Can you make a come back?

[Jxands]

I’ve had a number of frustrating games at Prince level and have not won once. Sometimes I’ll start strong and feel like I’m being left alone enough by the AI to concentrate on growth and technologies….but it always seems that I fall behind around mid-game. Sometimes because I’ve had an unprovoked attack by one of the AI’s, but most of the time just because. I can’t keep up.

Can you make a comeback once you’ve fallen say 500 points behind by mid-game?

[Hauptman]

I am constantly behind points wise until my growth explosion early industrial. thats when my strategy really starts to pay off and i can catch then pass the ai's in techs and points.


early game is all about just surviving.

[WoodenTaco]

Points are a bad barometer of your chance of winning. Techs are more reliable in my experience.

[Jxands]

Well I seem to fall behind there too. Last night I had a game with about 8 healthy cities, most of the AI pleased with me, and almost all production going towards research related stuff and I still fell behind.

I traded a lot too. Can't figure it out.

[Jerh9e1k5]

I, like Hauptman, am usually behind in points. Actually I'm playing a game right now where I am about 900 points behind the strongest civ, but I think that I have a good chance of winning the game.

Especially on the harder difficulties it becomes standard procedure to be way behind in score because of the AI's huge production bonuses.

[Footie Mad]

It depends on your strategy, if you have a long term plan of how to win. Sometimes a window of opportunity can open itself even if you feel that you've been boxed in. One example would be if you have access to a resource such as ivory that may grant you the powerful war elephant.

If you then manage to rush to construction you can overpower a more powerful opponent with elephants and catapults. Giving you land and power. The other version of this is to beat your neighbour to an important war tech, for example rifling or civil service. Then press the advantage before he can respond. You may even have to coax someone else into war with the stronger neighbour to have a chance.

Just a few thought on how much to read into score and a military way to change things.

[Dominae]

On Immortal I am routinely 500 or so points behind almost all the other civs for a large part of the game!

Score is not such a great indicator, I'm afraid. Founders of early Religions and Creative civs often have the best Score until at leat the mid-game.

Things to watch out for are:

1. Relative rankings. If you're last in Score, you had better have a nice big military, otherwise it's a good indicator that maybe you need one!

2. Constant increases. If a civ Score keeps going up and up turn after turn, it probably has a lot of land to expand into. That does not bode well for you; the AI is pretty good at expanding smartly with respect to Maintenance costs.

3. Sudden drops. Score is a good way of telling who is winning a war. When one big city changes hands, you will see a major effect on Score. The civ that went up is the favorite to win.

Other than that the actual numbers mean little (to me, anyway). As some other poster said, I keep a much closer eye on the tech situation to determine if I'm fighting a hopeless battle.