why i quit this stupid game

[kirbdog]

It could be worse. My wife is a beginner, and I had her in a multiplayer game today with me. I was on Immortal, and she was on Warlord. I got my cultural victory done in 276 turns on Standard, and she had just built the Apollo Program.

I felt kind of bad for doing it, because she had worked so hard to get where she had. :<

She had, as she said, "done everything right." Or what I told her. She got the GL and NC early, bee-lined Education, used specialists, yada yada. Everything I mentioned was there.

But there were little things that provided a snowball effect. She asked why I seem to click twice as many times per turn as she does. I am often switching my citizens around for more food or more production, depending on what is going on, or just locking down good tiles. Or making sure some timing goes right, say, for picking a policy or building a national wonder. Or checking the city-state quests. Or hunting barbarian camps. Or, when playing with AI, selling strategic resources, luxuries, open borders, and embassies whenever possible - or even gold per turn (that one cheap trick that gets better as you go up in difficulty).

These kinds of things anyone can learn by playing more and getting it a little bit at a time, through experience and the occasional well-placed hint. Since you've found this place and you've started another game, you are already on the path to Civ-enlightenment.

Enjoy the journey.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

If you don't know what's "normal" due to lack of experience, Prince is a good level to gain experience on. It is the most balanced difficultly. King and above is for players with experience who know how to predict and exploit the limitations of the game design and the AI.

you dont really have to exploit anything at King (or even emperor). You can get wins playing sloppy, just they will come much later than expected or only 50% of the time, but they will still come. King is a good introduction to barbarian frustrations. Teaches you to keep workers and settlers safer and the need for early archers, plus a little bit with CS quests for their benefits. if you want to win with anything other than dom in less than 275 turns then you need to do a little game design abuse, imo.

 

[Unresolved]

King and Prince are pretty similar in difficulty. I didn't remember any noticeable differences when I made that transition. Emperor teaches you how to wonder spam less because that's when the AI starts going for some wonders. Immortal teaches you how to deal with science runaways and unit spam. Deity teaches you...pain I guess.

 

[grandad1982]

I recommend playing a standard size map with a standard number of civs on it. Trying to play huge games when your still learning won't help much. With the neurotic AI this game has having more AIs means more chances of them acting like dicks towards you, and dog piling you.

My next piece of advice is to play say 50/100 turns and stop. Post the save from the game here with a summery of what you've done and why. This means that the people here can look at the save (and screens you may post) and provide more detailed advice and constructive feedback.

 

[smallfish]

Standard map

Put the number of city-states to 8

Low Sea Level for even more space

Go

 

[Cissnei]

herro
this is my current game i played today ^^
http://i.imgur.com/sXZaJxt.jpg
Ive had 2 wars with Rome, 1 with USA, 3 with Darius, and 1 with Siam and currently at war with Ottomans (for 100 turns). This is 22 civs == continents huge map again lol.
I rushed Stonehenge to have my own religion so i did bad at the start. 5 civilizations already lost, including Persia, Inca, China TT, Polynesia
Im winning on this continent but Japan, Germany and Babylon are 200 points ahead of me (they are on another continent) and Japan has above 10 times better army then me. USA and Ottomans are as strong as me~
i think i will play it till the end. Can you give me some tips to this game and judge me? I still struggle with everything but mostly gold and happiness. I still havent discovered many civilizations. I know there is civilization who built over 10 wonders but dont know who

PS can someone change the name of thread to something else?

 

[aluelkdf]

King and Prince are pretty similar in difficulty. I didn't remember any noticeable differences when I made that transition. Emperor teaches you how to wonder spam less because that's when the AI starts going for some wonders. Immortal teaches you how to deal with science runaways and unit spam. Deity teaches you...pain I guess.

In prince the AI and human are on a "level" playing field, the AI doesn't cheat or get advantages, and the human gets no advantages. So I feel this is a good level for getting experience.

King and above, the AI cheats. I see a noticeable difference in the number of AI units between prince and king.

And on Emperor, you can't neglect your military. I feel that emperor AI is far more aggressive than Prince (or even king). If they think you are weak, they will attack you. On emperor, I notice a lot more early attacks with warriors and archers in the very early game. I don't see this too much on king.

 

[Unresolved]

In prince the AI and human are on a "level" playing field, the AI doesn't cheat or get advantages, and the human gets no advantages. So I feel this is a good level for getting experience.

King and above, the AI cheats. I see a noticeable difference in the number of AI units between prince and king.

And on Emperor, you can't neglect your military. I feel that emperor AI is far more aggressive than Prince (or even king). If they think you are weak, they will attack you. On emperor, I notice a lot more early attacks with warriors and archers in the very early game. I don't see this too much on king.

Meh, I've gotten by with very lame militaries in Emperor. I think in GoTM 54, I had a couple CB's, a warrior and some horse units laying around when I launched my spaceship. Maybe that was GoTM 53, I don't remember.

 

[aluelkdf]

Meh, I've gotten by with very lame militaries in Emperor. I think in GoTM 54, I had a couple CB's, a warrior and some horse units laying around when I launched my spaceship. Maybe that was GoTM 53, I don't remember.

I really don't see how that is possible. You had warriors in the end game and never got invaded? On emperor the AI usually has a pretty strong military. By 1000 AD it's not uncommon for them to have knights.

And what do you do in early game if you get rushed by 4 warriors and 4 archers, and all you have is 1 or 2 warriors? You are done. This early game attack happens frequently on emperor.

 

[Browd]

Meh, I've gotten by with very lame militaries in Emperor. I think in GoTM 54, I had a couple CB's, a warrior and some horse units laying around when I launched my spaceship. Maybe that was GoTM 53, I don't remember.

Memory is a funny thing. GOTM 54 was the Emperor Maya science game, but the screenie attached to your After Action report showed a few more units than you remember: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12200362&postcount=14

I count 4 crossbows, 1 pike, 1 Narushan's Elephant (obviously a CS gift), 1 machine gun, 1 cannon, 1 AA gun, 1 rifle, 1 GW infantry and 1 infantry. Wouldn't be surprised if half or more of those were CS gifts.

But yes, that is a pretty lame military....

 

[Unresolved]

The stronger units mostly came at the very end when I was doing a bit of pre-building for spaceship parts . The majority of the game, I had the crossbows and a few things from military CS's .

 

[The QC]

It could be worse. My wife is a beginner, and I had her in a multiplayer game today with me. I was on Immortal, and she was on Warlord. I got my cultural victory done in 276 turns on Standard, and she had just built the Apollo Program.

I felt kind of bad for doing it, because she had worked so hard to get where she had. :<

I'm in a similar situation. My wife likes Civ, but doesn't have my experience. I decided to not play in a completely adversarial manner, since it wouldn't be that much fun. We sometimes play as a team and sometimes we are just friendly and help each other (moderately). We also watch each other play, which helps her improve faster.

(All of this should be in the past tense, really. After our baby appeared, we haven't had the time.)

 

[Novalia]

herro
this is my current game i played today ^^
....
i think i will play it till the end. Can you give me some tips to this game and judge me?

What is your victory goal? Science? Domination?
If I were you I'd get artillery and wipe out your continent.

 

[greygamer]

I'm in a similar situation. My wife likes Civ, but doesn't have my experience. I decided to not play in a completely adversarial manner, since it wouldn't be that much fun. We sometimes play as a team and sometimes we are just friendly and help each other (moderately). We also watch each other play, which helps her improve faster.

The AI does not work well in co-op unfortunately, if you put it into teams it seems to go after one player at a time only (at least that has been my experience). As a result I play non-adversarial with my wife, we compare notes on how we are doing for culture/science/production/gold etc.

 

[Bandobras Took]

In prince the AI and human are on a "level" playing field, the AI doesn't cheat or get advantages, and the human gets no advantages. So I feel this is a good level for getting experience.

When did that happen? I was under the impression that the AI still got Chieftain level Happiness and Unit Support on Prince difficulty.

 

[aluelkdf]

When did that happen? I was under the impression that the AI still got Chieftain level Happiness and Unit Support on Prince difficulty.

I'm pretty sure that the human player gets the most advantages on settler, and the advantages diminish every level up to prince. On prince neither human or AI get advantages or penalties. Then starting on king the AI gets advantages, and these advantages increase every level up to deity.

 

[Browd]

AI plays at Chieftain difficulty level, so it gets the player bonuses from Chieftain (e.g., 12 base happiness, 5 happiness from luxuries (rather than 4), 60% unhappiness per city and per population, 67% building cost, etc.). In that sense, if you play at Prince, the playing field is not level, since the AI is enjoying those advantages. That is the same as if you were playing a hotseat game with a human opponent, where you are playing Prince and your opponent is at Chieftain.

At Prince and below, the AI gets no additional bonuses (beyond Chieftain bonuses) due to your chosen difficulty level. But at King and above it does, and those bonuses multiply with the AI's "native" Chieftain bonuses.

So, for example, the AI at Emperor only suffers 85% unhappiness (translates into 51% unhappiness -- 60% for Chieftain x 85% for Emperor) -- and 80% building cost (translates into 53% building cost -- 67% for Chieftain x 80% for Emperor).

The lowest "true" level playing field is at Chieftain.

 

[clearbeard]

 

[Cissnei]

To be honest i never think of victory conditions. and in this game i discovered russia is 600 points ahead of me =_=
I think i did bad because i had alot of unhappiness in this game. i dont know how to make people happy, i didnt have many rluxury resources

 

[Browd]

Too few luxuries is a common situation. Befriending mercantile CSs is a great source of happiness. Some religious beliefs also help a great deal, as does building happiness buildings (colosseums, circuses, etc.). At King, you should also be able to build one or more of the happiness World Wonders (Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Forbidden Palace, Taj Mahal).

On the victory condition point, as you practice with more games, it can be helpful to aim for a specific victory condition to give focus to your empire development -- otherwise the temptation is to bounce around the tech tree and your cities' build queues without real progress (after all, everything is potentially useful, but you can't build everything -- choices need something to guide them, and a chosen VC is a good guide).

Of course, changed circumstances (and aggressive neighbors) may force you to change your VC aim, but that's OK.