Hey guys, I was wondering if I could get a little multiplayer advice for the renaissance and forward.
Every time I am in a game with friends I start out really strong. I have the most science, good amount of cities, (always 2nd in population for some reason though), largest army and highest income. And this is not with a specific civ, we play with random civs.
I usually can easily take over a neighbor (or enough to make them no longer a threat), and puppet his cities till I can catch up on happiness. It is at the point where we reach gunpowder that everything falls apart.
As I'm raising production in my cities with forges and the like, as well as raising up my happiness to help integrate the new cities, I realize that my income has dropped dramatically (with the military still going on, and with building maintenance) and waring has become much harder. For some reason I can't really get a balance of attacking cities with musketmen and riflemen, and my canons usually don't last very long when I do start attacking cities. I just hit a point where I can't push an advantage, have to back out and just tech up, even if I have a stronger army. And then everyone just passes me up. I fall in science (even though I've been building science buildings and the like), income I fall to like 3rd or lower, and then I'm just playing a defensive game hoping for artillery or bombers to try and get back in it.
A few things with my how I play: I usually don't build many farms around my cities, normally they grow at a pretty good pace that I don't have to build infrastructure or farms and it keeps up with happiness (obviously this changes a bit from game to game though). Attacking cities I usually get a few archers a couple of catapults and swordsmen/pike-men early on and generally a friend who was mainly getting wonders, or busy elsewhere gets rolled. On downtime for my cities I focus in order on 1)Happiness buildings if close to 1 or 2, 2)Money making buildings, 3)Production, 4) Science.
It's just after this where everything grinds to a halt and I become a huge underdog (that and damn spies eventually tear my apart with with my own spy camping my city (they usually then hit another city since all are pretty big targets)).
Any advice for waring around that time period, or how to properly maintain a building balance? I feel if I stop making the buildings, I will fall more behind in science/money/production, that all my friends start rapidly climbing in.
Every time I am in a game with friends I start out really strong. I have the most science, good amount of cities, (always 2nd in population for some reason though), largest army and highest income. And this is not with a specific civ, we play with random civs.
I usually can easily take over a neighbor (or enough to make them no longer a threat), and puppet his cities till I can catch up on happiness. It is at the point where we reach gunpowder that everything falls apart.
As I'm raising production in my cities with forges and the like, as well as raising up my happiness to help integrate the new cities, I realize that my income has dropped dramatically (with the military still going on, and with building maintenance) and waring has become much harder. For some reason I can't really get a balance of attacking cities with musketmen and riflemen, and my canons usually don't last very long when I do start attacking cities. I just hit a point where I can't push an advantage, have to back out and just tech up, even if I have a stronger army. And then everyone just passes me up. I fall in science (even though I've been building science buildings and the like), income I fall to like 3rd or lower, and then I'm just playing a defensive game hoping for artillery or bombers to try and get back in it.
A few things with my how I play: I usually don't build many farms around my cities, normally they grow at a pretty good pace that I don't have to build infrastructure or farms and it keeps up with happiness (obviously this changes a bit from game to game though). Attacking cities I usually get a few archers a couple of catapults and swordsmen/pike-men early on and generally a friend who was mainly getting wonders, or busy elsewhere gets rolled. On downtime for my cities I focus in order on 1)Happiness buildings if close to 1 or 2, 2)Money making buildings, 3)Production, 4) Science.
It's just after this where everything grinds to a halt and I become a huge underdog (that and damn spies eventually tear my apart with with my own spy camping my city (they usually then hit another city since all are pretty big targets)).
Any advice for waring around that time period, or how to properly maintain a building balance? I feel if I stop making the buildings, I will fall more behind in science/money/production, that all my friends start rapidly climbing in.