Marathon game, huge world, how am I doing???

[Destroyer]

I am playing as English, Prince level, and have a decent empire of 8 cities, totalling 30 pop, with six luxuries, and reasonable access to 2 more. My ability to expand is being halted by my happiness of -1

I am faced with 2 foes on my supersized landmass. The Americans, who have just one (!) city, and the Songhai, whom have 10 cities and 40 population. Unfortunately, this butthole has a whole half of the landmass to spread out on, and has instead settled right in my direction. He is now bigger than me, although he has only archers and spears (same as me).

I have more luxuries than him, and have hit my current happiness limit. I have roaded up my cities, and have around 1.5 units military units per city, leaving me with a slight profit, of 15 (to his 35)

The Sonhai are still expanding, and I am not sure how to stop him. I dont have the military capability to knock him back, although we are reasonably good friends with open borders

I guess he may screw me at some point, but I am confused by how he can have such a large empire. I am guessing my tech is higher. I am starting to build colleseums, so it may be that they are sustaining him too, but my score is 229 to his 167, so I must be beating him somewhere. I am rated no 2 in literacy, but am worried his civ is going to outpace me.

Could he have put his civ massively into unhappiness with his expansion?

How should I counter? I am 167 turns in and dont want to do anything silly just yet, so just wanted to hear other peoples opinons.

I have moded the marathon game to give normal build times, and slightly longer research time

Cheers

[pdxsean]

I would expect him to continue expanding until he'd taken all the good space, and then most likely he'll invade you. He might invade all the city states first (I don't know that Civ's plan so well) but most likely he'll want to gobble you up at some point. If you build up a decent army (and it sounds like you're close) with a good mix of land, artillery, and range units with a horse or two, you should be ready for whatever he sends at you.

Then it's a matter of whether you attack him first, or you wait and maintain your military indefinitely. This can be tough, but if you fall too far behind he's more likely to pounce. There are no guarantees, I've had a super powerful neighbor who could easily have crushed me leave me alone until I called it quits.

I don't know how you've set up your mod, but I would suspect your additional production + slower research will = crippling industrial age financial crisis. Less is more in Civ V, trade any resources you have for more luxuries to keep happiness up.

[Dinner]

I find myself usually trying to expand very fast just so I can grab the best places to settle and grab those all important luxury resources. As long as you keep settling near luxuries and build coliseums then happiness shouldn't be an issue.

[Destroyer]

I guess my big question was, will an AI continue to expand if he has bad unhappiness, and is there a way to tell if they are unhappy.

The landmass we are on is large enough to fit 100 cities. Normally, you would expect to grow in fits and spurts, as new tech luxuries are available. As this is only my seconf game, I am not sure if the AI care about things like happiness.

As for crippling industrial age finances... I dont think so. I made sure inflation has been reduced, so everything has been scaled (hopefully).

I am still deciding if I like this version of Civ. I know I had the same feeling with Civ3+4, and the final version of civ 4 is amazing. I guess its normal with a civ game to have to wait for the second xp to get the full treatment. Its just hard to wait for 2 years for the game you want it to be.

[Destroyer]

Hmmmph!

Well, he has kept on expanding, captured 4 american cities, has a large military, and is creaming over 200 gold a turn, I am making about 15... HE has spammed farms everywhere, so that is why he is growing fast. But it doesnt really explain that level of income, He has virtually no trading posts...

Not sure if we are playing by the same rules here. In a few turns he has literally doubled in size. How has his empire not been crippled by unhappiness? I am only playing on prince level, so we should be on a level playing field.

Is there a save game editor, as I would quite like to see exactly how his economy is working. I cant compete at all, and he must be raking research in by now. I can only expand at the speed of my collesseums and circuses. Also like to see how his happiness is being sustained.

It may just be that this game is not for me. I enjoy the exploration and expansion in these types of games, but civ5 seems more like a 3x game, for my empire anyway. The Ai just keeps going... Maybe I will dig out Civ4... It just feels like Firaxis want a smaller, bloodier game. If you can only expand so far, then all thats really left is combat to limit other civs

[AeonOfTime]

AI expansion is not infallible

I have not played on a huge map yet, it tends to generate a bit too much micromanagement per turn in the late game for my taste I can confirm that some of the AI personalities like to expand until there is no land left to claim though.

In one game I was playing on a continents map with the Americans right beside me, and as you mentioned they did not expand much at all. By the time I had three cities, they still had just one. AI expansion was not an issue because I ended up owning one whole continent. The other continent was colonized by the english, with the sole difference that they had also conquered all the city states.

The part that might be interesting to you is that the english also seemed to have major issues: they had more cities than I had (putting them closer together), but they were all very small (none above 9). The diplomacy screen also showed that they had a negative economy (-25 per turn), they were completely crippled. I managed to cut a deal for open borders with them (for three of my luxury resources!), and went exploring: they had covered all tiles with trade posts. I assume because of the money issues... no wonder their cities were so small!

I think that game you started must have been something a bit special. I played about six whole games by now, and the choice of leader as well as the leaders you play against can play a huge role in how the game turns out. The big plus I see in Civ 5 is that cities are a lot more difficult to conquer, making a defensive position easier. When in an inferior position, I have had success with declaring war (to make them focus on war instead of expansion), and defeating their armies while I built an army of my own. A few cities optimized for building units will do a great job for your retaliation.

My two cents

[Destroyer]

Thanks for your comments

My concern is the ai ignores happiness concerns, which affects the number of cities he can have. IF you are playing smaller maps, its not a concern, but on huge maps it gives the ai an unassailable advantage, unless you attack early (which is not my style of game).

I also saw this to a lesser degree om my first game, when Rome just kept building tones of cities, whereas I kept the number low on purpose (around 8 to his 30). and got whipped. Again, I am unsure how he was keeping so many citizens happy.

Either way, I am not having fun, putting massive amounts of hours in and finding I am way behind. I think it does depend on which AIs you get, but some are completely useless it seems. Perhaps a patch will sort this, although I fear the game design was focussed on quicker, smaller games. Its a shame, as I like the combat, and to a degree the hexes, but for me Civ4 is preferable in almost every other way. Perhaps if they got William Shatner to do the techs, it would swing it...

[Zoetstofzoetje]

My concern is the ai ignores happiness concerns,

in my experience this is often the case. somehow however, whilst the AI has a limited amount of happiness resources, they still often have happiness in the 40+.

i established that the only way to maintain growth is by being extremely careful where to position cities. only very rarely do i build a new one if it does not connect me to a new happiness resource.

i'm doing the biggest map at normal speed, with raging barbarians. it keeps the AI in check somewhat. also, every few turns i get to pick up a free settler from a barbarian camp too many workers now though.

Perhaps if they got William Shatner to do the techs, it would swing it...

i'm fairly sure the only lines that william shatner would be able to remember would be "beep, beep, beep". that alcoholic can barely remember his own name. ever noticed how in star trek he would say things like "you... are a very... intelligent person". lol. he had to wait for someone to tell him the next few words every time

the only way to get ahead of the AI on deity/emperor/etc is by having a lot more cities. this is why happiness is so important. population=science now.

[pdxsean]

I've found playing on the Small Continent map keeps the AI in check. Basically, each AI has their own continent. Since they are incapable of making any realistic trans-oceanic invasion, you end up with most of the AIs lasting through the future era.

The drawback to this is, none of them really pose much of a challenge. I jumped easily from King to Emperor on this map type and still crushed the AI with my amazing 700 point emperor space race victory.