Help a bored Emperor player.

[creamcheese]

I've been playing C3C for a while now, and I seem to have reached a point where I cannot move up in difficulty level without becoming extremely bored.

I used to play almost exclusively Regent level games because I considered them fair [you and the AI start the same and have the same production rates], but I soon realized I was winning every game and it was time to move up a level or two. Now I can confidently win every monarch level game I play and [barring a horrible start] about 80-90% of my Emperor games. I tried moving up to demi-god and deity, but I found that increasingly in order to win I had to do that parts of the game that I hate the most [MMing and worker management]. On the lower levels I vastly prefer to set the city governors on emphasize production and manage happiness. I usually can compensate for the slight inefficiencies and idiotic governors by superior play in other aspects of the game.

Is it possible to not MM your cities a lot on the higher difficulties and win handily? This is what bores me to death about the game, and I'd rather not have to check every city every turn to make sure it won't fall into disorder or to finish something without wasting shields. Workers I can, and kind of have to, live with; I discovered very quickly how worthless automation is.

Tips? Am I at the limits of my ability without becoming bored?

 

[Aabraxan]

Are you winning 80-90%, regardless of the victory condition? If so, what about shooting for the other other VCs? Also, if you look in the War Academy, you'll find a guide to variants that you could try: All-War, One City Challenge, One Built City, Zero Research, etc.

 

[creamcheese]

Are you winning 80-90%, regardless of the victory condition? If so, what about shooting for the other other VCs? Also, if you look in the War Academy, you'll find a guide to variants that you could try: All-War, One City Challenge, One Built City, Zero Research, etc.

Yes, although I'm usually concentrated on one goal and only a moderate contender for the others. I definitely am a builder at heart and so I rarely go for dom/conq, but a few limited wars for resources and luxuries are common in most of my games.

I've tried OCC and 5CC 20k with mostly success, it helps that I can MM so few cities and not become bored.

I tried always war once and found it was kind of boring after a while, and once I got enough armies it was pretty much just mopping up. The AI's not using armies and artillery is really the only thing that makes these games possible.

 

[Aabraxan]

Well, I guess you could adopt a No Armies rule for AW, or try your hand at Zero Science, or adopt some other rule, like Xenophobic, where you can never use diplomacy.

 

[vmxa]

I would think you could get by with minimal management on DG island maps. The more neighbors you have the more useful it is to get the max from your towns. Still you only have to keep an eye on them, but look eery turn.

Watch for them to grown next turn and then check the town. Early you have fewer towns, so you can see it in a glance. Later you can use CAII to find the places that grew.

Even then you often are only looking to see, if they are going unhappy. You could look for farming towns to see, if you gain another specialist, but if you are not catching them all right on time, not the end of the world.

 

[Spoonwood]

With the assistance of program like MapStat (I understand CivAssist II also does this), you pretty much don't have to check all cities every turn. Just check MapStat every turn, and it'll tell you which cities you need to fix for happiness. It also has a lot of other useful information. I have a feeling this article might interest you for future play.

 

[creamcheese]

The utility you linked me to doesn't seem to do what you said it does, and it also seems to not work with conquests?

I have a mac, which further complicates things.

 

[Spoonwood]

Oh sorry. I think it only works for Windows as does Civ Assist 2.

 

[vmxa]

We played for years without them, so not the end. Use F1 at end of your turn. Look for happy face issues. Be sure to get a pophead mod to make it easy to see them. I do not fire up CAII at the start anyway.

It is a big help once you get more towns, especially to track growth. Still eyeball looking for towns that have 1 turn to grow.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

I never cared for pollution so I've been playing with max population of 12. When I get a good Iron Works, I'll go to 20 for that city only. This will keep micro-managing down once you get your cities to 12. My understanding is the game was balanced for Monarch/Emperor levels so going up in level won't necessarily increase game enjoyment. For a long time I pursued dealing with the runaway AI on a distant continent. Now I'm curious about the Unique Units and working my way through the various Civs getting a feel for the Unique Units and different traits.

 

[CKS]

I do think that MapStat only works for Windows, but the link Spoonwood provided is for a different utility program (which does work for Macs). That link is to a utility actually called MapStat.

The program we all mean when we write MapStat is CRpMapStat, part of the CRpSuite. Its thread is at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=52902 and it does work with Conquests.

 

[CommandoBob]

You could change your map size and land mass type.

Or let the game select your civ.

You could also try to beat some of the scores in the Hall of Fame.

 

[Daeron]

Personally, I started playing the different scenario´s of Civ, like The Rise of Rome. I thought trying to get to 60k victory points at Emperor with the Napoleonic era scenario was a pretty good challenge.

I managed it with one turn to spare.

But then, I also did make that leap to Demi God, but I don't think I would have even tried it without CivAssist II.

Other than that, I think playing at lower difficulties with heavy restrictions can be very fun. If you're a builder, maybe you should try the passive variant, which includes never attacking or bombarding enemy cities. Instead you mass culture and try to expand your empire through cultural flips and propaganda.