lots of questions from a beginner

[newbie2]

So after about 650h in civ v, I started on BE (with RT). I quite like it, but I still have a lot of questions after my first game on normal:

-How does the difficulty scale? I usually play on king or sometimes emperor. And is there a demographics screen?

-Cities: for how many should you go and by what turn? (normal speed). I used to play tall in civ V, but even with 500 turns I noticed that cities dont grow as huge as they used to. But strangely, while the AI expands like crazy in civ v, they seem quite docile in this part. I finished a game on the largest map, and a huge amount of landmass was untouched.

-tech web. Probably the thing that confuses me the most. What techs should you go fr early, and which can be postponed?

-Affinities. I won rather late (and postponed it to get some achievements), so in the end I got all affinities maxed out to 18. I guess this normally doesnt happen?

-diplomacy: Can you sweeten deals to make people accept agreements? Or is it just based on fear and respect? And can you bribe people to go to war?

-in about 350 turns, I never got to intrigue 4, let alone 4. I kept siphoning and stealing science, but they barely levelled p. And they kept failing the harder missions. What is the strategy here?

-I suddenly had a massive drop/shortage in my strategic resourcs, so I couldnt build anything advanced anymore. Is there another way to get additional resources? The black market seems pointless

Thanks

 

[Gorbles]

I think Emperor roughly corresponds to the highest BE difficulty (Apollo). Better players than I would be able to give a better estimate, though. On average, the scale is less than CiV's (even with the changes the developers made to Apollo).

AI behaviour is quite . . . erratic, people have reported factions spreading like wildfire, and being docile like you've experienced. The more games you play the more variance in behaviour you might find. In terms of founding Cities, I think everyone agrees to go as wide as you can in BE (until around -20 Health?) as sources of Health become very easy to come by in the midgame, and the negative effects aren't as severe as in CiV.

Affinity Techs. All (most?) techs give Affinity, but leaf (i.e. non-primary nodes) techs tend to give more. Combine this with whatever Victory you're aiming for - the tech web has filters that you can use to focus your search for the next Affinity and / or Victory tech. Some are more key than others; generally anything that unlocks your core unit set (Ranger, Combat Rover) and stuff that unlocks decent improvements (Cognition is still recommended for Academies, even if they're not as good as they used to be. Also opens up the north-east section of the tech web for Health-related techs and other stuff).

Affinities can be maxed quite easily. Pushing all three to 18 takes some time, and probably won't happen if you're trying to optimise how long it takes you to win a game. Getting your primary to 18 is still quite easy, though.

No bribing, and I don't think you can sweeten deals either. It's based mainly on War Score and to an extent Fear and Respect, yet. It's also possibly to get an enemy that both Fears and Respects you, but this is harder on the highest difficulties.

High rank Spy ops are generally easiest to achieve with ARC and I think Chungsu as well. Sometimes you can time your higher-level ops with a City with existing high Intrigue (from AI spy operations), which helps. I don't often reach rank 4 operations much, it's normally faster to just pursue a military or Affinity Victory while you wait. They are achieveable, though. A bit underwhelming perhaps, considering how useful stealing raw Science and / or Energy is.

Strategic Resources are received from mining improvements, maintaining international Trade Routes, and the Black Market. Unsure how effective the Black Market is, but it definitely isn't pointless. Nobody's sure how exactly the Trade Routes work but having them does randomly grant Strategic Resources. There's a decent Virtue (under the Might tree) that will also double the amount of Resources you possess (permanently).

 

[newbie2]

thanks, makes it a bit clearer. I noticed that indeed negative health isnt that big a deal. How many cities do you usually go for (and by what turn its too late to found new ones?)

And techwise, are there aside from units also buildings you should aim for? aside for the fence because of the trade route protection.
Unless Im doing it wrong, isnt the black market just 1 for each spy that you invest in it? that looked to be the case.

I noticed the rade routes bringing in strategic resources, but I was allied to someone who got piled upon, and as a result most of my international trade routes stopped, which made me end up with -10 firaxite. I guess I need to go wider.

 

[Gorbles]

I'm not the best player, but I think 5 - 6 is recommended? In as few turns as possible, bearing in mind colony defense and exploration. The quicker you get them up, the quicker you get your economy up before the AI comes knocking (if they're aggressive. They aren't always).

I normally play for the fun of it, on a relaxed difficulty, but basically beelining your Affinity Victory techs should give you most of the core buildings you need. Stuff like Thorium Reactors (good early Energy) come on the same tech as Combat Rovers, the tech that grants you Rangers leads to Missile Rovers and economy-improving techs like Bionics in the north-west sector (if you go Purity, or part-Purity, Bionics Labs are great).

Black Market will improve in efficiency for each rank a Spy has. A maxed Spy (three pips) will give you several of a Strategic Resource for a lower Diplomatic cost per turn. Definitely not useless, but I recommend ranking up your Spies (shoving them into City defense in the midgame usually does this, as does performing the basic Quest-specific Spy ops).

 

[newbie2]

Ok thanks, most is clear now. Only thing I miss now is the demographics screen. Or will we have to do with the trimmed down thing in diplomacy?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I wrote a guide some time ago that might be useful for you:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=556195

Not the fastest way to win, but easy to play and the basics (like REXing, trade unit spam, ruin grabbing) are in.

As for your questions:
(1) Apollo in BE(RT) is slightly above Emperor from CIV5. As a new player you should stick to Soyuz - less wars against the AI and more forgiving if you make mistakes.

(2) The ideal number of cities is "as many as your health allows", ideally in the ocean to get the reduced unhealth. Stop expanding when reaching -10 health, wait until the value stabilize, then continue spamming settlers. Since I hate ICC I usually go with 5-6 cities by T50-60.

(3) Get all the first ring stuff early on (Chemistry > Genetics > Ecology > Engineering > Physics), then grab some of the T2 stuff (Biology for the Health satellite, Bionics to unlock the Institute). After that you just grab techs necessary for your victory type (e.g. all that give you the Affinity of your choice) and Ignore everything else.

(4) Normally you only focus on one affinity. The other ones usually only go up to something like 3-5 while you tech. The usual win times are somewhere around T180-200, and good players can cheese that down to T140-150 with proper ICC.

(5) It's based on fear/respect and personal AI interest. No bribing.

(6) Pick a faction withe espionage bonus, pick traits with espionage bonuses. Or better: Ignore high level espionage missions and just steal science and energy.

(7) Trade Routes (internal and external) generate resources if connected to a city that produces a strategic resource. Some Affinity levels or building quests can also generate some free resources.