Prince level, help!!

so ya this is my first thread. thank you for having me on this great site.

worked my way through chieftan and warlord. won the game on chieftain by a mile eventually science and total points. then tried warlord, took over the whole world and eventually won science victory. i always play 8 civs.

now im on prince level. i am using napoleon.

i cant get anywhere close to where i was on warlord. i have 5 cities only. i cant expand more because unhappiness is plaguing me and i am struggling to keep it above 0 i have exhasted all resources, trade etc.. i always snatch up lux resources nearbyu as quickly as possible when starting my games. gold became a problem so i started building more trading posts.. but now i cant get my cities to grow. this late in the game i have 5 cities the biggest one being a 16. my city with the biggest food is 22. biggest production is 32. i got 16 rifleman for an army at this stage and the americans are camped out right next to me waiting to take a bite outta me which they probably could. im the iroquois right now and hooking them up with all my when they ask cuz i dont want them to destroy me. i got 134 science per turn, 17 gold per turn, and 45 culture per turn but thats gna sink cuz steam power comin soon.

my question is how do i balance everything out. it seems if i push one thing everything else suffers, and if i try to balance it i dont grow in any way shape or form i just lose harder. lol. and again my unhappiness. when i get and extra 10 happiness by building theatres that ten sinks to zero so fast..

any help appreciated. i obv got a long way to go i dunno how the u guys rape this on deity. thanks again.

jordan

Welcome to the forums!

It's a little hard to tell what you are doing wrong without looking at a save, but here are some questions to address:

Happiness:

(1) Have you allied any mercantile city states? They will give happiness. Do their quests/gift them money.
(2) Do you have a religion with happiness beliefs? Peace loving, ceremonial burial, pagodas, cathedrals, etc all give happiness benefits and are religious beliefs.
(3) Are you building happiness buildings/wonders? Colosseums, Theatres, Stone works, Notre Dame all give happiness.

Money

(1) Are you using trade routes between cities? Those generate income.
(2) Are you building markets / banks? Lots of gold there.
(3) Do you have cities on rivers, near gold/silver or with sea resources? All those tiles give gold.

Science

(1) You need libraries in all cities and the national college in your biggest city. Have you built those?
(2) Are you using science specialists (from universities, public schools)? You should.
(3) If you are not culturally focused, you should consider taking rationalism.

In my opinion I had the same problem try to first don't build so many cities early on and balance farms, trading posts, and mines equally. Also not so many military units that raises gold cost and the AI aren't brilliant all it takes is strategy and a few ranged units. focus on buildings to make you civ more successive. and any other problems post and we ALL will help you.

thanks for those replies, guys. its weird cuz i have been super rational about vuilding cities fast and early.. only been building when i have the happiness to support it. what is a modest, productive speed of building new cities to success?

Same thing happens to me, but I cant do wars on prince (I did win one against dido when she and Khan double DOWed me) I said game Khan took a city I took from dido so he thinks he can take TWO of my cities for peace even though my empire is heavily defended! Khan is such a hot headed I wonder if he was like that in real life.

Jerman said:

Khan is such a hot headed I wonder if he was like that in real life.

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Ghengis Khan used to say the greatest happiness in life comes when you rob and kill your enemy, make his relatives cry and take his wives and daughters as your own. Unfortunately, there was no shortage of "happiness" during his reign.

You can live with the unhappiness. Just don't let it get to below -10. Settle on luxes to counter act the happiness hit of actually settling the city (settle o na unique lux if possible, if that's not possible, settle on a duplicate lux anyway to trade).

In my opinion I had the same problem try to first don't build so many cities early on

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I disagree, you want those four cities up and running fast. Recently I've been aiming for at least 5 cities within the first 70 turns. Key thing is to make sure that these 5 cities are all really trying to grab a new luxury resource to pay for the happiness hit. It might be worthwhile settling some of these cities directly on top of a luxury resource to get the boost straight away (as long as you have the required tech). For example, settle straight on top of gold if you have mining researched. This way you are not waiting for your worker to hook it up.

Also, as Syntax says, don't worry too much about initial negative happiness as long as you keep it reasonable.

You need to apply a bit of logic too. That many cities early you are going to upset your neighbours. Be prepared. Your initial build in those cities might be a couple of archers in each city, followed by shrines to then get your religion running. Choose the happy benefits from religion - ceremonial burial etc.

Think coleseums, stone works, theatres etc.

Choose the right social picks. Huge army? +1 happiness for every garrison might be worthwhile.

Sounds like you just need to take a moment to pause and really think in detail about what you are doing and what you need.

kamikazees said:

Ghengis Khan used to say the greatest happiness in life comes when you rob and kill your enemy, make his relatives cry and take his wives and daughters as your own. Unfortunately, there was no shortage of "happiness" during his reign.

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Well thanks for the history lesson. But I have to say why kill them when you can lock them in a dungeon with pistons locking lava (when your done with them) take away their
build permissions and make them listen to "chirp" like in minecraft

20jordo said:

now im on prince level. i am using napoleon.

i cant get anywhere close to where i was on warlord. i have 5 cities only. i cant expand more because unhappiness is plaguing me and i am struggling to keep it above 0 i have exhasted all resources, trade etc..

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As others have said, dipping below 0 happiness isn't the end of the world.

The real question I'd like to ask is why you want to increase the amount of cities in your civilization? Increasing the amount of cities in a civilization increases the costs of Social Policies, something I'm pretty loathe to do.

There are 2 reasons I settle a city.

1. Resource: while settling next to a unique luxury is the obvious factor here, you might want to consider settling in a location allows for rapid growth, like a location that has 4 tiles with Sheep/Cattle.

2. Strategic location: the city in question occupies a location that restricts enemy movement into my own territory. This also includes coastlines so I can produce naval escorts or provide a coastal trade route connection to my capital to cities overseas.

Generally speaking, I don't build that many Settlers because I don't like how building Settlers impedes the growth of my cities. I usually rush buy them, and it's rare when I've bought more than 2 in a single game, which implies that I usually finish games with 3 cities.

20jordo said:

i always snatch up lux resources nearbyu as quickly as possible when starting my games. gold became a problem so i started building more trading posts.

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Personally, I don't start building Trading Posts until Renaissance/Industrial era, because growth matters more than gold in the early to mid game.

Don't be afraid to change tile improvements. A river tile with a Farm improvement in the Ancient era can be a river tile with a Trading Post improvement in the Industrial era.

Moreover, there aren't a lot of ways to make gold early on. With 5 cities in the Medieval era, I imagine that road maintenance/turn is the main cause of the gold deficit.

Less cities means less roads needed to connect them. Just sayin'.

20jordo said:

this late in the game i have 5 cities the biggest one being a 16. my city with the biggest food is 22. biggest production is 32.

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The largest city having 16 population in the late Renaissance isn't horrible by any stretch.

Yes, I know the AI has bigger cities than that, but the AI doesn't have the same rules that human players do, because the AI will NEVER be better than a skilled human.

The AI gets massive happiness bonuses that are impossible for human players to achieve, which makes it a LOT easier for the AI to get massive cities.

20jordo said:

got 16 rifleman for an army at this stage and the americans are camped out right next to me waiting to take a bite outta me which they probably could.

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16 Rifleman units for five cities? That seems a bit excessive. I'm guessing you place a military unit on each tile that borders an enemy civ.

Not only is building that many Rifleman units wasteful, it angers enemy civs when that many Rifleman units are placed on their border.

Oh, did I forget to mention that with less cities, there is less border that is exposed to enemy civs, which reduces the need for massive amounts of expensive units to slow an enemy invasion down? Because if I didn't, let me say it now.


Also, do you use any other military units? For example, Crossbowman units? Cannons? If so, use the Rifleman to prevent the enemy from attacking your ranged units.

20jordo said:

im the iroquois right now and hooking them up with all my when they ask cuz i dont want them to destroy me. i got 134 science per turn, 17 gold per turn, and 45 culture per turn but thats gna sink cuz steam power comin soon.

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That amount of science/turn is acceptable for this era of the game. I can't really comment on the gold.

However, that culture per turn seems a bit anemic for that era....usually I'm running at least 100 culture per turn in that era, with fewer cities.

Why would I want a higher culture per turn? Because there are a lot of Social Policies that are happiness related, something you already reported to be an issue with your civilization.

I admit I'm still something of a World Wonder whore, but I'm guessing that you don't ally very much with City States. Cultural City States are a great way to increase your culture per turn without increasing the amount of cities you have to settle.

This is something which I used struggle with quite a bit also. Eventually I realized that I was putting too much emphasis on growing the population of each of my cities early on. By limiting my the rate of growth, and then stopping growth completely around 8 or 10 pop, I was able to free up a significant amount of happiness in order to found additional cities.

Eventually as I researched more tech, adopted more social policies, and completed buildings in my cities to provide , I would end up with a consistent surplus which permitted city population growth once more.

Also, try to have a source of horses or ivory for as many of your cities as possible. The Circus is a great building... 0 maintenance, +2 , very cheap and quick to build.

... I imagine that road maintenance/turn is the main cause of the gold deficit.

Less cities means less roads needed to connect them. Just sayin'.

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This is very poor logic IMO. Not building roads between your cities in order to connect trade routes is a huge mistake. Trade routes are a major source of income throughout the entire game and you want this money. Especially with your large population cities, unless each city is placed 10+ tiles away from each other you are basically guaranteed to be making a profit from the trade routes.

The generally accepted rule of thumb is to establish a trade route with a city once the population of the city being connected is at least equal to the number of road tiles necessary to make the connection. This is approximately the break even point.

However, if you've played previous versions of Civ, then maybe you're accustomed to building a road in every tile. This is not necessary in Civ5... only build the fewest number of road tiles as needed to connect a city for . Also, if your capital is coastal and you have a harbor there, it's generally cheaper to connect a new city via a harbor instead of roads if more than 3-4 road tiles will be needed.

What social policies do you have? Social policies are very important for managing happiness. You should select policies that give you a happiness bonus. Also, 5 cities isn't that bad. Playing on prince is a lot different than playing on chieftain, you will need to change the way you play. The higher in difficulty you get, the less you can afford to make a mistake. Long term planning is important, and everything you do must have a purpose. Playing on higher difficulties also requires a deeper understanding of how the game mechanics work. You don't need to take over the world to win the game, 5 cities can be sufficient for a long time. Also, build up your infrastructure. Build buildings that increase happiness.

You can service with negative happiness. The downside is city growth will be slowed, or may even stop. But you can still research tech's and everything else normally. Depending on the situation, I might even expand with unhappiness to get a crucial resource or.something (although I would generally recommend against expanding if there is unhappiness, unless if the resource will increase happiness.)

Like somebody else was saying, the most important thing.is don't let your happiness get lower than -9, any lower than that and your units get a huge penalty during combat, which you definitely don't warn if you think another civ may attack you soon. If you get to -20 or below rebels will spawn every few turns in random locations across your empire.

In your situation I would suggest setting up a strong defensive line and focus on improving the infrastructure of your empire (and dont forget about the social polices.)

aluelkdf pretty much hit the nail on the head, social policy selection will address quite a few of your problems, and most of the milestones that you've listed are around par except culture, which is rather low for the period, particularly with Napoleon, meaning that the acquisition of SP's is less frequent in that game.

I've played one Napoleon game, emperor level tech victory in 1700 AD, my 2nd earliest. In that game, I utilized both tradition and liberty, all civs will do better if they're taller (tradition) and the French are a particular civ that does well with many cities(liberty). Your difficulty with production focus is helped with the combination of the two policy trees. Between liberty and tradition, you get a free worker, settler, 4 free culture buildings, 4 free aqueducts, and a free wonder of choice (assuming GE is selected great person.) Aside from all those free builds, production is enhanced from cheaper settlers (in capital only) and buildings, as well as 1 free hammer/city. Tradition has, IMO, the best happiness provision of all the SP trees, and liberty is also in the top tier, especially for wider empires. Honor is also exceptional for happiness, though it requires constructing buildings which may not be in your build que and may further complicate production que issues. Gold is addressed mediocrely through the monarchy policy, and reduction of unit maintenance when garrisoned.

Another approach (or an approach to compound) is running artist specialists when the slots become available. Don't underestimate them, they're about as effective as scientists. Not only will running them help you increase social policy (and tile) acquisition, but GArtists are now the only specialist-initiated golden ages, and golden ages will address all your problems and some you didn't know you had. Roughly what percentage of your turns are golden age turns? I generally try to have at least 2/3 of my turns from late renaissance on be during a golden age, the games that have less than 1/2 of the turns during golden ages tend to be my not-so-good games.

As others have mentioned, belief picks can also help with happiness and culture, but is less reliable as you may not get the belief picks that you want.

Aramis604 said:

This is very poor logic IMO. Not building roads between your cities in order to connect trade routes is a huge mistake.

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I agree. You'll also note that I never suggested to forgo connecting cities.

What I DID suggest was reducing the amount of cities, particularly if this player is having issues with happiness. Reducing the amount of cities would in turn reduce the amount of roads needed to connect all cities to the capital.


In my experience, happiness is easier to juggle with fewer growing cities than it is with many growing cities.

:: shrugs ::

One thing that can help - when you settle a city, count out the tiles that will actually contribute to your empire beyond just growing your city if worked, and just get to that population, then stop pop growth. Later on, when you're rolling in happiness you can let them grow, but knowing when to stop pop growth gets pretty key as you advance in difficulty.

I only let my cities automate their citizens when I'm so far ahead that I don't care about the micromanagement anymore.

thanks for all the suggestions guys. really appreaciate it this game is like a beefed up game of chess

thanks for the suggestions guys. civ is like a beefed up game of chess.