Of course you don't really need to work all available tiles, but you do pretty much need all the available hills and freshwater grassland/food tiles.
@pi-r8: My apologies.
I shouldn’t have used the word “all” – since, of course, my large Civ 4 cities didn’t always work every single tile in a BFC. The point I was trying to make is the very one you made much more eloquently here:
I know it's POSSIBLE, but I want to grow big cities in a reasonable amount of time, so that I can actually do something with that growth.
IMHO, it’s precisely this issue that is offsetting the benefits to city production and so on that moving to hexes - of which there are more available for a Civ 5 city to work than there are tiles in a Civ 4 city - should bring. Indeed, I wonder if it’s precisely why I’m seeing the same things that you and yanner39 for instance have noted. This is why Lenx’s comments (which I’ll come back to in a mo’
may prove to be very valuable for me.
As far as savegames and screenies go meanwhile everyone, all I can say at this stage is that patience is a virtue IMHO.
In Roxlimn’s defence, the OP mentioned there being difficulties attached to hosting a game and posting screenshots, here:
I do not know how to host a game and I don't have the time, anyway. I might post screenshots if I can find a hosting site that doesn't show all my private pics, but that might take a while.
So this is a call to forum goers who are interested: show us how to get a builder game going where you grow your cities as high up and as hard as you can.
EDIT: I think I can manage uploading save game files. I'll try to do that in the coming days.
And I completely understand the subsequently mentioned point re: a lack of time to play at the mo’ – my Washington game is suffering from the very same issue...RL is currently getting in the way of Civ. Must. Prioritise. Better.
FWIW, I’m sure a savegame will be up in time, as Roxlimn mentioned in the OP...and if it’s anywhere near as insightful as pi-r8’s playthrough, I’ll be a very happy civver as a result.
In the meantime of course, if anyone else would like to post a screenie or save that will help me learn how to build a network of large, infrastructure heavy cities, I’d love to see them!
All this of course brings me back to Lenx’s post, for which I’d like to say a big thank you...and welcome to cfc!
Your point re: farming riverside tiles and TP-ing non riverside tiles is particularly insightful IMHO. It also dovetails nicely with pi-r8’s earlier point re: needing a whole bunch of riverside tiles (to be able to feed mines) to make this builder-style approach to Civ 5 work. FWIW, I have to confess that I’ve been constructing (sometimes more than) the odd trading post on riverside tiles, partly because they fitted in so well with the ICS style approach to Civ 5 with which I’ve had success – and partly because I see buying things as much more efficient than building them in Civ 5. Both you and pi-r8 may well be on to something though – perhaps there is an upside to not having been able to progress much in my Washington game after all.
That said Lenx, I’ve a few questions if you don’t mind. I was very interested to read your point re: not being crippled by maintenance costs (which I’ve mentioned previously is something that I find a problem) – and how golden ages help keep you afloat financially. This is something that I had very much in mind when I posted earlier about my tendency to REx (as legacy of Civ 4), because I’m finding this tendency can eat into happiness until I can get some
boosting infrastructure up. To that end, how many cities are you settling, say, before you get to biology and open up the order tree? (This BTW picks up on a point that Neuro made earlier in this thread.) On a related issue, how much priority are you giving to biology in the tech tree, given that it unlocks hospitals and the order tree...around what year in the game are you managing to nab biology? I ask because, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve not yet managed to get it as early as 1300AD (which is when pi-r8 managed it in the playthrough).
My two final points are a question and a request. The question is simply, roughly what infrastructure are you managing to get in place (i) pre-civil service and (ii) pre-biology? I appreciate that this a very broad question but I ask because, IMHO: (i) biology’s hospitals are the key to growing cities and working tons of hexes, (ii) the order tree that biology unlocks helps enormously with production and (iii) I’d love to get an insight into how much your tendency to farm riverside tiles (as opposed to my tendency to TP some of them) brings forward the time at which you can start building Civ 5 infrastructure in earnest, compared to when I experience it (which is usually around biology). Having gone back over pi-r8’s screenies after reading your post, I may just have experienced what’s known as a “lightbulb moment” in my Civ 5 experience, by beginning to appreciate just how important farms are to a builder style game. So thank you.
My last point meanwhile Lenx is a simple request, if you have any city screenies from your previous games employing your approach (particularly around the time of civil service and / or biology), I’d love to see them.
In a similar vein, if you do decide to try an immortal or deity game using your builder style approach, I’d love to see the outcome (or a link to it) posted on cfc. Win or lose, I would certainly learn alot.
I'm surprised by the amount of people that haven't grasped this concept and keep posting it like the game's broken or it's a revolutionary discovery.
@Bandobras Took: FWIW, I don’t see that the fact that you have to choose between hammers and techs is the issue.
Instead, the point I’m noticing is that very small changes seem to have very profound consequences in Civ 5. Conversely of course, I’m finding that this means that if I want to achieve a given outcome in Civ 5, then I need to do the equivalent of walk a tightrope...make one wrong move so to speak and the outcome of the game skews massively in my experience. Indeed, the point re: hammers and tech is great example of that IMHO – because, building on the posts in this thread and my own experience, building a network of large, infrastructure heavy cities in Civ 5 now seems to me to mean it is necessary to (i) prioritise settling riverside cities (and – as I’m comimg to realise from this thread - accept that non-riverside cities won't be as big as riverside sites / that I need make non-riverside cities luxury boosting satellites to support riverside megacities) (ii) farm (rather than TP) riverside tiles in what will become my infrastructure heavy megacities to feed mines to get some semblance of early production in particular (whilst TP-ing the luxury boosting satellites as Roxlimn notes) and (iii) prioritise biology to unlock hospitals and the order tree.
Now, given time, it may just be that other civvers out there will come up with advice that contradicts and / or supplements these last three points. But I have to say that my experience to date, (which is now getting supplemented by some great insights on this thread), is that if I stray even slightly from these pre-requisites, the hammer, beaker, gold balance in Civ 5 skews enormously. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the result that I’ve come across all too often to date as a result, is an empire of mid size cities possessing nothing more than a skeletal infrastructure. IMHO – and this is just my personal view – this has presented a real handicap to my enjoyment of Civ 5, because I seem to have jump through an awful lot of hoops / walk a very narrow tightrope to do the very thing Roxlimn alluded to in the following post:
I do find that building up tends to get the science lagging, just because the population growth is slower. Since it matches the production speed nicely, I really do get the impression that I'm playing a more-or-less normal Civ game.
ie, just to play something akin to a normal game of Civ.
Of course, my personal opinion means squat in the scheme of things...and only Firaxis know how much of what we're discussing in this thread is an imbalance to be corrected in a later patch or expansion, and what's deliberate gameplay design that will remain unchanged. However, what I’ve observed about Civ 5 to date is that the game asks me to do nothing like walk the same tightrope if I set out to win militarily. Instead, I’ve found that pursuing a military victory which de-emphasizes infrastructure allows me far more in-game latitude. Yes, horsemen can for example be used to devastating effect, making them a very common beeline at the mo’ in my experience. But, as I’ve found out, I don’t have to use them....and indeed, I’ve recorded more than the odd military victory using other units instead such as rifles or artillery, to name but two. It’s almost as if the straight jacket necessitating that I must do x, y and z to acheieve a certain outcome in Civ 5 comes off (or at the very least gets massively loosened), the moment I choose to win via domination; by building military units and shunning anything more than a skeletal infrastructure.
Now of course, as I unashamedly noted in my (kindly copied) OP, I may just be a very poor Civ 5 player. (Then again, in an attempt to preserve some shred of dignity, it might be said instead that I’m a very effective warmongerer.
) However, you could help me enormously here to enjoy Civ 5, by posting like Lenx has done to highlight strategies that correct my mis-perception; and show me where I’m going wrong trying to “build an empire that will stand the test of time,” to quote the pre-game blurb. If you have anything to add in that regard that would help, I’d really love to learn it.
