2

dont understand how to work against the stubbornness of computers, you try to help them defend from a superpower, but they refuse to give you open borders for anything, then declare war on you while they are getting destroyed by the other computer

diplomacy and trading system in civ is still horrible

playing against computers who have built in advantages just seems stupid, if they declare war on you all you can do is sit around and kill their shit over and over again, they get free units so you cant capture anything of theirs (not to mention their cities having double the combat strength of yours), then they out tech you while wasting all their resources on trying to capture your cities

meanwhile civs on the other side of the world (which you cant meet since you cant explore for shit) are expanding like crazy with free cities and setting themselves up to take over the end game

to clear that up, you cant explore because you have civs declaring war on you for no reason bringing in handfuls of military units, meanwhile you have barbarians pillaging the shit out of everything and attacking your workers

there are civs that are irrational (eg alexander) and there are civs that are logical and some that dont expand and some that do and etc. its random. the fact you have barb problems near you home tells me you have something out of order on your priority list. i dont know what you are doing but something is wrong. the harder difficulties the computer gets additional towns/units at the start so maybe you need to tone it down to king for practice games?

i keep too low of a military unit count, i can tell
which also explains why i can get zerg rushed and lose my cities even when my production/science/etc is way higher, just because they have it all front loaded while my shit is spread out/being built

hard to anticipate how much and when you need units for defense, when you have no vision of potential enemies and they can set shit up in a matter of 5 turns

walk me through your first 50 turns

what do you tech and what do you build, and in what order

at its heart its a war game, you always need enough to either fend off an attack or make the computer think twice about attacking.

I need some reference on how to decide the exact spot to settle the first city

the spot you land is usually good enough. dont wast 5 turns finding a spot, but maybe a turn or two is ok if you see something that is ofc better. and by better it a chance at 3+ resources as opposed to where you are and only 0/1 is available. in addition the game does a good job of landing you on a spot that is usually not terrible.

I usually land on spots with nearly no production

always be on a river
as many resources in a 3 hex radius as possible
decide right away whether you are liberty or tradition
either way get to 4-5 population as fast as possible
try to rush great library

i think its also important to note that you are playing domination only yet have no army and are going for science/culture? while you cant ignore those if you are domination only the computer knows this and plays accordingly.
know your civ's unique attributes and your enemy civs. gary is right, pick a path and complete it social wise. if you are playing strictly domination then war is the end result and you should be planning for such from the start. if you want a more comprehensive game turn on science and culture victories.

going back to regular game mode for now, this ai isnt optimized at all for conquest only victory

japan
map type random
map size small
difficulty level 5
standard pace

again dont know where to settle, half of these spots have no production

1. found city, build monument, research pottery
4. realize im on a tiny island, great barrier reef at top of island, will make a new city to work that later
7. monument finishes, build worker

i guess i need to get sailing asap

9. city grows to 2, pottery finishes, research sailing
13. social policy, took tradition since im on a small island and i need good border expansion to reach barrier reef
18. social policy, took liberty for culture, going to go for free settler then back to tradition
19. worker finished, i dont think he can actually build anything yet, building granary
20. sailing researched, researching optics for embark
27. social policy, collective rule, free settler, granary finishes, building work boat to improve pearls
31. capital grows to 4. (3 ai's have advanced to classical age)
32. new city osaka founded below great barrier reef on north side of island (production = monument, 40 turns)
33. optics finishes, researching animal husbandry for 2 sheep tiles at capital
35. work boat finishes, build fishing boats on pearls, building a second work boat for second pearls spot
warrior is embarked exploring for city states/players
36. found a city state for 30 gold, purchased a scout who will embark and scout the other direction
38. animal husbandry finished, researching mining for stone/marble nearby
40. koyoto grows to 5, osaka grows to 2
42. mining researched, researching masonry
social policy came up, put in legalism (dont understand the mechanics of this very well, but realized it gave me a free monument in kyoto which was a waste of the last 10 turns of its production since i was building one)
osaka building trireme, purchased the first tile of great barrier reef so i can work that, otherwise production in this city is bad
43. second work boat finished, sending to second pearls, still havent met any other civs to trade to
scout found another citystate and some ruins so its an archer now, koyoto building another worker
46. masonry researched, researching the wheel, met arabia
48. met china, traded my 1 excess pearls (30 turns) for 229 gold, purchased a worker for 310 gold at osaka
50. the wheel researched, researching calendar (allows me to harvest the wine i have at capital, and a stone works will be beneficial in both my cities)
53. the great library has been built in a faraway land, kyoto finishes building a worker, now building the pyramids (23 turns) osaka is pop 3, kyoto pop 6

This post has been edited by randomtask on Tue - Sep 11 2012 - 07:22:39

54. calendar researched, researching writing
55. met greece, traded greece 4 horses for 180 gold
58. writing researched, researching philosophy, kyoto purchased a trireme with gold
60. adopted policy +10% food growth and +2 food in capital
64. osaka built trireme, now building stone works
65. philosophy researched, researching trapping
75. pyramids finished, i have 5 workers now on auto build shit, now building the oracle (24 turns) probably wont get it


This post has been edited by randomtask on Tue - Sep 11 2012 - 07:47:00

theres a sample game opening for you gary, thoughts?

maybe you mean half those spots have no resources, but mountains have production. you actually have a decent starting spot there.

Been trying on hard or one below the max, and getting shitty randoms to start

archipelago map

ruins, ruins everywhere

looks like i will be shooting for a cultural game this time

the fact that im on an island which means theres no barbarians raiding me or idiot civs deciding to declare war on my for no reason has allowed me to play much more to a structured strategy

how do you make a declaration of friendship, and does it mean anything?

list of happiness
35
31
21
16
14
10 (me)

no idea whats going on here

buildings + wonders
trading resources

This post has been edited by blind_chief on Tue - Sep 11 2012 - 08:27:00

diplomacy
not really

dont see how the other civs can have so much, especially when they have more cities than me, i know i only have a few luxuries but the way this map is islands i dont see how many other civs can have many more

+ social policies

how come i have gifted enough gold to a city state to be allied, yet they are still friends with me?

someone else has higher influence still aka they gifted more gold

so only 1 civ can be allied to a citystate at a given time?

yes
culture civs are your best m8s, maritime/military only if you have extra cash

This post has been edited by blind_chief on Tue - Sep 11 2012 - 09:24:21

ive got all 4 cultured citystates on my payroll right now

140 culture per turn, starting to field a navy now so i can defend myself because my gold income is pretty good i can support it

do great tile improvements (academy, manufactury, landmark) stack with one another on the same space? or do they override each other?

override, one per hex

you took 2 different trees with your first 2 policies, i wouldnt do that
you built a worker way too early for him to have anything to do
you dont need to rush embark
you could have easily finished great library in 40 turns
you spec'd into small empire social policy but yet made expanding your top priority
never ever ever automate workers unless its to make roads, and keep a 1.5x city to worker ratio
the point of a worker is to improve a tile that your citizen is working so you either grow faster or produce faster

i know going into 2 trees at once isnt the best, but the alternative would have been taking a useless policy in one tree, and i read somewhere that those two at the start isnt bad

ive been mostly being oblivious to workers so far whilst playing this game, i know i dont know their shit well enough but been trying to learn the big picture of the game first. i did have way too many workers after a while and ended up deleting 3 or 4 of them

rushed embark because it was an archipelago map and my units had nowhere to explore/do anything

didnt make expanding my top priority, just 1 additional city which i got for free (production wise) because i went with the +1 settler policy

this game just seems odd because there hasnt been a single declaration of war between any civs, and nearly everyone seems to be allied to everyone else

im on pace to win by culture. a little behind on science from other civs but my economy is good as well

welcome to a game of islands, where isolation works its magic and you never have to fight
until england feels all high and mighty and picks a fight with everyone

but really, the game understands what victory conditions are set and the geographical situation and plays accordingly.

ya, islands maps are good for OCC too (see: my ghandi screenshot)

not a lot of DOW because the ai doesnt really get down with big normandy invasions

rome settled on a super small island next to one of my allied city states

definite computer brofist when katmandu razed the roman city

caesar is probably #1 top shithead who must expand to every possible open area of the map
no matter if its a 1 hex snow tile with 0 food 0 production in the north pole

also this game is the largest ive ever had my capital grow to, understandably since ive never gone high culture