From Princes to Deities Part 1

[David Squires]

My 13 year old son and I are interested in becoming better Civ players. Before BNW, we would win about half our games on King, but since it's release, we've backslid a level and now win about half our games on Prince.

We're having a great deal of difficulty with all the new decisions to be made and need better focus.

We're going to do playthroughs that will help not only us become better players, but hopefully you guys too.

Anyhow, here are the first things we need your help with.

1. When do we advance to the next difficulty level? For instance, assuming we start off on Prince since we want to "master" that first, at what point do we move on to King? Do we wait until we win 2 in a row? 3 in a row? 3 of 4? 4 of 5?

2. What Civ do we play first? We generally use random to select our Civs, but the big problem with that is playing the same civ 2 or 3 times might lead to less participation from you guys and we're going to need your help! Trust us!

3. What type of maps should we play? I've become a fan of continents since it allows naval based civs an opportunity to shine as well. Thanks, Maddjinn!

4. How many turns should we play between updates? Should it be the same number regardless of the stage of the game?

Let us know what you guys think! We're ready to get this thing going!

Moderator Action: Moved to General Discussion.

 

[David Squires]

Sorry! Guess I posted this in the wrong forum.

 

[homegrown]

When I have decided to raise the diff level, it's because I have found myself the science runaway on the lower level. If you are leading the game from the Renn Era or before, that's a good indication you need more competition.

Which brings me to... I have emperor locked in. I don't think I've lost a game on emperor in bnw. But Immortal is kicking my ass. Even if it looks like it's going well, about turn 200 or so, I realize I've only been fooling myself.

I also like some random civs, but at this point, I'm actually more focused on trying different strategies that highlight each civs abilities, so I'm playing more "new" civs than older ones. Altho, some of the "old" ones play different in BNW and so they are on my list, just not very near the top.

 

[CornPlanter]

1. When do we advance to the next difficulty level? For instance, assuming we start off on Prince since we want to "master" that first, at what point do we move on to King? Do we wait until we win 2 in a row? 3 in a row? 3 of 4? 4 of 5?

2. What Civ do we play first? We generally use random to select our Civs, but the big problem with that is playing the same civ 2 or 3 times might lead to less participation from you guys and we're going to need your help! Trust us!

3. What type of maps should we play? I've become a fan of continents since it allows naval based civs an opportunity to shine as well. Thanks, Maddjinn!

4. How many turns should we play between updates? Should it be the same number regardless of the stage of the game?

Let us know what you guys think! We're ready to get this thing going!

I can always appreciate comptetive mindset and willingness to learn. While I am far from the best players over here, I have no problems on Emperor whatsoever and winning on Immortal around the half of games so I might help a bit.

2. USA is very good for learning since it's the most vanilla civ (maybe Rome and Ottomans would qualify too). You won't learn to rely on certain OP units/buildings/abilities for winning, you won't be pushed towards any certain victory type, you will be forced to learn to deal with all the problems Civ presents you, and your perception of basic game's mechanics won't be distorted by any of the unique stuff. I.e. if you can't get wonders, some people's approach is take Egypt and re-roll till you get salt start. My approach is take Mongolia, play again and again, analyze why you didn't get the wonder, what mistakes you made, beelined too late or settled in a wrong place, or took wrong policies, etc., until you learn to get the wonders.

3. Up to you. I like Continents and Pangea most, in that order. Just to get the most out of my approach to learning, once you grow past playing USA, make sure to play Indonesia on Pangea, Huns on Archipelago and India on continents, or something along these lines

4. Post updates when something important happens. New era, war starts, war ends, wonder completed, your capital taken, etc.

1. Best time is now. Many people may not like what I am going to say, but I sincerely believe it's best to move to Emperor immediately. The difference between king and prince is not that big, it won't help you to move to emperor that much, and you most likely will learn things you will need to unlearn for Emperor. Like certain timings, build orders and stuff may change vastly between the emperor and below-emperor. Yes, it will be very hard and you will lose a lot. Efficient methods of learning have their price In other words, if you aim for Emperor+ eventually, playing anything below is just a waste of time. Unless you can't tell Taj Mahal from a trade route of course, in which case you can play a few games on settler first. Moving straight to immortal may be too harsh.

 

[David Squires]

Thanks homegrown and CornPlanter! Well, you guys had different ideas for us civ wise so we decided to random this first one. We ended up with Ethiopia. We went continents since that seems to be the most fair. CornPlanter, you recommended we move up to Emperor immediately and there's probably something to be said for that, but our goal is to move from Prince up to Deity. We did heed your advice to a degree and decided we're already Princes and need to step our game up to the King difficulty level. I agree with your approach on turns for this one. We'll wait until something important happens to update the thread.

The info for the game can be found at this thread if you're interested:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12673670#post12673670

Thanks, guys!

 

[MantaRevan]

Does your son have any experience with strategy games or civ in general? You'll be able to move up levels much faster if he is.

 

[David Squires]

Manta,

He's played some Civ IV, but realistically our old computer ran it so poorly, he didn't get much practice with it. He's played a fair bit of Civ V. He's a pretty sharp kid. When we play, our biggest problem is we fall into the same rut. We don't tailor our plan to fit our situation enough. I'm hoping a slower more thought out approach will lead to better gameplay.

David

 

[Soulzityr]

Hey David Squires, I am also in the same boat. In Gods and Kings, Prince and even King was quite easy for me. Now in Prince I am 1-3 in my Prince games and while I don't aim for Deity I aim for Emperor at least. Maybe we can help each other out on this road

 

[MantaRevan]

Hey David Squires, I am also in the same boat. In Gods and Kings, Prince and even King was quite easy for me. Now in Prince I am 1-3 in my Prince games and while I don't aim for Deity I aim for Emperor at least. Maybe we can help each other out on this road

I find this situation a little unusual, as Gods and Kings feels much harder to me than Brave New World does. I guess you just need to hop into a game and learn.

 

[David Squires]

Soulzityr,

If you're like me you're overwhelmed by the new options. When do you fit caravans/cargo ships in your build order? How much should you concern yourself with starting the World Congress? What do you do about World's Fair? Which wonders are worth my time and effort?

It's literally moved us down a notch and I'm glad to hear we're not alone. Anyhow, we started our blog and these threads for not just ourselves, but other people who want to improve their games as well. Join us. Give us your thoughts or just lurk and hopefully some of the pros will help us become better players.

David

 

[Soulzityr]

Honestly, Caravans I build ASAP. Even if I'm not trading with City-States, i can send some food to cities to help get them quick-started with some extra growth. What Wonders you go for most definitely depends on what type of victory you go for. What type of victory you go for should depend on what you find with your warrior and early scout. World Congress is a hard question for me to answer. I'm not exactly sure as I'm still trying to learn what is a good way to streamline my tech. I will say that since I mostly play Continents I have a hard time meeting everyone, especially at the Immortal difficulty I'm currently attempting.

My best advice is this. Play the GOTM challenges or the Immortal challenges that are being posted on these forums. They are better than your random games because you have tons of people posting their ideas, what they did, ect. and you can compare your initial assessment to it. For example, in Immortal Challenge 9 as Portugal, I saw lots of Wine but thought nothing of it, but a comment talked about the pantheon that benefits from Wine. This helped me shape my beginning game plan and right now I'm a serious contender to win my first Immortal game. So read the beginning tips on what people think of that game, look at it and go "ah, okay" and then play the game. Once you reach a certain point come back and read more of the comments and see your decisions compared to others.

 

[MantaRevan]

You don't need caravans before you get a granary in your capital unless you are really strapped for cash. Internal trade routes are usually more helpful in my experience, especially early on because you'll lose the caravans to barbarians if you set them up asap.

 

[David Squires]

Soul,

I've tried the GOTM with my son, but he gets frustrated with the difficulty level. I'm hoping this experiment helps him look at the game with a different eye. I've run a few GOTM after they are real eye openers.

Manta, I agree about caravans waiting until after granary in cap, but those are the kinds of mistakes I was making when I first started BNW which is I think why we struggled so mightily.

 

[Soulzityr]

Yeah Menta is right. My first caravan usually is internal, and the second one usually comes after I've cleared barbs. I tend to have granary before I build my first caravan too. But anyways yeah I'm learning as well. And what's good about the GOTM for me was that I lose FAST, and that gives me the opportunity to start a new game to work on my opening. Anyways you have to take my advice with a grain of salt. I'm on the same level as you