Hello, new to the board but no Civ, needs some advice.

[Eradicator_Z]

I have been playing since Civ 1, but did not like 2 or 3. I am now on 5 and just went from prince to king and needs some help. On Prince I got away just fine with 2 or 4 cities but on king it seems if I do not expand I get slaughtered. I have trouble with expansion, I can never maintain happiness or gold until currency or whatever the market place advancement is. I play on marathon and usually with the french, Arabs, or Russia. Any advice on growing a civ fast? I tend to go for tradition first cause i really like the free monument and free unit in cities. I struggled in civ 4 with city placement and never got past noble in it. I am right now 95% of the time going with the game recommendations for city placement any advice on this?

 

[insaneweasel]

I have been playing since Civ 1, but did not like 2 or 3. I am now on 5 and just went from prince to king and needs some help. On Prince I got away just fine with 2 or 4 cities but on king it seems if I do not expand I get slaughtered. I have trouble with expansion, I can never maintain happiness or gold until currency or whatever the market place advancement is. I play on marathon and usually with the french, Arabs, or Russia. Any advice on growing a civ fast?

I tend to go for tradition first cause i really like the free monument and free unit in cities. I struggled in civ 4 with city placement and never got past noble in it. I am right now 95% of the time going with the game recommendations for city placement any advice on this?

Tradition has been nerfed. You're probably better off going honor or liberty (liberty is very good even for small empires). The free unit at that level is pointless imo.

Also, utilize those national wonders! Go national college with 1-2 cities. National treasury with 3, and the rest with 4. Sell your resources early, and any excess strategics. 1 catapult and 2 swords/2 pikes and a few archers are enough defense early game if you use them well.

 

[Bezurn]

Welcome to the boards! On King level the AI will do some early rushes that have some teeth with their advantages with unit productions. To counter an early rush you'll need to get an archer or 2 up quickly to thin their herd of warriors and to kill any quickly that attack your city.

Usually the computer does a pretty good job of recommending city locations. Sometimes though its better to formulate your own plan. Obvious things like an area with 3 seafood resources nearby should not be placed 1 or 2 hexes off the coast. You'll want to stretch your road network a bit in order to place a city on the coast. There are other cases where placing a city, especially along your borders, can hamper the AI and in return give you a benefit. Look to try and deny them spaces where they can expand towards you by placing cities about 7 hexes from their nearest city. With 2-3 cities placed in this manner, and so long as the land is worth claiming, you can deny any AI from dropping a filler city into the region and let your 2-3 cities grab a vast majority of the dead space with their culture which will outpace 1 AI city.

Tradition is an OK tree, but it has seen better days. If you like playing a small empire it is a good tree, but completing it before opening another tree is not always the best idea. You will want to have a good sources of happiness before completing it so it is usually best to start along the right side of honor to get the happiness boosting policies there before grabbing landed elite (a very dubious policy).

Liberty is a very good policy, offering the most free hammers in the game and allowing you to grow wide which can be powerful so long as you don't over extend your military.

Money shouldn't be an issue at this level unless you are doing something wrong. Either you have too many units, too many roads (only like roads between cities, not to resources), or you failed to get a river start and thus will have to work trading posts and merchants more than usual in order to keep the economy humming.

Hope that helps a little and have fun with the game. You'll get the hang of it given enough practice and learning. If you need more specific advice I would suggest that you post a save game demonstrating your problems so that people can take a look first hand and get to the details of what is going wrong.

 

[Grievous]

you didn't like civ3?!?! u mad?

 

[Eradicator_Z]

thank you for the replies. Where can I upload save games to?

 

[ori]

you didn't like civ3?!?! u mad?

Moderator Action: Please don't be rude

thank you for the replies. Where can I upload save games to?

Welcome to CFC

You can attach save games to a post by clicking on "go advanced" then on "manage attachments" below the quick reply box.

 

[binhthuy71]

Welcome, Eradicator_Z! You might also want to keep an eye out for the patch notifications. Civ V is still in early days so more patches are almost bound to follow. A patch can alter the game to the point where a strategy that worked well for you in the past is no longer as effective.

 

[Eradicator_Z]

here is the latest game since I posted. i got lucky here and was on an island all to myself. Just really wondering what i can do to streamline my game a bit. any suggestions appreciated.

About civ 3 i do not remember what turned me off on it was too long ago and I forget.

 

[crashcrush]

Another trick you might want to try is to use a Civ that gets strong Unique Units (UU) early on, like Aztecs or Greeks, and then build lots of them. Napolean has good UUs but they come late.