RETHINK..if you cannot beat them join them ....got my first win at Deity by playing the Babylonians and strategy I recommend is;
1. Expand with settlers and exploit terrain
2. Build temples,cathedrals, libraries..continue to build culture improvements as much as poss.throughout the game
3. Build Bowmen (good for defensive and offense)..continue to build units regularly ..whatever is best available with your combination of resource and science
4. Trade as much as poss. Everything..maps, resource..science.. be THE broker..you can only keep up with science by trade and later by peace settlements
5. Establish embassies..you're going to need friends to win with this strategy..switch to democracy as soon as poss
6. The other civs are bigger than you so keep up to date with their score via regular looks on the F8 key
7. The biggest scoring civ is your target. Establish MPPs with the others as far as is practical..try to engineer it so that the largest civ gets isolated
8. Make sure the isolated civ starts a war with you..the others will beat him/her up..make sure that your defense is up to scratch
9. repeat this "isolate the top civ by MPP" policy throughout the game. This means you are ducking and diving with your diplomacy/mPPs throughout
10. At same time make sure you deny the civs resource as much as poss. especially uranium and aluminium..in later stages you need this more than them and it's key to denying them spaceship victory. Babylonian is religious and scientific..religious has given some land gains by culture flip by this stage too BUT it's time to use science pro-actively and start on spaceship so..
11. Build Forbidden Palace at other end of my territory to the capital - this reduces corruption greatly (in my I had to build it because my MPP policy meant I didn't do much fighting with my own units and so don't expect any GLs)
12. Switch focus of towns to science and production
13. Build spaceship

 

[jshelr]

I believe you are very wise to devote attention to creating AI wars among themselves at the higher levels. Otherwise, they will leave you in the tech dust. To build the FP far from your palace lacking a leader, you might consider the palace bounce technique.

 

[harrisp]

Thanks, can you expand on what you mean by "palace bounce" ?

 

[bbaws]

Sorry you have just exemplified a large category of posters who think "if I type and type and type it must be true"
If what you say has any accuracy it is easier expressed.

 

[harrisp]

As strategy guides go , it's quite short !

 

[Bamspeedy]

A palace bounce is often called a 'palace jump'. It's tricky to do and usually only done pretty early in the game. When you disband your capital, you get a new palace some place else. Usually it jumps to the city with the most population (of your own citizens, foreigners don't count) AND culture. It's takes some practice to get a feel for where the palace will jump to. It is risky to do when playing a serious game (GOTM), because the palace may jump to the wrong spot. You can join a bunch of workers/settlers into the target city to boost it's population to hopefully make sure that is the city the palace will jump to.

You have a city next to your palace building the forbidden palace (won't take very long to build). And of course, make sure the capital you are disbanding doesn't have anything important in it like wonders .

 

[Perfection]

I like to use the other palace-jump like mythod, put your FP right next to you current palace and move your palace to the best location via GL's

 

[I. Larkin]

Good tips, indeed at Diety they should be improoved a bit. Normally you cant be ahead at tech at morden era. But you ar "at level" at least if you did active Tech trade in Industrial. My improovment is to discover Computer and Fiber first and send expedition to capture Capital of the Civs who are about to finish spaceship. Also it is usefull to make war between superpowers at early morden era having MPP with one, with Bombers and Battelships they harm each other. In this war I try to capture resurses that I do not have myself.
Topics on FP and Palace Jump less important, normally I build it at the City with 50% corruption if there any perspectives to expand at this diection. Or, if I have GL on another continent / Island, but it is difficult to get GL on Diety.
My question is are tere other way to win on Diety? Well, Diplo and Culture is different strategy, but in both games I win my experiments showed, that deviation from this line do not help. It somehow makes Mid age and early Ind a bit boring, just improve, visit "tech market" bue and sale, and that it. May be I miss somethig? Any idea how to make them fight at erly Ind era, but not to be involved?