Poor Prince Player needs help.

[Marcrates]

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, and I'm hoping someone here can help me.

I play on Prince now, and I seem to have a flourishing empire up until around 1600s (on standard length). I usually get caught in a wedge between happiness and income, and I can't ever seem to balance the two. Am I growing my population too much?

I'm hoping someone here can ask me some questions and figure out where I'm going wrong.

-Marcus

 

[bronzeager]

probably need more info to give good advice... are you trading all your excess luxury resources to the AI for ones you don't have? if you're still struggling with happiness, are you using most of your gold to buy CSes with the luxuries you need?

i don't usually worry about growing too much. if your happiness dips into the negative, it'll solve your growth problems for the time being. just don't settle or conquer unless you have a little happiness to spare.

the right policies can reverse most of your unhappiness as well. With the Rennaissance, you can open the Freedom branch, which immediately gives a huge boost to happiness iirc.

 

[RogerN]

As bronzeager said, it's hard to tell what the source of your happiness/gold problems are without more specific information. Here are a few tips anyway:

* It's possible that you expanded too quickly for the amount of culture that you were generating. Lots of cities = more expensive social policies. Since social policies can be a great source of happiness, you must carefully consider how you'll keep your citizens happy if you choose to expand like crazy.

* Be sure to continue scouting throughout the game. Natural wonders increase happiness for free - you just gotta find them!

* Remember that a circus (requires nearby horses) can generate 2 happiness for free.

* If your treasury is running low and continuing to drop, be sure to check on where all your money is going! Just hold your mouse cursor over the treasury info at the top of the screen and it will tell you what your costs are. You might need to delete units or sell buildings if things get desperate.

* Remember that settling along rivers can help economically, since each river tile generates an extra +1 gold without even needing improvements by a worker.

 

[Hammurbabble]

Here's a few tips I've picked up in my own learning. I'm still on Prince, too.

1) Specialize your cities for either gold or production, not both. (Research in CiV is separate from gold, unlike any previous Civ game, and based mostly on population, so you want plenty of food coming in to every city.) No more than 25% of your cities should be production cities, although your capital should definitely be one of them. Production cities get mines or lumber mills everywhere they don't get a farm. Gold cities get trading posts instead. MOST of your cities should be gold cities, but you want a few production cities to quickly produce units, wonders, and spaceship parts.

2) Use the focus settings. Once your gold cities get above about 10-12 population, set them to "gold focus." Put the production cities on "production focus" under the same conditions, unless they starve when you do. (You can also micromanage by picking exactly where to put your people to work, but I haven't found that to be necessary.)

3) Make contact with all other civs, and trade luxury resources like crazy. Any luxury resource you have 2 or more of, only 1 of those makes your people happy but you can trade the excess for luxuries the AI has more than 1 of.

4) City States usually have resources. If you become an ally of a CS, it will send you gifts of its resources. Look for City-States that have luxury resources you don't have. Become their ally, and it will help your happiness.

5) Look over the Policy Choice trees. There are choices in just about every tree that help happiness and/or gold. The biggest one for happiness is Piety and for gold, Commerce, but there's something in all trees that's good. For example, in Rationalism, one of the choices gives you 1 happiness per University. In Commerce, one choice gives you 1 extra happiness per luxury resource.

6) Trade routes -- when you connect a city to your capital with roads and/or harbors, you get a boost to gold income that's almost always more than the upkeep cost of the road.

Hope that helps.

 

[Marcrates]

Here's a few tips I've picked up in my own learning. I'm still on Prince, too.

1) Specialize your cities for either gold or production, not both. (Research in CiV is separate from gold, unlike any previous Civ game, and based mostly on population, so you want plenty of food coming in to every city.) No more than 25% of your cities should be production cities, although your capital should definitely be one of them. Production cities get mines or lumber mills everywhere they don't get a farm. Gold cities get trading posts instead. MOST of your cities should be gold cities, but you want a few production cities to quickly produce units, wonders, and spaceship parts.

2) Use the focus settings. Once your gold cities get above about 10-12 population, set them to "gold focus." Put the production cities on "production focus" under the same conditions, unless they starve when you do. (You can also micromanage by picking exactly where to put your people to work, but I haven't found that to be necessary.)

3) Make contact with all other civs, and trade luxury resources like crazy. Any luxury resource you have 2 or more of, only 1 of those makes your people happy but you can trade the excess for luxuries the AI has more than 1 of.

4) City States usually have resources. If you become an ally of a CS, it will send you gifts of its resources. Look for City-States that have luxury resources you don't have. Become their ally, and it will help your happiness.

5) Look over the Policy Choice trees. There are choices in just about every tree that help happiness and/or gold. The biggest one for happiness is Piety and for gold, Commerce, but there's something in all trees that's good. For example, in Rationalism, one of the choices gives you 1 happiness per University. In Commerce, one choice gives you 1 extra happiness per luxury resource.

6) Trade routes -- when you connect a city to your capital with roads and/or harbors, you get a boost to gold income that's almost always more than the upkeep cost of the road.

Hope that helps.

Those are some good points. I actually don't specialize my cities, and that is problably a big factor that is creating my issue.

 

[bronzeager]

I don't specialize cities either, and I do fine at the King level. I'm sure more hardcore players might disagree, but I think you can get by without it.

The key to Civ V at medium difficulty levels seems to be making a lot of money. With money you can buy science (RAs), Happiness (CSes, smoother luxury trading with AIs, rush-build happiness bldgs), an army, workers, etc. So just covering your economic bases is good place to start:

-Connect every city with a road to your capital, even though you need to pay those maintenance costs.
-Build Markets ASAP in your main cities. Puppet rather than annex conquered cities most of the time (they will default to Gold focus).
-Settle by a river whenever possible.
-If your capital is coastal, really try for the Colossus.
-Don't garrison extra military units. Only build a force as large as you need for defense or invasion.
-Disband extra workers.

 

[fmlizard2]

My answer would be Golden Ages, Golden Ages, Golden Ages. Around the time you say you are having trouble is the same time when Golden Ages can start to fall very rapidly. I tend to start slow but 1200-1700AD is the absolute apex of most my civilizations. During that era, a bare minimum of 50% of turns are spent in golden age, sometimes approaching 80%.

First, really prioritize Chichen Itza and/or play as Persia. Second, start jamming out wonders - Taj Mahal will give you 15-20 GA turns if you build CI or are Persia, and the Louvre (two great artists) can give up to a staggering 30 turns of golden age if you have both. Chichen Itza alone and they still give you 22.

You can also use social policies like the free golden age in Piety or the free golden age in Liberty at this time, or you can get the Patronage social policy that gives you free great people and burn them for a golden age.

Golden ages should kill any issues you have with money, provided you aren't seriously messed up economically, and the extra production should help you easily squeeze out a few more happiness buildings...and we all know what excess happiness leads to...

 

[Aaroc]

-Don't garrison extra military units. Only build a force as large as you need for defense or invasion.

If you have the one policy in Tradition, garrisoned troops cost no maintenance, and a policy in Honor gives a happiness for garrisoned troops. If I'm going for a domination Victory, I tend to take both of those policies.

 

[lawofqr]

If you're warmongering and having happiness problems in the midgame, Theocracy should be a big help.

 

[mchl]

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, and I'm hoping someone here can help me.

I play on Prince now, and I seem to have a flourishing empire up until around 1600s (on standard length). I usually get caught in a wedge between happiness and income, and I can't ever seem to balance the two. Am I growing my population too much?

I'm hoping someone here can ask me some questions and figure out where I'm going wrong.

-Marcus

yes, you have too much population. Lower population is better, play for production and gold, go anal on production. Gold can be had through smart trading, also try trading extra luxuries, strategic resources (horses are good for trading earlier) and open borders all for gold, gold = research agreements and science. I usually don't have a city over size 9 by that time (usually my capital, other cities stall at 7-8 or 9-10 on a very good city) to maximize production vs happiness benefits, the only reason for larger populations is for specialists and specializing cities in general which doesn't happen until the industrial era. Specialization isn't even the best tactic unless you chance to build the statue of liberty and other specialist buildings/policies. Production is always good, no matter what.

Another thing, specialists work even better when the later policies and hospital/food/aqueduct/medical buildings are available. I usually save the aqueduct until I'm ready to specialize can't remember all the food bldngs but you get the point.

Basically if you need to make colosseums before warring, then something is wrong. City placement, too much population, too fast of growth, bad policies. Try this social policy route working only for production trading frequently and work citizens manually for production - landed elite, then monarchy, then (if happiness is good) meritocracy and plant great engineer near capital for production. If happiness is bad go for theocracy. If you build stonehenge you can usually grab up meritocracy before theocracy. After that its whatever is needed. Building monuments is a bad strategy takes away from early city growth, production, military, I like to build stonehenge but its not completely necessary. I also like to build libraries in which case china is best, because they give gold and require no maintenance. Social polices effect the early game the most esp. landed elite, rapid exloration sometimes leads to a ruin where culture is had and a free early SP, stonehenge should get you through to the middle ages on your SP w/out much extra culture.

Try to keep the core of cities at 4 so happiness isn't hurt, you'll know when its time to build a military. military caste policy is not a good strategy, garrisoned troops are troops that could be fighting and if you need them during war it hurts your happiness when need it most.

..I usually play on level 6 for a nice easy pace, 7 for most games, and 8 if I want to get creamed but theres a 50/50 shot to win by diplomatic victory.

 

[mchl]

I don't specialize cities either, and I do fine at the King level. I'm sure more hardcore players might disagree, but I think you can get by without it.

The key to Civ V at medium difficulty levels seems to be making a lot of money. With money you can buy science (RAs), Happiness (CSes, smoother luxury trading with AIs, rush-build happiness bldgs), an army, workers, etc. So just covering your economic bases is good place to start:

-Connect every city with a road to your capital, even though you need to pay those maintenance costs.
-Build Markets ASAP in your main cities. Puppet rather than annex conquered cities most of the time (they will default to Gold focus).
-Settle by a river whenever possible.
-If your capital is coastal, really try for the Colossus.
-Don't garrison extra military units. Only build a force as large as you need for defense or invasion.
-Disband extra workers.

these are good tips, but disbanding workers is sometimes not a good idea I usually keep 3 workers sometimes 4 until military conquest when I get more, I keep those because should generate enough gold and automated workers will be set to help puppeted cities generate more gold switching tiles from food to gold or production to gold. After that madness all those workers are great for railroads and a 25% production bonus for the core cities.

Also the colossus is very good, but comes at a time when the stonehenge can be had. IMO stonehenge is the best, it guides you through the first few eras for SP's and working capital coastal tiles means no production for those workers. Production = win.

 

[Kerosene31]

I almost always disband workers I don't need. I might keep one or two around, but the maintenance adds up. Keep a close eye on units and deal with outdated ones. That extra trireme you set on explore ends up costing you a few gold per turn.

Without knowing how many cities you are building, you are either expanding too quickly and/or building too many buildings.

Money is key. Maintenance is what kills it. You have to keep a very close eye on your building and unit maintenance. Only build what you need and always focus on markets and other money makers.

Always have tons of money on hand. Pay city states for luxuries you need (and trade as was said).

Also, don't annex cities in wars. Raze or puppet them at least early on. It will kill your happiness and grind your war effort to a halt.

On prince you should be able to generate a ton of money and solve most of your problems with it. Many players go through the same problems (especially if you played Civ 4). Managing happiness needs to be a top priority. It is going to fall as your empire grows so you need to stay ahead of it.

 

[JaGarLo]

Another thing you could do in order to avoid happiness issues: you can try to get buildings which increase your happiness. Sadly, they take a lot of time to be built (15 turns I guess?), and even more if your happiness is -10 or lower. Also, they're expensive if you want to rush them.

Buildings - Tecs you'll need - Effect:

Coliseum - Construction? - +3
Theatre - Painting Press - +4
Stadium - Mass Media - +5

So, my advice is to get this tecnologies as soon as possible so you can counter unhappiness. And also, if you can't avoid unhappiness, try to have at least -9 or higher.

If you're at war and you're having trouble keeping happiness, try to raze cities that doesn't have any luxury resource you didn't have. At least it works for me.

Hope this helps.