Basics and tips for a Civ IV player

Hello everyone.

I used to play Civ IV and be able to take on Emperor (not much of an achievement compared to people who regularly take on Deity, but it still made me quite proud; besides, I was not restricting gameplay to Pangea).
I've started Civ V (with all expansion packs) only recently. The game looks really entertaining, but I feel like lacking control over the game, leaving an unsatisfied feeling.

Currently, I play on Prince. The AI are no real threats: they can't build an army, they can't race researches, and all in all, they are just dumb.

However, the game itself is a threat. It seems that any choice I make is severly punished. Cities take ages to grow, cottages have disappeared, there's no science slidder, expanding/conquering gives incredibly harsh happyness penalties, and gold keeps plumetting. I feel like the game just wants me to sit in my capital and don't do anything.

I have read articles from the War Academy, but I felt that they did not help me much (compared to how much I learned from reading the Civ IV War Academy). I have the impression that Civ IV used to be much more user friendly where Civ V feels confusing (I am still baffled by the religious system). I don't mind complexity, but I do mind about intelligibility.

Point of my post is: basically, how should I play this game? What is so different from Civ IV that I need to know? What am I doing wrong when trying to copy what I learned from Civ IV? What am I missing to understand this game? What are the central concepts that I need to grasp?
Basics and tips are all welcome.

I used to play Civ IV, and I get the impression that Civ V is more complex -- though it might just be age and increasing stupidity.

I think a lot of players will say that science is king, and that one should concentrate on that, but I find that a bit boring. I watched this recently, and was left open-mouthed at the audacity of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvDosx_OQs0

I've also found Moriarte's Liberty domination very much to my liking:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503931

Also Tabarnak's Tradition approach -- though I find it less engaging -- I like the action of the Liberty approach, partly because I usually play England:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371

And if you want some ideas from a top player, try tommynt's guide to Poland:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378

How he achieves some of what he does, I have no idea. But basically, it is ruthlessly efficient, and seems to depend on a profound knowledge of the game mechanics allowing excellent micro-management without too much need to ponder all the multitude of variables.

Bottom line, I think, is that the more you play, the better you get. So anyone who is really good has probably spent a long time getting there ...

PS: this is vey good for the basics:

http://www.carlsguides.com/strategy/civilization5/

Alleria said:

Hello everyone.

I used to play Civ IV and be able to take on Emperor (not much of an achievement compared to people who regularly take on Deity, but it still made me quite proud; besides, I was not restricting gameplay to Pangea).
I've started Civ V (with all expansion packs) only recently. The game looks really entertaining, but I feel like lacking control over the game, leaving an unsatisfied feeling.

Currently, I play on Prince. The AI are no real threats: they can't build an army, they can't race researches, and all in all, they are just dumb.

However, the game itself is a threat. It seems that any choice I make is severly punished. Cities take ages to grow, cottages have disappeared, there's no science slidder, expanding/conquering gives incredibly harsh happyness penalties, and gold keeps plumetting. I feel like the game just wants me to sit in my capital and don't do anything.

I have read articles from the War Academy, but I felt that they did not help me much (compared to how much I learned from reading the Civ IV War Academy). I have the impression that Civ IV used to be much more user friendly where Civ V feels confusing (I am still baffled by the religious system). I don't mind complexity, but I do mind about intelligibility.

Point of my post is: basically, how should I play this game? What is so different from Civ IV that I need to know? What am I doing wrong when trying to copy what I learned from Civ IV? What am I missing to understand this game? What are the central concepts that I need to grasp?
Basics and tips are all welcome.

Click to expand...

Okay, first start with understanding that the lead designer for Civ V for Vanilla preferred when playing Civ IV to only self found a few cities and then use them to conquer the rest but when conquering to turn production over to the AI governors for all of those.

You'll quickly see that every design decision of vanilla in Civ V punished players NOT doing that.

Next, the AI flavor logic was designed around initial CD release of Civ V. So when it was found that global happiness restrictions were laughable and they were greatly tightly up by the balance patches during the first 18 months, they simply set the AI to play on "Chieftain" level so the high expansion flavor - low happiness flavor could get away with it.
As a result, as a human, you can't safely emulate what you see of AI behavior on Prince.
Vanilla is the toughest for happiness, religions were added into the game for G&K and ideologies for BNW which both introduced some much needed additional happiness sources.
In addition, BNW created the new "AI Default Handicap" level so the AI's happiness bonuses are reduces from what they were, and the per city culture increase cost was reduced. (It does however introduce a new science per city increase cost and gave the AI a new science bonus handicap on all difficulty levels.)

The AI's decisions aren't really random, they are very reproducible, it's just that they have no long term memory and are making their decisions upon data that changes very rapidly.

There's two main early styles of play:

1. Tall Tradition (self found no more than 4 cities including the capital), get them all big, especially the capital. Take full advantage of how powerful the national wonders are by getting them built quickly and have several natural golden ages over the course of the game. Don't worry if the AI founds on good city spots, you can take them later.

This could be followed by conquests of the AI, for both Vanilla and G&K it was generally leave cities you didn't raze as puppets forever unless it was a former capital. In BNW, it's now the norm to eventually annex most cities that you keep at all, but you still wait until after it comes out of resistance and at a time that it won't interfere with national wonder construction by requiring yet another copy [directly related to the reduced per city cultural acquisition cost]).

This is generally the easier of the two to master, since it's not fighting the game design, but going with the flow.

2. Wide Liberty. (self found 6+ cities). Don't worry as much about growth, and don't worry about most national wonders. I'll defer to a liberty expert on details.

If you have G&K or BNW:

Getting a religion with happiness beliefs is part of Liberty's bread and butter. It doesn't have to be your own if an AI next to you does this though.

Tradition will still use religion, but mostly as a way of saving some construction and maintenance costs. (A Tradition approach when combined with a religion can often skip Zoos.)

If you have BNW:
If you've won a few games with either Tradition or Liberty approach on a given level, you can try Piety, but it's a much harder game (it doesn't have either of Liberty's faster settler production or Tradition's happiness & food bonuses); it's a lot like dropping down one difficulty level, if you can win playing Tradition or Liberty at Difficulty level X, you can definitely still win playing Piety one difficulty level lower than normal.

In all cases, the above posts have links to some guides.

Every single civ can follow the Tradition guide for the proper version of Civ V and do it well. (Even Venice which can't build settlers)

Just about every civ can follow the Liberty guide for the proper version of Civ V and can normally do well.
(India though is the main example of a civ that can't follow the Liberty guide [double city unhappiness means that you lose 6 global happiness points every time you found a new city, but the half pop unhappiness means when your not founding cities your global happiness stays more nearly stable] and in addition this carries a risk that the AIs are so close you won't be able to self found at least 6 cities)

There are civs with UBs providing extra happiness, a Liberty player uses them to get an additional city up faster if the UB is early enough. A Tradition player would get an extra GA or two out of the civ's UB.

So it mostly becomes a matter of which strategy your more comfortable with.

Thank you very much for the tips guys, it was really instructive and helpful.

I have beaten King quite easily and I'm now trying to step up to Emperor.

I have to say I feel disappointed as the AI is basically useless (even warmongers suck at building enough military units, and no AI seems to ever take off the tech race) and the only threat is the way the game works itself (mainly how gold and happyness are handled).
Besides, I don't see why I would take anything but Tradition, exept maybe for the sake of varying the way to play. Liberty seemed great as a Civ IV player (free settlers and workers), but focussing on 3 cities seems much more effective. As for Piety, Honor, and Patronage, whatever the way you want to play it seems that they are always subpar in doing what they were designed to do compared to Tradition.
Though the game has its fair share of good points, it feels way less polished and deep than Civ IV (is micro management entierly gone?). Maybe I'm missing something...

Well, at least I'm having fun.

Your assessments of Honor and Piety are right on the mark, but Patronage actually is pretty good. Wheras Honor/Piety/Liberty/Tradition are starter branches, Patronage is a secondary one. It primarily serves as a way to enhance a Diplomatic victory -- I'm a bit of a CS addict anyhow, though, so I might be a bit biased towards it. The standard Policy path I usually see on these forums is first filling out Liberty or Tradition, then picking up a few policies out of a mix of exploration, commerce, aesthetics, and patronage (the latter two more so for cultural or diplomatic victories, respectively.) After you hit Renissance, we usually hurry up through Rationalism, then mix that and what's thought to be the best policies of your choice from your ideology once you unlock those.

Just wanted to clear that one up.

is micro management entirely gone?

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No, it isn't, but I've found it takes a while to learn how to do it. The most obvious place to do it is within the city management screen. Assigning the citizens to work on particular tiles according to the requirements of the moment (food, production, gold, etc.) is important to get the best out of your cities.

Some players, like tommynt, will also do things like stopping construction of each section of a road before it is completed. That means that you don't pay for the road before you need it, but when you do need it, it can be completed much faster. Using multiple workers simultaneously to build a road (each working on a separate section) is another trick that will save money. But it takes some organising.

Micro-management is the single most important aspect of the game. Learn it, master it, and become a master of the game.

One way to play liberty, when not founding 6+ cities is to use free settler to claim critical early resource. IN civ4 it was cooper or iron, in civ5 it is horses. any civ can do chariot rush supported by a few composites if target is in flat ground. Civ that have early horses based UU can use that for even bigger advantage. (assuming you do not have access to horses in capital.

Mutineer said:

One way to play liberty, when not founding 6+ cities is to use free settler to claim critical early resource. IN civ4 it was cooper or iron, in civ5 it is horses. any civ can do chariot rush supported by a few composites if target is in flat ground. Civ that have early horses based UU can use that for even bigger advantage. (assuming you do not have access to horses in capital.

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It's still going to better if you went liberty to while having made that one of your first cities to have built to go ahead and self found some more cities (either before or after your rush and the liberty policy will give you the option to raze and refound the AIs cities in their correct locations)

Is religion important? Should I try to found one, should I get one from the AI, or should I just don't give a damn? You have many options to chose from (which is a good thing), but the bonuses don't seem overwhelming.

What are the important wonders? I always try to get the Great Library as I find it very powerful, but am I right? Just like in Civ IV, most of the other wonders look like they give only marginal bonuses as well, but am I missing something?

mbbcam said:

No, it isn't, but I've found it takes a while to learn how to do it. The most obvious place to do it is within the city management screen. Assigning the citizens to work on particular tiles according to the requirements of the moment (food, production, gold, etc.) is important to get the best out of your cities.

Some players, like tommynt, will also do things like stopping construction of each section of a road before it is completed. That means that you don't pay for the road before you need it, but when you do need it, it can be completed much faster. Using multiple workers simultaneously to build a road (each working on a separate section) is another trick that will save money. But it takes some organising.

Click to expand...

klaskeren said:

Micro-management is the single most important aspect of the game. Learn it, master it, and become a master of the game.

Click to expand...

I know I'm still knew to Civ V, but compared to Civ IV where you basically had to watch every single turn the tiles you were using and the specialists you were working, as well as managing the growth of your city , I have the impression that city management in Civ V can be summed up by "max food". And as you are maxing food, your city can basically work all the interesting tiles around it.
As for workers micromanagement, Civ IV also had its share of it, mainly with pre-chopping forests.

So, what am I missing that I should be micromanaging more?

Mutineer said:

One way to play liberty, when not founding 6+ cities is to use free settler to claim critical early resource. IN civ4 it was cooper or iron, in civ5 it is horses. any civ can do chariot rush supported by a few composites if target is in flat ground. Civ that have early horses based UU can use that for even bigger advantage. (assuming you do not have access to horses in capital.

Click to expand...

As you would mainly use Axes/Maces + Catapults (and latter, Riffles+Canons until Tanks and Bombers kick in) in Civ IV, I find myself using the same strategy in Civ V. I found some love for the new way archers are designed, but I don't see yet how to efficiently use mounted units, and they felt weak when I tried them. Could you please explain why are horses so important?

Once again, thank you very much for the feedbacks guys.

Mine seems to be a minority opinion, but I will share anyway...

klaskeren said:

Micro-management is the single most important aspect of the game.

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Certainly, to be a very top tier player, the micro is essential. I am reasonably successfully at Immortal with almost no micro-management. I say do as much as you enjoy. I got started with V late, after the first (or maybe second) major patch. I suspect that early governor was terrible, and people developed micro habits. The default governor is making the same choices I read about people advocating for prolly 19/20 tiles. Also, by not micro-managing, you loose a hammer or two every time a city grows. Just not worth the effort in my experience.

Alleria said:

Hello everyone.

I used to play Civ IV and be able to take on Emperor (not much of an achievement compared to people who regularly take on Deity, but it still made me quite proud; besides, I was not restricting gameplay to Pangea).

Click to expand...

I only played Civ IV on Immortal because Deity was no fun. Too much warmongering required, you couldn't do fun stuff like Oracle slingshots and forget about religion.

mbbcam said:

I used to play Civ IV, and I get the impression that Civ V is more complex -- though it might just be age and increasing stupidity.

Click to expand...

This game is much simpler for a variety of reasons. A lot of the real skill elements from Civ IV like the whip were removed, and the AI still can't play 1UPT to save its life. Stack of doom was a dumb tactic, but it did give the AI a fighting chance. If you could beat Emperor in the last game, you'll be regularly trashing Deity in CiV in no time.

Alleria said:

I know I'm still knew to Civ V, but compared to Civ IV where you basically had to watch every single turn the tiles you were using and the specialists you were working, as well as managing the growth of your city , I have the impression that city management in Civ V can be summed up by "max food". And as you are maxing food, your city can basically work all the interesting tiles around it.
As for workers micromanagement, Civ IV also had its share of it, mainly with pre-chopping forests.

So, what am I missing that I should be micromanaging more?

Click to expand...

Pre-chopping Forests is still extremely useful (Wonders), as is pre-building roads. Microing which tiles citizens work (usually to ignore growth briefly to force a key Wonder) should also be familiar to you.

As far as new things: you need to micro using Production Focus for the extra on growth steps, you probably need to stop mousing unit movement, and you need to exploit overflow. Microing to get policies at the right time (sometimes to the point of selling a building) is often essential. A lot of the warmongering types swear by staying at war (for a good long while) with the CS you steal a Worker from to train units.

Alleria said:

Point of my post is: basically, how should I play this game?

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Just grow, baby. Everything else will rapidly take care of itself. , , etc. Learn to plan ahead to keep positive, and let your do the work.

compare to civ4 civ5 micro is mach less important. But it is not max food, that mostly apply to tall tradition.

The micro of civ5 is actually enjoyable in my opinion. I've seen some really annoying game asking for constant boring micro, this isn't one of them.

first and most important piece of advice from another civ4 player: do NOT treat civ5 like civ4!!! you will have an easier learning curve with civ4 experience, but you will not progress very far unless you 'unlearn' a lot.

also, civ5 is much more forgiving at higher levels. so don't be afraid to jump into emp/imm if you find you're kicking butt already on prince.

lastly, have fun! in a lot of ways, civ5 allows you to play how you WANT to play and still win, compared to civ4. some may see that as a negative (including me, at first!) but once you get comfortable with the new rules and gameplay it becomes a lot more fun and a lot less 'that one mistake cost me the game.'