Why is King difficulty so hard?

Mesix said:

I'd rather have walls in the city than an extra warrior and/or archer.

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For me it's the opposite. AI is so bad at war that you can clear the field with 2-3 ranged units. Once it's done, you can use these units to conquer more cities, thing you can't do with a wall. You might want a wall if a nice natural walled border city block an entire chunk of land that you want to develop until a peaceful victory.

I do build walls in mp games when i fight a fierce and smart opponent.

MkLh said:

If you are going to lose a city without a wall you are quite close to losing it with a wall too. The "marginal" where a wall is useful is therefore quite thin. Often it's a good idea to keep some spare cash to buy some emergency units when you need them.

edit: sorry, I should have answered to _hero_'s message.

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I think you underestimate walls. At that early stage of the game, they also increase the cities combat strength by roughly 50%. This is a pretty substantial increase to the damage an incoming attack takes and reduction in damage the city takes. I've seen the AI turn and retreat immediately after seeing me finish a wall. If you're playing a hard enough difficulty, 2 units or a wall alone isn't good enough and that was my main point to begin with. Combined, units and a wall are nearly impossible for the AI to take out. With just one of the other the AI can do it with a large enough force.

_hero_ said:

I think you underestimate walls. At that early stage of the game, they also increase the cities combat strength by roughly 50%. This is a pretty substantial increase to the damage an incoming attack takes and reduction in damage the city takes. I've seen the AI turn and retreat immediately after seeing me finish a wall. If you're playing a hard enough difficulty, 2 units or a wall alone isn't good enough and that was my main point to begin with. Combined, units and a wall are nearly impossible for the AI to take out. With just one of the other the AI can do it with a large enough force.

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Usually when I'm losing a city it's like 4-5 enemy units surrounding the city and some ranged units behind them. In situations like that, a wall may delay losing it for one turn but it won't save it. If you really want to keep your city, you need to destroy or stop enemy units before they are able to besiege it. Before SP-bonuses a wall is in my building order behind (at least) granary, monument, temple, stoneworks, circus, colosseum and library if it's needed for NC. Therefore it has quite a low priority.

He's right...you are drastically underestimating the effect a wall has. It increases damage dealt to enemies when using ranged attack, it also increases damage dealt when a melee unit attacks the city, it reduces the damage the city takes from attacks, and it increases the healing damage a city recovers between turns. A city with walls should be able to defend from 5-6 units in the early era relatively easily...especially if it is also on a hill and/or requires the enemy to cross a river.

Walls are hands down the best investment on higher levels of difficulty where you need to play on defense if an enemy DOW comes your way. I do agree that it generally isn't an effective use of time. Save some for a rainy day (or trade to friendly civs to get the necessary cash), and purchase walls when the need arises. That's not to say that units are less necessary, just that a cost benefit analysis demonstrates that when quick defense ramp-up is required, purchasing walls in a strategic border city will deal more damage to the enemy than purchasing a couple of ancient era units.

Are you continuing the game? I mean, when I try higher dificulty levels, it looks harder at start. They get many wonders, more land, lots nd lots of units....

But after some time, when you "switch to war mode", they are still easy to beat.

They may have more wonders, land, cities, and 5 times your army, but they still fail miserably at war and conquering them is quite easy.

I have been playing King for a few months now and after the initial shock of the amount of units the AI gets, I am now finding I "usually" win. However, my tactics differ in a lot of what has been said above in that I still try to grab as much expansion room as possible.

I do site my border cities in as good a defensive position as possible- such as where approach space is limited by mountains, or attackers need to attack across a stream, and have ranged units in every city. Mobility is important in that at the first sign of AI attack you need to get these units to the city under threat. Have a reserve- you shouldn't need many units - enough to hold until your construction of new units can start to kick in. Also ensure you have as many modern units as possible. The AI seems to like obsolete technology.

I like walls, and also making sure any damaged unit gets fully healed. This of course is not always possible.

I am sure the better players here would take me apart but I enjoy my games and the style I select.

In my King games, I'm always in perpetual war. I'm always ready. I never declare peace. And I never take over their cities because I want their unhappiness to climb. I've seen it happen. Their units just left at one point. They eventually came back, but every turn is one of another unit, another tech, a better wall, another policy, etc. In fact, this is exactly what the computer does if you declare peace. He just builds up for 10 turns and then declares war again.

Usually when I'm losing a city it's like 4-5 enemy units surrounding the city and some ranged units behind them. In situations like that, a wall may delay losing it for one turn but it won't save it. If you really want to keep your city, you need to destroy or stop enemy units before they are able to besiege it.

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And as I've been trying to tell you, the increased combat strength of your city from a wall will do that for you. I've saved a game before and after buying a wall with an early attack coming of 4-5 enemy units (warriors and archers.) With a wall, they lost 2 warriors, another one badly wounded, city down to around 60% health with 4 HP heal coming. Without the wall, the city was down to 25% health with a 2 HP heal and no dead units. The AI would not have been able to take the city with the wall. Without the wall, it was doomed. There was no "need to save the city before they are able to besiege it" with the wall. If I'd had 2 units, I'd have been able to take 2 of his units out AT most. If my 2 units were archers, I'd have only been able to take one out. If my one or both of my units were melee, they would have been killed after attacking, so you've now invested 400g in units just to take out two AI units then lose them, vs 400g in a wall that will last you forever.


Like I said, matter of preference.

Before SP-bonuses a wall is in my building order behind (at least) granary, monument, temple, stoneworks, circus, colosseum and library if it's needed for NC. Therefore it has quite a low priority.

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I see 3 things that can't be built in every city. Granaries have a floating priority depending on what surrounds the city. If it's got some wheat or deer they move higher. I frequently find myself putting them off because I'm constantly hitting the happiness wall so an extra 2 food isn't going to do me much good, especially since I lose 75% of it in unhappiness anyways. In that scenario it is completely pointless to even build a granary. Obviously, if you're playing a taller empire, walls are a little less important because the cities naturally are stronger and buffing the cities infrastructure is the key to your success. If you're REXing, walls on border cities can be the difference between a win or loss.

_hero_ said:

And as I've been trying to tell you, the increased combat strength of your city from a wall will do that for you. I've saved a game before and after buying a wall with an early attack coming of 4-5 enemy units (warriors and archers.) With a wall, they lost 2 warriors, another one badly wounded, city down to around 60% health with 4 HP heal coming. Without the wall, the city was down to 25% health with a 2 HP heal and no dead units. The AI would not have been able to take the city with the wall. Without the wall, it was doomed. There was no "need to save the city before they are able to besiege it" with the wall. If I'd had 2 units, I'd have been able to take 2 of his units out AT most. If my 2 units were archers, I'd have only been able to take one out. If my one or both of my units were melee, they would have been killed after attacking, so you've now invested 400g in units just to take out two AI units then lose them, vs 400g in a wall that will last you forever.

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Yeah, against 4-5 units you can just turtle with a wall and bombard them to death as there are only 2-3 melee units and ranged ones can't take a city. However, on immortal level the invading force is rarely that small (yeah I know, possibly a wrong thread).

Still find it difficult to keep up with the AI (Continents) in the late game. If you can continue to steamroll your opponents militarily, e.g. on a Pangea or on two continents separated by shallow waters, you can build an empire bigger than the AI. Otherwise, one AI swallows up each continent, and with its happiness bonus it can have a higher population, supporting more science, more units because of less upkeep, and it really just feels like a long unpleasant slog 'uphill'.

I also resent the fact that the only sure way to win at King or above is to conquer everything in sight and raze the majority of cities ... I've tried small-civ culture wins and they just aren't feasible, you end up strapped for cash and the AI builds more culture than you with its dozens of cities anyway. The national wonders are not adequate compensation for having a small civ at higher difficulties.

Anyone suggest any way out of this mess? At the moment it's looking to me like there's only really one way to play Civ5 at the 'proper' difficulty levels, and that has diminished my interest in it greatly. Same thing happened with Civ4, although it had other options like religion that reduced the monotony of constant warfare.

Horizons said:

Still find it difficult to keep up with the AI (Continents) in the late game. If you can continue to steamroll your opponents militarily, e.g. on a Pangea or on two continents separated by shallow waters, you can build an empire bigger than the AI. Otherwise, one AI swallows up each continent, and with its happiness bonus it can have a higher population, supporting more science, more units because of less upkeep, and it really just feels like a long unpleasant slog 'uphill'.

I also resent the fact that the only sure way to win at King or above is to conquer everything in sight and raze the majority of cities ... I've tried small-civ culture wins and they just aren't feasible, you end up strapped for cash and the AI builds more culture than you with its dozens of cities anyway. The national wonders are not adequate compensation for having a small civ at higher difficulties.

Anyone suggest any way out of this mess? At the moment it's looking to me like there's only really one way to play Civ5 at the 'proper' difficulty levels, and that has diminished my interest in it greatly. Same thing happened with Civ4, although it had other options like religion that reduced the monotony of constant warfare.

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I very rarely attack anyone, and even when attacked I generally play my wars defensively, only once in a blue moon actually capturing a city.

Yet I win most my games at Emperor (have also won on Immortal and Diety with similar methods, but prefer Emperor), playing most frequently on Continents.

I tend to prioritize happiness, production and grabbing good city sites as early as possible (in my current game it's around 1200 AD and I have 13 cities -- standard size map). I find science and cash will follow if you have plenty of cities, with plenty of pop and high production (you can quickly build all the appropriate science and gold buildings). Also, I space my cities fairly far apart (often 5-6 hexes between), so I wouldn't consider it ICS as I'm trying to claim nearby good city sites (luxuries, resources, natural wonders, rivers, etc). I often put an emphasis on culture (even if I mean to win by other means, I like to get plenty of social policies).

I feel that most people underrate the ability to play this game as a builder.

I don't have definite advice on build orders, as I tend to play it by feel rather than bothering with any grand strategies, but I can attest that it is by no means necessary to focus on military to win.

In most games, I'm also able to remain friendly with the majority (and sometimes all) civs -- I haven't tended to have the issues others have with diplomacy. I play this by feel as well. I still try to have in the ballpark of at least one military unit per city (more, if I have fewer cities) -- if you completely neglect your military than it's hard to complain if others decide to take advantage.

Rather than giving up, I would try various building strategies and see what works best for you. Perhaps practice these techniques more on Prince before attempting to move up.

Could anybody spare some time to look at my latest savegame as Wu Zeitan, it's 1971 (Marathon speed, so everything takes at least 20 turns to build), and Catherine has become an uber-AI, while Germany, with a smaller continent than mine, is still much more powerful because of its lowered military costs. Both are several techs ahead of me, i.e. they have bombers, fighters, Apollo program, Rocket artillery, while I don't have tanks yet. I've only just got Radio so that I can build anti-air guns!

My plan was to go down the Order route, getting Socialism and Communism, then Nationalism to help my inferior forces in case of invasion, build the UN and weasel out a diplo 'victory'.

What do you think - what have I done wrong? I signed lots of research pacts before everybody decided they hated me. Also, Catherine may be able to conquer all the city states on her continent which will make any kind of victory impossible ...

What did I do wrong here?

Well I managed to turn things round a bit by declaring war on Catherine and making peace with Bismarck ... now I can beef up my army a little bit and consolidate my defences ... however if Catherine eats up all those city-states, I'll need to liberate them militarily which will be very difficult.


Had to compress the savefile into a RAR package

MkLh said:

Yeah, against 4-5 units you can just turtle with a wall and bombard them to death as there are only 2-3 melee units and ranged ones can't take a city. However, on immortal level the invading force is rarely that small (yeah I know, possibly a wrong thread).

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To be fair, the 2 extra units in your example won't save you from a force of more then 4-5 units either. If the trade off were directly 2 extra units vs a wall, it would be situational, but usually because of the passage of time you can have both which is far better then one or the other. Frankly, on Immortal+ if you only have 400 gold to spare, you're probably doing it wrong anyways. Con the AI out of more resources and get a wall and more units.

Horizons said:

Well I managed to turn things round a bit by declaring war on Catherine and making peace with Bismarck ... now I can beef up my army a little bit and consolidate my defences ... however if Catherine eats up all those city-states, I'll need to liberate them militarily which will be very difficult.


Had to compress the savefile into a RAR package

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It was impossible to reclaim this game. Catherine built the spaceship long before I ever got anywhere near being able to build the UN and do a 'quick and dirty' diplomatic victory.

Only thing I could have done differently was expand even more aggressively at the beginning, wiping out not only Spain but Babylon to the extreme far north of my continent or possibly Germany on the continent to my left, either of which would have crippled my early economy anyway.

Note that the only thing that prevented Germany swallowing up Babylon was an isthmus tile with a mountain in it. They did take Bucharest after much effort but I liberated this city state and stationed a large army in the region to discourage future Teutonic aggressions.

I'm surprised I did half as well as I did ... using its bonuses the AI could have absolutely hammered me far sooner.

lol, if the AI gets ten times more bonuses and resources than you do ... you will generally lose.

Vorlath said:

In my King games, I'm always in perpetual war. I'm always ready. I never declare peace. And I never take over their cities because I want their unhappiness to climb. I've seen it happen. Their units just left at one point. They eventually came back, but every turn is one of another unit, another tech, a better wall, another policy, etc. In fact, this is exactly what the computer does if you declare peace. He just builds up for 10 turns and then declares war again.

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Tried a couple more Civ V king games today (after leaving the game for long enough to have lost track of where I was in earlier iterations, where I did survive the early rush). In one I got two nearly simultaneous declarations of war, and neither Oda nor Elizabeth was willing to negotiate peace. I managed to distract Oda for a while by bribing Darius to declare war on him, and was still alive by the time I got Swordsmen, having survived numerous waves of attackers and a particularly stupid (even for the AI) play by Oda when, when Orleans would have fallen to his three melee units the following turn due to damage it had taken, he withdrew two of them to attack a spearman I was sending as a relief force. But I'd been in gold-poor areas, couldn't afford to maintain more than half a dozen units, and had no prospect of getting out of the war to actually do anything creative such as winning, so ditched that one.

In the next I found just how tough Persian Immortals are in an era of warriors and archers - I got attacked very early, before I had masonry or funds for a wall, and lost the city after taking down a fair few enemy units, even with a couple of archers and a warrior supporting it.

I've played Prince to the point where it's relatively easy.

My first game on King I won a Space-Race Victory but the 3 games I've started since then have all gone horribly wrong at some stage so I just quit.

Some good tips in this thread for King level, I'll give them a go.

I find keeping up with the techs to be the most difficult thing playing King, the AI is at least 20 turns ahead, leaving my pikemen to face musketmen etc.

I agree with the Liberty tree first - tradition isn't too bad if you're France and I found Honor to be okay if I'm already having a good game but going Honor as a strategy in itself often doesn't work for me.

My most successful tree progression is Liberty > Piety > Patronage > Merchant > Freedom. If you get to the end of Freedom you can try for a Cultural victory with the Utopia Project.

Funnily enough I seem to tech up quicker this way rather than going for the Rationalism/Science tree.

@OP

Play a few games on Prince again, then try on King. You'll find it easy.

I'd say thread is too old to be accurate, since the last patch made AI expand insanely.

zyx said:

I'd say thread is too old to be accurate, since the last patch made AI expand insanely.

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That was a problem in the game prior to Gods and Kings. The expansion swung too far in the opposite direction, and the patch attempted a fix. Unfortunately the AI bonuses (happiness bonuses, free units, no penalty for a negative treasury) layer onto certain Civs' unique abilities to make them neigh unbeatable as a runaway (Rome and France jump to mind).

King is indeed a steep jump from Prince. And G&K made even Prince more difficult. Still, a lot of the advice here is still good: focus on defense, gauge which AIs might/will attack you, select your building choices carefully to reflect what each city's job is, manage any runaways you see coming along.