Habits that make your game(s) non-optimum

Having more than 20 cities on Standard Earth mapscript (the normal not the random) without conquering with Romans... Sure i always manage to having nearly the biggest army and with : having the first economy of the planet and so few positive income ;-)

Asklepios said:

I can see how that might be problematic. Play Ethiopia, would be my advice, then at least you can drop the Shrine, and also benefit from having fewer cities than your opponents.

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Ethiopia does seem the most synergistic option. They were also the first civ I ever played. I wonder if my monument-first is a psychological holdover from those days.

My games these days (on Emperor) tend to involve finishing the build I described, realizing the AI took the spots where I'd like to put cities, and then getting out 3-4 catapults as quickly as possible. Something about the delayed settler just lends itself to early warmongering.

I find myself in the habit of sending a Hunting Group (3-4 melee, 3-4 Range, settler, and 2-3 workers (or more)); to make damn SURE that Nextcity gets to where I want it to be, and then 'blitz-building' the surrounding tiles ASAP . Gotta GET that city up and running, fast !!; Winter is coming !!

MattZed said:

Going Monument-Scout-Shrine-Library-Granary-NC-Settler (with a CS worker stolen in the middle of that) more-or-less without any deviation.

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Try going scout, monument, granary into a settler or two before your NC. This works out pretty nicely as you don't really need the library in the capital until your second/third cities are almost done with their libraries as well. In the meantime, focus on teching lux techs and getting workers out. Sure it delays your NC a bit, but I'd argue that having a few well-placed cities and workers is more important in the very early game than the NC.

Edit - One of my flaws is always trying to keep my first-born scout alive for the entire duration of the game. I'll pay people for open borders and even bring military units to clear barbs that have him trapped in an obscure peninsula in order to make sure that honorary scout of mine gets home to the capital. The gold upkeep on him adds up in the long run if you think about it. Too lazy for the math, but from his birth up until turn 300 or so has got to be over 500g in upkeep.

Another flaw I have (that I'm finally ridding myself of) is being too picky about my expands. I used to absolutely need a perfect 3-tile-in-every-direction spot in order to feel good about expanding there. The problem was so bad, actually, that I'd raze all of the nasty city placements of my opponents and completely re-build the entire continent with settlers of my own, each with their own 3-tile-in-every-direction bubble.

Aheadatime said:

Try going scout, monument, granary into a settler or two before your NC. This works out pretty nicely as you don't really need the library in the capital until your second/third cities are almost done with their libraries as well. In the meantime, focus on teching lux techs and getting workers out. Sure it delays your NC a bit, but I'd argue that having a few well-placed cities and workers is more important in the very early game than the NC.

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That sounds more like what I know the pros to do, so I don't think I'll argue it's more effective than my usual habit. Maybe I'll try moving up to Immortal with that, thanks. Is that order dependent on an social policy decisions, though? (Say I'm Egypt and want to go Piety. Does my lack of free monuments and settlers hurt?)

I have a bad habit that only comes up when I have a city to settle and a policy to choose on the same turn. Because units take priority over choosing policies in the "turn order", I always end up building the city and increasing my policy costs to the point where I have to wait before I can pick the policy.

While if I picked the policy first I could have the policy right away, THEN build the city.

MattZed said:

That sounds more like what I know the pros to do, so I don't think I'll argue it's more effective than my usual habit. Maybe I'll try moving up to Immortal with that, thanks. Is that order dependent on an social policy decisions, though? (Say I'm Egypt and want to go Piety. Does my lack of free monuments and settlers hurt?)

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I should have added a shrine in that build order as well if you see a potential for a faith pantheon (faith from quarries, natural wonders, gems, etc). Generally, if I don't have a faith pantheon potential in my cap or immediate expand, I skip the shrine altogether on the higher difficulties as the AI will most certainly get their religions up and spammed before I can.

I haven't played around with the new Tradition nerf all that much, but Tradition is just the strongest policy tree in my experience. Four free aqueducts = 400 hammers and no gold upkeep. Four free monuments = 160 hammers and no gold upkeep. The gold, happiness, and growth are all extremely valuable as well. I've had little to no luck (outside of an incredible start) maintaining quick early-game growth/expansion consistently without running into happiness problems on the higher difficulties unless I'm opening with Tradition. My advice (on the higher difficulties anyway) would be to always open Tradition, and have your second policy tree be civ-dependent or start-dependent.

The order can be modified a bit depending on the start, though. For example, if you see an incredible expand between you and a neighbor and want to ensure that you get there first, you can spit out a settler before your granary or even directly after your scout if it's a nice enough expand. If you're very isolated and you notice that your 'neighbors' are expanding away from you, you could very well pull off a granary and a library before settlers, followed with multiple workers from your cap while your expands build granaries/libraries. Some games can get real ugly, and you might need to build a warrior/archer for barbs/aggressive neighbor right after your granary is done. Other games, you might start with 3 wheat and a cattle, and not even need the granary until after the settlers are out.

Settling more than one city

Building a wonder that isn't Statue of Zeus

Taking a Policy other than Tradition opener when I've not got Military Tradition yet

Befriending a nearby City State when I could be laying down a Citadel that steals their resources and enables a unit to safely practice throwing things at people

Not burning down every single captured city that is not a capital because I want to keep Petra or something else not related to hitting things

Overstretching by attacking someone other than the nearest AI because they have a wonder I want

Not putting a fast unit on every captured city and losing resources to barbarians

Annexing a city to buy a Pagoda or something

Making a building that isn't needed for a National Wonder when there's a building needed for a National Wonder

Making a Caravan for a bit of extra food or gold when there's a location in its path where Barbarians can spawn

Slowing down an ideology beeline to upgrade already broken range logistics CBs to XBs

Not taking logistics ASAP because I'll eventually upgrade into Chu-Ko-Nu

Trying to make significant use of a UU that isn't a Berserker, Impi, Keshik, Camel Archer, Minutemen, Janissary, Samurai, Sipahi, Jaguar, melee Elephant, or Maori

Upgrading a religion even the religion race is totally lost even on my cities, lol.

Freaking buying tiles for new cities. I buy one... I buy five.

Ninakoru said:

Upgrading a religion even the religion race is totally lost even on my cities, lol.

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That's an opportunity you can use to take a belief that just benefits your capital.

Often the AI miss Religious Community - 15% productivity is very good.

Religious Art is otherwise crap but decent if your religion centers on the capital.

Reliqary will provide a bit of faith from great people.

All the Wonders, and maybe just one more city, and another one etc

T30, delaying your settler because you really want your Capital to reach pop 6 so it can work that awesome unimproved 2f1h stone tile..I'm too obsessed with a huge capital AND an early NC that's is sometimes difficult to claim good land for 4 cities on Deity. If I just popped out settlers sooner, my Capital would have grown huge anywhay, now I have to wage an early war for good land which will cost me more.

Having the Byzantines as my favorite civ

Peter Sagan said:

T30, delaying your settler because you really want your Capital to reach pop 6 so it can work that awesome unimproved 2f1h stone tile..I'm too obsessed with a huge capital AND an early NC that's is sometimes difficult to claim good land for 4 cities on Deity. If I just popped out settlers sooner, my Capital would have grown huge anywhay, now I have to wage an early war for good land which will cost me more.

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Haha, i read this while hoping you are the famous world class cyclist. Playing CiV on rest days .

I had to learn a similar thing on Diety, namely don't get transfixed about a large cap at the expense of Settlers.

MattZed said:

That sounds more like what I know the pros to do, so I don't think I'll argue it's more effective than my usual habit. Maybe I'll try moving up to Immortal with that, thanks. Is that order dependent on an social policy decisions, though? (Say I'm Egypt and want to go Piety. Does my lack of free monuments and settlers hurt?)

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My advice to you would be to try to take Tradition or Liberty before delving into a social policy tree like Piety. Piety lacks some of the basic building blocks you need in the very beginning (culture, food, happiness), and even when I'm playing a religious Civ like Byzantium or Ethiopia I at least open Tradition to get that nice culture bonus. I would say that it isn't so much the lack of freebies that Piety has but rather the lack of things you need versus things you want.

must...sign...RAs. I've lost a few games because some AIs hate me because "oh we have a DoF! why are you friends with the jerk I'm beating up!"

Nick31 said:

Haha, i read this while hoping you are the famous world class cyclist. Playing CiV on rest days .

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Ha! No I'm not. Luckily for us cyclingfans (assuming you are one ) he ain't nowhere near his pension yet! Got to love him.

I'm sure you're much more of a serious fan then I am (stereotype of Belgians , but I'm certainly a casual fan. And Sagan is pretty incredible from what I've seen.

Nick31 said:

I'm sure you're much more of a serious fan then I am (stereotype of Belgians , but I'm certainly a casual fan. And Sagan is pretty incredible from what I've seen.

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You know he is Slovakian though? And yeah, In Belgium, our tiny, little world pretty much consists of football, beer and cycling And bad politicians but I don't think that were alone on that.