So this is a bit of a followup from my previous thread (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/advanced-tips-enjoyment.623616/). I decided to start playing again with some of the tips in mind, but unfortunatly it didnt end well. its turn 228, and im at war with all my neighbours (joint war from alexander+ barbarossa, surprise war from "friend" peter, and reconquest war from Kongo). I could fight on, but like I said previously, I think war in this game is too tedious and nonfun.
So I'm asking you guys to help analyze what I did wrong and what I could have done better. General remarks
-playing as china, trying to go for a tourism victory. Gorgo is ahead of me, but my plan was to rectify that with great Wall tourism and more great works (as I am accumulating more GP points than her)
-Didnt really bother with early wonders, except Colloseum because it's so good. And then the industrial tourism ones
-Didnt really beeline for a tech early-midgame. I mostly decide based on the eureka's, cause you saveturns with them. I beeline more when deciding civics.
-I felt production was average, but didnt immediatly see a way how to really improve it.
-Not sure I should have founded the 3 western cities, as I felt the dont contribute because I founded them fairly late
I really appreciate if you guys have a look. Im trying to get better, so getting some tips from the better players would be nice
I think I see some unmined hills so that mean you did not take advantage of the production everywhere.
Focussing on getting out all your cities early is a priority
There are some good early wonders so it would not have been bad to try to use China's advantage to build one or two of them (see Victoria's Culture Guide in the stickies above) I think the pyramides is a great early wonder for China (not sure if you had that dlc but in a productive capital I try to build Apadana. Your capital did not have that much production so maybe skipping that would have been my choice in that game)
Send a scout out to see if you could find some cultural city states to ally with
Focus on archeological museums over art museums since they are easier to arrange for maximum output
Focus on the wonder that increase appeal and Christo Redentor. Seaside appeal helps.
Keep your nabours happy by working the diplomacy aspect of the game. Having trade routes, providing trade, creating friendships and alliances
If you wanted to protect that city state maybe used protective war rather than joint war
I feel like if you wanted to win a culture war maybe better to do a standard map.
-I didnt do a joint war. I was planning on doing a liberation war against Germany, but before I could, I met alexander and 1 turn later he and Barbarossa did a joint war ON me. And 8 turns later, Peter and Kongo did a surprise war + reconquest war...
- had no acces to desert early on, so Pyramids where out of the picture. I didnt go for christo redentor because I have no tourism from relics, nor acces to good seaside resort locations
- I want to work the diplomacy game, but the AI is so unreasonable. If I wanted to trade luxuries, I had to pay 15-20g/turn extra for Kongo and Germany, who on top of that denounced me all the time for taking a city 150 turns ago. Alexander declared war on me litterally 1 turn after he met me. I was friendly with Gorgo and Peter, untill the last one surprised war me for no apparent reason. Because I was following his agenda concerning science and culture. Its difficult to work the diplomacy game if the AI disregards the rule to the diplomacy game
Good point though about the art museums, I indeed had too many of them.
Anyone else remarks? Maybe about settle spots or other things?
- Building too many industrial zones. They are quite good with proper adjacency bonuses, but many have poor bonuses in your play-through.
I feel the production could have been used on more campus/theaters/encampments. The factory AoE doesn't stack which hurt Toronto.
- I feel that you chopped most of your riverside forests for wonders/districts. Depending on the wonder/district that is fine, but your empire's land is overall production poor. Instead of having so many farms, you could've focused riverside lumber-mills.
- An early war on Kongo could have helped you quite a lot. It appears they settled close to your capital and pushed your settling toward the left side of the map.
-Spys. You built 0 spies which could steal great works, sabotage districts, or protect your stuff.
-Too few units for how much your empire is spread out/surrounded by other civs. Corps/armies should start be be fielded.
- If your going to win culture, I highly recommended trading to and getting open boarders win the other civs. These items vastly increase your tourism effectiveness by 25% each.
If you can defend your territory you'll win with culture as you'll out pacing Greece.
- Building too many industrial zones. They are quite good with proper adjacency bonuses, but many have poor bonuses in your play-through.
I feel the production could have been used on more campus/theaters/encampments. The factory AoE doesn't stack which hurt Toronto.
- An early war on Kongo could have helped you quite a lot. It appears they settled close to your capital and pushed your settling toward the left side of the map.
-Spys. You built 0 spies which could steal great works, sabotage districts, or protect your stuff.
.
Dont you want Industrial zones in every city, as their range effect kicks in way later in the game? Surely an inudstrial zone is better than a lumber mill or any other improvement?
I didnt bother with spies because its mainly another way the AI gets annoyed at you (and because my production was low)
I took a city+settler from Kongo early on, but didnt war any further because The cities werent that interesting (and killinf off civs completly isnt my style). I forgot the AI holds a 200turn grudge for that...
About the industrial zone. It takes a lot of production to set it up and to get production out of it and it is often better to use a hill or a lumbermill for production. Factories will be able to give production to cities within six hexes so you can plan them out and get some production for more than one city that way. So no you do not need an industrial zone in every city. In my games I rarely build them. Campuses are quite important.
Playing peaceful is harder than playing war. I am not sure I would have taken a city at a game where my victory is dependent on open borders and trade. A settler - sure if early on.
Can't open the saves due to DLCs, so taking a look at the screenshots. I think it'd be helpful to have screenshots of your main cities as well as the Great People history
A quick glance and it looks like your science is sorta low. This either means you don't have enough campuses, cities (both are related), or the 100% science building bonus. Also try to get some envoys to science city states, and be on the look out to grab Albert Einstein (+4 science to universities)
Industrial zones simply take too long to give back anything, and typically the game is over by then. Campuses are the most important district and every city that can build one, should buiild one, also idle cities can run projects if you don't need to build anything else. And science is still needed for culture wins because you want to get endgame techs such as radio and computers. A common problem is building too much unnecessary infrastructure and sometimes you don't even need that many districts or grow that big. A lot of times you can ignore the housing warning as well, as all growing bigger does is allow you to build districts you may or may not need and increase unhappiness.
Oftentimes it's even better to found cities tighter, and cram in more cities in between the ones you have if possible to build more campuses. This is especially true if you lack "space". But that's also why you should aggressively settle one city towards a rival early on once you get some troops to protect it, and when they complain about it, you can just settle behind that city and even get a boost for keeping a promise.
If you don't want to war much, you'll have to be proactive in the diplomacy. Send delegations asap, and establish embassies, and try to trade anything and get those declarations of friendships going. Actual friendships, being friendly isn't enough. Positive diplomatic modifiers build up per turn, so the sooner you do it, the more you can offend them and they won't hate you. There will be some that always hate you, but you definitely need to pick and choose allies and joint war against people that don't like you (you don't actually have to attack them, just kill their units as they come onto your land.)
Anyhow, the problem probably lies much earlier in the game. Getting those cities out earlier and builders out to improve the lands is essential to advancing fast with a good science. Also as Qin, always look for spots to put the pyramids. Sometimes this is not possible, but Qin can often ninja this wonder fairly easily given the opportunity, and it goes pretty late sometimes.
EDIT: So since I can't play the saved files, decided to start a game of my own since walls of text aren't very useful anyways. There's no mods or dlcs besides the Aztec one (CQUI doesn't work ;; King/standard/normal speed; and played it to turn 236. Yea I know I haven't won yet, but whatever, not that great myself. Did not conquer any cities, though did capture some stray settlers.
Spoilerdetails :
Though I take my comment back about the science being too low, as I had a similar science output before putting down a few more campuses and getting Albert Einstein.... had to pass a Great Scientist to ensure I got one, though I was winning in science before hand. Grabbing land means they can't grab land and thus won't be as strong in rivaling you. The other thing I noticed is Science CS's make a difference, kinda unfair since they were on the opposite side of the world, but oh well.
Spoiler:
I joint warred against Montezuma with Harald to steal a settler but Harald ended up hating me anyways because I had no boats to defend my 1 tile of water, so it was kind of a wash. I did get an ally from Cleopatra who had denounced me the moment we met because she didn't like me having only a warrior and slinger. But things got better. Mostly didn't do anything but make archers, settlers, and builders at the start. No districts except the occasional monument and getting autocracy ASAP.
I pretty much ignored everyone's agenda. It was mostly take it or leave it, unless it was the kind that occurs passively, such as having a big army or lots of science or something. Peter just didn't like me anyways because "I settled\ in land that was theirs". So it was just left with Cleo and for some strange reason Montezuma even though he declared war on me a few times. Bad idea since I managed to extort a relic from him for his failures.
I would have made hanging gardens, but someone took it really fast. After getting the basic techs and stared Collosseum I went for machinery (crossbow) and then printing to build the forbidden palace asap followed by Oxford. Usually I'd aim to get the tech around the time the previous wonder finished. So Printing a bit around Collosseum's finish, and Scientific Theory about when Forbidden palace finish, and economics (big ben) when oxford is about to finish though it'd always be nice to build one of these in another city.
Then I usually go for replaceable parts for infantry and also pick up economics on the way. Steel is always nice since it makes defense so much easier.
Only districts built were campuses and harbors at first. Later on,. added some commercial hubs after I started feeling poor and an encampment for border towns. Eventually I also built a few theater districts just because.
There wasn't really any desert nearby, but thanks to Qin's ability this city became incredibly useful especially since I had not much strategic resources and was a good place to build mids.
Spoiler:
Basically, most of the entire empire
Spoiler:
Somehow ahead in culture...
Spoiler:
And yes, the Great Library is a terrible idea. I never even got a Great Writer. Oops.
Victoria's cultural victory guide is the main starting point for general strategies. There are religious-focused, science-focused and cultural-focused cultural victories, though even the latter needs a decent science output. It seems reasonable to go for a culture (theater) focus there; going for science only (great wall with flight, and seaside resorts with radio) is possible if you settled / conquered a lot of land early. But Lisbon and Amsterdam are such great city states that you don't want to take their coast...
Pantheon: Divine Spark is a good pantheon if you want to race for the first great writer, though it's really difficult with Russia in the game (you can tell Russia is an opponent before meeting them, since they start generating all types of culture great people points right away in the Ancient Era). With so many pastures near your first cities, I would have probably picked Open Sky instead, or the pantheon that discounts your first district (very useful when you found later cities and they need to put up a theater square fast).
Districts: For a culture-focused CV, the main districts you want are theater squares, campus and commercial hubs. You eventually want theater squares everywhere, but it can be useful to get 2 campuses and 3 commercial hubs as your first districts, to get the rec. history, guilds and medieval faires inspirations (especially with China where the benefits are directly related to how well you "hit" the eurekas/inspirations).
I agree with the other commenters that industrial zones are not a priority. You don't really need production powerhouses in the late game; there are no "must build" wonders if you're not going for seaside resorts. Good production in the capital can help for military and spies, but that's mostly it. There many builds that each city needs though: a theater square, amphitheater, arch. museum and archaeologist. Given that you have 3 commercial city-states here, with 6 envoys at each of them you should have plenty of gold to buy the buildings and archaeologists in later cities. The theater squares need to be built from scratch, but trade routes and chopping helps.
Cities: Generally you have one early wave of settlers (with the 50%+ card, and before you build much infrastructure in your cities), then you develop your core cities (at least 8 settled). Towards the end game, if you have production and gold to spare, you can settle poorer city spots and quickly chop a theater, buy the buildings and archaeologist.
War / diplomacy: For cultural victory you really want to either go all in on war (it's correct to keep all Civs alive with one city though, since you still get tourists from them), or stay peaceful after the ancient era to take advantages of alliances, trade and open borders. For archaeologists you also need a lot of territory OR a lot of friendly/allied territory. Still, unless you have a friendship or alliance, you need your border cities to be defended with walls and up to date ranged units.
Dont you want Industrial zones in every city, as their range effect kicks in way later in the game? Surely an inudstrial zone is better than a lumber mill or any other improvement?
Industrial zones are fantastic as long as they have the proper placements. The adjacency bonus for the ones in game didn't provide much advantage over the initial production cost to create. If the Area of Effect (AoE) from the IZ stacked (like it had in earlier patches), building IZ everywhere could be justified. Currently, players only want 1-3 of them in central locations for the AoE to hit the most cities.
Lumber mills have a low opportunity cost to make (1 builder charge), stay competitive with mines for yields, and can come about early enough in the game. The mills do compete with chopping for forest tiles, but not everything needs to be rushed. If given enough turns, the lumber mill would produce more overall production then chopping the forest.
Spies are great defensive or offensive depending upon what you desire each game. I find them useful to keep my own GWs and districts safe from other spies. If you where really worried about Gorgo's tourism, some effective options for dealing with it comes from spies.
I took a city+settler from Kongo early on, but didnt war any further because The cities werent that interesting (and killinf off civs completly isnt my style). I forgot the AI holds a 200turn grudge for that...
Victoria has some great posts concerning diplomacy with the AI that I found quite effective. It can swing hostile civs your way if given enough time.
Some generic ways to increase relationships with the AI include; Sending a delegation to a newly met civ ASAP, sending a trade route their way, obtaining their open boarders, and making a deal with the AI.
An easy (yet temporary) relations bonus is to give a gift (see bribe) to the AI for a massive +8-10 relationship. The bribe doesn't have to be large (often 100 gold) and can be renewed.
I played a bit farther in the save and I managed to alliance Russia and Greece, defend the Chinese cities, and outpace Gorgo in tourism/culture.
yeah had a second game and took things into consideration, although I was helped I had continent for me, cleopatra and teddy, and killed teddy straight away. played a bit more into diplomacy, but was also helped that I didnt have Gorgo or other big cultural leaders in my game
As for spies.. not completly convinced, they mostly seemed to fail in their missions to steal things, even with a card active that boosted their offense
By what turn should you stop settling cities then? (cities you want to be productive and contributing) And aroudn how much should you have?
With the spy card, siphon funds tends to be the most reliable. You can get 70% and with a promotion after a success, typically even higher.
I would say you need around 10 cities, but since there's little drawback to settling more cities, you should be filling the space near you over time until you can't settle anymore. At the very least, you don't want the AI moving in there. Even if the city has only a few chops, it's easy for you to build a theater square and buy cultural buildings and archaeologists.
For culture victories, you want to stick a city literally anywhere where you can put seaside resorts. With the Effel tower it can be a lot of places. Also, settling cities that are near other rivals so that you can establish trade routes for the tourism bonus is very helpful too.
Game of the Month (GOTM) 26 was a culture game as America. I won't spoil since it is still live but it is worth looking at for tips as how to really rush culture on king level
Not looked at the sav but from what I can see, try again with the basic few war tactic.
1 only pushing campus and theatres, if you need some production chopping is better than IZ, far better.
2. Trade routes late game to most is very important
3. Archaeological museums are hugely superior to art and the more you have, the more you theme.
4. So you push culture up to archaeologists, saving some gold or chopping some gold to be able to buy them. Also push printing early to double writing is very important.
5. Late game get to seaside resorts and build as many as you can.
Once you have the hang of that you can try a more war stanced approach which requires more civ specific approaches I'm happy to talk about. I really need to rewrite the guide.
-playing as china, trying to go for a tourism victory. Gorgo is ahead of me, but my plan was to rectify that with great Wall tourism and more great works (as I am accumulating more GP points than her)
-Didnt really beeline for a tech early-midgame. I mostly decide based on the eureka's, cause you saveturns with them. I beeline more when deciding civics.
The correct way is to first focus on science, then try to eureka them to catch up your science rate, instead of contrary.
Especially when you're doing a science-based tourism victory( Since you mentioned great wall, which produces tourism only by science instead of culture).
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