How do you keep AI civs at bay in OCC?

[Ilkuul]

I'm a newcomer to OCC (tho' not to Civ -- I've managed to beat Deity a couple of times, so I think I can claim to have passed the 'rookie' stage!).

I've read the 'Paulicy' with great interest, tho' I found it raised more questions for me than it answered - especially when I actually tried a couple of OCC games.

One thing, amongst many, that wasn't made clear, was how to use diplomacy to keep powerful civs off your back. I tend to play normal Civ fairly aggressively at least in the early stages -- and retaliation, taking an enemy's city, is one of the best ways to cool him down and get him out of your hair. But you can't do this when you only have 3 warriors guarding your one and only city!! Yet a policy of total appeasement doesn't seem to work either: you send an emissary with the kindly intention of sweetening a hostile opponent with a gift, and before you can get a word in edgeways he's declared war on you or demanded punitive tribute!

In the 'Paulicy' there IS mention in a couple of places of being at war, gaining a cease-fire, and demanding tribute. But how can you afford to be at war when all your fortunes hang on one meagrely-defended city?! Likewise demanding tribute: fine when you have the muscle to back it up, but not when you're the poor relation! Or do all these comments merely reveal that I didn't do well enough in the opening stages of the game?!

I'd be grateful for any enlightening comments from those who've been this way before!

[Tizzy]

It took me a while to get to grips with giving the Ai what it wants in return for peace too.
The best idea is to try for an alliance on first contact. This makes tech trading easier (as you get notified when they discover something), and means they can't suddenly decide to declare war on you.
The best thing to do is to give them what they want. You won't win at OCC if you try to keep all your techs and money to yourself. Give the AI Civ what they want, then ask for a gift. You'll usually get money, with which you can go and sweeten up another Civ.
The UN is a good wonder to build, I find. That way you can refuse to give the crucial end game techs, and the AI still has to stay at peace with you.

quote: Originally posted by Tizzy on 03-23-2001 03:39 AM The UN is a good wonder to build, I find. That way you can refuse to give the crucial end game techs, and the AI still has to stay at peace with you.

But UN doesn't prevent AI doing sneak attacks, right?

I concur with Tizzy. It's amazing how much you can exploit your AI neighbours using diplomacy. I was successfully allied with Celts (!) and Viking (!!) in my last game and got literally thousands of gold from them. Later with Indians as well and they were very generous as well.. They were all the time enthusiastic & worshipful. I kept feeding them all the techs I managed to get and then asked for the gift so I sort-of sold my techs For the record, I played as Zulus with version 2.42. My power was 'pathetic' all the time. The world & landmasses were both large so AI had plenty of space to build large empires. Actually it's good thing to play with large world: AI builds more cities-->they get richer-->they give all the gold to you -->you get richer!

I've stopped asking tributes in my first contacts. I make them happy by giving tech gifts instead. I hardly ever give gold though unless needed to sweeten alliance offer. Sometimes AI declares war even at first contact. No matter how generous you have been. The key is then not to attack that civ. Let a few turns go by, then contact them, they ask usually for a tech, you give it, they become neutral, feed more techs until they are worshipful, then ask for an alliance. Quite often this trick works! If you don't attack the AI, you don't get 'treacherous' stigma in you.

[Scouse Gits]

The AI just loves swapping maps - my normal OCC diplomatic strat is to swap maps every other round and ask for gifts in the intervening rounds - MPs advice about first contact is very sound as well ...

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Scouse Git[1]

"Staring at your screen in horror and disbelief when you open a saved game is one of the fun things of a succession game " - Hueij
"The Great Library must be built!"
"A short cut has to be challenging,
were it not so it would be 'the way'." - Paul Craven

[Ilkuul]

Many thanks for your helpful replies, folks! I'll print this topic out and go and apply your words of wisdom. Hopefully in 2 or 3 years' time I'll be able to report my first victory at OCC!

[kdunphy]

How many OCCers actually play on MGE? I think a lot of stuff is harder on it with OCC. I lost 2 times on Warlord OCC before I won, now I'm working on winning at prince in MGE.

Any different strategies specific to MGE?

[Scouse Gits]

Ribannah is the current OCC champion and I believe she always plays MPGE.
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SG(2)

[Smash]

1 diplomat is usually all you need.I've actually seen ai units retreat when I build a dip.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Marko Polo on 03-23-2001 06:55 AM They were all the time enthusiastic & worshipful...

Well, I've now gone away and tried some of this advice, and the above statement by MP just blows my mind!

Admittedly in my former style of play I never bothered too much about diplomacy, so am probably suffering for it now. But how ON EARTH do you get allies to STAY enthusiastic and worshipful?? In one game I managed to get them that way for about 2 turns, then it was quickly down to 'uncooperative', and after that they just didn't want to know me. I could give the one endless techs, he never gave me a chance to ask for payment in return ('pressing affairs of state', or whatever); and the other one broke the alliance, declared war, and every time I contacted him his only response was that he'd decided to wipe me off the face of the earth.

So, questions for the experts: (1) Do you contact ALL the civs you have contact with EVERY turn? Or only when you (or they) have something new to offer? Do they get annoyed if you pester them too often? (2) Do you always play on a small map? I tried one game on a large map (see MP's comment about that), but then I simply couldn't find any AI's to trade with! Wandered about for millennia trying to find someone. I notice that all the start-up comparison games listed in the Paulicy, which I downloaded, are set on a small map...

[Paul]

It sounds like you have the MP version. In that case you can't keep the AI civs enthousiastic or worshipful. In the MP version the AI was made more aggressive.

quote: Originally posted by Ilkuul on 03-24-2001 04:09 PMBut how ON EARTH do you get allies to STAY enthusiastic and worshipful??

First of all, do you play MGE or version 2.42? What I have heard the AI in MGE has much worse attitude towards you. Then, when you look at your 'power status' (ranging from pathetic to supreme) where are you there? The weaker you are the more AI likes you as it don't consider you as a threat.

In my recent OCC game (to where I referred in my last post) when my power was 'pathetic' I even saw this message:

'The Indians and Vikings form a secret pact against Carthagians' (or something like that)

Never happened to me before. The Carths were supreme at that time (I was Zulus). So it seems that AI is always after the most powerful Civ and that can be the AI civ as well. To this point I thought that they ally against the human player but again in most game I am I'm the supreme one so..

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Marko Polo on 03-24-2001 04:35 PM First of all, do you play MGE or version 2.42?

I'm pretty sure I'm playing 2.42: I have the downloaded zip file for the patch, and I can't imagine having downloaded it without installing it! It was so long ago, I can't remember now. But I've played often enough on the Zone without problems, and I know players without the patch usually can't, so that's another confirmation. There's no way you can tell the version number from the game itself, is there? No 'Help|About...' But I'm pretty sure it must be 2.42. So there must be some trick about diplomacy that I'm missing!

quote: Originally posted by Ilkuul on 03-24-2001 04:53 PMBut I've played often enough on the Zone without problems

If you play Civ2 as multiplay on the zone you definetly have MGE = Multiplayer Gold Edition which has the aggressive AI as Paul told. The 'original' or first version of Civ2 has the latest patch number of 2.42 and it doesn't have multiplay feature. So I'm afraid that you will never see long-lasting enthuastic AI allies

I hope that someone else here can give you diplomacy hints about how to cope with the AI in MGE OCC.

[Ilkuul]

Oh. Dear. That's rather a blow.

Does that rule out any possibility of winning at OCC??



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Ilkuul

Every time you win, remember: "The last shall be first and the first shall be last"...

[Smash]

In MGE it is better to talk to ais a little less frequently.In other words,try to have at least 4-6 techs to give them per visit.Build your important wonders first.Invariably,they will ask for your important wonder tech.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Smash on 03-24-2001 05:48 PM In MGE it is better to talk to ais a little less frequently.In other words,try to have at least 4-6 techs to give them per visit.Build your important wonders first. Invariably,they will ask for your important wonder tech.

Thanks, Smash, I'll try that. What AI attitude do you normally expect in MGE OCC games -- better than 'uncooperative', or do you just live with that?



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Ilkuul

Every time you win, remember: "The first shall be last". Every time you lose, remember: "The last shall be first".

[Smash]

yes and no.Keep an eye on it.Try to gift them before they reach "hostile".Relations breakdown very quickly in MGE.Worshipful>Enraged can happen in 3 or 4 turns.Its a balancing act.Not a bad plan to spend some of your gold before contacting hostile or warring civs.That way they will demand tech instead of gold and you can "buy" peace by doing the tech gifting you want to do anyway.

[Ilkuul]

Thanks again for your helpful advice. I can see I'll need to develop much more of a habit of checking up on foreign relations than I have in the past!


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Ilkuul

Every time you win, remember: "The first shall be last".
Every time you lose, remember: "The last shall be first".