Diety AC late game

[Campo]

I've gotten to where I can win at Diety by conquest almost all the time. So I'm trying AC but having trouble. Specifically, the constant assaults from all the AI civs are both tiresome and distracting.

The last game I had a good lead but the Vikings stole research, built the Manhattan Project, developed nukes, and blew up several of my spaceship-producing cities before I could built SDI everywhere. (They were well removed from me, so I wasn't able to sabotage or attack their capitol when I saw the "building Manhattan Project" message until it was too late.)

The game before that I was building a spaceship but had to divert resources for defense from constantly attacking neighbors. While I was fending them off, a distant civ stole techs and launched its own ship.

I had UN both games. It helps force a peace, but the AI sneak attacks a turn or two later. I also had good -- though not overwhelming -- tech leads. My forces were clearly superior, but 6 civ's inferior forces still require diverting a lot of resources to defense. And if they steal my research and get nukes or space flight it's a whole new game.

What's the best strategy here? I could beat the other civs into submission early on -- knock them down to a few small cities, and keep them there -- but that seems inconsistent with a pure space-race game. Any other suggestions?

[Campo]

I forgot to mention this:

In my last game I had painstakingly acquired several NON engineers through huts and bribery. AI attacks destroyed all but one. Kamikaze's bypassed my cities and killed my wonderful NON engineers. That was really annoying.

[East Street Trader]

Yes, the AI can be very irksome in its efforts to hamper your AC effort.

If you leave one or more AI civs strong enough, they can also be serious competitors in the race to build and launch.

Rather than focus with complete single mindedness on research and establishing a sufficient productive capacity to build the spaceship, I also look for opportunities, throughout the game, to peg back the AI civs.

Your post identifies one of the problems about that. The most powerful AI civs are likely to be quite remote - after all, you probably had the opportunity to cripple your near neighbours and at some stage will have felt sufficiently threatened by them to do so.

There is no simple answer to this. If you are going to break off from your space race efforts to mount a major campeign half way across the globe you may as well play blood lust and be done with it. So I just accept that a strong distant civ will be a competitor to the end and try to prepare appropriately.

One thing you can do is to try very hard to keep the AI diplos and spies at bay. In my experience it is your near neighbours who will be the commoner would-be tech thieves - but they then give away the stolen tech, or swop it, to all and sundry. Especially so after the year 1750. Thus your weedy and unthreatening neighbour assists the more seriously competitive distant civ.

It is my experience that the AI does not go in for ship bourne diplos/spies much. Nevertheless some aircraft or one or two of the longer range ships can try to patrol the waters off your coastal cities to guard against that threat. Some people use missiles for scouting but that seems a bit artificial.

More important is to establish a chain of fortresses between your own cities and those of neighbours. Subject to your military strength, three squares away is better than two for these purposes. Then scout out from the fortresses and try to pick off all AI units which you detect. Again, air power is very helpful in this. Absent aircraft your own spies are good scouts because of their extended line of sight. They can also get your military units through ZOC to destroy the interlopers. The AI does not stack units effectively and is rarely clever about smuggling in a diplo/spy. As far as I know the AI only uses the cheat whereby its military units are allowed diplo/spy functions to bribe cities and units - not to steal tech. Nevertheless probably best to detect and to try to kill off all approaching units.

I am often tempted, late in the game when I am cash rich, to pick up cheap nearby cities through bribery when they go into revolt. But nowadays I pause to see whether I can keep the diplos/spies away from that city after I acquire it. If not I often give the opportunity the go by.

The benefit of cutting back on tech loss comes in two ways. If you keep your healthy tech lead you get to control the timing as to when the space race starts. Nice, for example, if you have built up a store of caravans to speed up your building programme. Nice, too if you have got several of your cities to the 40/80 shields a turn level.

The second benefit comes from maybe getting to prevent the AI from working on the bigger elements of the ship for a bit if they don't have the requisite tech.

As an alternative, you can adopt the OCC type approach. Give away tech, keep your military might down. The AI is much less bloody with a human opponent who is not supreme.

Finally, a small point. If you think that your productive capacity/skill at building a fast ship ought to keep you in front during the space race, it may pay to get the race under way. In my experience, once the AI competitor turns its attention to building a spaceship, it often offers peace so as to be able to devote its attention to the building programme.

Beware though. Their production advantage makes them awesomely quick builders. I sometimes dread hearing that long sequence of clanky noises that come at the end of each turn when the mongols or some such build a quadrillion structurals in one turn!

Bastards!

[finbar]

Knock out the AI at the same time as you're researching. Or at least reduce them to insignificance. Give the software - the AI - half a chance and it will make your life a misery.

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Founder, ACS Pedantry Institute
Founder, ACS Gourmet Recipe Exchange
Troll & Hydey Wrangler
Mono Rules!
#33984591

[Campo]

EST: You make some excellent points. I did learn a lot about handling diplos/spies during the first game. In my last game I established solid choke points, and pillaged AI roads leading to them, so I could expel/kill all approaching thieves. I also put two "defensive" spies in every city, and they were generally effective at foiling the tech theft attempts that got through. Still, once in a while an AI civ was successful, and of course they all share all their techs.

You alluded to one complication of good choke points -- you lose them if you go after more cities. I had both the money and military might to capture quite a few cities. But doing that exposes you to more spy thefts. I could cripple or destroy my neighbors, but at the expense of strengthening the more distant civs.

Finbar -- I'm trying to minimize agression. As EST said, if I'm going to wage massive war and cripple all the other civs, then I might as well bloodlust and destroy them. I'm looking for a way to let them thrive but still beat them to AC. Maybe that's not realistic?

[finbar]

You're right, it's not realistic. If you leave an AI civ of any size at Deity level, they will thieve and cheat their way past you. The more cities they have, the quicker they'll build their SS after thieving the technology. That's the way the game is programmed.

I don't think you need to look at it as either bloodlust or AC. You can manage a happy marriage between the two, which, in fact, calls on skills from both options. It's a lot of fun. It's also, at Deity level, I think, absolutely essential.




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Founder, ACS Pedantry Institute
Founder, ACS Gourmet Recipe Exchange
Troll & Hydey Wrangler
Mono Rules!
#33984591

[Kitana]

I am by no means an expert but I have been playing what I call Isollationist for AC games. It is similar to a Perfectionist strategy and works best on a Giga-map. What I do is only expand on the continent I start on and go to war with any civ on that continent and destroy them. I send caravans to my capital, which I try and move to the center of my continent. I heavily fortify my coastal cities and don't let any outsiders on my continent. I have nothing to do with the other civs on other continents, I don't even look for them. I get attacked from time to time by Battleships but for the most part the AI leaves me alone. Being able to switch to Democracy early and stay in it I get a good science lead have most of my ship built before the AI even gets the technology, they spend most of their time fighting each other in Fundamentalism. Don't know if this is a help but it works for me.

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Kitana
Shogun of the Japanese

[Sieve Too]

I prefer perfectionist style with an AC landing. IMHO, going to war and taking over AI cities after your initial expansion phase is really a warmongers strategy. The AI is just so pitifully easy to defeat in war that it is unfair for a perfectionist to do so. A good perfectionist establishes choke points along every possible path to the AI. Do more than pillage roads up to your chokepoints. Mine grass and plains to forest. This guarentees that Diplos and Spies will be unable to get to your cities without stopping inside your city radius first. Then just kick them out. A "forest border" also prevents all AI ground attackers except Armor from getting the first strike on your fortressed units.

The biggest challenge for the perfectionist isn't the Spy and Diplomat. It's the AI building a city that overlaps yours and then demanding the withdrawl of your border guards. A strict perfectionist must prevent this at all costs since capturing those AI cities is anathema. Air patrols are needed to kill all Settlers and Engineers. If you're at peace, just follow the AI's Engineers around with your own units. The AI won't build a city if you have a unit adjacent. Also, while at peace, use your own Engineers to mine potential overlapping city sites to forest. The AI won't build a city on a forest.