Now that I've got a dozen or so successful OCC games under my belt, I'd like to think I have a decent grasp of how to manipulate the AI. Things like gifting techs to make them worshipful so that you can get maps, gold, alliances etc. I personally have a habit of holding back a tech or 2 in case they ask for something extra for the alliance or something similar.
I've played comparison games where many people had gone on and on about how during SS building they were bombarded from all sides by so-called allies (quite a few 2.42 users in there). The closest thing I've had to an AI being any kind of a threat late came in OCC 16 when the french sent several waves of diplomats at me, and maybe #15 when the Romans took out most of my fortified units in our shared terrain, although i still had tons of fortified, fortressed freights and they never got close to my city. I've had several games where the AI has never even been within fighter range of my city (#11, #9 and #1 come to mind) On that account I've probably become careless - its how i lost #10 - i simply didn't have any units in my city during early mid-game. I spent the the entire (prelaunch) game of OCC #1 without a unit of attack factor 2 or greater, and in fact spent 30 turns building a space ship without a military unit at all. Even in #12 (fundy game), when i was destroying english capitols, I never came under any kind of attack. I even had a couple units sitting idly in the heart of the English Empire and they never even were awakened from sentry status.
On the opposite side, I regularly read logs of people who managed to make allies of most, if not all of the AI (I've done that, but only when I had contact in the first round). The only way i can think that they might do that is to gift not only techs, but gold, since so often I get that I must make war with one of my allies to get them as an ally, and I virtually never gift gold.
I generally have 2-3 major tech dumps, but only if i failed to contact no more than 2 other civs (which is about 1/2 my games). Otherwise, tech dumps seem to increase my #beakers required. And in the stretch between Industrialization and Plastics, I don't do much tech trading. Once I'm well into building my space ship, I will give into about 1/2 of the tech demands, reguardless of what they are, and since for what ever reason, the AI is usually still pretty tech deficient, it isn't hard to get them happy, but without allowing them the ability to land before me.
What I'm trying to figure out is whether I am doing something very right and that my OCC faults lie with other parts of my game (early tech management comes to mind, as does hut exploration), or whether I'm not taking enough advantage of the AI at the appropriate times. I generally get enough gold from my 1-2 allies to always be able to operate with deficit spending. And i generally can manage 2-turn techs a good part of the game, but I am always about 30 turns behind the leaders when it comes down to comparing AC landings.
Hmm, longwinded as usual when I try and pose a question
Edit: reworded a couple things in first 2 paragraphs
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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King
SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince
*goes off and starts gifting gold and techs*
[This message has been edited by SCG (edited August 25, 2000).]
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