Making the transition from Prince to King difficulty

[roguepro92]

pick Babylon as leader

settle 4-5cities depending on map size, small 3-4, standard 4-5, large 5-7
make sure they all heavy food and all coastal.

take the NC opener. so worker>monument>library>NC>toss out worker and settlers till satisfied.

take the free settler from policy and save the rest for later < check that box before game starts

i prefer to play scattered islands or any map that gives you isolated but tiny land space and settle only coastal cities.
now reason to play babylon is the free scientist + you get double boost from scientist specialty, which is what you will abuse first 2 maybe even 3rd will settle in your main so make sure to leave 3x2food tiles un-upgraded

in a decent game its fair to toss out 12+scientists, i prefer to save them until later'ish game and use all same time to cut the tree into pieces and burn it all together.

all the saved policy's go into left column of commerce hence coastal cities get nice production boost which will likely be all the hammer you need assuming you don't cut your trees down which will later get lumber mill. and hopefully you have atleast 2 fish per city and a close enough lake

tech wise go strictly 2nd line which gives scientist specialty slot buildings.
each city should have all the scientist slot buildings and multipliers. use your extra policies to lead you to 2free technology or/and improve special citizen's happiness/food consumption. neither should be any problem.

dont tech any military, sign RA, open border, pay tribute, keep friendly with 2-3nations in a "makeshift" alliance 24/7 DOF, but dont follow them into denouncement, war if asked and sign peace soon as you can pay if you must, not too heavily tho. and soon as defensive pact is open, sign it with everyone who will sign it with you. Keep friendly with everyone, everyone should be signed into pact exception of one who is 24/7 war with you and is denounced by all your friends, that guy's cities will provide your caravels with their xp.

bam.4/5 games in emperor/immortal, the one i lost i got backstabbed and my navy was too weak to hold off invasion before i can sign peace.

one thing, all 5 games i seem to be starved in gold paying tribute and signing RA with my friend alliance. i was only able to upkeep a decent navy 5-7 all at least lvl6+ and i only had 1bowman per city no other ground unit. make sure to pay super hardcore attention on your water for incoming embarked units if your in war because once they land. your screwed

go for science win, space or domination by amazing tech lead, bombers before anyone else or nuke

cultural doesn't seem to work and can't win by UN because well you got no money at all to even buy 1CS : due to lack of money to buy happiness buildings or resource, make sure to have 25+happiness before you go puppet the world.

domination only works because your frigates with lvl6+ can later upgrade and wreck havoc on all in range cities with their 3range attack and 2attack per turn and still move. in all 4 games i was able to get 3 units with all 12upgrades EPIC FUN!
you can conquer the world with 1tank, 1infantry, carrier with 3bombers with 3xcity, 1x per turn heal upgrades and your navy to bombard all enemy land units/city and nearby naval.

your early warfare should be strictly bowman per city only to defend. get caravels out soon as you can and start gathering their lvls for later when they upgrade
gl/hf

 

[JStar]

i find it hard to make this transition with the new patch updates. i usually play on king but since the update, prince has become a whole lot more challenging.

 

[roguepro92]

i find it hard to make this transition with the new patch updates. i usually play on king but since the update, prince has become a whole lot more challenging.

imho.
all the new patch has done is force the player into more defensive position instead of just charging. or maybe thats how im playing

 

[Janne]

imho.
all the new patch has done is force the player into more defensive position instead of just charging. or maybe thats how im playing

I feel kind of the same...in several post patch games I had a neighboring civ attacked me early on with 6-10 units as I didn't have a powerful military due to one city nc start but once I repelled the initial attack they had no defense whatsoever and were easy to conquer and I didn't even had to declare war on them. So I found myself in the position to get one civ out of the way and gain 2-3 puppet cities without much diplomatic penalty...

 

[MarsRobert]

aaaaa

 

[MarsRobert]

Well guys, after showing a lot of improvement in my previous game at the King level, it seems that I was back to my old familiar pattern in my latest game. That is, by the late industrial era I found myself mostly broke with marginal happiness and well-behind in the tech race. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

You know what though? I think I would do well to remember that the main reason I play games is for fun, and not bragging rights. As Elvis once so poignantly noted, "If it ceases to be fun we'll cease to be doing it."

 

[Deau]

imho.
all the new patch has done is force the player into more defensive position instead of just charging. or maybe thats how im playing

I feel kind of the same...in several post patch games I had a neighboring civ attacked me early on with 6-10 units as I didn't have a powerful military due to one city nc start but once I repelled the initial attack they had no defense whatsoever and were easy to conquer and I didn't even had to declare war on them. So I found myself in the position to get one civ out of the way and gain 2-3 puppet cities without much diplomatic penalty...

Well guys, after showing a lot of improvement in my previous game at the King level, it seems that I was back to my old familiar pattern in my latest game. That is, by the late industrial era I found myself mostly broke with marginal happiness and well-behind in the tech race. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

You know what though? I think I would do well to remember that the main reason I play games is for fun, and not bragging rights. As Elvis once so poignantly noted, "If it ceases to be fun we'll cease to be doing it."

See on Deity, the last patch has changed my approach to science/culture & somewhat diplo victories. I no longer "play to win by science" or "play to win by total domination". Instead, I usually plan at least one rush (LS/Keshik/rifles/sometimes even warrior ish with a UU from ancient era to kick in) to leverage my game up. I play with the perspective of having "a winnable game by turn 200" and pick my victory type around this turn. Even my most peaceful game where I kept 5-6 rolling DoFs for over 200 turns forced me into a war because an AI was going to beat my planned science victory by a cultural victory forcing me to go after him.

In other words, rather than thinking defensive, think you will have/want to go offensive at some point and this will really help you get a much bigger edge from all of those extra military units that you used not to need pre patch. The strain on GPT and hammers of making military "has to pay off" at some point. Otherwise, it means those are just gold&hammers you have less than you had for the same game level prepatch aka you are now worse at the same game level as you were. If you think of it in an offensive perspective, you can get much more out of it.

The only times I go fully peaceful is if I'm flooded by luxuries between my first few cities and ally military CSs to save me the hammers of defensive military...but even this is costful compared to prepatch - build no unit & only ally maritime/cultural so I really prefer expecting at least one offensive war, often as a reaction to an AIs DoW on me.


then @MarsRobert
You really should never worry about happiness really. The higher level you play, the less relevant it is. Personally my favorite happiness level is at about -7 on deity. It means I've right about maximized my growth without crippling my gold gain from luxury sales. The only circumpstances happiness matters is playing say as persia and wanting a GA from happiness to be timed around your first immortal rush. Sure it's fun if you have extra happiness but it plays right about no role in winning the game, for so long as you are >0 after settling a new city so it can grow, or as you are >-9 at other times

Also w/ regards to your ~3rd last post regarding city specialists. Your use of them is always dependant on your strat and the state of your city. In general though people use the first workshops' slot as soon as it's up to try and pop a GE to rush a decent medieval-renaissance wonder (as there is one for nearly every strat that is worth rushing). Other than that, if I play with a few tall cities I will use all of my scientist slots from university+ since the cities that have it are those producing lots of beakers anyway. In the late game, I usually try to save a GS around in case one of my RA sling shots breaks or sometimes because when I get a 2nd GS, I can double bubble a key tech to either rush an important wonder or mass upgrade units and do another nice rush. Great merchants and great artists are "ok" but you generally won't want to delay your next GS/GE by getting one intentionnally (unless you play cultural victory).

In the end anyway, if you have puppets, they will cap out your merchant slots so if you wish to get some scientists/engineers that don't cost thousands of great person points, you will want your controlled cities to cap scientists or engineer slots.

I personnally prefer GSs over GEs because I always have the option of "stealing" a key wonder from a neighbor if I can keep a military tech lead but there are a few one-time bonus wonders that are definitely worth using the GEs. I also really really like to have a GE lying around for when I discover w/e tech it is that gives the statue of liberty. This very wonder gives a LOT of extra hammer spread around all of your cities and it also helps puppets keep up quite a bit in the late game.

All in all though, for so long as you enjoy it, keep trying you will end up getting the hang of it . That or the next time you pull back to prince you will find it so damn easy that you'll be keen to get back to king hahaha.

I don't know if you play civ&map specific strategies or kinda "go with the flow". One of the best pointers from bibor/maddjinn/davemcw/snarz and a bunch of other players I got on these forums to help me move from prince to deity within a month was "start a game with a strategy in mind". It is important to react but it is much more succesful to have a plan from turn 1 on.

Anyway if you keep struggling at keeping up in the modern era, I suggest you write down your city count, CS allies count and also the BPT(beakers per turn) from your own cities, BPT from scholasticism (you can tell by mousing over your BPT at top left of screen) and also a rough count of how many RAs you were able to consistently sign and make succesful in the late game. Sadly enough, the tech costs in late game are very, very high and unless you have outstanding BPT, RAs are a must to keep up in those eras.

 

[Deau]

O yeah MarsRobert, if you could also tell us roughly what your SP pathways are, it could probably help us help you with late game science & happiness issues.

 

[JStar]

imho.
all the new patch has done is force the player into more defensive position instead of just charging. or maybe thats how im playing

i think ur right but it also makes the ai go for science as well as they spread like verman sometimes.

 

[roguepro92]

@deau
i dont dare try deity but at immortal with 2bowmans per city and the cheap wall up. i can hold LS rush fairly well granted AI still uses siege badly and one horseman can hit and run them once bowman has softened them and after the first wave the aggressor is usually willing to sign fair peace

also like you said puppets are almost always set on gold so even if i war i try not to puppet because i rather have the extra GS than the extra GPT/beaker

mass puppeting doesn't really seem viable strategy in my game normally.

babylon > science win or advanced army is always easier if the original poster wants to try that on king, i can give era by era help if provided screen shots just to show how it should roughly be played, ofcourse given that exacts will change from game to game.

 

[Deau]

@roguepro

I don't mean defending is really hard/costful but 2 bowman per city is 150 hammers "somewhat early in the game" per city. That could be 3 warriors that you upgrade to LSs and instead of playing strictly defensive, you take a city or 2 from your agressors. Those cites will overtime compensate the upgrade costs or you can sell one of them back right away to that civ to get a huge gold bump up and still retain an extra city. On top of that, more often than not, instead of getting a fair peace deal, you will probably get a fat peace treaty to your advantage for having spent the same "defensive hammers" into "offensive hammers"

And yes, Babylon is probably the all around strongest civ since you can leverage any lack by outteching AIs but even as babylon, mass puppeting does payoff, regardless of the strat you aim for.

There is virtually no cost other than happiness to mass puppeting and overtime, puppets tend to become close to self sufficient on happiness yet become true gold powerhouses or "gold farms". Whenever happiness feels like it's an issue, you can always sell one of those puppets for lots of gold/gpt/30 turn luxuries.

If you are scared at damn GMs from puppet empires(I hate them too), just roughly monitor their GM progression and sell them before they pop a GM, you will still have gotten a lot of benefits for the time being they were puppets without any additionnal cost to SPs.

 

[odin_toelust]

Well guys, after showing a lot of improvement in my previous game at the King level, it seems that I was back to my old familiar pattern in my latest game. That is, by the late industrial era I found myself mostly broke with marginal happiness and well-behind in the tech race. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

You know what though? I think I would do well to remember that the main reason I play games is for fun, and not bragging rights. As Elvis once so poignantly noted, "If it ceases to be fun we'll cease to be doing it."

This is going to be the simplist tip ever. Look at your economy breakdown and see where you are hemorraging funds from and make a concious effort to change that.

Keep in mind that a 6-8 unit army is more than enough in most cases. If you want to have a large army you can always choose the oligarchy (?) policy from the tradition tree which will eliminate the unit maintenance on any unit in a city, and give you some happiness to boot. One thing I like to do with this is get a city making purely scouts (if you can spare the production of course) and station them in your cities for the happiness bonus, no maintenance, and a larger army score, although I am not sure if scouts deter attacks that much. Or you can have a death machine army that you don't pay for unless they are in battle.

If building maintenance is getting in the way do some quick number crunching to see what buildings are not pulling their weight and sell them. I can't think of a great example from civ 5, but in 3 if you built a market in a city that was below a certain gold threshold (can anyone remember it?) that the market actually cost you money. The main perpetrators of this is civ5 are probably libraries, temples and the like.

The best way to get a strong late game economy going is to have a puppet empire. These cities are always set on gold focus and the AI will build happiness buildings first (if needed) and then econ buildings like markets and mints.

If you can get your war machine going strong the economy tends to follow suit, whereas if you don't war or do it ineffectively your economy tends to suffer. (obviously not always the case).

Also, the way you use your workers is one of the most important aspects of civ, don't automate them, don't overdevelop a city, don't build an improvement that won't be used for 10 turns when you could build one that will be used immediatly. It is not always the most efficient to work the same area, you can/will get better gains by moving your workers around. On a similar note get your trade networks connected they are a huge source of income. I believe you gain 1 gpt for every citizen in every city that is connected. Don't build 10 road tiles to hook up a 6 pop city (they cost 1gpt per tile)

 

[roguepro92]

.

too much work for immortal lol.
if i want to take it hardcore and go for diety i will do that but at immortal i don't see the necessity to puppet even if they do become self sufficient sooner or later. like i said before. i like giving myself the disadvantage even in simple situation because the AI isn't bright even with much better %boosters.

i do see your point and i just dont think its needed for immortal if i can still pull a win consistently.

 

[Deau]

Alright , I must admit I enjoy puppets enough to sacrifice a few GSs for GMs to avoid the hassle of selling puppets before GMs pop, but that might be because of scholasticism and how a GM is basically a free CS.

I'm sticking by the point though that in a general game approach that doesn't rely specifically on say babylon's crazy UA towards GS production, thinking offensive as opposed to thinking defensive, even for "peaceful victory types" will help someone progress faster

 

[eric_]

I'm playing through my first so-far successful King game. I played 2 others before this, but I made bad choices that mired me in wars and caused me to stall out. In those initial two games, I expanded aggressively (e.g., settled a far flung city to grab iron or a luxury resource) and then backfilled, but in the last game, I made both France and Inca warring mad and didn't have the military or production capacity to do anything other than constantly build units at a rate that just barely prevented the loss of a city.

In my current game, I went with an NC start (as I did with the others), but decided to keep my core empire much more compact, ultimately settling 4 cities (3 + the capital) within 3 or 4 tiles of the capital. It helps that I had 12 iron within spitting distance of my capital.

Below is the long story. First, here are the take-home lessons I've learned so far:
-It helps to keep your early empire compact, i.e., settle cities 3 - 4 tiles from the capital, and not in a line across the map. It makes it easier to defend a rush with a small military
-NC start definitely helps keep you in the game early on, tech-wise
-You'll probably need to wage an offensive war by around Longswords unless you're going for cultural. This will help your standing due to land holdings, will boost your economy due to more workable trade posts/econ buildings, and will keep your science rate on the rise
-Vertical growth seems to be more important (more people to work tiles/specialist slots/boost science output)
-RAs are HUGE. I've seen this mentioned on the boards a lot, but I never really appreciated it until now. I'm really not sure it would be possible to keep up on King without RAs. Maybe with MASSIVE population in all cities. I might try that next game.

Anyway, when a REXing Monty invaded my capital with 7 or 8 jaguar units, I had the ability to move my paltry military (2 warriors, 1 spearman, and popped one warrior while defending) into good defensive position before Monty could set up. I managed to repel that attack and then continued on as a builder, but always with the goal of taking over Ramesses, my nearest neighbor. Well, by the time I finally had suitable infrastructure, Monty had expanded to the point that we now shared a border, too. I decided he was more of a threat than Ramesses, and I was also in third place of the three known civs (Me, Monty, Ramesses). So, I decided it was time. It took a *long* time to take Monty's first city, as he had built up a decent force of archers and pikemen (I was fielding longswords and catapults at this point, my usual point for violent expansion). The city walls also really seemed to dull my catapult's attacks. Ultimately, though, that city fell and the rest was pretty straight forward (except the capital, which only had 3 non-water tiles around it and had trees blocking my siege units).

While I was conquering Monty, I switched over to naval production on the home front, wanting to explore the map and see how I was faring compared with the rest of the players. I also knew I'd need new trading partners as my adventures in Aztecland were upsetting Ramesses . Anyway, I finally got a trireme out (I had ignored the top of the tree so far), then got Astronomy, and finally popped Navigation via an RA (which I used to barely use on Prince, but have played a HUGE role in this game, including tech blocking, etc., good stuff!). I built a couple of caravels and upgraded the trireme to a frigate and started sailing. I had finished Monty by now, teching up through gunpowder to rifles, and was fairly well ahead of Ramessees.

Eventually I stumbled upon Persia, Rome, Mongolia, the Ottomans, and Babylon. I was second only to Mongolia. I decided I needed to pull ahead them, too, since this is King and I don't know how easy a come-from-behind win is (managed them often on Prince). So, I invaded Egypt, popped Chemistry via an RA, and took his HUGE size 28 capital fairly quickly, as he pulled all of his pikemen and cavalry back to a more defensible part of his empire. Having taken that, I pulled ahead of Genghis, but not by quite enough. Hopefully finishing off Egypt's core empire (leaving them some satellites so as not to alarm my new friends) will give me more breathing room.

I might keep the current save and play it out two different times, once going for science, the other going for conquest. I'm 4th or 5th for literacy and I'm number 1 for military, but I'm not sure an intercontinental invasion will work out. I also like the idea of a come-from-behind science victory. Seems plausible once I have the continent to myself. We'll see how it goes!

 

[Deau]

@Eric_

I would only have one pointer and a question/pointer

First, the actual "score" matters very little for victory unless you uncheck everything and play a time victory (500 turns game). On deity cultural victory, one can be 8th/8 civs and still build utopia before anyone else wins by a different path. The primary game items that increase score is empire width and total height so expanding/puppeting is the fastest way to catch up.

My question/pointer is did you completely wipe montezuma or left him with at least one city? Complete wipe is a "common mistake" (it's not always a mistake but...). Complete wipe hurts relationship significantly more than leaving a crippled civ with just one city and very crippled civs won't make it back up to ever be a threat again. On top of that, super crippled civs left with one(or a few) city can serve as RA hubs if they are cornered. That is, if you can expect they won't be wiped out by another AI, it is often worth trading them the gold for GPT to fund the RA (need to trade gold for gpt since crippled civs also have crippled gold/gpt).

The very rare times where I do complete wipes is if I am leaning towards a science or diplo victory and wish to "fully own" my continent (which could've been your case) to avoid seeing out-of-continent AIs come settle my lands after wiping the weak civ. The other even more rare cases are due to very early attacks on non-expansive civs. Sometimes (esp Ghandi), all of their cities are outstanding/very attractive and taking say just the capital out of a 2 city ghandi would seriously cripple my gain from my first rush.

 

[eric_]

Deau:

I did completely wipe Monty. I was aware of the risk, but I had little choice as Monty's capital was his furthest city from me, and the only way to it was through his other cities. So, I made the strategic decision to hold off on over-seas exploration until I was finished. I also had every intention of attacking Ramesses, so I wasn't too worried about upsetting him.

It wasn't too long after I took his capital that Suleiman showed up just off shore of one of Monty's old cities, so I was fortunate in that regard. With Ramesses, I denounced first, then DoW'd and took his capital.

After all of that, I am currently "Friendly" with every civ on the other continent, and have signed DoFs with a couple of them. This was my first real test of the idea that warmongering prior to contact with a civ doesn't affect your relationship with that civ.

Generally speaking, though, yeah, it's very rare for me to wipe a civ entirely off the map. Mostly it's simply because there are 1 - 3 cities that are too out of the way to be worth the effort .

As for score, I realize it doesn't mean too much, ultimately, but my goal has always been domination or science. Either requires a good tech rate and good cash flow, and since score is most indicative of land/pop and land/pop track closely with science and economy, I want to stay at or at least near the top, especially since I'm #5 in literacy.

 

[Janne]

Also, the way you use your workers is one of the most important aspects of civ, don't automate them, don't overdevelop a city,

Thanks for reminding me again...I seem to tend to forget the economical micromanagement sometimes...end then end up with negative GpT and the consequences...

I have not yet tried the Oligarchy/Military Caste SP as my army is out fighting more or less constantly...I guess it will save a coin or two if you are having units staying back as a defense force...

 

[eric_]

When you say "don't overdevelop a city", is that in terms of the buildings you build or the tiles you improve? I assume the former, or is there a downside to improving tiles that don't yet have a citizen to work them?