GI Murph
Chieftain
I have been playing CIV for about 6 or 7 years now and I can never be successful pn a level harder than prince. Even that can be a challenge for me. What can I do to be super successful at harder levels?
Playing at King Level and above
- Thread starter GI Murph
- Start date
Dark Ascendant
Darkness Ascending...
How well do you do on Prince on average? If you can completely master Prince, King is not that much a step up.
GI Murph
Chieftain
I would say that I do pretty well...but usually I have one civilization that ends up blowing up uncontrollably. I can't see how these guys can do it on deity.
duke o' york
It don't mean a thing....
Can you be more specific as to what the problem is exactly? Does the unhappiness of citizens on king level get you down, or are you having trouble keeping up with the AI research rates and find your cities being attacked by bombers while your musketeers are massacred. Maybe you just can't get the right wonders built in time.
Tell us what's wrong and we'll be able to help you!
Tell us what's wrong and we'll be able to help you!
GI Murph
Chieftain
I really don't think that I am doing much wrong. I get advanced governments early, I get a lot of science and gold and early stages, I expand to about 20 cities rather quickly, and then I try to maintain and improve those cities while expanding slowly from there. My defenses are adequate and I build a lot of wonders. It just always seems that some bastard is always one step ahead of me. What makes you guys super players with an edge to bring the pain on emperor and diety? What are your ideas for success?
duke o' york
It don't mean a thing....
How are they one step ahead?
Do they turn up in your empire with better troops? If your science is as good as you say then with city walls and musketeers you should hold off everything up to cavalry and tanks. Out of interest, which wonders do you build? You say you have lots of wonders, but if you're spending time and shields making the Lighthouse when you'll be engaged in land battles until Magnetism then you've got your priorities wrong. Sorry to pester you so much but I've still not really got much of an idea why you're going wrong.
I couldn't download it and be able to help you, but if you can't explain your situation very well then try to post a save game and someone will look at it and give you pointers. Otherwise tell me more specifically which sciences you have at which dates, what your research goals are and which wonders you have to build. Stuff like this. 
Do they turn up in your empire with better troops? If your science is as good as you say then with city walls and musketeers you should hold off everything up to cavalry and tanks. Out of interest, which wonders do you build? You say you have lots of wonders, but if you're spending time and shields making the Lighthouse when you'll be engaged in land battles until Magnetism then you've got your priorities wrong. Sorry to pester you so much but I've still not really got much of an idea why you're going wrong.
I couldn't download it and be able to help you, but if you can't explain your situation very well then try to post a save game and someone will look at it and give you pointers.
Otherwise tell me more specifically which sciences you have at which dates, what your research goals are and which wonders you have to build. Stuff like this. First read through the War Academy on this site. It helps a lot. I was never a good player myself and always played on chieftain. But while hanging on this forum I learned a lot and right now I'm playing on emperor (first time) and I'm already getting an upper hand.
Old n Slow
Emperor
GI Murph
Some thoughts. I still play on Prince a lot, although I now bounce around on a bunch of levels. For me I can build all of the Wonders some of the time at Prince, probably all the time at Warlord (havent tested that for a while) but at the upper levels it is more of a challenge: usually 4-5 ancient wonders at King, with 20 out of the 21 remaining; about 3 ancient Wonders at Emperor with 19 out of the 21 remaining, and about 2 ancient Wonders at Emperor with 17 out of the 21 remaining.
So using me as a benchmark (Im a middling player in our Game of the Month), you can see that the upper levels have additional difficulty, yes, but are enjoyable with different challenges.
Bodzolcas advice about the War Academy is good -- read about the concept of the super science city (place all the city specific Wonders in the SAME city -- preferably a good city with access to specials like whales or wheat). Two other key tidbits: 1) by growing your cities with We Love the Consul Days your larger cities can bring about more science, and a better choice of units. 2) by making caravans & trading, you can receive coins AND science beakers for research -- getting advances at a surprising rate. Check out some of the other threads to see how much trade can bring.
Finally, my downfall
-- build a few more cities. I usually play on large maps, where if I stop my core empire at 20 cities, Ill simply be one of a bunch of civs competing down to the end. Try sending a few ships with settlers (and a couple of diplomats) offshore & found a few more cities on otherwise unoccupied islands. When you are running a civ at two or three times the size of the next, watch and see if: your units are at a tech level above theirs, and they may run out of irritants should you decide to press a few guys in their direction. You may discover a different kind of fun. 
Some thoughts. I still play on Prince a lot, although I now bounce around on a bunch of levels. For me I can build all of the Wonders some of the time at Prince, probably all the time at Warlord (havent tested that for a while) but at the upper levels it is more of a challenge: usually 4-5 ancient wonders at King, with 20 out of the 21 remaining; about 3 ancient Wonders at Emperor with 19 out of the 21 remaining, and about 2 ancient Wonders at Emperor with 17 out of the 21 remaining.
So using me as a benchmark (Im a middling player in our Game of the Month), you can see that the upper levels have additional difficulty, yes, but are enjoyable with different challenges.
Bodzolcas advice about the War Academy is good -- read about the concept of the super science city (place all the city specific Wonders in the SAME city -- preferably a good city with access to specials like whales or wheat). Two other key tidbits: 1) by growing your cities with We Love the Consul Days your larger cities can bring about more science, and a better choice of units. 2) by making caravans & trading, you can receive coins AND science beakers for research -- getting advances at a surprising rate. Check out some of the other threads to see how much trade can bring.
Finally, my downfall
-- build a few more cities. I usually play on large maps, where if I stop my core empire at 20 cities, Ill simply be one of a bunch of civs competing down to the end. Try sending a few ships with settlers (and a couple of diplomats) offshore & found a few more cities on otherwise unoccupied islands. When you are running a civ at two or three times the size of the next, watch and see if: your units are at a tech level above theirs, and they may run out of irritants should you decide to press a few guys in their direction. You may discover a different kind of fun. GI Murph
Chieftain
First of all I just want to say that I am very impressed with this website and thank you all very much for helping me. I am going to try to explain my downfalls with an example of the last game that I played. My civilization had the upperhand on technology and a lot of money, I had converted to democracy and was producing units like a madman with the shield multiplyng improvements. My cities were all big and I had a lot of them with sufficient improvements on the surrounding squares. But then I had AI want to fight me all of the time. It was expected, but the 3 AI teams that I had a war with had huge navys, even bigger armies with Air support, and were using nukes so much I had to put SDI in every one of my cities. Throughout the entire game, these alternate civs not only matched or slightly outdid me in the areas of science and wealth, they also created armies 5 or 6 times the size of mine which I couldn't have done without even coming close to putting a spaceship up on AC. I only lost that game by one turn because the of the spaceship, so I got mad and switched to fundamentalism. I tried to take out the least powerful of my three opponents and it was working, for about a turn. They reclaimed all of there territory, and the other two that wouldn't make pace with me destroyed my navy with cruise missles and made me spend an enourmous amount of time and units defending my main land. I imagine am not getting powerful enough in the beginning, so just some insight as to what you guys do in the beginning and throughout the game would be very helpful. I read these study guides and they are helpful, but it never hurts to get an expert opinion on anything.
thanks
thanks
Marlos
Christian Soldier
Murph, this sound like a replay of several of the first games that I played of Civ2. Nothing more frustrating than seeing all of your hard work and development amount to losing to the AI.
I wish that I had discovered CFC long before when I did. I had to find these things out on my own!
I play to not let the AI win, plain and simple. I used to be a peacenik, but you can't and expect to win. You can have 50 great cities and lose to a rival that has 15 or 20 due to the bonuses that the AI gets.
My philosophy for victory is simple: if you take away the AI's ability to produce they cannot beat you. If you take their cities, their ability to produce units, science, trade, etc. is less and yours is greater!
Start taking cities from the AI the minute you find them. Use bribery, subversion, or just plain wax them. Fundy is a great war government, but try communism as well. Nothing better than veteran spies!
I can't remember the last time I built an SDI. Don't need them, because I have met the enemy, and his cities are now mine!
Dark Ascendant
Darkness Ascending...
My philosiphy is similar to Marlos'. Do your best to weaken your opponent without declaring an open war. Incite others to go to war, switch between Communism and Fundumentalism to use vet spies to perform act of terrorism and not get caught. In war, incite the enemie's neighbors to go to war and force your opponent to fight war on different fronts. Either launch a total war or launch a limited war and stop after taking a few cities. Attack the weakest, hostile opponents first and others later.
ArmOrAttAk
Warlord
Don't let any civ build Manhattan project, if you do, expect incoming nukes. When you see someone start to build it do whatever it takes to stop them. I've also found that no matter how bad the AI hates you and keeps warring with you -if you build the UN they start breaking alliances, and warring among themselves. This is a great way to thin them out.
Then to lead in science is not enough, you have to be leaps and bounds ahead. 5 AI elephants will still take out your tech superior pikeman, but won't touch a musketeer. Don't stop expanding at 20 cities, late in the game when you have the happiness wonders is a great time to found new science contributing cities.
Another important tactic to stay far ahead in science is We Love The President Day. In democracy/republic set luxury tax rate to 80%. Every sqaure with a river/road/ocean produces enough trade to make it happen. Go into every city and redeploy the workforce. Put them all on the trade producing squares, forget about shields for the moment. Make sure each city is at least half happy citizens, make an entertainer if you have to. Then when you've reached the max>> no way of pop. distribution to achieve half, or all cities need aquaduct/sewer sytem for further growth>> set the science tax rate as far as happiness will allow, and redeploy the workforce to those shield tiles (maybe redeploy first).
WLTPD is the best way to get that insurmountable tech lead. Practice, it may seem like tedious micromanagement but the results are well worth it. Some people might set rates to 100% but I personally never set anything below 10%. All your science/tax improvements aren't producing anything if the corresponding rate is 0%.
Hope it helps.
Then to lead in science is not enough, you have to be leaps and bounds ahead. 5 AI elephants will still take out your tech superior pikeman, but won't touch a musketeer. Don't stop expanding at 20 cities, late in the game when you have the happiness wonders is a great time to found new science contributing cities.
Another important tactic to stay far ahead in science is We Love The President Day. In democracy/republic set luxury tax rate to 80%. Every sqaure with a river/road/ocean produces enough trade to make it happen. Go into every city and redeploy the workforce. Put them all on the trade producing squares, forget about shields for the moment. Make sure each city is at least half happy citizens, make an entertainer if you have to. Then when you've reached the max>> no way of pop. distribution to achieve half, or all cities need aquaduct/sewer sytem for further growth>> set the science tax rate as far as happiness will allow, and redeploy the workforce to those shield tiles (maybe redeploy first).
WLTPD is the best way to get that insurmountable tech lead. Practice, it may seem like tedious micromanagement but the results are well worth it. Some people might set rates to 100% but I personally never set anything below 10%. All your science/tax improvements aren't producing anything if the corresponding rate is 0%.
Hope it helps.
Dark Ascendant
Darkness Ascending...
Bit of advice, don't switch to democracy until after you can get a lot of infrastructure built in your cities. Build all the right happiness improvements and wonders and the ones that allows for war in demo(Women's Suffurage& UN). Have banks and MK ready to generate luxuries and factories and mines to have lots of shields. Do this before demo or the cities go into riot, production is low or halted, profit plunges, unable to RB because of money shortage, improvements starts being sold and you need to lay off workers to hire entertainers. Go into Rep or Commie first to build infrastructure.
GaryNemo
Settler from None
Play the gotm, and study Starlifters logs. In fact, Murph, grab an old gotm a month or two back and just go, and as you go, look at the spoiler thread. And of course, the war academy.
I've learned a lot at this site, but I figured out how to win on emperor before I came here. It's this: keep pushing in all directions. Try things. Have fun. Never stop building cities. When you have enough units to fight more than one war, attack somewhere else.
Regarding SDI, I baited the AI into nuclear war last year, by playing on a huge map. I couldn't stop them from building Manhatten, they built it on a far away island. I learned it's relatively easy to defend with SDI's, but you need to build a small city in between two or three others to house the SDI; that way not so many SDI improvements are needed.
I've learned a lot at this site, but I figured out how to win on emperor before I came here. It's this: keep pushing in all directions. Try things. Have fun. Never stop building cities. When you have enough units to fight more than one war, attack somewhere else.
Regarding SDI, I baited the AI into nuclear war last year, by playing on a huge map. I couldn't stop them from building Manhatten, they built it on a far away island. I learned it's relatively easy to defend with SDI's, but you need to build a small city in between two or three others to house the SDI; that way not so many SDI improvements are needed.
cameramano
Television Cameraman
Welcome to CFC!
I recently made the transition to King from Prince and am very understanding of the difficulty. Remember the difference between these levels. In Prince you are equal in all ways to the AI, in King the computer is given a handicap in research and production. That explains the bigger army and fast tech advance.
The answer to that AI advantage is trade! The AI does not use this function very well, but we do!
Starlifter can explain trade alot better, but basically a caravan gives you a whole bunch of trade arrows up front with additonal arrows to the source city. These additional arrows are split into science and gold. By using these you can rush production with the gold of units which are advanced by the science. bingo... dragoons/cav/tanks roll over enemies!
Additional bonuses come from trading with cities on different continents, so local navel superiority is important. With superior tech, this is easy in theory.
Good luck!
I recently made the transition to King from Prince and am very understanding of the difficulty. Remember the difference between these levels. In Prince you are equal in all ways to the AI, in King the computer is given a handicap in research and production. That explains the bigger army and fast tech advance.
The answer to that AI advantage is trade! The AI does not use this function very well, but we do!
Starlifter can explain trade alot better, but basically a caravan gives you a whole bunch of trade arrows up front with additonal arrows to the source city. These additional arrows are split into science and gold. By using these you can rush production with the gold of units which are advanced by the science. bingo... dragoons/cav/tanks roll over enemies!
Additional bonuses come from trading with cities on different continents, so local navel superiority is important. With superior tech, this is easy in theory.
Good luck!
Marlos
Christian Soldier
Just a point of clarification, if I may. It is still possible to get "production" out of the science/tax improvements with the slider set to 0%. If your city grows above size 20 (the maximum number of squares that surround the city square), the 21st citizen will become an entertainer. He can be changed into a scientist or a taxman, and beakers/cash will be collected. The amount of beakers/cash will be modified by the improvements in the city.
In late game, many cities will grow above size 20. I have actually have had luxuries set to 100% and still made a profit and learned future tech in a turn or two!
I have similar problems to Murph. I find that the stronger AI's are just ahead on techs, and on the go they get Mobile Warfare I find 6 tanks outside my towns!! Also, there's the usual problem that if you are ahead on techs or money, they decide to pick on you. I seem to have trouble eliminating AI's early on. I guess I'm researching in the wrong order so they have a defensive advantage.
I think I've definately benifitted from CFC! I've discovered the wonders of Democracy and now always have the happiest citizens. I need to work on everything else now! I've joined the democracy game and hopefully I'll pick up a few hints and tips from there!!
I think I've definately benifitted from CFC! I've discovered the wonders of Democracy and now always have the happiest citizens. I need to work on everything else now! I've joined the democracy game and hopefully I'll pick up a few hints and tips from there!!
duke o' york
It don't mean a thing....
Technology is the way to win at Civ. If you are further ahead in tech than the AI then your units, although possibly fewer than the AI's, will be far superior. Their armies of musketeers will not stand a chance against even a couple of tanks. This is how you must get the advantage. Remember that more cities means more science and more production so always expand while you can. I find that unless (like in the Demo game) you have some good units at the start, then waiting for Monotheism is the best way to open your world conquest. You don't necessarily need them to be veterans, but the crusaders will roll over AI defenders at this early stage. You may have to have a gang of them, and allow 2 for every city you want to take if they have city walls, but they should dispose of most AIs. You need to rush to Monotheism anyway so that you can build Mike's Chapel, which is vital to keep happiness in Democracy and Republic if you want to grow and prosper so the side-effect of crusaders is a great bonus!
To avoid being backward in tech, use the SSC strategy. We will definitely try to build one in the Demo game, but if you can't wait until we do then check out the links in starlifter's signature for advice on how to set it up and to maximise it's output. His posts are everywhere
.
I'd just like to say that the above conquest technique just happens to be a personal favourite but others with more military experience may like to differ. Smash has a reputation for being a fearsome fighter early on so ask his advice on keeping the AI down and boosting your own civ.
Practice what you pick up here and you'll start to discover things for yourself. Find a way you like to play and enjoy yourself! That's the main thing, even if you have fun losing then it's better than being bored of the game.
To avoid being backward in tech, use the SSC strategy. We will definitely try to build one in the Demo game, but if you can't wait until we do then check out the links in starlifter's signature for advice on how to set it up and to maximise it's output. His posts are everywhere
.I'd just like to say that the above conquest technique just happens to be a personal favourite but others with more military experience may like to differ. Smash has a reputation for being a fearsome fighter early on so ask his advice on keeping the AI down and boosting your own civ.
Practice what you pick up here and you'll start to discover things for yourself. Find a way you like to play and enjoy yourself! That's the main thing, even if you have fun losing then it's better than being bored of the game.
GI Murph
Chieftain
I really appreciate everyobdy's tips on this and i have a few things to add on my own after completing prince game with a rating of 165%! I think that first and foremost, get big fast. This will pay off in the future. then send caravans and as soon as you get a few well established cities. After this, go to republic early. the increased trade from caravans can let you sacrafice for the sak of a few entertainers. Before Republic though, focus your efforts on a militaristic monarchy that will conquer your neighbors early on, doubling your expansion. Then concentrate on improving cities and defending them with a Republic which will be able to produce fine with a few units taking over. After being well ahead in tech and gold, switch to fundy and take over the world. The best scores don't happen in a space race. Oh yeah, and the SSC is a great idea
thanks everybody for helping me improve, if there is any more insight though, please feel free to post it.
thanks everybody for helping me improve, if there is any more insight though, please feel free to post it.
I play at deity, and win with regularity, so here are some ideas for you:
1) research monarchy first. get there asap.
2) build many cities early, don't improve them. Keep building settlers and units.
3) Stay out of early wars, give what is demanded so you can keep growing. Building great wall can help immensely. If you are attacked, don't fight back for three turns, and you can probably get peace. If you have gold, bribe one of their cities, and you can get peace.
4) try to build hanging gardens. This lets you expand, and lets you celebrate to grow later.
5) build statue of liberty, go to democracy to grow with celebration, then go back to communism or fundamentalism to build more infrastructure.
6) Learn to demand tribute. You can get gold from any civ on your continent that is not hostile before 1750.
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You need to start eating away at competing civs earlier. I like bribery best. Each city you get early helps you, and weakens your rivals. Don't wait for modern military. If you have an advantage, exploit it.
These thoughts are for conquest and max score. If you want to win by space-ship, build a super city, surrounded by supporting production cities in a defensible area. The key to building an early space ship is usually productive capacity, not a large tech lead. The AI will steal SS techs.
1) research monarchy first. get there asap.
2) build many cities early, don't improve them. Keep building settlers and units.
3) Stay out of early wars, give what is demanded so you can keep growing. Building great wall can help immensely. If you are attacked, don't fight back for three turns, and you can probably get peace. If you have gold, bribe one of their cities, and you can get peace.
4) try to build hanging gardens. This lets you expand, and lets you celebrate to grow later.
5) build statue of liberty, go to democracy to grow with celebration, then go back to communism or fundamentalism to build more infrastructure.
6) Learn to demand tribute. You can get gold from any civ on your continent that is not hostile before 1750.
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You need to start eating away at competing civs earlier. I like bribery best. Each city you get early helps you, and weakens your rivals. Don't wait for modern military. If you have an advantage, exploit it.
These thoughts are for conquest and max score. If you want to win by space-ship, build a super city, surrounded by supporting production cities in a defensible area. The key to building an early space ship is usually productive capacity, not a large tech lead. The AI will steal SS techs.
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