Empire spiraling out of control - Need Help

[Kindbud]

I'm in a Regent level game where I am struggling remain alive in the game. I am a republic where I can't afford ANY science reserach because I have the happiness slider set to 40% to keep my cities from going in to disorder. Some of my cities have capped at 12 pop because I haven't gotten the hospital researched yet (And aren't close at all!) and a lot of my cities are still struggling to get past 6 pop since I have really weak production and aqauducts take a ton of turns to build.

Corruption is killing me and I can't seem to get out of the last war I started. One of the AI I was fighting with had signed a Mutual Protection with a country I hadn't contacted yet myself and this AI player is FAR more advanced than I.

I'd be interested in hearing from other players out there who might want to take a look at my save game file and make some recomendations on changes I could make to salvage the current game or even perhaps offer some tips on what not to do next game.

I'm pretty sure the better players have a decent to good chance to salvage the game but I don't know how and would appeciate some advice. BTW, I have a broad range of save files from this game so if anyone is interested in an earlier point, let me know.

[cracker]

Dude, what a nightmare!!

You are big and powerful but all the AI civs are in the industrial age and you are wallowing in music theory. A couple of you enemies are getting ready to have ironclads and you have a navy of 1 galley.

America appears to be in the game but your foreign advisor screen is screwed up and Abe doesn't appear.

All the powerful middle age wonders have already been built because you have not been focusing on getting to where you need to be to win the game.

You have way too many military units in all your backwater cities when you are in Republic and no military police effect applies. You military is big but ineffectively deployed and under utilized. Your lame enemies on your continent should be dead and gone and you should be focusing on the future. You can extort techs out of these weak neighbors in exchange for peace and help close the tech gap.

For your immediate problem, Japan is a religious civ and you can drop into Monarchy and gain the military police effect plus free unit support that will move you into a more powerful short term position. Religious civs can freely move between governments with only a one turn anarchy hit.

Timeline wise, you should have been way past this crisis point at least 500 years ago if this is a regent game.

Look to your basic gameplay mechanics in the first 2000-3000 years for some keys to fix the real problem here. I see fatal signs of poor worker utilization and cities that are arbitrarily too spread out to support productive early development. You are using less than 2 out of every 10 terrain squares in your empire and that gross waste of productivity combine with corruption, sprawl, and lost strategic initiative has you in a position that is a late game disaster waiting to happen.

Here's a screenshot of your city of Edo that you deliberately founded in the middle of a desert and then wasted bizillions of worker turns to irrigate all those desert square that could not possibly be used and this is a prime exampel of early strategic mistakes on a grand scale:



I would strongly recommend that you read the article on:

improving your opening gameplay sequences

and this will help you get further ahead in the game more quickly. Also try to squeeze your city placement in be at least one but preferrably two or three squares. Leave a few cities to potentially become monsters but plan most of the cities to try and use up the land at a size of 12 to 15 total people.

Good luck,

[zorbop]

kinda off topic but abe is screwed up on my advisor screen also.
and i do have 1.29...

[.dw.]

hey, i just had a quick look at that saved game.. its now 1735 for me and things are going okay.. i made peace with one of the countries one move after i opened the game, and india in 1730, my forbidden palace has just been built (+110gold per turn)...

(first post in here.. hello!)

dw

[aahz_capone]

If you can get the AI to talk to you, end the war at any cost.This will usually mean giving a city or two. The AI will almost never refuse your surrender with a city.

Here's how to fool the cpu: build two settlers and found two cities next to super high culture cities that border the war area. Give those away. they should culture flip later and you can diband them so you don't have to deal with cities in crappy places. The AI won't want a city too deep in you territory though.

[.dw.]

give a city away??? as i said in a previous post, i just played the game.. and i made peace with the one civ i was at war with straight away and the indians a few moves later.. i exchanged nothign for it!...

but, giving away these small new cities in exchange for peace does have its uses, just no need in this example..

dw

[ducki]

That was a little harsh, Cracker.

Sometimes, people don't have the benefit of extensive experience, so mistakes happen.

Kindbud, if you're new to Regent level, don't feel bad - moving up a level is rough.

Looking at that screenshot, I see that all 8 of Edo's citizens are happy - that's not necessary, drop your Luxury slider until you have more happy people than unhappy in each town.

Go check out http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=59216 (Must Read threads from Theseus) - especially "Winning Early...".

Also, there was a lot of great feedback on my thread "Ducki Went Regent...How'm I Doin'" at

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64951

I'll look at the SAV later, but how many luxuries do you have? Do you have Marketplaces built to further increase the value of your 3rd and more luxuries?
Did you Automate the workers? (I'd advise against that, at least until late-Industrial or later).

Since Edo seems overly happy, maybe using Entertainers (*ducks the people throwing stuff) in the towns that have problems is a better solution, instead of spending all your money on everyone - including citizens that are already happy. Corruption is wasteful, but unnecessary luxury spending is even worse.

If you don't already have contact with every civ, pay whatever it costs to get it, and then start buying and selling techs - this is very time consuming and can be very tedious, particularly remembering to check every AI civ every turn to see if there's something you can broker from them to the other AIs, gaining tech and making money back in the process - but you need contact with everyone for that, as well as to bring down your own research costs.

Like I said, I'll take a look later, but go check out those threads, especially Winning Early.
Also, the link posted by Cracker on improving your opening gameplay is a good article, but don't take it as "holy writ". I've heard a few people mention that there are some flaws in his strategy for the Japan GOTM, IIRC, but that it's a great overall article on early game tile improvement.

For the Middle Ages, there sure is a lot of irrigation in that screenshot, though. At least for the way I play - unless you have mountains nearby, or a LOT of hills, irrigation is probably contributing to your unhappy population by giving you more growth than you really want/need.


More later when I take a look at the save, hope this and those links help.

[Theseus]

Kindbud, please post SAVs from 1000BC and 1AD, and a number of people will be happy to take a look.

[Kindbud]

Originally posted by Theseus
Kindbud, please post SAVs from 1000BC and 1AD, and a number of people will be happy to take a look.

Cracker,

LOL! Rreally, I knew it was bad but a nightmare? I really did laugh at that Thanks for the candor! I just didn't know what I might do to extracate my tush from the fire. I actually haven't gotten back to this game since your post (Grand Theft Auto III: Vice City came in the mail) but switching back to Monarchy didn't seem like the right idea because I was afraid I would take a huge production hit. I was trying to limp to democracy to reduce corruption. Money corruption is hard but PRODUCTION corruption is killer. This is the first game where I really felt the pain of prod. coruption. You make another great point about how Republic doesn't offer my garrisoned troops the power to make people happy. Another good reason to go back to Monarchy.

You correctly pointed out that I have over-terraformed a lot of land around my cities. I was expecting a much faster growth rate and have plenty of workers to play with...

Overall, understand I didn't truly see how bad a spot I was in - in the global sense - until 2 or 3 turns before the date of the file I posted. Greece (or Egyptians?) started bombarding my coastal areas. Then, they landed a knight or two and my Samurai had trouble against them. Basically, I was nowhere near getting better unit tech and the Greeks could start to pummel me at will.

BTW, thanks for the link for the "opening gameplay sequences" I had seen it in another post of yours and have already scanned over it. A TON of information there! That will deffinately help out for my next game.


Thesus,

Best I can do on the 1000BC save is 690BC. I've included that and 10AD for your consideration. Thanks.


Ducki,

There is a problem with the game in that I can't contact the Americans even though I have them partially surrounded. I think it is a bug or glitch of some sort. As for the rest of the civs I haven't contacted yet, you are right that it is very expensive. I didn't really think it was so important because I assumed I would be sailing around a lot sooner than I actually have. I just expected to make contact sooner myself.

dw,
Good to know about the forbidden palace kicking the gold up. That 110 boost should allow me to move my science slider one spot so I can begin researching again.

[Kindbud]

2nd save game file...

Can you post two files in one post?? Here is the other save file:

[ducki]

You can contact Abe, I recently found this problem after upgrading to PTW and I think it is a bug.

You know how, when there are more than 8 civs, you have to Shift+Right-click and pick one to switch out?
Try that in one of the blanks. I was able to contact Abe no problem. This has been happening in all my games since installing PTW(I think that's when it started) - even on non-PTW games.

Also, you can get peace from one of the enemies this turn for some money and a map, IIRC, but the other won't even talk.

It looks to me like you've terraformed for growth that you're luxuries just can't support yet.

I'm sure others will throw things at me, but I'd starve/worker some of your populations down and use some entertainers to keep things manageable.

Of course, that'll hurt your bottom line, money-wise, but maybe not as much as 30% luxury and 0% research.

Then again, I'm no expert. I'm sure you can get some good feedback from the more advanced 'poly Crew, though.

[Theseus]

I haven;t done a critique in a little while, so bear with me (I'll do 690 BC first):

* Little issue in terms of empire layout... everything is NE of Kyoto. You want to surround your capitol.
* Your towns are too spread out... try 3 tile spacing.
* Prioritize the bonus resources... you are letting too many go unused.
* Road and mine like crazy.
* LUXURIES! See the incense near Satsuma... get it!
* GET THE IRON!! GET THE HORSES!!
* Irrigate the northern cow next to Kyoto... you need irrigation going north anyway.
* Go to war, but with sufficient force. Jaipur is a joke... a reg Warrior?
* Research is key... Philosophy is a bad choice, in that the AI civs will go for it too. You need to get a branch tech lead... I'd go for Math here.

You are doing OK, and have a great base empire, but you could do MUCH more with this. I would have twice as many towns, I'd focus more on the 'high value tiles', get a branch tech lead, and be conducting some oscillating wars.

[Theseus]

I just looked at 10AD... all the same comments still hold, although at least you went to war.

* 10% research will get you Republic in the same amount of time.
* 10% luxuries is of no help here... take it to 0%.
* Now is the time for CASHOLA baby... gotta get those Warriors upgraded, and apply max force.
* It doesn't feel like you are GL-hunting, which is one of the main points of early war.

I'll play from 690 BC to 10 AD, and then we can compare.

[Theseus]

Sorry, it keeps crashing PTW.

[Jack_www]

Well I have not been able to look at your game, but I know that you dont need 40% lux. rate. The max i ever put it at is 20%, but most of the time I have at 10% only when I switch to Republic. I usually have 2-5 lux resoucers by trading or taking it form a week civ. I also use Entertainers for any addition unrest. Also building Forbined place in the right spot helps a lot. Also if you need to get a tech lead, you can do it. One recent game I was behind about 4-5 techs. What I did was started to resreach the techs the computer had then when i was 1 to 2 turns away got them to sell it to me cheep, (I could not get them to sell it to me earlier, seems like the computer wants large sums of gold and not gold per turn any more). Since my UU of ottomans replaced calavry and has 8 attack, I forgot the name of it, I used it to trigger a golden age for my civ which pushed me into the tech lead. Also the civ I attack, I made them give me a few techs I needed to catch up. I also got two wonders from the week civ too and now doubled my size because of it. Now I am making 250 gold per turn and getting techs 4 a turn, and I have not need to even do tech trading.