There must be some sort of conqueror's plateau

[Bibor]

In my most recent game Siam conquered a whole continent (like 30 cities), Bismarck and Montezuma, plus at least 3 city-states.

He had around +500 GPT, around 300 gold and was leading in tech race.

How? I mean, when I try to do it - I go bankrupt.

There has to be some sort of Conqueror's plateau, when the benefits start outweighting the costs of conquests.

 

[coe]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=382812

AI went for ignore happiness strategy.

 

[Duo]

Smart AI. ^~

 

[WuphonsReach]

Yeah, it's unbalanced. If you try to play the game the way it's designed and laid out in the game manual - you're going to get screwed.

 

[Cashew]

I don't understand why you think there should be a limit to conquest.

 

[Crazyface]

In one my games, one civ was getting crushed by another, I lent them some strategic resources and 50 turns later they were the ones doing the crushing...and they loved me!

 

[Mugsy]

Just played a standard game on prince, large map. I was plopped in North America alone. By the time I was able to sail to Europe/Africa Japan had eliminated everyone except England and had all of Europe and Africa colonized, as well as about half of Asia. The rest was all England.

My problem with civ 5 is what my problem has been with nearly every sim game. I would prefer a game that is more fluid, with borders and empires able to expand and contract relatively quickly. The way it is now its a slow methodical growth with the occassional important decision, but really just a lot of waiting. As a civ gets stronger, it gains momentum, and slowly gets more and more powerful.. and inevitably rolls over those that are at a slower pace. There's really no recovery from it.

This is how you get one civ dominated half the entire world, making playing out the last 1/2 of the game pointless.

 

[King Jason]

I think it may have to do with which A.I. is in the game. I noticed that Siam, Japan, France, Germany, China, Aztecs, and Persia all seemed to be wrecking-ball civs... with Songhai (oddly), India (sure), Russia (oddly), and America, to name a few... all seem to get their butts whupped constantly. Obviously I haven't consistantly observed every A.I. yet.

But anyway, I decided to start a game where I picked all of the above, "good" opponents... and wouldn't you know ~ it worked out. Everybody got big, and everybody was whupping everybody's butt. By the end of the renaissance The world is split pretty evenly between myself and 5 of the 8 civs. France, China, and Siam getting consumed by myself, Germany, and Japan.

So yea, point being... it seems like it's always the same civs doing good, and the same civs doing bad. Which sucks if it's the case... but if so, at least you can pick all of the "good" players for your game if you want an even spread.

 

[Hyspasist]

I don't understand why you think there should be a limit to conquest.

I don't think it was a suggestion of placing a brick wall for your conquest desires so much as increasing the cost to benefit of taking that course of action. Your empire can't keep up with your war machine if you over extend.

 

[Magil]

This is why, while I prefer Civ 5 in a lot of ways, I prefer Civ 4's system where underdeveloped, newly-settled or conquered cities were financial drains on your empire rather than beneficial. I'm not a fan of hugely developed cities being maintenance sinks, with increasingly high maintenance costs on more powerful buildings. I feel as though that if you spend the 20 turns to build something, it shouldn't be a drain. Maybe it's not as beneficial as you hoped, but a drain is too much.

 

[Venereus]

Smart AI. ^~

Nah, he got lucky.

 

[oppy]

I prefer Civ 4's system where underdeveloped, newly-settled or conquered cities were financial drains on your empire rather than beneficial.

After reading this, I can't imagine you've ever played civ4 or you are a really awful player. Conquering cities and expanding your empire is basically never a bad idea. Civ5 is the game where conquering cities (read annexing not puppets) is a major handicap to the player.

 

[Martin Alvito]

This is why, while I prefer Civ 5 in a lot of ways, I prefer Civ 4's system where underdeveloped, newly-settled or conquered cities were financial drains on your empire rather than beneficial.

Read things carefully before responding to them, oppy (especially if you're going to be insulting). Your brand new 1 pop cities in Civ IV were terrible until you developed them, and it took a few turns (and often some whipping) to turn a newly conquered city from a liability into an asset. That's what Magil is saying here.

Circumstances existed in Civ IV where going on a conquering tear was a bad idea. If a late war (ie: gunpowder and on) bogged down, you could end up taking longer to plow through the research tree than you would have if you had stood pat. War weariness can get rough in your big science producing cities.

Of course, there was never a reason to defer a war if you were going to just thrash your victim.

 

[Magil]

After reading this, I can't imagine you've ever played civ4 or you are a really awful player. Conquering cities and expanding your empire is basically never a bad idea. Civ5 is the game where conquering cities (read annexing not puppets) is a major handicap to the player.

Perhaps we have a misunderstanding then. Of course expansion and conquering are almost always good in Civ 4, but they WOULD bring your research to a halt if you hadn't made preparations for it. I'm not sure where this personal attack is coming from, but perhaps you should chill a bit. I merely feel that research and income should also be more harshly penalized by rapid expansion in Civ 5 as well. New cities are a happiness drain only in Civ 5, but it takes almost no effort to work around.

 

[Aaroc]

Perhaps we have a misunderstanding then. Of course expansion and conquering are almost always good in Civ 4, but they WOULD bring your research to a halt if you hadn't made preparations for it. I'm not sure where this personal attack is coming from, but perhaps you should chill a bit. I merely feel that research and income should also be more harshly penalized by rapid expansion in Civ 5 as well. New cities are a happiness drain only in Civ 5, but it takes almost no effort to work around.

The problem here is that you get research from population, and you get population from conquest. The only thing that slows down at all when you expand is the rate at which you gain policies. You lose happiness, if you choose to Annex rather than Puppet the cities you conquer. You can lose gold if you Puppet rather than Annex. At the same time, however, if you are taking over cities that have new happiness resources, and/or have sufficiently improved workable tiles, you won't really notice the lost gold much, especially since you get a decent flat boost to gold when you conquer a city. (granted, I've only played on the lower difficulties yet, going for achievements and learning the new ropes, so things might be different in the higher difficulties)

 

[Drago Askani]

Thing is when the ai does this they are a push over. They have gone way negative on happiness. Now assuming I am my usual self they are just now catching up on tech from the size of their empire. This is when I start taking it for my own. With my great generals and his -33% unhappiness combat modifier the ai doesn't stand a chance in hell. Boom Head shot.

 

[cembandit]

the trade income from conquering large cities often pays for any improvements they build. Get them roads up. Part of the cost people don't consider is the road infrastructure. You often don't need that much to connect them to the capital, and your already paying for their roads anyways, which aren't helping you until you connect them to your network. I think this is overlooked a lot.

 

[Magil]

Thing is when the ai does this they are a push over. They have gone way negative on happiness. Now assuming I am my usual self they are just now catching up on tech from the size of their empire. This is when I start taking it for my own. With my great generals and his -33% unhappiness combat modifier the ai doesn't stand a chance in hell. Boom Head shot.

Is this true on all difficulties? I've heard some horror stories of the AI expanding to take over a huge area, then becoming unstoppable because of their tech lead (turns out -33% combat effectiveness isn't a huge deal when you have more units that are also more advanced). Maybe those players just weren't exploiting the AI's combat deficiencies, I haven't yet had this problem yet myself (though I've only been steadily increasing the difficulty level with each game). But I imagine it could become a real problem when I do reach the higher difficulties, so I'm expecting it.

 

[Guardian_PL]

In my most recent game Siam conquered a whole continent (like 30 cities), Bismarck and Montezuma, plus at least 3 city-states.

He had around +500 GPT, around 300 gold and was leading in tech race.

How? I mean, when I try to do it - I go bankrupt.

There has to be some sort of Conqueror's plateau, when the benefits start outweighting the costs of conquests.

Have you noticed how the AI "develops" its cities? It's bloody Trade Posts eeeeverywhere. Tha's why they're rolling in money, but not much in other things.

Also, the higher the level, the less maintenance AI is paying, so no wonder that it's capable of snowballing. Especially Siam with double the food bonuses from maritime City-States...

 

[Shillen]

Have you noticed how the AI "develops" its cities? It's bloody Trade Posts eeeeverywhere. Tha's why they're rolling in money, but not much in other things.

Yep, I remember capturing a city with a large cultural radius late in the game that was stagnant at size 6 despite having 3 river tiles because the AI trade posted everything instead of farming.