Moving to king :king:

[Baratitas]

Hi guys, I searched but not found a topic with tips from that.

I normally play tall, pangea map, but after my last (easy)CV on Prince I'll start playing on king, and I would like some tips:

1)Best map type for learning (I confess I do not know how to assemble an army navy) < island/continents maybe ?!?!

2)Best VC to learn (except diplomatic, because that is easy)

3)Best Civ to start on this level

4)Best civs to play against (best warmongers, science, cultural, etc)

Thanks for the info, and if already exist some thread, please redirect.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

King is only a shade more difficult than prince, you should not have problems.
The AI does get a a little more expansive, but it is still mostly "A" and not very "I"

Starting tradition and going tall will work just fine on king, so keep doing that.

1) Map type doesnt matter. If you want to learn Navy then Achipeligo or continents are best. Navy is not always useful on Pagea.

2) VC are not much different on King. Again, the AI will expand a bit faster, it has various implications (resources will get land-grabbed a wee bit faster)

3) All the same CIV's that were good on Prince will be good for the same reasons on King. Take someone "general purpose" if your not sure what VC your aiming at (France or Etheopia are both great)

4)Random AI is best I think, especialy on standard games (8 CIV's) because you get a mix of everything.

 

[Ramanag]

Personally, I feel that science vic is a good way to get a hold at king for moving onward. I started learning SV at king (nc < 90, rush edu) and basically just skipped Emperor on my way to Immortal.

 

[Baratitas]

3) All the same CIV's that were good on Prince will be good for the same reasons on King. Take someone "general purpose" if your not sure what VC your aiming at (France or Etheopia are both great)

In this my last game, I played with Ethiopia, and I already won with France G&K, I liked they, but i want diversify, try another Civs. Thinking go after Domination, but just thinking...

4)Random AI is best I think, especialy on standard games (8 CIV's) because you get a mix of everything.

I asked because I already read on other threads that some AI civs is VERY bad...

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

looking for war monger to play?

For war-mongering, there are many good choices. You need only look at the UA for each leader and think about what that will do for you.

Japan is obvious, the Vikings are tricky but fun.
I personaly like Germany, but they work best on large maps / epic game speed. This can be a bit long for most people.

The Aztec make a great domination Civ, because war gets really profitable for them.

If you really want a challenge, play the aztecs with a honor opener, or mix Honor/Tradition. Play for domination. If you get the right policies you can be making huge gold + culture for every enemy killed. With autocracy at the end, it gets hilarious. I did this once, and once the Honor tree was full I just stayed at war with everyone. It was hard for the first little while but once they started to run out of units, i had a well promoted army and just steamrolled everyone. Capturing a tall culture city and getting 750+ culture is awesome

About the AI: you could play against the same AI three times and get three different results. Somtimes one leader will get stuck in a rut, and the next time the same leader will run away with the game. Its hard to predict. Thats why I like random selections.

 

[Baratitas]

I know that I need learn 3 things:

1) Early warmonger: I only know build an army in medieval/renaiscence, when the cities are infrastructure (food, science, hapines, gold, etc...). I see a lot of people saying that makes a "rush with 4 composite and 1 sword" to take cities from enemies, but i don't know how do that.

2) Play Wide: I don't know when is the time to build/buy a setler to found another city, again beause of infrastructure.

3) Naval Invasion: Because I only played pangea maps, I don't learned (yet) how to do that.

Edit: I've already playde this way with Aztecs: open tradition, open honor, close trad, and honor after, but I stayed behind, with only 2 cities, all because the problem #2 /\

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

1) most of the time, being an early war monger is not a good idea. This is more true on BnW than it was in earlier versions. This is precisely because you will end up skipping infrastructure for units, and that puts you behind.

You DO want to build 4 "bows" early as they are the best defensive unit. if you tech towards x-bow after the NC, then early x-bow is an awesome offensive unit as well, but you need some swords to protect them.

Get an early NC.

2) If your going to play wide, you probably want to start with Liberty policies. This can be very different from Tradition. You should plant new cities whenever you have the happiness to spare, and a unit to garrison. 6 cities max. 5 might be better. Its not hard. You MUST have a source of happiness, you will need to build shrines and monuments early. Get happiness from religion if possible, plant cities next to lux and connect them asap. At the end of liberty, get a Great engineer and use him to build a choice wonder, thats what I like to do.

3) Navy: this can be a long-haul investment. Play on Archipeligo to feel it out. Epic game pace to have more time with each set of units. Build galeas upgrade-> Frigates. These units *MUST* get promoted to range +1 in the long run. Frigates with range +1 can sit outside the City defenses and bombard until the city can be captured in a single attack by a caravel. You can get the XP for promotion by DoW-ing a Ai (or CS) and just grind the Galleas / frigates there (dont capture the city!). Make this close to friendly territory so you can retreat and heal quickly. Once you have all promoted to range +1 you should be able to capture any city, without taking a hit!

the only thing that can stop those frigates now is another navy so bring some Privateers along as well. The Frigates will upgrade to battleships, with range +1. enjoy

Also, the privateers can be promoted in a similar fashion. Pick a city just outside your territory and send one privateer at a time to attack, then next turn retreat to heal in friendly territory, and send in another privateer. Dont capture the city. Pick a city without a ranged unit in it. Get the promotion that allows attacking twice in one turn. Once you have that, you can hit & run.
During this whole affair you will be gettign +20 GPT, which is nice. You need ~6 Privateeers to keep the cycle going.
Combined with the 5 frigates with range +1, your navy is unstopable.

(until submarines)
then you need destroyers
etc.

 

[Baratitas]

1) Yeah, I see so many posts saying that. I'll continue playing on my stile, building an army for war only in medieval/renaissence. Until there, just units to defend.

2) But about the time(growing/production) you waste building the Setler, how is the max turns allowed to do this "stop" ?! Normally, when I'll build a setler, I start immediately after the city grow.

And with liberty/Wide is only 5 cities ?! While Tradition/Tall you have 4, I don't see so many diference.

3)I'll try this tatic asap. Probaly in my new game:


I started yesterday a game with Darius / King / Continents / 10civs-20CS, against: Atila, Khan, Cesar, Songhai, Nobunaga, Monty, Wu Zetian, (and other 2 that I don't remeber ) Diplo Vic off. I've already discover Songhai and Cesar as my neighbors. I Setled my Cap on a desert hill/montain a grabed Old Faithfull, with other hills around. (After I'll post a pic) but I spend 3 turns moving my setler to do this.

Thanks for all the help

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

on the subject of great Navies,

I think the value of a single sub-marine can never be over-stated. Even if you are only using them as recon for the AI and other subs.

I have built a single sub-marine, hidden it under ice caps and sank entire enemy fleets. The only way this breaks down is when the AI has its own subs. In that case it does get tricky.

If you really want to see what a stong navy can do, play archipleligo as Great Britain or the ottomans. Its almost un-fair as the ottomans, because you can capture so many barb ships before the classical age, your meele navy is ready for early war before anyone else has a chance.

as the ottomans, get Iron. lots of iron. You will need it for when you capture enemy Frigates. Use those to garrison cities while your well promoted fleet moves on to the next capitol

using this strategy on King, you might never upgrade to battleships. the game will be over by then !

 

[Js_9001]

About how to settle lots of cities, I usually just build 3-5 then conquer the rest. Liberty seems to work really well with warmongering.

Based on what you've said, i think England is the best choice for you. You can warmonger a lot, especially medieval with the UUs (you shouldn't be warmongering much earlier than that). You can work on your navy with ships of the line, and longbowmen are great.

Also, I just finished a game very similar to yours, it was as Darius with 10 civs/20 CS, also had Attila, Genghis, Askia and Monty. Based on all the games I've played, it seems that Askia is always hated by everyone and by the end is either conquered or very weak from all the civs that hate him.

As for how to improve on playing the game, you'll learn a lot from this section of the forums. Using the advice from Civfanatics, I was able to beat King for the first time and then win my first Emperor game with a science victory pretty easily (the game I played as Persia.)

Some of the strategy that really helped me:
Get Writing very early, then immediately build the Great Library in your cap and libraries in your other cities. You should be able to complete it on King, and then use the free tech to get Philosophy so you can build a National College. This gave me a good tech lead that I kept for the rest of the game.

Pledge to Protect all City States as soon as you meet them. (You will get a lot of "I bullied/attacked your protected CS", especially with people like Askia and Monty. Always take the "You will pay for this", it's a very minor diplo hit and worth keeping the influence.)

After finishing Liberty/Tradition, get Patronage then Consulates (Aesthetics before BNW). Along with the pledge to protect, this will give you a resting point of 30(Friend status) with all CS. The bonuses will be awesome, especially with multiple military CS giving you units.

Next, go for Rationalism, because science is really important and Rationalism gives great bonuses.

Hope this helps!

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

Yeah, there is a argument to made regarding Tradition vs Liberty.
IMO, tradition is 'easier' to play because you are focusing on 4 cities most of the time, and puppet the rest. The advantages of Liberty are subtle. Its great when your playing in an expansive way.

**When I said 5 cities, or 6 max, this really only applies to the early part of the game when you are expanding your initial empire.

You need to stop expanding to build important national wonders. The NC should be built when you have 2 or 3 cities (in a liberty game, 1 or 2 for tradition i think). Ironworks when you have 4 or 5. The other Nat.Wonders are optional for me, but I usualy build at least one more, depending on what I need. Sometimes I get them all.

Later on if you see a good spot for a new city (maybe you need oil, alluminum) Liberty does make it easier to plop a city right there. Also, puppeting and then annexing teritories seems better for Libery play throughs, so yes, its a nice war-monger policy track.