What would you do next in this game...?

[DynamicSpirit]

I thought it'd be interesting to throw this late-stage game up to see what strategies people might use in it. It's a monarch level game, standard settings, I'm playing the Indians. Started on my own on a continent and so far it's been entirely peaceful development. It's now 1932 and I had been hoping to see if I could win through peaceful development, but I'm pretty sure that's not possible now. Caesar is too far ahead in both pop and techs, and I'm still juggling with Saladin for 3rd place in the score.

So the new plan is a war to try and get my civ bigger in the hope that'll enable me eventually to catch up and perhaps win a space race victory (I think that's the only victory option left from the current game state). My civ is currently in mid-preparations for the war, built quite a few land units, and just hooked up oil to build transports and destroyers. I also have not one but two great artists ready to culture bomb as I take the first city.

The intended target is Montezuma, simply because he hates me already and he's small and weak so I'm hoping I can pull off a very quick war (not that I'm a big bully you understand I bet if I don't attack Monty, he'll attack me soon anyway). I'd love to take on Caesar but - having to take my troops across the ocean to attack a civ that's bigger and more advanced than me and has railroads to rush his troops to the battle , all the time while other civs are about to build spaceships - umm, no thanks . Mebbe a while after I've crushed Montezuma I'll be in a position to take Caesar on if he still looks like winning.

Set against this plan, I've noticed Montezuma's land - what I can see of it from the two caravels I have scouting round - looks to be poor quality, lots of desert and tundra. Probably why he's so weak ... Do I really want that land? Add to that the risk that my economy won't recover from the new intake of cities in time to help win the game.

So the question is - what would other people do here? Similar to what I've described or, are there any alternative strategies that you'd try?

I've attached the game as of 1932 and also the 4000BC autosave in case anyone fancies trying their hand from the start

 

[Yzen Danek]

I hate to say it, but the time for making the decision you're thinking about right now was about 300 years ago. Montezuma may be 'small and weak' in a relative sense, but his military is still much, much, larger than yours, and more technologicall advanced at that - he has rifling, while you don't. In the demographics, you are dead last for military might.

You won't be pulling this one out. By the time you build an army, invade Montezuma, and rebuild his cities to the point where they are generating a net gain in science and revenue, Ceasar will already be done with his spaceship.

It's really hard to win on higher levels with a pure builder strategy, unless you have an absolutely amazing continent to yourself that dwarfs every other Civ. In your game, you're basically directly trying to outdo the AI at the exact thing that it gets bonuses for - building and researching.


One major thing that jumps out at me.... you founded two religions, but only built a holy shrine for one (Judaism). Building that second shrine early would have spread Hinduism and probably would have let you run your tech slider 10-20% higher all game, keeping you much more technologically competitive. As a spiritual Civ, building temples is cheap for you, so running some Priest specialists in your great people cities and building that shrine would have been relatively easy; instead, you seem to have mostly great artists. What this means is that you set yourself back in the opening game by going for religions first instead of bronze working and chopping settlers, and then never made up for it by reaping the only benefit associated with having founded that religion - building the shrine.

 

[petey]

I have to agree with YD. If it's 1932 and trying to figure out whcih victory condition you want to use while you're behind the AI, you've already lost.

If you're alone on an island, you need to cottage the place early and beeline to Caravels to meet the other civs and hope to tech up through the descrepencies in research from one continent to the other. It makes the early game easier, since you don't have to worry about the AI invading you and just have to fight off some barbarians, but if you're not careful, you're too far behind everyone else by the time you meet up with them to be able to catch up and are generally screwed.

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

If you're alone on an island, you need to cottage the place early and beeline to Caravels to meet the other civs and hope to tech up through the descrepencies in research from one continent to the other. It makes the early game easier, since you don't have to worry about the AI invading you and just have to fight off some barbarians, but if you're not careful, you're too far behind everyone else by the time you meet up with them to be able to catch up and are generally screwed.

By all means, cottage up, but don't beeline for Caravels. At best, you'll only beat the AI there by a few turns. Instead, avoid the militaristic techs you don't need (everything more advanced than iron working) and focus on getting techs like philosophy and divine right (which the AI will not prioritize once the associated religion is founded). Once you make contact, trade these techs for Optics, and research/trade Astronomy ASAP (to get international trade routes).

 

[ellie]

spaceship.

It's really hard to win on higher levels with a pure builder strategy, unless you have an absolutely amazing continent to yourself that dwarfs every other Civ. In your game, you're basically directly trying to outdo the AI at the exact thing that it gets bonuses for - building and researching.
.

Hmm im still learning but i thought CIV IV had been designed to give builders more of a chance?. Good diplomacy / spreading relgions to keep the income etc?.

Does the AI get the huge trading advantage it didon c3c? (eg wont trade you a tech for a stronger tech but will sell to an ai for 500 gold or something silly)

 

[Yzen Danek]

Hmm im still learning but i thought CIV IV had been designed to give builders more of a chance?. Good diplomacy / spreading relgions to keep the income etc?.

Does the AI get the huge trading advantage it didon c3c? (eg wont trade you a tech for a stronger tech but will sell to an ai for 500 gold or something silly)

CivIV does a better job of making builder strategies more viable all around, but you still aren't going to win as a builder on higher difficulties unless your empire is just plain bigger than everyone else's. It's just a matter of math; they get techs for fewer beakers than you; they build units and buildings faster than you; they give you worse trades than on lower levels. You will need to produce vastly more beakers, vastly more hammers, and engineer much more wiley trades. These things are easily capped at clear optimums; you can't find ways to creatively squeeze out even more beakers when you're already operating at the optimum.

The human advantage of making superior improvement, research, and trade choices can only go so far towards overcoming these disadvantages. At some point you are going to have to take advantage of the only huge advantages the human player has over the AI: not being bound to your diplomatic disposition (and thus being able to take advantage of opportunities to go to war that present themselves, rather than having to roll a die to see if you go to war) and being able to make vastly superior tactical decisions in war.

 

[GarretSidzaka]

Hmm im still learning but i thought CIV IV had been designed to give builders more of a chance?. Good diplomacy / spreading relgions to keep the income etc?.

Does the AI get the huge trading advantage it didon c3c? (eg wont trade you a tech for a stronger tech but will sell to an ai for 500 gold or something silly)

This is true only on anything below prince, for what i've noticed. If you look at the Hall of Fame Tables, you will few people beat a diety game with a spaceship or a diplomatic. I might say cultural but who knows. This game was geared, in my opinion (which means nothing), for conquest and domination at higher dificulty levels. Which i understand, givin such cool looking units and awsome promotions.

edit: when i was talking about HOF, i was talking about HOF 1

 

[alexti2]

This game was geared, in my opinion (which means nothing), for conquest and domination at higher dificulty levels. Which i understand, givin such cool looking units and awsome promotions

I don't think it's intentional. More likely it is just a consequence of huge advantages AI gets. I think that on deity only cultural is possible without conquering most of the world. When you've conquered most of the world, you can choose any kind of victory you like though. I find diplomatic victory particularly funny. First kill and destroy everybody and then vote yourself the world's leader

 

[Trumbo]

One major thing that jumps out at me.... you founded two religions, but only built a holy shrine for one (Judaism). Building that second shrine early would have spread Hinduism and probably would have let you run your tech slider 10-20% higher all game, keeping you much more technologically competitive. As a spiritual Civ, building temples is cheap for you, so running some Priest specialists in your great people cities and building that shrine would have been relatively easy; instead, you seem to have mostly great artists. What this means is that you set yourself back in the opening game by going for religions first instead of bronze working and chopping settlers, and then never made up for it by reaping the only benefit associated with having founded that religion - building the shrine.

As I recall, you only get coin/commerce for the religion that is your state religion, although you do get the culture/research from the buildings. Is this not correct?

 

[Caprice]

As I recall, you only get coin/commerce for the religion that is your state religion, although you do get the culture/research from the buildings. Is this not correct?

I don't think so... seems to me like I've had more than one shrine feeding my coffers at the same time on more than one occasion.

 

[cleverhandle]

As I recall, you only get coin/commerce for the religion that is your state religion, although you do get the culture/research from the buildings. Is this not correct?

No, it's not correct.

Things you get regardless of state religion:

1) Science bonus from monasteries
2) Happiness from temples
3) Gold from shrines
4) All culture from buildings
5) Bonus happiness for Incense from cathedrals
6) Innate 1 culture per turn (I think)

Things you get only for cities with your state religion:

1) Line of sight to other cities
2) +2 Happiness from cathedrals
3) Innate 5 culture per turn for holy city
4) Religious civic bonuses
5) Bonus gold for Spiral Minaret


I think that covers it...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

CivIV does a better job of making builder strategies more viable all around, but you still aren't going to win as a builder on higher difficulties unless your empire is just plain bigger than everyone else's. It's just a matter of math; they get techs for fewer beakers than you; they build units and buildings faster than you;

That's a real shame. One of the things I really liked about Civ 4 was that I, as someone who prefers building my economy peacefully, and doesn't want to win just by invading everyone else, could finally play it in my preferred style. I'm increasingly realizing that's still not the case on the highest levels. I'm either gonna have to go back to playing a way I don't really want to, or just limit myself to playing lowish difficulty levels :-(

The annoying thing is I imagine that issue would've been incredibly easy to fix. All Firaxis had to do was spread the AI advantages in the higher levels between economic and military more, eg. (numbers made up as I don't know what they actually are) instead of saying the AI can build 30% faster on some level, say it can build 25% faster AND its units get 10% more strength in combat.

btw thanks for the thoughts everyone's put in on this. The reason I haven't yet replied to any of the comments about the game I posted is that I've been busier with other things that came up the last couple of days and so haven't had time to carry on with the game yet.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Things you get regardless of state religion:

1) Science bonus from monasteries
2) Happiness from temples
3) Gold from shrines
4) All culture from buildings
5) Bonus happiness for Incense from cathedrals
6) Innate 1 culture per turn (I think)

Things you get only for cities with your state religion:

1) Line of sight to other cities
2) +2 Happiness from cathedrals
3) Innate 5 culture per turn for holy city
4) Religious civic bonuses
5) Bonus gold for Spiral Minaret

Pretty good list. I thought the 1 culture per turn is only for your state religion though. Also there's a wierd one I've noticed (not quite sure if it's a bug) that for non-state religion you don't get line of sight to see units in other civ's cities, but you do get line of sight to see the defensive bonus. Not quite sure if it happens for religions other than your state one, or only if you happen to have no state religion.

 

[Mahatmajon]

That's a real shame. One of the things I really liked about Civ 4 was that I, as someone who prefers building my economy peacefully, and doesn't want to win just by invading everyone else, could finally play it in my preferred style. I'm increasingly realizing that's still not the case on the highest levels. I'm either gonna have to go back to playing a way I don't really want to, or just limit myself to playing lowish difficulty levels :-(

The annoying thing is I imagine that issue would've been incredibly easy to fix. All Firaxis had to do was spread the AI advantages in the higher levels between economic and military more, eg. (numbers made up as I don't know what they actually are) instead of saying the AI can build 30% faster on some level, say it can build 25% faster AND its units get 10% more strength in combat.

btw thanks for the thoughts everyone's put in on this. The reason I haven't yet replied to any of the comments about the game I posted is that I've been busier with other things that came up the last couple of days and so haven't had time to carry on with the game yet.

Don't worry DS, things are never as bad as people say they are. I won a Prince game with a cultural victory as Spain where I only built 3 cities in the game, went from archers to riflemen, & had a tech lead through most of the game. I don't think I ever hooked up copper or iron. It wasn't a "normal" game obviously but after I settled my second and 3rd cities as good food/GPP cities I realized that I didn't care about expanding out further and started to build them up. Lots of diplomacy and religion spreading later I was able to keep all the AI's away from me.

In another Prince game also with religion spreading I am +LOTS of gold at 100% science due to 2 big temples & miranet. I've gone back/forth between war and peace throughout the game but by no means am I the largest civ, just the best

Monarchs a bit of a different beast. I've won a couple of games with a smattering of war while living peacefully most of the time, but it's significantly harder than Noble/Prince and requires much more help from starting location, which AI's are in the game, etc. Monarch+ IMO definately requires a significant amount of warmongering - even if just to raze a few cities to slow the AI down and make some $.

 

[InFlux5]

The option for a "builder" at higher difficulties is the Cultural victory. Plan for it early and build away. Look for threads on these boards with strategies for high-level Cultural wins.

 

[rush]

Looking at the save, there are a few things i would suggest in your next games ....

1. Some resources are not hooked up, I saw 2 sugars, a crab and a fish. You don't have crab, so connecting will get you +1 health. The 2 sugars can be connected & exchanged with the Spanish or for GPT.

2. You can sell your map around. That will bring in about 200 gold to allow for some short term negative Gpt research.

3. You need more workers. You have railroad & coal and the priority is to build railroad on Mines & Lumberjacks (you don't have any, i guess you chop all the trees earlier), that will give you +1 hammer.

4. Build factories. Once factories are completed, built banks & other city builts to improve your $ and shield counts.

5. To build factories faster, I would suggest you change your civs to Organised Religion (build infra 25% faster). Burecacy is good too to maximise your capital science. Representation helps too.

6. Build missionaries, both Jewish & Hindu. Build transport to ship them to anyone that give you border access.

7. Build harbors. Most of your cities are coastal, so Harbor will improve your income.

8. Bengal is not growing. Move the tile from the Iron to food tiles to grow the population first.

9. You have not build Oxford University (need 6 universities, you have 5). Oxford improves your science of that city by 50% (i think, or is it 100%). You should see which city has the highest science and plan your Oxford there. Also, build Wall Street.

I played an hour yesterday to see if i could catch up with the Space Race. It looked very unlikely, although I was able to finish Computers & traded some techs with others. Not sure if i have time to spare next few days to continue playing, but my strategy would be to built Internet to catch up on the techs, build Spy to slow down other Civs spaceship built, build Labs, all cities not building Space ships to research, get Golden ages. Also, skip research on all techs not contributing to Space Race.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I hate to say it, but the time for making the decision you're thinking about right now was about 300 years ago. Montezuma may be 'small and weak' in a relative sense, but his military is still much, much, larger than yours, and more technologicall advanced at that - he has rifling, while you don't. In the demographics, you are dead last for military might.

I always am See no point in keeping up with the AI on military might when as a human I have such superior tactics

You won't be pulling this one out. By the time you build an army, invade Montezuma, and rebuild his cities to the point where they are generating a net gain in science and revenue, Ceasar will already be done with his spaceship.

I agree. I did try continuing the game according to my strategy of attacking Monty. It took about another 20 turns to bulid enough military, then I landed 20 units (cannon/infantry/cavalry) and took his capital the next turn. (And Saladin then immediately took advantage by declaring war on Monty too!) A couple of turns later I was advancing on the 2nd city and looked set to take that, but could also see that the space race was pretty much lost. While I was building my military just about every other civ on the planet had started space ships. So I decided to chalk that game up to experience and give up. Might come back to it in a month or so's time to start again at 4000BC and see how I do with more experience

One major thing that jumps out at me.... you founded two religions, but only built a holy shrine for one (Judaism). Building that second shrine early would have spread Hinduism and probably would have let you run your tech slider 10-20% higher all game, keeping you much more technologically competitive.

Agreed. IIRC that was because at the time I got my 2nd great prophet, I didn't have that many cities, only 1-2 with hinduism in, and had other things i wanted to build besides missionaries. So I judged the benefits of a superspecialist at that time were a lot more than a hindu shrine. I expected to build a hindu shrine later. But then I never did get another great prophet

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Looking at the save, there are a few things i would suggest in your next games ....

1. Some resources are not hooked up, I saw 2 sugars, a crab and a fish. You don't have crab, so connecting will get you +1 health. The 2 sugars can be connected & exchanged with the Spanish or for GPT.

Thanks rush, some good advice there. A few things I hadn't thought of, plus some things I'd been meaning to do but somehow didn't have time to. And I think you're right about workers - not having enough workers is a mistake I've made a few times.

 

[PublicEnemy]

By all means, cottage up, but don't beeline for Caravels. At best, you'll only beat the AI there by a few turns. Instead, avoid the militaristic techs you don't need (everything more advanced than iron working) and focus on getting techs like philosophy and divine right (which the AI will not prioritize once the associated religion is founded). Once you make contact, trade these techs for Optics, and research/trade Astronomy ASAP (to get international trade routes).

If you have enough commerce by working plenty of cottages and micro-managing your citizens in the early game, you can actually beat the AI to optics by a long way.
When you're isolated you need to take every advantage you can, getting to optics early and making contact as soon as possible is one of them.
Deciding on a victory condition early is also important. If the land was good enough I would probably plan for a cultural win early enough to make it a realistic option.