Need help, too far behind in tech!

[johncmcleod]

I am Carthage on Regent difficulty level. I started out and had the science slider on 20% because no matter how much I moved it the techs all took 40 turns to research. I also didn't have too fast of an expansion. Anyway, I forgot to crank up the tech slider when I could have to make researching faster. I discovered two civs, the Arabs and English, who were WAY ahead of me in techs. I thought everything would be fine, because I had two turns left before completing the Great Library but then the English got it!!! I had gained a lot of cash, so I spent it all on buying techs. This just made the other civs richer, and now they are even more ahead of me. I am in the mid-ancient, the Arabs are in the late-ancient, and the English are in the medievil.

I can't expand anymore, I'm alone on a medium sized island and the Arabs and English share an island. I can't get any galleys to cross the ocean. I also have a puny navy and my army isn't too big, it's smaller than the Arabs' and the English.

I don't want to start over in this game, what can I do?

[Theseus]

John, buddy, you are screwed.

Seriously, for once I've got a weekend a bit free... post a save, and we'll see.

[Sheik]

Maybe you could get one to declare war with you on the other?

[vmxa1]

My advice is to start a new game. Without a save to look at I can not say if you could win. I do know it will be a bugger.
How many tiles are being worked in the city that was making the GL? Did they all have mines, where any bonus grasslands in the city radus and where they being worked?

[vmxa1]

One of the problems that you could have is that you do not have contact with the rest of the civs. This lets you do all your research alone. The others will be trading techs and getting lower cost for research once several discover a tech. This is very painful. This is what cost me to get a bit behind in my current Emperor game. I did not get the upper hand in tech until I busted the ToE.

[johncmcleod]

The thing is, I really don't want to start a new game. I'm a beginner at civ and I can't play it too often. I spent the last few days playing it, and for some reason I liked this game especially. I spent all this time clearing forests and jungles. It's also my first game on regent (I don't play it much so I'm a beginnner). Well here's the save!

[johncmcleod]

Oh, and it's unpatched, sorry. I have no way of getting the patch from the computer with the internet to the one with the game.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Oh, and it's unpatched, sorry. I have no way of getting the patch from the computer with the internet to the one with the game.

Then how did you post the save here?

I'll check it out later today.

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by Theseus
Then how did you post the save here?

You can get a save onto one floppy but they aren't reliable enough for a more than 10 Megabyte patch. I had to use a CD writer.

[Nor Me]

I looked at the save and you're not in too much trouble. I'd pin my hopes on a warrior upgrade and alliance against England.

Arabia probably won't have Monarchy when you get it so you should probably do some trade involving Iron Working and their World map. Then set science to 0% and save the cash for swordsmen

Aim to take out England's Iron before they have Feudalism for too long. Then the difference in tech won't matter. Capturing the Great Library should put you level in tech with the Arabs so don't bother researching before then. If you take out England, you have a good chance of getting more than Education when you finally get contact with the other civs. I'd declare war on the Arabs soon after England was finished to help this.

Then it's just a question of how you are going to get a palace or FP on the other continent. Once you've done that you should be in a winning position.

[vmxa1]

One way to get the patch is from a computer gaming CD. Most of the mags that come with CD's have the latest patchs on them.
If not find a friend that has a CD burner.
In a pinch you can zip it across multiple floppies. I used to do that with Moo2 in the old days.

[PeaSoup]

I looked at the save, and the situation is far from hopless.

I agree with Nor, you should ally against England, land a few mercs on the English island and let Lizzie's swords bash their heads against your mercs.

You also need a map of the English region, and can be purchased for 26gold + 1gpt (can probably get it cheaper if you play around with the terms of the deal).

England is quite a few times bigger, but seperated with a body of water, so make use of that and target her port cities first.

You should also irrigate the spices around Leptis Minor since they are on plains, and mine the grassland around. This will allow the city go grow beyound size 6 since it's next to a lake. Use MP and lux slider to control happiness and this will turn into a very productive city. And change that settler to a barracks, there's no more land to settle (except the island south of you, but that looks to be half taken by the English), you don't need to take the pop drop.

Your workers are overworking the western cities. You should leave one worker to irrigate the deserts towards the east, and rest should be mining grasslands for the eastern cities. Looking at the save, this will double your productive cities.

Arbia has gems, you have spices. Trade it. He'll want a little more than 1-on-1 trade, so use a ROP to sweeten the deal, you should be able to trade for the gems with ROP, spices and less than 10 gold.

3 more turns to monarchy, good. Trade that to Arbia for iron working and other techs ASAP since England already has it. Also switch to monarchy right away.

Your military is sad, you are a good 20-40 turns away before you can even consider waging a war against anybody. I'm willing to bet that you don't have iron on your island, so until iron working is learned, I would build more mercs than warriors.

Your mercs are going to help you greatly in this war. Land few gallies full of them on the wines closest to you. This will wear down Lizzie's offensive forces trying to remove you. It is also possible for you to move the wounded to be healed in only 1 turn.

Find out where her iron(s) are and try to pillage them. This will give your mercs and even greater advantage.

England is a pretty damn big target, if you want an easier target, go for Arbia. There are only 5 cities in its core (8 in total), and all the gems fall within the (expanded) radius of a city. Judging from their land, I doubt it if they have iron so your mercs will shine here as well. Try to take out the core cities and sue for peace to extort all the techs.

If you do go with Arbia, then I would hold off on attacking England since you'll be fighting on the same landmass. I'd recommand sending suicide gallies to make contacts with other civs and trade your way back into tech parity.

I know a few people don't like doing it, but I always sell and trade world maps to catch up. They are great for buying techs, contacts, other maps and gold. My reason is that if the AI has no reason to go somewhere already explored, chances are they won't. So there's no real danger of losing your advantage of controlling the contacts.

That's all I have for now..

[johncmcleod]

Thanks for the advice! You guys are great! I will try it out and in a couple days I'll post another save to show that I saw, came, and conquered.

I'm definitely going to go for England because of the Great Library, and because I love taking on Goliath.

[ruthless]

whats the best to set your science bar at???

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by ruthless
whats the best to set your science bar at???

Man, you talk about a leading question. There are so many things that alter the situation and how you need to react to it.
I prefer to put the least amount in that I can get away with at all time. Naturaly, who does not. The trick is how much is that at any given point in time.
The game level has an impact, but I will look at emperor as that is the game I am play now.
At the start I will drop down to 20% as that is as low as I can go and still make some head way. Going higer will just waste resources.
Some time after the capitol expans I will look at the game. If I have managed to get some tech from huts and/or made contacts, I will look to adjust the slider.
I will increase if I have a target. This could be for a civ that has alpabet, going for writing with an eye toward Lit and the GL. In that case I will try to increase my science spending. Often I have a civ that does not have any reachable target that I want that early and I may drop research to 10% or even zero. This more likely if I see a early rush in my future.

I will keep an eye on spending and drop it down when it is close to the break through to save spending.
If I get the GL then I often can drop spending to zero. I say often as it is not a given. It can be that I will pull ahead in research and have to do it all on my own. This is infrequent at Emp or Deity, but common in Monarch games.

After education, it will surely be research as hard as I can afford and sometime will have to go negative for a short period of time. This will be for getting a key tech for things like ToE.

A small note is that you sometimes can put a single citizen on science and struggle along at zero for research. This is a unique situation, that comes up from time to time.