I didn't even reach the industrial era and the game ended?

[fortydayweekend]

Again, turn 230 and I'm barely into the Early Modern era. I'm just hitting "next turn" until the game is over.
Meanwhile I see folks here in the Industrial era in a little over 100 turns.
I don't know how it's done. This game doesn't seem to be clicking with me.

How many turns does it take for a typical city to build a new district? I'm currently using 2 turns as a target, if it takes more than 2 you should probably focus on building more industry.

Food surplus target I aim to have at least 50-100 from Medieval onwards which means about 1 new pop every 2 turns.

Are you working out which infrastructures to build or just building everything? A lot of the buildings aren't worthwhile in a lot of circumstances while others are very powerful.

Are you buying every resource (in the right order) from the AI?

 

[Cherenkov]

Tell me about it. I saw some Youtuber have something like 10 thousand science per turn.
I don't know how these guys do it, but I'll keep trying.

That is easily achievable if your production is high enough and are using Collective Minds with the French. Production is king in this game especially Ancient and Medieval with the OP civs Egypt and Khmer. On a normal size map you are almost guaranteed to get them even on HK setting. The whole key to this game is setting yourself up with at least 5-6 productive cities and flying through the Industrial tech tree with France with CM to get all the techs you need. Then for the last era go Australia and use Land Raiser to build the 3 science structures required to win. In my HK wins on normal pace/normal map I entered the Industrial era around T140-150, I could have gone earlier but then you miss out on a lot of fame. I did some building, some warring(in all eras for fame) then finally went CM in 4/6 cities for a while, turned it off built some structures to increase production then turned it on again. I hit Australia around T188. In my best game I built the space station T192, Lunar Lander T195, Mars Colony T197, then you have to wait a turn to accept the win condition then won on T199. Fortydayweekend also has a nice summary of his T208 win in the strategy forum.

Can you give us more detail on your games? What size map? Are you being aggressive early and snatching territory? What cultures are you picking? When you trigger the early civics for +5 influence on Main Plaza and -50% cost of claiming Outposts then you grab like a madman but be sure to establish a second city first. You will piss off one neighbor so have a couple stacks of troops and be ready. Also use those troops to take over an independent civ or two(or if you have the money hire mercs and make them invade their own city). Don't go over the city cap by more than one, if so just ransack one of the cities and build an outpost over it. If you do have an aggressive neighbor early then go either Persia or Greece for the Immortals/Hoplites since the AI just loves cavalry. Persia also gives you +2 city cap which is really nice and Greece you can tech up fast to War Summons. Immortals/Hoplites are especially important against an aggressive Hun neighbor which will happen once in a while.

IMHO the current state of the game is a bit flawed with Mars Colony tech achievable in the Industrial era. If this was only available in the contemporary era the game would be much more interesting. I'm sure Khmer will be nerfed in the future and wouldn't be surprised that Egypt will also. I also stay away from the 20 tribes at T9 exploit. You know that will be fixed in the future

 

[Taefin]

Again, turn 230 and I'm barely into the Early Modern era. I'm just hitting "next turn" until the game is over.
Meanwhile I see folks here in the Industrial era in a little over 100 turns.
I don't know how it's done. This game doesn't seem to be clicking with me.

If you just keep doing what you’re doing, getting a little more efficient each game, I’d bet your advancement will speed up pretty quickly. It may help to pay attention to how many turns it takes to build a district. The cost increases with each district, but if you build makers quarters this time goes down. If you get this to ~2 turns each by medieval (Khmer does this quickly, but other builder cultures all do pretty well), then you’ll rocket through the late game.

I would suggest that the France/Australia end is not a sure thing in all games. If you are winning in fame, it’s certainly the fastest way to the end the game with the win. But if you’re trailing an AI, there are plenty of industrial cultures that can boost a lagging part of your era score machine.

 

[Karmah]

Are you buying every resource (in the right order) from the AI?

'beg your pardon ,what is 'the right order' ?

Tell me about it. I saw some Youtuber have something like 10 thousand science per turn.
I don't know how these guys do it, but I'll keep trying.

Turks late game, and you'll get mass science (by putting schools surrounded by science quarters). I usually reach 4 digits science this way end game. Yesterday I finished a 'meh' game , I sill won turn 210 with 35k science per turn

 

[Victoria]

'beg your pardon ,what is 'the right order' ?

Well, buying a 2% science lux is pretty useless when you are making 10 science a turn, a +5 industry on industrial districts is pretty useless if you have none. A +5 food on plazas and attached outposts on the other hand…and I can buy 3 of those.

 

[Cherenkov]

When I used Turks instead of Australia I had one city pumping out 12k science and 35k between all cities. But it actually took me longer to win because it took longer to build the science projects.

 

[Victoria]

When I used Turks instead of Australia I had one city pumping out 12k science and 35k between all cities. But it actually took me longer to win because it took longer to build the science projects.

I am not even sure what winning means anymore, winning earlier seems to mean less pain… but if I am playing to get less pain… It’s nice to crank out 40k science but to have a mechanic that flips that to production is sci fi.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

That is easily achievable if your production is high enough and are using Collective Minds with the French. Production is king in this game especially Ancient and Medieval with the OP civs Egypt and Khmer. On a normal size map you are almost guaranteed to get them even on HK setting. The whole key to this game is setting yourself up with at least 5-6 productive cities and flying through the Industrial tech tree with France with CM to get all the techs you need. Then for the last era go Australia and use Land Raiser to build the 3 science structures required to win. In my HK wins on normal pace/normal map I entered the Industrial era around T140-150, I could have gone earlier but then you miss out on a lot of fame. I did some building, some warring(in all eras for fame) then finally went CM in 4/6 cities for a while, turned it off built some structures to increase production then turned it on again. I hit Australia around T188. In my best game I built the space station T192, Lunar Lander T195, Mars Colony T197, then you have to wait a turn to accept the win condition then won on T199. Fortydayweekend also has a nice summary of his T208 win in the strategy forum.

Can you give us more detail on your games? What size map? Are you being aggressive early and snatching territory? What cultures are you picking? When you trigger the early civics for +5 influence on Main Plaza and -50% cost of claiming Outposts then you grab like a madman but be sure to establish a second city first. You will piss off one neighbor so have a couple stacks of troops and be ready. Also use those troops to take over an independent civ or two(or if you have the money hire mercs and make them invade their own city). Don't go over the city cap by more than one, if so just ransack one of the cities and build an outpost over it. If you do have an aggressive neighbor early then go either Persia or Greece for the Immortals/Hoplites since the AI just loves cavalry. Persia also gives you +2 city cap which is really nice and Greece you can tech up fast to War Summons. Immortals/Hoplites are especially important against an aggressive Hun neighbor which will happen once in a while.

IMHO the current state of the game is a bit flawed with Mars Colony tech achievable in the Industrial era. If this was only available in the contemporary era the game would be much more interesting. I'm sure Khmer will be nerfed in the future and wouldn't be surprised that Egypt will also. I also stay away from the 20 tribes at T9 exploit. You know that will be fixed in the future

- if I need six cities immediately, then either my map is too small or there are too many other AI. I currently have six or seven players on a Normal size map. Even that might be too much.
I usually don't fiddle with the map features in these 4X games, so everything is standard.

- I'm also thinking that I'm trying to build too many food-related buildings up front just so I can build a large army. I'm thinking that as long as I have a food surplus than all new citizens should immediately be moved into production (or industry or whatever that's called; I forget).
I felt something was "off" in my first HK game where the later buildings (like those science-related ones) kept costing more and taking longer to build than they would in a game like Civ.

- I only tend to pick those civilizations to compensate form what I'm lacking in. Like picking Egypt if I need the production. But I don't know if there are some civilizations that are simply "better" than others and maybe Amplitude needs to rebalance some of these civilizations.

 

[fortydayweekend]

beg your pardon ,what is 'the right order' ?

Just prioritizing whatever trade gives the best return on investment. E.g. salt for +10 food over 2 cities for 86 money is better than tea for +2% (of say 100 food production) for 312 money. Later on the +2% food will be better.

Also taking into account what else could be rush-bought with the money instead, and if the trade route is vulnerable to being destroyed.

Generally horses/copper seem to be the best value trades (for animal barns/forges) and then the + per city, + per territory, + per quarter, + per worker, +%, roughly in that order, but it varies depending on map, empire, distance, relations etc.

They've done it sort of thematically too which helps, e.g. with food it's (I think) salt, sage, saffron, coffee, tea, which I think is roughly the order those "resources" were used historically.

 

[Taefin]

- if I need six cities immediately, then either my map is too small or there are too many other AI. I currently have six or seven players on a Normal size map. Even that might be too much.
I usually don't fiddle with the map features in these 4X games, so everything is standard.

- I'm also thinking that I'm trying to build too many food-related buildings up front just so I can build a large army. I'm thinking that as long as I have a food surplus than all new citizens should immediately be moved into production (or industry or whatever that's called; I forget).
I felt something was "off" in my first HK game where the later buildings (like those science-related ones) kept costing more and taking longer to build than they would in a game like Civ.

- I only tend to pick those civilizations to compensate form what I'm lacking in. Like picking Egypt if I need the production. But I don't know if there are some civilizations that are simply "better" than others and maybe Amplitude needs to rebalance some of these civilizations.

For early conquest I just empty my cities into units. With 2-3 territories, a city will replenish those pops quickly with base food exploitation and can add barns and farmers quarters when it’s time to grow

On reasonably crowded maps, getting 6+ cities does require a combination of conquering from an AI in Ancient-Medieval, picking up free captures of independent cities, and/or settling the new world (I don’t play with the new world, since it gets lonely expanding freely there with no AI intervention). With islands set to normal-high you can often get a good city or two on islands when the continent fills up.

I don’t focus too much on science, and will often double my science output in early modern through conquest, and then build some quarters in industrial when the tech prices start to really climb (as I’ll have a lot of top-tree techs to catch up on too).

Sounds like you’re thinking about the right things, I’d just encourage that the exponential growth sets in pretty quickly when you recognize what’s missing in your economy and start/keep investing in it. I go back to my first point, just make sure not to build too many things that take a long time, and when that happens, stop to invest in production to bring those times down. Either getting a builder culture and immediately activating land raiser, or amassing gold for buyout, are pretty much the only ways to add industry fast enough and get unstuck from long build times.

 

[ollj]

Moderator Action: Text removed. No need to be so rude. Also, please stay on topic. - lymond

amplitude games escape the dull mid-game of civilization games, where you just go through the motions for 50 turns, then have a short war for 15 turns, and then go through the motions for 50 turns, by implementing many things, that actually make the mi-game exciting.
in short, each turn in amplitude games is more (and equally) significant, and unit maintenance tends to be higher.

this also includes a robust scoring system to declare a winner after a fixed amount of time.
[endless space] has the fun tie-breaker victory condition of [who ever was not at war with anyone for the most amount of turns, wins]
this keeps the game on edge, as it guarantees betrayal among even the strongest alliances at any moment, with increasing probability near the last turns.

 

[Cherenkov]

Just for kicks I went back to my game with Turks on HK difficulty and decided to see how much science and how long it would take to finish the complete tech tree. It is a really boring way to finish IMHO and took much longer than a Mars Colony win. Finished with 50k science per turn and 20k in my capital on T215.

 

[Karmah]

Well, buying a 2% science lux is pretty useless when you are making 10 science a turn, a +5 industry on industrial districts is pretty useless if you have none. A +5 food on plazas and attached outposts on the other hand…and I can buy 3 of those.

Flat over percent early game , sure I assumed there was some devious mechanics at play ,I read too much into it

When I used Turks instead of Australia I had one city pumping out 12k science and 35k between all cities. But it actually took me longer to win because it took longer to build the science projects.

I dunno , I usually take egypt khmers and the like , favors MQ over most things and my prod is already pretty strong coming late game ...my science on the other hand is a bit laggy
But I'm not a fast player by any means as well. Once I played enough I might go for speed and trying to break 180 turns would be my first goal but that's for later

 

[tsf4]

I do find the game really fast! I prefer longer, but games seem to be getting quicker. I want my week long games

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

maybe I'll play on easy mode until I win. I just wish there was some way around this stupid stars system in order to advance