Help on things

[WearyHeart]

Okay bought civ complete on steam sale, had a few slow wins as venice, india and pocotelo. Slow as in almost turn 400.

I play king, no barbs.

How to make land war less tedious? with jungles hills and chokempoints. , i find water maps war more bearable. Also really annoying if there is a civ between you and the enemy.

Also when to plant or pop a great scientist? I read somewhere that i could plant a scientist at early turns then save and pop the rest, but when do i pop them?

Also i cannot do well if im surrounded by civs, i find it easier if my civ is on the edge of a pangea where at least one front (or back) of my civ is relatively safe from covet or attack.

Is it okay to delay warmongering until i get brandenburg and /or autocracy for the +1 range on ships?

Also i really dislike getting a religion now, no matter how hard i defend my religion with more than one ai spamming their prophet and missionery on my cities. Also they tend to hate me more. Can i just plant prophets for faith to use for engineers as thats what i use faith for anyway.

Also mh games usually end up with rationalism opener and the +2science per specialst ability. Then comes ideologies at the time. Is it usually better to complete rationalism first or the level 3 tenets first and leave rationalism at +2science per specialist.

How to handle expansionist ai like poland and russia and polynesia. These guys spam cities all over the world, even at modern age on two or three tile islands.

Also in a tradition, is 3 cities okay if the 4th would be luxless or so-so only?

 

[Bimblecrumbs]

A general guide is to plant scientists before you research Scientific Theory, but this approach should vary depending on your strategy. Early Domination victories, which are more difficult, require them all to be burned to hit key military techs like Industrialisation/Dynamite.

It's more normal to delay conquest until later eras for the wonders you mentioned and also for easier-to-handle units. The deeper into the tech tree you go, the more mobility and range units have, making it easier. I'd recommend that you begin with late era wars and progress back in the tech tree as you become more comfortable with Domination.

If possible, time the free tech for completing Rationalism with an expensive+necessary one like Radio. Generally it's possible to finish rationalism or at least get all policies but one before you begin taking ideological tenants; allying cultural CSs is a great way to do this.

AIs who spam cities on every small island aren't such a problem; any small island cities can simply be ignored unless on a particular choke point/blockage. The real trouble comes when they settle close to you on the mainland; in such a situation you can avoid the settle altogether by blocking the settler with 2-3 units until it eventually turns back. If they do plant close to your cities, build some military as a deterrent to war.

For a 4th luxless city simply check your happiness to see if your empire can handle it. The happiness policy in Tradition can help if you take it early. Often a circus from horses will help for the +2 maintenance free happiness.

 

[beetle]

The main thing is to be having fun. If you find war tedious, why not play peaceful? No barbs is passing on easy experience for your early units, I can’t recommend that. It also causes the AI to spam more cities.

400 turns on King is not really all that slow, especially for your first several many games.

I have never had a map where there was not a good place for a fourth city. Yes, it might be luxless, but it was always in a strong location.

Yes, certain AIs love to spam cities, and that can be annoying. It bothered me enough that I looked up the way to change the minimum distance between cities from three tiles to four.

I think religion is interesting and reliable. Just don’t worry about it early, and you will be fine. Take advantage of the opportunity to faith purchase buildings from foreign religions. All GPr you spawn or purchase will be of your faith, so recovering your religion in your core cities is actually very straightforward: just wait until the waves of foreign GPr slow down.

 

[consentient]

It sounds to me like you are suffering from some of the frustrations I was feeling around 18 months ago. Shortly after that I made a move to Deity/Standard/Standard and just learned and adapted my play to those conditions. You are making the game more boring by taking out barbs and only playing situations where you are isolated. Part of the fun of civ is spawning next to warmongers and learning not only to cope with them but to use it to your advantage. My mum's boyfriend still plays on Huge maps with like 6 civs and just spams bad cities and crap religions and wonders why his happiness is awful and says that the game is boring.

Take a chance and see what Deity play can do for you in terms of livening up your game.

 

[Bimblecrumbs]

Agree with consentient. What I forgot to mention before is that turning off barbs will be detrimental to your game as they:
- hinder AI expansion
- provide early xp for military units
- provide a little extra gold from camp clearing
- allow the completion of easy 50 influence CS quests
- often provide workers they've taken from CSs or AIs
- (provide culture if honour)

Once you learn how to most effectively deal with them, they're much more of a benefit than a disadvantage.

 

[WearyHeart]

Wow thanks guys, last week over four nights i played america with barbs, a and last three days as aztec.

The american was with standard king pangea and this time with barbs, i was able to find 4 cities tradition. Practiced well and won science around almost turn 340 something. Wanted to try a more warry game but everyone was peaceful and friendly until AFTER B17s. A few turns later england became bichy and denounced me and insults me a lot. Wanted to war them but they were 2 civs between me and them and i decided to not bother and just win science instead.

The aztec one was with raging barbarian and it was soo much fun. Also korea and maya started like 8 and 10 tiles away from my capital. I was like wtf! Where am i to expand. Also had 3(later 4)ivory 1 fur and 1 salt for my entire territory, handling happiness was very dificult with aztec . Also won science with aztec, destroyed korea and its cities near me.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to General Discussions

 

[Dushku]

Also when to plant or pop a great scientist? I read somewhere that i could plant a scientist at early turns then save and pop the rest, but when do i pop them?

Depends on a number of things. As a general rule, I'd plant one (two if you're Mayans, Babylon, or opening Liberty) as an Academy and save the rest for bulbing. When to bulb? The later the better. Once all your Research Labs have been built and worked for 8 turns is a good starting point. The longer the game goes on though, the more population you have, so the more they'll be worth.

Is it okay to delay warmongering until i get brandenburg and /or autocracy for the +1 range on ships?

You don't have to warmonger at all, especially if you find it tedious.

Also i really dislike getting a religion now, no matter how hard i defend my religion with more than one ai spamming their prophet and missionery on my cities. Also they tend to hate me more. Can i just plant prophets for faith to use for engineers as thats what i use faith for anyway.

You can. You'll be missing out on a lot of gold though. If you found a religion and take a religious building as your first follower belief, your faith will be tied up in the early game, and you'll boost your happiness.

Also mh games usually end up with rationalism opener and the +2science per specialst ability. Then comes ideologies at the time. Is it usually better to complete rationalism first or the level 3 tenets first and leave rationalism at +2science per specialist.

I wouldn't ease up on Rationalism until you have Secularism first, and then Free Thought. That said, if you're getting an ideology when you've only had Secularism, I don't think you're building up your culture enough. I just made a video whose purpose it was to explain and demonstrate how easy tourism is. However, it also shows a pretty tight science game. Including things like managing culture to keep it low so I can go straight from Tradition into Rationalism, as well as ramping it up so that I have Secularism and Free Thought before ideologies. I think you might be able to get a few ideas from it:

https://youtu.be/HvgyqhmoRCw

[EDIT]
Oh and yes, you can do fine with just 3 cities. I wouldn't aim for it, but if you run out of room before you can settle a 4th, it won't hold you back too much.