Civ on autopilot

[Count Vlad]

Hey everyone,

I've been playing CivV quite a while, but only the first 2 or 3 difficulty levels. The reason was mostly playing on and off, forgetting details and rules between plays.

Now I've started playing on level 4 (not sure what it's called, it's advertised as normal) and the AI is sort of way ahead: better score, larger empire, ahead in tech, everything. I've yet to build my first Trebuchet and they're coming at me with cannons. Now, this isn't about rescuing this particular game, but I'm not sure if my approach is wrong or I just need a bit practise:

I'm usually settling in suggested places and always leaving my cities' specialist and labor control on. Is that why I lag behind? How much of an influence is it? Do you have any other tips for a player who's just taking off?

Thanks a bunch,
Count Vlad

 

[civplay]

When starting out, do some research on specific civ strategies that are easier. You know just learn what works.

For example: Use France's culture to settle your second city as possible. Buy a lib in the second city build national college in the other. Now from here you are perfectly set up to do pretty much anything you want and will probably win the game on prince 4 (level 4). Possibly the easiest strategy in the game and it'll win prety easily on immortal (level 7).

So do some research and have a set plan.

 

[FeiLing]

I don't see any way to fall behind to the AIs that much on Prince difficulty. Doesn't matter if you go for many cities or non but your capital (OCC), I just don't see it happening. Even if you do not sell Open Borders and your luxuries - you still shouldn't fall behind at all. You must be making something totally wrong like going to war with everyone or building the least priority buildings first (all game long). Or not using workers at all? Dunno really.

 

[Heerlo]

If you have more than one luxury resource of the same kind, they don't give any extra happiness.So sell the extra ones and you can use the money to get research aggreements to help with the tech problem.

You can also use Rationalism to help with that too.But be careful about switching to Rationalism if you're already using Peity, because they can't both be open at the same time.Switching from Peity to Rationalism can really ruin your happiness.I learned that the hard way.

Hope that helps, but I don't know if it will.

 

[NotSure]

There's plenty of examples of people struggling with Prince or King difficulties on YouTube. They're usually casual players that make some, or all, of the following mistakes:
-Failure to expand effectively. Players who are anxious about the happiness mechanic or unable to plan and manage happiness will either hesitate to expand, do it too slowly, or stop as soon as they run into a little unhappiness. Then there's those that want to build every single wonder and soon find themselves without any good expansion options (and a weak military). It's definitely more difficult to win with fewer cities. Obviously, less cities means less production, gold, luxury and strategic resources. And for players that don't spam RA (most who struggle at these difficulties fit into this category), poor expansion puts them behind in tech.
-Failure at diplomacy. As much as I've joked about hitting the escape key whenever AI diplomacy pops up, it's still a pretty important part of the game. Everyone who plays the game well sells stuff to the AI and uses the gold for another diplomatic option - Research Agreements. If you want the RA to pay off you have to know which civs are unreliable, how important it is to have a strong military, and what creates positive and negative modifiers with the AI.
-Poor war tactics. I know... but I've seen it. Weak military, poor unit composition, failing to upgrade, poor maneuvering (wasted moves, units without flank support, failing to fortify) lead to defeats. I saw a kid (and he did sound like a kid, so you have to consider that) loose two of three cities (including his capital) on Prince. He ultimately got them back and squeaked out a cultural victory just before the AI. The world was a radiological wasteland.

I heard TMIT say on one of the PolyCasts that the biggest struggle for new players is not knowing what is possible. That's the best answer I've ever heard for these "help me" threads. The best thing a player wanting to improve can do is find out what is possible in the strategy threads, HoF threads, and/or through experimenting and comparisons. For example, it's possible to settle at least four cities with workers and units in the first 50 turns. It's also possible to quickly reach a powerful medieval era tech early and significantly weaken several opponents... and so on and so on.

@OP - I would read a couple of the articles in the war academy. The two on technology and combat are great starts. Then work on your opening - about the first 100 turns. Set a goal for yourself depending on how you want to win. Check your progress as you go (F9). If you see yourself falling behind in either literacy, manufactured goods, or military then make a correction. You can also post a save. Anyway, good luck!

 

[nitevision]

leaving my cities' specialist and labor control on

Try a game on difficulty 1 or 2, but with total manual control. This taught me how the game worked and improved my play immensely. I'm still not too good at it though, but messing about with the manual citizen control on lower difficulties can really teach you things.

As an additional safety measure when you try things out, play on an Archipelago map. The AI is terribad at anything involving their navy, and you can't get bum-rushed by 2,097,523 Hoplites and Companion Cavalry in early-game.

 

[S.K. Ren]

Try a game on difficulty 1 or 2, but with total manual control. This taught me how the game worked and improved my play immensely. I'm still not too good at it though, but messing about with the manual citizen control on lower difficulties can really teach you things.

As an additional safety measure when you try things out, play on an Archipelago map. The AI is terribad at anything involving their navy, and you can't get bum-rushed by 2,097,523 Hoplites and Companion Cavalry in early-game.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I've seen civs (especially Askia) suicide embarked units against my cities when they can't get to land to attack from. They don't need a navy

 

[SpyGuy77]

I am playing prince, and so far rammy is in the lead, although he declared war on me i was able to fend him of, with the loss of a few units and improvements. Then he declared war on me. TWO more times. Terimes, cho- ku- nus, swordsmen,knights and pikes vs cannons, archers, musketmen, frigates, longswordsmen.
My advice is, play settler OR chieftain for a bit, till you get the basics, then go to prince as china, for the paper maker and the cho- ku- nu, which saved my cities more than once

 

[The_Quasar]

I'm usually settling in suggested places and always leaving my cities' specialist and labor control on. Is that why I lag behind? How much of an influence is it? Do you have any other tips for a player who's just taking off?

Thanks a bunch,
Count Vlad

You can leave the specialist control on at lower levels, but NEVER, even on the lowest levels, use automated Workers. This, I suspect is at the root of your problems. Try again, and manually control them. Do what makes sense, the suggestions are often helpful.

It does take a game or 3 to get the idea, but you'll improve much quicker by using manual Workers.

 

[Count Vlad]

Thanks to everyone who provided advice and insight. I will definitely try these out in a new game, I'm confident it will be "less bad", at least

 

[headcase]

Manual workers is indeed important.

Get a feel for your game early on. Neighbours feel a little too close? Grab some Honour SPs and build up militarily. Lots of room? Focus on science and expansion instead, but still build some defence. Either way getting the free settler from Liberty first is often a good way to go.

Shaping your early tech progress to your terrain is good. E.g., if you have luxes that need calendars, learn calendars. However, if it's looking like a military start, learning iron working is more important. You'll want to know where the iron is, after all.

Don't feel bad about starting wars; all AI empires would fight you if the shoe was on the other foot. Usually they only declare on you when they have the upper hand, so don't wait for that. Their people are probably being oppressed anyway. (Of course, you do need a certain army size before hoping to take a city... no need to declare until you're near that point).

Settle by rivers whenever possible, and also try for either a nearby lux (luxury resource worth happiness), or strat (strategic resource for better units). The more the merrier. Bonus resources are quite useful too but not as much.

The AI has small-to-large advantages in almost every facet of play on "normal" (Prince). Happiness is the biggest offender, with only 60% unhappiness, +3 happiness to start and +5 instead of +4 for luxes.

There is another way to play (not discovered by me) which I call "All-Prince" which is not much harder than Chieftain (second difficulty). What you do is go to this path:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V\assets\Gameplay\XML\AI\GlobalAIDefines.xml
(note: "Program Files (x86)" may just be "Program Files" on your side, and other things may be different as well)

Look for this:

<Row Name="AI_HANDICAP">
<Key>HANDICAP_CHIEFTAIN</Key>

Change HANDICAP_CHIEFTAIN to HANDICAP_PRINCE

Now both you and the AI play on Prince, and you can learn how to manage happiness, etc without being hounded by AI