Which part of a game do you find the hardest?

[Dictatress]

I find the very beginning of the game the hardest part of all. Everything you do here determines your future. Any mistake you make will be magnified a thousandfold. For example, if you build a city several turns later than you should have, you're going to lag behind in science, your enemy will get better weapons, you're going to have a hard time defeating him, other nations will get ahead in economy and science, get wonders and weapons before you do, and your existence will be a miserable one.

Which part of the game is the hardest for you?

[SoulFisher]

The future is the hardest era. At the beginning, all you have to worry about is some marauder marching across the land. Easy enough to defeat: capture the whole continent (or just post guards of cheap units if the continent is too large).

Later, navies are added to the equation. So in addition to defending your boarders, you have to build expensive ships to keep watch of your coasts, since you never know where the AI will strike next. Also, naval bombardment becomes a problem to deal with.

In the modern era, besides land and sea battles, air raids become a problem. Specialized anti-air SAMs must be built (which are weak to ground and naval forces by the way) to deal with them, or else build expensive aircraft.

By the time you reach the Genetic age, you have land defenses, sea defenses, bombardment defenses, and air defenses running all over the world. Add to all this, space, with its cities and Space Bombers! Yet another category to defend yourself against. Even when you spend most of the game attacking, these five areas of offense must all be accounted for.

Finally, all the different Spys and Terror units must be dealt with. Six different areas to contend for your production. Wonderful.

[Dictatress]

It's really all very simple once you get some good weaponry. For some reason, I never had these problems. I suppose the AIs are terrified of me. Not only can I tell how they will declare war and attack, but I can also predict their diplomatic requests and future plans. I've never been bombed or nuked. The enemy has never reached the dominance required to start terrorizing someone.

Don't ever defend. Attack. Forget about everything else, and churn out a super-army. Then all your problems are over. Until you get too many cities....

(If I sound arrogant, sorry. I just can't stand the thought of these stupid AIs molesting a human.)

[preacherman]

Like dictatress says I normaly don't have that problem. I run for the lab and internet and the game is all over. I usally take out or beat up the closes civ to me to get my city count up fast. the first part of the game is most challeging after that I rule the world.

[alanlyons]

To Dictatress

What level are you playing on? Either you are supremely gifted, or you are playing on an easy level.

I have found that on Deity level, unless you are lucky at the beginning (i.e. nice piece of land, plenty of advance laden ruins, and no agressive AIs to begin with), you are really going to struggle.

I find you have to wait until you get a significant military advance like cannons or fascism, then pick off the strongest AI you think you can defeat. From here, despite being behind in tech, you can usually go on to win.

The problem on Deity level is that it is very hard to win by bloodlust, since one or other AI will complete ALP by the time you have got around to wiping them all out. This means you have to have fairly advanced tech yourself so that you can do ALP.

On another note, the AI is a poor opponent in terms of its cunning. I have never been bombed or nuked. AI's attacks are very linear, and it doesn't do any of the obvious things (like space plane 9 fusion tanks adjacent to opponent capital to take next round).

Thoughts?

[alanlyons]

One more thing: has anyone ever had a sophisticated space based game?

I always find that by the time space is a factor, bloolust or ALP usually follow fairly swiftly. There is rarely time to build many space cities. I think this is a weakness with the programming. The Wormhole probe should come later on the Tech tree so that space colonisation becomes a factor first. Then you could have some fun trying to protect the wormhole from other civs.

[Cookie Monster]

I concur with Dictatress. The beginning is very tough. If you can survive the first 100 turns then I find that things begin to even out. After reaching the very beginning of the modern age I find that I have an adequate and modern army to repel any aggressor. Once I reach the point of having a fleet of tanks and artillery it's all downhill for the ai.

However playing MP is the real challenge. There are so many good gamers out there that I find myself getting decimated towards the middle game. Need more practice against human players!

[J Bytheway]

I have had a fun game which became fairly space-based towards the end against another human hotseat (just the two of us, no AIs). It was not on the noraml rules, though, it was on my Mars scenario (which is really a mod...). We never attacked one another (2 players on a gigantic map really don't have to, and it's impossible to attack your opponents with any element of surprise on hotseat since they're looking over your shoulder), but we had great fun racing to wonders and advances. I got to space first, and as a result I was able to build more wonders with gold instead of production and after I built 5 or 6 in a row my opponent resigned. My powergraph went from about 10% ahead of his to twice as much as his in a few turns .

But we never used space bombers or swarms (or their equivalents in my scenario, anyway) so I can't tell you what extended space combat against a human is like.

I'd advise you play gigantic max water against another human on bloodlust if you want to see an extensive space-based (and probably sea-based) game. You might want to add a truce until the research of advanced composites or something like that too... Generally the fewer players you have the more likely you'll be evenly matched in technology for longer.

[TheRussianKing]

Beginning! Its quite challenging and small things do multiply. Thats why I build as many cities as possible. After I discover things like Cannon making I Finally build some good defences in my Chunky prod-cities and go for explosives. when I finally get that, I rebuild Defence and move out all my cannons and musks, and the enemy is dead. I capture an average of 10 cities each time im at war. Once my ally got to winning the game by science(1 turn away) so I had to drag out a nuke from the nearest plane and bomb the capitol. then make a paradrop . Even though its only a computer, I dont like turning on him. Id rather do it to a human, because we are more *******s than machines which never do anything wrong. But u guess thats the only way to win, and if you are not able to do it... (deity lev) then u should keep learning how to play.
Anyway, the modern era is really easy because you basically overbuild everything and you have So much production, you don't know where to put it all. I usually put PW to zero and get one city on Infrastructure and produce mighty 3000+ prod every turn just to click some blank spaces which I might have missed on last round of PW.

[Dictatress]

to alanlyons

I'm playing on Deity level. Nah, I wouldn't call myself "supremely gifted." Terrain you start on is EXTREMELY important. I generally require something like forests, hills, and mountains. I certainly don't win every game I start. I love ruins, but I find them frequently annoying. Just think: you have one city, and here 10 mercenary units join you! It's a pity to disband them, but they eat all your production (actually my soldiers eat some food too). Aggressive AIs are not a threat at all. Don't talk to those that hate you. They usually agree to leave on demand. If they do declare war, they take such a long time to build an army, that they get tired of war and accept a peace treaty.

The way I survive is: I have a detailed plan with clear objectives. There are two wonders I must have: the Sphinx and the Philosopher's Stone. I build 3 well-developed cities and crank out a samurai & archer army when I'm able. Then I defeat a neighbor. That puts me on top of the power graph, and once I stabilize the economy, it's a clear shot. I get tanks and good stuff like that, build an army, and conquer the world.

[TheRussianKing]

To Dictatress

thats an interesting strategy
I dont usually go to war until I do have Tanks I just build... and build... and build... until I run out of improvements, then I build armies and go forth!

[Boney]

Hi TRK

My tactics are a little different. Firstly go for Theocracy, then keep this until corporate republic. There are just a couple of wonders i really like, maybe ramayana is okay, but I must have Galileo's and London Exchange. If I am in a great location then I will go for wonders.

As to play, I used to be like TRK and keep building improvements. Then I saw a post by Faded Glory formerly Saddam (in Swissy 2 ctp/multiplayer thread) and I could see the logic. Firstly forget happiness improvements (use the sliders) secondly don't bother with research improvements (except in cities using scientists). The extra cash generated is more of a boost to science. Concentrate on trade routes and protection for them.

In a waterworld try to get Ships of the Line (SoL) ASAP then submarines. Many people in multiplayer taught me this. On dry land knights are the early tank equivalent. An army of 7 knights and a couple of mounted archers are very fast and powerful. Then when tanks are available I do the same as TRK, and kick some serious ass.

[Dictatress]

Some days ago I'd have said I must have the London Exchange, but not anymore. In my current game I missed the London Exchange (ooh I'm embarrassed), but I'm NOT pulling out. I have tanks, and therefore I have everything. Nobody will escape! hahahahahaha!

In my first successful CTP game I used to build all available city improvements first, and units only after that. Now I realize that's a waste of time. As long as I have enough to keep up the economy, I can live off conquered cities. And besides, some city improvements are unnecessary. For example, why build a movie palace if your war discontent hardly ever goes above .3? And remember: while you're building, your enemies are building too...

[alanlyons]

Re: to alanlyons

Dictatres.

Thanks for the reply.

Agree with your tactic re: Samurais and Archers. Provided enemy does not have cannons, works very well. Question for you: Have you found a way to make the AIs behave more reasonably? I've tried all kinds of crap. Make embassy, butter up, gifts of gold etc, early in the game in order to move on to swapping tech to make up for early tech deficit. However, computer almost never responds. And I am talking about reasonable exchanges as well.

If anyone knows how to induce the AI to co-operate more, please tell me.

Originally posted by Dictatress
I'm playing on Deity level. Nah, I wouldn't call myself "supremely gifted." Terrain you start on is EXTREMELY important. I generally require something like forests, hills, and mountains. I certainly don't win every game I start. I love ruins, but I find them frequently annoying. Just think: you have one city, and here 10 mercenary units join you! It's a pity to disband them, but they eat all your production (actually my soldiers eat some food too). Aggressive AIs are not a threat at all. Don't talk to those that hate you. They usually agree to leave on demand. If they do declare war, they take such a long time to build an army, that they get tired of war and accept a peace treaty.

The way I survive is: I have a detailed plan with clear objectives. There are two wonders I must have: the Sphinx and the Philosopher's Stone. I build 3 well-developed cities and crank out a samurai & archer army when I'm able. Then I defeat a neighbor. That puts me on top of the power graph, and once I stabilize the economy, it's a clear shot. I get tanks and good stuff like that, build an army, and conquer the world.

[SoulFisher]

alanlyons:
I typically play on King or Emperor. I've found that the AI nations will each individually hate you, love you, or are neutral to you (yet even these fluctuate during a game -- see below). All you can do is make them more of what they currently are. If you want to trade Tech, give gifts to the AI (or wait -- they'll get there eventually) until they are happy with you. Then you can start to trade Tech with them (maps too, if you like that sort of thing).

In regards to the AI's fluctuating feelings about you, I've had nations who hated me for years, suddenly start becomming neutral towards me (yet I did nothing to them). Usually, these would inevitably fall back to hatred again, but, for a while they're neutral.

I've seen other allies (even those with permanents alliances with me!) fall from love (where they've been for years) to hate and stay there, but they can't do anything because of the alliance! Again, I had done nothing to them -- I wasn't even wandering on their lands or pirating them!

These moods the AI gets into seem fairly rigid while they last -- your gifts make almost no difference.