Mid Game Advice - Losing Direction

[somebody19]

Well from my previous thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=230827, thanks to all that posted advice, and I'm glad to say that I've started a new game and practically applied all your advices in this one.

The game plan was to hook up horses early, apply REX only keeping holy cities and cities that could pay for themselves, head straight for the nearest neighbour and raze the civilization down.. and well I did, and the English was the receiving end.

I then started a war with the Romans, successfully capturing their capital, however realising that if I continued the war, it would be un-beneficial to me so I declared peace for multiple technologies and some gold.

Rebuilding process took place.. and well now I'm stuck on what to do. My military sucks, finance isn't as good as how I want it to be, and my plan is to save money and upgrade all my Swordsmen to Macemen and finish off the Romans, but would that be beneficial at all?

Also, I feel that my tech tree is a mess, and my cities barely specialize whatsoever. I could certainly use some advice on how to specialize my cities in my current save game, and possibly go for a more optimum game style.

And probably advice on what should be my next step?

Thanks in advance guys, my save game :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/67864/Direction.CivWarlordsSave

 

[somebody19]

Bumping this post.

 

[carl corey]

Ok, took a look at the save. First things first: you have too few cities! A rule of thumb is 3-4 cities before Code of Laws & Currency, then double that at least. With some more management you can go up to 10-15 cities without a problem on Prince. And you do have the locations. West of the capital you could grab horses and fish. East, iron, cows and wheat. And there are several gem tiles in the jungle that would allow cities build around them to pay for themselves.

Second, the cities that you have:
- you're running Bureaucracy (boost to commerce, not gold, and production) yet you are running specialists in it. Also, you have good research in it, but didn't build the monasteries that boost research (10%). Do that, then start building military. Forget about upgrading everything, it's not worth it. You can easily build twice as much with the production power of the capital and your heroic epic city. Anyway, generally you want your capital to have production & commerce, not to run specialists in it. That way you have full benefit of Bureaucracy.

- your Heroic Epic should build units, not gold! It has a 100% bonus to building units, plus you could settle the Great General in it to get twice promoted units. Building anything else is a waste (library, monasteries, etc). Happiness and health buildings excepted, of course.

- you have a city that's mostly mines. It won't have enough food to work them all, so you need more windmills instead of mines. What use is a mine if you don't work it?!


The research path is ok, but you should be heading down the Liberalism route. Philosophy can be lightbulbed by one Great Scientist, Paper also by one, Education by two (or one & self research rest), then research Liberalism for a free tech. That's the best path to take in most games.

In conclusion: you need more cities. With enough workers (around 1 or 2 per city) you improve them to pay for themselves. Going with fewer cities isn't the answer. And you need to build military instead of upgrading it each time. Use the obsolete units even if you don't have money to upgrade and they die. Hopefully they'll do some damage and allow your new units to finish the attack. Next time try to fill the space closer to your initial location before going on a killing spree. If you don't have a close neighbour just expand peacefully.

 

[InFlux5]

I'll just give a general response, as I can't look at your save. But I would often have the same problem: early wars go well, then I run out of steam and don't know what to do.

I'll assume that we're at the stage of the game where all, or almost all the (habitable) land has been settled. At this point it's time to start growing "upward" instead of outward. In other words, build up your cities.

I think people on this forum sometimes over-state the case for specializing every city. Some cities are obviously going to be specialized: if it's all grassland, go commerce. If you can work 4 mines, make it a production center.

But in reality some cities may be "hybrids". I like to have a few cities that are usually producing a good deal of commerce, but which maintain a farm and a couple of mined plains-hills to switch to production mode if need be. (This depends on your situation; as the game goes on and I need to squeeze out more commerce, those mines will eventually become windmills.)

On the production front, you want to have at least one city as your super-production city that creates military units almost exclusively. Having 1 or 2 other production cities, or several "hybrid" cities like I described, is usually enough to keep a war machine going.

At this stage of the game, unless you're in an all-out war, you may find that there is little to do for long stretches. But there is something to do. You should spend a lot of time in the city screen. Watch the health and happiness caps like a hawk - and hit them as fast as you can, in every city. (Happiness obviously gets priority since an unhealthy worker still works, he just eats more food. Also, production cities don't need to grow quite as fast, since they aren't adding much to your economy by doing so.)

So that's my advice: micromanage. Don't be scared by the term. All it means is "build up your cities". Hit F1 a lot. With this screen, at a glance you can see health/happiness levels, as well as great people production.

Just to nitpick a point the above-poster made, I would hardly say your capital should never run specialists. Bureaucracy is not a given 100% of the time. In my last win with a SE my capital was my main GP factory (though I was Peter so I had another city creating GP as well.)

It's hard to make general rules about the game. Just spend some time looking over each city and maximizing whatever it does best. But on the whole, in the mid-game your goal should be to grow your economy as quickly as possible.

 

[carl corey]

Just to nitpick a point the above-poster made, I would hardly say your capital should never run specialists. Bureaucracy is not a given 100% of the time. In my last win with a SE my capital was my main GP factory (though I was Peter so I had another city creating GP as well.)

True, I've had SEs in which the capital ran lots of specialists. Or even non-SEs in which I used the capital's high food to get a couple of Great Persons out. But now (patch 2.08) Bureaucracy has high upkeep instead of medium. I'd rather use its full potential as its costs are up, instead of running lots of specialists. For example, in this game he was running Merchants and building gold to upgrade troops (with market only), instead of running mines with 50% production from bureaucracy & 25% bonus from forge. If you look in the city screen to how much you earn, using production would be way better. Of course, the disadvantage is not getting Great Persons out of it, but in general I make another high food city my GP farm in non-SE cities. Or I don't run Bureaucracy in SE cities. Take your pick.

 

[InFlux5]

Well, as always, it's situational. I've been getting a lot better lately at running a SE, so Bureaucracy hasn't always been a priority lately. I guess it just seems people on the forum assume Bureaucracy at all times, but to me it's situational.