Are there certain combinations of Civs that will War?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Sounds like you need a bigger army. On marathon, troops are (or were) cheaper, speaking relatively, than improvements.

You keep mentioning the AIs landing stacks next to your cities... where are YOUR stacks?

On one of my earliest Noble games, I shared a border with Monty and he never dared attack me. Presumably because I knew what he was like and made sure I had a big army facing him.

[wanderer27]

Early to mid game I generally keep two high quality units in my cities. I'm usually busy trying to expand so I can keep my science up with the AI's. You're right in assuming that I don't have Stacks around. The extra unit cost kills me, and again would cause my science to suffer even more.

For some reason I just don't seem to generate the GS's that the AI's do. I'm constantly getting messages about all these GP's being born.

I build some of the more useful Wonders in the early game, but alot of the others would be almost obsolete by the time they're completed.

I'm doing a bit bette these days, but it's still a challenge to keep up with the AI's in Tech. Growth wise, I can still manage a slight edge, but it's not as good as I would like.

All in all it's a good game, but I find myself wanting more out of it these days - maybe some more Diplomatic options. It might be interesting to have a game/option where there was a fairly powerful common enemy so you weren't always worrying about 10+ other Civs Pearl Harbouring you.
Raging Barbarians isn't it (common enemy), they just pose a slight delay and are pretty much gone by the 1500's.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Hmmm. My limited advice would be:

1. Try smaller maps - fewer barbarians, and the game becomes less of an expansion contest.
2. Improve your cities (cottages, mining, hooking up resources) relentlessly. Founding new cities is generally a poor way to boost your science rate.
3. Build more units. Unless it's very early in the game, 2/city don't seem to be enough in Marathon. AIs respect unit counts.
4. If you have founded a lot of religions, pick one, spread it around, build the special building with your first GP and convert. That should solve your cash flow problems.
5. Find the unpopular AI (Isabella is usually a good choice) and kill it. Burn down the ill-situated cities and keep the good ones. On Marathon, with unit costs being what they are, it pays to be a warmonger.

Sorry if this is all obvious and has been tried... but points 2, 3, 4 and 5 seem to work well for me on Noble/Huge/Terra/Marathon.

[wanderer27]

1. This is good advice, but I've always liked the larger maps in all the Civ series. It's just more interesting to me that way

2. Yep, I do this constantly. It's another growth/production drain though building all those workers. I still do it though.

3. This is my greatest weakness. I like the newer/stronger units and hate having a horde of Warriors (useless) around. Come the later ages I'm seething in units.

4. I don't always get many GP's. Last game I never got one Great Prophets. Engineers and Scientist, but no Prophets.

5. Two problems here. First, it seems that the AI's are usually getting along pretty well with each other. Attack one, and several others get PO'd at you. Second, I play Island maps so it's rare that I can reach another Civ until Astronomy.

All good suggestions though. Number 3 is where I need to concentrate though.

[GunnDawg]

Try Medieval 2 Total War if your looking for some awesome faction wars, and even civil wars!

[wanderer27]

I've got Rome:TW.

It's good, but not quite the same.

[zeace]

Originally posted by wanderer27
For some reason I just don't seem to generate the GS's that the AI's do. I'm constantly getting messages about all these GP's being born.

Remember that you see those messages for all of the other civs. If you and the AIs make GPs at the same rate, and you have 10 AI, then you should see ten messages for AI GPs for every GP you make.

It does seem like the AI gets swarms of them sometimes, but especially on large maps with lots of AI you have to divide that number significantly. I usually just watch one or two AI's GPs and gauge my success on keeping up with them.

[GunnDawg]

If you want wars then you should get Medieval 2 Total War. Tons of factions battling it out for land, and wealth! all for the price of bloodshed!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Some technology advances will give you GPs (Liberalism springs to mind - probably because I'm researching that in my current game). Other ways to get GPs are specialized cities - cities with good food resources with lots of specialists. If you focus all your wonder building in one production-rich city, and your specialists in a food-rich city, you avoid a lot of GPP waste.

Any wonder that gives free specialists is a help, too.

I'm surprised that you don't get Prophets - I always seem to get too many of them (I prefer Scientists or Merchants in the early game; Engineers are great, but they never come until later). I'll often build Stonehenge early, especially when not Creative, and that generally leads to an early Prophet, IIRC.

Keep your Warriors for martial law, flip-prevention in newly captured cities, and AI intimidation. Yes, there's a support cost, but I'm convinced this cost is more than offset by all the money that can be extorted from the AIs who are afraid of your big army.

[DrSpike]

Liberalism yields a free tech not a free specialist.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Liberalism yields a free tech not a free specialist.

D'oh!

Constitution?

[DrSpike]

Nope. Physics, Music, Fusion and Economics.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Nope. Physics, Music, Fusion and Economics.

I was going to say those next

[wanderer27]

I'm not saying I don't get Prophets, I just didn't get any my last game.

Normally I get anywhere from 1 to 3 Prophets and about the same for Merchants.

I usually get more Engineers than anything else. Scientist vary greatly.

[DrSpike]

It mainly depends on what national and world wonders you prioritise if you aren't running a specific set of specialists for a particualr opening. Many like the Oracle (for good reason) so prophets do tend to occur quite frequently.