Are there certain combinations of Civs that will War?

[MightyTiny]

I think that the barbs only guide you to do what you pretty much have to do anyway at levels of noble or higher: build a decent military force early on. If you don't do that, then if the barbs don't get you, the more aggressive AI opponents will. (You have to keep an eye on the statistics, showing the military power graph - always try and stay near the top military powers, to minimize the chance of opportunistic suprice attacks against you.)

Of course, you can always choose to make a custom game, and switch the barbs off completely. Or, turn on "raging barbs" for a game or two, and then return to regular barbs, and I bet you won't be complaining anymore, you'll be breathing a sigh of relief! In custom games, you can try all sorts of things.

In fact, I'd say that playing an OCC (One City Challenge) game or two (an option in custom games) is a good way of learning city management and other game mechanics, and getting better at the game - if you've got only one city to worry about, you'll be more inclined to tinker with it to get the maximum efficiency out of it. Plus OCC's are challenging and fun.

[DrSpike]

If the barbs have axemen on noble it's pretty late and you should have them too.

The barb AI is a little smarter now, but with smart sentry (cheap warriors, forest is nice) placement you shouldn't have any problem early on.

[Kepler63]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Found two (early) religions, and agressively spread both to different sides.

Does the number of cities a Civ has under its state religion, or its number of religious structures, affect how strongly that Civ will approve/disapprove of another based on religion?

I've noticed that usually my "tsk tsk" rating on religion is -3 or -4, but in certain cases (I'm looking at you, Izzy), it's been as high as -7. I figured that was because she's a Bible (or Koran, or whatever) thumper, but could it also be because she has 8 temples, 3 monestaries and a cathedral?

[wanderer27]

When you have no Copper and the only Iron is on the far side of the Barbarian breeding grounds you're pretty much hosed.

I've also had to change the Techs I research. I have to really concentrate to get a Religion (for Culture) on Noble. Generally I have a pretty fair shot at the third Religion (Monotheism), the first two are gone pretty quick. This pretty much makes it take even longer for Iron to show up. Guess I need to push out researching the Wheel even farther

[DrSpike]

Then change your priorities. Would you prefer to be dead with 3 religions or alive with 1 or 0?

[wanderer27]

Kepler63,

You've just given me something else to investigate, because I seem to recall seeing some differing values on relations myself


DrSpike,

I've made lots of changes already, I guess they're either the wrong changes or I just haven't made enough yet.

It still doesn't effect having a marching column of Barbarians coming at you, spaced three/four squares apart.

[Kepler63]

Originally posted by wanderer27
Kepler63,

You've just given me something else to investigate, because I seem to recall seeing some differing values on relations myself

I aim to please.

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by wanderer27
When you have no Copper and the only Iron is on the far side of the Barbarian breeding grounds you're pretty much hosed.

I've also had to change the Techs I research. I have to really concentrate to get a Religion (for Culture) on Noble. Generally I have a pretty fair shot at the third Religion (Monotheism), the first two are gone pretty quick. This pretty much makes it take even longer for Iron to show up. Guess I need to push out researching the Wheel even farther

Try something a little different - forget about founding an early religion, and go for the military and basic economic techs straight off the bat instead.

And try a game where you decide to be a warmonger, at least for the early game. Make it your aim to, early on, conquer your nearest neighbour, whoever the unlucky cannon-fodder happens to be.

Once you've done your first conquest, you tend to have severe financial problems due to the fast expansion and a big army, but I've found that you can easily handle even having to drop your research rate to 0 for a while; your larger empire will give you a great edge on everything once you balance your budget.

And consider this: you can easily play thorugh a game and win without founding a single religion - simply wait for a foreign religion to spread to a town of yours, and adopt it. Sure you'll not get the advantages of having the founding city of the religion, but you'll get a great dipolomatic boost with the "owner" of that religion.

And of course, if the poor neigbour who you'll be conquering early on happens to found a religion... well, there you go! Why found a religion of your own if you have a helpful neighbour willing... with some military persuasion... to donate one for you!

Try this tactic with an approriate civ - the Romans, for example, are pretty ideal, with their praetorian.

And if you don't already, play in marathon mode - that makes wars much less frustrating: your units won't be obsolete by the time they reach the enemy city!

[wanderer27]

The only reason I go for the Religion early on is to pop my city borders (new ones) beyond the initial 3x3, otherwise they'll sit there like that until I can get a Library or Theatre.

The Warmonger ideal might work, but I generally have such lousy luck in battle it's not even funny - see my earlier ref to losing a three star Axeman to a Barb Warrior. This type of thing seems to be pretty common, at least to me

Another thing is I generally like to play Archipelago or Island maps. The Hub map I mentioned was a deviation from that as I was looking for some different type of maps/scenarios. This didn't turn out too well, so I'm back to Islands for now - the Barbs are nowhere near as bad as what they were on the Hub map

I usually play Qin (?) for the Ind/Fin traits. Losing the Wheel as a starting Tech is something I'm still adjusting too. It's taking longer than I'd like but I'll get there eventually.

I also play on Epic or Marathon, forget which one, it's the longest game whichever it is - I like long games and big maps

I really appreciate all the suggestions and ideas. I started all this just to figure out why the AI's were so boring. Well, that's obviously been fixed, unfortunately the side effects aren't what I was expecting. What's puzzling though is that I seem to be unique in my experiences, at least with the Barbarians.

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by wanderer27
The only reason I go for the Religion early on is to pop my city borders (new ones) beyond the initial 3x3, otherwise they'll sit there like that until I can get a Library or Theatre.

I don't think that that's true actually - your capital gets culture from being the capital, and I've never had a problem with the capital's borders expanding fairly early on, religion or no religion.

As for bad luck in battle, that happens sometimes. However, much of the feel that you're getting more than your fair share of bad luck is the flawed human intuition when it comes to random things; random doesn't mean equally spaced, that would be ordered - random means lots of clumps, and lots of "droubts". By that I mean that events, like losing a battle where your odds are 75% in favour, tend to happen happen in streaks, and the fact that you just lost a battle that you "should have" won has no effect on the probability of the outcome of your next battle. So you don't get slack for having a run of bad luck. The only thing that you're guaranteed is that over many, many battles, if you tabulate the results, the outcomes will gravitate toward the expected percentages.

Another human trait is that once we get into our heads an idea which seems to us plausible, from then on we pay extra attention to all evidence in favour of that idea, and tend to - unthinkingly - dismiss and forget evidence that goes against it. So it may be that if you get an idea that you've got especially bad battle-luck, you start counting the losses, and taking the wins on stride, without letting them count against your idea of a general trend of bad luck.

That said, when you go for conquest, you should do it with overwhealming force, and build more forces in your cities throughout the military effort.

So early conquest would mean starting off with these priorities:
1. Research military techs - try to get iron working early on.
2. Be ready to send a settler to found a city with access to iron as soon as you get iron working.
3. Build barracs
4. Start building lots of troops - if you play the Romans, that means praets, praets and more praets. Use chopping to speed up your production - chop down any forests around your city.

With these priorities, you shouldn't have much trouble with the barbs - place troops on hills around your borders to keep an eye on your surroundings; the barbs only appear and make cities in the areas that aren't visible to you.

I'd say that maybe 9 or 10 praets, a couple of axmen, some archers (that you'll leave behind in the conquered cities to defend them) should be enough (on Noble at least) to quickly capture all the cities of your unprepared neighbour. And if you stall before mopping up every city, what's left of your neighbour is unlikely to be any threat, you can finish them off later.

After that, you'll need to get your finances in order - your research rate will be pretty low. But you'll have a sizeable lead over the remaining AI's, one that they'll be hard pressed to catch up. Pretty much every victory type is open to you then - you can continue on a military path, or you can settle down and be a builder, aiming for diplo or space race victory, and you won't have too much trouble achieving it.

I would recommend giving this a try, you might surprice yourself.

Archipelago/island settings do tend to give more peaceful starts, but I have to say that the most interesting and fun games I've had on Pangea maps. And if you'll try the conquest-type start, I think you'll find your barbarian troubles much less... troublesome.

Of cource if you buy the Warlords expansion, you'll get the option of building the great wall wonder early on, which will keep the barbs off your lands. I think you'd like that!

From your choise of leaders, I get the picture that you like to build a lot of wonders too - for the military route, I'd suggest forgetting the early wonders too. (Though in warlords, building the great wall might be worth it - it's relatively cheap, and gives you great engineer points)

[wanderer27]

Some good points.

I'm a little disappointed in some of the Leaders they omitted, I'm not sure if it's worth buying Warlords though. There are very few game "Expansions" that I'll actually buy - most of them are pretty much just fluff.

I really don't build many Wonders, at least early on. I try for the Oracle (free tech) and the Great Lighthouse, that's about it early. In the mid-late game if I'm doing well I go for some of the newer wonders.



Hey, here's a question:

How can a Galley/Trieme travel three squares of water (Coast, Ocean, Coast)?

I didn't think it was possible, but Isabella did it

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by wanderer27

Hey, here's a question:

How can a Galley/Trieme travel three squares of water (Coast, Ocean, Coast)?

I didn't think it was possible, but Isabella did it

You get a +1 water movement bonus if you're the first civ to cirumnavigate the globe. In your case, I bet Isabella had achieved that feat first. You can also get that bonus if you reveal a continuous strip of area that goes around the globe by any other means (and are first to do it), so if you get part of the way clear by trading for someone's world map, that'll count.

There's also a +1 water movement bonus to be had by discovering refrigeration, but somehow I doubt that Isabella had that, if she was still sailing Galleys.

As for early wonders, I think that Pyramids are the most useful; being able to run representation from early on is great.

In warlords, if you build the great wall, you start to get GP points for getting a great engineer - if you then build a library or a temple, you can assign a scientist/priest specialist for the city to get your first GP quickly - if you play a philosophical leader, then your first GP will arive quite fast, and most likely be a great engineer (if not, oh well.... at least you tried)... which you can then use to rush the Pyramids. After that, you can put the forced specialist back on the fields, and you'll have two wonders making points for great engineers.

I don't regret buying Warlords myself - I think that the additions have improved the game much. The great wall has also brought in great versatility in designing custom games - for example: a one city challenge on a highlands map with raging barbs, with the aim of achieving a conquest victory. That sounds wild, but is made quite possible with the great wall - build it, and the raging barbs will bother everyone but you, slowing them down enough for you to be able to build the forces to wipe them out, despite only having one city to work with. I've tried it, and it's quite fun.

[wanderer27]

I don't think anyone had Caravels yet, it was still fairly early. I had a City I'd just planted on a new Island without any defense . My survey revealed that there was only one way to reach it, so I figured I'd have time to get something before I had to worry about invaders.

She showed up with a Galley, Soldier, and a Settler. I resigned, there was no way to defend that city or any of it's neighbors at that point.

I wish I had kept that game just to examine what the heck was going on

So, the +1 will let you cross an Ocean square. I though I'd tried that before and had no luck. Maybe I just had it burnt into my head that you couldn't cross Ocean because that's what the game said (about Galleys). I'll need to remember that and try it again - could come in handy

I've only built the Pyramids once, and was so side-tracked with other things I forgot to use it Lately, I've limited success even getting the Oracle. The Great Lighthouse is a very rare success these days . . . I'll probably forego them in the future at this rate unless I actually get some resources in my starting City.

I've got another gripe though. Last night I was looking over the Handicap file again. I noticed that my Inflation rate is 90% and the AI's is 70% on this level
So much for equallity . . . .

[ben04]

How can a Galley/Trieme travel three squares of water (Coast, Ocean, Coast)?

I didn't think it was possible, but Isabella did it

Probably has to with culture region. If a water square has culture you can always enter it with galleies no matter if it's ocean or not. For the 3 movement points, either she has already sailed around the globe or the ship had a +1 movement promotion.

[jkp1187]

1.) DOUBLE the number of civs versus the default. (I.e., if playing "SMALL" map, which defaults to 5 civs, use 9 or 10.)

2.) Select Aggressive AI.

3.) Hang on!