danaphanous
religious fanatic
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2013
- Messages
- 1,501
The title is pretty clear. I love building empires--this is my favorite part of civ. But I always run into an approximately 100-turn dead period early game where I just cannot settle after my 3rd city because I've secured all the happy sources possible and my growing cities eat up everything. I'm riding the red line constantly with happiness. Later, settling is no problem and this is usually when I expand to the scale I like, but it is annoying losing half the game before I can do what I like.
I can remember my glory days of Civ III and how much I loved expanding across the frontier on huge maps and racing the AI for city spots and resources. But now, with Civ V's new features, these days are dead.
Oh, I understand why they did it. They were tired of small empires sucking and wanted to reward the players that liked to keep small, tidy, and well-honed empires. (maybe even the majority of players from what I've seen) The problem is, with game mechanics based on points and population, wide always wins unless you add modifiers that punish you for every new city--hence Civ V's punishment to science, culture, and happiness. I for one argue it was all too severe.
In the beginning I was distracted by Civ V's pretty features and the learning curve was enough to keep me happy staying smaller. But it didn't take long (4 games or so) before I was playing immortal/Deity and I realized just how terrible happiness problems are for early expansion on these levels. The problem is, anything Emperor or below I cannot lose on and because the AI can't handle the new mechanics properly. I utterly dominate every time. It's just not even fun, however, it is these lower levels where base happiness and sources was enough to allow me to expand comfortably without constantly feeling the happy pinch.
I'm familiar with all the happy mechanics and usually compensated before Immortal by spreading a happy-generating religion and trading the heck out of luxes, however, on the levels I play now I frequently cannot get a proper religion and the AI since BNW upgrade seem smart enough to nab most of the happy sources in the choices if I can't at least be the 3rd religion. (I always get something useful (like tithes) but frequently the best buildings for happiness are gone along with the +2 from temples) I may just be having a string of bad luck, but I also find since upgrading the BNW that the AI are inept at connecting duplicate luxes. I will have 5 truffles on hand and all 4 ppl I know have nothing they will trade. so I end up selling them all (they are going to waste anyway) and the AI responds with the extra happiness I give them by expanding like I can't.
Current things I always do:
With these strategies I can usually get up 3 good-growing cities and keep my capital good enough to rival the AI in growth, but often find myself pinched and having to nerf growth on one. If I settle a 4th unless in very lucky circumstances, then the scales tip and my growth suffers and I can't seem to solve this problem until Renaissance--there just isn't enough happiness. I noticed these problems after I really got a handle on growth and keeping it fast, so there is a reason I'm having more trouble with founding. As growth is the easiest way to stay competitive though, it is not worth it to nerf growth so I can settle another crappy city--as badly as I want too. To make matters worse, policies, a good source of future happiness slow down as I settle early. So I am forced to stay small for a long, long time while I grow and take key policies, riding the red line and often purchasing colloseums just to keep afloat with 3 good cities. Then have a settling craze later, like Renaissance and early industrial, when the spots are crappier and the AI have had their pick. I've also lost half of the available time to develop them. It works, but I do very much miss the early part of expansion.
This hurts my settling heart. My dream game would be one where I can steadily expand in the beginning while keeping my core competitive. I favor a REX beginning on huge maps with lots of space for empire-building and like to end with 15 cities or so. I frequently do, but with every strategy I try I end up halting for a huge part of the early game with my 3 cities because there is just no sources of happiness possible to expand further without sacrificing growth or making myself an overextended AI target. It's one thing to think that spot way over there with 2 new luxes is perfect for a fourth, but if it's 15 spaces away then the AI always complain and attack it...and it's hell to defend.
Anyway, long-winded but here is my problem: Is there an un-modded way to get past the 3-city early barrier without halting growth for some of the game? Religion solves the problem, but 2/3 of the time I miss the best options for happiness as the AI are just too interested in the same things from religion and are faster with immortal. Halting growth is simply not a competitive strategy on immortal and often puts me way behind...but immortal and Deity are the only levels that I have a chance of losing at now and I just am not willing to take the challenge out of the game to realize my dream.
Clarifications:
I can remember my glory days of Civ III and how much I loved expanding across the frontier on huge maps and racing the AI for city spots and resources. But now, with Civ V's new features, these days are dead.
Oh, I understand why they did it. They were tired of small empires sucking and wanted to reward the players that liked to keep small, tidy, and well-honed empires. (maybe even the majority of players from what I've seen) The problem is, with game mechanics based on points and population, wide always wins unless you add modifiers that punish you for every new city--hence Civ V's punishment to science, culture, and happiness. I for one argue it was all too severe.
In the beginning I was distracted by Civ V's pretty features and the learning curve was enough to keep me happy staying smaller. But it didn't take long (4 games or so) before I was playing immortal/Deity and I realized just how terrible happiness problems are for early expansion on these levels. The problem is, anything Emperor or below I cannot lose on and because the AI can't handle the new mechanics properly. I utterly dominate every time. It's just not even fun, however, it is these lower levels where base happiness and sources was enough to allow me to expand comfortably without constantly feeling the happy pinch.
I'm familiar with all the happy mechanics and usually compensated before Immortal by spreading a happy-generating religion and trading the heck out of luxes, however, on the levels I play now I frequently cannot get a proper religion and the AI since BNW upgrade seem smart enough to nab most of the happy sources in the choices if I can't at least be the 3rd religion. (I always get something useful (like tithes) but frequently the best buildings for happiness are gone along with the +2 from temples) I may just be having a string of bad luck, but I also find since upgrading the BNW that the AI are inept at connecting duplicate luxes. I will have 5 truffles on hand and all 4 ppl I know have nothing they will trade. so I end up selling them all (they are going to waste anyway) and the AI responds with the extra happiness I give them by expanding like I can't.
Current things I always do:
- rush religion as fast as possible and hope something that will boost happiness is left
- Pick up the techs for colloseums and horses early
- Then try to settle near luxes, horses, and stone (as circus is a free colosseum I want most of my cities near a source of horses)
- Scour the world for AI and just hope they are intelligent enough to hook up luxes so I can trade (usually I can't for until late medieval but sometimes I get lucky)
- Play huge maps
- CS's are useful but early game I just don't have the gold or time to keep them friendly enough to reap much from them
With these strategies I can usually get up 3 good-growing cities and keep my capital good enough to rival the AI in growth, but often find myself pinched and having to nerf growth on one. If I settle a 4th unless in very lucky circumstances, then the scales tip and my growth suffers and I can't seem to solve this problem until Renaissance--there just isn't enough happiness. I noticed these problems after I really got a handle on growth and keeping it fast, so there is a reason I'm having more trouble with founding. As growth is the easiest way to stay competitive though, it is not worth it to nerf growth so I can settle another crappy city--as badly as I want too. To make matters worse, policies, a good source of future happiness slow down as I settle early. So I am forced to stay small for a long, long time while I grow and take key policies, riding the red line and often purchasing colloseums just to keep afloat with 3 good cities. Then have a settling craze later, like Renaissance and early industrial, when the spots are crappier and the AI have had their pick. I've also lost half of the available time to develop them. It works, but I do very much miss the early part of expansion.
This hurts my settling heart. My dream game would be one where I can steadily expand in the beginning while keeping my core competitive. I favor a REX beginning on huge maps with lots of space for empire-building and like to end with 15 cities or so. I frequently do, but with every strategy I try I end up halting for a huge part of the early game with my 3 cities because there is just no sources of happiness possible to expand further without sacrificing growth or making myself an overextended AI target. It's one thing to think that spot way over there with 2 new luxes is perfect for a fourth, but if it's 15 spaces away then the AI always complain and attack it...and it's hell to defend.
Anyway, long-winded but here is my problem: Is there an un-modded way to get past the 3-city early barrier without halting growth for some of the game? Religion solves the problem, but 2/3 of the time I miss the best options for happiness as the AI are just too interested in the same things from religion and are faster with immortal. Halting growth is simply not a competitive strategy on immortal and often puts me way behind...but immortal and Deity are the only levels that I have a chance of losing at now and I just am not willing to take the challenge out of the game to realize my dream.
Clarifications:
- This is not an ICS wishlist, I just want to ability to smoothly expand, maybe put down a new city with some regularity as my others mature.
- What annoys me is the 100-turn lag between my third city and the opening of enough new happy sources that I'm not nerfing growth by settling.
- CS's are godsend but I just don't have the money or the number of quests to keep them reliably until Renaissance--and if I do, I'll be unpleasantly surprised when I lose them.
- If the AI would just hook up their extras this would solve this problem completely for me, but they are idiots.
- I'm very economical and keep a tight budget--if there were more ways to gradually build happiness like everything else then I could do it. But I seem to always get a dead period after colosseums where I can't find any way to get more. I mean, 3 colloseums and 1-2 circuses is nothing--I need that just to stay growing through this period.
The only thing that comes to my mind is OCC GL-NC slingshot as Mayans and ICS afterwards. It could work on immortal to the extent but not 100% reliable. The only question is... why? UB gives you all the science you need.
I have a really hard time keeping CS's as allies early and when I lose them I get tanked in happiness, however, if I can keep them I've found they really take the edge off expansion/growth. Milking barbarian quests seems like a good way to get an early ally and I will prioritize this next game and see. 
