I'm having trouble getting a consistent start strategy

[RoboEmperor]

So my playstyle is to turtle with 4 or less cities until I get GDRs. Then I wipe the map with GDRs.

I play with 0 city states because I want everyone to get stronger with their own ability only and not play roulette with what city states spawn near them. Nothing pisses me off than AI outpacing my science because he got 2 science city states near him and I got 2 faith city states. **** that. What also pisses me off is the only science states I have access to getting conquered with no way for me to defend them. Finally not being able to build Kilwa cause either I don't spawn near the requisite tile or because an AI beat me to it. Just no. No city states. I play with 0 city states.

Anyways, I tried a 2 city Seondeok strategy and while I outpaced Prince AI, I didn't outpace them enough. So I want to up it to 4 cities. But here's the problem.

With Seondeok, I usually never get enough hills for 4 cities. I get 2 good spots with hills for seowons. But the other 2 cities it's 100% luck because usually the nearby city placements are either completely flat or in a desert or tundra making them not viable. And on top of that, I also need either coal or flood plains to power my research labs. Completely luck base whether I get those as Seondeok. 2 cities I usually can rely on hydroelectric dams but 4 cities? No dice.

To counter that I decided to go Eleanor (britain) and place the cities in a way so I can get 4 campuses fully surrounded by districts with one of them being the government plaza to guarantee +4 adjacency. And on top of that Eleanor has guaranteed coal so power is not an issue. But terrain especially luxury and strategic resources make this impossible to make consistent. One newly discovered strategic resource smack dab in the middle of my planned district cluster completely kills my entire strategy because I will lose BIG if I don't get +4 adjacency.

So with no guaranteed 4 hill cities and no way to remove luxury or strategic resources, I am struggling coming up with a consistent start strategy to fulfill my playstyle of being a small science organization that takes over the world with science enabled violence.

And that's why I'm asking for help here.

I don't have to play eleanor or seondeok but I'd like to play a female leader at the least. Why I don't go hojo.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

You should be aiming to have 4 cities by turn 50 and 8-12 by turn 100. 4 cities won't generally cut it in Civ (5 excepted!).

You won't always meet those milestones but they give you a rough timeframe. From turn 30 to 100 you should be building or acquiring a new city every 10 turns or so.

Edit: not having access to resources nor good district sites is a symptom of not having enough land.

 

[Naeshar]

The benchmarks mentioned above are for deity-competitive level. As a king player I can say you dont need that many so early to have a decent game, but going four cities only is underplaying. You should add cities when possible and when you feel like it. Sure, the cities founded later will be behind, but you dont need them for all-round yields. Getting additional luxuries and strategic resources is reason enough for any city, even a 2-3 population one without any kind of buildings. I usually settle late cities in coastal tundra just for oil or coal on distant islands. Uranium in particular is usually very hard to get en masse. Im not saying your playstyle is wrong, but the game is not designed to support it in its fullest.

As for Civ I would invite you to take a look at Australia, but it has a male leader.

 

[Planktonic]

You'll have a problem with GDRs with only 4 cities- you'll need uranium and it's doubtful you'll have enough for more than 1 or 2 GDRs with only 4 cities. But there are other things you can do to juice your science regardless:

1. Play on a wetlands map and make sure you build Etemenanki. You'll get a lot of science just from marsh tiles.

2. Found a religion and use the Cross Cultural Dialogue belief. You'll get quite a bit of science from just spreading your religion.

3. Play with Secret Societies and choose Voidsingers- the Chorus promotion at the beginning of Medieval gives you quite a bit of extra science.

4. If you have decent appeal (not common on a wetlands map though) you can build preserves and then sanctuaries for more science.

5. Build Renaissance Walls and/or military academies or seaports- these can also give science.

Ultimately I'm sure you can get to GDRs but with only 4 cities I don't think you'll be able to spam them. But maybe even 1 or 2 will be enough to roll the map on lower difgiculty levels, I dunno....

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Your main problem is that you dont have enough cities, not that the AI happened to spawn next to two scientific city states.
in fact, city states have pretty much nothing to do with this.
2-4 cities is not gonna cut it, you need to settle (or conquer) far more.
Try to get 10 cities next playthrough and see for yourself how that changes thing.
You will almost guaranteed have more science naturally from having more citizens and campuses, regardless of whether or not the adjacencies on those campuses are good or not.
Having 10 bad campuses is better than 4 high adjacency ones, simply because at some point the building yields start outscaling your base adjacency yields.
Which is why whether or not the AI suzerains two nearby scientific city states is irrelevant, because usually it's the building yields that are worth more to you (especially from the first and third envoy).
You will also almost guaranteed have access to the resources that you lack by having more cities.
And in the odd case that you lack any resources, settle that odd tundra spot or take the city that has those resources, and that problem of yours is solved right away.

Your problems will pretty much solve themselves if you just get way more cities.

I did that before. I did not find it fun. I did the whole trajan 20 cities conquer thing.

Then what are you complaining about?
The game is intended to be played with way more cities, and if you want to hamper yourself by playing with 2-4 cities, you can expect bad results (like the ones you are getting).

Moderator Action: SNIP Please don't flame other posters --NZ

 

[Noble Zarkon]

The benchmarks mentioned above are for deity-competitive level.

No, I play on King as well.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I did that before. I did not find it fun. I did the whole trajan 20 cities conquer thing.

That's fine, it's a game so you want to enjoy it. Try a 6-8 city strategy and you'll likely find it much more effective than 4 but not such a drag as 20+.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I don't have to play eleanor or seondeok but I'd like to play a female leader at the least. Why I don't go hojo.

Maybe you could try Wilhelmina who would get +2 science, at least, for placing a Campus near a river?

Do you own the Maya? They might be what you are looking for also as in designed to be a tall civ with a unique Campus.

 

[Kotofei]

GDRs are extremely inefficient. They use so much Uranium that you need to first conquer half the map simply to secure enough of it. Infantry/Rocket Artillery&Drone/Jet Bombers are the late-game "wipe the map" combo.

Late-game warfare in general is inefficient. The AI has built nice beefy defenses by then and you have to grind through them.

If you want to play domination with a female leader, play Gorgo. 6 hoplites should slice right through the Emperor AI, especially if you use the extra policy slot to get an early Great General.

 

[j_jimmy]

So my playstyle is to turtle with 4 or less cities until I get GDRs. Then I wipe the map with GDRs.

I play with 0 city states because I want everyone to get stronger with their own ability only and not play roulette with what city states spawn near them. Nothing pisses me off than AI outpacing my science because he got 2 science city states near him and I got 2 faith city states. **** that. What also pisses me off is the only science states I have access to getting conquered with no way for me to defend them. Finally not being able to build Kilwa cause either I don't spawn near the requisite tile or because an AI beat me to it. Just no. No city states. I play with 0 city states.

Anyways, I tried a 2 city Seondeok strategy and while I outpaced Prince AI, I didn't outpace them enough. So I want to up it to 4 cities. But here's the problem.

With Seondeok, I usually never get enough hills for 4 cities. I get 2 good spots with hills for seowons. But the other 2 cities it's 100% luck because usually the nearby city placements are either completely flat or in a desert or tundra making them not viable. And on top of that, I also need either coal or flood plains to power my research labs. Completely luck base whether I get those as Seondeok. 2 cities I usually can rely on hydroelectric dams but 4 cities? No dice.

To counter that I decided to go Eleanor (britain) and place the cities in a way so I can get 4 campuses fully surrounded by districts with one of them being the government plaza to guarantee +4 adjacency. And on top of that Eleanor has guaranteed coal so power is not an issue. But terrain especially luxury and strategic resources make this impossible to make consistent. One newly discovered strategic resource smack dab in the middle of my planned district cluster completely kills my entire strategy because I will lose BIG if I don't get +4 adjacency.

So with no guaranteed 4 hill cities and no way to remove luxury or strategic resources, I am struggling coming up with a consistent start strategy to fulfill my playstyle of being a small science organization that takes over the world with science enabled violence.

And that's why I'm asking for help here.

I don't have to play eleanor or seondeok but I'd like to play a female leader at the least. Why I don't go hojo.

i tried to play this way for a long time but if you want to play with few cities you just have to accept that chance will be a big part of whether you win or lose. late game resources are too sparse to plan on an endgame around them, the only way to mitigate chance is to expand as much as possible. having said that, you could possibly help yourself out by using game settings that could benefit you, perhaps legendary start or abundant resources however that can benefit the AI also. the biggest thing i think, is that if you want to play "tall" with few cities, is that you need to have city states. probably the opposite of what you were saying, use as many city states as possible. you can gain way more in the long from from being suzerain than the AI will get from meeting them first, especially once you can get gunboat diplomacy. city states restrict the AI from settling, you dont care about settling so the more city states the better. by having none, you are giving the AI free reign to settle like crazy, which works against you.

 

[reddishrecue]

No, I play on King as well.

How do they expand so early? Do they turn off barbarians?

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

How do they expand so early? Do they turn off barbarians?

I usually crank out a settler once I reach pop 2 in my capital, then settle somewhere close'ish unless I need to settle a specific spot further away.
Barbs cant destroy your capital, and if they ever manage to get to it (usually I scare their scout away with my warrior so that doesnt happen to begin with), I just let them kill themselves on my capital while I keep settling elsewhere.
Barbs are mostly a non-factor once you get used to keeping them away, neighbours are much more dangerous.

 

[reddishrecue]

I usually crank out a settler once I reach pop 2 in my capital, then settle somewhere close'ish unless I need to settle a specific spot further away.
Barbs cant destroy your capital, and if they ever manage to get to it (usually I scare their scout away with my warrior so that doesnt happen to begin with), I just let them kill themselves on my capital while I keep settling elsewhere.
Barbs are mostly a non-factor once you get used to keeping them away, neighbours are much more dangerous.

Oh that's right they suicide on your capital and you do expansion. Nice. It does seem tricky to do and it might take good skill.

 

[Disgustipated]

There are a lot of different strategies you can use. I won't go into them all.

The simplest is the ancient or classical era rush. Simply build lots of archers and warriors after you get your 2nd city up. Crush them. It's not hard to keep up with the AI on tech even without a campus district even up until emperor difficulty. I use Pingala in my capital to help with this. You will keep up long enough to smash your enemies. Prioritize bronze working, archery, and masonry (for battering ram).

Lately though in my last 2 games, I've been expanding in the industrial or modern era. I kind of had to do it in my Mali game since my production was too slow to compete with the AI. It took a little while to get going, this was with Sundiata Keita btw.

Now on deity this isn't viable. My main issue with deity games is it's a huge pain dealing with loyalty. I almost never play on that difficulty except for achievements. Loyalty really is my only challenge when it comes to conquering. So if you can't start until classical age, and you are in a dark age, you are probably going to want to delay unless your opponent is also in a dark age.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

How do they expand so early? Do they turn off barbarians?

Early on you need to decide if you are going to take out a neighbour or peacefully expand and commit to whichever path you choose. Don't wait for your government plaza if you're expanding just crank out settlers till you have claimed the land you want. Likewise if going military once you have your 2nd city pump out troops, perhaps with an encampment to get a Great General.

 

[Futumch]

I just have a suggestion regarding city-states in your game. If your main gripe is that you can't get access to Science city-states, there is a filter in the game setup now. You could specify only science city states, or remove them or whatever. I quite like the variety they offer and some synergise really well with particular strategies. An example might be Mogadishu with a naval trading stategy (someone like Portugal or Phoenecia).
I suppose it really depends on how you want to setup your game and whether you are playing against specific AI civs or going all random.