My game last night, Where did I go wrong

Prince Dificulty
Japanese nation
abundent resources

In the past I have been playing the long game to see the ending, which I have not seen yet because i keep getting beat. So last night I went for a domination victory, first off built 5 cities while my tech tree was going for Steel(Samurai). I got about 10 Samurai units and quickly took 3 city states as puppets, and fortified my borders. By this time "Rhamakahndun" or whatever his name is declares war on me and I start to take his cities, My production was halted as my people were 40+ unhappy and I was pretty dam poor, Ranging from negative numbers to no more than 100 gold at times. By the time I get done conquering him, I have no gold, 12 puppeted cities, 40-50 unhappyness and 10 Samurai units and a few archers I can not upgrade out of and cant build anything because my people hate me. By the way 2 nations start invading me and my units are as soft as wet toilet paper.

I know this is a long read but where did I go wrong?

 

Unhappiness will really screw things up if it gets that bad. Some unhappiness will just stop growth. Lots of unhappiness (when you get the red, really unhappy face) basically screws up everything, including your ability to fight wars. Best thing to do is to either raze cities you don't need (a city can't generate unhappiness if it doesn't exist!) and work on producing or simply rush-buying Circuses, Coliseums, and Theatres if necessary to keep boosting happiness. You can make do with unhappiness, just don't let it get to the point where you suffer extra penalties beyond slowed growth.

 

Yeah, definitely raze some cities as you go. You don't mention how you were set on luxury resources. Remember you can get luxuries from CS allies so that's a great method to bolster your happiness during conquest. Trade away your excess luxuries for cash then buy alliances with CS's to get new luxuries you didn't already have.

 

I've had the same problems. One thing I started doing is that before I take any AI cities, I try to ensure that my happiness is 20+. Besides building happiness building, I also focus on policies that give me happiness/culture.

When I do take AI cities I try and target those AI cities first which have new luxuries which I don't have.

 

Also buy and trade for luxuries from the AI (whoever you aren't at war with). Going for the meritocracy social policy is very helpful because you'll link up all those puppets to get trade routes (extra gold means more gold to buy luxuries or bribe city-states) and then you've got +1 happy per city, which goes a long way.

You shouldn't generally take over city-states. Instead ally with them. You'll get extra luxuries and other good stuff, more than you get from turning them into puppets. I almost never raze cities I take unless they are really bad. By prioritizing coliseums, meritocracy and luxuries, you can generally stay above -10, which is a fine place to be if you're adding population through conquest.

 

Why puppet city states? Leave them alone and go after the "real" Civs.

 

Circus and Coliseums. Freeze the growth on unproductive cities. Focus your social policies on happiness, presumably 1 happiness per garrison. Raze and re-settle the cities behind your front lines.

You mentioned taking 3 city states. These will always cause you problems as you can't raze them and even if you build a courthouse in each that's 15 gold per turn leaking from your economy. The other nations will dislike you for it too. Even as Japan I'd suggest only capturing a city state if it gives you a good alliance with another city state or there's some other pressing reason, such as it being allied to your enemy.

 

I think the issue this part, coupled with this:

It sounds like you expanded very quickly in the early game, then took on 3 puppets right away, which sets you up for a happiness hit even before you started war. Your population in each of your cities is growing with every turn, which is depleting your happiness - and then you're adding more pop with every additional city. So it sounds like it all caught up with you at once, and your happiness and income plummeted as a result.

Given what info we have in your OP, it sounds like you might have avoided the hit to gold and happiness by slowing your initial expansion, developing your cities a bit further so you had a better surplus of happiness and income before going to war with another civ. I'd also avoid attacking and conquering City-States unless doing so is absolutely necessary, since you're generally going to more benefits from being friendly / allied than from just conquering another city. (Plus, CS's are no joke to conquer in the early game.)

Hope this helps - if you want to upload a copy of your save, we could probably provide more detailed feedback. Good luck!

 

As have been said most of the time it is better to ally with city states. However if you don't want to do this then only take over one at a time. Once it is taken then make it your own. Wait until you get your courthouse built and your happiness gets into the 15 20 range before doing it again. Also if possable before any war you start make sure your happiness is high.

In the games I've played so far (7 games 5 SP 2 MP) I usally have 100% approval through most of the game.
Build 'happy' buildings when you can and get a lot of 'happy' resources. And build Trade routes ASAP between your cities.

 

I agree with Stuie, why did you puppet city states? They are much more useful as allies/friends.The time and effort spend to take those should had been focused on the real enemies. The only time I would attack a city state would be to steal an early worker.

And don't be afraid to raze cities you capture. I usually only keep those that have wonders and original capitals that can't be razed. When the war is won and you can afford it send a settler and build a new city.

If you focused on getting samurais early you should at least pick up construction on the way so you can build colloseums. Use the money you get from capturing cities to rushbuy a couple and as other stated use money to get city states allies that can supply you with luxuries you are missing.

 

Next time build a scout, find out where your nearest neighbor is, build 2 archers and 3 warriors and start kicking his butt as early as you can, then research horseback riding and build as many horsemen as you can and continue kicking butts. Only keep cities that give you new luxury resources. When you conquer cities heal your units when necessary (they get +2 hp on your territory). That's about it. It should be really easy on prince anyway. Also, try playing as Greece cause they have stronger and faster horsemen.

 

- Don't attack city states if you don't have a good reason to do that (iron, luxuries)

- Don't start a war if you don't have at least +15 happiness.

- Puppet all conquered cities, don't annex them immediately

- Slowly start annexing cities (about one every 10 turns), set them to focus on production and build courthouse asap

- Raze useless cities (AI builds lot of those)

- When you have destroyed a good chuck of enemy army, no need to keep building a lot of units in your core cities, start building some happiness buildings

- Trade luxury resources with other Civs

- If you have the cash, purchase a colosseum or two in one of the new conquered cities

 

I won't say this is bad advice, but it's not how I do it. Often you can pick up happiness resources as you conquer cities. You may even grab a city with a Coliseum once in a while. It's not always necessary to have +15 happy before going to war. But you should have some plan to stay above -10. It's all pretty simple math, so obviously you know not to annex a 12 pop city with no resources when you're already at -3.

I rarely annex cities at all. It's fine to just leave them as puppets. I only annex typically if I need to rush units there. Courthouses take ages to build. They can't be rushed. They cost 5 upkeep, which is a tremendous amount when you consider it's actually not really doing anything for you.

 

I think working up to +15 happiness as a criteria to go forward with conquering is a bit excessive but it depends on how many cities your enemy has that you want to conquer and keep I guess. I've been moving forward with conquering operations with +5 or so routinely. If a conquered city is in a location I need for either luxury resource or to claim territory then I'll leave it as a puppet until I raze and replace.

 

Agreed - I wouldn't necessarily hold to +15 as an absolute rule, but generally you do want to build a cushion of surplus happiness (and ideally, gold) before you open extensive hostilities with your neighbors. Oddly enough, part of the preparation for war includes buttering up your citizenry.

 

They seem to cost a ton of money to keep as an ally.

 

Unhappiness is meant to deter you from steamrolling everything you encounter, and encourage you to actually make peace with your opponents after you take a couple of their cities.

It doesn't really work because you can still steamroll everything and then raze it, or steamroll everything and simply ignore happiness, but that's sort of a different issue.

In short, you're explicitly meant not to play Civ V like Civ IV, where bigger is always better, in terms of your empire.

 

They can, but you don't need to ally with every single one of them immediately. Prioritize your CS allies by their benefits (maritime first, IMO), attitudes (Friendly is easiest to keep happy, Hostile is hardest), and resources (luxuries that they provide). Conquering and puppeting them isn't as beneficial because you'll never get as many benefits from owning the CS as you will from even being friendly with it. Think of it this way - you can build a Settler or conquer a rival civ's city anytime, but you can only get free Granaries in every single city by cozying up to a Maritime CS.

 

That is exactly what happened. I thought If the CS were puppeted, it would save me gold. That is why I took them plus they were right on top of me. Taking those 3 states caused the AI neighbor to declare war so I ramped up and took him out but by that time I was -40 happy and couldnt dig out. Going to try another one, Games I have had before on this level I can get the economy going great but fall behind in the tech. Will see, Im only 50 hours in so ill get it figured out.

 

Once you can begin getting markets and trading posts, your income will go through the roof so buying their alliances can become quite cheap. In the early game, you need to sell your excess luxuries to the AI to get enough money to make that first alliance or two and maintain them until the trading post spam kicks in.

That doesn't even take into account the Patronage policy tree or playing as Greece to help cheapen your alliances or using the CS quests to make insta-allies.