Tips for King please!

[Chemical Toilet]

So I've recently been experimenting with different types of games on King after having finally arrived at the conclusion that Prince is just too easy on any victory type for me. But I have a few question about King, as it feels I've gone up a couple of difficulty levels rather then one.

Science. What to do with science? No matter my play style, wide with order, or tall with Korea or Babylon, I always seem to be behind at least half of all of the AIs on the map. I'm putting in as many specialists as I can into science slots and taking all social policies that help boost science. I try to unlock and build science buildings as soon as possible but the AI is still deploying advanced units before I am and grabbing wonders way before they should (I'm not expecting to grab them, but when a wide AI completes Himeji Castle while I've just started researching machinery or Printing Press, something is going on.)

Should I abandon wonders all together? Which ones are worth focusing on? It is no surprise to me that on this difficulty I'm not going to get nearly as many as I used to. I always at least try to grab the Hanging Gardens if I'm going tradition and sometimes I miss by a few turns. I had a Babylon game where it felt like it made a difference and put me behind. Should I be that worried about it? Other then that I usually try to grab Colossus or Petra if my capital is in the appropriate spot, otherwise I grab the Oracle because the AI usually doesn't. I'm still trying to beeline somewhat for Notre Dame and/or Tower of Pisa or Forbidden Palace (depending on what victory type I'm aiming for). Should I instead research other tech since I'm probably going to miss these anyway?

It seems on King my starting positions are not nearly as good. Is anyone aware if this is deliberate on higher difficulties or bad luck? Most of the time I'm getting 2 different luxuries for my capital and my other cities are only getting one luxury in available space to settle, which is giving me issues with happiness wide or tall even when prioritizing happiness buildings.

Which victory types/when should I simply ignore trying to get a religion?

Gold income seems to be more of an issue now then it was in Prince, but I'm not doing anything different and even usually building many less units.

Finally, how should I prioritize which technologies I choose to research after the ancient era?

Also, when I plan on doing plenty of warmongering right off the bat, is it best to go honor or liberty or does it depend on the civ?

 

[Callonia]

You can get wonders, although King does force you to at least sharpen up on your play and planning ahead on what hexs to improve first in order to build the wonder as fast as possible.

As long as you have good military force and you aren't a inept commander in field the AIs will never be able to kill you. They might take a city state or two from you or tag a city of yours but that's basically it. This happens because firaxis hasn't worked on the military ai -.-

 

[OnceAKing]

I'm far from an expert as I simply play for leisure and role play. But I play on King for comfort. Heres a few tips.


Growth is paramount. Im absolutely obsessive about growth in the capital. Its a critical focus that helps production and science later.

Science - be very deliberate in your research choices. On prince you can get every research option before the competition. On king you will have to pick your poison someone will always be ahead of you in a specific type of tech. The last thing you want to do though is try to grab every tech along the way and not become a specialist for one thing or another. So choose a direction and stick with it. If someone has the best naypvu. Shoot for the best infantry. Someone has long swordsman shoot for the best growth and science. Someone will be ahead of you in a couple things. But you know your plan so stick with it.

Same with wonders. You can't just have them all anymore so choose WISELY. And tactically. Often the wonder isn't really worth it if you have SHAKA as a neighbor and you know you could build a full army in the time it takes to build that wonder.

Settle tactically as well. I try my best to not sit between Civs. If there's only one civ I share a border with. I know who will try to invade me. Also the AI is very big on capturing cities and almost always just marches in a straight line too the closest one to there border. So build a highly defensible city between your capital and the other civ. and focus your army defense on that city.

Finally if your not war mongering. Be very tactical with the units you build. You have to build enough to prevent war. But don't build to many. I focus most of my defensive army on my most vulnerable city. I only leave enough other army units in other cities to hold that city for a few turns until I can move my units to that front. I also like allying city states who build units. So I can focus on other things.



With the right tactical desicions you cn still win science pretty easily. Culture games can be fun. If your dealing with war mongers. Make them fight each other.

Lastly domination is still the easiest. The AI is just not smart enough to beat a human tactically. You can focus on biding your time and building strong production cities with a lot of growth. And then build a large army in the renaissance and go conquering. Another good tactic is allowing a war monger to declare war on you. Destroy his waves of soldiers in your home territory. Often they'll ask for peace unprompted. You can deny them and immediately counter attack the nearest large city. The AI LOVES to send every unit and don't leave behind enoug for defense. If you ignore his new cities and go straight for the capital or the second largest city. You can shatter his happiness and production and probably his economy. He'll never build up enough of a military to stop you from steam rolling.

 

[Chemical Toilet]

Science - be very deliberate in your research choices. On prince you can get every research option before the competition. On king you will have to pick your poison someone will always be ahead of you in a specific type of tech. The last thing you want to do though is try to grab every tech along the way and not become a specialist for one thing or another. So choose a direction and stick with it. If someone has the best naypvu. Shoot for the best infantry. Someone has long swordsman shoot for the best growth and science. Someone will be ahead of you in a couple things. But you know your plan so stick with it.

So by this, you mean beeline according to whatever victory condition I'm shooting for?

But eventually I will need to research those techs I've missed, correct? Should I wait for them to cost 1 or 2 turns or are you actually talking about ignoring entire techs? I mean, say if I'm focusing only gold-building techs, and don't research military techs, I'm kind of backed in a corner.

 

[Averylongname]

I'm not an expert I play on immortal mostly, I found immortal more comfortable than deity for me.
It's hard to believe you are behind in science on king with Babylon and Korea, and you do build science building and work specialist asap. This is very strange. Do you plant your great scientist as academy? Usually I plant the first 2 or 3 great scientists as academy in city that I built National college or cities that I could build observatory, because of the +50% bonus. If you have problem deciding whether use it as a science boost or academy. You can calculate which way is more beneficial by checking roughly how many turns are left and multiply that by 12 because an academy gives you 8 science per turn and Nation college has a +50% bonus and see which gives you more science, if they are roughly the same I'd still use it as an academy because I didn't take research lab and observatory into account if I just multiply by 12.
Another thing that you can do to help with your science is research agreement. Sign as much research agreement as possible, except the tech leader.
For policy unlock rationalism ASAP, don't even bother if you've filled in the previous tree or not, unlock rationalism ASAP and get at least Secularism asap as well.
Another thing is that the science cost of a tech is lowered if you enter the next era, so I usually go to the next era asap after getting all the tech I need.
When it comes to wonder, try to go for less early game wonder. Temple of Artemis and Oracle are the only 2 early game wonders that I try to go for, as Temple of Artemis food bonus is very very good and Oracle AI usually don't prioritize it plus I research Philosophy quite early for the National college. If I have a desert start, I'll try to go for Petra as well. But these are the only wonders that I get, at least not until I have a significant tech lead. Hanging Gardens usually is very hard to compete because the AIs prioritize it a lot.
I think religion is quite helpful in all victory types. In domination, religion could help you with the happiness. In science, you could buy great scientist with faith if you finished rationalism tree. In cultural, you get a bonus in tourism with an AI if the AI share the same religion with the you in most of the cities. In diplomatic, the tithe belief always helps with the gold. Therefore, don't ignore religion in any victory types. Even you don't focus on religion, buying great engineer (completing tradition) and great scientist (completing rationalism) is always nice.

 

[Ryika]

So by this, you mean beeline according to whatever victory condition I'm shooting for?

But eventually I will need to research those techs I've missed, correct? Should I wait for them to cost 1 or 2 turns or are you actually talking about ignoring entire techs? I mean, say if I'm focusing only gold-building techs, and don't research military techs, I'm kind of backed in a corner.

You should always tech to intermediate goals that align with your primary goal as soon as possible so that you can get as many bonuses as early as possible. Let's say you're going for a relatively peaceful science victory - it would make absolutely no sense to get artillery before research schools.

You should also skip techs that don't have any immediate benefit for you and research them once you need them as a stepping stone - at that point they won't be a great time investment anymore, but if you research them early just because they're "relatively cheap", you're still wasting ~10 turns per tech.

Some of the most valuable early game techs are: Philosophy (National College), Civil Service (Food - try to farm all tiles with fresh water BEFORE you research this for a MASSIVE growth boost), Currency (Gets you to a reasonable income), Education (Universities) - I'll usually beeline them in that order when I play a peaceful standard opening. (Oh and Construction is useful too - obviously)

A minor note about science specialists: Don't use them in cities that are below 9-10 pop, it will just stagnate your growth/production and hurt you more than it helps.

My opinion to a few things that have not been answered yet:

Which victory types/when should I simply ignore trying to get a religion?

Never ignore it. On King you should always be able to get a pantheon and even if the really good ones are already gone, it's still worth the investment. You should also be able to get a religion without investing too much - many of the good beliefs (such as tithe) are valued very low by the AI, so even if your religion is the last to be created, you can still get great benefit out of it. And those benefits are universal, they can literally boost your progress for ANY victory condition, even if you keep them local to your cities.

It seems on King my starting positions are not nearly as good. Is anyone aware if this is deliberate on higher difficulties or bad luck?

Bad Luck.

Should I abandon wonders all together? Which ones are worth focusing on? It is no surprise to me that on this difficulty I'm not going to get nearly as many as I used to. I always at least try to grab the Hanging Gardens if I'm going tradition and sometimes I miss by a few turns. I had a Babylon game where it felt like it made a difference and put me behind. Should I be that worried about it? Other then that I usually try to grab Colossus or Petra if my capital is in the appropriate spot, otherwise I grab the Oracle because the AI usually doesn't. I'm still trying to beeline somewhat for Notre Dame and/or Tower of Pisa or Forbidden Palace (depending on what victory type I'm aiming for). Should I instead research other tech since I'm probably going to miss these anyway?

Those wonders are okay imho, except for Pisa, it's not that good. I'd say skip hanging gardens too, if you don't have forests to chop or a food- and hammer-heavy start. Machu Picchu is a great wonder too if you have a mountain nearby - it equals tons of gold.

But yeah, if you're not sure if you can get a wonder and especially if you have delayed the needed tech anyway, OR if you're falling behind building really important buildings, better skip a wonder or two.

Also, when I plan on doing plenty of warmongering right off the bat, is it best to go honor or liberty or does it depend on the civ?

Both can work. If you really plan on doing some long-term warmongering, the left side of the Honor Tree is extremely useful - getting those unstoppable 3-range-double-attack archers asap.

 

[Chemical Toilet]

I'm not an expert I play on immortal mostly, I found immortal more comfortable than deity for me.
It's hard to believe you are behind in science on king with Babylon and Korea, and you do build science building and work specialist asap. This is very strange. Do you plant your great scientist as academy? Usually I plant the first 2 or 3 great scientists as academy in city that I built National college or cities that I could build observatory, because of the +50% bonus. If you have problem deciding whether use it as a science boost or academy. You can calculate which way is more beneficial by checking roughly how many turns are left and multiply that by 12 because an academy gives you 8 science per turn and Nation college has a +50% bonus and see which gives you more science, if they are roughly the same I'd still use it as an academy because I didn't take research lab and observatory into account if I just multiply by 12.
Another thing that you can do to help with your science is research agreement. Sign as much research agreement as possible, except the tech leader.
For policy unlock rationalism ASAP, don't even bother if you've filled in the previous tree or not, unlock rationalism ASAP and get at least Secularism asap as well.
Another thing is that the science cost of a tech is lowered if you enter the next era, so I usually go to the next era asap after getting all the tech I need.
When it comes to wonder, try to go for less early game wonder. Temple of Artemis and Oracle are the only 2 early game wonders that I try to go for, as Temple of Artemis food bonus is very very good and Oracle AI usually don't prioritize it plus I research Philosophy quite early for the National college. If I have a desert start, I'll try to go for Petra as well. But these are the only wonders that I get, at least not until I have a significant tech lead. Hanging Gardens usually is very hard to compete because the AIs prioritize it a lot.
I think religion is quite helpful in all victory types. In domination, religion could help you with the happiness. In science, you could buy great scientist with faith if you finished rationalism tree. In cultural, you get a bonus in tourism with an AI if the AI share the same religion with the you in most of the cities. In diplomatic, the tithe belief always helps with the gold. Therefore, don't ignore religion in any victory types. Even you don't focus on religion, buying great engineer (completing tradition) and great scientist (completing rationalism) is always nice.

Yeah, both my Korea and Babylon games I had spent all my scientists as academies, prioritized science boosting techs, built science buildings first, completed rationalism, signed many RAs, and tried to squeeze the science bonus out of patronage or commerce.

My Korea had game, I had 3 out of my 4 cities filled with the universities specialist slots, and that was the one where the AI got Himeji far before anyone should have reached gunpowder. Maybe these games were just rare occurrences? Strange if that's the case, since I played both of those civs back to back.

Thanks for all the answers guys. I think maybe my biggest problem is researching tech I don't immediately need. Sometimes that's hard to do when Attila is next door and I haven't researched construction for the bows yet. I guess this is the difficulty where you start having to make those hard decisions that sometimes become sacrifices?

 

[Primacide]

This is all good advice and I don't have much to add.

Early game: you will fall behind on tech. You certainly won't be the first to each. The key is picking the techs that are critical for you to reach first and nail those (dynamite anyone?). This goes hand in hand with wonders. Early wonders you will mostly miss. Make your peace with that. Pick the two that you feel you just have to have and if you keep them in mind as you choose tech or build order, you will get them. (Except great library. Forget the great library. Forget it completely.).

You will find, and it's not without enjoyment, that as you move up levels, your play really sharpens. You are forced to trim the fat and wind up with a much more efficient and sharp style. Emperor is not much harder than King, but you will see the same effect when you are ready to play consistently on that level. Then, when you get little bonuses ("hey, I managed to grab Notre Dame," for example) it really does feel like a bonus.

I just moved up to deity and I am feeling the exact same confusion. It's like my normal play is all out of focus and ineffective. It really forces you to pare down to the necessities when you advance levels. Good luck to you!

 

[Xiao Xiong]

On higher difficulty levels you are usually behind in everything for a long time. Do not worry if you are behind on science, the goal in the game becomes catching up and surpassing the AI, not being ahead the whole time. The AI gets a ton of early advantages. Really, once you significantly surpass the AI in science, you usually are going to win the game. Either you are fielding military units the AI doesn't have yet and cleaning up, or you are starting in on building wonders before the AI gets a shot at them.

Prioritize your science and your economy in the early game. Get granary and library up ASAP so you start churning out early science, then beeline the national college, you should be getting it up before about turn 100 if not earlier. Then beeline universities, and start working those science slots. Settle every great scientist you get until you have public schools up.

Obviously on that overall plan you have to detour here and there to get important buildings up, build necessary military units, but you should build only the minimum you need to keep your economy going and your empire from being conquered until you have universities up, and only then start looking around to see who you want to kill.

That isn't the only way to play obviously, but try that strategy a few times until you are powering ahead of the AI in the mid game. Then once you understand how science works when it is optimized, you can start thinking about tradeoffs you want to make, like deferring the national college for something you think is really important (like an early rush to knock out a weak AI). But try the straight up science game for awhile until you get the hang of it.

Even war mongers benefit from getting universities out before they go on a tear.

 

[Mattzey]

To the person who said pisa is not that good, I play at immortal and its one of the only wonders i get, because then i choose a great engineer and rush build the porcelain tower afterwards for the free gs which then gets you to plasitics quicker, also 50 percent boost on research agreements, even if you don't want to do ra's stops an ai getting it

 

[Humantorch]

I usually try to ninja all the wonders and focus on food/culture buildings. Place your spies in which ever civs capitals who are furthest ahead and if they die just reload a few turns back.

 

[Asklepios]

On higher difficulty levels you are usually behind in everything for a long time. Do not worry if you are behind on science, the goal in the game becomes catching up and surpassing the AI, not being ahead the whole time. The AI gets a ton of early advantages. Really, once you significantly surpass the AI in science, you usually are going to win the game. Either you are fielding military units the AI doesn't have yet and cleaning up, or you are starting in on building wonders before the AI gets a shot at them.

This, absolutely this. I remember when first going to King it was a big culture shock not to be #1 in science and top of the scoreboard from point of first contact with other civs.

Instead focus on the growth of your cities and empire at the start, and accept that sometimes long term success relies on short term sacrifices.

As a general rule of thumb, I try to build on a riverside hill if available, or a riverside other if not. I avoid moving more than once to get a best site.

Then, build a scout (or two depending on your style), then a granary.
Your scouts normally let you capture a worker, and will often get you a culture boost. If you get a culture boost you can leave monument out of your build queue as Tradition will cover that for you.
Start building a settler as soon as you hit Size 4, and maximise food.

Then depending on your civ, up to you which way you go.

For late game strong civs I tend to try to get to three cities, build library in first two, buy it in third, and then go National College, while building another settler in city 2.
Gold is critical to startup speed, so sell horses at 2gpt each (one at a time) and sell excess luxuries. Scout exploration will also bring in extra gold and happiness.

For early game aggressive civs I'll just get to two cities, and I'll NC a little later, instead prioritising archers then upgrading to CB. Once I have 4 CB I'll go take a capital. Note that I'll start warring before that point in order to harass my target. The perfect DoW is capturing their first or second settler (2nd ideally, as you don't want to wipe them out).

Don't try to cover all the bases on all the techs at once. Research the luxury techs timed so that you get them and complete the improvement at roughly the time you need the happiness.
When you can, use food caravans (preeferably cargo ships if the map is right) to speed early growth. Population = science, resources, money, everything.

By turn 100 you'll tend to either have your NC up, or have a capital captured. By that stage you'll note your score starting to overtake everyone elses and your tech starting to lead.

 

[Mattzey]

Then, build a scout (or two depending on your style), then a granary.
Your scouts normally let you capture a worker, and will often get you a culture boost. If l

I personally think you should always build a shrine first, unless you have 3 wheats, because that early faith can let you get the pantheon you want

 

[Memoryjar]

My Korea had game, I had 3 out of my 4 cities filled with the universities specialist slots, and that was the one where the AI got Himeji far before anyone should have reached gunpowder.

Don't bother with that. When you are looking for Education, AIs use to beeline bottom tech tree. So they use to have Gunpowder before you on King.

On a standard game, on King you should be first to reach Renaissance with Acoustics or Astronomy. If after Education, you're going to Banking or Printing Press or Gunpowder, AIs will reach this last tech before you. Normally, you should be tech leader after National College, on King. Do you build it ?
If yes, build Caravans (try to have cargo ships) and send it, first to satellites, after reverse 2 of them to capital. Do what you want with others.
At last, check «food focus» in every cities, don't let it to default.
Try to have a capital with size 10-12 T100, satellites 7-9. If you can have this before Education, put additional citizens to science specialist slots and further to food.

 

[Asklepios]

I personally think you should always build a shrine first, unless you have 3 wheats, because that early faith can let you get the pantheon you want

When you hit pottery, you mean. Sure, thats an approach that can work.

My own preference is for granary before shrine, because more food earlier means more population earlier, which means 4 pop and 1st settler sooner and more science sooner, and more tiles worked sooner, and so on.

Unless I'm playing a civ thats built for it, I tend not to worry much about pantheons and religion till I've got my core empire up and running.

 

[Chum]

To the person who said pisa is not that good, I play at immortal and its one of the only wonders i get, because then i choose a great engineer and rush build the porcelain tower afterwards for the free gs which then gets you to plasitics quicker, also 50 percent boost on research agreements, even if you don't want to do ra's stops an ai getting it

Burning your engineer on PT is a complete waste. Almost all of the AI's never open rationalism, which is part and parcel of why they're so bad in science. Therefore, they can never build PT to begin with. Hard build it, use the engineer on something you have to compete for, like Uffizi or Louvre or something.

I personally think you should always build a shrine first, unless you have 3 wheats, because that early faith can let you get the pantheon you want

Well, first of all, you're advocating building something first that you can't actually build first due to tech requirements. Second of all, shrine first is bad in a lot of ways. Scout first reveals land, which is important. You need to know what you're up against. Then it can get early gold from meeting CS's (remember you get more gold if you meet them first), can get faith from meeting CS's, and can get culture and gold and techs from ruins. Shrine is pretty terrible to build first, even if you could build it first.

Unless I have an obvious pantheon choice available (high abundance of salt, gems + pearls or a lot of cows/sheep or something like that), let the pantheon come later. It's not a make or break thing.

 

[Uzael36]

^ I think he meant to build a shrine before your granary. Not before the scouts. After your first 2 scouts, the shrine is the perfect build.

 

[Mattzey]

Burning your engineer on PT is a complete waste. Almost all of the AI's never open rationalism, which is part and parcel of why they're so bad in science. Therefore, they can never build PT to begin with. Hard build it, use the engineer on something you have to compete for, like Uffizi or Louvre or something.



Well, first of all, you're advocating building something first that you can't actually build first due to tech requirements. Second of all, shrine first is bad in a lot of ways. Scout first reveals land, which is important. You need to know what you're up against. Then it can get early gold from meeting CS's (remember you get more gold if you meet them first), can get faith from meeting CS's, and can get culture and gold and techs from ruins. Shrine is pretty terrible to build first, even if you could build it first.

Unless I have an obvious pantheon choice available (high abundance of salt, gems + pearls or a lot of cows/sheep or something like that), let the pantheon come later. It's not a make or break thing.

I obviously meant shrine before granary, its impractical to open with shrine and it would be stupid to neglect scouts, and I thought the ai sometimes did open rationalism that's why i always thought about rush building the pt

 

[Chum]

^ I think he meant to build a shrine before your granary. Not before the scouts. After your first 2 scouts, the shrine is the perfect build.

Well, he was still responding to a post saying basically "settle, then build a scout," which leaves it open for interpretation.

But still. Shrine first means that there are probably half the starts where you're not going to have enough food to grow at a decent pace by citizen 3. That's really bad times, and I dunno if a pantheon is worth that. Obviously if you think you're not going to get what pantheon you want or if you absolutely NEED that pantheon to make that start work (desert folklore, etc) then sure, go ahead. But Granary is the clear better option here for first build after the scouts for the +2 food. It's even more the case if you have any of the resources it buffs.

I can't remember having too many food rich starts where I was good delaying the granary and didn't suffer any population problems as a result.

 

[Mattzey]

Well, he was still responding to a post saying basically "settle, then build a scout," which leaves it open for interpretation.

But still. Shrine first means that there are probably half the starts where you're not going to have enough food to grow at a decent pace by citizen 3. That's really bad times, and I dunno if a pantheon is worth that. Obviously if you think you're not going to get what pantheon you want or if you absolutely NEED that pantheon to make that start work (desert folklore, etc) then sure, go ahead. But Granary is the clear better option here for first build after the scouts for the +2 food. It's even more the case if you have any of the resources it buffs.

I can't remember having too many food rich starts where I was good delaying the granary and didn't suffer any population problems as a result.

apologies for not making my comment clear, but everyone has different strategies and it just depends on the user how they want to play