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

[joncnunn]

Well; if you don't give the improvement orders yourself, you need to at least go to options and ensure that "workers leave existing improvements" is on. (Unless you want your workers to waste time flipping tiles back and forth between trading posts/farms/mines)

If you pretty much like what the AI does what it's overall priorities (generally farms, then trading posts, then mines), then you can let the AI do that, but my own priority is very different. It's not that time consuming as it takes a few turns to build an improvement and once done, that tile need not be touched again unless a resource appears on it later.

Allocation of the workforce: If your priority is first food then gold and last production, you need not ever change the workers except possibly for specialists as that is default.

(And there's also a few switches if you want one of those at all costs.)

But since I go for a balanced but one that favors hammers over commerce, I always lock the workers. (Mostly this is set and forget and you get a notice for first few times each city grows.)

Actually though, the main money is to be had by exploiting the AI giving them stuff that is useless to them at high cost.

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?

 

[joncnunn]

low to ultra low priority unless a resource present.

If plains, then if your already maxed out on slots for engineers, then a farm makes sense if your already working the higher priority titles and still have population as it yields 2/3f + 1h.

Flat grassland away from river though maybe if your maxed out on the specialists you want after working all better tiles then a trading post post Economics makes sense, particularly if you have the policy that adds science beakers to trade posts.

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

 

[Iberian]

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.

I am a lazy Civ player. I like to play as fast as possible. Most games I finish in one sitting at ~3 hrs. (Civ IV was much faster loads times and I normally won in 2hrs or less). On Immortal and lower I win with only microing settlers. I don't normally mess with specialist or city tiles except to change it off gold focus when I liberate a city.

With RA's and how inept the AI military is you can easily win. Often though I go for science victories as they are quicker in terms of time in real life. After early conquest I sit back and fight any wars of opportunity and wait for my science to take off. As long as no civ starts to run away it is pretty easy game of "next turn". If someone does start to look like the maybe have aspirations of getting big it is time to bribe some wars and if necessary take a city or two. Constantly killing off the biggest civs armies in easy to fight defensive wars means more exp for your super units and more time they spend rebuilding their lost military.

The hardest map I think (haven't played them all as I mostly stick to standard maps) is continents. Normally you can carve up yours as you like but the wild card is what happens on the other side of the world. Short of them having a coastal capital it is a pain to put a stop to them, meaning you are in for hours of moving units in a boring (to me) modern era war. I then resort to plan B. Win a diplo victory.

Keys to winning without the micro:

1. Build/acquire 3 or 4 strong cities
2. Be ready to defend your land
3. RA, RA, RA your way to the top
4. Prevent any AI from getting too strong using bribes and quick offensive wars or defensive wars if they are close to you and will actually send units.

Typically by the middle ages you will have 3 or 4 real strong cities and another 4-8 cities from being in the right place at the right time. As long as no other AI gets to more than 15 cities you are good, otherwise you are in for one of those dreaded multi-hour wars.

 

[Ruler]

Definitely no. I play on Immortal and win quite alot. First 150 turn to get enough gold, then stop growing and sometimes go full on production, food or gold, thats all you need to do.

 

[Lexicus]

In my last game an automated scout fortified in a city-state's territory for about 1500 years. I didn't notice until the influence bar was totally red.

It was annoying.

As long as no other AI gets to more than 15 cities you are good, otherwise you are in for one of those dreaded multi-hour wars.

Dreaded?? The most fun part of Civ (for me) is taking out that runaway AI who's your only obstacle to a Domination victory.

 

[RD-BH]

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

... settle Great Merchants/Artists
... build forts

 

[wannabewarlord]

In my last game an automated scout fortified in a city-state's territory for about 1500 years. I didn't notice until the influence bar was totally red.

It was annoying.

So you simply ignored the tresspasing warning that pops up as an exclamation mark every turn?

I am not sure you can blame the game for that...

 

[sparkyal]

Wow, there is a lot of really great advice in here i think. I play on king and i am constantly out-teched...but i have waited to build the national college and research agreements are rare. plus i have not been assigning scientists. Ok, and this will sound even stupider...i was not paying to much attention to the scientists' capabilities....i sort of forgot they can instantly learn a a tech. i have only been building the science academies/

Ok, so now that you have stopped laughing and scoffing, i have never done the Rationalism SP because it means i loose Piety, and i need that to keep people happy (I always have sucky happiness, and i really pursue lux items).

 

[dontheconqueror]

I've eked out some Deity science wins with the extent of my micromanagement only up to resetting the city focus. Hell, until this weekend I thought Great Persons pop up randomly.

As the others have mentioned, micromanagement should be part of your game. I don't think you need 15 minutes per turn though

Some thoughts:

Wow, there is a lot of really great advice in here i think. I play on king and i am constantly out-teched...but i have waited to build the national college and research agreements are rare. plus i have not been assigning scientists. Ok, and this will sound even stupider...i was not paying to much attention to the scientists' capabilities....i sort of forgot they can instantly learn a a tech. i have only been building the science academies/

Ok, so now that you have stopped laughing and scoffing, i have never done the Rationalism SP because it means i loose Piety, and i need that to keep people happy (I always have sucky happiness, and i really pursue lux items).

On research agreements: you can initiate this on your own through the trade screen. I won't pretend to know about beakers, medians, etc - I'll let the pros handle that.

On happiness: each SP has some means of improving happiness I believe, though at varying degrees. Buildings are available too. A recent learning of mine: another way is to manage your population - no unnecessary expansion unless there is a clear benefit, avoid pop growth unless you are at +3 or coming close to it. You'd want Rationalism to max out your RAs.

 

[odin_toelust]

http://www.civfanatics.com/content/civ3/strategy/cracker/civ3_starts/index.htm

I recommend reading this, its for Civ 3, so some of the things won't apply, but much of it does.

Also, IMO, learning to manage your workers efficiently will be a pretty drastic improvement and you may be able to start playing on Emperor right away

 

[binhthuy71]

Also, IMO, learning to manage your workers efficiently will be a pretty drastic improvement and you may be able to start playing on Emperor right away

Knowing how many Workers to build is important as well. I usually take the Tradition opener then switch to Liberty to pop my first Worker. After that I buy or build my second Worker when I found my third city. Most of the time two Workers for every three cities is plenty.

Kill your Workers. After Iron Working you will soon have improved all of the tiles with Resources within your cities radii. At that point it's okay to Delete surplus Workers. One or at the most two Workers are sufficient to build Farms, Trading Posts, Roads, etc. If you're lucky enough to have later game Resources (Oil, Aluminum, Uranium) you can build a Worker in one or two turns to exploit the Resource.

 

[Soronery]

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

lol...
I automate them after the beginning of the game and I don't feel like commanding them anymore.

 

[Lexicus]

So you simply ignored the tresspasing warning that pops up as an exclamation mark every turn?

Must have, I don't remember getting many notifications. It was a LAN game if that changes anything.

Still, I don't know why a scout on auto-explore would ever fortify and stay on a single tile unless it was healing...

 

[R17MCMLXXIX]

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).

I've just started doing this too after seeing Wainy's detailed Songhai Deity game. I started out my game playing with just food/Production tabs. I got to Chivalry by about turn 103. Second time around I micromanaged every single turn. So if Barbarians were on my tiles, I'd manually change every turn to maximize food to grow my city. I deliberately ran the two cities to 1 turn to growth at 0 happiness so I could add a citizen but go into -2 happiness. By doing this I got my Chivalry tech at turn 89 and I don't believe I had any ancient ruin techs.

Its hard not to get a little bit lazy around turn 150+ though.

Just a question. What level of food should you have for a city? say your first two cities. I've been calculating it at 40 food. Should you sell buildings such as graineries later on when you have more than enough food, say for example in my last game, I got the hanging gardens.

 

[RD-BH]

Personal musings:

... micromanaging should be a choice
... that choice should always be available
... different players find FUN 8) at different depths of micromanagement
... micromanaging should be capable of yielding better results than automated settings
... micromanaging should be required to win at highest difficulty levels

I think Civ games do this well.

 

[hix]

The key to moving up to higher difficulties is eliminating "fluff". Want to build that wonder that you don't really need? Don't. Want to trade your lux for cash instead of more happiness when it will stunt growth for 15 turns? Don't.

You need to focus much more exclusively on your chosen victory condition and really concentrate your tech towards that goal. You will also need, by default, a larger military and more science no matter what you are doing.

Eliminating the greedy impulse to accomplish all the goals, or just to be well-balanced for its own sake will help you gain an edge against the AI as its happiness and gold advantages become ridiculous.

I mean it about the troop count.

 

[bhavv]

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

If grasslands with 2 , you settle great people on them.

 

[binhthuy71]

Just a question. What level of food should you have for a city? say your first two cities. I've been calculating it at 40 food. Should you sell buildings such as graineries later on when you have more than enough food, say for example in my last game, I got the hanging gardens.

I wouldn't sell the granaries, they're low maintenance and they give +2 Food.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Just a question. What level of food should you have for a city? say your first two cities. I've been calculating it at 40 food. Should you sell buildings such as graineries later on when you have more than enough food, say for example in my last game, I got the hanging gardens.

The better question is, IMO, whether you need the granaries to begin with. Usually I only bother to build them with wheat/deer/banana tiles around or very low food spot. With cows and enough riverside grass/flood plains +2 doesn't seem like a good value for my money and hammers.

 

[oChaos.Resmash]

I agree in the sense that it is all about choice where management is concerned, but a personal belief of mine is to micro, micro, micro. At first this seems somewhat laborious, (although my OCD wouldn't have it any other way :0), and it will feel like a game could take forever. However, you will soon find that the more you do it, your level of control will improve, you will develop a better sense of realising your end-strategy earlier and how to achieve it, it will also allow you to become more flexible in adapting to scenarios as they arise, i.e. meeting a previously unmet player and coping with what they throw into the mix.

I think the main reason for opting out of micro is due to time constraints and impatience, all I can say is it's that old chestnut; the more you do it, the quicker and better you will become. Although many people have advised that it is not necessary on the easier difficulities, I would recommend that these are the best stages to develop your micro-skills as the AI is obviously a lot more forgiving. In essence the key for me, is micro-managment although subjective, provides greater flexibility in the long-run, it also means you are taking advantage of all the game has to offer, and is somewhat an injustice to me if not indulged.