King Mode question.

[Ticklepink]

I am not for sure what I am doing wrong on King mode. It seems as if i have hit a streak of simply put "bad game play" I was wondering Is your civ the only one that seems to be slowed down on king mode? I try to establish pop growth and build settlers. I work really hard to expound on the civs bonuses. It just seems like I am on the short bus every single time. For example I recently got Saladin and I built my civ around his science bonuses attached to religion however doing that made me take hard hits in production and by 1700 everyone had tanks and was building spaceports and I was left sending out a Caravel to explore.Its been like this with almost every single leader ive gotten and I was wondering when you choose King mode is it just you that has it harder? I will admit a few times i was able to over come by going straight archery and then catapults in order to take over the nearest Civs capitol but that was only a few occasions. I need help LOL

 

[Victoria]

The king mode means you stay the same but the AI gets small advantages. Deity you are still the same but the AI gets what appears to be impossibly large advantages but once you know the general flow it is not too bad.

Some starts have too much production and not enough food and also the opposite. You want to try and balance your food and production a bit. Certainly when your city is small food is more important and when larger production is.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to get those settlers out. Typically my starts are a unit (to help protect against barb scouts) then a builder (to give me better/more balanced food and production as well as eurekas, and then 2 settlers, perhaps buying a monument. Build 1 districts for the inspiration and then placing but not building districts for about another 40 turns and instead concentrate on army, settlers, monuments and granaries.

You fall behind at first but then because you have lots of cities you catch up and then overtake

Trying to get inspirations and eurekas is also important. Up to 40% of your science and culture comes from them. So important is this that people will swap techs or civics they are researching once they get near 60%

 

[AlanH11]

by 1700 everyone had tanks and was building spaceports and I was left sending out a Caravel to explore.Its been like this with almost every single leader I need help LOL

My first attempt at King resulted in one civ reaching the atomic age by 1492.
The others had tanks and flight before I had gunpowder.
It's not just you. It's a game imbalance.

 

[steemroller]

I pump out a scout (or two) to try and land first contact with city states and, with that, the bonuses that accrue to your capital.

 

[knighterrant81]

Check out the guide in my sig. It is still fairly relevant to your question.

Don't use the Civ bonuses as a main focus. They are generally just suggestions or nudges in the right direction or towards a particular victory type. Some are really good but some will lead you astray. For instance, Arabia's focus on religion can make things unnecessarily difficult unless you know what you are doing. Religion is just not worth it unless you know what you are doing and/or are specifically going for a religious or perhaps a cultural victory. This is slightly different for Arabia, but again, only if you know what you are doing. Otherwise, play them more or less like any other Civ - expand early, build military, then build your victory district (either Campuses or Holy Sites for Arabia).

If you are behind late, you are most likely not expanding enough or building enough Campuses early enough. You need to play more efficiently because the AI has bonuses.

I'd pick a different Civ and practice with that one Civ while moving up the difficulty scale. Rome, for instance, or perhaps Germany (both have generally applicable bonuses and don't excessively railroad you into one style of play).

 

[dwcole78]

Are you playing on vanilla or with expansions? Either way the thread where I go through my king game and ask for advice will likely be useful to you, incredibly useful if you are playing on vanilla. Map settings also matter. If you are playing on a smaller map with no ocean expect to war early.