Yant!

[BeBMan]

Well in my installation the .ini under BTS folder is actually just a shortcut pointing to Documents/MyGames/Beyond the Sword/ so I suppose it's ok.

[BeBMan]

How do you deal with a civ that is stronger than you? In my last two games I always ran into the same prob that one AI managed to race ahead while I couldn't stop them cuz the other kept me busy:

1. First one was as US (Roosevelt), noble, on two continents, I shared one with Bismarck and Mao, the other had two Frances with two De Gaulles (selected the second by mistake ), Ghandi, and dunno who else. I managed to dominate my continent, but still I wasn't strong enough to take out Mao or Bismarck completely.

When I got contact with the guys overseas it turned out that one De Gaulle dominated his continent. I tried to build up, and beat him in the space race, but stupid Mao and Bismarck even attacked me when they actually couldn't win, which slowed me down, so De Gaulle won the space race. I sabotaged parts of his space ship once, but it costed several 1000 pts each try, so I couldn't stop him. As I see it, going to war against him earlier was no option, since those guys took any chance to declare war against me.

Usually it went like a) Mao attacked, lost one or two cities, made peace. Then b) one or two turns later, Bismarck attacked until I forced him into peace as well. Then it was Maos turn again. It was fun to battle them in industrial and modern times, but at the same time the leading De Gaulle had enough time to build up. There wasn't a single war on his continent for several centuries....

2. Second one is noble as well, pangaea, space race turned off. I'm the Romans, took out Brennus. Right on my borders however there are Persians and Greeks, both a bit below my strength, but also the Egyptians, which didn't waste time while I defeated Brennus and are quite ahead after the reduced Hannibal and some other guy to ca. 1-2 cities. I'm not strong enough to fight them directly, but I fear when I'm going against the other two the Egyptians will sneak attack me from behind.

[Blaupanzer]

I generally play at Prince, but lose or quit a lot. Almost every game at least one AI out of my immediate reach takes off in science while another builds massive armies. So, beating that challenge is key to every game. A bit of an edge comes from the things I change at the start by loading thru "custom games" at the start. I turn on Aggressive AI and raging barbs to keep things even at the start and so the AI WILL be a challenge. In custom games, I also click "no tech brokering," so the AIs and I can only trade techs we actually researched, and "no vassals," so that the military guy doesn't end up with 5 or 6 guaranteed allies, all of whom I must beat if I fight him. Lastly I turn off diplomatic victory to prevent an exploit with the Apostolic Palace. The tech and vassal modifications should help you avoid some of the events in the two endgames you describe. Only solid aggression, good city planning (city by city, as in this one's tech, this one's money, this one's science), wise city placement, and a little luck (most especially with the placement of copper, horses, and iron) will give you a reasonable chance to win. Good luck, sounds like we both need it, but we simply must win the tech and military races simultaneously.

[BeBMan]

Lastly I turn off diplomatic victory to prevent an exploit with the Apostolic Palace.

I had a game recently where AI Bismarck got an "Religious Victory" by voting with the Apostolic Palace...is that the exploit? I never had the option for something like this before, if I built the palace myself or not (otoh I can participate always in the elections for UN gen. secr.)

It was shortly before winning a nice domination victory (I had enough population, just needed another percent of control over land) and then that