Txurce
Deity
I'll leave it up to your imagination to decide if the vines would be cut down for housing. But if you settle on a luxury, the only way you'll "know how to" benefit from it is by researching the appropriate tech.
Has the difficulty level been increased in a recent patch?
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I'll leave it up to your imagination to decide if the vines would be cut down for housing. But if you settle on a luxury, the only way you'll "know how to" benefit from it is by researching the appropriate tech.
I play on King and I've tried 150 turns yesterday on Prince to see if it had changed much. It comes down largely to the AI now being better with science buildings even a those levels, making them a bit harder to play. It's not really that much more difficult for those average but experienced players (like me) who've learned from the better players to at least focus on growth/science no matter the level you play on.
For others used to having room to maneuver and build this and that Wonder or the wrong building or unit while they should get up this granary or aqueduct and don't suffer from that, too used to delay starting an university in their biggest city by 30 turns to finish a Wonder first yet somehow keep their tech lead, too used to put growth on hold so they could get that other Wonder finished faster... With BNW (post-patch) the AI can outrun (probably with ease in some cases) players who play like that, even on Prince without its handicaps. That and the new income system is far less forgiving to "wasteful players" who have too many units or who don't build infrastructure rationally enough, or who expand at the wrong time or at bad locations (especially post patch now that the AI is better at that too!).
It's not all that hard to learn how to overcome this and improve your game just enough to make it fun again.
Muskie
Warlord
I disagree.
I've used the same opening pretty much regardless of which Civ I'm playing or victory condition I'm trying for since before BNW.
I've yet to start a new game post-patch, but I think a lot of people are too aggressive. Maybe they could get away with that in the olden days. Maybe if you play H2H with your stupid friends you can get away with it, but against the AI, you need to be conservative, defensive. To reinforce that I always make archery my first research priority.
Sure some games I don't need it. But I'm not the type who restarts the game over and over until they get the ideal start. Those people are losers in my opinion. You have to play the cards you are dealt.
I research:
Archery
Pottery
Writing
Calendar
Philosophy
I build:
Scout
Monument
Archer
Shrine
Library
This isn't optimal, but it is safe. Once I get my capital established I can think about Stonehenge or National College or even attacking someone else. If I'm stuck on an Island I can look to optics, if I'm surround by marble I can research Masonry etc. etc.
Patience is a necessary part of genius.
Muskie
Warlord
Desert is deceptively good, of course I'm a long time huge fan of Arabia.
Desert folklore is great. Petra is great.
You gotta learn to adapt and play the cards you are dealt by the game.
Muskie
Warlord
Religion is one of the most complicated aspects of the game. I've played 100s of hours and I have no idea what the ideal religion is. Desert folklore can be so good, other games is is useless. +10% growth seems good, the very first pantheon belief seems to be the most important, sometimes religion is a big asset other times an AI Civ is so aggressively religious that your effort is best spent elsewhere.
Religion is a very much a wildcard, my only belief it is better to found a religion than not found a religion, that is why I almost always build Stonehenge. I'm also a big fan of holy mountains but there is no guarantee you'll have one nearby and my obsession with those has backfired. I never regret building Stonehenge.
Muskie
Warlord
So you do need Calendar to make wine. That is something. I still think as a city grows it destroys the farmland around it, to say nothing of large scale mining, I think the game should not let you benefit from settling on resources. I know this a tactic and has been for a long time, as you can never lose that resource. I refuse to use that tactic.
If I ever get to design a version of Civ, this is one of the first changes I make. The little advisor would pop up saying "settling directly on a resource is a poor decision, a wise prince would settle beside the resource, say on a river as it meets the sea, but also on a hill so you have a commanding view of the countryside."
OP I mean no offense, but you remind me of my beginning years as a gamer, where I would have this insecure mentality whenever I played any game where there was a player vs AI component. I would always toggle the settings to give myself the max resources/advantages because I was afraid the AI would rush me/get better stuff earlier than me/win before me etc. etc.
Eventually I learnt to let go and applied a competitive mindset to strategy gaming where I analysed what worked over the long term, what didn't, what really mattered etc. etc.
For example you mentioned
The simple answer is to let go. Let go of those shiny dazzling Wonders and and focus on your fundamentals: explore, expand, exploit, exterminate.
Let me give an example in my most recent Deity game: I entered the renaissance era and started constructing Leaning Tower of Pisa. This was still during the expansion period of the game and I had 4 cities with 2 nearby spots that I was planning on settle before I was going to start building military. I had finished the Liberty tree by this time.
Now while I was building this wonder, 2 nearby AIs settled in those prime city locations, which more or less meant I was screwed out of 2 cities, boxed in with only 4 cities for the forseeable 100 turns.
I ended up finishing Leaning Tower, but you know what? I reloaded back to before I started building the wonder and built 2 settlers from my capital instead. I recognised that a Wonder is in no way as good as two productive extra cities, not by a long shot, and especially since I was getting a production bonus towards settlers because of Liberty. I missed out on the Leaning Tower but on my way to victory now I recognised that those two settlers gave me returns exceeding 10 times that of a wonder.
So in short: focus on building what matters. Science matters,Production matters, Gold matters. Most of the time military matters. Culture only matters in so far as getting the Guilds set up, or housing great works. Getting Hermitage and Broadcast Towers in your highest culture cities is good, but otherwise you don't need the most of those ampitheatres/opera houses/museums in other cities.
You don't need faith buildings unless it's part of your strategy.
You don't need to build food buildings if your happiness is tight. You don't need to build happiness if you have a good reserve of it either.
Focus on what matters. Civ is a zero-sum game. To Win is the same as making the AI Lose. When you capture their Wonders, they become yours. Play with a plan. Is my plan to build a spaceship? Then I have to scout out the AIs and figure out who's my closest competitor and neutralise them so they cannot compete. Is my plan a cultural victory? Then I do the same for the closest cultural competitor. I only grab the relevant wonders and focus everything I do on securing those victory conditions.
If you play with the intention of having the most number of cities with shiny stuff in them and most amount of needless buildings, you're going to lose, and that is what I suspect you of doing right now.
Eventually I learnt to let go and applied a competitive mindset to strategy gaming where I analysed what worked over the long term, what didn't, what really mattered etc. etc.
For example you mentioned
The simple answer is to let go. Let go of those shiny dazzling Wonders and and focus on your fundamentals: explore, expand, exploit, exterminate.
Let me give an example in my most recent Deity game: I entered the renaissance era and started constructing Leaning Tower of Pisa. This was still during the expansion period of the game and I had 4 cities with 2 nearby spots that I was planning on settle before I was going to start building military. I had finished the Liberty tree by this time.
Now while I was building this wonder, 2 nearby AIs settled in those prime city locations, which more or less meant I was screwed out of 2 cities, boxed in with only 4 cities for the forseeable 100 turns.
I ended up finishing Leaning Tower, but you know what? I reloaded back to before I started building the wonder and built 2 settlers from my capital instead. I recognised that a Wonder is in no way as good as two productive extra cities, not by a long shot, and especially since I was getting a production bonus towards settlers because of Liberty. I missed out on the Leaning Tower but on my way to victory now I recognised that those two settlers gave me returns exceeding 10 times that of a wonder.
So in short: focus on building what matters. Science matters,Production matters, Gold matters. Most of the time military matters. Culture only matters in so far as getting the Guilds set up, or housing great works. Getting Hermitage and Broadcast Towers in your highest culture cities is good, but otherwise you don't need the most of those ampitheatres/opera houses/museums in other cities.
You don't need faith buildings unless it's part of your strategy.
You don't need to build food buildings if your happiness is tight. You don't need to build happiness if you have a good reserve of it either.
Focus on what matters. Civ is a zero-sum game. To Win is the same as making the AI Lose. When you capture their Wonders, they become yours. Play with a plan. Is my plan to build a spaceship? Then I have to scout out the AIs and figure out who's my closest competitor and neutralise them so they cannot compete. Is my plan a cultural victory? Then I do the same for the closest cultural competitor. I only grab the relevant wonders and focus everything I do on securing those victory conditions.
If you play with the intention of having the most number of cities with shiny stuff in them and most amount of needless buildings, you're going to lose, and that is what I suspect you of doing right now.
IslandBlue
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2011
- Messages
- 31
Oh come now. Uninstall, really? I used to have a hard time beating level 6 (emperor) when it was just G&K, and level 7 was "impossible" for me. Now, after watching some vids and reading forum posts, I'm able to beat Immortal in BNW. No reason to quit, and yes it is doable. Diety is the last challenge on my list. Right now I'm losing every time, but I'm working on it and studying to get better.
I find Prince to be quite challenging now actually. Again, for me a good difficulty level is one that allows me to NOT have to rely on the same opening strategies, optimization etc. One in which I can experiment with the hundreds of choices available and not be penalized for it. But I feel the game has been tweaked based on feedback of 'optimum' level players, so that this is becoming increasingly less viable. And the late game is a total mess as far as tech is concerning - if you don't drill down rationalism and develop size 30 cities by the industrial era then you're toast. This all points to a single killer strategy which totally negates the concept of choice and makes a large part of the available build set redundant.
Txurce
Deity
Most of what you say isn't true - from there being a single killer strategy to "drilling down Rationalism" to needing size-30 cities at any point (I almost never have them on Immortal). What you can't do is experiment foolishly and expect not to be penalized for it. But it's obvious that you have no desire to learn from the amazing amount of information available on this site, and prefer to drop in and repeat yourself every now and then.
I'm sorry, you are quite simply wrong. I've never had more had size 20's or less and still win on immortal.
What you said might have a smattering of truth if applied to Immortal/Deity, it's true that a smaller set of strategies work there.
I also agree that trees like Piety need a bit of work to make them more viable, but I'm pretty certain that you can go Piety and win easily on Emperor.
As for experimenting with "hundreds of choices", I think it's unreasonable to expect out of hundreds of strategic choices any more than a few of them to actually work reliably. Also it would kind of be the wrong game to be looking at. I would highly recommend the FFH2 mod for Civ 4, where you really do have this cope of choice and they're all pretty much made to be viable.
Civ V even after BNW is at its core a game about optimising on a few tried & true strategies. Trying to be "creative" and approaching a game differently every time rather than polishing a strategy that works is not gonna work because that's not how the game was designed.
And I think that's why I am losing interest ... because at its core it's the same strategy as you had in Civ4, and it's got really tiring after so many years of repetition.
Some games are unwinnable... When you have reached a certain point. I don't think I've seen a map that was unwinnable, but I have often brought myself into positions from which winning became very difficult.
The only map that I ever got that I could just not win was a ring map where I was isolated with the Huns who put early game pressure on me, and an AI on the other end of the world (arabia) consistently winning around turn 220 in G&K.
Even there, I think some players could have won that map.
The only map that I ever got that I could just not win was a ring map where I was isolated with the Huns who put early game pressure on me, and an AI on the other end of the world (arabia) consistently winning around turn 220 in G&K.
Even there, I think some players could have won that map.
liv
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2010
- Messages
- 1,394
I think this is true as well. What has made the game easier to play on deity has made it harder to play on Prince (Prince with an expansion mindset at least)
The AI will tend towards the optimal strategy - choosing tradition and have fewer cities and tall growth and very little warfare - especially on Prince maybe because they have no easy benefits and are limited by funds. The war civs are taken out early now. Mongolia has been turned into a loser civ because "friends" gang up on them and take them out due to the city state war monger penalty] the AIs have to play a come from behind game on Prince and the new patches and versions makes this easier rather than harder. Spying is easier to be offensive than defensive, Limiting trade routes to a set numbers and ignoring the size or amount of luxuries a state has - favours fewer cities. Huge penalties for capturing cities on all levels (happiness, science - money (as some of them stay in resistance for quite a while) makes it harder to expand. Religion may still seem like going wide is an advantage but if you are wide you cannot defend easily against foreign prophets or missionaries and if you kill them that is not considered a "just cause" but leave you with more war monger penalties to deal with.
But that being said it is really not hard to win on Prince
However I kind of agree that game is skewed towards tall that I feel silly expanding since you are really making dumb game moved every time you build an extra city - even if it is a great location and people would be happy to settle there. this may sometimes feel a bit frustrating.
You mean a Flood plains start is good. Just plain desert without a river is absolutely terrible and if you get beaten to Petra, it's game over.
I played my first 100 hours or so of CiV exclusively on Prince or under. I was scared to go up the difficulty. When I did, I got utterly destroyed (King, playing as India, got about 70 turns in before I was utterly destroyed by mongols+huns+greece alliance). Now I just finished a match on Immortal where I got attacked by Brazil + Iroquois (spelling?) turn 30, repelled the attack and took the Brazil capital. So it can seem impossible, but you will get better!
I find the strategy quite different from Civ 4. In Civ 4 you have rolling mauls of death with 50+ units in them slugging it out, the combat is much more tactical for one. Religion is much more tactical, as is city placement as bad city placement can be badly punished. Going tall is much less punished as well.
If you're struggling with gold, it means:
1: You have too many units. You do this out of fear of getting rushed, but it just ruins your economy. Normally I get the free unit maintenance from Tradition, then I have one ranged unit in each of my 3 or 4 cities, plus 2 melee units that fight barbs or invasions. Make sure you have walls in cities that might be attacked (walls cost nothing to maintain) and have a unit garrisoned in them. With tradition that is a 50% increase in city attack damage!
2: You've built too many buildings. If you're 40 turns in with a shrine, barracks, granary, etc then you've probably built too much. Markets come pretty early, but you can't build everything in a city till then. Spend some of that production on another worker and improve gold producing tiles, or on a settler if you can expand.
3: You've got some really bad city placement. Most luxs give some gpt. The 'plantation ones' (spices, dyes, etc) can often give 3gpt. That's enough to support a granary+shrine+barracks if you wanted it! Building on a river gives you more profitable trade routes. Building on a hill gives you the hammers you need. If you can avoid building your capital in places it's hard to expand, you'll have a much better time.
Playing on King, you don't need to follow a set strategy. Of course if you're going tall, build 2-4 cities. But you can mix it up! In the Renaissance you'll be at least average already, and just try something new. If you're worried about not getting every wonder or building - don't! You generally need maybe 1/5th of wonders that come out, the others are pretty useless to your playstyle. Buildings aren't always useful; if your minor city will never face enemy troops, don't worry about not building a castle. If you don't have a large population, a Writer's Guild isn't needed. Remember national wonders can be built in your own time and are also very powerful!
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