Space Race Victory, too easy to reach ?

[Nelis]

There is something I don't like with the space race victory, it's that it is too easy to reach. I mean, 90% of the games I played finished with a space race victory. Even if you do not concentrate extremly on research, you can have it ...

Look at the other types of victory :

- Cultural Victory : very hard to win, I never saw one in my games.

- Diplomatic Victory : you have to choose wisely your friends and to keep good relationship with them, not easy at all.

- Conquest Victory : If you play on big maps or with alot of water, not easy to win. Very rare also.

- Domination Victory : Never seen one, you have to expend / conquest alot and that's hard depending of the maps.

- Score Victory : Well, rare to see it as the Space Race Victory happens always before ;-)

So what do you think, is Space Race Victory really too easy compared to the other types of victory ?

[gilfan]

I always play custom games with space race and time victory turned off. I hate those, I don't feel like it was an earned win.

[Xerxes712]

Same here. No time score, no Space Race.

I only play SP.

Space Race is still way too easy 1.09.

[Bhruic]

I now turn off Time, Space Race and Cultural. None of them require one to actually strategize, you simply need a bit of planning ahead, and then coasting.

The remaining, Diplomatic, Domination and Conquest require you to actually work at winning, which is why I like them.

Bh

[Son of David]

Simple solution: if you find it too easy to win by Space Race you need to play a higher difficulty level.

[Nelis]

Son of David: sadly, it's often easy for the AI to win the Space Race, not for me

[Son of David]

Well, build a bigger army next time.

[Datajack Franit]

sure, build your army of panzers and while you take your 15 turns to do it, the AI will upgrade their knights to mechs for 200 gold overall

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
sure, build your army of panzers and while you take your 15 turns to do it, the AI will upgrade their knights to mechs for 200 gold overall

Yep, this is the worst feature in Civ 4, the nearly-free unit upgrades the AI gets. It's undocumented, and it's a shame because the AI does a very impressive job in many respects, but this feature unfortunately discredits it somewhat. Given the huge levels of commerce that the AI builds it shouldn't even need it.

Memo to the AI : Use your goddam slider for upgrades like we do. Your tech rate is fast enough, especially with the promiscuous AI-AI trading!

[Sleestax]

When I play games above "Noble" setting, I turn off tech-trading with the nice check box that Firaxis provided. It won't prevent one or two of the AIs from outpacing you on a regular basis, but it stops the entire world being ahead of you for the whole game.

I also wish I saw more AI-AI instigated wars. They don't ever seem to fight each other unless I initiate it either by asking them via diplomacy (and having to give them goodies to do it), or having them jump on the bandwagon just as I am about to wipe-out a weak AI.

Patch 1.1X (assuming they are already a few builds ahead). Should include AIs hating each other a little more and starting more wars with each other on their own.

[Nelis]

I didn't know that the AI had the unit upgrade at lower price.

And that's true that the AIs are a little too gentle with each others. They can hate you because "You trade with our worst ennemy" but they will quite never attack their "worst ennemy" ...

[Cort Haus]

Has anybody seen an AI-AI relationship with "-1 you refused to help us"?

[Volstag]

[SIZE=1] sure, build your army of panzers and while you take your 15 turns to do it, the AI will upgrade their knights to mechs for 200 gold overall

If this is true, why wouldn't the AI have top-of-the-line units all the time?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Sleestax
When I play games above "Noble" setting, I turn off tech-trading with the nice check box that Firaxis provided. It won't prevent one or two of the AIs from outpacing you on a regular basis, but it stops the entire world being ahead of you for the whole game.

Hmm, it's quite possible to maintain a strong tech lead on Prince, so no need for the AI civs to all be way ahead there. Monarch upwards sees a huge jump in AI benefits, but even there skilled players can get an early tech lead which can translate into parity later in the game.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Volstag
If this is true, why wouldn't the AI have top-of-the-line units all the time?

In my experience they tend to pull this magic upgrade stunt only if they really feel like it - ie you are approaching their archer-defended city in their pillaged-ravaged civ and suddenly all the archers are longbows. Some have argued that they really do save their money for this, but I doubt it, seeing as the same civs never have any cash for a peace deal.

Another suspected undocumented AI bonus is unit support. They can easily have 3-4 units per city, plus several dozen extra in border cities and the capital, at a stage in the game when the human would be crippled by support costs for that many units.