Misc. tips to help people move up in difficulty

[gregh87]

I play on Immortal, and my dad plays on Prince, and I noticed a lot of mistakes he made. They're easy to make, so I assume that they're pretty common among beginning players. Here are some tips that helped my dad:

1. Diplomacy is huge, and he was neglecting some aspects of it. You absolutely do not want to have everyone at cautious, annoyed, or pleased with you. A lot of civs will declare war on you at pleased, and you are limited by We Fear You are becoming too far advanced (WFYABTFA) in tech trading. So at this state, you don't know who is going to attack you, so you can't concentrate your defenses, and you don't have a reliable trade partner.

Instead, you should strive for having well-defined friends and enemies, that is, your neighbors at either friendly or furious. This means giving into your friends' demands, agreeing to stop trading with people, changing to their favorite civic, and agreeing to go to war against X. This way, you have a reliable tech trading partner, and you know where you'll be attacked from and can thus concentrate your defenses. It's extremely difficult to become friendly with a civ of a different religion, so make your decisions about friends and enemies after religions start taking shape. Don't sign open borders with everyone as soon as you get writing, because you'll invariably incur negative diplo points from your wanna be friends for trading with their worst enemy.

2. Really pay attention to worker build priority. Improve tiles only as the city needs them, but don't ever let the city run tiles that aren't improved. I take this to the extreme and don't build a city unless there's a worker or work boat there to immediately improve a nice resource, like a grain, metal, or livestock. Your city does not grow very fast without lots of improved resources, and it's not worth the extra turns of maintenance to have a city growing slowly and not doing much. This means at least one worker per city, and potentially a lot more for cities that are growing quickly and for cities near a lot of jungle resources.

3. Don't grow into unhappiness, unless for rare exceptions when you'll increase the happy cap in a few turns. To illustrate why, let's say your city is at size 9, and the happy cap is 9. That means you need 18 food per turn to stay stagnant, and have 9 tiles to work plus the city tile. So, if you can get 18 food from 6 spots plus the capital, you can run 3 plains hills mines. Once you grow into unhappiness, you have to have 20 food to stay stagnant, still with 9 squares plus the city tile. Now, to stay stagnant, you have to run one less mine to support this population. Alternatively, you can run it like you did at size 9, and lose the population, which puts you at zero food in the store. The net effect of this is losing all the turns of growth during size 9, which is bad, or losing a specialist or mine, which is bad.


I hope this tips help; I'm sure people have heard them before.

 

[StrategeryBush]

Instead, you should strive for having well-defined friends and enemies, that is, your neighbors at either friendly or furious. This means giving into your friends' demands, agreeing to stop trading with people, changing to their favorite civic, and agreeing to go to war against X. This way, you have a reliable tech trading partner, and you know where you'll be attacked from and can thus concentrate your defenses. It's extremely difficult to become friendly with a civ of a different religion, so make your decisions about friends and enemies after religions start taking shape. Don't sign open borders with everyone as soon as you get writing, because you'll invariably incur negative diplo points from your wanna be friends for trading with their worst enemy.

I play Emperor; however, diplomacy is still the weakest part of my game. Lately I have been playing on Fractal, normal speed, standard size map. I usually have a limited set of neighbors, and a limited set of religious choices. What sort of guidelines do you have for deciding early in the game who will be friend and who will be enemy?

 

[Negator_UK]

What should I do if the AIs near me are pleased/friendly, but I need space - overseas expansion is hard, and screwed by maintenance, but local expansion will require me to stab, or at least annoy, friends..

Having a common religion among neighbours is the easiest way to get myself in this situation.

 

[robbyextreme]

I play Emperor; however, diplomacy is still the weakest part of my game. Lately I have been playing on Fractal, normal speed, standard size map. I usually have a limited set of neighbors, and a limited set of religious choices. What sort of guidelines do you have for deciding early in the game who will be friend and who will be enemy?

One of the elements in prince and below players have trouble with is gaining knowledge of their neighbors, they pretty much hand open borders to you.. use it! send a warrior just to watch their productions and over all progress. Deciding which of your neighbors needs to go will be decided on who is a bigger threat to you. Compare your advantages & disadvantages through out the game and do what you consider most beneficial. It's really hard to say WHO exactly to go for because every game is very dynamic.

What should I do if the AIs near me are pleased/friendly, but I need space - overseas expansion is hard, and screwed by maintenance, but local expansion will require me to stab, or at least annoy, friends..

Having a common religion among neighbours is the easiest way to get myself in this situation.

If it's just one AI blocking your way from further expansion then you really need to take him out early on. It's actually crucial if the opponent is around 10 tiles away, grab your first strategic resource and rush several units! don't be afraid to send a pillaging warrior to give you a severe advantage during your campaign. Well if it's 2 or more AI you can see my above advice.

I'm fairly nub myself but I hope this helps.

 

[Civman123]

@Negator My advice is, when you first explore the map, figure out how much land you will need to win by whatever (culture needs the least cities, domination needs the most) and tell yourself that you will take this land by whatever means necessary even if it means backstabbing.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, a big advice:

A higher % of money in research , culture or espionage does not mean necessarily more research, culture or espionage. 10 % of 1000 is more than 100% of 80

 

[gregh87]

I play Emperor; however, diplomacy is still the weakest part of my game. Lately I have been playing on Fractal, normal speed, standard size map. I usually have a limited set of neighbors, and a limited set of religious choices. What sort of guidelines do you have for deciding early in the game who will be friend and who will be enemy?

I look a lot at traits, favorite civics, and teching ability. I like to become friends with many protective leaders like Charlemagne, the Chinese, and Gilgamesh because they're so much harder to defeat. I also like to be friends with people that have a good favorite civic, like Joao and others with Hereditary Rule. I try to avoid being friends with late or weak favorite civics, like police state, environmentalism, free religion, representation, and emancipation, because it is a lot harder to get to friendly without favorite civics. Also, you want friends that you'll be able to trade techs with. For example, if you become friends with Mansa Musa or Hannibal, make sure you make friends with someone who techs at a slower rate so you'll be able to catch up with them.

I always want to be friends with Isabella, if possible. Convert to Buddhism and Theocracy and you can get anything from her or send her after anyone.

I try to choose the backward civs as my enemies, for obvious reasons. Go after the ones with weak starts, non-military traits like expansive, industrious, spiritual, financial, and organized, or ones with unfavorable favorite civics, like free religion or mercantilism.

Also, try to make it so you can get the favorite civics of all your friends. For example, it's difficult to be friends with Survayarman (Organized religion) and Justinian (Theocracy), even with the same religions. Sharing favorite civics can have huge diplo bonuses, and a lot of times you can't get to friendly without them.

 

[JammerUno]

I find the trick to diplomacy isn't knowing the AI, it's knowing the relations between the AI. Getting friendly with them isn't hard, getting friendly with the right group is where it's at.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I find the trick to diplomacy isn't knowing the AI, it's knowing the relations between the AI. Getting friendly with them isn't hard, getting friendly with the right group is where it's at.

Plus, getting them to do what you want I find is key too.

I would add to the list build enough workers (generally 1.5/city, but the numbers may vary according to the map) and have enough siege in your stack. Another thing is that it's at times better to sacrifice longterm advantages for the short term.

 

[Crusher1]

As silly as this sounds it's just about the most important advice I can give. Only work improved tiles. If you're not working improved tiles in new cities then you have over expanded and need more workers.

 

[pigswill]

Only working improved tiles is the main issue. The number of workers is a means to an end not an end in itself though you need workers for building roads and chopping trees as well as tile impovements and its better to have too many than too few.

 

[JTMacc99]

What should I do if the AIs near me are pleased/friendly, but I need space - overseas expansion is hard, and screwed by maintenance, but local expansion will require me to stab, or at least annoy, friends..

Having a common religion among neighbours is the easiest way to get myself in this situation.

One of the many things I remember from Sisiutil's ALC series is the frequent use of the sentence: "This brought [AI leader] to Friendly with me. It's too bad I have to kill him. "

There's nothing wrong with using your friends as trading partners and also your city/land developers.

 

[Grey Fox]

1. Diplomacy is huge, and he was neglecting some aspects of it. You absolutely do not want to have everyone at cautious, annoyed, or pleased with you. A lot of civs will declare war on you at pleased, and you are limited by We Fear You are becoming too far advanced (WFYABTFA) in tech trading. So at this state, you don't know who is going to attack you, so you can't concentrate your defenses, and you don't have a reliable trade partner.

I play on emperor and I've kinda started learning to do this. My problem is I keep getting pleased/friendly with my entire continent. So I have to betray a friend and messing up my relations with everyone on the continent if I want to attack someone on my own continent.
The other continent I usually won't touch unless I need to prevent Spaceship/Culture victories.
I haven't tried for many conquest/domination since Monarch.

Instead, you should strive for having well-defined friends and enemies, that is, your neighbors at either friendly or furious.

Yeah, I know. I try.

Don't sign open borders with everyone as soon as you get writing, because you'll invariably incur negative diplo points from your wanna be friends for trading with their worst enemy.

Yeah this I abide with, but not only for this reason. Also so they won't pass my terrain and start settling where I want to settle in the future.

2. Really pay attention to worker build priority. Improve tiles only as the city needs them, but don't ever let the city run tiles that aren't improved. I take this to the extreme and don't build a city unless there's a worker or work boat there to immediately improve a nice resource, like a grain, metal, or livestock.

Yeah this is important, I am pretty good at this. Though I need to work on getting those workers out.

Your city does not grow very fast without lots of improved resources, and it's not worth the extra turns of maintenance to have a city growing slowly and not doing much. This means at least one worker per city, and potentially a lot more for cities that are growing quickly and for cities near a lot of jungle resources.

I am starting to get enough workers, 1.5 per city is pretty good (DaveMcW advice) but I almost never reach that amount. And sometimes you don't need that many. But ATLEAST 1 per city is a must. (I sometimes build somewhat tight and some cities, such as coastal might not need as much worker love).

Though I have to disagree with not settling a city until you have worker/workboats to improve it. Sometimes you just have to or the AI will claim that area. Prioritize the good city spots and the ones that will claim you territory first.

3. Don't grow into unhappiness, unless for rare exceptions when you'll increase the happy cap in a few turns. To illustrate why, let's say your city is at size 9, and the happy cap is 9. That means you need 18 food per turn to stay stagnant, and have 9 tiles to work plus the city tile. So, if you can get 18 food from 6 spots plus the capital, you can run 3 plains hills mines. Once you grow into unhappiness, you have to have 20 food to stay stagnant, still with 9 squares plus the city tile. Now, to stay stagnant, you have to run one less mine to support this population. Alternatively, you can run it like you did at size 9, and lose the population, which puts you at zero food in the store. The net effect of this is losing all the turns of growth during size 9, which is bad, or losing a specialist or mine, which is bad.

It can be useful to grow into unhappiness to pop rush with. But yeah, this is important.


Another tips I'd like to give is that the Governor isn't that bad. At least not if used right. You can hinder growth for example. Use this together with for example emphasize production, or commerce or even specialists (together with some enforcing of certain specialists). Saves tons of micro. Just make sure to remember to turn on growth again when you get more happy.

Another tip is to time growth with hooking up resources. You can grow the city 1 turn prior to hooking it up. Remember if it says 1 turn left it often means the worker can hook it up this turn.
If you have a market or forge and its a related resource you can grow 2 pop points before hooking it up if you have the food to do so.


If you want to advance in difficulty level, don't overlook slavery and hereditary rule!

 

[Jaroth]

Build more units.

 

[Skurn]

Working forest tiles isn't that bad IMO. It's like an half-improved tile.
In production cities, you won't have anything better to do with your flatland tiles for a long time.
You need CS to chain-irrigate your grasslands, and at least two among caste system/guilds/chemistry to make workshop more interesting then forest. So working a couple forests isn't that bad if you don't want to run specialists in the city.

 

[Gwyddelig]

Build more units.

This, above any other consideration is something I really, really need to get better at...

 

[Windsor]

Working forest tiles isn't that bad IMO. It's like an half-improved tile.
In production cities, you won't have anything better to do with your flatland tiles for a long time.
You need CS to chain-irrigate your grasslands, and at least two among caste system/guilds/chemistry to make workshop more interesting then forest. So working a couple forests isn't that bad if you don't want to run specialists in the city.

If you have nothing better to work it's much more effective to whip.

 

[Racsoviale]

Question: how/where do I locate the happy cap in my cities? I find it difficult to make sense in the and heads, basically I find the way it is outlined confusing and dont really get how it is supposed to be interpreted.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Question: how/where do I locate the happy cap in my cities? I find it difficult to make sense in the and heads, basically I find the way it is outlined confusing and dont really get how it is supposed to be interpreted.

Near the food bar on the city management screen. Hovering over the icons gives you more details via a popup



The mechanic that needs to be managed: if exceeds , then you end up with an unproductive citizen (shows up in red on the city management screen - doesn't actually produce, but does eat food). The primary source of is population (each new citizen in a city gives you a new ), but other game elements (whipping, drafting, emancipation, wars, etc) can increase the in a city.

You counter by collecting more - luxuries, culture, military police... choices choices choices. Fortunately the War Academy includes Ways into Happiness, so I don't feel guilty about not going into detail.

ps. Don't we have a perfectly good stickied thread for this sort of thing?

 

[Windsor]

You can locate your happy cap in the city screen (for that specific city) or in the city advisor(F1).

In the city screen you'll see something like 11 > 11 Each population point add 1 ("It's too crowded") so if the city grows beyond the happy cap you'll see something like 11 < 12 = +1 You'll also see a red angry citizen in the lower right corner. Note, each citizen consumes 2 This also applies to angry citizen who refuses to work. As long as is equal or greater than your fine.

In the city advisor you'll see a number in the column. The number is - so if a city has 9 and 5 it will say +4.

Finally, if a city have one or more citizens who refuses to work you'll see a icon on the city bar.

See screenshots for examples