Sorry for replying quite late on my own thread. I'm very interested on every details provided, so I tried each of them on different games.
Not enough... More seriously, citizen tile assignement is usually quite good when not bugged. Specialist is the main thing to micromanage.
I micromanage workers as long as there is "dilemas" on what to improve first. They are automatized in mid-end games.
I do not make "micro exploit" with workers to have improvements one turn in advance.
I tried micromanaging specialists myself. In the early phase (classical-renaissance) of the game, It somehow helped me managing global happiness. I also realized that If I want to rush something, It could be useful. As my empire grows when happiness is no longer a problem, I remove the assignment thingy, and let the AI assign the specialists.
Main factor for me is "tradition/progress/authority". How many instant food you get in the city is an important point to the micromanagement.
Are you playing tall ? You seems to delay most of the happiness buildings (aqueduct, grocers, constabularies, ...), which is reasonable if you don't have happiness problems.
I usually build banks quite early if I have the econnomy to invest in most buildings.
When I started playing VP, I realized that playing tall is.. boring for me :/
I applied that concept on my games, now, I have realized and formed an abstract for the proceeding games. Thanks. Since,most culture and production were based on infrastructures, I started balancing yields from policy choices and tiles.
In my current game, I focused on growth on the early phase, which provides me enough citizen to work on production tiles. Well, game changing eureka for me lels.
Unhappiness is not much a problem in my games. Free happiness from religion and choosing progress is always helpful.
Okay. I think I'll try the science yield from banks. I actually, don't mind it.
This is debatable, and I tend to do the exact contrary. A tradition capital will not work its tiles, but you will most likely improved them anyway in the early game, so have secondary cities at (almost) minimal distances allow them to take advantage of those good tiles. Moreover, tradition is short on gold in early game, so less road tiles is good. As long as you have enough luxuries for your initial monopoly, and some strategic ressources, you don't need much more, you will not have any happiness problem anyway.
At the contrary, on progress, I tend to claim as much place I peacefully can.
Then Spies if I'm behind in techs, and coup in other cases.
I'll reconsider that idea on tradition, since I really don't like tradition, and I always fall behind in the early game. I'm having happiness problem on tradition, therefore, I'm playing it wrong lels.
Yes, I've yet rarely have faith issues main importance have been culture, food, and production, I'm trying to improve my food game, been focusing maybe too much on building but I'm not sure.
I think these are very important, I skip granary for quite a while if I dont get any bonuses from it (no deer, wheat etc).
Yes they are base facilities that you need, if I have enough faith I put shrine in lower priority in newer cities.
I wanted to found a religion in every game. It was not that hard for me, my first priority is always shrine. If I failed to do so, I'll cry for 5 seconds, then rage quit.
In my current game, I decided to "not ignore granaries", and yielded a better gameplay, or maybe, I'm just lucky in this game, I can't conclude yet though.
Similar problems like production stuff, and I think banks can be skipped entirely in a lot of cities.
Yes baths are good but and culture is important, I tend to prioritise it a lot early on and then probably skimping a bit later, more culture is probably as important as science because of how good policys are.
I rarely build units, I try to buy units and go with the free authority ones, when I do it's probably a siege unit or two.
This free up building a lot of other things.
Okay. I also tend to ignore banks. But, If I'm having money problems, or If I chose industry, I will build it, and again, I'm underestimating the science when investing/buying.
Baths provide culture right?. I think, culture is more important than science. Snowballing science reduces my happiness and military supply.
Hmmmm... do you disable half xp when purchasing units?, or it is fine to you?
I wonder spam, some are really good (ex great library, cathedral of st basil), some are safety measures (ex great wall) others I could probably do without but sometimes end up building anyway (ex colossus).
I prioritise it in cities that have more than one plantation/camp for the extra production and in really jungle/forest heavy cities.
I try keep them at max distance, I play mostly authority warmonger.
I try to prioritise them, usually very good to keep crime down.
I don't really like early wonders, well, it still depends. If I have neighbors, then It would be a city-spamming game to claim all possible land, and forward settle, until he/she has no more room to expand. If I'm alone, or has a huge chunk of land, I'll reconsider building wonders.
I wanted to save the production cost for late game wonders, since they will become expensive overtime.
When taking authority, I really like that idea, since roads were cheaper, and transport could be easier.
Yuh, I read that it reduces crime, which is almost or more effective than arsenal (correct me lel).
I hate micromanagement. I try to avoid it by all means. Therefor I'm stuck at Emperor
I just micromanage worker units at the early game, but that's just because I like to choose where to work next and planning road layouts.
Same, but I always micromanage workers. Weird, because everytime I try to autowork my workers, the game exits or crash
ram problems? lol.
I don't hate micromanaging, I just don't have the proper ideas how to, or the correct judgement which could be better.
Growing cities is really important. You should let your cities grow if you are not having happiness issues. But it also depends on how many available good working places there are. Having more people is always good, but there's also an opportunity cost if you are missing other important stuff like Amphitheaters (if getting new policies faster would give even more yields), for example.
The way happiness work, you have to balance tech progression with population growth. You can't do both and stay happy for long. I ignore the other needs and produce only what I think it's more useful for the whole empire.
I still have to improve my building priorities, but I usually go for production and growth, then culture and gold, and science last. It depends on many factors, though, so I might prioritize science or faith in some cases.
In my current game, I realized that growing cities is good, since it also provide production
I have no idea with "balance tech progression with population growth".
That sounds nice, I'll use that as a paradigm for all my cities on all games. If I've found a better pattern, I would be glad, so far, this is the best
1) Micromanagement is really important, specially in higher difficulties. I like to micromanage everything, from military unit movements every single turn, city tile assignations, worker units, road layouts, two buildings in building list always. You don't need to micromanage too much, specially city tiles, but i think having 1 worker (with progress), or 1.5 worker per city. and planning road layouts for maximixing the ammount of villages, makes a lot of difference.
I think it's a good idea to open a thread about micromanagement.
2) Ye, 1food = 0.5 production when building settlers, i like to spam settlers (5 or 6) if i'm playing progress, after getting 3 or 4 population in capital, and building shrine - rushing monument.
3) Focus on religion early game, (faith), production and growth after faith, science and culture, , then focus on councils and the arena combo, then library.
I really think it is, but I'm content with Emperor. I really love layouts
If food is enough, 3 population- settler- military unit until 4th population (extra science boost) then another (2-3 settlers) another growth and so on.
Because, techs became more expensive with more cities, so I'm using the extra science boost for a small purpose.
If growth is a meme, I'll simply spam settlers and build shrines on them. I don't build council, if culture is scarce. The science from city connection is really good, where I have to skip council for a while.
* About granaries and aqueducts, you don't need them if you pick mandir in your religion, a really very good building, and the ai doesn't pick it. But it's always fine to build granaries and aqueducts in cities with deers / lakes. And don't underestimate the % bonus to people generation from gardens, it normally makes a lot of difference late - game, if you have a city with a aqueduct, build a garden asap
* About workshops... it's a good building, and you will have to build it anyways, better sooner than later, try to don't chop all forests, chopping forest is fine, but don't chop a forest without a reason, if you're unable to build a village or a mine in the forest, and you can't use a triangle farm using that forest tile, leave the tile.
* About windmills, best to delay them in your military unit production city if you're focusing on getting land / naval units.
* Bank is not about the passive yield, it's about the 20% science when purchasing. Get banks in no-developed cities, then invest in production buildings, the city will develop really quick (specially if you're going for forge or chancery first), If you're trying to get the entire combo, custom house -> bank -> caravansory is the best way to do it, normally.
* I like to rush circus asap if Fealty is my second tree (100% of the time, btw), it's nice to rush them to grab a culture generator policy)
* About temples,the shrine -> temple -> grand temple combo is really important if you have a religion, (temple gives +5 faith +2 culture after grand temple, and gives religious pressure), i normally only build amphiteaters in the cities with writer guilds, in the other cities i only build them for opera houses, (+5f, +2c > +2c, +2g for me)
* You can wait for armories to build units, you don't need to wait for arsenals to build units
* Stonework is a very important building, even with only one stone, it's good to use some early trade routes with production, normally your neighbour don't have a lot of science advantage, so each trade route is only giving you +8 gold early game, you can get +6 production or +8 production early game, and if you plan your road layouts well, you can boost your villages using internal trade routes, giving you (+8 base production, +12 production from villages, +12 gold from villages) if you do it well. (Same for granaries, but i don't like to do it with food trade routes)
* We have a thread about wonders, if you can, (specially if you're going progress), try to get terracotta army or great wall, wonders can give you a lot of advantages, it's fine to get some wonders, it's bad to spam them like some players do.
* Herbalists... well, they boost plantations too, it's nice to build them if you have three plantations in a city.
* With progress you want to grab a lot of land, because working specialist early game is going to slow your growth a lot, it's best to grab a lot of land going progress, and then maximize yields in every city working the best tiles, then focus on specialists late game, with tradition you're always working specialists, you don't need a lot of tiles, unless you're India. (But i never play tall so, don't take me seriously)
* Constabularies are a key building for fighting crime, normally it's best to build constabularies and only build arsenals -> military academies in military unit production cities
Hmmm. The 25% gp generation is really that good?, I'll try it next time.
Bonus resources in my map is plentiful, so I changed my opinion about granaries. And about aqueducts, I'll really look closer for its importance as a building, and not as a prerequisite for grocers and *garden* (when completing my baths combo lol)
Is workshop that good? I still think that stables and stoneworks were better. Lumbermills are not my favourite, so I usually cut forests/jungle for farms lol. If I'll take industry, lumbermills were good, or I'm playing as Maya. I wanted to add University and Zoos as my least preferred buildings.
On windmills, Okay, I'm glad with that idea, thanks.
Oh yeah, the science bonus on bank, I'll try than on my next game
It really does works, I really like the grand temple bonus on other temples, It was quite game changing
thanks.
I really don't like internal trade routes. But I like the idea with caravan can provide production on villages
thanks. I started to hate cargo ship, because It was hard to maintain when war progressed. Caravans were safer.
5) 2 city states alliances is enough for me.
6) Spy in the leader, diplomat in the warmonger guys, you can level up some spies really quick if you're sending to warmongers, because of sneaky attacks and complots
Hmmm.. okay, +4 production seems weird on other weaker cities. So, do you build them as a prerequisite for other diplomatic buildings? for civil servants? or for purchasing diplomatic units?
Thanks for that idea, It was really good. I placed them on Gao, Attila's Court and other most hated civ, It was an instant level 3 diplomat
Some more useful tips: Always build roads to city states if you have "free workers", you can save some missionaries with trade routes -> roads in your near city states.
Having at least one vassal is very useful, try to war in some point of the game, even if you aren't going for a domination victory.
Unless you want to neglect passive bonus in spreading from other religions, or you have a bonus from spreading, try to only share your religion in nearby city states and your vassal, then a inoffensive neightbour.
Player made religions are normally really strong, but you don't want to spread it to everyone if you're not getting a advantage from it
I prefer active spreading using missionaries. I really don't like managing excess faith
I always choose the transcendence, I have lot of cities (my own), nearby city-states, and nearby civ that hasn't found a religion. I really like the food boost when entering a new era.
Thanks everyone. I've learned a lot of things from you guys. This made my VP experience more memorable huehue.
My own mistakes that I wanted to correct.
*Underestimating other buildings power (bank's science, aqueduct (?), garden's 25% gpp)
*lot more