What to do about a runaway civ

[Michelangelo]

In my current game (Prince, standard, 5 civs), I'm playing as the mongols (Kublai). I selected a map with two continents. My intention was to clear my continent of foreign influence and then try to maximize my economy without the need for constant military conflicts.

Part 1, being the clearing of the continent, worked great. Using the keshik I defeated my fellow continent civ. However I could not fill up my continent fast enough to prevent the guys on the other continent from settling 3 coastal tundra cities. But I didn't declare war on them as I though those cities were probably going to hurt them more through distance cost than they gained from them.

Part 2, getting my economy up and running, works also quiet well, to my standards at least. I've got a science city, a production city and a gold city set up. However Cyrus is quiet a few steps ahead of me. I'm in second place, but he is leading in every aspect. He has had every tech I researched before me, has tanks while I'm running around as cavalry, about 3 times the military power of me.

I decided I would use spy (for the first time) and try to see what he was doing on the other continent. I just arived there to see him finish Apollo. I couldn't raise the money to sabotage it. I thought of sabotaging his aluminium, but I don't know the tech yet. By now he has build 4 space ship parts, while I'm about to complete apollo myself. But I can't build spaceship parts yet since I don't have the techs yet. So I face a uphill struggle, which I would like to win.



This is what I've come up with so far.
- Try to sabotage his resources for spaceship building once I can locate them
- Try to sabotage his space elevator if he tries to build it
- Focus on techs for spaceship parts
- Deny him of luxuries (now I'm trading for aluminium for 3 resources. I intend to cancel it, once I discover my own)
- I dont think asking the other AI's to declare war on him will work as they are millitarily backwards and will be run over.


It comes down to pestering him a bit with spies, until they fail and he will become angry towards me.

So any ideas are welcome before it's to late do do anything about it.

 

[ownedbyakorat]

There's always nuclear war.

 

[Shawnosaurus]

That's a rough state of affairs.

Is diplomatic victory an option?

Can you make a push to catch up your military and take a major city from him? Perhaps if he builds the space elevator target that one? While raiding you could go on a tile razing spree and maybe impede his production and resource levels. Is it also feasible to work with an AI civ so you are both caught up with your military and both attack him?

You need to toss a bigger spanner into the works than some spies I think.

.

 

[Orion071]

How far ahead of you is he technology-wise? 2 techs? 5 techs? How's your empire size and GNP compare to his? It's not that hard to catch up to a lone civ in the modern age and win the space race, I do it all the time on monarch. Post a save and I'll see if you can catch up peacefully or if more extreme measures are needed.

 

[Priah]

You have calvary and 3 cities??

 

[Michelangelo]

Is diplomatic victory an option?

Don't think so. Though I am the biggest, Cyrus is 2nd. There are only two other civs left, one friendly, one anoyed. Cyrus could vote for me as we are friendly, but then I need to drop him to 3th place.

Can you make a push to catch up your military and take a major city from him? Perhaps if he builds the space elevator target that one? While raiding you could go on a tile razing spree and maybe impede his production and resource levels.

I don't think I can catch up and invade, especially b/c he's across the ocean and has a zillion more advanced units. I can start building tanks of my own now.

Is it also feasible to work with an AI civ so you are both caught up with your military and both attack him?

You need to toss a bigger spanner into the works than some spies I think.

I'll think about this. Might get his neighbor to fight him as we're friendly and he lacks a lot of techs. But you're right, three spies might not be enough

How far ahead of you is he technology-wise? 2 techs? 5 techs? How's your empire size and GNP compare to his?

My guess is around 5-8 techs. I saw him researching at 100% and still making about 200gpt. So maybe it's not to far ahead, and if Cyrus makes some inefficient build choises, like building a SS-part in a low-hammer city, it might be enough.

You have calvary and 3 cities??

If that were the case I wouldn't be here asking about it. The AI have three cities on my continent. I have 10 cities and just starting to build tanks.

 

[Lord Parkin]

War is the only really effective way to drag back a runaway AI. However, from the sounds of things it seems like you aren't at all ready for a war, if Cyrus has three times your military size and tanks when you don't. I'd advise a very quick buildup and invasion (and razing) of his core cities (especially coastal ones, which are easier to access), but even then it may be too late. The point to salvage victory in a game is near the start or in the middle. Once you get down to the last 50 turns, there's really usually very little you can do to stop a runaway civ.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The AI sucks at defending anything but their actual city. Amass high move units like gunships and cavalry, and pillage with them. Don't bother with the cities themselves, just the tiles they work. Kill his towns to help you catch up in techs, his mines to stop him from leveraging the tech advantages he's already got, and so on. Since he won't be losing any cities or troops, he won't be losing any maintenence costs, so the loss of commerce will be especially painful.

 

[carl corey]

Sabotaging is still an option. But instead of focusing on strategic (Aluminium, Copper, etc) resources - which are usually guarded - or happiness resources, just take out whatever food sources he has. Or even usual mines. Lowering his food & health levels can work just as well as lowering his happiness levels. I've seen an AI stubbornly trying to build a spaceship part in a city with all my four spies destroying every farm and mine around it. Never finished it. And by the way, you don't need Aluminium right now. You're behind in techs, productions doesn't matter that much at this point! Cancel the deal for Aluminium right away and wait for yours to pop up.

Is there anyway you can get the Space Elevator? Maybe if you have one or two GEs available. You really don't want Cyrus to get it too, he'd just run away with the victory.

I'm not convinced war is an option here. I'd rather build ships and guard my shores in case someone else decides to take a shot at me and try to catch up and win the space race. The AI sometimes gets out of focus and goes for Mass Media, Flight or Composites instead of finishing the spaceship. You still have a chance. Also remember, after you have your last spaceship part tech there's no need for commerce, especially in your production cities. If you don't have enough workers then a city should produce workers only, and when you finish teching just drop a watermill or a workshop instead of every cottage. You can even do this on commerce resources since the happiness most of them give can be compensated by rising the culture slider.

If you'd like you could post a save to see if there's any further advice we can give. Good luck!

 

[Munch]

I thought of sabotaging his aluminium, but I don't know the tech yet.

I assume you mean that you can't see his aluminium resource to pillage it... but you can! It has to be a mine improvement of course, and you can see how many hammers/gold each of his mines is making. Ergo (good word), the mines of his which are working aluminium will be generating more hammers/gold than a standard mine. I believe it will be:

+3 hammers
+1 gold

Hope this helps you locate the mystery metal for pillaging! Also, if you keep your trade deal for Cyrus' spare aluminium, you will receive the production bonus and he won't!

I realised that this tile-inspection works when I saw a desert tile in a distant civ's territory producing 1 hammer, and realised that it was oil (which I couldn't see) which was yet to be hooked up with a well.

 

[Michelangelo]

I assume you mean that you can't see his aluminium resource to pillage it... but you can! It has to be a mine improvement of course, and you can see how many hammers/gold each of his mines is making. Ergo (good word), the mines of his which are working aluminium will be generating more hammers/gold than a standard mine. I believe it will be:

+3 hammers
+1 gold

Hope this helps you locate the mystery metal for pillaging!

That was indeed the reason I thought I couldn't pillage the Aluminium. Sounds like a good plan , though a bit cheaty.

Maybe I can get a deal for his own aluminium in return. Something like a lot of gold, or techs.

I was planning to cancel the deal as soon as I finished apollo, but that is still a couple of turn away.

 

[carl corey]

Think about this: even if you finish Apollo with Aluminium you're still techs and techs away from the last part. You'll benefit from Aluminium for Apollo and for whatever parts you start to build. But in fact you shouldn't build any yet! Just go with military and infrastructure, wait to see where your own Aluminium is, build Laboratories (you need Observatories for them, build them if you hadn't already) and the hammers will be much better invested then! Not to mention if you get the Space Elevator which should be your first priority right now.

Finishing a Casing a couple of turns earlier won't win you the space race. Giving the AI the possibility to be bigger and thus more productive might lose it on the other hand.

By the way, you can't get techs for Aluminium, nor gold in the way of "pile of gold". Only resources or gold per turn. And I'm sure that once you leave him with only one source of Aluminium he'll cancel the deal anyway.

 

[Joxer]

Sounds like a Space Race victory is out. Could you sneak a domination victory? You say you control your continent, could you pick off one of the smaller Civs by Cyrus to get the pop% and land%?

 

[Shawnosaurus]

I think you should post up the save game from the point you started this thread. We'll see who can lose by the least

It does sound like taking a key city is unlikely. Monkeyfinger's plan of pillage spamming him might help. Just flood his lands with cheap fast units and pillage everything that is in his fat crosses.

Using cheap units should let you keep on track with your own space production while crippling his. Who knows, he may over extend his troops chasing you around his lands and you might get a lucky city or two.

.

 

[Welnic]

...

By the way, you can't get techs for Aluminium, nor gold in the way of "pile of gold". Only resources or gold per turn. And I'm sure that once you leave him with only one source of Aluminium he'll cancel the deal anyway.

One thing about this that I realized reading this post, is that you can't cancel a resource deal for 10 turns. So if you made the deal and then sabotaged his next to last aluminum mine he would have to give you his only aluminum for 10 turns.

 

[carl corey]

True, but to max out the benefits of this trick you'd have to: a) not have Aluminium b) manage to pillage ALL but one of his Aluminium mines on that turn c) hope he actually builds something (preferably several spaceship parts) which would have been improved with the Aluminium during those turns. Over all, probably not a great gain.

 

[Michelangelo]

It's done

What I did, and had much more effect than I ever could have guessed, was harrassing Cyrus with spies, by sabotaging resources (aluminium, copper, single luxuries). This worked to some extend, but then I asked Peter kindly to teach Cyrus a lesson. There something strange happened. At the moment I wanted to ask Peter to DoW Cyrus, he would do it, although I had a defensive pact with Cyrus at that time. Of course I ended this pact before confirming the deal with Peter, but to my great surprise, Peter was suddenly afraid of the military might of Cyrus. He is more afraid of fighting 1 AI than he is of fighting the same AI + me. He just has no respect for me

To clarify this I looked into the attitude modifiers of everyone involved. It turns out having the pact made Peter having -3 or so toward Cyrus b/c Cyrus had a pact with his rival. Removing the pact erased that -3 and the were friends again.

The ware really crippled Cyrus, production plummeted to around 25%, GNP fell sharply. Cyrus was actually quiet impressive in the war. He eliminated all but one island city of Peter. In the end he was just building military, and one spaceship part at 18 hammers per turn (including modifiers )

For closers I've attached some screens, so you can see which game I'm talking about. Thanks for your suggestions to win this.


You probably can guess when I asked Peter to attack


The starting positions


I just declared war on asoka


I got my own little continent, and this situation lasted until the Peter-Cyrus war


Peter will think again of declaring war for 1 lousy tech

 

[carl corey]

Nice win!

Were any of your spies caught, by the way? That's why I usually don't go for Aluminium anymore, since the AI usually guards it that late in the game, so my spies have a higher probability to get caught. Except when he has only one source, for example. That's just asking for it.

And how did you manage to ask Peter to go to war after all? Didn't you say he was afraid to do so?

 

[Michelangelo]

I think 4 or 5 spies were caught, each giving me a -1 attitude from Cyrus. It turned out he sometimes guarded the aluminium, but would leave it after two turns. He was however allways guarding the uranium

I re-did the defensive pact-deal with Cyrus and asked Peter again, for a tech, IIRC it was Electricity. He was happy to comply then.
I had to replay the turn though as I got a CTD right after asking Peter to go to war and hearing the horns.

 

[carl corey]

Thanks for the answers. The reasons why he's always guarding the Uranium might be because it's of military use (either ships on nuclear bombs) while Aluminium becomes of military use only later - with Composites.

As for the spies being caught, it's actually good to be on very good terms with the AI you're spying, isn't it? I think they probably should give more negative points, maybe increasing with each spy. Who in their right mind would still be pleased with you when you're destroying his farms, mines, city production?! I did it too to win a few space races, it's funny but a bit ridiculous. "No, we're not at war. We don't know him. We didn't do it!"