Prince is too easy, King is too hard

Illianor123 said:

Only trade for luxuries they have at least two copies of, if they only have one they won't trade it for any reasonable deal.

Annihilating Civs has a major diplomatic impact.

National College after universities is really slow. Generally on standard with three cities before NC you can get it up by turns 70-80.

Make sure where you found cities have luxuries nearby.

Are you using trade routes? Cargo ships are much better than caravans (twice as good in fact). Send to other Civs or city states for gold.

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70-80? Do you magically summon your cities from the ground my friend?

I've done just that (founding cities near luxuries: I had 3 silk, 2 gems, 1 citrus and 1 marble). And I was trading for resources they had 2 of. Indonesia had 2 trufles and I was offering a unit of silk and a unit of gold for it. No deal.

Poland had 3 salt. Again, no deal.

I had about 6-7 luxuries, 2 from a friendly city state.

I built The Colossus for trade, but a stupid barb camp kept pirating my ships away, and I just didn't have the manpower to spare to help it (it wasn't a camp I could just walk up to. So the whole trading thing went to rot.

Vajrajina said:

I already built courthouse in Delhi (now Derhi because we just couldn't wrap our tongue around that strange consonant), the -13 is AFTER we cut our extra unhappiness off. Before it was -20something.

How do I convince them to go to war with me? If I have inferior military, why would I want them to attack me, if I have superior, they would be stupid to attack first.

Wow. Having 6 cities at turn 180 is EARLY? I mean, the game is half over, and I have only 6 cities and that counts as rushing? In that case, I officially don't get it. Am I supposed to sit on my bum for 200 turns than unleash some massive horde all at once?

Also, about my conquests:
If I didn't take that city eary I would not have had space for the fourth, as I started on a peninsula. It was a must grab.

If I didn't take cape town I would have had 0 iron. Meaning no UU. Meaning no medieval powerspike. I could not have took Derhi without it.

And Derhi itself...It was the only city that I could take. Literally it was blocking everything else from me (apart from a small indonesian village that was randomly founded not far from where I started, and Gandhi kept bugging me with random elephant raiders and what not. He had to go down. After this I can either go to the north to take some city states, to the northeast for Indonesia or to the East for Poland (to the East for Poland). Again, I fail to see an alternate option.

NC: there was always something more important going on. But again, it was very easy to build at that point (only 2 turns).

The polish got the Notre Dame, but lo and behold, I would need to amass a huge army to take them, and take even more unhapiness to the face while doing so. I call mission impossible.

But I honestly don't get it. I only did my first real conquest when I got my UU, what else was I supposed to do? Just when should I start to work on my world domination?

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Tradition depends on a lot of population in few cities. I believe the most popular strategy with tradition is to stay at 4 (or even 3) cities until the modern era, allowing for some variation based on nearby resources, being on a Pangaea where you just win by then, etc.

If you want people to play nice, you have to play nice with them. No one wants to fun the genocidal dictator, unless he looks like everyone's best friend.

You start working on your world domination from turn 1 though. Sure, you might not be building up an army with the aim to attack in the next 10 turns, but you are working on getting there.

That's not to say war can't happen early, but it's not the tradition 4 city start. If you are on a map with more than one major landmass, eliminating everyone (major civs, not city states) that you meet before astronomy, will result in no diplomacy hit for those you find after your killing spree, but, again, prepare for the pain of low happiness and be ready to manage your population.

On a map where you can meet everyone before astronomy, you can go to war early and take people out, too, but be ready to roll everyone, or, at minimum, survive on your own, after you start.

For happiness, if you want lots of cities, liberty is the better tree, but it's harder to manage, simply becasue it doesn't carry free gold (2 policies in tradition give cash, one with free culture buildings, another for pop in the capital) and happiness comes later while promoting a style that leads to a lot of unhappiness (founding cities). Religion can help too. Cerimonial burial can give you extra happiness for every city with your religion. Pagodas are a safe bet for happiness if you can get them, as well (I'm not a big fan, but being able to pop the building and forget is great for getting into the groove, and a good many people value it much more highly than I.)

For lots of cities, you can also try playing on a larger map. Even with the standard number of civs, a large or huge map gives you more leg room, but penalties for founding cities isn't as great. More civs makes domination (and culture) harder, though, and it doesn't eliminate issues of warmonger hate or happiness.

Vajrajina said:

70-80? Do you magically summon your cities from the ground my friend?

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No, just beeline the tech, make sure the city that you build first has enough production to build a lib fast and buy a lib in the second city. Chopping some wood in the capital helps, too.

But that's a benchmark that you don't have to hit on King, not at all - you might not be able to do so anyway, if your start doesn't have enough gold, because the AI just doesn't have enough gold to buy your stuff this early.. Just try to get it at around turn 95-100, that's possible even with very suboptimal play.

You shouldn't delay it any further though, because NC is pretty much top priority.

Vajrajina said:

Okay, big update.
The food-focus seems to have done it's thing: I had a much better start and am ahead in technologies (although it does bug me that the Polish are considered Renaissance with fewer techs than me).

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That just means they beelined to an earlier Rean tech than you did. No big deal.

Vajrajina said:

However, I still don't see myself winning this game. It's turn 182 and I only have 6 cities. The diplomatic penalties for warmongering are so severe, I literally cannot trade at all, and I have neither the luxury resources nor the local happiness to keep my folks cheerful.

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6 cities is more than you really need to win. Even an OCC isn't really a challenge in Civ V (compared to Civ IV)

Yes, consider the diplomatic consequences of your action is wise. (Or just build a big enough army to conquer some cities with luxuries you don't already have)
Also allying with Merchicle city states will help a lot. Unique luxury + their normal one + an extra 3 happiness.
Religions also have happiness sources and it doesn't even have to be yours.

Vajrajina said:

I only made 3 conquests in the course of almost 200 turns, yet everyone hates me to the guts and considers me a warmonger (I did break a promise to Gandhi at the beginning, but come on, that was 2000 years ago!). Even when I offer 2 luxury resources for 1 they just won't take it.

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Breaking a promise is remembered for the rest of the game. Some of the promises though are only for 50 turns and you'll get a notice when you've kept it.

An AI demands 3 copies of one your luxury for the very last copy of theirs. (By design to keep We Love the King from being too easy) Otherwise 1:1 is normal as long as you don't have trade penalties.

Vajrajina said:

I have -13 hapiness and that's with 4 units garrisoned and making use of the cutural bonus that gives me 1 hapiness for each city with a garrison. With 5 Samurais I have a deficit of 9 gold per turn. I have to keep chasing horsemen with my infantry to make them pillage as little land as possible.

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Honor doesn't offer much in happiness bonuses anymore. You'll get that same bonus from Liberty without tying up units on MP duty and a much larger one from Monarchy.
Tradition also increases maintenance free garrison which in this case would save enough cash to where you'd have a small profit.

Vajrajina said:

What I've done so far:
I destroyed Gandhi's 2nd city, which he built JUST where I wanted to found my 4th one. That was at something like turn 80-90.

I captured cape town as the ONLY source of Iron anywhere nearby. Also, some gold. That was something like turn 120-130.

And finally, I took Delhi not so long ago, about turn 170

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Taking Cape Town carries EXTREME WAR MONGER PENALTY because its a city state and so didn't have any remaining ones. In addition it carries with it extra diplomatic penalties from those AIs loving city states.

For taking a major, the penalty is of the form 1 / N, N number of cities they had. It's extreme when N = 1 (their very last one)

Vajrajina said:

The only thing that's working out nicely is Science. In 8 turns I will have national college (taking Delhi stopped it from building), I have 4 universities that can finally begin to profit from the jungle tiles I left up, but I still haven't steamrolled the others into submission with my superior intellect.

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In that case, you can actually recover. Reach techs giving more gold & happiness buildings, and more importantly reach an ideology.

Vajrajina said:

I tried to take screenshots, but my pc is a stupid and won't let me do it, so that won't be happening. Just imagine 6 cities with a few smoke columns and 13 angry faces. That's what matters. If you want to know the specifics, just ask. I will go back to playing with hippies, warmongering seems to be a lot more effort than it's worth.

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For this, go into the steam overlay and take a steam screenshot from there. I think F12 will bypass that. That one will actually be in jpeg format unlike the printscreen button.

Rooftrellen said:

Your warmongering involved first taking half the cities someone else had, then commiting genocide twice. That's pretty bad.

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Yup, if India had no other cities that's basically the equivalent of 2.5 EXTREME WAR MONGER PENALTIES.
You might still be able to get good deals out of the "do as you like" AIs (Mongolia, Huns, etc) but that's it.

So, I start with 4 cities and do nothing for 300 turns, than kill everyone in the last 50?

You don't need to kill everyone. You just need to take their capitals to win by domination. You need a little more finesse in your warmongering.

You should almost never take a city state. And definitely not for just one strategic resource. Could you not pay 5gpt or swap a luxury to another AI for access to iron?

Take cities, just leave them with a bunch of garbage cities so you get less warmonger hate and they aren't a threat.

Or okay continents and clear out the entire continent before you meet the other Civs.

I will not necessarily wait till turn 300 but artillery makes war easy so I go to war at that point.
Sometimes if I am invited to go to war earlier I may join but not necessarily do a lot just hope to get a nice settlement from it. If I play Zulus or England I go to war earlier. But those games are played as war games from the beginning where the focus is war not wonders or growth of your own civilization.
But as said science is always a key for any game and need to be a focus so science buildings have to go up and the NC built early. Size of cities is important for science so if money is not needed caravans should be food caravans to the capital.

King actually isn't hard. Prince might be where the AI is about on equal footing to the player, and it's no longer tutorial mode. King is where the AI's advantage start to make it lopsided towards them, at least in the beginning. But a good player should still wipe the floor with them. Past that victories aren't always guaranteed and you have to plan your victory strategy.

At King and higher, you will be at tech, unit, and resource disadvantages early on. For the most part, those advantages equalize with you as the game goes on, so that's why you shouldn't fear. Just understand that they'll vastly out-tech you early on, and have a stronger military immediately. This means that the early wonders are probably out of the question, and you want some, you'll have to beeline to them and still may not get them.

As I was saying before, at the higher levels, you can't just goof around and figure it out as you go along if you want to win before somebody else does. If you want Cultural, guarantee that you have a religion, go after the late Wonders and maybe grab some early ones if they fall into your lap, and get as many dig sites as you can. If you want science stay peaceful, and play the game as clearly as possible. If you want Diplomatic, get $$$ and gain the alliances of all of the CS's. If you want Domination, forget the Wonders altogether (because you'll be stealing them and the art), pick a time to rush and never look back.

Vajrajina said:

How do I convince them to go to war with me? If I have inferior military, why would I want them to attack me, if I have superior, they would be stupid to attack first.

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The AI actually is aware of this. But it has some flaws in its calculation that a human can exploit to make the AI think his army is really than it really is:

1. AI undervalues ranged units

2. While the AI does have a gold reserve concept, the values use for unit upgrades don't scale correctly for this to fully work.

So later on on purpose leaving your units one era behind latest and greatest but having the cash to instantly upgrade them all will make you look weaker than you really are.

I WONNED!

And you guys were right all along. I let the early game statistics of my enemies intimidate me. Come late game I was laughing in their faces and could do completely random things for fun and get away with it. It was a stomp.

I played Korea and lo and behold, went for a scientific victory. However, it wasn't all flowers and sunhine, a couple of things to point out:

I possibly had the worst strategic start of all the civs out there. Austria had her own island, surrounded by ocean. The polish and Assyria also had their own islands. The Shoshone and the Babylonians shared, and so did the Aztecs and the Japanese.

However, I was sharing with the Egyptians AND the Mayas. Not only that, I was squeezed into the smallest corner of the island, with the Mayans and the Egyptians immediately the way of any expansion. The 2nd city was fine, the 3rd one had to be rushed so I can steal a luxury resource of a CS with land purchase (sorry Melbourne), but the 4th one wasn't at all possible to be founded anywhere reasonable, so with 4 swordsmen and 2 catapults I had to take the Mayan capital, as it was literally the only possible route to expansion.

After that I was pretty peaceful, as the guy above suggested, leaving my military behind let the Egyptians believe they can have a go at me. A few turns later when I had cannons and riflemen shooting at his longswords he changed his mind and I got a vastly favourable peace deal without ever invading his territory (which would have been a pain in the *ss because he had great wall).

The 2nd difficulty was the Korean UU, the ship, which I really wish I haven't had. Despite my technological edge I had to wait for Frigates to explore, so the Shoshone made the world congress happen and they kept their lead all game along.
Not only that, Maria Theresa, who was SPAMMING wonders like crazy, also immediately had Arts Funding voted on the first congress of Shoshone-City.

However, once I had bombers and Rocket artillery I casually turned up at Vienna and destroyed her face, mainly because she had A TON of wonders that I wanted (she even stole the Leainging Tower). Shooting rockets at hussars is just evil. I actually GAINED happiness as I captured Vienna because of the great many wonders it had.

Later, I buddied up with the Babylonians, as we alone adopted freedom (Austria went Nazi and everybody else was Order), and we both secured a ton of city states, I used my spies to take ALL the CS of Shoshone, as their delegate number was intimidating at one point. When I proposed the cancellation of Arts funding, he proposed Order as world ideology. So I was a bit worried that he may win diplomatically (since I made sure Austria won't win culturally), but in the end my spies managed to undermine that plan, and again, Nebuchadnezzar was a really helpful dude.

In the end, I got the rocket parts (and had some more fun in Austria with my space-age toys), and won the game with a towering lead.

However, the Austrians were still quite intimidating, so I'm glad I popped their bubble before they got more confident.

Thanks for the help guys, food is definitely the way to go.

Vajrajina said:

I WONNED!
Thanks for the help guys, food is definitely the way to go.

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No matter what strategy you play (wide or tall) you need one big city as early as possibly to work the Writers Guild and other valuable production tiles (i.e. pastures and quarries...). The 6 culture per turn from the Writer's guild is your best source of early culture and the earlier you get great works help this as well.
The best way to ensure that you don't sacrifice growth is to run an internal food route to the capital. If you're able to get a coastal start and you plant a second coastal city then prioritize a granary in that new city and get a trade ship running food to the capital asap. Also if you're going liberty don't neglect engineering for too long as once you get over size 8 growth really slows without an aqueduct.
Even if you want to do an early wide civ of 10 cities which it is worthwhile trying to do (if you have the space and luxuries) as it really teaches you how to optimize your gameplay. If you succeed in holding together an over-extended empire and manage happiness and diplomacy then you know your ready for a higher difficulty

As far as landlocked Civs goes I'm still undecided on the value of internal routes, compared to external routes. I think they start at 4 food per turn which is still powerful but it's much less than what you get on the cargo ships. It does depend quite a bit on the difficulty level, on Diety the AI gets a huge handicap on technology and sending trade routes to them gives you a huge early science bonus.