Poor design?

[McRoos]

Dear all;

First of all I want to say that the game is a fine game to play.
But.....

On the level I'm playing (6-Emperor), it is almost impossible to win other than to choose for rapid city expansion.
In my games there always is at least one CIV with 24 cities or more at the time that I'm only able to maintain 8 or 10 at the most.
Only because of the happiness and other bonusses (like extra units and tech's at the start of the game) they receive.

Is there a way to all start equally and play the game?
Is there a MOD which incorporates that into the game?

I ask this because it frustrates me to see that I don't loose battles, I don't loose units or cities, but the one reason I don't win is that I simply can't reach a high enough happiness level to win the game!

Ideas and suggestions are very welcome!

 

[Matthew.]

Check out the Russia Deity challenge thread floating around. Players are managing wins against seemingly impossible odds. The problem with the AI's ICS is that it messes up their social policies and they never focus on great people (or science/culture in general). They have a ton of stuff, but don't know how to manage it well enough to pull out a win.

If you don't already have it, I highly suggest a mod called InfoAddict. It will show you exactly how well the AI is performing and you may find that looks are deceiving. Often those empires with double the points of everyone else are not pulling in that much science.

 

[General Tso]

I'm close to releasing my Really Advanced Setup mod. It allows you to tweak things before you start a game - like free gold, culture, faith and techs for each player. You can also change the number of starting units so you can give yourself an extra settler or two if you wish. I plan on starting a thread in the mod components forum within the next week. Once I do that I'll also include a link in my signature so you can check back here to find it if you are interested.

 

[General Tso]

+1

I agree InfoAddict is awesome!

 

[gozpel]

I'm close to releasing my Really Advanced Setup mod. It allows you to tweak things before you start a game - like free gold, culture, faith and techs for each player. You can also change the number of starting units so you can give yourself an extra settler or two if you wish. I plan on starting a thread in the mod components forum within the next week. Once I do that I'll also include a link in my signature so you can check back here to find it if you are interested.

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to appoach a MOD like that?

I give myself 2 settlers and 2 workers right away and nerf the AI 'til kingdom come?

Then it's not Immortal anymore. I give myself plenty of faith and gold and can do whatever I want, it wouldn't be different from any King-game. This doesn't sound like a MOD that makes things equalized, more like dropping the real level? I don't get it.

To OP: Play Emperor if you're somewhat skilled, it's more fun than dragging Imm-games, where the AI have enormous bonai compared to the player.

 

[Karmah]

I win immortal playing 4 cities tradition style as much as liberty fast expand. I don t see why you would automatically go for a REX in emperor. Especially if you have trouble in your current tactic , maybe try a four city science victory , it s quite basic, they are a lot of guides about it.Basically you tend to reach 700 to 1,2k beakers per turn after radio. The IA can not cope with this.The key is to rush rationalism and the science buildings. Keeping every scientist you get after industrialisation until you get radio to have a max science boost 8 turn after building research labs.That s one easy way to win. Rushing hanging garden early helps to get a huge capital (very manageable in immortal so I guess quite easy to do in emperor).

If you insist on going fast expansion , religions are a great way to get free happy.

Alternatively you can rush construction for an archer rush.It is really manageable with a bit of strategy to simply crush your neighbours and get an ahead start.

 

[SalemSage]

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to appoach a MOD like that?

I give myself 2 settlers and 2 workers right away and nerf the AI 'til kingdom come?

Then it's not Immortal anymore. I give myself plenty of faith and gold and can do whatever I want, it wouldn't be different from any King-game. This doesn't sound like a MOD that makes things equalized, more like dropping the real level? I don't get it.

To OP: Play Emperor if you're somewhat skilled, it's more fun than dragging Imm-games, where the AI have enormous bonai compared to the player.

It sounds like it's not just for the player. If you wanted to play a difficult game without having to play on Deity, then a game on Emperor or Immortal and giving the AI a lot of free techs and gold at the start would work wonders.

I'm definitely interested in this mod! You could set up a game so you're a 'native' with ancient era techs, and all the AIs have colonising techs, and you see how long you can last before your continent is taken over

 

[gozpel]

"It allows you to tweak things before you start a game - like free gold, culture, faith and techs for each player."

So each to their own, I suppose?

 

[General Tso]

You can always give every civ the same advantages just to change the game play. For example give every civ 10 warriors and a couple of catapults and let the fun begin. Or do the same thing plus remove the settlers from all of major civs. That way you have to capture a city state before you can progress any farther. or...

 

[gozpel]

You can always give every civ the same advantages just to change the game play. For example give every civ 10 warriors and a couple of catapults and let the fun begin. Or do the same thing plus remove the settlers from all of major civs. That way you have to capture a city state before you can progress any farther. or...

Sounds very radical!

Well bring it on, General and we can try it!

When you're ready, of course.

 

[General Tso]

If I don't run into any major problems I plan to post screen shots late this weekend and release a test version shortly after that.

 

[joncnunn]

Dear all;

First of all I want to say that the game is a fine game to play.
But.....

On the level I'm playing (6-Emperor), it is almost impossible to win other than to choose for rapid city expansion.
In my games there always is at least one CIV with 24 cities or more at the time that I'm only able to maintain 8 or 10 at the most.
Only because of the happiness and other bonusses (like extra units and tech's at the start of the game) they receive.

Is there a way to all start equally and play the game?
Is there a MOD which incorporates that into the game?

I ask this because it frustrates me to see that I don't loose battles, I don't loose units or cities, but the one reason I don't win is that I simply can't reach a high enough happiness level to win the game!

Ideas and suggestions are very welcome!

Putting AI on equal happiness setting: That's the VEM (Vanilla) and GEM (G&K) mods that promote the AI to Prince happiness level. (And teaches the AI to buy happiness structures when needed)

No need to build tons of cities to win. A 4 City empires can easily out science an AIs 24 city one. (Also you can take over the world with only four of your own cities; although you'll need to raze the extra cities the AI built that aren't bringing in anything.)

 

[Moriarte]

Poor design?

Poor planning. It is actually very easy to surpass aI in tech by beelining national college, construction and education.

Having 5 cities (12-9-8-7-2 in size) by turn 100 is more efficient than having 8 cities @ size 5 in the same time frame.

Try to plan your game ahead to spend 0 turns in unhappiness.

 

[McRoos]

Thank you all for lots of new ideas and approaches.

Many of the things written have been implemented in my game plan, but I don't see (or kn ow) how to win a 4 city game.
In my games it just seems to be imposible.

I play as William, the Dutch, as I am Dutch (how supprising) and am now focussing on a diplomatic win.
I think I can manage that as indeed the AI competitors are not that clever in using their overwhelming science and power.

 

[budweiser]

Seeing as how the game mirrors history, and most of the civs represent great empires, I think there are only a handful of in game civs that should expect to compete by not expanding. No offense, but you know, Mexico or Canada are not included.

 

[Arachnofiend]

At the same time, many an empire has fallen due to over expansion leading to poor management.

 

[OwlRaider]

Seeing as how the game mirrors history, and most of the civs represent great empires, I think there are only a handful of in game civs that should expect to compete by not expanding. No offense, but you know, Mexico or Canada are not included.

Meh, not all the Civs were great empires and not all great empires are equal to begin with. For example India, China, Korea, Egypt, Polynesia, etc were never great empires by the traditional sense of the word(having a lot of territory and ruling over a lot of people). That's not to say these nations weren't powerful, had a great impact in their times, etc, just that they weren't technically great empires. Another example, the Aztecs, Babylon, Germany, Russia, etc, while technically empires, were mostly local and can't be compared to great empires like Persia, Greece and Rome of ancient time or Spain, England and France of modern time. The Netherlands, and Portugal for that matter though they aren't in the game, is an entirely different beast since technically it was a great empires with colonies and all that, but was trade based rather than military based and never could compete with the militaristic empires of its time and eventually got conquered by the British and than the French.

Besides, real life has nothing to do with Civilization V's game play and victory conditions, and I fail to see why you decided to mix the 2. They literally have nothing in common and Civilization isn't trying to be historically accurate about it. For example Korea and Babylon are the 2 premier nations for a science victory, yet neither nation was too well known for its scientific prowess.

 

[McRoos]

I think that the fact that Babylon is in the game for a scientific victory comes from the fact that astronomy was highly developped in those days.
That, as it now seems, comes from the ancient Sumerians who seems to have given mankind and civilization a jump start in development!
So yes, in ancient times, the average man knew much more about astronomy that some scholars in modern times!

That's odd isn't it?
Or not...

 

[dashwinner]

I tend to play most of my games on emperor too... Try Tabernak's 4-city strategy.. As some posters mentioned already, the trick is to settle 3-4 cities QUICK (depending on location, availability of unique resources). The faster you can do this and build the national college, the better off you will be... Focus on getting your resources asap, so you can sell them to the AI... use that money to rush buy settlers, then libraries...

I know its difficult, but try to ignore early wonders... Or just get 1 depending on the situation (I'll try to get stonehenge, to assure quick religion). speaking of religion, the benefits of spreading your religion early is quite important too.. gold-giving benefits will last you all game, and religion tends to benefit the one who invests in it early... what i mean by this is try to figure out where the other religions are, but more importantly where they are NOT... locate religion-less cities and focus a missionary and/or a great prophet there... with the right beliefs, those 4 cities you converted will push your religion to a point where it will spread quickly across the map... im often plesantly surprised by the end of the game when i get satellites and my religion has spread to corners i hadn't even explored...

Anyways... Everything is situational, but I think what really helped me win at emperor (i spent a lot of time losing games at that level) is to IGNORE wanting to build early wonders... I used to always go pyramids, ToA, stonehenge... Think of how many turns that is... In my last game, I decided against it, and built 5 archers, a library, 2 workers, a colosseum and 1 settler in that time frame... With those archers, i went to conquer Siam (who had decided to encroach my entitled territory )... He was off the map BEFORE i had even met anybody else... 3 free cities, 3 new unique resources in the time it would have taken me to build a couple of wonders...

 

[McRoos]

Dashwinner;

This makes sense as, indeed, I like to build early wonders!