Advice for flexible nations

[LHKin]

I've been playing a game as China recently and having a ball. One thing I'm struggling with though is focussing my strategy. I am doing well in science, culture and production, and have a good number of city-states nearby, which leaves me drifting between good options. I really struggled to choose a 2nd policy tree, because each seemed to offer a viable direction.

Is this a bad thing? When you play flexible civs, how quickly do you decide on a victory and focus on it? How do you choose which to pursue?

 

[amateurgamer88]

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, you will find on higher difficulty that it's very tough to be doing well in a number of things. You have to focus on one victory very early on if you want to pull out ahead later on. A lack of plan can be very punishing unless you are very good.

Which victory to pursue? It does depend on your neighbors. If you have an aggressive neighbor close by, you will be playing different than if you have a religious focused civ. For a civ like China, it's very versatile civ and gives you lots of options. Try different games where you pursue different victories to get a feel of what's needed for those victories. Some other civs will be geared towards one or two victory conditions so knowing what needs to be done can help when playing those civs.

 

[Minh Le]

I've been playing a game as China recently and having a ball. One thing I'm struggling with though is focussing my strategy. I am doing well in science, culture and production, and have a good number of city-states nearby, which leaves me drifting between good options. I really struggled to choose a 2nd policy tree, because each seemed to offer a viable direction.

Is this a bad thing? When you play flexible civs, how quickly do you decide on a victory and focus on it? How do you choose which to pursue?

It depends on the AIs in the game and how well they are doing. I wouldnt want to go for Culture Victory if there is China with Way of Pilgrim and Tea monopoly or go for Science Victory if there is Babylon who ahead of everyone by 10 techs.

 

[LHKin]

Ok, thanks guys, seems like I need to develop my familiarity with other civs and what victory conditions are viable under what circumstances.

In my current China game, I found myself with plenty of space, so I went progress and settled 7 cities to get that snowball rolling. I'm in a corner, with Poland to my West and Sweden & France in the South. I don't have defensible terrain between me & Poland, but we're friends. They also went tradition, so I'm pretty confident they'll be peaceful towards me. Sweden & France, however, both went authority and Sweden has DoW'd me twice in the early game. I did manage to spread my religion to France.

With all that in mind, I decided to focus on my economy to ensure my survival against Sweden and give me the punching power to expand into their lands. Therefore, I chose Fealty. My worry is that I will get to mid/late game as an economic powerhouse without an advantage in any particular victory condition.

Could I have chosen artistry, stopped trying to expand into Sweden and started pumping out great works for the mandate of heaven? Or would I lose out to a culture civ with tradition, like Poland? With progress, artistry and a tech lead, could I shoot for a science victory? Was it worth taking fealty to help me defend myself?

With so many options, my thinking gets a bit scatty!

 

[CrazyG]

With all that in mind, I decided to focus on my economy to ensure my survival against Sweden and give me the punching power to expand into their lands. Therefore, I chose Fealty. My worry is that I will get to mid/late game as an economic powerhouse without an advantage in any particular victory condition.

Could I have chosen artistry, stopped trying to expand into Sweden and started pumping out great works for the mandate of heaven? Or would I lose out to a culture civ with tradition, like Poland? With progress, artistry and a tech lead, could I shoot for a science victory? Was it worth taking fealty to help me defend myself?

With so many options, my thinking gets a bit scatty!

I don't think its that important to focus on the victory conditions. If you are ahead in culture and science, you probably will find a way to win. All win conditions benefit from strong culture and science.

The feedback I can give is that you have not mentioned religion, and it can play a really important part in winning the game. If you had the mosques belief, artistry and culture was a good idea. If you have synagogues, Fealty might be better. If you can spread your religion a lot to get many friends to support votes, Statecraft looks better.

 

[LHKin]

I don't think its that important to focus on the victory conditions. If you are ahead in culture and science, you probably will find a way to win. All win conditions benefit from strong culture and science.

The feedback I can give is that you have not mentioned religion, and it can play a really important part in winning the game. If you had the mosques belief, artistry and culture was a good idea. If you have synagogues, Fealty might be better. If you can spread your religion a lot to get many friends to support votes, Statecraft looks better.

Ok great. I picked Theocratic Rule & Churches because they both synergise with WLTKD (churches as a trigger). For enhancer I got Diligence, my thinking being that I had big cities with all the bonus food for China and an aggressive neighbour, so extra production will help me beef up my cities, maintain an army and avoid too much distress. So overall, my religion is quite focussed on squeezing extra juice out of my cities I suppose.

 

[CrazyG]

Ok great. I picked Theocratic Rule & Churches because they both synergise with WLTKD (churches as a trigger). For enhancer I got Diligence, my thinking being that I had big cities with all the bonus food for China and an aggressive neighbour, so extra production will help me beef up my cities, maintain an army and avoid too much distress. So overall, my religion is quite focussed on squeezing extra juice out of my cities I suppose.

I would just stay ahead in science and culture, build the strong wonders, and then attack someone if they start to catch up to you. China is a very good civ, I bet you can get a cultural, science or diplomatic victory, depending on what the other civs are.

 

[LHKin]

I would just stay ahead in science and culture, build the strong wonders, and then attack someone if they start to catch up to you. China is a very good civ, I bet you can get a cultural, science or diplomatic victory, depending on what the other civs are.

The advice is much appreciated, I'll ride it out and see what comes.

 

[tu_79]

I would not take churches for China, because she already has plenty of WLTKD triggers. You want synagogues. And Fealty, though artistry is also solid.

 

[LHKin]

I would not take churches for China, because she already has plenty of WLTKD triggers. You want synagogues. And Fealty, though artistry is also solid.

I can see that, I have permanent WLTKD at early Renaissance. In my restarted game, I've ended up with an almost-broken synergy with my religion. I picked God of the Expanse because I figured it would work well with China's high culture. I also ended up picking Tradition because I thought I was bottled up in an area with room for only 4 cities and my capital is in a great location. I grabbed Angkor Wat to boost the border expansion synergy. Now, having discovered extra space to expand into, I'm getting 6/7 border expansion notifications almost every turn (on Epic), each of which is giving me faith & production.

 

[tu_79]

Congratulations! You've learned what is overdoing synergy.

 

[LHKin]

Congratulations! You've learned what is overdoing synergy.

Haha, true. It kind of killed my game tbh, I was feeling good about micromanaging city tile usage & specialists but when I have to reassess so frequently I'm not having fun...

 

[Minh Le]

Sometimes I like to play a "Next turn" button game (an One City Challenge), I even set my workers on automatic . But majority of my games are those micromanage nightmare with lots of cities and units and I like that, play a turn for 5 minutes is fun.

 

[tu_79]

Sometimes I like to play a "Next turn" button game (an One City Challenge), I even set my workers on automatic . But majority of my games are those micromanage nightmare with lots of cities and units and I like that, play a turn for 5 minutes is fun.

300 turns by 5 minutes is 1500 minutes... 25 hours. Yep, my standard game.

 

[LHKin]

300 turns by 5 minutes is 1500 minutes... 25 hours. Yep, my standard game.

I feel so torn between my desire to do this, my desire to try different civs and playstyles, my desire to be able to pay my rent, my desire to have social contact AND my desire to pursue other hobbies /games.

That's probably why I end up binging VP every few months or so but don't play consistently.