A Question Regarding Tactics

[je355804]

A. I have a question regarding tactics, and I am unsure if this is the appropriate place to ask it? I feel as though the main civ 5 forum would be useless because the game mechanics of CEP are quite different.

B. So, I have pretty much got to the point where I win 100% of the time on king difficulty. However I am now attempting to move up to the next level in difficulty "Emperor." I generally play on a large/huge map, and I am running into a definite issue towards mid/late game.

The situation is as such;

1. Around the information era I have nearly double the scientific output, culture, manufacturing that my opponents do, and generally the same number of cities. Yet the computer is nearly at the same exact number of techs/policies as I am... in spite of the fact that their science/culture/output is 1/2 of mine.
2. As modern age approaches, one or two civs will begin to mass produce cities. For me this presents a challenge because of if I want to make new cities to attempt to keep up in production/gold creation, I incur the penalties towards science and policy cost.
3. At this point, one or two civs now have massive advantages in all major indices, while seemingly ignoring the cost penalty in science and culture.

The solutions to this that I see are A. take military advantage much early in the game (which isn't always possible on larger maps) or B. ... well I haven't come up with a second solution yet.


Any information/help/anecdotes regarding this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[mitsho]

First, everywhere is the appropriate place for stuff like this. (though maybe you could've opened it up in the strategy forum as well).

Secondly, I haven't done the math exactly (but surely somebody will quite soon in here ), but I think you overestimate the impact of the "culture and science penalty". F.e. to offset the science penalty an additional city generates I belive you only need a library + 6 population. Both are quite easy to get, especially with the new exploration tree.

I probably don't need to mention that you can get quite a lot of science via espionage and research agreements as well. With the later - at least in GEM, not sure about CEP yet - the civ with the lower amount of techs got more science from such an investment of gold. It also gets easier to catch-up on techs than to beeline further on.

It's similar with culture and policies and here you may ask yourself the question "Do I really need another policy?" Often it's better to aim for a victory than to try to "perfectionate" your civ with "just that one more" policy.

Now I don't know if those things all are true for your case - after all it's hard to tell without more details on the games -, but my first advice to you would thus be "why not try it yourself?" If there's still room to expand, why don't you do it yourself?

 

[Tomice]

I agree to everything mitsho said. Haven't done precise math yet, too, but I'm convinced the exploration tree offers excellent possibilities to profit from going wide later on (In fact, I already got very promising results so far on immortal)

First, cities start with more population and basic buildings (Arena, Barracks, Lighthouse, Granary, Monument, Stable). They catch up much faster than in vanilla BNW and become useful in a few turns.
Second, you can reduce gold-buy costs immensely, making it very easy to buy more science and culture buildings, negating the penalties.
Third, you can increase the output of trading posts a lot, so cities that are surrounded by them get very profitable.

Short: The secret is getting insanely rich by spamming TP cities and insta-buying everything you desire.



I even fear ICS may be back with this policy tree. Someone already stated almost ANY city is instantly profitable/beneficial with the exploration tree.

 

[stackpointer]

1. Around the information era I have nearly double the scientific output, culture, manufacturing that my opponents do, and generally the same number of cities. Yet the computer is nearly at the same exact number of techs/policies as I am... in spite of the fact that their science/culture/output is 1/2 of mine.

InfoAddict does not measure the correct amount of yields gained because CEP uses a custom YieldLibrary that InfoAddict cannot draw information from.

 

[Tomice]

Are you referring to my sig? I'm only using the InfoAddict offspring "Global relations" to check out the situation before agreeing on a declaration of friendship and such. And as an overview who may need my luxuries.

 

[stackpointer]

I'm referring to the original post. It refers to information such as culture and science per turn which is not available without InfoAddict or other similar tools.

 

[Tomice]

Ok, right

I wondered what you mean so I searched the thread for "addict" - only to find it in my sig

 

[stackpointer]

You're right, I've edited my post for clarity.

Also, I am going to attempt a re-balancing of the AI Handicaps in the next release. Hopefully, the AI rubber-banding should be less severe then.

 

[Tomice]

It might also be a matter of map types - I've seen expansionist AI's explode when they have lots of space to settle midgame.
I wouldn't see this as a bug until more people complain. It makes the midgame very interesting on terra maps and reshuffles the cards. A former underdog AI can become your biggest rival if it sends 10 settlers to the new world after Astronomy.

Also, vanilla difficulties were far too much balanced through starting units and such. It always was one of Thal's main goals to fight the classic "tough start, boring lategame" dilemma the civ series always had.

je355804, are you playing on terra maps?

 

[je355804]

It might also be a matter of map types - I've seen expansionist AI's explode when they have lots of space to settle midgame.
I wouldn't see this as a bug until more people complain. It makes the midgame very interesting on terra maps and reshuffles the cards. A former underdog AI can become your biggest rival if it sends 10 settlers to the new world after Astronomy.

Also, vanilla difficulties were far too much balanced through starting units and such. It always was one of Thal's main goals to fight the classic "tough start, boring lategame" dilemma the civ series always had.

je355804, are you playing on terra maps?

First off, thanks to everyone for all of the suggestions! I wasn't aware than info addicts didn't work properly with CEP. Nonetheless, it seems it approximates somewhat what's going on in the game... just given the "eye test."

As to the map I am playing on, I am using the "Communitas" map. I have been playing on a large map, with two less civs than is suggested. This is certainly allowing the expansionist civs to explode quite a bit more than normal, however I'd like to see if I can overcome this challenge!

 

[jwerano]

First off, thanks to everyone for all of the suggestions! I wasn't aware than info addicts didn't work properly with CEP. Nonetheless, it seems it approximates somewhat what's going on in the game... just given the "eye test."

As to the map I am playing on, I am using the "Communitas" map. I have been playing on a large map, with two less civs than is suggested. This is certainly allowing the expansionist civs to explode quite a bit more than normal, however I'd like to see if I can overcome this challenge!

You just need to save your policy points for rationalism and dont dilly dally too much before unlocking rationalism through reaching the Renaissance. Rationalism will enable you to nearly double your science yield once you have the opener and 3 key policies. Be very conservative with your early game policy picks in other trees as very few of them are essential once you do the math on them. On higher difficulties Emperor/Deity I always lag behind the AI in the early game but always overtake as early as Renaissance on Emperor or Modern at the latest on Deity.

Also under normal circumstances dont build more than 3 cities until the late renaissance/industrial and preferably after getting a few policies in exploration. Early through mid game your limited happiness will yield you more science/gold/policies by adding an extra citizen to a big city. I typically build settlers and place them but wait until i've completed hermitage before actually instantly forming multiple cities on the same turn. This of course changes if you can grab an exceptionally placed 4th city/ conquer a capital/ build hanging gardens.

 

[Tomice]

@jwerano: AFAIK policy saving is a non-standard rule, it's not normally allowed.

@je355804:

This is my standard city specialization strategy for the early game:

• A high population science center with national college and observatory if possible. I'm not sure yet if leaving jungles for science is better than simply having more farmland for this city.
• A main military hub with heroic epic if feasible. HE might be a bit hard to get since you don't usually build barracks everywhere in a wide strategy, but free barracks are available through an exploration policy.
• A great person farm with national college. It needs enough food to support at least 6 specialists. Put all three guilds here.*
• A main trade hub getting all trade routes. It should be close to many foreign cities, coastal, riverside, have many different ressource tiles and should generally produce a ton of gold. Both the local city gold output and the diversity of ressources within the cities borders increase trade route value, as does river access. Surround it with trading posts and settle great merchants here. Build East india here and any gold-related wonder as well. As you might guess, finding the right spot for this one is quite challenging.
• This is further aggravated by the fact that the trade hub should be the holy city for your religion, too. Why? Because holy cities emanate more pressure with the grand temple, so with all those trade routes you'll spread your religion very fast (while not risking to import foreign religions because holy cities emanate lots of "internal" pressure on themselves). Settling Prophets here does not give you any benefits, however - faith has no local (city-specific) effect I know of and there's no building increasing faith by a certain percentage. There's no point to concentrate faith sources in a city, unlike science or culture where an +XX% national wonder exists.
  
  
• You might add additional production cities for more military units, settlers, workers, wonders without local effect, archaeologists, the world fair, spaceship parts, ....
• I don't usually build a specific cultural center, since all those opera houses and hotels are tough to get when going wide. I'm also no expert for tourism victories.

You don't profit much from further cities before the midgame policy trees and techs make trading posts awesome. Then, there's the city you can spawn countless times: The trading post city. With all the possible reductions to gold-buy costs, having multiple of them makes you insanely rich and powerful, while science and culture penalties are counteracted by the free buildings and population you receive by the exploration tree.

Note that you can use internal cargo ships to boost a city, which would make it easier to combine city roles. A tall player is very dependent on gold from trade routes, a wide player can always spam more trading posts. Be careful with food trading, though, since you might cause starving once you remove the trade route (or your enemies!).




This is my strategy on a beer coaster, I'd be happy about additional suggestions. And please correct me if I'm wrong with something.




* Note that great writers, artists or musicians each have their own GP point pool, as have generals, admirals and prophets. Great scientist, engineers and merchants share a pool. This means that if you have a city with many great scientist points, you might never ever get a great engineer, while great musician spawn rate is unaffected.

 

[jwerano]

@jwerano: AFAIK policy saving is a non-standard rule, it's not normally allowed.

Really? are most people playing without policy saving? It seems so counter-intuitive to me for players to be forced to pick policies they dont want.

Well assuming you have to pick policies I would adjust my strategy to fill out the religion tree, then pick mosques, and also the religious belief that gives +6 culture from temples. The combined culture from holy sites and these building will accelerate your progress to the key rationalism and exploration policies once you reach the renaissance, and you will still get enough culture to go back and complete Tradition and Rationalism later for great scientists and great engineers. Also since you are playing on a larger map size "religious settlements" is absurdly powerful with its +1 faith per villages allowing you to get more great people in the late game. I guess you could also build an extra city early due to the happiness because the extra 3 happiness per city from shines/temples/mosques.

 

[mystikx21]

I always play without policy saving. That's the default. It seems more intuitive to say "you have this opportunity now to alter your society somehow... but only right now rather than you get to decide you will alter it later".

Rules altering for me usually happens at the mod level rather than the settings level.

 

[Hreat]

I always play without policy saving. That's the default. It seems more intuitive to say "you have this opportunity now to alter your society somehow... but only right now rather than you get to decide you will alter it later".

Rules altering for me usually happens at the mod level rather than the settings level.

Policy saving feels like cheating to me. It creates a very powerful bonus that the AI has no hope of using properly, and removes interesting choices in the mid game in favor of a rote "I always pick these policies when I hit X era" situation. boring.

 

[jwerano]

Policy saving feels like cheating to me. It creates a very powerful bonus that the AI has no hope of using properly, and removes interesting choices in the mid game in favor of a rote "I always pick these policies when I hit X era" situation. boring.

I always felt it was a tradeoff. Yes I can choose policies when I want but at high difficulty levels the AI receives a starting worker, 2-3 starting units, starting experience on units, a barbarian bonus, gets most of the goody huts before I can even produce a scout, a ridiculous science bonus and some other mysterious yield bonuses that I dont understand. Last game I built 3 scouts and pillaged ashurbanipal in the early game stealing his worker, then upgraded to spears and repeated the process in the classical. Despite not having developed tiles he still beat me to the renaissance and had a massive army with knights that outclassed my military by far at the time.

It is interesting to find out I am likely in the minority here however. Maybe I'll turn it off for my next few games to see how it feels.

 

[mitsho]

Isn't it turned around in CEP so that Policy-Saving is the normal active mode. Or was that just in GEM?

I'm with jwerano here, it's better to have the choice than to be forced to use them up even if I can't really remember when I last held back a policy. And even when I do it's normally just for a few turns.

 

[Tomice]

Yes, policy saving was default for some time. Thal also didn't like being forced when it was introduced, but it seems he changed his mind.

I think no policy saving helps if you want later policies to be awesome. If later policies are better than the earlier ones, everyone will just save them. If lategame policies are equal in power, we lack a sense of progression. So it's mostly a design choice.

 

[je355804]

A bit off topic here, but still in the realm of policy decision. I think some of the policy lines are so much stronger than others that there is nearly never a great time to choose them, or more appropriately, almost ALWAYS a great time to choose a particular policy (i.e. rationalism.)

I think one of the most immediate needs for the game is the improvement or weakening of certain policies as to promote choosing different ones, rather than essentially choosing the same or a slight variation thereof every game.

 

[EricB]

I normally have my capital city be the religious city and main trade hub. Your first city typically starts in a location with 2 unique luxuries close by along with multiple copies of some of the luxuries. I usually play on a Communitas map.

I agree with the strategy of having 4 types of cities. Gold cities, science cities, culture cities, and production cities. Typically I have only 1 culture-focused city. This is where I put all the guilds and the national epic. On a side note, it seems that the national epic should be unlocked when you have a theatre in every city instead of a monument in every city. Too easy to build with just monuments required. The culture city is typically my 3rd or 4th city. I try to make the production city be the 2nd city because if you wait too long to build it then it can be hard to field a decent defensive army, which makes it tempting for the AI civs to attack you.

Every new city that I found or conquer after those first 4 cities I just examine the terrain to decide if it should be a gold city, science city, or production city. If there are lots of hills, forests and strategic resources around, then it's a production city. If I see lots of luxury resources and grasslands with very little productive capacity then I go with a gold city because it's easy to spam villages on those grasslands and still have enough food for the city to grow. If I see multiple food resources, then I usually make it a science city. If the city site doesn't fit well for much of anything, then I default to a science city.

I tend to keep the default focus in the city screen for all cities until it gets to around a size 10 city. Once it reaches size 10, then I tell it to specialize on science, production, or gold. I know I could do better with more micro-management but I really don't want to be setting what tile each citizen is working.