Basic noob help: balancing my Civilization

[zachlac]

This is my first Civ I've ever played, and I really want to love it. It is, admittedly, amazingly fun. However, for the life of me I can't balance my civilization properly to achieve victory. Everything from my coffers, to science, to happiness, to culture, etc.

An example scenario that happens to me:
If I try to go for a science victory, I try to get a lot of cities to produce research. However, my empire becomes unhappy because I don't have a lot of happiness-boosting. OK, I build buildings to improve happiness. Now, I can't afford the upkeep on my buildings, and I have to switch production to gaining gold to offset costs. Then, my research tanks, and I can't research fast enough to win.

Distilling my questions down:
1) How do you maintain positive gold input? What are some things that you more veteran civ players think about when it comes to acquiring gold?

2) How do you handle keeping citizens happy? Is it mostly through buildings, or luxury resources?

3) How do you maximize your research? Is it worth building a lot of science buildings?

4) How do you decide on what a city focuses on? What are some basic building strategies for needing a gold-producing city, a production city, etc?

5) What thoughts generally go through your head when deciding how to balance buildings with income, where to settle, etc?

These may seem like simple questions, but as I said I'm new to the franchise and I really have no idea what I'm failing at.

 

[ilikepies]

Welcome to the forums!

1) Build more pylons trading posts, and as soon as you can put banks, markets, and such in every profitable city. Improve every luxury resource you have. Don't build things you don't need to.
2) Luxury resources help a huge amount, and grab up as many as you can. There are also plenty of policies that reward you for playing with a certain style: I think Commerce has one which gives +1 happiness per luxury resource, Liberty has +1 happiness per trade route, and so on. If you want to play through the whole game staying relatively happy, which is often a good idea, then make sure you stay a little bit ahead: when your civ has a few happiness above zero, build happiness buildings. Your happiness will go down over the course of the game, and you need to be a step ahead if you want to keep it high. That said, you can play pretty effectively varying between unhappy and neutral.
3) From what I've seen, science is most effective if you have one or two science cities with lots of food, put a ton of science buildings, and use a lot of scientist specialists. However, if you're going for a science victory specifically, every city should pretty much be a science city.
4) A city with lots of hills, or failing that, forests, should be a production city for making units or wonders, especially if it has natural resources nearby. A city with a lot of luxury resources should be a gold city, and having extra food or production helps with either merchant specialists or building markets respectively. A city near a river, especially one with food resources, should be a science city.
5) I tend to look for resources first when I settle a city, then hills. It's a good idea to consider what you need your city to do as well. As for balancing your income, don't build things you don't need and stack up on the trading posts or merchants.

Also, you might want to consider picking a civilization that offsets your problems. If you're having trouble with happiness, pick a civilization like India. If you need more science, play Babylon, etc.

 

[metatheory]

I'm in the exact same boat as you, new to the series and finding it tough to balance. In fact, I've yet to finish a game because while I could limp across the finish line in another 150 turns I convince myself to start over and figure out a better way.

I will share some things that vets would obviously know but have helped me hone my game. I may actually finish my first game on King shortly

1) This is just for general gameplay, not accounting of wonders and policies. If you own two strategic resources, say cotton, trade all extra to other civs for gold or gold per turn. Usually they are willing to deal. Take advantage of trade income (free money) by using harbors and roads as soon as cities get to 4 population. Of course, all gold buildings have no upkeep so they just cost some production time. Buy a maritime city state and turn those farms into trading posts. I do this with the exceptions of really nice +4-5 food tiles.

2) I have serious issues with happiness.. the thing that's helped me the most is to practice restraint with warring and expansion. Puppet newly conquered cities until the population recovers. Then annex and go full production with a courthouse. I generally do this one at a time. Although reading these forums people like to keep things as puppets. I do not - I like control. ( a quick note on annexing - once I see the building load out of a city I may burn it to the ground and start over if it's got too many buildings i don't need)

3) I build libraries in every city and more science in particular cities. And as soon as I can afford a second maritime ally, I start using that excess food to populate the libraries with specialists. Also if I want to switch the city to gold, I just change my specialists to the bank slots.

4) Production cities need forest and hill tiles. Science cities need food for population and specialists so I build those by rivers, plains or the ocean (and jungle).

5) I'm starting to think of upgrades in terms of Gold Per Turn. I used to just say "I need this building so I will build it" but now if I can't afford the hit to gpt then i don't do it, simple. A small building bonus isn't worth going broke over.


Hope this helps and I would also like to hear other advice from vets.

 

[zachlac]

Thanks!

This helps a good amount. A few more questions:

How do you build merchants? Are these those Great Merchants?

Specific to number of cities: Is more usually better unless you're going for cultural victory? I assume there's a limit to this "more is better"...

Hopefully tonight I can improve on my abysmal record so far

EDIT: Responding to meta: For all of that, it seems like you need a LOT of gold. You go for more trading posts at the beginning versus farms, and have slower expansion for more gold?

When you say "buy a maritime city" how do you do this?

 

[ilikepies]

In the city screen, on the side, there is a specialist menu. For example, if you have a library, it will display the library on the side of the screen with its two specialist slots. You can have citizens work as specialists (such as artists, merchants, scientists, engineers) in these slots instead of working a tile. Artists produce culture and great artist points, engineers produce production and great engineer points, merchants produce gold and great merchant points, scientists produce research and great scientist points.

As for cities: If you're playing military, more is pretty much always better. Diplomatic doesn't matter so much as it's more about your economy. Science tends to work better with fewer, more specialized and larger cities. Cultural works best with fewer and more specialized cities as well, unless you are playing France or Aztecs.

 

[metatheory]

EDIT: Responding to meta: For all of that, it seems like you need a LOT of gold. You go for more trading posts at the beginning versus farms, and have slower expansion for more gold?

When you say "buy a maritime city" how do you do this?

You can never have enough gold, period! It allows you to buy your way out of any problem!

Beginning I go farms for early population increase but as soon as I research trapping I generally will never build another farm. If it's a city that has no specialists, it will have no farms.

Of course, everyone has a different strat and I can't say mine is even close to being the best but I build libraries and gold buildings in every city (gold buildings are low priority and I often shelve them to come back to later if I have more pressing needs). Once I identify good candidates for science and production I build towards those goals in targeted cities.

"Buying a city state" means donating gold or accomplishing their mini quests to gain Allied status. Once that happens they start giving you food (maritime), culture bonus (Cultured) or military units (Militaristic). They are incredibly useful for the bonus and even to buy off one near a civ that just declared war to take some heat off.

 

[Nunya]

For any victory other than culture more cities is better, as long as you don't expand too fast.

You get 2 unhapiness per number of cities and 1 unhapiness per population. A Coliseum and Theathre provide 6 happiness for 7 gold per turn. So a size 4 city with these two, a Library, and 4 Trading Post tiles is happiness neutral, covers it's own expenses, and provides 6 science. And if it allows you to add an additional luxury resoruce to your trade network it will even increase hapiness.

Most cities will eventually grow past size 4 (though you could always check "avoid growth" under citizen allocation), but there are a number of wonders and social policies that help with hapiness ona per city basis.

The Meritocracy policy (Liberty tree) gives +1 hapiness per city. Theocracy (Piety tree) reduces unhapiness caused by population by 20%, but unfortunately blocks Rationalism (which is practically a must for a science victory). Freedom reduces unhapiness by 1 per 2 specialists so you can get an extra happy face per city simply by packing two scientist into a Library. Planned Economy (Order tree) halves unhapiness from number of cities so that's again essentialy +1 hapiness per city. And the Forbidden Palace wonder has the same effect.

With just Meritocracy and Freedom (requires 4 social policies total) you can then have an infinite amount of size 6 cities that are neutral in regard to hapiness, cover their own expenses with worked Trading Posts, provide additional trade route income, and generate 15 science each. You can also stick in a Monument (the upkeep will be more than covered by trade route income) to keep generating new social policies.

This is the basic of what is called the "infinite city sprawl" or ICS strategy. It's nciely ilustrated in this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=390302

 

[Roxlimn]

zachlac:

Go to the display option at the right side of the lower left hand box on the screen. Click on the unfurled scroll and you get display options to turn on Tile Yields. Turn it on. This will inform you about all tiled yields all the time.

To maintain positive gold output, put citizens to work on tiles that produce gold. Generally, Trade Post spamming will get you a hefty amount of gold, but it won't give you production, and it will stagnate growth.

I like to prioritize tiles that produce lots of gold: Silver, Gold, Sugar, Wine, and other such premium tiles yield a lot of gold early on. Silver and Gold tiles particularly, are valuable if the city has a Mint. Fish tiles yield full food immediately, but need Work Boats for +2 Gold per turn. Very profitable.

Riverside tiles all yield +1 GPT when worked. This means that regardless of improvements, settling cities near rivers and working riverside tiles will get you lots of gold relative to non-river tiles. I tend to farm these tiles for the massive food boost once Civil Service hits, but you can TP them if you want to.

Generally, you settle early cities to get luxury resources. Set down a Settler near every unique source of luxury resource. These will supply your early happiness needs. Generally, having 5 or 6 unique sources makes for smooth, easy sailing. Less than that and you have to scrounge for what you can get.

The Meritocracy Policy in the Liberty Tree gives you +1 happiness for every city connected to your trade network. This offsets the new city premium and gives you a small leeway when you're short or a powerful boost if you can get a lot of food early.

Settling near resources should give you your first 3 or 4 expansion cities plus your capital. The second wave of settling comes after you research Horseback Riding and Construction. As your cities grow and you get more production and money, you can start to afford building and buying buildings. Don't stop to acquire more luxuries through Trading, City State Alliances, and Conquest.

As your Colosseums and Circuses come online, you will find yourself able to support new cities that don't acquire you new happiness resources. These can be settled on duplicate resources for trading and for the gold from tile yields, which will support the maintenance of your Colosseums (and provide new venues for more Colosseums!). As you move into Banking and the Forbidden Palace, your penalty for new cities is considerably relaxed and you can settle into founding new cities without much fuss, particularly if you also have Meritocracy.

As your empire expands, you will find the need to build specialized buildings in your core cities. Barracks for your military cities, libraries everywhere you can, and Workshops and Forges and the like.

To support these buildings, you will need Trade Cities. These cities are built around the idea of spamming trade posts and generally taking advantage of high-gold yield tiles. Preferably, you will also have Gold, Silver, or other premium tiles in this city. Build a Granary and a Watermill in the city if you can, so you can maximize Trading Posts. It is not uncommon for such a city to have bad production or bad food, or both. Bad food can be supplemented by Maritimes. Buildings you will probably have to buy.

 

[qhash]

does the Forbidden Palace and Planned Economy modifiers sum up effecting in 75% unhappines reduction from the number of cities?

 

[Roxlimn]

No. With both, you get 0 Unhappiness from number of cities. With Meritocracy active at the same time, each connected 1 pop city actually gets you +1 happiness.

 

[guczy]

Just 3 words: trade post spam. Have 2-3 production cities, 1 science city and optionally 1 culture city. The gold cities will allow you to easily have all of the hapiness buildings, also you can buy luxury resources, preferably trade for them. In my current game as Songhai i have 10ish cities, a nice army and w/o a golden age 300+ GPT. All of my cities are over pop 15, happiness is around 5-10 most of the time. And i get a new SP around every 18-25 turns on marathon speed, and im in the modern age. Since i adopted rationalism it actually became boring as i gained such a huge tech lead that the AI cant do squat. (emperor diff)

 

[Rathelon]

As it was in Civ IV, rapid expansion can cripple you. In Civ IV, it would hurt your economy and science. In Civ V, it will crash your happiness. Use restraint when capturing or building new cities. If you have a lot of excess happiness, then you can probably be safe building a couple more cities or capturing some. If you're barely above 0 happiness, you should probably wait and build more happiness buildings, improve luxuries, etc until you have gained a good positive happiness again.