Trying to win at Prince

[elitetroops]

Now of course it does depend on the type of game you're playing, but IMO it's "HoF starts" that make early rushes stronger than they usually are -- attacking earlier and having more production available both reduce the absolute/relative cost of "early rushing". Basically playing with a very fast start makes you stronger compared to the AI, which is like reducing the difficulty level, thus increasing the efficiency of early rushes. I hope my thoughts aren't too confusing

Sure fast starts make early rushes much more effective. But I think the land and resources in your BFC is only a minor factor in making a start fast. In my games early worker steals are a much bigger factor. If I by accident bump into a 5 gems start, but find there are no possibilities to steal early workers, I happily throw it away and instead play a start with quite basic lands and 3 workers stolen in the first 20 turns. In an immortal HoF game I would virtually always open something like warrior-warrior-barracks, with no intention of building my own workers, which only works as I can throw away the game and start another one when it fails. This is why I'm saying that in HoF type play, the general approach to the game makes a bigger difference than the start itself. For S&T games which usually revolve around a single attempt at one specified map, I would never suggest such an opening. To those reading this who are struggling to move up the levels, ignore these remarks and just build worker first, okay?

Certainly early warfare can be important and learning how to deal with it, but you have to learn how to walk before you can run..with a pointy stick.

OP plays marathon, because he felt his armies were going obsolete before he could use them on noble/epic speed. Learning how to take out noble AI is learning how to walk. If you can't win wars at tech parity on noble but try to learn it on emperor or higher, then you're definitely trying to run before you can walk.

 

[6K Man]

(Oh, and @6K Man, HoF starts are not cooked, only carefully picked. There's a massive difference between those.)

Tomato, tomahto. But I won't beat this particular dead horse.

 

[gaash2]

How are you guys avoiding being DOWed waiting until Cuirs? Maybe my diplomacy skills just suck but if I try to expand peacefully until Cuirs I'll be DOWed by half the map well before Lib.

 

[Pedro78]

@gaash2 You probably have some serious issues with handling diplomacy. I would suggest you to watch some YouTube deity LPs to see how diplomacy should be dealt with. In most cases if you can make it to Currency without getting DoW'd then you're fine until Cuirs. Or maybe just launch a forum game and wait for people to advise you, works very well if you're patient enough. It's pretty hard to give such general advice without an example to work on.

 

[elmurcis]

Outside Food, whips and Cuirs, Diplo is most important. Sometimes you can't do anything to avoid DoW (well, sometimes your cities just can't get religion even with OB ) but most times its possible to do atleast something (with tech trading off how I play last year its harder but still possible)
Sometimes no religion is best religion (possible with 3 or 4 religion blocks). Sharing war with somebody (I used to know ) but never building/sending any unit (just make sure to remember you are at war ). If there is some worst enemy that many AI hates, its very smart to help that guy (or girl) survive mid-game etc.
If I get some DoW now, its usually after T400 or 40 cities when I get sooo lazy to micro diplo and miss that some AI don't have worst enemy anymore but is on war mode (2 times in 2 last games it was DoW vs me)

 

[sampsa]

@gaash2:

Choose your friends (and enemies). By 1AD it's more valuable to have 3 friendly civs and 3 furious civs than 6 cautious civs. Open borders early (+1 per 50 turns(?), capped at +2). Gift resources (+1 per 50 turns, capped at +2). Gift techs or just give them with a discount (fair trade cap +4). Gift cities if needed (+1 liberation possibly, and instant +4 fair trade). Then there is religion. Shared war.

Knowing that you play epic and these bonuses are tied to turns, not years, it shouldn't be hard to get friends. It must be said though that on slower speeds they have more turns to make their war checks, so if you haven't improved your diplomatic stances towards AI you will be attacked more on slower speeds.

 

[gaash2]

Outside Food, whips and Cuirs, Diplo is most important. Sometimes you can't do anything to avoid DoW (well, sometimes your cities just can't get religion even with OB ) but most times its possible to do atleast something (with tech trading off how I play last year its harder but still possible)
Sometimes no religion is best religion (possible with 3 or 4 religion blocks). Sharing war with somebody (I used to know ) but never building/sending any unit (just make sure to remember you are at war ). If there is some worst enemy that many AI hates, its very smart to help that guy (or girl) survive mid-game etc.
If I get some DoW now, its usually after T400 or 40 cities when I get sooo lazy to micro diplo and miss that some AI don't have worst enemy anymore but is on war mode (2 times in 2 last games it was DoW vs me)

interesting, for me the only thing that has been consistent to avoid it is staying high enough in the power graph .. at which point, I might as well invade someone vs continue to peacefully expand.

 

[rah]

I also play with tech trading off so it's a bit tougher. Gifting that decoy city with your religion when you can't get open borders is always fun.

One question. How do you get rid of the initial impression negative or how long does it take. Can you avoid it early in the game?

 

[lymond]

Rah - that impression is based off Peace Weights and Base Attitude toward Human Player. The attached zip contains various files put together by DanF years ago, based on code. Includes a Peaceweight chart. The initial malus does not go away.

Much of this info was used to put together this great Article in the Strategy Articles subforum:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-1-know-your-enemy.478563/

 

[Lexicus]

@gaash2

What the other folks here are saying is accurate. It requires frequent checking of the diplomacy advisor's various screens to keep up with the diplomacy properly, but if you put in the work you will be rewarded heavily. I play Emperor with Aggressive AI (so it is far more difficult to avoid war) but there is still a huge difference between a game where I actually take a proactive approach with diplomacy (ie, where I take care to get some of my neighbors to friendly/pleased) and one where I just muddle through and pretty much ignore the AIs (ie, just auto-reject all their requests and only go to them when I need gold or have techs/resources to trade away). It's easily the difference between a won game and a ragequit right after getting dogpiled. Though I can still win (sometimes) when I neglect diplomacy I think for where I'm at with Civ 4 diplomacy is easily the most important factor determining success or failure in my games. It really sucks getting attacked by 3 massive stacks of medieval units when you're only ten or so turns from cuirassiers, cannons, or rifles.

By 1AD it's more valuable to have 3 friendly civs and 3 furious civs than 6 cautious civs.

This, x100. Helps even more if 2 of the friendlies and 1 furious border you. That way you have room to expand a contiguous empire, and can properly concentrate forces against the enemy.

 

[gaash2]

@gaash2

What the other folks here are saying is accurate. It requires frequent checking of the diplomacy advisor's various screens to keep up with the diplomacy properly, but if you put in the work you will be rewarded heavily. I play Emperor with Aggressive AI (so it is far more difficult to avoid war) but there is still a huge difference between a game where I actually take a proactive approach with diplomacy (ie, where I take care to get some of my neighbors to friendly/pleased) and one where I just muddle through and pretty much ignore the AIs (ie, just auto-reject all their requests and only go to them when I need gold or have techs/resources to trade away). It's easily the difference between a won game and a ragequit right after getting dogpiled. Though I can still win (sometimes) when I neglect diplomacy I think for where I'm at with Civ 4 diplomacy is easily the most important factor determining success or failure in my games. It really sucks getting attacked by 3 massive stacks of medieval units when you're only ten or so turns from cuirassiers, cannons, or rifles.



This, x100. Helps even more if 2 of the friendlies and 1 furious border you. That way you have room to expand a contiguous empire, and can properly concentrate forces against the enemy.

interesting. I'll try to kiss ass a bit more. When I see some of the diety videos from absolutezero etc. I never understand how they have all this time to build armies and invade.. when I ignore military by 500 BC at the latest I'm being attacked.

 

[rah]

Rah - that impression is based off Peace Weights and Base Attitude toward Human Player. The attached zip contains various files put together by DanF years ago, based on code. Includes a Peaceweight chart. The initial malus does not go away.

Much of this info was used to put together this great Article in the Strategy Articles subforum:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-1-know-your-enemy.478563/

Thanks, I'll look at this again when I get a chance this weekend. I've reviewed it before but in my old age for some reason I vaguely remember readings somewhere that if you gave them money when you first met them you could lessen the original malus. Urban myth I suppose. You would think a few thousand years of being your best bud would lessen that.

 

[elitetroops]

I vaguely remember readings somewhere that if you gave them money when you first met them you could lessen the original malus. Urban myth I suppose.

Yes and no. Gifting some money when you first meet is a good way to get around their initial dislike of you, because diplo bonus for fair trade is influenced by how long you known them. Gifting even a small amount immediately when you meet gives +4 for fair trade and allows you to get anyone to pleased, for example to open borders with Toku. This quickly goes down as turns pass and your fair trade bonus diminishes. It does not affect their initial dislike of you, that remains constant all the time.

 

[rah]

That's clearer. Unfortunately really early I have no gold to give. What's the minimum amount of gold you need to get any impact?
This is probably what my feeble mind remembered.
Much appreciated.

 

[Pedro78]

On the turn you meet an AI, gifting 10 gold gives you +4 "our trade relations have been fair and forthright" bonus.

The exact formula can be found here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...in-game-mechanics.464503/page-5#post-12036166

 

[elmurcis]

Very welcome when going around world with caravels and want to "buy-up map" for +1 bonus (huge for Privateers because can attack, run away and pull out caravels from cities, eating XP/GG points like ). Sometimes 10 gold for some "horizontal map knowledge AI" can be enough to get around without going around After that map trading alone can be worth almost like GM mission