overwhelmed by options

[KinesongPayaso]

Wow.. im quite shocked to discover how difficult this game is.
Before, i used to keep beating Prince easily ... then moved to monarch (winning a few) just recently. but I grew tired of the way I play, which is just war mongering

I also never understood how some guys always kept asking help on how to win Prince and Monarch, since I was winning it easily

well, i guess im no better.. only that the strat i always use is soooooooo good. I go with Rome, Praetorian spam/rush, and keep taking cities as I expand. just get agriculture, bronze/iron working, then just spam workers and settlers while i dont have iron yet. no religion and other techs. after that, i turn off the research, and concentrate on praetorians


But a few days ago, i tried this "city specialization" where I only have 1 production city, 1 commerce and 1 great person city
it was terrible... i could barely win on prince LOL

i also wanted to try other civilizations. i chose elizabeth and washington. im trying to expound on that city specialization by choosing leaders that are good at those(financial)



anyway, the point to all this is, theres too many technologies, units, civics, buildings to choose from!
i dont know what strat to choose and formulate.. civilopedia is my friend and enemy it has all the answers, but its quite tiresome to read it

anyway, can anyone please just point me to a thread, or give me examples on the different possible playstyles?
something generic, and nothing long winded
like... tech archers, spam archers. make a great artist spamming city(details on how to make one too) then just culture bomb everyone and dominate
something like that..

But i want it to be varied and nothing obvious, and mostly about the economy. Since I dont know much about it. I just know how to build praetorians, intercept reinforcements, fall back, raid improvements, then finally invade the city



I never learned the basics of the game. i just knew the war principles of the game. none of the economic principles.

 

[Pogel]

Simple answer - don't choose. Play random leader and shuffle map and learn to exploit the hand that's dealt you. Take a look at the ALC series of games as they give some good pointers on how to take advantage of the different traits.

The good old Praet-rush is a very solid strategy (as long as you find iron and aren't isolated ) but can become a bit of a crutch. It's easy to find tht you 'play above yourself' when you get used to a single approach.

 

[babypacman]

I have had some similar problems in my playing days. I was playing prince when I 'found' the Romans. And played them for a while because quite frankly warmongering is fun But then I realized I might be pigeonholing my game so I broke free. Romans are great when you want to move up a difficulty level though.

My advice would be to try some other leaders with later UUs, and try to build your empire up until the point you get your UU and then warmonger. Try Catherine, in vanilla at least she is financial and has a strong midgame UU that can be beelined to. Work on building your empire as you beeline to Cossaks and then go crazy.

I have some of the same problems you describe when I try to go for different victories. Diplomatic, my best friend always ends up nudging out my designated enemy in population right when the UN vote comes up and somehow everyone likes them better . Culural is just really boring. Same with space race. As the game gets more complex, my computer gets bogged down, so I guess my system favors a warmongering strategy.

My final observation is that for me at least, at prince/monarch any non warmonger win I'm going for can be accomplished a lot faster by just warmongering. Anything else I feel like I'm gimping myself on purpose.

 

[cabert]

obviously, the commerce thing isn't what you understand best right now...

Rule of thumb
Try a financial civ, monarch level, and take good care of number of cities.
You need to earn money at 40% research. If you go deeper, it must be for a good reason (like conquering the pyramid city), and if you fall under 20% it will be a steep hill to come back economically.

Key techs
You may notice that you gain commerce from tiles and from trade routes.
commerce from tiles : gold/gem/silver mines requires mining, the rest are either plantation ressources (needing calendar ) or cottages, requiring pottery.
Even with a really ressource rich start, after a while the commerce will come from cottages or won't come (a tech requiring 2000 beakers would need 250 gold mine turns ).
So the first commercial key tech is pottery! You need a horde of workers to cottage largely (ressources have still priority) too.

After 3/4 cities, maintenance will start to show it's head.
Another useful source of commerce are "trade routes". You start with 1 trade route /city, assuming you have roads/river/sea to connect cities. If you open borders (requires writing) with a civ and have a trade network (roads, river, coastal cities,...) you double the value of this trade route easily.
This little difference could help you pay for another city+writing allows library which gives +25% research.
So the second commerce friendly tech is writing.
If you want more cities, at this point, you could use lower maintenance.
Courthouses cuts maintenance by 2, and require Code of Law.
With this you could pay for 2/3 more cities. This makes CoL the third commerce friendly tech.
However, courthouses don' reduce civic upkeep or unit upkeep.
So you need real money coming in.
Currency allows trades for money, be it ressource for money or tech for money, or money for peace + it gives another trade route to every city + it allows building markets which give +25% gold.
When you have CoL, currency, and lots of cottages, you can make any city pay for itself = welcome to large empires.

specialization
You need lots of comemrce cities.
Commerce cities are the one where you can improve land for cottages, basically (gold/silver/gems/... are good too, of course).

You need a few (1 city out of 4 is my guess) production cities. Food + hills is the key.

That's all for a start, if you manage to grow to 10 cities (war is still your friend, even without praetorians), manage to be the first to liberalism, and maintain a strong power (look at the power graph), you should be fine, and should be able to shoot for any victory condition (diplo and cultural are special, read threads about those).

 

[KinesongPayaso]

ok, i guess i have to be more specific

my problem i think, is that I dont have any limitations, which opens up more possibilities for me to get sidetracked, therefore lose

example:
"since im specializing, i need to beef up my commerce... so Ill build buildings to increase that.. oh but before I can do that, i have to research this first. oh, now im overspecialized.. maybe my city can benefit from having a harbor.. hmm i think i need a grocer now, but before that, i have to research this... oh, ill also have to get bank, since this city is commerce specialized"
or something like that.. one thing leads to another which opens me up to more possibilites to get side tracked

an excellent example from the last game I played
I was going for ICBMs to nuke the biggest guy.. so i was on my way, taking land to boost my researching... sacrificing some more resources to get there faster... but then i see the message.. 50 turns left... so what do I do? i sell the technologies i have for my friends, then ask them for any gold i could take... then just upgrade the low class units i have into higher tier units, so i can just conquer directly






-------

My advice would be to try some other leaders with later UUs, and try to build your empire up until the point you get your UU and then warmonger. Try Catherine, in vanilla at least she is financial and has a strong midgame UU that can be beelined to. Work on building your empire as you beeline to Cossaks and then go crazy.

I have already tried something like that... a few games ago, i went with england
i chose victoria because it was a good 'specialized city' combination
i also decided to just jump straight to redcoats, then just spam them, to deter wars on me... while I could take cities with some culture bombing, spreading of religion, a little bit of politics(asking friends to declare war) while I make precise/little land grabs, then asking for peace

but i couldnt get to redcoats fast enough.. so much so that people already had much better units than I did. because i was allocating a lot of my resources to 'specializing' my cities



I even tried to play on 'duel' size maps, so that i won't be overwhelmed with the info. so that i could concentrate on practicing city efficiency... but then, somehow, i end up trying to swarm my enemy by outproducing them, and ignoring other aspects of the game.. like religion.. and health and happiness LOL

 

[cabert]

you really should play with the hand your dealt
You're currently missing the whole point of the game : strategy!

First, if you can warmonger efficiently, just do it!
Second, if you want to try a non warmongering game, don't select duel maps.
Third, your big issue now is to manage commerce.
Commerce = teching + growing. Focus on commerce, tech trade, money strategies, and you'll find you've improved a lot.

 

[pigswill]

What happens when you play rome and don't have iron?

 

[KinesongPayaso]

You need to earn money at 40% research. If you go deeper, it must be for a good reason (like conquering the pyramid city), and if you fall under 20% it will be a steep hill to come back economically.

I didnt fully understand this... were you talking about the sliders?

Another useful source of commerce are "trade routes". You start with 1 trade route /city, assuming you have roads/river/sea to connect cities. If you open borders (requires writing) with a civ and have a trade network (roads, river, coastal cities,...) you double the value of this trade route easily.

well i guess this is another aspect of the game i have to use. i never really understood trade routes and how it works...
ill have to check civilopedia about that

 

[KinesongPayaso]

Pogel thanks for that ALC thread suggestion... it explains a lot

Cabert:
I am fine with commerce and growing
sometimes, i would start wars on those that are close to me, or those that were pissed off royally
or, if I dont want to 'warmonger' i will just spam settlers at the start, and send them on their way to make a 'blockade' to make a lot of room for my future cities (not allowing open borders)

also

You're currently missing the whole point of the game : strategy!

i can strategize fine. it may not be on other peoples level, but its still there
anyway, that isnt the point
the point is, that i tend to get lost.
1) i will choose a tech, building or improvement to ENHANCE what i currently have... to specialize
2) or i will choose a tech, building or improvement or civic, to make up for what im lacking... to generalize
and since I dont know which are better and which to prioritize or cut-off, im left with a lot of options, but not excelling in any





What happens when you play rome and don't have iron?
---does that even happen? lol
i've always found iron... some may be earlier or later.. but i still find it, since i expand early.. im always the first to settle new cities.. so I see where those irons are
first few turns of the game, i have a crap load of warriors, and then workers
so that i can connect the mine to my other cities early... and to chop forests en masse when needed(far from my cities if possible)

 

[cabert]

You need to earn money at 40% research. If you go deeper, it must be for a good reason (like conquering the pyramid city), and if you fall under 20% it will be a steep hill to come back economically.

I didnt fully understand this... were you talking about the sliders?

exactly!
At any point, even with loads of gold in the bank you must know where you stand on the gold/maintenance issue. I didn't say you must set the slider to anything, just use it to see how deep in science you need to go to earn money = can you afford more expansion or not.