How to do it.

[Aspon]

I struggled with king difficulty when I first started civ 5 then learned a few things and now emperor is a joke to me immortal and deity challenging though still get wins there.

it all happened when i learned a few basic things that made such a difference.

so i thought I would pass on some of the essential things that changed my game forever.

first of you should pick social policies relevant to your situation/ race.

for example if your playing as china or the japanese exploring the honor track is a must.

however if your playing as Babylon you want to utilise the unique ability so you want to build the great library right away to be getting great scientist points. explore the liberty track so you can make the extra city whilst still building the great library and also get another great scientist. having two science academies round your capital city and another within 50 turns makes a very large difference. i like to explore iron working with Babylon so i can take metal casting as a free tech when the library is complete and jump straight into the medevil era thus allowing me to get to the patronge science bonus which is huge.

dot be so scared and ready to quit from an over whelming ai invasion they are terrible at war and usually all invasions can be fended off with ranged units city bombard and horsemen.

always try to build citys around lots of resources if a city has five spices that spice can be sold of to a friendly nation for the equive of ten gold a turn but upfront. thus building a city around 5 spices is worth while even if the city is completly unproductive because 50 extra gold a turn is huge.

also lots of cattle or sheep can make for a very productive city.

ive built a city in the desert before because of having five silver mines there. the huge amound if gold per turn from the mint and selling of the silver was ver beneficial. long swordmen are awesome as they can hold you in the game even with a tec disadvantage for ages.

dont follow a cast in stone strat adapt to your current situation but some things are just obvious note if you find a city state with 10 luxs just invade it and conquer yes city states are really useful but that will allow you to buy out multiple more city states through out the game.

also try going one for one on promotions one unit is fully open terrain bonus then the next is fully rough terrain etc.

always try to build citys on hills as this improves production.

never accept any treatys which are not at min equal.

invade civs closest to you nearly always as there the most imediate danger to you and the cheapest to connect to your trade network dont raze puppet or annex. i usually prefer puppeting.

anyone want any specific help with certain strat problems mention here and ill give you my two cents.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Spam deleted, please stay on topic.

 

[ShahJahanII]

How do I keep up with happiness?
I always raze and still have happiness problems
I am a decent Prince player.
I could probably beat King with a bit of hassle.

 

[Becephalus]

How do I keep up with happiness?
I always raze and still have happiness problems
I am a decent Prince player.
I could probably beat King with a bit of hassle.

I play on emperor/immortal with a bunch of house rules to give the AI an easier time. The way I manage happiness is the following, maybe the will sound dumb, but I don't typically have problems.

1) Don't found or conquer new cities if you are under say 7 happiness.
2) Don't make farms if you are low on happiness. I TP most things until I have significant happiness reserves.
3) Always have the max available luxuries. Buy them if necessary (they are absolutely worth 360 gold).

Typically I expand to 3 or 4 cities just based on luxuries, don't build granaries or watermills unless you have excess happiness. Meter your growth. Once I have coliseums I make a second round of cities and so on.

There is not a way to stay happy and have huge conquests other then slowly razing. I typically won't take more then 4 cities in a war, 6 max.

 

[Aspon]

How do I keep up with happiness?
I always raze and still have happiness problems
I am a decent Prince player.
I could probably beat King with a bit of hassle.

the peity track is very good for happiness late mid-late game my population is well over a hundred so been able to add 25+ happiness helps.

the honor track plus one happiness per unit stationed can help, but the easiest way is getting lots of lux resources. different kinds. if you buy out a city state that has a lux resource that you do not currently have that can add five happiness more if you get the right policy. sometimes a city state has multiple types of lux resource this can be a good candidate for an occasional grab and puppet, but if not buying this out can add a lot of happiness quickly.

trading lux resources.
a good rule of thumb in the early game is one city per lux resource.

also it might be an idea to puppet citys rather then razing especially for a culture jump it doesnt add to your culture cost and any culture it generates accelerates your next social policy. once you build a court house if you annex it can be cheaper in happiness terms. you should not be settling many cities yourself i always stick to between two and five depending on circumstances and conquer all the rest. theres buildings to but remember it can only match your pop eg if you build a collesum in a size two city you will only gain two happiness not three. and it stacks so theatre and and stadium etc.
so if you have a size 9 city and build the collesuem then theatre then stadium you wont get 3+4+5 happiness because it can only equal your population therefore you will only be able to get nine happiness this way, in effect the stadium is only adding two happiness.

this brings me onto the next bit of good strat settle a few cities and conqour the rest

an advantage to settling few cities is you can build national wonders much easier the national colledge and the circus maximus. puppeted cities don't count for national wonders.

I usually make a point of building all of them because they have huge impacts. 8+ production 5+ happiness 50% science, etc.

for something really effective you could play the chinese with heroic epic which basically equates to +50% in combat when stacked with great general stacked add in open or rough terrain bonus 75% and march +blitz work equates to incredible power. eg knight base 18 +35% and 15% heroic moral =27 then add 75% (13.5) gives a total of 40.5 thats more powerful then infantry. or calvery base 25 + 35% and 15% 37.5 then add 75% terrain bonus (18.75) gives a grand total of 56.25 which is more powerful then a tank.

if your razing cities you conqour you are either playing a game with few cities which holds back your gold and science or your settling lots yourself which holds back your culture and the ability to get national wonders.

 

[Death To Posers]

I just bought this game a week ago, have almost no experience playing the prequels. I can beat the game pretty easily on Prince and am about 50/50 against King. ( I have beaten the game on Diety, but it was always a duel in which I rushed UU).

I primarily try to win by warmongering. The problem I have is after conquering the first civ, the other civs cities are ~20-30 defense and some of them have been going the science route and are getting pretty far ahead of me in that department. I'll be on chivalry while some are on muskets getting cannons ready which usually shuts my warpath down. At this point I usually am losing a science race and am forced to start over. My favorite civs are Siam and Mongolia.

Any advice would be great.

 

[ShahJahanII]

the peity track is very good for happiness late mid-late game my population is well over a hundred so been able to add 25+ happiness helps.

the honor track plus one happiness per unit stationed can help, but the easiest way is getting lots of lux resources. different kinds. if you buy out a city state that has a lux resource that you do not currently have that can add five happiness more if you get the right policy. sometimes a city state has multiple types of lux resource this can be a good candidate for an occasional grab and puppet, but if not buying this out can add a lot of happiness quickly.

trading lux resources.
a good rule of thumb in the early game is one city per lux resource.

also it might be an idea to puppet citys rather then razing especially for a culture jump it doesnt add to your culture cost and any culture it generates accelerates your next social policy. once you build a court house if you annex it can be cheaper in happiness terms. you should not be settling many cities yourself i always stick to between two and five depending on circumstances and conquer all the rest. theres buildings to but remember it can only match your pop eg if you build a collesum in a size two city you will only gain two happiness not three. and it stacks so theatre and and stadium etc.
so if you have a size 9 city and build the collesuem then theatre then stadium you wont get 3+4+5 happiness because it can only equal your population therefore you will only be able to get nine happiness this way, in effect the stadium is only adding two happiness.

this brings me onto the next bit of good strat settle a few cities and conqour the rest

an advantage to settling few cities is you can build national wonders much easier the national colledge and the circus maximus. puppeted cities don't count for national wonders.

I usually make a point of building all of them because they have huge impacts. 8+ production 5+ happiness 50% science, etc.

for something really effective you could play the chinese with heroic epic which basically equates to +50% in combat when stacked with great general stacked add in open or rough terrain bonus 75% and march +blitz work equates to incredible power. eg knight base 18 +35% and 15% heroic moral =27 then add 75% (13.5) gives a total of 40.5 thats more powerful then infantry. or calvery base 25 + 35% and 15% 37.5 then add 75% terrain bonus (18.75) gives a grand total of 56.25 which is more powerful then a tank.

if your razing cities you conqour you are either playing a game with few cities which holds back your gold and science or your settling lots yourself which holds back your culture and the ability to get national wonders.

I don't usually take Piety.
Rationalism is just too good with all the research benefits.

 

[Brichals]

I don't usually take Piety.
Rationalism is just too good with all the research benefits.

Piety happiness boost is pretty powerful. If you want a lot of cities you can do Piety and get your science from many cities. Rationalism is maybe suited to smaller more specialised empires.

 

[snarzberry]

Sow I think that sounds perrty good. sow Aspon, what are you're favorite settings for civ v on deity?

 

[Aspon]

Sow I think that sounds perrty good. sow Aspon, what are you're favorite settings for civ v on deity?

prefer conts for the higher difficulty levels been trying pang map on immortal because pang is more challenging in my opinion.

but it just gets silly when four or five civs are all warring you at once.

i dont like to edit things like raging barbarians or none because this almost feels like cheating editing key game functions.

i was playing on huge maps but my computer is to laggy with it so have now moved down to large.