Attrition

[Blaupanzer]

Also, while you two border-sharers are such lovey-dovey friends, he is also a friend of the guy who is sucking up your troops OR friends with the civ that entered the war on your enemy's side. Since you "declared war on my friend," the planning begins. As he builds up, the relative power ratios between you and Mr +15 may approach one another. (Very few of us, even at full war status, can make our power level rise during a good hard slugout at the front. Attacking, especially, eats up units in most circumstances.) While your power ratio may gain relative to the opponent(s), it will drop versus the uninvolved who are also in buildup mode.

[Ming]

Actually... at full war status, my power level some times does rise, even if I'm losing troops. When I'm in full war mode.. EVERY city is building units... And I've probably changed most of my cities to heavy production mode, instead of a good balance of science and production cities so that I can keep a constant stream of units heading to the front... especially collaterial damage units to replace the ones I'm lossing.

[Blaupanzer]

If the units built in full war mode (as defined by Ming) are more high tech than those dying then this can happen easily. A current neutral of any size, however, in full war mode, is going to grow in strength relatively. That civ is not losing the few attackers and defender or two and is not using up their collateral damage units. I monitor the power graph in war looking for the potential backstabbers whose power is growing in spite of the reduced threat on their borders.

[Ming]

If you build units faster than you lose them, you will increase your power.

[rah]

I just talk to my neighbors and see if they're will to trade with me. If not, their reason will usually tip me that I'm next on their list. But It is funny then when they go after someone on the other side.

[Blaupanzer]

If you build units faster than you lose them, you will increase your power.

True. All I was saying was if an AI builds lots of units and doesn't lose any of them, that AI will tend to catch up to you.

[rah]

And if the powergraph shows an SHARP increase (90% or better) you can bet someone is about to become a victim.

For fun sometimes I play a game where I'm not allowed to declare war. I can only eliminate someone when the declare on me. A domination victory is usually assured.

[Blaupanzer]

For fun sometimes I play a game where I'm not allowed to declare war. I can only eliminate someone when the declare on me. A domination victory is usually assured.

And quite rightly. The AI is just not that good at attack, relying on sheer numbers most of the time.

[rah]

Or back when I played with vassals. Beat down every civ until they were all vassals of one civ. This made it much easier keeping track of things during wars.

[wodan11]

If you build units faster than you lose them, you will increase your power.

Ranks right up there with classic John Maddenisms such as:

“When your arm gets hit, the ball is not going to go where you want it to.

"He would have scored a touchdown if he hadn't been tackled right there"

“The goal of football is to score more points than your opponent.”

“Here’s a guy who when he runs, he moves faster.”

[Blaupanzer]

1 knee = 2 feet.

But it is true that a lot of wars cause the power of both sides to go down relative to the other AIs. The offset is full war footing where only units and military buildings are built.

[Ming]

When I go to war (my choice, not when attacked by somebody else) I will almost always gain on the power graph relative to non involved AI's. It's just the nature of how I go to war. You have to keep replacing units that died, and making sure you are building faster than you lose because of the need to hold more territory, and stay ahead of the AI.
The AI can whip a good 16 size down to nothing pretty quickly. Those cities that look like they aren't really defended gain units quickly. You need to continue the cranking of units once the war starts, or the attack might stall. And I do NOT like when an attack stalls for lack of units.

[Blaupanzer]

Especially for a lack of healthy siege units. If the burn/wound ratio is such that by the third city I have to wait one turn to finish reducing the defenses and softening the defenders, I am screamingly angry at myself. If you always gain strength when attacking, Ming, you might want to think about playing on a higher level. BTW, what level do you play SP at? Is there a "agreed" level for MP games or is it different from one session to the next?

[Ming]

Most MP games we play are played at the default noble setting. If all the players are human, it really doesn't matter much. We don't get some of the health and other minor problems the higher levels can bring, and everybody is even. Even when I play SP games to practice MP strategies, I will play on higher levels or it isn't much of a test of strategies since Humans are far smarter than the AI.

When I'm just playing SP for fun, I pretty much playing emp level now. With the aggressive AI option, I find this to be challegining. With aggressive AI turned off... I can play at the higher levels and stand a chance.

Also note, I usually play tech trading off, no diplo victories, and no vassels. I've played many, many, many games with all the different settings or combinations of settings, and just happen to like these settings for the moment.

[Blaupanzer]

No vassals is a no-brainer. The MP humans can't do that anyway, I suspect. With no tech trading and no brokering, you prob need to get up to emp or above to get the AI to have a chance of keeping up tech-wise. The diplo victory holes are too great for me as well. Too bad we couldn't just turn on the UN w/no AP, or use the AP without the associated game victory potential. With either of these options diplo might be worth keeping, giving the warmonger human pause. Then it definitely would be worth keeping.