Advice needed

[sqdtnz]

After not playing civ5 for several months, being a little disappointed at first, I gave it a try again recently with the new patches, and I must say I like the game much more. Hard to explain why exactly.

Since I didn't play civ5 that much, and was never a civ4 god either, I have a few questions. I'm playing on Prince difficulty btw.

To give you an impression of my low level, I only yesterday finally discovered a strategy that happiness buildings -> city growth -> more money (thx to trade network) -> all better. Before that I would choose to not build happiness buildings, because I was afraid going under my budget, but I recently discovered the city growth will pay this back. So I systematically build the happiness buildings now.

So I have made a huge step forward, since I was always failing at the later game stages, when luxury resources became less dominant, and I would have mini cities compared to others, which ultimately undermines everything.

But now I notice other empires manage to be MUCH more successful on other fields:
- Production, last game England had 4x my production, while having a smaller empire.. HOW? I do build railroad, workshop, factories, mines, etc...
- Gandhi won the game, with only 4 cities. Culture victory. I had not even completed 3 social branches, how could Gandhi already have completed 5 + utopia project? (I do know less cities = less culture cost, but still!)
- I'm still struggling often to make good money and happiness.

Some advices?

 

[Mizou]

specialize your cities m8

after i found iron i usually decide what city will be doing what, a city with good production arround (cows sheep and horses, hills, iron) and the posibility to grow high (grasland cows or river tiles) will be my production, all i build here is basically

colloseum
circus
libary and later on one of the last universities

all production + barraks
all growth

market

then u might have a nice city arround a river with gems like silver, this one will be your gold city mainly, focus on every gold building here and ofc happyness. also dont forget to add at least university here and ofc all the growth u can

by doing this with lets say 4 cities, 2 production and 2 gold you will have less problems and u can actually get one or two cities only for research and one for cultural buildings.

at least get 1 production city, when ever u need a unit u build it here, u should make sure that production is very high so at any point of the game u should make at least every 7/8 turns 1 unit there. i prefer to have it at 3/4 turns per unit but this is kinda hard to do while building all meaningfull buildings.
2 gold producing cities are vital to me, they push out in the end 100+ gold per turn it self and make sure your cities grow. i know some people are saying its not worth it and u should cap them at like 5 or below but i realy realy enjoy to have 20+ populatin cities.

i usually aim for 6-8 cities, depends on the land i have. i dont warmonger unless some1 wants to die keep always 1-2 units at border cities to make sure u scare away some AIs

i hope i could help u a bit

 

[Babri]

You should decide early on about what victory condition you are going for. Choose SPs accordingly. Try to get key techs like Iron Working, Economics etc to have a military or economical advantage over your foes. Specializing your cities is very important. Don't cut Forests & Jungles most of the time unless you are completely surrounded by them & have problems with it. Try to make a balance between mines, lumbermills, farms, TPs etc to get optimum results. It also depends upon the civ, as Mongolia you should be aggressive & if you're using Thal Balance Mods then make full use of 30% against CSs. Similarly as Spanish, try to colonize other continents & grab those Natural Wonders etc.
Lastly if you feel that a civ is going to win the game, then either try to stop him by competing him in that victory (like buying CSs to stop UN win) or declare war & attack that civ.

 

[Janig]

Seasonal affective disorder, its ok to prefer summer to winter. This winter was ok for me because for the first time I had appropriate gear to deal with the rain/snow/cold/wind.

More specific civ advice is to be more aggressive. The AI is dumb, you can outsmart it tactically in battle and win quite easily on Prince.