Arrrggggg!

[Jxands]

I just don’t get it!

I’m playing at Prince level and I do pretty well early to mid-game but even when I’m even or slightly ahead at mid-game the AI still manages to blow past me tech wise late game to the point that on one turn they may have one more tech than me, then I check eight turns later and they have four more techs then me. What gives?

I am typically building an empire of 8-10 cities within relatively close proximity with populations in the teens. I often manage to placate my neighbors enough to invest heavily in research and research related buildings.

How are they advancing so fast? Last night I decided to play on past Victoria’s Space Win and it took me to 2100AD to have all the SS pieces made, and that was with 9 cities focusing hard on tech or building the pieces!

I’ve noticed that the leaders often have larger populations so I’m wondering if the “cottage” strategy is correct or not since it doesn’t allow enough food to create cities the size of my competitors who have more cities than me with populations in the twenties.


btw, can someone tell me how to attach a save game file in case one of you more brilliant players wishes to see how I am goofing up so bad?

[IVZanIV]

The Upload Service allows you to host save games.

[Jxands]

Ok, let's see if this works.

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=77015_AsuckmeAD-1964.Civ4SavedGame

[IVZanIV]

Just took a look at the save game, and I have a few suggestions.

The Apollo Program is necessary to build SS parts, and the production of the Apollo Program could be expediated with aluminum. Research Industrialism, find some aluminum, and hookup.

It appears that a (recent?) war with China could have weakened you economically, killing you research as the war raged on. Cool it on the wars.

Most of your cities are suffering from sickness. I know it sounds old fashioned and mean, but slave rushing might also help you hurry along some of those buildings. Also, I don't agree with using Novograd (sp?) and I believe it was Athens for research. You're doing fine.

Chop rushing in the forested cities might help, since it doesn't look like you have used it too much previously...

And my last suggestion is this. Every city in your empire except for Delhi has very low production. Some ways to fix this are...

• Adopt Universal Suffrage. (Utilizes your cottages for the +1 hammer each.)
• Adopt Bureaucracy. This civic is old, but in your case, useful. Delhi's 65 hammers can instantly be upgraded from 65/turn to 78.

Hope this was helpful, I actually usually play on Noble, but these are just some things that stuck out at me. Aluminum seems to be hard to find in World Builder, find some and take it!

[Hauptman]

Late game the AIs do go crazy with new techs. If I'm not careful, they will blow my doors off too, even when I produce twice the research they do.

How they do it you ask???

They trade with each other, a lot.

Also, if you watch them closely, through religios inteligence, or open borders with a unit to watch them, you will notice that after a while, their workers farm EVERYthing. The cities then explode with great person production, often beeing used for free techs. Then when the cities reach their max, the workers go back through and cottage everything. even hills. Its crazy how the ai's keep them workers busy.

[Jxands]

Thanks for the great suggestions! I'll look at it again to understand you better.

Besides being behind in population I also noticed I was behind in Trade and MNF Goods, I can see I need to make better deals in Trade, but what constitutes Mnf Goods and how do I improve those?

Thanks again!

[Jxands]

Originally posted by IVZanIV
Just took a look at the save game, and I have a few suggestions.

The Apollo Program is necessary to build SS parts, and the production of the Apollo Program could be expediated with aluminum. Research Industrialism, find some aluminum, and hookup.

It appears that a (recent?) war with China could have weakened you economically, killing you research as the war raged on. Cool it on the wars.

Most of your cities are suffering from sickness. I know it sounds old fashioned and mean, but slave rushing might also help you hurry along some of those buildings. Also, I don't agree with using Novograd (sp?) and I believe it was Athens for research. You're doing fine.

Chop rushing in the forested cities might help, since it doesn't look like you have used it too much previously...

And my last suggestion is this. Every city in your empire except for Delhi has very low production. Some ways to fix this are...

• Adopt Universal Suffrage. (Utilizes your cottages for the +1 hammer each.)
• Adopt Bureaucracy. This civic is old, but in your case, useful. Delhi's 65 hammers can instantly be upgraded from 65/turn to 78.

Hope this was helpful, I actually usually play on Noble, but these are just some things that stuck out at me. Aluminum seems to be hard to find in World Builder, find some and take it!

The wars werent so bad, I actually managed to keep research at 90 or 100 percent throughout although I did have to produce a larger army...I ended up gaining some territory I had wanted even though the AI started the wars.


I'm not sure what slave rushing is, will that help decrease a city's sickness?

[Quillan]

Directly, no. Indirectly, yes. Slave rushing, or pop rushing, is hurrying the production of something in a city via forced labor, only possible if you're running the Slavery civic. You'll use up a point or more of population, and gain hammers towards the construction of whatever in return. Since the population of the city is reduced, the base unhealth is reduced by the same amount. It's quite possible to lower the population level down below the health point and lose the yellow-green haze that way.

[IVZanIV]

Originally posted by Jxands
Thanks for the great suggestions! I'll look at it again to understand you better.

Besides being behind in population I also noticed I was behind in Trade and MNF Goods, I can see I need to make better deals in Trade, but what constitutes Mnf Goods and how do I improve those?

Thanks again!

I believe (Not sure) that MNF goods is merely a representation of production, which makes sense due to your low production rate.

[Jxands]

GAH! Just had another game where I was doing well and the AI leap frogged me on techs in the latter part of the game. I dont get it!

Maybe I'm just not meant for Prince level.

[Rebel Israel]

Diplomacy is often the answer. I haven't looked at the save, but on everything Noble+, the AI civs get bonuses that get magnified late game with mature towns and such. If there's financial civs involved, you're never gonna straight outtech them unless you have way more land.

What you CAN do, is keep the AI busy. If they're warring, they won't be able to focus on straight research and building SS parts. Try and keep a mix of allies and do everything you can to keep them fighting the civs most likely to pull away (game score is a good indicator, the GNP and MNF graphs are even better.) If you can keep yourself at peace or involved in fake wars, or even minimal combat, you can streamline your empire to do whatever you need to do to launch (be it max production or research.) Its not a strategy by itself, but its usually a necessary compliment to your main strategy, as the AIs will just outtech you and outprice you from the tech trade loop, as you watch them launch 2 turns after you learn rocketry.

[Aginor]

Ahhhh...the AI tech dogpile.

Phenomenon goes something like this:

Remaining AIs max commerce production late and tech trade like mad until the last few techs.

Apollo Programs go up.

AI that can get to Fusion first, and that has decent hammer capabilities (and possibly aluminum) pulls out the win on you.

There are a few ways of dealing with this:

1) Diplomacy. Trade a few juicy techs with civs you are friendly with in the later game (say 1700-1800) to get them to pick a fight with other civs. Cuts down on tech trading AND research.

2) Kill and maim early. Steal a few cities from several AIs and eliminate a couple AIs, and you'll have some advantages:

a) tons of production territory. While it is true that generally speaking the commerce output of extra cities goes towards maintenance, having twice the number of cities any AI has virtually guarantees that you slam your spaceship out first (redundant parts production)

b) if you focus enough on commerce, enough research output that (at least on Prince) you can single-handedly outresearch the AIs.

c) resources to trade for cash/turn, which weakens the AI's rushbuy capabilities while strengthening your own (thus strengthening your armed forces and/or research).

d) fewer AIs attempting to dogpile you in research.

3) Highly efficient vertical growth. Typically achieved through focus on great people (if Philosophical) or exploiting a Financial commerce bonus. One city, built properly, can turbocharge either your gold or research production to the point where the AI cannot keep up with the proper use of Philosophical. Alternately, horizontal Financial cottage spam can enable you to outrace the AI with ease.

Some civics to consider if you're going the third route:
1) Free Speech (uber cottages)
2) Pacifism (if you're pure turtle, and defending a tightly defined area of space, this is actually pretty affordable)

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Hauptman
...the workers go back through and cottage everything. even hills

You can't put cottages on hills.

[Urban Ranger]

1. Once you discover a tech, immediately see if you can trade it to other computer players for other techs. This will amplify your research considerably because you can often bring in 3 or 4 different techs you don't have. This is esp. so if your tech is important.

2. Create specialised commerce cities to pump out research. If you can make one of them a GP city. Certain wonders help greatly.

[poiuyt00]

Some things that I see are how you handle working your tiles. I would not keep as many trees, usually two per city unless the city has no production at all (Tundra tiles with trees I will keep) You also seem to farm grass tiles and build cottages on plains. I do the opposite as this tends to balance growth. Cut any trees on grassland to put up cottages, and try to have the trees you keep on plains tiles. Hook up resourses first adding a cottage here and there as the city grows. Cottages will only grow when used by a city so don't go crazy at the start. Do your best to have a few resource trading partners so you can get ones to lower anger and health for you. Do not get into prolonged wars unless it is to eliminate someone. Take bites out of each civ early on to weaken them for the future, and maybe take out a civ very early to hold a large portion of land. Prolonged battles in the later eras will slow research alot as you have alot of buildings to complete. Sufferage/free religion/free speech as soon as you can will help with cottage production also. Goodluck.