How theydo it..?

[Vorret]

Hi,

So... I know that computer cheats... in a way but here's my question.

Playing Prince since I found noble to be rather easy...
So I have Catherine and I'm losing alot of money with 5 cities 3 of them being costal with some nice fishy.

Now... I'm in the red if it wasn't for those lucky tech trade and that I failed to get the pyramids by 1 turn I'd be plain broke.
How does the computer can crate 9,10 cities and still be up there in the tech race ?
Shouldn't he be in the deeep deep red with that number of cities?

Please enlight me cause .. I'm lost maybe I'm just doing something completly wrong too!!


Thanks

[Dale]

Up to and including Noble, the AI don't cheat. The cheats kick in at Prince and above.

That's why he's so far in front.

[Pinchak]

You got to remember as well that the computer spams cottages early.

Ever notice where your work tiles gravitate if you let the computer choose for you?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Don't try to figure out how they do it. If you do it the way they do it, you'll lose. There are more of them than you, and on Prince, they have built-in advantages. Doing things the way they do will get you into last place.

[Vorret]

Hmm...

Then, how do you make it?

I mean... I don't have a "big" civ, 5 cities is rather small and I'm losing over 15 gold per turn.
I'd have to lower the research to 80% to barely be in the green.

Is it the only solution? Cause that would increase my research time by a fairly large margin over time.

Am I doing something wrong?

[Pinchak]

Unless you sit back and avoid war at all costs... expect to run <100% science.

Also, make a point to check out your finiatial tab. Sometimes unexpected things are putting a major strain on your income and you don't even realize it. (civics, unit costs, distance penaltys, etc...)

A cure for your woes however is to build cottages early, so by the time you have 5 citys they have matured into towns. This does alot to offset economic problems that occuer once you expand past 4 citys.

Trade routes also help offset a deficet. Make sure you are on good terms and have open boarders with at least one other civ. Visit their citys, so trade routes start up. Nothing beats free money.

Speaking of free money... if feasable, found a religion and get a great priest to build the holy building. Depending on number of citys on the map, and how many civs you have open boarders with, this can really pull you out of the red in a hurry.

Don't forget courthouses as well. If distance penalty is eating up alot of your coin, make sure to build these (make the further away citys a priority).

As with alot of game concepts in Civ, there is often many ways to skin a cat.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Right, nothing wrong with not running 100% science. And the higher the difficulty, the fewer cities you can get out before needing to turn that slider down.

Cottage the crap out of everything. And when you think you have enough, cottage some more. Typically, any tile that has 2+ food and no resources, I like to cottage.

The only thing I don't see mentioned already is specialists. A library with a couple scientists in each city can do wonders to your tech rate.

[Pinchak]

Ahhh, good catch there Ortho.

Indeed, specialists can help with both hard cash and science.

I usually try to build a "science city" at some point. Look for a city site with 3 or more food resorces, and perferably lots of farmable grassland.

The key here is to farm the entire fat cross (exceptions made of course for non-food resourse tiles, and non-farmable terrain). Get a grainery and library early.

The concept here is to have as many scientist specialists as possiable. This contributes to your science rate independent of your economic situation. The scientists generate beakers, and also contribute to your Great Person rate (which with all scientists will be a Great Scientist). Have the first GS build an acadamy in the science city (+50% science rate for that city). Make the additional GS become super specialists for that city (if you have another city that is generating mucho money, you may want to consider building an academy there instead... just do the math when the time comes).

Of course build the observatory and university buildings in the science city when they become avalible. Getting the Great Library in that city helps ALOT... however due to the fact that this city probably won't have alot of production capablity you may need to Great Engineer or Chop to make the GL a reality in this city.

Why all the talk about making a science city? Because as Ortho stated, it makes up for having to run your science at <100%.

[Scylvendi]

War war war. Why are you letting them get 9-10 cities while you have 5? Raze cities. There's some cash for you. Pillage tiles. Be aggressive. B E Aggressive.

[Vorret]

Hehe.... For some reason, I don't know, I've always played the "peacefull" guy until I get to more powerfull units...

Even then I'm still fairly peacefull and I start to wage more war in the tanks era.

I know I should be more aggressive but I don't really know where to start and it always feels like my unit won't be strong enough to conquest anything or that everybody will then gang up on me or something!

edit:

Thanks for the tips about the scientist I'll defenetly give it a try when I get back home from work!

[Blake]

As a rule, 10 cities at 30% research, generates more beakers than 1 city at 100% research .

[Blaupanzer]

Once you get catapults, go raze the cities of thos annoyed with you. At Prince and above, the annoyance won't get better for the most part anyway. Cottages and coastal squares help a lot. Bee-line to and get the Colussus if you have ocean squares.

[snoopy369]

Rule of thumb: the higher level you play at, the more aggressive you will have to be, or at minimum the more military you will require to not be defeated. One of the primary ways the computer cheats is to have more free units as the levels go higher, so you'll see bigger and bigger AI armies. Remember the AI takes into account the power comparison between you and the AI - hit F9 and look at the power graph, and make sure you're not too far down the graph. And should you be unfortunate enough to start next to Montezuma or one of the other uberaggressive AIs... either preemptively destroy them, or build up a pretty good sized army

Generally you should in most games be running around 60%-80% until code of laws. In large empire games, beeline to code of laws and build as many courthouses as possible CoL gets you civil service anyhow, which is great.

If you're running at 90% or higher, you either have an incredible start (gold mountains and floodplains everywhere), or don't have enough cities. The mistake most players who go from noble to prince make is not building enough cities fast enough (and not keeping up enough power to discourage AI attacks).

[Blake]

Speaking of AI's and how to out tech them, you could read my Realms Beyond Epic 7 Report
It's a duel vs an Immortal AI and I choose the path of minimal aggression, simply out-teching it. My report gives some insight into the kind of techniques which can be used to badly embarrass the AI. It's a bit sandboxy in that it's a very small map and the starts are on separate landmasses, but that also simplifies things.

[MJW]

AI cheats a lot on noble to. It's really not THAT noticeable unlike Civ3 win even on diety when you grab a city it sometimes only has three buildings or so...