AI civ's on regent or above level

[Lambiorix_be]

I am having difficult to have a decent victory on regent level. Until now I can only win by regicide (By dropping 2 ICBM's on all capitals). This feels however a bit as a sour looser since other civ's are more advanced then me and have become too strong to attack city by city.

Most of the time I start very well with creating a lot of early wonders (like the the Great Library but don't need it) but somewhere during the second era I start loosing my advantage. To my horror I see small empires with maybe only a quarter of my cities being more advanced then me. (I do off course create libraries and universities...) Since I try to be the most advanced and the most wealthy empire (so it can be diverged to research) I do not make too many soldiers, which leads sometimes to other empires to attack me. And here is another weird thing. When I am at war, my economy goes down the drain and I need to lower my research to ridiculous low levels until there is peace again. However the other civ's are fighting much more wars then I do but seem not to suffer the same negative effect as I do although they never seem to have a penny at any moment so how can they finance their wars.

Am I doing something wrong with the governor that controls my cities or is it something else?

[nbarclay]

War weariness is a problem under Republic and Democracy but not under other governments. When AIs fight long enough wars, they eventually change governments to Monarchy or, later in the game, to Communism or (in C3C) Fascism.

If you could post a save from one of your games, preferably from a little after you've started falling behind, that would make it a lot easier to diagnose why the AIs are pulling ahead of you. Without that, all we can do is speculate on some possibilities, the most obvious being if you don't have enough tile improvements.

Nathan

[ducki]

Most of the time I start very well with creating a lot of early wonders (like the the Great Library but don't need it) but somewhere during the second era I start loosing my advantage.

One good way to improve your entire game is to improve your Ancient game, and a great way to do this is to purposely not build any Ancient Wonders. This forces you to concentrate on other, (more) important matters, such as infrastructure, military, diplomacy, etc.
If that's too extreme, try picking any one Ancient Wonder except the Great Library. Just one. This will free up the towns you are using to build wonders forcing you to learn to play without the wonders.

Just a suggestion.
And definitely, post a sav and a screenshot.

[Solomwi]

One word: trade.

Regent is the first level at which trading techs becomes a necessity, simply because the AI trades freely amongst themselves. If you're out of the loop, you can fall behind quickly, even if individually you outresearch every AI civ. That you are seeing smaller civs well ahead of you in the middle ages suggests that you're getting cut out of the trading loop early.

[vmxa1]

I would expect tile improvements to be the main issue. Trade can help you, but you should not need it at Regent.

You can hurt the AI by selling them tech for GPT to make it harder for them to research and easier for you.

So tile improvements is just saying you lack workers and maybe have your cities too far apart. Irrigate more than is useful in the early game and not have enough roads.

But a save is the best way to get input.

[Lambiorix_be]

Thx everybody for his input.

I will attach 2 save games.

1. 800 BC A time when I am still 'the' man
2. 1020 AD When reality forces me to be humble

Again my eternal gratitude for your help

[Lambiorix_be]

here is the second...

[Donegeal]

It should be noted that these are accelerated production games.

[Donegeal]

Also, I noticed that you use the city governer. Just a little hint, the city governer (which is an AI routine) is almost never any good.

I only use it for cities that I have newly conquered to prevent unhappiness when resistance stops.

Secondly, don't be afraid to fight. In fact, I would make it a priority. Pick one and use the advantages that a human has over the AI to whip on them and sue for peace. Look to soo who is void of Iron. Anyone without Iron is a good target.

[vmxa1]

Are PTW or C3C? I must admit I have never used the AP, but I did run a few turns from someone elses AP game.

[vmxa1]

Is this a regicide as well?

Anyway try to use no more than CxxxC spacing. The CxxxxC or wider will really slow you down in the late ancient, early middle ages. Too many tiles to work and too few citizens to use them.

It is also harder to defend. You end up with lots of open space with no roads and it takes longer to send units forward.

It causes you to not found near bonus tiles that could be very powerful.

You are in a GA and have so many unmined tiles, so you lose the extra shield. I would be researching Steam, no Nationalism.

Steam is maybe the most important tech you could get.

My one exposure to AP, suggests it is not the way for people to play that are not very solid in the basic empire building aspects.
It lends one to just crank out units and settlers endlessly.

I see you have 228 units with 0 free support, so being in Demo is costing you a fortune. That is a lot of beakers for research.

[nbarclay]

The most obvious problem I see is that the military has huge numbers of obsolete units instead of smaller numbers of more modern ones. That can be okay, at least up to a point, for governments that have plenty of free unit support and can use obsolete units as military police to keep people happy. But it's a disaster in Republic and Democracy. If, instead of building wealth, you would build some modern units and disband the obsolete ones, you could have a military that is both much stronger and much smaller and cheaper to maintain.

I also agree with vmxa1 that your cities are too far apart. Emperor-level and higher players tend to overlap cities a lot, deliberately creating a situation where most can't grow much if any past size 12 because the game is half over before cities can grow past size 12 anyhow. (A variation is to set up a city pattern where the cities are spaced tight initially but some will be disbanded later to let others grow.) But whether you want to go with quite that tight a spacing or not, leaving tiles that none of your cities can work is a bad thing.

Another problem is your lack of luxuries, because marketplaces plus luxuries can provide the biggest happiness boost of anything in the game. When I get a tech lead, I generally try to trade techs for luxuries plus as much gold (both up front and per turn) as I can squeeze out of the AIs. The bigger, happier cities that luxuries make possible and the extra gold to finance research combine to help me keep and extend my tech lead in spite of the fact that I'm trading a tech or two away every twenty turns. I don't know how Accelerated Production might affect that since I never use it, but selling techs to AIs is a pretty standard strategy.

And there are also very serious problems with what your workers have been doing. You have cities at their current maximum size with big food surpluses that they have absolutely no use for because too many grasslands are irrigated instead of mined. Desert tiles are mined even though the cities in range to use them cannot possibly come up with the food to work them all. And in the meantime, there is jungle up north that has been left uncleared while workers spent all that time building useless mines. There are very definite advantages to managing workers yourself instead of using the automation mechanisms if you can stand to do it.

[Lambiorix_be]

Thx everybody for their replies. I still have much to learn I see

I always tried not too put my cities close together because I thought that it would decrease their chances of growth (since they overlap tiles)

I didn't know accelerated production did make such a difference (I only use it because I want to cut down on the gaming time)

I will be a bit more aggressive (although I like a peaceful civilization) if I am able to limit the negative effect on my economy.

nbarclay: you were right about the workers being inefficient when set to automatic. However controlling every worker is very tedious & boring. I will try to get a trade-off

I am however wondering if the problem with the workers is not related to the mix I have instructed my governors to follow. Has anyone experimented with this? (focus on food...etc)

I will at least try to implement this new information into a fantastic new game (for those that are wondering about the name of the civ, I live close to Antwerp a city in Belgium)

[Arrian]

Regarding overlap...

The upper level players (Emp, Demi, Deity, Sid) often use 3-tile spacing, like so: City-tile-tile-City.

I, a Monarch/Emperor player, typically use 4-tile spacing:

City-tile-tile-tile-City. That is a compromise between early game advantage and late-game super cities. It will work just fine on Regent or Monarch.

Regarding worker actions: if you allow the AI to control your workers, it will do stupid things with them. Period, end of story. Taking direct control of your workers, and learning what to do with them, is a crucial element of the game. City governors are also pretty dumb. Emphasize production, but manually check on where your citizens are allocated. Set it up yourself - you will learn more and you will do better.

Basics: roads everywhere. Mines on grassland in despotism, try to avoid developing hills or mountains in despotism if you can (despotism "eats" some bonuses like the 3rd shield from a mined hill, and since hills take twice as long to develop as grassland it makes sense to wait a bit).

Growth is very powerful. Granaries (or the Pyramids) will really boost your population, which is a good thing. It will allow more settlers and more workers, the two most important units in the game.

This is without looking at your game, btw, but I get the sense of things from Nathan's post.

Welcome to Apolyton, and good luck!

-Arrian

p.s. Note that republic provides some unit support. 1 free unit per town (size 1-6), 3 per city (7-12) and 4 per metro (12+). True, the units above your "allowed" number will cost you 2gpt in upkeep, so keep that in mind. The corruption difference is fairly small. The main advantage is the worker speed boost, but unless you're a religious civ that will only suffer 1 turn of anarchy, I don't see that Demo is worthwhile.

[vmxa1]

Lambiorix_be, it will be very hard to win at Regent or better if the workers are automated. If you add in letting the governors running the cities, you are then basically just another AI. You will then need a superior start location to differentiate yourself and win.

You can win at this level by just running you workers with some efficiency. Above Regent you will need to be more efficient to win and manage your core cities at least.

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Lambiorix_be, it will be very hard to win at Regent or better if the workers are automated. If you add in letting the governors running the cities, you are then basically just another AI. You will then need a superior start location to differentiate yourself and win.

You can win at this level by just running you workers with some efficiency. Above Regent you will need to be more efficient to win and manage your core cities at least.

Point taken...I will go manual

[mkqest]

I am in the same boat here at regent level and am guilty of worker automation and using the city governors. I was wondering if there were threads on worker usage and city mgmt? I've been reading the "must read threads" but have not come across anything specific yet. You can usually tell the cities I am managing by the nice plume of black smoke into the air.

I've played two complete games and about half a dozen incompletes and have learned plenty reading the available info but I have a few questions as you can imagine.

When REX-ing the first 5 cities, make 2 out of 5 settler pumps? 2 shield makers and one coastal harbor?

Seems there is debate about whether the pump starts at pop 3 or larger pop 4/5.

First units created are warrior, spearman/warrior, granary/settler, settler? In that order approx?

When do you start adding more workers to the mix? Do you try to build workers as improved tiles become available to be worked?

Workers working in pairs give any xtra edge versus doing same task separately in separate tiles?

Forest cut shields good one time per tile per city? Can you reforest, harvest and get second round of shields?

I have C3 gold which has PTW included with C3. Do I need the PTW patch?

As far as city mgmt goes, I am pretty much lost there. When to make specialists, when to change workers to other tiles? Taxation? I read about selling a city's walls?I am not afraid to read so if there are any good threads on this please leave a link.

Thanks for any help in this area. BTW, this is a great site. Tons of good info. Good work to all!

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by mkqest

Workers working in pairs give any xtra edge versus doing same task separately in separate tiles?

Forest cut shields good one time per tile per city? Can you reforest, harvest and get second round of shields?

I have C3 gold which has PTW included with C3. Do I need the PTW patch?

The main benefit is that if you have enough workers to do it in 6 turn with one worker and 3 with two workers, you get the improvement sooner.

So at the end of the day you may not save worker turns, but you will get move use out of the improvemenets.

You get one one chop for shields from a given tile, no matter how many times you planet and chop. The IFC is dead.

IIRC gold came with 1.27F for PTW, but you can check the version to be sure.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by mkqest
First units created are warrior, spearman/warrior, granary/settler, settler? In that order approx?

When do you start adding more workers to the mix? Do you try to build workers as improved tiles become available to be worked?

One thing you could consider is the value of making spears. In many games this is not as effective as making warriors.

The build will be a function of the map and your plan for it. If you are comfortable with a lean military, you can cut back on the troops in favor of more settlers/workers.

I make workers at a pace that allows me to keep my worked tile improved with the growth.

[Lambiorix_be]

I did play another game with this new information and it went very well. Not only was I the most advanced civilizaton, I was also the strongest. I did not go after the earlier wonders except great Library (which did help me in the earlier days). Later on I was able to do almost all wonders (like the important theory of evolution, woman suffr., United nations...etc)

At first I manually managed the workers and the cities. I had to relinquish the power quickly to the governors though since almost everytime the city grew there was civil disorder. I did however change the governor's mix. Now it only manages the mood of the people and focuses solely on production and no longer manages the 'build' (so now every time a list of values appeared which forced me to evaluate what was most needed...)

I continued a long time with manually managing the workers and then progressively started them to work automatically. (When i was sure that there were suffcient roads/mines ). At about the time I researched railroad they were all automatic. I did also created more military so I was less appealing to the other civ's. In the end I got a diplomatic victory (united nations). Also I am the only one that has a spaceship (already 5/10) so a spaceship victory is also inevitable (my favorite) + I have sufficient nukes (tactical and icbm) to wipe out all other civ's in one go.

This game was NOT on AP and I suspect that this makes a very big difference in the progress of the AI civ's

Thx everybody for their fatastic advice...at least now I no longer have to be embarrassed that I only win on the chieftain/warlord levels

[mkqest]

I started a new game too and have had good results so far though I am not very far into it yet. But the first civ I met had comparable techs and gold in the bank.

I came to the same conclusion about city governors too. Managing moods is OK until you want to add a specialist then its manual control time.

One thing I found myself doing early on is over building city improvements because I wasn't sure what to build. This added extra upkeep expenses before I had the extra cash around. You really don't need a barracks in every city early on and even granaries in some cities.

I will try to focus on granaries in the big food cities and barracks in the shield cities in the early going. But here is where the question comes in.

What to build when you don't know what to build? Early on when you have barracks in some cities, granaries or harbors in your other cities and you don't want to add upkeep costs until your workers catch up connecting and improving?

Wealth? Military units for future use?

What is average position of science slider? I feel like I am not doing enough if it hits 50% or less and yet I see it also as a fast way to raise cash if needed. Should it be adjusted/evaluated each turn?

[ErikM]

Originally posted by mkqest
What to build when you don't know what to build? Early on when you have barracks in some cities, granaries or harbors in your other cities and you don't want to add upkeep costs until your workers catch up connecting and improving?

Wealth? Military units for future use?

If you don't know what to build and there is still room for expansion, build a settler. Otherwise, build a worker. There is no such thing as too many workers. You can always add them to your better cities after terrain is improved, so think of them not just as workers, but also as a way to store population points. A rule of thumb is that if any of your citizens works an unimproved tile, build a worker.

Also, regarding your earlier question, a very good tutorial on the early game is Cracker's "Improving your opening game skills" (or something like that) on CFC. There is a link to it in the "Must read..." thread.

What is average position of science slider? I feel like I am not doing enough if it hits 50% or less and yet I see it also as a fast way to raise cash if needed. Should it be adjusted/evaluated each turn?

This depends on too many things, especially
(i) difficulty level
(ii) time period
(iii) whether you have a GreatLib.

Very early in the game (first 20-30 turns) min science research may be a good idea, since you may be able to trade your starting techs with other civs. Later on, on Emperor you should be able to reach parity with the AIs by the end of the Ancient Era (or early Medieval) and stay ahead technologically afterwards. In Republic, after building Universities in your core cities, you should be able to research at 4turns/tech (max speed) at ~70-80% science until Modern Era. Finance your research by selling some techs for AIs.

On higher difficulties it is a bit more complicated, but if you play a couple of games on Monarch/Emperor, you will get a feel for the general speed of tech advancement, "tradeable" techs, and so such.

Important thing to remember is to adjust your tech slider once you are one or two turns away from discovery. Oftentimes, you will be able to lower your science expenditures and still get a tech next turn.

[mkqest]

Thats the great thing about this game. Everything is dependent on so many factors so that the rule of thumb trumps the ironclad rules.

Thanks for the advice. It does sound like I don't have enough workers if they are playing catchup and I have completed the initial round of city improvements.

[The Hack]

When I moved to Regent I was able to dominate by setting the governers to manage mood and emphasize production. I mined everything. I had the setting set so I had to ok all things built. When I moved to Monarch I still kept the governer to manage mood but assigned all workers and usually won also. I hadn't learned about the power of food production. Moved up to Emperor and could only win with lot's of rivers! So I had to learn to manage the cities took a few games but well worth it. I played with A.P. on but think it is unbailancing in favor of the human. Especially in the modern age when you hit peak production. So I went down to monarch to get a feel for the game without A.P. Much better game it makes your choices more important. Now I play Emperor and do ok usually. But the key to Emperor seems to be using your tribes traits, research choices, oportunistic trading, giving in to extortion, and wise wars with limited goals. So in short I think the key is to learn how to play without the governers even though it is tedious, especially when RR come along. I can't compare to all the expert players here but was able to have fun games at Monarch in about 6 months of playing by reading all the threads and trying the strategies with catastropic results sometimes. The game I learned the most from was a loss but it was my first game at Monarch that I lasted to the end. It was a Space race loss but I played through and learned the mechanics of not ruining your reputation. I saved it and went back much later and won a U.N. victory but didn't blow my reputation when I played it through the second time so when playing and you are at a criticle junction replay it with the different decisions and you can learn alot!
The game is for fun and as long as you have fun play on what ever level you enjoy! With whatever settings you like. And always try to learn from your losses.
I play C3C 115 beta. Can't wait for the official patch!
Good gaming to all!

[The Hack]

By the way I never looked at your game and think that the specific game advice was all covered very well and tried to be generic on how I evolved my game. LOL!