Hey, I'm new to Civilization by a week or two, and every game I play I've been learning so much. However, I've only really played Prince. I played Immortal for this GOTM and lost in half an hour, and lost a game of King as Spain as well.
This made me look more carefully at my gamestyle, and of course I see a lot of wasted moves. I came here and reddit looking for strategies and found this great one for the French that I'm practicing.
http://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/wmz3y/rushing_religion_or_how_i_stopped_worrying_about/
I tried this twice, first one failed miserably, halfway through my second playthrough and this time did it right. This game, though on Prince, has taught me how to optimize my moves, though I still end up automating workers because I just dont know what to do with them anymore after the beginning.
Overall, I was wondering what other kind of similar openings you guys had for the French and Koreans, at the moment my favorite ones to play with, with Babylon a close second. I'm not very good at Domination, still haven't won through that yet, but Cultural x2 and Science x2. I don't care much for Diplomatic, though I tried once and ended up just going Cultural (Celts).
Any advice would be appreciated in advance, thank you
tl;dr: basically I'm looking to step up from Prince to a higher difficulty, King, and was wondering about some specific opening strategies with Korean/French civs.
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.
To learn how to make decisions in a game, you must understand the game mechanics. Giving you specific examples for these civs would not help you very much. So I will try to be a little more generic.
France has the UA of +2
per city until Steam Power. What does this mean?
does 2 things: it buys you policies (higher costs for later policies and increased costs per city) and tiles. So +2
is like a free monument as soon as you build a city. If you want to use this
for a cultural win, you have a free monument in each city until Steam Power. Remember that for each city you found (and each free monument), your culture costs go up. And you need to produce more
per city than each city increases the costs. A free monument is pretty negligible.
But it also helps you acquire tiles! +2 is a lot for acquiring the first few tiles of a new city, and helps you recoup the policy cost of the new city. So France's UA is best leveraged going wide (also because you will have acquired all the tiles you care for by Steam Power).
They have 2 unique units. A strong Musketman and an Infantry unit meant for attacking. These units come at a time where you can have a good base empire set up, and then go on a conquering spree (esp. Musketeer). So it may be a good idea to do some conquering mid game (and maybe late game).
Korea plays completely differently. You get +2
per specialist and great person improvement. Specialists are good in large cities. Since specialists do not give much in terms of yield (but do give lots of great person points!), you want to use them when you have already filled up all the good tiles to work. And you want to put multiple of the same type in the same city (to make more great people). If you went wide, each city would ideally ONLY work the good 5ish tiles around. But if you go tall, your happiness can allow you to have large cities and thus, specialists. Use your great people to make improvements on some of the many "meh" tiles in your large city radii.
You again have 2 unique units. The Hwacha is a trebuchet that does more damage to units than cities. Essentially it is a defensive beast. Use it to set up a perimeter and barrage your attackers. The Turtle Ship is a caravel that cannot go overseas but is as tanky as an ironclad. Again, a defensive beast. Furthermore, you will not be able to find trading partners from the other continent until Frigates/Privateers, so you cannot afford to expand wide once you exhaust your resources at home.
In general, going wide it is a good idea to take the Liberty tree for quick expansion, but if you plan on doing a decent amount of war (France should do some offense) you may want to invest in Honor (France may have enough culture to get both). Mercantile City-States are fantastic for giving you happiness, and since you are wide you probably have a lot of gold. Also most of the passive quests involving greatest yield will probably come easily. You may want to take at least the opener for Patronage if you have many Mercantile City-States. Otherwise (or perhaps in addition) try to reach Mercantilism in the Commerce tree. If you can get religious beliefs that give happiness, Piety may be a good choice, but it is likely that you do not need to produce faith for the happiness unless you are using Pagodas. Otherwise, Rationalism is strong for any victory condition. Order can also give you a huge boost to yields if you are wide.
Going tall you should probably take Tradition. Korea should definitely take Rationalism for even more
from specialists. Freedom is an excellent choice for the finisher (double yield on great person improvements!) and the happiness/food help for specialists. A religion is not necessary, but Cathedrals may be a good choice for the extra Artist slot (+3 culture is an Amphitheater, and you get +2 science as Korea). If you produce Great Prophets, you can make Holy Sites. With the Freedom finisher (you probably don't want the Piety branch as Korea) you will make tons of faith (aka great people points). Use this faith to buy Great Scientists and Great Artists (improvements for more yields!)
Edit: Its 4am, I wasn't generic enough. But I suppose then I would be trying to explain everything in the game...
The most important thing to note is that your civilization is already good at some things. Sometimes, you want to compound on those strengths, while other times you simply want to take the free stuff as given and spend your time on other things. Opportunity cost makes good decisions.
If you scout your terrain early, you will learn about more factors that should affect your play. Perhaps you have such a perfect start for going Tall even though you are playing France. Then maybe you should! Your civilization is not the only important factor. Good luck and have fun! That's the most important thing