The religion game

[trev]

In my initial rushes, possibly after I built 3 cities, I begin building axes, spears, chariots while I learn ironworking. Then I build around 10 swords, this scares the opposition into defensive mode, they do not generally counterattack, but move back into cities, makes them a sitting duck and easy 4 or more cities to pick up. Does not take long to generate the 1st general, all generals I settle in my capital so well promoted units can be built in numbers, particularly once I am in beauracracy and have a few Great Engineers settled.
If no iron about, then build axes instead, if no copper as well, then build larger numbers of chariots with flanking. Otherwise begin a new game. A military resource is essential. I do try and scout AI territory for needed resources before beginning the assault if I am missing something.

[Blaupanzer]

Later in the game, oil is a similar resource. If you don't have it at sci meth, then fight for it before Ind or kiss your a__ goodbye. (Ships will run on uranium + Fission, but tanks and planes need oil. I recently played a game where I had 2 of the ten sources worldwide (10 AIs + me originally), but both were offshore. Before I could leverage my slight tech lead two AIs had already launched on me. A vassal (with no oil) and a lot of antitank units just won't cut it once the planes come in. Again my Rocketry SAM troops and antitankers just weren't enough to hold them back. Plus, try to build a navy when you start at Fission and they start at Combustion. I made it bloody, but my cities began to fall. So I retired, with another lesson about rushing right to Sci Meth when able.

[slnz]

Standard Ethanol can sometimes save your ass in a situation like that as it's founded by a very common type of GP. Requires the same tech as offshore though but can't be pillaged. Can be a royal pain to have only offshore sources if the enemies have a lead in building up a metal navy.

[Blaupanzer]

Seems irretrievable when tanks and planes hit you overland and you have only a select set of the inf-style counters while the other AI land on your shores and your best ship is an ironclad. The best save for this would have been for me to go get a land-based source post-sci meth and pre-combustion. One hopes another source will turn up between you and your vassal before Ind. Not likely and did not happen.

[sorinache]

In the long term having more cities WILL provide much much more beakers. It's only before the infrastructure is up that they cost more than what they are worth.

Hmmm ... but then I need to survive long enough ... If bringing my tech slider down to sustain cities means that I don't have macemen fast enough or don't get pikemen in time for the AI knights then I'm dead meat.

That I can understand. Playing "Sim Empire" is often very fun and relaxing - my answer was from a "gameplay optimization" perspective, which (I feel) is often necessary at least when moving up a level.

Religion in isolation I definitely don't like - less shrine income and everyone will hate your guts when they meet you for being a heathen, if you don't luck yourself upon paganists like in your previous example
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Nothing prevents you from going to no state religion or to free religion if need arise - it's just one turn of anarchy. And you still get the income and the culture and the GP points from great shrines

Yes, it's quite normal to bring the slider down to even 0% as long as you have Pottery and Writing to dig yourself out from it. For the moment you will be technologically behind, but when the vertical growth starts to kick in (about the time when you're whipping Courthouses, or a bit later when most of the land is developed) you will be miles ahead in tech rate for the rest of the game, no question (compared to not expanding much). 30 bpt is more than enough to do this.
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Sorry, I can't see how that could work on Immortal. When the vertical growth starts to kick in I'll be the weakest guy around because of tech backwardness : axes and spears to the AI maces, crossbowmen and pikemen. The more aggressive AIs are buond to DOW on me. And then instead of improving my cities I'll need to build military units to defend against unfavorable odds. I need to see you playing to believe this can work

A usual way to get out is to crawl to Aes, tech 10% of Alpha, trade for Alpha, then trade Aes around for stuff you missed like IW and Math while heading for Currency by building Research (Aes is good because 1. AIs don't prioritize it 2. Even if they do they don't trade it around if they start on any of the wonders).
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I can't say I corroborate your opinion : from what I saw, the AIs that are interested in building wonders are pretty quick to Aes (and indeed they won't trade it around afterwards) while the others are mostly uninterested and offer 10-30 gold in exchange for it. Just try offering Aes to Shaka and see what he'll agree to in exchange !

After Currency you can build Wealth ( > Research) while heading towards CoL. An (almost) absolute requirement for this is to not stray to the religious side of the tech tree (Mysti can be taken, if you need to block or have cities with good resources in the 2nd ring and aren't CRE) - otherwise you can't expand fast enough to block AIs and still be able to dig yourself out.

I'll try something around these lines when I'll get around but I'm deeply sceptical it can work.

[slnz]

Hmmm ... but then I need to survive long enough ... If bringing my tech slider down to sustain cities means that I don't have macemen fast enough or don't get pikemen in time for the AI knights then I'm dead meat.

Diplo skills help a ton in the most critical phase. When the medieval military starts popping up then you'll have regained tech parity if all things went as they should so defending with Axe/Spear is no problem until then.

Sorry, I can't see how that could work on Immortal. When the vertical growth starts to kick in I'll be the weakest guy around because of tech backwardness : axes and spears to the AI maces, crossbowmen and pikemen. The more aggressive AIs are buond to DOW on me. And then instead of improving my cities I'll need to build military units to defend against unfavorable odds. I need to see you playing to believe this can work

The fast to-the-brink-of-strike early expansion is what does work on the higher levels. Otherwise you get left in the dust in the late game after your small empire's potential has peaked and the AI era bonuses start to kick in (1-5% per era to a maximum of 7-35% for production for Prince-Deity levels). Obviously a slower expansion while aiming for an expansion war with Cavalry or Rifle/Cannon works as well but that can backfire if you can't get a decent tech lead.

I can't say I corroborate your opinion : from what I saw, the AIs that are interested in building wonders are pretty quick to Aes (and indeed they won't trade it around afterwards) while the others are mostly uninterested and offer 10-30 gold in exchange for it. Just try offering Aes to Shaka and see what he'll agree to in exchange !

Being wonder-averse has nothing to do with how much they value it. You need to partially research techs to overcome the unavoidable lopsidedness in human-to-AI deals (usually about 20% into Alpha is enough for AIs to trade it for Aes, for example, Math can usually be traded 1:1), the AIs magically know how much you have put beakers into techs and adjust their prices accordingly. It can also be (though improbable) that they have themselves invested beakers in it and that's why they offer less for it. Aes is definitely one of the best trade-bait techs in the game.

If most of them already have Currency then you took too long to get there - need to have it before all the AIs have all the ~450 beaker techs (Alpha, Aes, Monarchy), which is not that hard to accomplish. Sometimes trade-bait gambits do backfire though and you're left with a semi-useless almost all Civs know. In the majority of cases though you get about 3 times the beakers you invested into it from trades.

Only reason Shaka is a worse teching partner than most is that 1) he tends to suck at teching 2) he tends to be the worst enemy of 2-3 Civs at this points so you definitely don't want to trade with him then.

[rah]

After all these discussions I went and tried a game with tech trading on for the first time in years. I upped the level one to Immortal. I realized that I suck at trading and need to practice it a bit more.

[Blaupanzer]

Stay away for Immortal if you play for "fun" in any real sense. That and the level(s?) above require immersion, concentration, ruthlessness, avoiding all errors, and a little bit of luck.

However, I enjoy trading with no brokering. Trying one now with trading turned off. Still keep going to the tech screen and wondering who is trading the techs to the other AIs so they can't trade them to me, only to do the head slap and "Oh yeah, you chose that setting!"

[slnz]

Stay away for Immortal if you play for "fun" in any real sense. That and the level(s?) above require immersion, concentration, ruthlessness, avoiding all errors, and a little bit of luck.

Hmm, I think you just defined "fun" for me in that latter sentence

Though all of the difficulty levels are relative and it's hard to generally say this or that about any difficulty level. Hence the ominous "higher levels" instead of using absolute levels in many discussions.

[Blaupanzer]

Seems to be an absolute agreement on Apolyton that for each level above monarch it is harder for the player to win than the one below it. So what would be the point in listing them all, slnz?

[Ming]

Seems to be an absolute agreement on Apolyton that for each level above monarch it is harder for the player to win than the one below it.

Probably one of the few things we can all agree on

[slnz]

Seems to be an absolute agreement on Apolyton that for each level above monarch it is harder for the player to win than the one below it. So what would be the point in listing them all, slnz?

I've come to the understanding that this applies to the levels below Monarch as well

I was just saying that some people might not need that immense concentration and ruthlessness on Immortal, as all the levels are relative. Some need that on Settler and some don't need it on Deity. I now realize the pointlessness of my comment though.

[Blaupanzer]

My point earlier was that at some level the game becomes more work and a prayer for luck than fun in the sense that you feel that you as the player are at least even with the AI with a good chance to dictate your game and succeed. Below that level it is too easy. More than one level above comfort, you are lucky to survive. Now a player should keep honing the play style so as to move up a level, with the old level now being too easy. But it seems to me that for most of us Immortal and above seems to be a bit of a "Hail Mary" pass in American football. You throw it out there, and if you are very lucky you score, i.e., gain a good foothold so you might actually survive long enough to see which AI won.

slnz, I got the feeling that you were going to try your favorite level with Agg AI on and tech trading off and see if that's as smooth for you as the selections you use currently. Have you done that yet?

[slnz]

I've played a couple of Agg AI games, they tend to end up like the one which I posted a save of in the chest-beating thread.

Haven't tried it with no tech trading. I'm sure it will be much harder due to not having techs as diplo-chips for bribing people to war and peace. Actually could be a lot harder with both Agg AI and No Tech Trading than either of those settings on their own - gonna try a couple of those. Thanks for the tip/encouragement/challenge

[rah]

Yeah, I'd love to hear your feedback on that. Since I usually play agg ai and no tech trading and emp is still not an auto win by any stretch of the imagination.
I would be interested if you to post an initial save and a few milestones so us lesser players have a stick to measure our dick size to.