Help me improve my mid game

[Althiosk]

I suffer from a bit of indiscretion in choices once the mid game starts. My early games are going well, usually filling out tradition and going tall with 4-5 cities. I am a builder at heart, so have generally been bad a civ since release.

My problem is I'm doing it all, I want the biggest religion, the tops science, build all the wonders, sieze a capital or two, ally all the city states, win by tourism, build the spaceship, and open all the policy branches.

Seriously, in my last game first I opened aesthetics because I have an addiction to great works and slots, then got exploration because of that, but wanted rationalism and by god commerce needs to happen.

This is all fine on prince.
It's hit or miss on king, and I know it won't on up.

for science i typically Click something like printing press and just let the science come, unless I'm feeling sassy and pick based on whatever sounds good at the time.Functional policy choice would be helpful. I pick policies the same way as science.

Help a builder out.

 

[NukeAJS]

There's nothing wrong with being a builder. It seems like your problem is that you don't want to focus on a victory condition. So here's some basic advice:

Science is required for all the victory conditions. It'll get the most advanced army, get you to the cultural wonders sooner rather than later (Not to mention archeology), push you into the information age so the world leader vote can start happening, and obviously let you make the apollo program and space ship parts. Any action that gets you more science is almost always the best thing you can do.

Many builders have a wonder problem. If given the choice between a wonder and a library, they almost always take the wonder. This is an opportunity cost because getting the Great Light House now instead of a library can mean NOT getting Chitzen Itza or Sistine Chapel later. It's especially bad if you just chain-build wonders. You WILL fall behind in science, and then you don't get the wonders that can actually assist the victory type you're going for.

So second piece of advice -- only build wonders that will help whatever victory you want and prioritize the technologies to get those wonders. In your example, you opened commerce but it seemed like you wanted to win culturally. While a discount on everything helps any victory, it's highly unlikely that you'll get Uffizi, Louvre, and Big Ben. The three techs needed are all right next to each other and Uffizi and Louvre are much more important for a cultural win than Big Ben. Instead, focus on one or two and get Uffizi and Louvre over Big Ben for a cultural win. The exception would be if you have a great engineer, obviously.

Last piece of advice is building discipline, similar to trigger discipline when using firearms. Before you start constructing something, ask yourself "will this construction choice help me achieve my short or long-term goals?" If you're just spraying buildings left and right, you might be hurting yourself more than helping. Building coliseums when you're at 30 happiness, for instance, when you should be making either settlers/workers or an army. Other common errors I see is putting a market in a city with lots of food and production but no gold (and no plans to build the East India Company) and building a light house in a coastal river city with no sea resources. That's valuable gold wasted through maintenance and, more importantly, time wasted through production.

So yeah, ask yourself "will this construction choice help me achieve my short or long-term goals?" every time the build queue comes up. If you can't answer, or "because I can," don't choose that. Same goes for social policies and technologies.

 

[CountAccountant]

Spoiler :

There's nothing wrong with being a builder. It seems like your problem is that you don't want to focus on a victory condition. So here's some basic advice:

Science is required for all the victory conditions. It'll get the most advanced army, get you to the cultural wonders sooner rather than later (Not to mention archeology), push you into the information age so the world leader vote can start happening, and obviously let you make the apollo program and space ship parts. Any action that gets you more science is almost always the best thing you can do.

Many builders have a wonder problem. If given the choice between a wonder and a library, they almost always take the wonder. This is an opportunity cost because getting the Great Light House now instead of a library can mean NOT getting Chitzen Itza or Sistine Chapel later. It's especially bad if you just chain-build wonders. You WILL fall behind in science, and then you don't get the wonders that can actually assist the victory type you're going for.

So second piece of advice -- only build wonders that will help whatever victory you want and prioritize the technologies to get those wonders. In your example, you opened commerce but it seemed like you wanted to win culturally. While a discount on everything helps any victory, it's highly unlikely that you'll get Uffizi, Louvre, and Big Ben. The three techs needed are all right next to each other and Uffizi and Louvre are much more important for a cultural win than Big Ben. Instead, focus on one or two and get Uffizi and Louvre over Big Ben for a cultural win. The exception would be if you have a great engineer, obviously.

Last piece of advice is building discipline, similar to trigger discipline when using firearms. Before you start constructing something, ask yourself "will this construction choice help me achieve my short or long-term goals?" If you're just spraying buildings left and right, you might be hurting yourself more than helping. Building coliseums when you're at 30 happiness, for instance, when you should be making either settlers/workers or an army. Other common errors I see is putting a market in a city with lots of food and production but no gold (and no plans to build the East India Company) and building a light house in a coastal river city with no sea resources. That's valuable gold wasted through maintenance and, more importantly, time wasted through production.

So yeah, ask yourself "will this construction choice help me achieve my short or long-term goals?" every time the build queue comes up. If you can't answer, or "because I can," don't choose that. Same goes for social policies and technologies.

Very well said. I especially liked your explanation of the opportunity cost of wonder construction.

 

[Keirador]

It seems like you already know what the problem is. This bit in particular stuck out to me as not so good, though:

for science i typically Click something like printing press and just let the science come, unless I'm feeling sassy and pick based on whatever sounds good at the time.Functional policy choice would be helpful. I pick policies the same way as science.

You shouldn't be making social policy or ESPECIALLY tech choices based on a whim when it becomes time to choose. You should be aiming for something: towards a tech that will unlock a Wonder you think you really need, or that will unlock one of your Uniques as soon as possible to prolong its useful window, or towards a building you want in all your cities, etc. You need a plan.