Trouble expanding my empire.

[Donut9]

Hi, I was hoping you guys will have some advice.

I disable every victory condition except Domination, Conquest, and Space Race, and I always try to go for one of the first two before a civ gets the space race.

However, I have been having some problems. Basically, in the beginning and middle of the game, it seems like I cannot take over another civilization without it sending my economy and tech into the dumps. By the time I can afford it, the modern era, the culture flipping is so high that it seems impossible, or at least VERY tedious to do. I find I never finish a game anymore.

I find I generally try to hold out for modern era warfare units, and then start my military rushes, but by then it seems incredibly difficult.

I am still playing vanilla on the mac, and will be ordering BTS very soon.

 

[mariogreymist]

It's hard to say specifically why your economy is tanking without seeing a save file.

One thing you might consider is trying to rush an opponent with axes or fighting a medieval war. If you can get ahead of an opponent early and take all their land, you can be far enough ahead late to fight the rest of your wars with blitzkrieg (which effectively counters culture flipping with its rapid advance rate).

 

[DaveMcW]

Cottages!

 

[mariogreymist]

Cottages!

And this.

 

[Sisiutil]

I find I generally try to hold out for modern era warfare units, and then start my military rushes, but by then it seems incredibly difficult.

I think this is your problem, and mariogreymist was zeroing in on it as well. Without fighting a war in either the early or middle game, you will likely be far behind the other civs. You may have been able to found 4-6 cities before all the land gets grabbed up. That many cities is fine for an early game empire, but even by the middle of the game you will find yourself hard-pressed to keep up, or catch up, to the other civs.

The advantage of a war is that you have a chance to claim good land as well as resources you do not currently possess. (The AI, in contrast, wastes a lot of effort settling cities in questionable locations just because there's unclaimed land available.) You may also claim a wonder or two and perhaps even a holy city.

Your economy will suffer during a war--be prepared for it and don't let it stop you. After the war is done, you should experience a "slingshot effect" from those extra cities and their collective contributions to your empire. This should give you a "come from behind" boost versus your rivals, and you'll find yourself well-positioned to assume a healthy lead in points, technology, and power that will allow you to pursue and achieve victory.

 

[BigTime]

Cottages!

Agreed. Also one question. Why do you disable victory conditions?

 

[Shafi]

What exactly do you mean dump? are your units going on strike? If not you are fine, the easiest period for going to war and probably where you will get the most milage out of it is the BC era. When you do go to war early on your economy will bottom out and sometimes your research rate may hit zero, not a big problem, once you take a few enemy cities you get gold and then COTTAGES will help you recover, once you do you will rocket ahead as you will have double the land of everyone else and two capital cities.

 

[mfie]

The nice thing about war is that it brings in gold when you kill cities so you can keep your economy alive (you get 100-150 gold per conquered/razed city). Then i ussually whip courthouses/librarys (thats another nice thing about capturing cities: they already have some population ready to be whipped) in all those cities.

 

[Shafi]

Check out the HUI game # 1 that i am playing, at the end of Round 4, you will see how bad my economy is, research rate down to 10%, thats ok, we have waged early war eliminated an opponent and the recovery will now begin.
You will see lot's of useful advice from all the posters there on how to recover, i have used that advise in playing the next round which is basically all about recovering the economy, and will be posting that round later today.
Hope it will help ...