Can never get too far in a game...

I jumped 2 difficulty levels just by watching MadDjinn's videos on Youtube. You could try that. He's easy to follow and entertaining. Also makes you want to play the game.

Tempto said:

And this is where everything collapses; I experienced severe happiness problems. I finally saved and stopped when I had -20 happiness. I don't know if I'm going to continue the game, or if I can somehow salvage it, but I think the situation is hopeless. Either way, I learned some things, the most important of which is to NOT NEGLECT HAPPINESS AT ANY POINT if I aim for going wide.

Any advice you can give me through analysis of my gameplay would also be much appreciated. Thanks!

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You shouldn't be annexing Byzantium's cities at all until you have excess gold and infrastructure. There's no need to restore them to their "glory" or something at that moment. Puppets are there for one major reason: a gold farm city. You're wasting 20 something turns to build a courthouse which A) is a waste of gold if you lack a proper economy and B) in the meantime your happiness will be low. As a general rule of thumb, you should only be annexing cities when you have A) enough gold to buy a courthouse right away, B) good enough population to start prioritizing science/happiness instead of gold, and/or C) at a strategic location for your continued warfare or something.

Annexing them means unnecessary cultural increase for policies which saves you from happiness issues. Because puppet cities like to build defensive buildings, a typical war game often involves going down Honor's right tree after either Liberty or Tradition to acquire major happiness policies (+1 happiness per garrison city and +1 happiness for each defensive building in a city) which are huge to maintain happiness. In addition if you've got a religion with Ceremonial Burial + Pagodas + Ascesticism, you're likely never have a happiness issue unless you're overexpanding like crazy.

If you're going for wide domination liberty policy ( meritocracy) will pay off well in later game. You should've puppet all the captured cities first since cities will resist for few turns (depends on the population) after you captured it therefore it won't give you any productivity or gold. Puppet cities give lesser unhappiness compare to annexed cities without courthouse. Just annex some cities that have good potential (after it won't resist). Don't build courthouse in all cities at once especially in early game due to lesser production. Take autocracy in later game there's a policy that gives you bonus local happiness for each courthouse and extra production to build it. Oh ya, later you should build forbidden palace it gives you -10% unhappiness for unoccupied cities (city you own/annexed, puppet didn't get the bonus)

First, don't sweat it too much. I started playing Warlord as well on Small maps and when I got the feel of the game, moved up to Prince, then King, then Emperor. Anywhere above that is too stressful for me.

First, try playing TALL and PEACEFUL. This means you only have four cities at most that will grow to pop 20+ and fight only defensive wars. Why this mode? Simple really. It will allow you to familiarize yourself with city management and basic warfare.

You don't have to settle in place. It's best practice to move your warrior first before settling. Some Considerations on the first 50 or so turns:
1.) Presence of River - it will give good early game Food and Commerce. Both are important for a strong foundation.
2.) Hill - If at all possible, settle on a hill. This makes your city more defensible and less prone to getting sacked.
3.) Mountain - this could get you an Observatory later on, which is great for the science boost.
4.) Luxuries - this will determine your opening tech path. On higher difficulties, settling on them is IMPERATIVE, since it saves worker time by connecting the resource as soon as you get the tech.

What I usually do:
1.) Move my Warrior. Decide to settle or not. If not, move my Settler in the general direction of my Warrior.
2.) If a good place is found, settle. Build Scout. Opening Tech is Pottery (If I want an early religion) -> Mining (if there are forests to chop or mining resources nearby) / Archery
3.) Build Worker
4.) Build an Archer or two
5.) Sell ALL LUXES. At this early in the game, being happy does not matter much. Remember that you only need one of the resource to get the happiness bonus. All excess can be traded for gold (on standard pace, that's 240 Lump or 83 Lump + 5 GPT for full price)or other excess luxes the AI might have.

Early game, Archers are your go-to units for barb busting and defense. They are far more important to you than warriors. Aim to have at least four, then get Construction, so you can defend yourself more easily.

yeah, basically from what i can see, you would have been doing fine if you had puppeted those cities instead of annexing them. I won't repeat what was said before but they are good points. there is really almost no good coming out of annexing those cities so early. maybe later when you have excess gold/happiness, but right now, you should focus on your cities first. puppets will automatically focus on gold production.

Clause said:

Oh ya, later you should build forbidden palace it gives you -10% unhappiness for unoccupied cities (city you own/annexed, puppet didn't get the bonus)

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This is not true. Puppets should also be getting this bonus (unless they change this in a patch or something). The only conditions that don't get this bonus is when A) you annexed a city without a courthouse and B) city is under resistance after recent capture.

I have similar problems. I can run away with a game as long as no one attacks me early. I really need a yardstick just to see where I should be with number of cities, number of units. Also, how do you tell when another civ is about to declare war? Was easy to see coming in civ4 but I have no idea how diplomacy works in civ5.

On prince, standard size map, how many cities do I want say by 1AD? Like 4? Does it depend on the civ?

How many defensive units do I need per city? Sounds like an archer garrison and an army of 3-4 archers to fend off assaults.

Also, how do you guys use city states? Ignore them til further into the game? The benefits are sweet but that's a lot of gold early game.

civvver said:

I have similar problems. I can run away with a game as long as no one attacks me early. I really need a yardstick just to see where I should be with number of cities, number of units. Also, how do you tell when another civ is about to declare war? Was easy to see coming in civ4 but I have no idea how diplomacy works in civ5.

On prince, standard size map, how many cities do I want say by 1AD? Like 4? Does it depend on the civ?

How many defensive units do I need per city? Sounds like an archer garrison and an army of 3-4 archers to fend off assaults.

Also, how do you guys use city states? Ignore them til further into the game? The benefits are sweet but that's a lot of gold early game.

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Here's what I do, but I don't know the timing, so I can't talk about 1AD.

Other advice in here is great. Sell early luxuries if you can to generate cash, and buy a settler. I like going Scout - Monument - Shrine - Settler. Also, I go Liberty and will eventually get my fourth Settler from the SP.

I find that 2 or 3 archers -> Composite Bowmen are enough at Prince for early defense. The only way to see if someone really is about to declare war is to notice their troops massing near your borders.

And yes, I ignore City States until later, unless they have quests to clear barb encampments, which I'll go for. Once I have 5 or 6 cities up and running, I'll be looking to take out my closest neighbor.

Hope that helps. I've been very successful with my Prince/Large/Epic Domination games lately.

Cheers.

Tachii said:

This is not true. Puppets should also be getting this bonus (unless they change this in a patch or something). The only conditions that don't get this bonus is when A) you annexed a city without a courthouse and B) city is under resistance after recent capture.

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Yea u were right, puppet do get bonus after resistance period.

Thanks again for all the advice, everyone. I'll take into account everything I've learned through this thread. =)