Game seems harder

sadpickle

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Aug 29, 2013
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BNW changed the entire game for me. Since I got it I've not been able to finish a game without getting badly hamstringed somtime around the Renaissance. An example is my last game.

Continents, I'm playing Assyria. Looking to expand and do some early warmongering. China was my neighbor and startling settling right into my lands, so I DOW'd them as both my Hanging Gardens AND Temple of Artemis wrapped in my cap and first city. 30 turns later I had both of China's satellites, and shortly after that we went at it again and I took their cap.

So, turn 150 or so rolls around. World Congress convenes. I'm number two on the scoreboard, Egypt is 1 with phenomenal everything. Two resolutions: Blockade Egypt, and ban Cotton, a resource I have 2 of. My happiness has not been the best, with 7 cities and very strong growth. Both resolutions pass, and my happiness plummets to below negative 10, as my cotton goes bye-bye and trade deals falls through. The next turn, Alexander coups my best city-state, taking another luxury. Negative 17 happiness. That's when I called it, as I had limited options to raise it back up.

This was on King. I swear I used to play a solid game on Emperor, pre-BNW. I would expect this sort of drama from Immortal, but not King. Most of my games tend to go this way. Something (happiness, gold, science) drops through the floor and drags my empire into a recession.
 
you cannot hold enemy cities anymore. At least not before industrial or maybe modern era. TAke capitals, and burn the rest (unless they have two unique luxury resources).

Unless there are special circumstances, you have to go tall. And even in the game you describe, maybe you could sell/trade/ those two previous China cities to other civs. That would give you money and help the happiness, and you still have the capital. Then, later in the game (after zoos) you could retake those cities and get techs for them, if you fell behind.

For people who were used to expanding in the first half of the game, through settlers or conquest, the game has certainly gotten more difficult.
 
I've only started playing CiV when BNW was already out, but I play Emperor so maybe I could help a bit.
Expanding too fast is punished - unhappiness ensues. Be sure to build all the happiness buildings and don't ignore policies which help with that. You can use beliefs to help keep happiness in check. A lot of people are suggesting to have at least one unique luxury when choosing a spot to settle, though if you can trade all excess copies for other luxes it's fine. And here is an important part: try to get all luxes of which AI has multiple copies. They are relatively cheap and worth buying, if not for additional luxuries of your own, then for strategic resources or gpt.
 
I find it's usually better to raze and resettle rival noncapitals in the early game.
 
For early-to-mid game settling and conquering:

In Vanilla, I could sometimes go a true-REx route and just expand and expand, and do so from basically square one.

In G&K, I found that a 4-city start was usually best; with Tradition, a 4-city start works best because that's the number of cities that will get bonuses from some SPs, while with Liberty I found that I could get the 4 cities faster yet would not expand much beyond that (maybe a 5th or 6th city at most) as happiness issues would trip me up anyways.

Now, in BNW, I find that I've usually done best with 2 to 4 cities. Previously, 2 cities would only be my set-up for a cultural victory, and nothing else. Now, I find that 2 tall cities might be all the more I need for the early game, especially when I can use internal trade-routes to make those 2 cities taller much more quickly than before. I mean, really, with a National College in place and internal trade-routes from maybe 2 other cities bringing food in to the capital, it becomes fairly easy to tech quickly. This is doubly the case considering the 5% science penalty per city, and is triply the case considering that any other trade-routes can be used to trade with AI's for even more science; together, staying small, finishing the National College early, and relying on trade-routes to both pump up the capital as well as net extra beakers from any AI still ahead of me in techs means that 2 or 3 cities can really blossom in BNW.
 
The lack of gold early game is seriously limiting my options. I'm sick to death of being broke all the time.

I'm having trouble keeping up with the other Civ's, that never happened before.

BNW is a different game. I'm not sure it's a better one.
 
The lack of gold early game is seriously limiting my options. I'm sick to death of being broke all the time.

I'm having trouble keeping up with the other Civ's, that never happened before.

BNW is a different game. I'm not sure it's a better one.

I'd say BNW is certainly a better game, but not by as much as some people think.

I definitely like that the early game is a fair amount more peaceful and doesn't constantly devolve to multi-AI DoW's coming at almost predictable intervals. On the other hand, I agree with you on the gold issue and feel that a tweak is needed; prior to having city connections and two decent external trade-routes, as few as 6 or 7 units and a small number of buildings can result in a relatively large negative GPT in the early game. Which absolutely cripples early war, which is going too far the opposite way from before. And the only decent way to remedy this is to take Tradition and get both the free buildings as well as the extra gold in the capital.

The biggest casualty of BNW is the Liberty SP tree. In BNW, gold and happiness were both made a little harder to come by (to say the least for gold), and Tradition has a single SP stone that helps kill both those birds. Conversely, Liberty actually exacerbates the problems by providing no extra gold, meager extra happiness, and the means to over-extend one's self. I mean, even Honor helps with gold more. Without the free GA in Liberty, and assuming the free Great Person isn't used as a Great Merchant, Liberty effectively provides no steady stream of gold.

All that said, BNW still, to me, is a better game, and is a better game by a decent margin. But if they don't tweak the current issues with maintenance and gold, I think it does indeed nerf early-expansion and early-war a little much for my liking (and this coming from someone who would prefer a 'builder' strategy, even, in enough situations).
 
One can maintain high happiness, but it often depends on sheer luck.

- having a variety of luxury resources nearby
- happiness oriented religion (for example i can never resist taking Pagodas when they're still available (which is improbable))
- quickly adapting happiness-boosting social policies
- having mercantile city states nearby that give you easy quests (help with barbarians or connecting horses...)
- snatching happiness-boosting wonders (improbable on higher difficulties)

... and the success is not certain even with all the above combined, because of luxury banning, embargo-ing and ideology pressure.

But despite all of this i find BNW to be the best of the Civ series so far :)
 
BNW isn't harder, it just makes certain playstyles (expansionist, early warmongering) harder. You will find it harder if your playstyle falls into the category that was nerfed.

You just have to change your playstyle. Don't conquer cities unless your happiness is good enough. Don't let congress resolutions that could hurt you pass.
 
I disagree with the view that tall is best. My biggest victories have always been in employing a wide strategy. But you can only do this if the map allows it (if it doesn’t, then you should go tall). This is the key point in BNW. In vanilla, you could create a strategy, be it tall or wide, hone it to perfection and do very well all the way up until immortal/deity. In BNW you need to be very careful and develop your strategy around what you are presented with, much more so than any of the previous versions. You need to be able to play both wide and tall and this is what makes it a superior game to everything that came before.

Regarding expansion: If possible, you need to time your expansion for when various aspects of your empire allow it (happiness buildings, social policies, early trade with domestic AI’s, city states, religion, international trade with AI’s). Each of those involves some sort of happiness boost. If timed well, your cities will grow as your happiness expands. This is a balancing act and there is no hard and fast rule. It comes down to judgement and planning. You must always be thinking about where you are getting your next happiness boost from and even save something in reserve in case something goes wrong (like a social policy or a round of happiness buildings). There are a few exceptions to this and sometimes it is necessary to dip into unhappiness, and it comes down to judgement as to whether the penalty is worth it. If you are unhappy for 20-30 turns, but you have sealed off space for additional cities later or have captured an enemy capital, then this might be ok. In general though, you want to employ the first strategy.

As for gold, this too is heavily dependent on the map. Isolated starts without gold/silver luxuries are the most difficult and you will always hurt for gold in those circumstances. But in others, choose one city that has the best connections and make that your trade capital (often not your capital, but one that allows the best access to the AI, particularly costal cities). Have all trade routes come from this city and focus almost entirely on trade and gold buildings (this is also useful as it limits the religious pollution you get with trade). With starting gold, as long as you don’t buy buildings, units and tiles there is no way you should go broke as long as you only maintain a defensive force of a handful of archers and limit your road network till your cities reasch at least size 4. If you are hurting and you need the troops, pick oligarchy and station your units in each of your cities, or take some other social policy that frees up some gold. The opener in commerce is quite good if your capital has a decent GPT.

In early warfare, in order to take over the AI you quite often need to be running in negative GPT. Pillage pillage pillage! Don’t be afraid to disband your units once the war is over, saving only your best promoted units instead. They will soon become obsolete anyway once you have built armouries and military academies.

I like BNW because it confronts one of the problems civ 5 has always suffered from IMO. It challenges you to try and specialise your cities in a way that you didn’t really have to in vanilla. It makes more sense than ever to have a city devoted to gold, devoted to production, devoted to food, devoted to science, devoted to units, devoted to defence, devoted to culture. When you plant that city you have to decide what its use is going to be, and then build tile improvements and buildings that dovetail with that. High food cities on rivers make great people cities; Lots of hills and forests make good production cities; on a river/next to a mountain with some jungle tiles nearby are good science cities; costal cities make good centres of trade etc.
 
BNW isn't harder, it just makes certain playstyles (expansionist, early warmongering) harder. You will find it harder if your playstyle falls into the category that was nerfed.

You just have to change your playstyle. Don't conquer cities unless your happiness is good enough. Don't let congress resolutions that could hurt you pass.

I would not disagree with your perception about the shift in play styles. But from the users' perspective, the designers' very deliberate stand, "you just have to....." makes no sense at all. In fact, it's just bad business. For players who like to go tall, there's no problem - but for the rest......? Has Firaxis filled its corporate culture with people who routinely walk into walls? Is the company really going to tell its fan base of wide players, "oh well, can't do that here any more. If you want to play wide, you'll have to go somewhere else."?

BNW indeed is a "different game" that effectively has delivered damage to a foundational aspect of the franchise. Yes, yes, yes. Civ 5 and G&K were war mongering games. But the efforts to attenuate that have gone way too far. I feel that in a lot of ways, BNW in its effort to thwart early militarization has embraced anti-war sentiment with something approaching religious zeal.

Rarely do I have more than one or two minor wars in a game - often they are early and usually caused by missionary invasions or by itinerant civs occupying developable land in my territory. The success of these strategy games let us not forget, is founded on giving players a sense of empowerment: I create a secure environment from which to carry out my plan for world domination. If I build no army I'm annihilated by other civs. Short of gold, I'm barely able to avoid sustaining serious damage from barbarian attacks. Thus, my STRATEGY for a long time into the game (not forgetting this is a strategy game) cannot be setting out to create the Brave New World, but simply to eke out subsistence at the low end of the needs hierarchy. If I lack that sense of empowerment so that my fate is left to the direction of the prevailing winds, there is not much left that the game can offer. (Elsewhere I have stated that given the extreme shift in BNW it feels as if the title ought to be New World Order).

I'd speculate the BNW probably already has lost the hardcore of wide players. I am not advocating a return to the extreme warmongering of Vanilla or G&K but BNW for all its many virtues has thrown the franchise badly out of balance.
 
BNW is less arcade and more sim which makes your early decisions more crucial.

Aspects of play you used to get away with ignoring you can't really do that anymore. You have to get buddy buddy with city-states. You have to find a civ and truly cooperate with them. You have to raze cities. You have to go to war not to take another civ's cities, but sometimes just to cripple them for bit or just to snag a worker.

You have to be more strategic in some cases.
 
I personally have not had huge problems with gold so far but I don't tend to warmonger much, especially not early. I usually sell my lux and strategic resources for gpt as soon as possible and keep the gold stockpiled for when gpt goes negative. City state tributes seem like they'd bring in quite a bit in the early game.

The apparently harsh diplomatic penalty for taking cities early is what puts me off early warmongering, especially because the AI loves taking the good locations long before the NC is done. However the relaxed penalty for just declaring war makes things a bit easier than in G&K. At least now I can kill off a settler without being the worst person ever for half the game just for declaring a war once. Most of the time anyway.
 
BNW changed the entire game for me. Since I got it I've not been able to finish a game without getting badly hamstringed somtime around the Renaissance. An example is my last game.

Continents, I'm playing Assyria. Looking to expand and do some early warmongering. China was my neighbor and startling settling right into my lands, so I DOW'd them as both my Hanging Gardens AND Temple of Artemis wrapped in my cap and first city. 30 turns later I had both of China's satellites, and shortly after that we went at it again and I took their cap.

So, turn 150 or so rolls around. World Congress convenes. I'm number two on the scoreboard, Egypt is 1 with phenomenal everything. Two resolutions: Blockade Egypt, and ban Cotton, a resource I have 2 of. My happiness has not been the best, with 7 cities and very strong growth. Both resolutions pass, and my happiness plummets to below negative 10, as my cotton goes bye-bye and trade deals falls through. The next turn, Alexander coups my best city-state, taking another luxury. Negative 17 happiness. That's when I called it, as I had limited options to raise it back up.

This was on King. I swear I used to play a solid game on Emperor, pre-BNW. I would expect this sort of drama from Immortal, but not King. Most of my games tend to go this way. Something (happiness, gold, science) drops through the floor and drags my empire into a recession.

IMO you gave up too soon. You didnt even hit 20 unhappiness. If you had that many conquered cities besides her capital, you could have began razing them until the happiness is back to where it doesnt spawn rebels. To be sure early wars seem less beneficial in many ways but the AI is generally so stupid at where it actually plops cities that it isnt worth keeping anything but their capital half the time anyways
 
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