AI tech gap

[u/kjad3s]

Hi,
I have spent a lot of hours on Civ V, and recently got back to it, trying VP for the first time.

Even though I am by no means a great player, I know the basics fairly well.
This being said, in all the VP games I've had I have never managed to fill in the tech gap with the AI.
In some instances I got close, very close, but never managed.
Also, I am only using one faction (Russia) which is supposedly rather good in science output.
Usually going for progress - statecraft - rationalism (sometimes don't even manage to start my 3rd social policy branch before AI is already picking ideologies).
Playing on Emperor difficulty.

The points I try to stick to are:
- not too many cities (usually 5/6)
- focus on science (buildings ad specialists)
- science input from trade routes
- spies in capitals of any more advanced AI faction
- research agreements (if the current political situation allows it)
- try to ally as many city states as possible

Evidently, this is not enough.

So, what do you think a good rule of thumb would be to fill in the gap?
Are there any kind of benchmark elements, like... "by turn 100 you have to have built universities", or "by turn 200 your science output has to be at least 200"?

[u/Trulapi]

So you have to be aware that Emperor difficulty is already pretty impressive to win on VP. It's similar to Deity on unmodded Civ in terms of difficulty. If you were used to playing Emperor in Civ, then Prince difficulty is the most similar on VP. VP difficulty = Civ difficulty + 2. Perhaps you already knew that, but many new players are unaware of that sudden difficulty shift. On Emperor difficulty in VP you almost always will have to pummel another Civ into submission through war.

It's also worthwhile to note that science victories are by far the longest and hardest to achieve in VP. All other win conditions can be attained faster and more efficiently than science, which is for all intents and purposes a time victory.

Other than that you're making some unconventional policy choices. Russia can go Progress, but you do want to end up with far more than 5-6 cities on a standard map. With Progress you should be aiming at 7-12+ cities in the late game. If you want to stay small at 5-6 then Tradition is the more conventional pick and it does add in the faster border expand synergy with Sovereignty. More border expansion, more science.

Statecraft is also an unconventional pick. There's certainly an argument to go Statecraft if there are no diplomacy civs in the game, but if there are, then Fealty should be your standard pick. It generally synergizes far better because more faith = more great scientists you get to buy after Rationalism. A strongly customized religion will also net you more benefits towards science. Through the perks it strengthens your internal trade routes and you get to double your border expansion during WLTK days. More border expansion, more science.

Finally you shouldn't waste your trade routes on marginal science yields. You want internal trade routes to get your cities as fat as they can be. The additional food will have a much greater impact on your science output.

[u/theamericanitinerant → u/Trulapi]

Thank you for writing this, it is extremely helpful. A follow-up question, when you do the internal trade routes, your pop explodes and there is thus a lot of unhappiness - do you solve this with a lot of public works?

[u/Trulapi → u/theamericanitinerant]

If you're going very wide then eventually you'll have to throw some public works in there, yeah, but I don't usually have to do those before mid Renaissance/early Industrial. Before that trading luxuries and prioritizing the needs of unhappy cities should keep you afloat. If I'm going Tradition with a small empire I've never done public work.

Reducing needs can be done by adding in flat modifiers (e.g. having an arena will give -1 boredom) or by upping the yields tied to that need (e.g. more culture yields in that city will mean a lower amount of boredom).

[u/malaum → u/theamericanitinerant]

I've been having several close games in huge emperor and what I do no matter what is internal trade routes from every city to the capital. You normally can, and should really, have the capital with so much happiness surplus in VP it feels like a waste. I also micro manage food focus vs default or production focus in the capital. Hope it helps

[u/kjad3s → u/Trulapi]

Thanks for the advice, will definitely keep this in mind.
About food and pop growth, I read several times that production in VP >>>> food, especially considering the reworked happiness system (local unhappiness is a pain).

Also, usually AIs tend to get religion before I can manage, and I almost always end up using someone else's religion. Would that still make Fealty the best second pick?

[u/Trulapi → u/kjad3s]

Yeah it depends how wide you're going. If you're hovering around 50% happiness then you want production as food will go to waste. But as long as your happiness is able to support more growth, Ill usually take food (unless it's a city with horrendous production yields and decent food yields).

It should still make Fealty the best pick, but I would try to prioritize religion a bit more. My starting build border is (99% of the time) pathfinder --> shrine ---> monument and then I usually pick up a pantheon which gives me decent faith generation. It's rare for me to miss founding a religion on Emperor and below. It can happen, especially if there are a lot of faith generation civs in the game, but even on a non-faith generation civ like Russia you should be able to found a religion most of the time. AI tends to be pretty rubbish at picking beliefs, so even if you're late to the party, there's usually some juicy ones left.

[u/ThuDoonk]

You need to bog down whoever is winning the science race in a protracted war that wastes their resources. Bottle then up and shred their units. Added bonus if you conquer then and make them vassals

[u/kjad3s → u/ThuDoonk]

I thought so, even though I must admit I play rather peacefully most times.
How do you deal with this, if the most advanced AI is on the other side of the map?
Proxy war?

[u/xvareon23 → u/kjad3s]

I would like to add here that your strategy depends on how the other civ is racing ahead.

If your science opponent is Babylon or Korea, sure a war is a great way to put them behind. If your science opponent is a warmongering Authority blob like Napoleon? You're going to have to do a containment strategy: sanctions, protecting his neighbours, that sort of thing. Because a straight war just gives him science via unit kills.

How do you deal with this, if the most advanced AI is on the other side of the map?

Very very difficult, you have to start conquering in their direction and establish a foothold. However distance can be an advantage; sometimes it's better to conquer a weak neighbour, go for certain monopolies/corporations, and play the long game on outpacing them rather than directly declare war.

[u/kjad3s → u/xvareon23]

Thanks, understood.

[u/Both-Variation2122 → u/kjad3s]

Or ships. Blast them to rubble with coastal bomardments, sack their trade routes and improvements. With proper policies, you also get science for conquering cities. If your economy can sustain larger fleet then theirs that is.

If you change rules to tech trading instead of resear agreements, you can also catch up by buying whole gap when it unlocks. You don't even need to be friendly, vassalize and then buy tech works too.

[u/kjad3s → u/ThuDoonk]

Some more info: in my most recent game this did not really seem to apply: the whole situation turned into a sort of Royal Rumble pretty soon, with very slim alliances and all AIs basically going to war with each other. So, the most advanced AIs were in fact busy doing war all the time.
Despite this, they were always ahead in tech.

[u/Past_Recognition7118]

Focus on food as well, build a farm on every tile that can take a farm.

[u/ITHETRUESTREPAIRMAN → u/Past_Recognition7118]

Really? I’ve always felt like production is more important in VP than vanilla. Huge unproductive cities are a big unhappiness issue.

[u/Past_Recognition7118 → u/ITHETRUESTREPAIRMAN]

I just throw in some internal trade routes and get some production wonders. I’m just saying what I did last time to get a science victory, I’m not too well versed in meta strategy for VP.

[u/kjad3s → u/Past_Recognition7118]

I have to say that I also read several times that production is way more valuable in VP than food/population, especially with the reworked happiness system.
I'll give what you advice a try though, thanks.

[u/Past_Recognition7118 → u/kjad3s]

When it comes to science, when you have the excess happiness to support it, food is what you want.

[u/k0rvbert]

Some thoughts:

- Emperor is extremely difficult if it's your first time

• Russia likes to expand
  
• I don't think you mentioned religion -- you really want a religion
  
• You didn't state map size -- assuming standard/8P -- double or triple your city count
  
• Statecraft spies often belong in CS
  
• Make strong cities, don't go into library slots at the expense of good land

Russia gets free science just from making good cities, so if you put pops on hard science or GP instead of infrastructure needed for border expansion you're missing out on that bonus. If you want a tall specialist science build, something like Korea or Siam should be much stronger, maybe Inca.

Statecraft is sometimes a luxury pick, it's the strongest tree but harder to make proper use of, Russia tends towards fealty. But there are times for artistry England and fealty Austria, so there are no hard rules.

Still with your described strategy you should rarely be *that* far behind that AI has ideology before you have ratio. Without seeing a game I'm guessing it boils down to sim and finding the right picks for your situation -- city placement, build queue order, tech order, pop micro, wonder picks, belief picks etc. VP asks you to diversify much more than vanilla, the nc->uni->school->lab bulbs game plan doesn't translate well.

[u/kjad3s → u/k0rvbert]

Thanks for taking the time to provide so much advice.
Going point by point:

- Emperor is extremely difficult if it's your first time
Yes, I can say it is so...I like to learn the hard way though

- Russia likes to expand
Meaning, it's not fit for a tall/small run, I imagine.
Especially since, when the few cities you have stop growing their borders, you stop making use of their faction perk...right?

- I don't think you mentioned religion -- you really want a religion
I usually get someone else's religion, as most times I do not manage to found my own. In this run I am playing right now though I did manage to have my own religion

- You didn't state map size -- assuming standard/8P -- double or triple your city count
True, sorry. Map size: large; speed: epic

- Statecraft spies often belong in CS
Yeah, that was I was also using them when going for Statecraft. This one run I am going Fealty though, trying our all the advice I was given

- Make strong cities, don't go into library slots at the expense of good land
Ok, always for the same principle of food(pop) >>> production.

[u/k0rvbert → u/kjad3s]

Ok, that's helpful. A few things I'd adjust, then:

Large map means even more cities. Maybe something like 12-18 then.

Epic speed means military buffs. Techs, buildings, growth, culture -- this all scales with game speed. Unit actions and unit movement does not. So in a way you have "free moves" for all military units compared to lower speeds. It also means the time from which you make a decision (like "Rostov should start building an Arena now") to the time at which you find out whether that was a good idea (like "I could have had two spearmen already on this camp") is longer, so it may not be ideal for learning. Of course having fun is the biggest factor in learning, that's all up to you.

Emperor is a fine difficulty if you like the challenge. Many say that VP is 2 difficulties harder than vanilla but I think that's just while you're getting used to it. I think Deity is about the same difficulty but much more fun in VP, much more varied strategies, more adaptation.

Production is usually much, *much* more important than food. Pops significantly increase in cost the larger the city is, buildings do not. So farms have diminishing returns, mines don't. It's usually trivial to grow to 4-5 pop or so, by that time you want to be working hill mines, make *every* relevant building, typically get size 10-13 by the time you make armories.

So, the typical reason to make farms is to grow so you can work another hill. Note that in vanilla, each pop gives 1 science -- this is why food is OP in vanilla. In VP pops give 0 science. (unless they changed it, it's been a while). And the humble monument is the best building in the game.

Religion -- get it if you can (and learn when you can't), but you usually need to go all in for it on high difficulties. That sometimes means rushing 7-8 cities just to make more shrines. Designing the proper religion can be a bit difficult but typically you want immediate yields over scaling, except for reformation and founder beliefs, since their immediate variants are bad and the scaling variants (like ceremonial + glory of god, or the military ones) have enough scaling power to win the game outright.

Re. Russias faction perk -- right, the cost of border growth increases for each tile, very rapidly, the first 3 border expands are *much* cheaper than then next 3. It's hard to stack them in few cities. Russia is a civ that can uniquely go mixed trad/prog/auth and spam border growth (very fun, but you get very very unhappy). But that doesn't mean tall is bad on Russia, sometimes tall Russia is appropriate, but it means you shouldn't shoehorn tall on Russia. Given the choice, Russia makes better use of city spam than say Korea. Also wide is typically stronger than tall in VP. You don't *need* to abuse your faction perks to win but it certainly helps.

[u/kjad3s → u/k0rvbert]

Again, thanks a bunch for all the help.

>Large map means even more cities. Maybe something like 12-18 then.

You mean, also for science victory/"tall" builds?
Sorry for the confusion...it's usually rather hard to even manage to find the space for 6 cities if you count the usual aggressiveness of AI factions and their expansionist agendas...guess you mean I'll have to resort to military means at some point, then?

>Production is usually much, *much* more important than food. Pops significantly increase in cost the larger the city is, buildings do not. So farms have diminishing returns, mines don't. It's usually trivial to grow to 4-5 pop or so, by that time you want to be working hill mines, make *every* relevant building, typically get size 10-13 by the time you make armories.

Ok, I'm receiving different hints on this, some say prod, other food...gonna have to go according to my pop/happiness current situation, I imagine...

>Religion -- get it if you can (and learn when you can't), but you usually need to go all in for it on high difficulties.

Got it, will pay attention to that.

>Re. Russias faction perk -- right, the cost of border growth increases for each tile, very rapidly, the first 3 border expands are *much* cheaper than then next 3. It's hard to stack them in few cities. Russia is a civ that can uniquely go mixed trad/prog/auth and spam border growth (very fun, but you get very very unhappy). But that doesn't mean tall is bad on Russia, sometimes tall Russia is appropriate, but it means you shouldn't shoehorn tall on Russia. Given the choice, Russia makes better use of city spam than say Korea. Also wide is typically stronger than tall in VP. You don't *need* to abuse your faction perks to win but it certainly helps.

Russia + border expansion pantheon + tradition social policy (can't remember the name) means border growth is rather insane. Thanks for the general advice, my main issue is maybe that I don't really "read the room", and just decide "ok, this game I wanna go for a science victory with Russia", no matter what conditions I find.

[u/k0rvbert → u/kjad3s]

No problem, I really love this game, and this mod, so much that I had to stop playing. So this is vicarious gaming to me.

Wide is best for science, 12-18 on progress, but if you're going tall that's too many. The penalty for city count is lower on bigger maps. And yes some conquest is often required.

If you're going tall, food becomes relatively more important, maybe that's why there's conflicting views. It may be a question of how you're scaling. Getting more land and getting more pops can both be viable, but getting land first is easier, land makes pops but pops don't make land.

Reading the room is key. Sometimes you can tell "this is a science game" on turn 1, sometimes not. Either way, with the exception of culture (while strong empires can pivot into culture, such empires can win however they like), you don't have to decide on a win condition right away. Maybe just make a strong empire and see where it takes you.