My game last night, Where did I go wrong

[Mark Havel]

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

The point is to have an economy strong enough to support buying the alliance of a few City-states. This means earning at least 50-75 gold per turn so you can give them the 500 gold they need to become allied with you each time it is required. The figure I mentioned is in my opinion the bare minimum to sustain 3 CS : that's what I've done in my last game and that was just enough to still have a bit of pocket money to buy a few hex, a reinforcement unit or something like this.
Then, you should discover all the advantages there is to be good friend with a CS: they give you food, culture or military units and all their interesting luxury resources, which should pretty much alleviate your happiness problems. At least in my last game, I didn't have to build any happiness building for a very long time due to this (and a bit of luck in the map which allowed me to have a lot of different happiness resources by myself or from trade). Note that I haven't tried the militaristic way of playing that much (well I've done it once I beelined to mechanized infantry...), so this might not quite apply to your case.

There is no secret to have a decent economy: spamming trading posts is the way to go, with money buildings all along the way. The silver, gold and gems resources are quite useful too. Then, you should focus your cities toward some particular specialities (science, hammer, money, great persons...) and only build the appropriate buildings so you won't spoil any money to sustain the useless ones.

 

[SuperJay]

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.

Definitely, you're already on the right track. If you were going to play out a similar situation in another game, here's what I might do differently:

-- Don't build too many cities too quickly. Maybe get to 3 cities, stabilize and develop for a while (adding happiness buildings, improving tiles, etc) then build one or two more. Slower expansion is easier to manage and less demanding on happiness and gold.

-- Keep the city-states as potential future allies. If you absolutely must conquer one because of territory, wait til a nearby city-state requests you to do so. That way, you'll gain instant Ally status with one CS for bumping off another, so you're basically getting free influence since you needed that territory anyway.

-- Puppeting cities does postpone a happiness penalty from annexing, but I don't think it stops the normal unhappiness you gain just from increasing population. (I may be wrong about that, as I think this changed in the last patch. Can anyone else confirm / deny?)

-- If you want to make war, go after the AI first. Their cities are generally easier to take, and you can raze them rather than puppeting or annexing. That way you're taking cities away from your rivals but not adding unhappiness until you're ready to found a new city. Plus, if you raze and rebuild, you get control of the build queue right away, and there's no need to waste turns building a Courthouse.

Hope this helps, good luck with your next run!

 

[Synchronym]

I see little benefit in ever keeping a captured city unless you have to because it was a capital or a CC, unless it has a wonder in it. As has been said, it's better to not take CCs anyway. It's far cheaper to start over. If there are resources there you need or desire, send a settler along to the captured city and station him there until it's razed, then build your own. No need to spend half an era building a courthouse which you then have to pay to maintain. If the only purpose of said city is to grab a resource, just spam trading posts on every tile around it and halt growth build markets, banks etc as these cost nothing to maintain. You don't need to build on the exact same spot. You can build it on the actual resource if that is all you are after--then that resource cannot be pillaged either.

 

[Warspite2]

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?

I normally don't go for domination victories but it sounds like you had too many units early on and moved a bit too fast before things could settle down. My first couple Civ V games, I just attacked and took over many city states. Then my next games, I started to friend or ally city states. This was when I realized the enormous benefits of having CSs. Free units, food, resources, culture, etc. Now when I play and an AI civ attacks one of my CS friends, I get really mad. I once had an AI go on a CS rampage, attacked 3 of my CS allies I was getting resources from, this had thrown my entire country into unhappiness.

 

[Panda_Power]

I think the key to city states is waiting for another civ to puppet them and then liberate them. Your rating with them will go sky high and they'll be your allies for the entire game! Get the policy that makes your relationship with them go down slower and it's even better.

 

[lietkynes]

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.

Yes of course if you conquer a city with 3 luxuries you can even start the war with negative happiness, I was just giving a general guidelines

 

[philm]

There is a social policy that gives you a happy face in each city with a unit garrisoned in it.

It is even better than it sounds.

 

[Perkus]

I think it's perfectly legitimate to conquer a nearby city-state if it's *hostile* (double influence dissipation) and has something you really want. In my case, my 6th city was the only other civ on my small continent, a hostile one, which had the only Wine available on the entire map, as well as more Iron which I sorely needed. So, should I be bribing them at double normal cost for the entire game as most of you are suggesting? Or should I clobber them with minimal losses (I waited for a siege unit before trying it), then get money from THEM for the rest of the game as a gold-producing puppet? To me the answer is obvious. And keep in mind the bribes are more expensive now since the patch.

Nobody seemed upset at my attacking the single CS, although I'm sure it added one notch to my "warmonger" label for later in the game.

 

[zimmah]

where did I go wrong?

you bought civ 5.

WRONG!

 

[Ford]

you bought civ 5.

WRONG!

I think if there's a serious discussion about how to play going on, you can keep your anti-civ trolling for other threads, where it might be taken... oh, never mind, your opinion is far too important for you to stop.

 

[Stuie]

I think if there's a serious discussion about how to play going on, you can keep your anti-civ trolling for other threads, where it might be taken... oh, never mind, your opinion is far too important for you to stop.

+1

Should Civfanatics close down the Civ 5 forums, or are those of us who enjoy the game allowed to discuss it without being subjected to random trolling?

@ err76 - my earlier post was too brief. What I meant to say was, instead of puppeting the city states just leave them alone for now. No need to ally them unless you can complete their quests easy enough. Later when your economy is going you can bribe them as necessary. But to start, just concentrate on taking out your nearest/largest neighbor.

 

[SuperJay]

Should Civfanatics close down the Civ 5 forums, or are those of us who enjoy the game allowed to discuss it without being subjected to random trolling?

I don't even think you need to enjoy the game to be allowed to discuss it without drive-by flings like Zimmah's. I'm don't find Civ5 all that engaging in its current state, but I'd still like to help new Civ players learn the ropes and understand the game. At least that way I can make some constructive contributions to help other players, despite the fact that I'm not really playing the game myself right now.

People coming into a thread like this to insult a newbie and/or Civ5 should be drawn and quartered.

 

[elthrasher]

There is a social policy that gives you a happy face in each city with a unit garrisoned in it.

It is even better than it sounds.

I like meritocracy better because if you're taking a lot of cities, it just isn't efficient to garrison them all. The upkeep costs are too high. With meritocracy (+1 happy per city connected to capital) you're linking your cities, which is good because you can quickly move defenders and reinforcements around, and you also get trade route gold. It's almost the same effect (+1 happy per city) but instead of costing gold, it gives you gold.