Need advice for Prince and Higher

[bjsiders]

I can't figure out how you folks kick so much butt on the high difficulty level games. Here's a savegame of mine, I'm hoping somebody can tell me what I'm doing wrong. Basically I'm behind on tech, my army is as large as my economy will tolerate and I just can't keep up. Adding new cities won't help either it'll just further demolish my economy. Argh.

[bjsiders]

Whoops wrong savegame. Actually, ok look at the original save game I posted which I think shows that I'm doing ok in the early game. Now look at THIS one.

[Nacht]

Re: Need advice for Prince and Higher

Originally posted by bjsiders
my army is as large as my economy will tolerate and I just can't keep up. Adding new cities won't help either it'll just further demolish my economy.

What are you talking about? Your science rate is at 90% and your balance positive. Your unit cost is actually zero.

You've just started, being behind in tech somewhat in the beginning is unavoidable on higher levels and don't panic if your science rate goes down when expanding, just build up afterwards. And definitly don't panic when your science is at 90%

[Nacht]

Originally posted by bjsiders
Whoops wrong savegame. Actually, ok look at the original save game I posted which I think shows that I'm doing ok in the early game. Now look at THIS one.

Thanks now my post is completely irrelevant

[bjsiders]

Sorry bro, I'll own that own It does beg the question however of what mistakes I made that allowed me to get so far behind by the second game. Should I taken out a nearby rival or something? Cyrus is right south of me and he ends up #1 in that second save.

[bjsiders]

Actually I just went back to my game and I'm at 80% science there too. But here's what happens to me, this is the fifth game where this has started to happen:

As I start to build up enough troops to attack somebody:
(1) My economy crashes HARD and I end up with units on strike and the game disbanding my army in the middle of the war.
(2) I get COMPLETELY overrun by the enemy, even one who is way lower than me on the list

Right now the economy looks ok but as I build up units I keep having to pay more and more for them and my science gets further and further behind.

This game is sort of right before that starts to happen, I've abandoned a few games before this where this same thing started to happen, and I could see it starting here already. Do you just have to suck it up? But then when the war is over and you've got a bunch of new cities that are sucking your economy dry how do you ever get caught up again?

[Nacht]

Well, again... 80% with +4/turn is NOT a bad economy.

You're not behind in tech either, the only tech others have and you don't is Drama.

Your army is big enough, just make some additional catapults and start taking some persian cities.

While you take those cities your science will go down to 50/60%.

Build cottages... (lots of people are going to say this)
Half of your farms are not used and you don't have a single cottage.

[bjsiders]

Ok I built up some armies and took 4 towns from Persia with alarmingly little resistance. The other AIs all jumped on Persia right after I did, and I picked up 2 more cities in the process, which has put me in the middle of the pack and I'm about 2-3 techs behind the leader now. Replaced a bunch of farms with cottages and I'm running 80% science with a surplus. Your advice has worked fabulously. Now, who to attack next? I think the Greeks. I've got Alexander AND a Kahn next to me --- one is going to attack me eventually, I need to take the other out first.

[khumak]

For the most part, the higher the level you play on, the more you have to focus on military conquest rather than any of the other strategies. At the highest difficulty levels the AI has such a huge production/research/growth advantage that most of the peaceful strategies just don't work. Personally, I don't like being roped into a single viable strategy so Prince is about as high as I like to go.

The only way they could make military conquest comparably hard on the highest difficulties without an improvement in the combat AI would be to drastically nerf bombardment and collateral damage on the higher levels. Maybe make the AI completely immune to human inflicted bombardment and collateral damage.