building syndrom&some gen questions

Hi guys.
Got the building syndrome... need your help to quit it.
Can't help myself from building all the WW and building I can.
I don't know when to stop.
Which WW are a must IYO, and which I can let go
I usually build the GL, PYR, hanging gardens and oracle for start.
Then found another city. I usually do 2-3 cities per game.
Also same prob with city buildings. Must build them all
Where do u find the balance? Which buildings do u think are important and which are not?
This building "addiction" causes me to be on production mode most of the game.
Gpt usually is medium, but I read here about people getting 200gpt+ on early eras, so will also love some tips about that
Any other tips will be welcomed.

Play settings/style:
price-normal-continent, started with the JAPS and wide (was a big warmonger on civ3) but after realizing war is a bit difficult to manage in this game (everyone DOWs u midgame and harder to manage wide), moved to sci/cult/diplo wins with a bit of fighting on the way for fun. Like the INDIANS tall, easy to manage happiness and today played EGYPT (20% for WW for an addict is great )
like playing tall, noticed on early games that even in a wide empire, only the first 2-3 cities give u any major benefits, the other cities are just to grab lux/res and when u are not warmongering it`s easier to do RA and trade with the AI.

Are you winning? Are you looking to play on higher difficulties?

If you're fine with Prince, why not keep building a bunch of wonders if you like doing that?

If you decide to try a higher difficulty the problem will start solving itself, as you go higher up the better the competition will be for building the wonders.

Superstate said:

Are you winning? Are you looking to play on higher difficulties?

If you're fine with Prince, why not keep building a bunch of wonders if you like doing that?

If you decide to try a higher difficulty the problem will start solving itself, as you go higher up the better the competition will be for building the wonders.

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yes, i`m winning most games (as long as i dont fight too much at the beginning and get DOW by everyone )
i`m looking to go higer, so if u can give me some tips in regards to city managment that`ll be great. dont want to end up chasing WW. u cant transfer hammers as u could on civ3, here they all go to waste.

On higher difficulties you can forget about the Great Library, it seems like 90% of the civs are hard-coded to rush for it, and they will beat you because of their early game advantages. Stonehenge, Pyramids and Oracle are all doable even on Immortal (only in BNW, in G&K Oracle is gone as fast as GL). Hanging Gardens is a crapshoot. The AI also loves to build Petra even in cities with just a single tile of Flood Plains.

For city buildings you just have to consider that some buildings will often be useless. Usually Barracks+ in your production city only, Stable only if you have 3+ pastures, Forge is really bad early, Walls+ only needed in border cities, Amphi+ only worth getting if you need art slots, the building is weak when empty. Garden only good if you've got specialists

Most people first notice the difference in AI tech progression when they climb another step up the difficulty ladder, and at some point you'll have to learn how to quickly increase your science output between turn 100-200 most notably (on deity at least), regardless of whether or not you're going for a science victory. All the other victories become increasingly difficult the more you fall behind, and of course the other way around, every victory is much easier if you have a tech advantage since that inherently means a military advantage (regardless of whether you actually have built an army). You can of course still get a diplomatic victory regardless, but honestly I find that to be just plain boring.

The way I like to do it (and it is definitely the easiest way on deity) is to go for a tall empire with a low number of cities. I play on what you might say is a strange setup, which is a duel map but with 3 AI's instead of just the 1. This means very little space and I'm lucky if I get three cities (almost never happens).

Anyway, focus on growing your capital. Sometimes the AI leaves Temple of Artemis behind, and I often try to get to Currency (without necessarily bee-lining) to pick up Hanging Gardens. If you get either your game is going to get a bit easier, if you get both you have already won, I find.



If you like to expand, focus on getting libraries up so you can get your National College, and try to grow all your cities. Befriend maritime city states, possibly use caravans/cargo ships if you find you currently don't absolutely need the gold and so forth. With this done, and improving your tiles, you should have a good food production which will allow you to run specialists in your Universities. That's a pretty good start to get through the Renaissance era at least.

I like to save some gold when I hit Scientific Theory so I can buy a public school in at the very least my capital (same with Research Lab). I also like to get Scientific Theory as the first tech in the Industrial era, but that's just me.

I find going for Scholasticism in Patronage is just too good to give up, but then again I also go for a high culture gain so I can often get Scholasticism without having unlocked Rationalism (buying Cultured CS as quickly as I can).




That's just the science output portion of it though, there's a bunch of stuff you'll have to learn as you get higher up, but personally I find learning how to improve your science quickly is the most important part of beating the higher difficulties.

Edit: And it isn't all of the important science stuff though, but it is a good start I would say

Temple of Artemis? i dont think it exists on BNW
thanks for the tips fnd. if u have anymore, i`ll be happy to read them

roee1982 said:

Temple of Artemis? i dont think it exists on BNW
thanks for the tips fnd. if u have anymore, i`ll be happy to read them

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You need the DLC for it. Doesn't seem worth it to me just to add 2 extra wonders to the game.

Ugh. Temple of Artemis. On higher difficulty it just makes the AI get to 40+ pop by the near end of the game. Last game one civ had 25pop when everyone else has 14-15.

My recommendation is to always think about what the building would actually gain you. Do the math, even if it's hard.

You eventually start to realize... hey, this pop 3 city doesn't need a library, and it's growing slowly, so it'll never be big enough to justify it. Unless you need to complete it for National college or Oxford University... but if you're going for those, why are you building lots of cities? Tall or wide, pick one. (or "medium" ie 6-7 cities... better pick your cities wisely if you do this, or getting those national wonders will suck)

Same with tile improvements. That puppeted city will *never* work that mine. Why build it except to improve a resource you *don't have enough of*.

This may seem like slow going but eventually you'll be able to take one look at a city and see what it needs. And ignore the $#&*ing cursed Advisor recommendations. IGNORE THEM AT ALL COSTS lol

roee1982 said:

thanks for the tips fnd. if u have anymore, i`ll be happy to read them

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Once you reach your ideology choice, if you can afford diplomatically to go Freedom, you should consider doing so. AI's seem to favor going mostly Order or Autocracy if they get to choose first it seems, they choose Freedom mostly whenever you go Order first in my experience.
Anyway, the reason you want to consider going Freedom is Civil Society and Statue of Liberty. The combination of the two is pretty good for the mid-to-late game for a tall empire. Civil Society reduces the food cost for specialists by half (and is in tier 1, which is frankly overpowered I think), and Statue of Liberty gives you +1 production for every specialist in all your cities. These two synergizes very well, since the first one allows you to run every single specialist in all buildings, and the second one gives you +1 production from each one. Not to mention that Statue of Liberty also gives you a free social policy, which means you might finish Rationalism if you haven't already, or possibly go for one of the mid tier Freedom choices, such as Arsenal of Democracy if you want to start producing an army (+25% production to all military units, as well as a boost to gifting them to CS), or Universal Suffrage (reduce unhappiness from specialists by half and increased golden ages).

What I mean by "afford diplomatically" is that you'll often find that your enemy might have an army several times your size on deity by the time you make your ideology choice. I often turtle up until that point, since I'll be rocking some 20-30 turns later. However, you have to ask yourself if by going freedom you will escalate a hostile neighbour AI into declaring an immediate war against you. Is he right at your border with his army? Then you might go for the same ideology as him just to buy some time until you can actually handle an invasion.



Do note that Civil Society + Statue of Liberty is at its best if you have a few cities with the required food production in order to run all the specialists, as well as actually having built most of the buildings in advance (universities, public schools, research labs, banks, stock exchanges, windmills, factories, and so on). This sort of ties in with my last post. When you play a tall empire you should try to grow 3-4 cities right from the very beginning (3 is easier I find, 4 is more reward), especially your capital needs to grow. And by right from the very beginning I mean from the point that you found the cities, not that you should expand as soon as your game finishes loading.

The way you grow cities from the beginning naturally leads into running many specialists later; Cities situated with a few flat Grassland tiles, early river farms with Civil Service tech, early Granaries, previously mentioned DLC Temple of Artemis, try getting Hanging Gardens, and of course Tradition policy and rush to Landed Elite (10% growth and +2 food in the capital).



When you try this out you can keep these two simple rule of thumbs in mind (as a non-science civ):

1. Somewhere around turn 100 you should reach an equal beaker/turn as your current turn.
2. Before turn 200, you should reach at least a double beaker/turn as your current turn (the earlier the better obviously).


And before anyone gets mad at me, yes it is possible of course to reach these values much earlier, and it is possible not to reach these values in time and still not be far behind, and even grab a science victory at deity. They are not exact measurements!

Thanks for the great tips. I'll try them next game. I actually didn`t put much emphasis on specialists, gave the AI the option to manage them himself. i usually only tinker with the tile placement.
that`s what i love about this game, so much dept to each move. like a modern form of chess

Alzadar said:

On higher difficulties you can forget about the Great Library, it seems like 90% of the civs are hard-coded to rush for it

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Deity, Quick, Turn 17 the Great Lib was built. (don't ask how this was possible but the AI did it!!)

Usually I look at my situation, what leader I'm playing, what resources I have to play with then decide which World Wonder, if any are worth getting. In a team game on Emperor, rushing Great Lib then getting straight to national college is a viable tactic.

Getting Pyramids is essential if your in the jungle, otherwise your waiting a while until those trading posts are up. Petra in Desert is over-powered especially with Spain + Natural Wonder.

My MAIN target if I'm going to play an early war game is to grab the Great Wall as this makes it an utter pain for anyone to attack you (and vise versa, especially on a team game where the effect spreads to your team mates).

That is about it usually for me.

Playing my first game on king. tried my usuall wonder rush (great library, pyramids, hanging gardens, oracle and chichen itza then going for education for RA)
got the GL in 50% of the games, cant seem to build the hanging gardens or the chichen itza.
need to adopt a more strategic thinking then on prince lvl where i just spammed wonders all the time in the capital
the game seems to become more planed.
playing now as india, 3 cities, normal size/pangea+low sea level/quick game.
i like the indians coz of the happines bonus... will try for a sci win this time, but not an optimal location. i live near the zulu and aztechs (got a RA with them) so i`m keeping an eye on my military. i`ll try to get them to fight each other.
on the other hand, dont want to warmonger too much so i wont loose the RA.

this games has a quick learning curve u mess around too much and get DOW by everyone or loose all of your money from not planning ahead.
king is a challange for me now, prince is just too easy most of the times (i lost only 1 in 4 or 5 games coz of aggressive neighbours+bad start location usually, but with a good starting location a win was usually very easy in sci/dom. diplo takes me a bit longer)

Alzadar said:

On higher difficulties you can forget about the Great Library, it seems like 90% of the civs are hard-coded to rush for it, and they will beat you because of their early game advantages. Stonehenge, Pyramids and Oracle are all doable even on Immortal (only in BNW, in G&K Oracle is gone as fast as GL). Hanging Gardens is a crapshoot. The AI also loves to build Petra even in cities with just a single tile of Flood Plains.

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Current Immortal game as Korea I managed to build the Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Hagia Sophia and the Leaning Tower of Pisa so far. All without access to Marble.

I've no idea how I managed to pull it off. I do have a massive tech lead now though.

If I see I have a start with lots of hammers, and there is something to farm, I will forgo the scout and build a worker first. Research pottery then writing. Start building the GL as soon as writing comes up. Often I can sneak in a shrine or monument. Take tradition to get wonder bonus. If I get a pantheon from the shrine try for ancient wonders or god of craftsmen.

Doing this I almost always get GL and Oracle. Sometimes I get GL and Stonehenge both but that is risky. My usual build order doing this is worker, shrine, great library, henge if I am feeling lucky, oracle, maybe hanging garden (risky) or petra, finally national college.

What I give up to get that are most huts, meeting cs, exploration, and building an early settler. I can explore with my warrior but after a little while barbs force me to bring him back to protect the worker. Often I buy a scout, which obviously delays my first settler even more.