What the H---!

[logicman49]

Okay, so I'm not so good at this. I tried some of the strategies that I've read. The best I just tried was (Warlord for crying out loud) only wonders was Oracle and Stonehedge and one national wonder. Got to 1700AD or so. I was way ahead of everybody declared war on France who was right next to me and not the weakest bu somewhere ion the middle. Got him down to 3 cities and all of a sudden I get war declared on me by someone else. France vassalized. Now I go to 2nd place probably because of war wariness. All of a sudden France comes up with dozens of troops out of nowhere and I start to get clobbered. Before you know it I am on strike and the other opponent brings tons of troops and starts to annihilate me. What the he-- I am not understanding about this game. I was Rome and had some real good troops and very diverse.

Steve

[Kuciwalker]

Do you have any intermediate savegames?

[logicman49]

Sorry no. I am at work so I don't have anything and I overlay the saved game all the time. Basically, this time I had only the 3 wonders. Mostly just barracks, granaries, a few libraries and the occasional stable. I had almost all the advanced cultures except for organized religion and all my cities excpet the ones I just recently captured were christian. I only had one spearman in each and about 60 units when I decided to attack. I had about 30 left with more on the way and 3 cities left to conquer when the Aztecs vassaled the French and declared war also and came after me with what seemed to be about a super stack of 40. That with the French leftovers destroyed me. Ever since BTS I even have trouble with Warlord level. I used to win and was ready to go higher until BTS killed me. I am not on 3.13 as yet.

Steve

[rah]

You probably went to second because the civ that vasalized the french gets partial points from their vasal.

And that's the one thing i hate about how the game handles vasals. I don't have a problem with the French looking to a big brother for protection, but when they do, you should get the option of breaking off the war when they do it. Especially since the civ that they become the vasal of may have been a civ that you were +15 diplo wise. Their you best bud and they automatically attack. You would think they would just send a message saying that the french is now under their protection and it would be best that you BACK OFF.

Silly things like this is why I usually play with vassals disabled.

[snoopy369]

Turn autosave on if it's not on. (It should be on by default). Then look in your autosaves folder (a subfolder of the regular saves\single player\ folder) and you should find one for every four turns probably. The only problem is they get recycled every so often so you probably can't go all the way back; but you can change that in your civilization4.ini file in your \my documents\my games\beyond the sword\ directory, do a find for autosaves and you'll find two options:
1) Autosave frequency (4 is default)
2) Keep how many autosaves (5 is default)
Change 1) to 1 and 2) to 500, and you'll have a full game's autosaves. (It still resets the autosave directory every time you do a new game, so you don't get an insane number of them).

[logicman49]

How do you turn Vassal off? I usually play custom games but don't remember seeing it.

[guermantes]

Originally posted by logicman49
How do you turn Vassal off? I usually play custom games but don't remember seeing it.

It's right there in the first column where you specify all of the other custom game thingies such as Aggressive AI, No tech brokering, Raging barbs etc. Down towards the bottom of the page.

[rah]

Yeah, it's too bad. I like the concept of vassals and it adds a lot to the game, but a few of those little things like that make me turn it off. It's a shame since it wouldn't take much to modify it.

[TriMiro]

BtS is a big step up from Warlords. I was able to win on Warlords on Prince without much trouble, but I got my behind kicked big time on BtS. The AI is very aggressive and you have to be always on the lookout. Basically I had to relearn how to play all over again. I started with much smaller maps and eventually I got back to winning on Standard map - Prince.

Don't feel bad, it is normal to fall behind on the first few BtS games.

[jnh140]

When i get a civ on the ropes that much, down to three cities or so, I'll usually just vassalize them to prevent them from becoming someone elses vassal, unless I really want those three particular cities.

The AI always builds big stacks. My stacks are never nearly as large, but through strategic bombing and artillary, I can usually dispatch most of them with ease.

[logicman49]

I had a civ vassalized once. They asked me. This time I kept trying but they refused to talk to me. I never got a chance.

[jnh140]

It seems like theres personality traits with the leaders that go into whether they will allow you to vassalize them or not.

Saladin I have to basically exterminate before he'll accept it, but the holy romans seem to capitulate at the drop of a hat.