Do I have to Micro everything in order to go past King?

[mattavich]

I love Civ and i've played every civ game.

I currently play on King difficulty. I do quite well and always end up top 1-3 in my games. However I do get out-teched easily, even when i'm trying to force more beakers.

Reading the posts in the forums it seems that a lot of you specify every improvement built in each city, every tile worked is micro-managed and you understand every way to get the most out of a Civ's resources.

Do I have to spend 15 minutes on every turn working out if a farm or a mine is better for this tile? And do I have to painstakingly switch all of the low pop cities titles to trading posts in order to do better?

Do I have to learn how to micromanage every bit of the game in order to go up a difficulty?

 

[sparkyal]

You know, I totally understand you. I have been thinking about the same types of things. I have been playing on king and i have won nice, and lost three or four times. I actually only won because I had a lot of money and bought city states and then won a diplo victory (which I consider the worst type of victory now).

So, I am also very interested in the answer to this question.

 

[Barth]

Maybe for Deity, but even up through Immortal you can get by with little/no micromanagement. I mean, of course you still need to build improvements that make at least some sense, but you can definitely just leave all of your cities on "Default" focus and win at the Immortal level with little trouble. Now certainly it's not optimal and learning to properly micromanage your cities will improve your game (I think it's what I need to work on the most myself), but below Deity it's not required.

 

[mattavich]

My problem is that I want to get better. But I don't know how to specialize a city properly, I don't know if I should have high or low pops cities and I only just learned that people apparently place trading posts around very small cities.

So i'm wondering how much micro is involved in going up a difficulty level. Because to be honest, I don't want to spend more than 12 hours on a game. I like roll out my plans wihtout having to do every detail myself.

Can anyone shows me a tutorial on how to properly specialize cities? And what improvements a city should have. Lastly, Social Policies. I think these are what is currently important for me.

 

[chazzycat]

Agree with Barth. I play mostly on immortal and rarely find myself getting too wrapped up in small decisions like that. I wouldn't go as far as leaving all my cities on default focus all game, or automating my workers...some micromanagement will always be beneficial. But it tends to be a reasonable level of micro where the game is still fun.

 

[mattavich]

Agree with Barth. I play mostly on immortal and rarely find myself getting too wrapped up in small decisions like that. I wouldn't go as far as leaving all my cities on default focus all game, or automating my workers...some micromanagement will always be beneficial. But it tends to be a reasonable level of micro where the game is still fun.

I always automate my workers. I also have no idea about how to specialize my cities properly

Doesn't it take a LONG time to do all the tile improvements manually? What does the AI do wrong when automatically improving tiles?

 

[jega001]

It will chop forests to build farms and mines and such at times you dont want those forests choped. You may want to save them for an important build or you may not want them choped at all and plan to put lumber mills there in the future. It may want to mine certain hills that you may want farms on. It may want farms were trading posts may be more advantageous. Stuff like that. For these reasons I never automate my workers but if you choose too there is a setting in the options menu to set automated workers to NOT replace existing tile improvements. I would reccomend that.

 

[Barth]

I always automate my workers. I also have no idea about how to specialize my cities properly

Doesn't it take a LONG time to do all the tile improvements manually? What does the AI do wrong when automatically improving tiles?

That somewhat depends on how many workers you have. I almost always find myself in tall empires with no more than 4 workers so it's not time consuming at all to control them manually. And you can whittle it down to just a couple rules of thumb: improve resources first, starting with luxuries and strategics if they are the reason you settled the city, then food resources and farms if you want to grow, then production or gold improvements depending on which you want in that city. Again, at Immortal and below you don't need to kill yourself over ever minor detail, just get it somewhere in the ballpark and you'll be fine.

 

[binhthuy71]

Agree with the comments above. I'd add that manually assigning Specialists isn't too Micro in that you'll generally assign them according to the Victory type that you're pursuing and once they're in place you can usually forget about them. Most times, the requirements of producing food and hammers from their respective tiles keeps the number of Specialists that I can assign pretty low. I believe that Specialists also cost a modest Happiness hit although this can be mitigated with an SP.

 

[budweiser]

Half the time i automate my scouts and my caravels. i like to pretend that I am thomas Jefferson sending out Lewis & Clark.

 

[jega001]

Do they ever meet half dressed native americian women or lisa simpson?

 

[chazzycat]

I always automate my workers. I also have no idea about how to specialize my cities properly

Doesn't it take a LONG time to do all the tile improvements manually? What does the AI do wrong when automatically improving tiles?

It's been so long since I automated a worker I don't remember specifically what they are bad at, but just that they are quite bad in general. I would definitely recommend try to manage your own workers and see what the difference is for yourself. I'm betting you will see a much more productive empire. Once you get the hang of it, it doesn't take much time at all to make the decisions.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Certainly not. As previous posters said, micromanagement is not a game breaker on any level other than Deity, but beneficial. Especially early in the game when you need to accomplish a lot with very limited resources. As game progresses it becomes less crucial. It's also less crucial with tall empires, unlike with wide ones.
On king level I'm sure you can get away with ignoring micromanagement completely, if you're familiar enough with game mechanics and do all other things right.

Yet, I wouldn't recommend automating workers even on Settler. Not only because it's not effective, but since this way you'll never learn anything and won't improve your skill.
You can see the difference between micromanaging and ignoring it on higher levels. If it wasn't a big deal, nobody would ever be able to beat Deity level AI, which gets ridiculous bonuses.

Yes, manual workers control takes some time, but hey, it's not RTS. To move chess pieces across the board also takes time. You can enter automode and let computer move them for you. What is the fun in watching AI playing against AI?


If you get out-teched on King, you probably don't treat your science properly. You need to build libraries and National college early. After that to build universities and fill scientists slots. And to sign many Research agreements. Make sure you understand how they work. You can build Porcelain Tower and pick Rationalism policy tree to double their effect.

 

[RedRover57]

I can't imagine playing at high difficulty (Immortal or Deity) without micromanaging. I suppose you may get away with only minimal micro on Emperor, i.e., using the one-click city focus configurations such as food focus, production focus, etc. But even then I often don't like how the city governor defaults using those settings and I usually lock down some of the tiles manually. I would never automate workers or scouts since the AI does really dumb things. I was watching an LP video recently where the player decided to put his embarked scout on automated scouting and the very next turn the scout ran up onto a hostile CS. You won't be able to get away with too many bad moves like that and still play a tight enough game for the tough difficulties.

So the bottom line is to micro if you want to up your game. You can skip the micro if you want to just play a relaxed game at a low difficulty.

 

[The Pilgrim]

I can't imagine playing at high difficulty (Immortal or Deity) without micromanaging.

If you play tall switching from production focus to food focus and back and assigning specialists might be enough. At least on immortal. You'll work all improved tiles anyway. With low pop I agree, it's not really doable.

 

[Tabarnak]

So i'm wondering how much micro is involved in going up a difficulty level. Because to be honest, I don't want to spend more than 12 hours on a game.

You can micro every game without taking much time to play. I micro a lot in the beginning and i take always less than 5 hours to finish standard speed games. Maybe because i'm used to play multiplayer(even with a turn timer i micro almost everything until industrial era like in sp mode). But when you have synchronized different types of starts it's usually easier to maintain a good pace.

If you can identify rapidly what kind of strategy you need to perform a good game you gonna take less time for sure. I think the biggest advice i can give is : practice.

 

[w a i n y]

I don't personally consider setting a city's focus, or manually assigning specialists, to be micromanagement. That's called an integral part of the game

You must manually put scientist specialists in your universities for most victory types (not cultural). You must also (if you're not going to manually place each tile) switch each city's focus between food and production based on whether you want to grow, or to stagnate and build stuff quickly. These are types of 'micro' you can't do without.

Tile improvements should be 'macromanaged' - do it manually, but don't think, just automatically apply the following rules of thumb:

• Farm riverside flatlands
• Lumbermill forested flatlands
• Mine non-riverside hills (even forested, unless you really need the food)
• Farm or mine riverside hills depending on whether the city is more limited in food or in production
• Trading post all puppets' tiles
• Trading post jungles for university bonus

If you do that 100% of the time you'll be better off than automating your workers. However, not doing this won't cost you games like the first two would.

 

[ForzaFiori]

Tile improvements should be 'macromanaged' - do it manually, but don't think, just automatically apply the following rules of thumb:

• Farm riverside flatlands
• Lumbermill forested flatlands
• Mine non-riverside hills (even forested, unless you really need the food)
• Farm or mine riverside hills depending on whether the city is more limited in food or in production
• Trading post all puppets' tiles
• Trading post jungles for university bonus

If you do that 100% of the time you'll be better off than automating your workers. However, not doing this won't cost you games like the first two would.

what about: non-riverside, non-forested flatlands?

 

[Buccaneer]

I micromanage everything, that's one of the great funs of playing this game. What would be the point if I could play a game quickly? That's why it takes me 15-25 hours to play one game (spread over a week or two).

 

[Barth]

what about: non-riverside, non-forested flatlands?

You probably don't want to be working such tiles in the first place.