Pace of Civ 5?

I recently got Civ 5 after a long time of being away from Civilization. I played a lot of 3 and 4, and I couldn't help but notice the pace of the game appears to be much, much slower than either of those games. By 1040 AD I've only settled about four cities in my recent Babylon game. I've never been much good at Civ, as I'm not really a minmax type player but I love the game. I was wondering if I'm doing anything wrong or if the game is really just slower.

In addition, achieving victory conditions seems to be a more daunting task than in the past. I'm trying to play on Prince difficulty, after I won a Warlord game. I was wondering if someone would like to take a look at my game to see what I'm doing right and wrong. Thank you

Could you post a screenshot? I'm not in a computer.

Yup, I just edited it into the original post.

Did you? I don't see it..

Should be there, in a thumbnail. Maybe thats why you dont see it?

If you play Tradition, your general goal is to make 2-4 (depending on terrain) cities initially. Later on you CAN found a few more if your happiness supports it (or conquer them) but it's completely viable to win Science, Cultural, or Diplomatic victories on those 2-4 cities.

If your play Liberty, your general goal is to found 6+ cities. Your overall growth will be a bit slower but you'll control more territory (and thus more resources) and be able to produce more in terms of war if necessary.

That said, in your case, it seems like you might have gone Tradition. In that case, one main problem is the fact is that it's turn 164 and you haven't finished your National College. Assuming this is standard speed, people have WON science games by turn 225ish (though due to some patch changes winning science prior to 250 is much harder/impossible). On Deity level you'll NEED to win any victory prior to turn 350ish or SOMEONE will launch -- and sometimes you may lose earlier than that.

Or, in other words, your lack of science is one of the main things making the game seem slow.

Keep in mind that I am not a very good player so my advice may not be optimal.

I just loaded your save and from what I can see, you did some good things and some not so good things.

First off, the Social Policies: you invested 2 SPs in Patronage but you do not have any City State as ally (or even friend), if you want to go Patronage you should do the Quests (from what I see you did one for Vatican in the past but that has faded and your influence has dropped to the point you are not even friend). You should have finished Liberty instead, that Great Person of your choice is very good. Since you are at Prince level and you can basically get most wonders, you can so choose a Great Scientist and plant an academy (early game that can mean even 20% science boost -or since you are Babylon and already have an academy keep it for mid/late game to bulb), otherwise you could choose a great engineer and rush a game changing wonder like Petra. Of course in other situations you could chose a different great person (for example a great prophet in order to fund/enhance a religion, or a great admiral to explore the world and be the first to meet every civ).

City Placement is good, growth is important and your cities can grow fast. I would have put Akad one tile NE next to the mountain: you do not lose any resources and you can build an observatory since it will be next to a mountain. Also I would have considered building Dur-Kurigalzu on the wheat, on coast; this way I would have access to sea and can improve 2 fish tiles and with a Lighthouse that would mean 5 food + 1 production (with fishing boats) plus and an extra 1 production + 1 gold (with harbor and seaport) per fish tile. You will lose the hill sheep and you settle on wheat but having a city on the coast may just be worth it.

Another city spot worth considering for Dur-Kurigalzu is between the lake and coast (3 tiles NE of the actual position). You lose the ability to build the water mill and hydro plant, and also lose access to one sheep, but you gain an extra fish early game (totaling 3) and cow (which may be better than sheep). You could also get the dyes if you settle before Morocco (and buy the necessary tiles) - or steal land with a great general.

Overall the city placement is not bad. You should not worry about the number of cities. Each city you build increases your social policy cost AND your science cost for each tech, so any new city should be worth the increase cost for both. You can win a science victory with one city at any difficulty (you can also win with 2 cities, 3 cities and definitely 4 or more cities), so don't worry about that: four great cities is a lot better than 4 good cities and a crappy one.

Having said that you might notice that Tradition is very good for a 4 city (or less) empire. Tradition is actually a very strong Social Policy Tree and you can use it for empires with a small number of tall cities but that does not mean you cannot expand beyond 4 cities. Overall tradition is a very good SP tree, especially when you are stating civ 5 (liberty, honor, and piety starts require more delicacy in order to make them work, and honestly I have not been able to do a good start other than Tradition or Liberty).

Regarding Wonders and National Wonders: You have some nice wonders, you got the Oracle which will help you fill out a social policy tree (which you did not - but I already mentioned it). Pyramids is decent if you went liberty (especially if you do not "steal" workers form other civs or City States).

On Prince you could have gotten more Wonders but I would not advisee to get in the habit of building too many wonders since on higher difficulties you will not be able to get many.

Regarding National Wonders you should prioritize National College in Brave new World. It is very important, coupled with growing your capital, as it will give you a lot more science and you will be able to keep up with the AI on higher difficulties (on Prince you may not notice it, but from Emperor up you will notice the AI is ahead of you and often reach renaissance or even industrial eras before you do - you usually beat them to modern era). Building it on turn 170 is way too late. Try building it earlier, prioritize libraries in your first cities and build the NC as soon as available.

The National Epic build is very good: it should be built in a city that has the guilds, lots of food (to work the guilds), and a garden to stack with National Epic; this way you get the maximum great artists/writers/musicians generation, and since you can only get these Great People by working the associated Guilds (and have only 2 specialists for each type of great person in the whole empire), this is important.

Regarding specialists, you should be working the scientists specialists. Just by working the 4 scientists in Babylon and Akkad you will shave off a turn in researching steel. In the long term that cam mean a lot more (plus you get to generate a great scientist) As soon as you research Education, prioritize building universities in the bigger cities first, and working the specialist slots. Also the guilds specialist slots should be worked as soon as possible (they generate culture, and great persons that can also generate culture + tourism), with the possible exception of the Musicians Guild (for culture victory games). You can work the engineer slots if you want to generate a great engineer (always use the great engineer to rush wonders, planting a manufacture is not worth it on most situations), otherwise working a mine is better (of course if none is available you can work the engineer slot for extra production but be careful not to generate an unwanted great engineer since that will delay great scientists). Working a merchant slot is very tricky since generally you do not want a great merchant (it will only delay great engineers and scientists). In my opinion the gold bonus from either settling the great merchant or using it for trade missions is not worth delaying the great engineers or scientists (maybe for Venice it is worth it but note every time).

Tech wise are good, Philosophy (for National College) and Education (for Universities and scientists) should be prioritized early game, and after that Scientific Theory (for Public Schools) and Plastics (for research labs). When you enter renaissance you should invest at least 2 Social Policies in Rationalism (the opener and secularism), that will keep the science rate up.

Regarding defense you are exposed to a potential attack from Morocco. Having your main "army" around the capital does not make much sense since Arabia would require lots of turns to cross an army over that rough terrain (just leave the horseman to protect both Babylon and Nippur against barbarians). Build more archer units and toughen up the East side of your empire. A scout in the north jungle will do well to see an approaching Arabian army and react accordingly.

Diplomatically, you have made some pretty bad deals with Arabia, and you are now in negative gold (I assume you bribed them not to war on you). If you declare war you will lose the research agreement, but get your gold per turn in the positive and also some resources to sell to others. You will also lose 2 caravans which is bad, so you might as well just wait it out. If you declare war, build some defensive army at least.

Early on, internal trade routes are much better than external ones: sending food to capital and growing it outweighs the Gold per Turn and Science per Turn you might get by using that caravan to trade with the AI. Use your 2 remaining trade routes to send food to capital (ideally you should use all four)

As mentioned earlier, you should try to improve science to speed up the game. Science is directly related to population and you should be trying to get much more pop in your cities, especially capital, by turn 164. Try to build food buildings like granary, water mill early in the game. At lower difficulty levels, you can try to get Hanging Gardens wonder.

I see Pyramids in your capital, so I assume you took liberty. As mentioned before, liberty is best suited for wide empires with 6+ cities. Tradition is best if you are going for anything less than 6 cities. Also, Tradition is best suited to improve science, because it provides growth in capital and free aqueducts.

Another important thing to improve science is to build National College early. You should be targeting to build NC by turn 100.

Hope this helps.

Thank you very much everyone, that was exactly the kind of information I was looking for

Regarding Arabia, I was at negative happiness, which is something I have been struggling with a little bit, so understanding that a little bit more would go a long way in helping me out. But the situation was that I traded some extra luxuries for their gold, which then seemed to glitch and they received my luxes but I never got their gold which was strange. I haven't been able to delve deep into the meta of the game yet, but this information is really useful and I very much appreciate it. I just have one question: what's the best way to expand but also keep happiness up? It seems like expanding too much costs you a lot more than it's worth.

CivRulesAll said:

I recently got Civ 5 after a long time of being away from Civilization. I played a lot of 3 and 4, and I couldn't help but notice the pace of the game appears to be much, much slower than either of those games... I was wondering if I'm doing anything wrong or if the game is really just slower.

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It is a pretty common complaint that V feels so much smaller than 3 or 4. That said, I have enjoyed 5 much more than either 3 or 4. I wish I could better articulate why, but I just think it is because of all the fit and polish. At standard pace, you have 500 turns, and until I worked my way up to Deity, most of my games took 400+ turns. I would argue that the pacing works out quite well, but games do take a while.

I've never been much good at Civ, as I'm not really a minmax type player but I love the game.

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If you are not detail oriented, as I am not, then you can safely ignore all the advise you will get about micro managing your city screen. The governor focus choices work well enough, and IMHO you should only go off default for shortish durations. (I.e., during international projects or hard building a wonder, or getting ready to bulb scientists.) If you are not careful, locking down tiles can easily sabotage your city growth.

CivRulesAll said:

But the situation was that I traded some extra luxuries for their gold, which then seemed to glitch and they received my luxes but I never got their gold which was strange.

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I think the UI is more brittle in a few places than it should be. I must have done thousands of trades by now and still I will occasionally gift something I am trying to work out a fair deal for. It is quite annoying!

I just have one question: what's the best way to expand but also keep happiness up? It seems like expanding too much costs you a lot more than it's worth.

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Yes, that is kind of by design. One easy rule of thumb is that each new city needs to get you a new lux. Also, look into the “national wonders”. They are very strong, but they work against founding new cities after about T150 or so. From your screen shot, you have unclaimed wine to the north and truffles to the south. (I cannot tell if you already have one or both of those.) But T164 is late to be founding new cities, especially without your National College.

It seems that you're doing fine, you have a national college wonder going and that's all you could need. Afterwards you could beeline to education and all the other science generating technologies in the tech tree. Make enough food for scientist specialists with internal trade route caravans by using granaries and you'll be fine. Be nice to the other civilians and make sure to not over expand so much. By then you'll have enough technology to defend from any primitive powerful AI that may want to attack you.

you can basically do whatever you like on prince, it's the default difficulty, and default options are usually fine for citizen assignment. you probably don't even need internal trade routes. the advisors give decent guidance here.

when you said that the game pace is slower and it's much harder to get cities out, I wonder what you were building in the early game instead of settlers? shrines, monuments, granaries? it's usually common to go for a settler when your capital has 3-5 pop and keep going until you have the number of cities you want.

CivRulesAll said:

I just have one question: what's the best way to expand but also keep happiness up? It seems like expanding too much costs you a lot more than it's worth.

Click to expand...

The best way to keep happiness early game is by improving luxuries early and by trading your duplicate luxuries with other civs. 'Circus' is a good early game building for happiness. Its better than Colosseum because of low hammers and no maintenance. So, try to build this in cities with access to horses or ivory. Two important social policies that provide happiness are 'Monarchy' in 'Tradition' tree and 'Meritocracy' in 'Liberty' tree.

Also have enough workers (you can build them but preferably steal them, pyramids give you 2 workers but you can easily steal 2 workers a lot earlier). Have at least one worker per city, preferably more for the capital.
Have the tech required for improving luxuries (be careful with luxuries on marsh and jungle since you need masonry to clear the marsh and bronze working to clear the jungle, and they also take a lot longer to improve). You need to have at least 4 happiness in order to build a city and not go into unhappiness, but more is preferred. Personally I don't mind a small number of turns in unhappiness and I may aggressively expand and improve the luxuries as soon as possible (so i get at max 10-15 turns of unhappiness), but this may be very bad, I don't know what is the optimal strategy here.

Early happiness issues can be dealt with by building colliseums (2 ) then Circus Maximus (National Wonder - requires colliseums in each city) for 5