As Ray said I'm not condemning cheese I'm just wondering if the very best gal civ players out there can win without using it extensively. As technician said with the bonuses the ais get at the start in maso if they played the perfect game the humans would always come in fifth so they have to have weaknesses.

Ray, when you say you are almost always ahead of the ais in tech by the 2190s do you mean you can do this on small and tiny maps as well or do you pretty much stick to gigantic maps now? I've been able to stay with the tech leaders on small maso maps but I've never managed to build more than a 1 or 2 tech lead even using the 1 influence trick to make sure I don't have to build any military.

Also wondering if your colonizing TG/wonders strategy for culture bombing works well on small maps?

Just for BlueSteel: GROUP HUG!!

Once you have a lead in planets you can jump to a tech lead.



Get Manufacturing Capital early, and you should be able to get almost all of the game's wonders and TG's.

When I take a planet, I notice that in the planetary improvement list (?) that I now own whatever trade goods they had at that planet. I don't think it shows up in diplomacy though. Am I correct in assuming that I don't get the benefits either?

Nope, captured TGs/Wonders do not benefit you; I'm still not clear on whether that's a long-standing bug or if it was indended, though. I'd think it would add a little more strategy to the game if civs had to vie for the planets that had the TGs/Wonders built on them.

As ray said I'm not condemning the use of cheese just wondering if the top players are beating maso without the use of the "cheesiest" cheese



Can you do this on small maps ray? I always find that if I focus solely on research and a little social after the colonization phase I can catch up to the leaing tech ai by researching the right techs and trading but getting ahead is very tough and staying ahead if I go on any social or military spending binge is impossible.



I assume by colonizing you mean the lower lvl planets that the ais ignore. I'm impressed you can do this without destroying your economy and again have you found this to be viable on small maps or have you been sticking mainly to the gigantic ones?




The answer to this is that the aliens know that they are all roughly equally powerful at the start so they want an edge to get ahead of the other aliens. The humans convince them that trading with them is that edge. In a real world situation each alien civ wouldn't want to just conquer the humans they'd want to conquer all the other aliens as well and they'd try to use the weaker civilizations to weaken the stronger ones.


Edit: Whoops sorry about the semi double post, didn't realize we had gone to page 2 and thought my first didn't post properly.
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Addendum to my previous post. Getting the tech lead isn't too hard since you can research along a different path than the AI.

So, say you spend ten turns researching all the computer techs. Meanwhile the AI has researched a bunch of other stuff. Then just trade terra computers for all their other stuff, and you end up ahead because you have all these other techs you've kept to yourself.



Once you have a big influence lead, colonize the low-PQ planet in their sector. This should quickly flip their planets in that sector. Then disband your low-PQ colony. It's just there to act as a "seed"--once you get a real colony under your control then the flipping will continue even if the original low-PQ colony isn't there anymore. This is most viable on larger maps where you can build up a big culture lead since there should be lots of influence resources.
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There was never anything that tedious about it. My method?

1) Set lots of planets to build hordes of constructors.

2) Pick a place to build the palaces .

3) Center the view on where you want the palace, then open the fleet panel and click the blue arrows on 6-7 constructors--move the view and repeat until you run out of constructors.

4) Click through a few turns till all the constuctors reach their destinations.

5) Fleet each group and build palaces.

That's the way I've been doing it since the beginning. And, IMHO it is much simpler and more effective than setting, changing and deleting waypoints constantly.

I've not been using the blue arrow. Yes, that's quite easy to do, kyro.

But the colony ship bomb is even less tedious. Build 1 colony ship, send to planet.

~SDC~

Essex,

I think vincible has answered most of your queries. For smaller maps, I always rush instead of culture bomb. So with more planets (also after eating minors), it's not too difficult to get ahead in tech. The AIs also waste a lot of resources churning warships and getting them blown up.

~SDC~

Thanks Ray & vincible. This is the first time I have understood the "culture bombing through colonization".

I am a brand new maso player (3 tiny games). I can't seem to get my act together to rush very well and my frigates get blasted by the computer's battle axes when I rush on maso. My "semi-successful" rush is to use a transport or battle transport like a vulture swooping in when the defense is knocked out by another AI.

So, yes, I culture bomb on tiny usually using multiple 153% starbases (culture max only) leapfrogging across the galaxy because I have never made it to cultural conquest and can't seem to rush. During this time, I am trying to keep the aliens from blowing me away and am always behind in everything. But for now, scrambling to survive like this is more fun than playing a lower level and not exploiting the multiple starbase per sector thing.

When I grow up, I want to play like Ray and vincible. LOL.

Rick

Thanks for all the answers people! I'll have to try rushing on a small map. I've found that as soon as I switch to any military spending I'm WAY behind the ais in tech. I'll try again though

Perhaps influenced by espionage levels? (The other AI has to find out, and it depends how "subtle" your bribing was.)

Alex


~SDC~

They should have the same intell as humans.
They should know humans are pathetic.

I don't use any of the 3 cheeses mentioned in the initial post. I sometimes gift 1 influence, but mostly because it looks more effective than giving a tech. I don't use that tactic very often.
Right now I consider the biggest advantage I have is +80 diplomacy at start, so I started playing with only +10 diplo and another political party.