Help ! I suck at CTP2

[Az]

I have a confession to make :

I suck at CTP 2 . I know it sounds weird , especially with the weakling AI tactics . But It's not the conquest part at which I am lame . I am lame at the development part . as far as peaceful expasion goes , I always am between the 3 lamest civs .
of course I can go militaristic and then I conquer 3 or 4 civs out of 14 I play with ( otherwise it gets REALLY slow ) .

in civ 1 and civ 2 I was really good , playing emperor and deity . so I was in CTP1 . but this game , I just can't figure it out .

I tried the map cheat to check out with the advance of other civs and they are always ahead of me . I don't know what to do .

[Pedrunn]

Dont worry is just that in ancient and medieval age the ai is far better because of the handicaps given at the begginning of the game. Play some more and you will reach them. Are you in the lowest level?

[Bluevoss]

Pick a good strong race and be their buddies. Thats how I get out of the hole early on. You send a noble over to them and bite the bullet and hold a reception (to get them friendly). Once you got them eating out of your hand, you can start trading tech with them. For me, this is the fastest way to get on top. Usually I'll have one or two "allies" to trade with. Eventually I can get going enough to outrun them.

The only trick is to NOT fall too far behind, otherwise you have nothing to trade with them. You might be able to steal a really good tech and then trade it for something you can develope off of.

Usually, I spend the early part of the game trying to take a city or two (like you, I play with a lot of neigbors). After my initial spurt of empire building, I settle down to work on the tech and strenthen what I have.

Then I go into the "Find my smallest neighbors and pick off a city or two" phase. Since you have time, there is no rush. In fact, sometimes I'll launch a cav attack across the border to burn out all their improvements - that slows them down. Unfortunaly in the Medmod, you cannot chase them off the sea, so with nets, you are out of luck.

Eventually, I can pick off enough neighbor cities that I take the lead. Now its time to the third phase. While trading/milary partners are good, nows the time to clobber anyone who starts creeping up the power slope after you. If you have destroyers and he has ironclads, you should consider whooping up on his navy. Since you will be picking when the war breaks out, you can manover a lot of your fleet about to defeat a good chunk of his, then kill the rest in detail.

Note - one of the overlooked functions in the game is the abiltiy to drop out of "war" state and go to alert and peace. Since the computer is weak about massive diabilitating attacks, you can generally slip down to alert (even peace if you feel okay about it). Just keep a watch on the diplomacy so that nobody starts getting pissed. If they do (or you feel likes its time to anex some more land) start ramping up out of peace early. Nothing like HAVING to go in with units weakened by peacetime lazyness.

Anyway, hope this helps.

[Az]

Pedrun : I think I am playing at Normal or Hard . so you say there are penalties ... so I guess that is the reason for the settler taking around 30 turns to build .

Bluevoss : the diplomacy part is quite interesting , actually . Noone ever likes me . it's like with the time as we meet ( usually they come to me with their fast units ... ) they like me lesser and lesser every time . I couldn't strike a deal with anyone , unless I the deal was me forcing them out of a city , or otherwise I'll crush them , and that of course didn't make them love me anymore ....

anyway , that crippling is really digusting ... I hate when the AI cheats , it's one of the most digusting things in this genre...


thank you people.

[Locutus]

Dalgetti,
Hi, old buddy, long time no see! I'm assuming you're playing CtP2 unmodded? I wrote down some diplomacy tips for the MedMod a while ago, those might help you in diplomacy. These tips are, as I said, written for the MedMod but they should work for the regular game as well. I'll repost the file here so you don't have to download the entire mod:

"Wouter's diplomacy tips.txt"

Diplomacy for Dummies
By Wouter Snijders

It's very important to always approach to AI in the right way, by being Obsequious/Meek, or optionally (once on good terms) Friendly/Equal. Unlike what one might expect, it's not true that the Magnanimous/Kind is the most friendly tone of voice and the Hostile/Angry the least friendly with the others lying in between on a linear scale (I originally thought this myself until I reread the manual one day (p. 57 "Sending Diplomatic Messages")).
Also, be generous if an AI doesn't like you very much, by giving gold/maps/advances often (I've found that it's generally better to give small gifts often than to give big things only occasionally). If you're on good terms with an AI, you don't need to be quite as generous but an occasional gift is useful to maintain that good relationship.
Agreeing on any proposal the AI makes, or at least countering it by something reasonable, helps a great deal. Of course, holding receptions, establishing embassies, trade and building diplomacy-wonders helps a lot as well. Getting any kind of treaty ASAP is very important as that raises trust quickly, which of course makes future negotiations much easier.
In case of a trade, always make the request first and the offer second, the AI seems to see the second part of the message much more as a supplement to the first part than as as something on an equal level. A trade maps proposal with the request part first succeeds much more often then the same proposal with the offer part first. Also, all his counter-proposals are based on what your first clause is (so, if you offer your map and request 200 Gold, it might counter with asking for your map in exchange for 100 gold; if you request 200 gold and offer your map, it might counter with giving 200 gold in exchange for Bronze Working). I never saw an AI counter an offer (don't offer very much, so that might explain it at least partially) but countering requests is not unusual.
Threats can be useful as well, if you have a large army near one of its cities it is much more likely to agree to something if you threaten to destroy that city, regardless of your relationship with it. If you're on good term with an AI, threatening with war can get you what you want as well, even if you have a relatively weak military. Against an Ai who's already pissed of at you it won't make much of a difference. Threatening hardly seems to cost any regard or trust, so threats are harmless as far as future negotiations are concerned (though I don't know what the effects of excessive threatening would be).
The best way to deal with the AI early on depends on it's personality type and it's stance towards you when you first meet him (some AIs start out respecting, others disliking you). The best start is always to suggest a exchange of maps as soon as you meet, it rarely refuses that if you do it in an obsequious way and it immediately likes you more for making reasonable proposals. Then a gift of 100-500 gold (depending on the size of your treasury and the age) is a good second step (do it in the same turn if possible). Depending on how much it likes you, either a Peace Treaty or (if that's not gonna work) a (mutual) Tresspassing agreement is a next step. Once you have a Peace Treaty, only doing things that are plain stupid can ruin a good relationship, things like breaking agreements, frequently demanding unreasonable things, continuous tresspassing (even if you don't have a tresspassing agreement), unconventional warfare, commiting atrocities (even against mutual enemies), etc. If it's not likely to sign a peace treaty or if it rejects it (FE because he's an Agressive Imperialist who disliked you from the start), things are a little bit more difficult but by frequently giving gold/advances/maps and agreeing to everything it asks you (within reason of course), good timing and most important of all, lots of patience, you should be able to get him to sign a treaty at some point. After that, it might still need more attention than a Diplomacy-minded Peacemaker, but it should be quite possible to exchange maps or techs with it or to get it to sign a Trade Pact, Military Agreement or even an Alliance.
In my experience, diplomacy in CtP2 requires more effort than in any previous Civ-game but it's much more interesting as well, esp. with the Diplomod (for me as a peaceful, diplomacy-minded player probably the single biggest asset of the entire MedMod). It's also very rewarding to see your efforts actually paying off in the form of a Diplomatic Victory with still 4 or 5 Civs in the game when you started out with 6.

WW Note: I tried out Wouter's system, and it indeed worked as well as he said it did. I recommend everyone follow his example for games with greater enjoyment and less frustration.

[Cèvin Tarsonus]

If your the peaceful-minded person, who believes in good diplomacy and such, you should probabley get the Diplomod. The computer ACTUALLY creates embasseys in forgne nations, and establishes peace treaties with other nations. What is a good stratagy, is the "Canadian Stratagy" (or so I like to call it). Which is generally, be neutral with everyone except for the super powers, which you should have alliences with and such. Give in to all of the friendly demands, such as map for map, and such (so they can gain your trust), and establish peace treaties with every nation. Hopefully, if you are attacked, one of your super power buddies will hop in, and do the dirty work.

If it works for Canada, it has to work for CtP2 : )

[kari]

this is my favorite queto from B&W
: I'm going to kill you,bury you,dig you up and kill you again

just kill the nations that is weaker then you and you will be more stronger

Kári

[BlackStone]

La la