How good players think differently from new players

New players tend to think very much in broad strategies and logical guidelines while good players tend to evaluate everything based on the actual game values and estimating what is actually good.

new player: I have Morocco, my unique ability is gold and culture from caravans, i should take advantage of this, so lets send my caravan to the city state and not my expansion

Good player: My UA bonus is only 3 gold and 1 culture, the culture is for sure negligible, and the early food in this expansion is more important than the gold.
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new player: I should settle in this spot, that way all my resources are in range

Good player: that spot has better tiles in the short term, even though i will not have as many resources in the end game, my early and midgame will be stronger from having my good tiles earlier, this bonus will even make my endgame economy stronger from the snowballing.
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new player: I am byzantium, so i should logically go for the religious wonders, and go piety.

Good player: When looking at the actual boni of the religion, its for sure not worth it to base your entire game plan around it, and invest so much in religion, losing out on better social policies.
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New player: I should grow as much as possible in the early game! bigger cities are better cities, farm everything and work as much food as possible

Good player: each early growth will give me 1-2 science per turn or so, and i have limited production tiles, so i wont have much production to gain, early growth only really means a bigger number, working alot of production is better to get my vital buildings/settlers/units out faster. When NC and university modifiers kick in, and civil service gives better value from farms, this makes growing better value, and that is the time to grow alot. I should mostly improve production early game.
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New player:

I have great production! i should focus alot on production!
I have great growth! lets focus everything on food!
I have great culture, lets build alot of culture things and become a culture powerhouse!
I have alot of gold, i should build economic buildings so i can become an economic powerhouse!
I am babylon! i should build the great library and become a science powerhouse!

Good player: There are diminishing returns of all parameters especially culture and gold. Balancing all parameters is mostly better than focusing everything in one.
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new player: I have X civ, therefore i should do Y otherwise X´s boni are wasted

Good player. I have X civ, but Y is not worth it, Z is better even though X´s boni might be wasted.

New players; Forming very long term plans, like getting all the tiles in range, leveling units too much, getting all the wonders before expanding, Dont understand the parameter of Opportunity cost

Good players; prioritizing short term boni, since they know that getting things done fast is key.

Focusing more on production is something I've got to get better at. I might play some deity games to try out some of the stuff you taught me. I find in single players you are able to gauge success better by playing maps multiple times and trying different strats.

You made a really good point about how a civs bonus shouldn't dictate how you play. Something people need to learn is to play very well without relying on the bonus's of civs at all and then they can play with any civ except ghandi and venice (since those two civs have negative attributes that need to be taken into consideration). If I'm china I shouldn't go to war because I have chokonus, I should go to war becuase it is in my best interests period. There a few obvious cases though were adapting to a civ is best. But that really only applies to the OP civs, like starting out with a monument as Ethiopia instead of scout.

This is why I hate ghandi and venice. You are kind of forced to adapt because of their negative attributes. Like how venice doesn't have settlers. And in the case of ghandi if you like to expand fast (and most good players do) you are limited to that.

Nice post, K.

When I play peaceful, I'm probably guilty of a lot of this, even though I have 1000 hours+ !!

But you know that the plural of bonus is not boni, right?

Very insightful post, but I think you need to add a third category -- the seasoned player. That would be things like:

Seasoned player: I have X civ, but Y is not worth it, Z is better. I am doing Y anyway. Z is how I play every other game...

Things are different for MP, when you really cannot afford to mess around.

I agree with all...
except from my experience it's actually the newer players who leave their cities on production focus (not food focus); I've looked at quite a few saves where people forgot to grow... I've yet to see a save where people grew too many farms and forgot to produce.

Science, however, is the one thing people seem to be fine with throwing everything away for it (wonders, culture, faith, gold) since SV is SV after all (it is a very one-dimensional VC as opposed to domination or culture)

Haha, definitely spot on

consentient said:

But you know that the plural of bonus is not boni, right?

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Indeed -- and it's not "bonus's" either! It's bonuses -- the word came into English in the late 18th century, according to the OED. But your English is excellent, as I would expect from Denmark . Just remember that "a lot" is two words ...

I also recognise myself in a lot of this. I make all of these mistakes time and again. So it's not just new players who do it. It can also be relatively experienced ones who just can't quite adapt to the game. One day I may play a god game, but I doubt it. Whatever it is this game requires, I haven't got it.

Most of it comes down to opportunity cost. I often see new players argue for their strategy by its own logic rather than comparative: I play piety because I'm celts therefore religion synergy. It has some sense and is tbh a better plan than my girlfriend would make But then you have to compare to other possibilities and see which one will get you further at the same time in the game.
Though, once you are confident about your game you may want to experiment in order to spice things up.

consentient said:

Nice post, K.

When I play peaceful, I'm probably guilty of a lot of this, even though I have 1000 hours+ !!

But you know that the plural of bonus is not boni, right?

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mbbcam said:

Indeed -- and it's not "bonus's" either! It's bonuses -- the word came into English in the late 18th century, according to the OED. But your English is excellent, as I would expect from Denmark . Just remember that "a lot" is two words ...

I also recognise myself in a lot of this. I make all of these mistakes time and again. So it's not just new players who do it. It can also be relatively experienced ones who just can't quite adapt to the game. One day I may play a god game, but I doubt it. Whatever it is this game requires, I haven't got it.

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Thank you in advance for welcoming me to the fora. I actually made account just so that I could reply to this. Having studied latin and being interested in linguistics in general, I just have to release my inner linguist-nazi upon ye.

Boni, as plural for bonus, is correct. Bonus is from latin, and the latin plural in this case is boni. Same goes for cactus, which is cacti. Then there are words like forum, which are fora in plural. And words like alga which are algea.

However, borrowed words do not necessarily also borrow the correct conjugations. "Bonuses" is correct in english only insofar as english, and other languages, usually don't bother to also borrow the correct conjugations all the time. In other words, the english language has corrupted boni into bonuses, but since we're writing in english that corruption is still correct.

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and in reply to the OP: I am very guilty of that. I guess the biggest flaw is that I strive for perfect this and perfect that, and think in long term benefits, even if doing so might actually be bad in the long run, because of lost oportunities. good post.

wow just learned latin plural form for bonus. most educational thing I've seen in this thread.

for new players, I think it's the tendency to fall into one way of playing the game and being afraid to try other things because of the pressure AI puts on the player. like because I know 4 city turtle science works, I always do this regardless of the civ or the map....or that's the plan when my original plan is stalled.

for old players, it's just "oooh a worker, yoink! a settler, yoink!" and then because of sheer experience with the game, they know the reactions of the AI in certain situations and use it to their advantage. this is really noticeable in the worker bait trick Acken loves.

Sessy said:

this is really noticeable in the worker bait trick Acken loves.

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and there I was wondering how to move in and take a city and not lose half my units on the next turn, truly fascinating just how simple it is

stormtrooper412 said:

and there I was wondering how to move in and take a city and not lose half my units on the next turn, truly fascinating just how simple it is

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worker bait! so when you have an invasion force rumbling toward an enemy city you simply put a worker on point? nice. i don't know why i have never thought to do this

thanks

Worker baiting works almost every time I try it. I love it. The only time I have seen it fail is when I have a unit too close to the capital and the unit inside will not come out so you have to move your units out of sight usually.

I use it but not as much as I should in games. Some games I have 5-10 workers in the front which I enjoy and other games I have 1 or none which makes the game harder. As many complaints as I have seen about all the exploits in the game and players arguing about them... I never see too many players complain about worker baiting which is a pretty obvious exploit. However I do not mind it in the game the same way I do not mind Bribes or other things that I or other players do that are considered exploits.

About the OP...

I am a bit lost in what it is saying exactly. Everyone who has posted here pretty much agrees and understands what Klaskeren is saying but it went over my head. I guess I can't see myself in either category. I do not think in terms for either the new or good player examples. Maybe it is because I am not new and I am not good so I don't exactly get it. I find it interesting though but I do not see myself thinking about the game in any of the examples that were given. I do not really think about it in long or short term. I just play turn by turn trying to adapt to whatever is happening around me. I keep changing my plan over and over as things unfold in the game. A lot of times I am trying to play peaceful and I have a plan set in place and all of a sudden the AI walks a settler right in front of me and I have to change my plan drastically because I am going to take that settler or worker or caravan that I have to plunder.

The most terrible of exploits in my opinion is being able to sell a captured city to friendly Huns for 2000 gold who then proceed to raze it for you and they do it faster than you would

I hate how Civ5 city strength are ridiculous (for the first half) that's how I feel better about worker baiting

stormtrooper412 said:

The most terrible of exploits in my opinion is being able to sell a captured city to friendly Huns for 2000 gold who then proceed to raze it for you and they do it faster than you would

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It is pretty bad but it is worse when you can sell it to your DOF who is at war with your enemy and the enemy recaptures the city on the next turn and you sell it right back to your DOF for the same amount of gold lol! Another good one is planting two settlers right in font of your enemy and sell them both to your DOF who is at war with your enemy. Now the enemy captures one or both and you recapture and sell them right back to your DOFs breaking the bank!

Ah yea, forgot about that one. I once racked up free 200 gpt in 5 turns

This is very true. Especially the part about good players ignoring some civ specific abilities because normal behavior is superior. Also, the part about improving production over food early and then improving food around civil service when river side tiles give much better yields.

CraigMak said:

This is very true. Especially the part about good players ignoring some civ specific abilities because normal behavior is superior. Also, the part about improving production over food early and then improving food around civil service when river side tiles give much better yields.

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that simply means the civs were quite poorly designed by the devs (unbalanced), hence why we have tiers for civs.

The way I see it each civ's UA SHOULD be powerful enough for players to try to build their games around it (otherwise the civ needs to be buffed); if say, Byzantium's ability says: your religion spreads at double speed and gets a free enhancer and reformation belief and founder belief bonuses are doubled...
Then any game with Byzantium people will almost always go piety for example. I think that would make the civs more varied in their strats.

kb27787 said:

that simply means the civs were quite poorly designed by the devs (unbalanced), hence why we have tiers for civs.

The way I see it each civ's UA SHOULD be powerful enough for players to try to build their games around it (otherwise the civ needs to be buffed); if say, Byzantium's ability says: your religion spreads at double speed and gets a free enhancer and reformation belief and founder belief bonuses are doubled...
Then any game with Byzantium people will almost always go piety for example. I think that would make the civs more varied in their strats.

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Yes, some civs have nearly useless abilities while others are God mode. If Byzantium had all that I would not go Piety. Piety is a dumpster fire as well as Honor. Tradition and Liberty are the only viable paths to be competitive.