Prince is too easy, King is too hard

[Vajrajina]

Hi!

I've just arrived on this forum, I got my hands on Civ 5 BNW recently. I have played the vanilla some years ago, and decided to try the game of the year edition.

After dabbling with a few early tactics I did my first full game, getting a very-very easy victory with Russia.

It was literally a yawn-type of victory. I was on a small continent with Assyria, and after killing them off quick, I had military, cultural, economical, monetary and technological lead over everyone else. It was WAY too easy. The only reason why I didn't go for domination was that I found getting a cultural victory more interesting.

So now I tried King, first with the Japanese thinking: ,,Imma go badass mode now and will dominate the hell out of everyone!".

Only to find myself behind even the Aztecs whom I was beating in battle. They hit the medieval era shortly after I got into classic, and I took their 3rd city!
Seeing how I was on the other end of the stick: -Being behind with literally everything!, I decided to try a different approach: Start Babylonia, rush Great Library and College, out-smart everyone.

Despite sacrificing literally everything early on to get a scientific lead and even using manual citizen control I was barely at the lead, the African-river-dude (who was supposed to be a warmonger, not a scientist!) hit the Medieval era something like 10 turns after me, and I had the science landmark, National college and the Great Library (and it was only someting like turn 60-70), and only 2 cities. Meanwhile, Rome built a GIGANTIC army that was way bigger than the one I could fashion in +40 turns in my Japanese game, and ereased me off the pages of history in 3 turns.

So I'm thinking to myslef: Are there some dirty tactics that are necessary to win in this difficulty or I'm simply a noob? (such as, keep restarting until you get x start, y yield from ruins and at least 3 early city-state visits)?

Many thanks for your advice.

 

[RatesAnalyst]

Hi...

There's no need to reroll to get particularly good starts on King difficulty. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to win at King level from pretty much every start.

Just by-the-by, don't necessarily take the era that a civ is in as the be all and end all for assessing their tech level. The AI likes to choose the sailing techs and so can sometimes be in comparatively advanced eras while leaving huge parts of the tech tree untouched. If you could beat them in battle then it seems likely they were not massively ahead of you in military techs. You can tell more about tech levels from the Literacy level in the demographics.

My first reaction is that there must be something slightly amiss in your tactics somewhere. King is harder than Prince, but not so overly hard that you shouldn't win most times.

If you post some screenshots we might be able to deduce what's going awry... But my first guess is that you are focusing on winning too early, rather than focusing on getting started.

The key to the game is to focus on growth (that is food) and growing large cities before you do too much towards actually winning.

Weirdly, you'll get much more science from focussing on food than focussing on science. Each extra citizen provides more science so you're better off trying to grow more food and so gain more citizens than by putting your current citizens to work on scientific projects.

Try a science game where you do beeline the National College (and later Education) but focus your cities mostly on food and population growth. Other tips are to use Tradition and plant four cities in total. Remember you'll also need to build about four archers for defence (you'll get invaded if you don't have some army). An early scout sent off exploring is valuable too. Perhaps if you try that you might do better.

Let us know how it goes

 

[Ryika]

On King you can literally do whatever you want as long as you have a solid understanding of the basics. So you probably don't really know what you're doing. ^^ Which isn't really a problem, because the basics are easy to learn - just read some guides. This one here for example provides a solid opening that should give you a head-start on King: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371 - and once you understand the basic framework, you can experiment and change things so that it suites your play-style.

 

[Illianor123]

Go tradition. Focus on growth. Found 3-4 cities.

There are better things to build than the great library. Especially because you should be focussing on growth and not hammers early.

Build a scout or two first and explore the map with them, ruins and meeting city states are incredibly important.

When building settlers assign them to every hammer tile you have, the city can't starve while you are building a settler.

If playing Babylon go straight for writing and make an academy with the great scientist, preferably drop him on grasslands. Makes sure you assign a citizen to work the tile.

 

[Shaileen]

As the others said, Great Library is really a waste of , and of course in a loss of + since you'll surely prioritize the production in order to get it asap. GL seems to good, until you realize how much you can do in those turns. Just a few days ago i've won a game (Ethiopia, Emperor, Asia map, Standard, 5 cities) without building it, and achieved a Science Victory on ~362

 

[Sessy]

On higher difficulties micromanaging citizens is basically a given, lock down food tiles/improvements and set to production focus.
How is your diplomacy game? if you don't plan on building a huge army, you either need CS allies or buy the AI to DOW other people. Also try to do more internal cargo ships, they work wonders.

Honestly, even in a science game, unless you had free writing and enough pop along with a worker and mining, DON'T DO GL.

 

[joncnunn]

Great Library is extremely easy to build on Prince. If the correct free tech is chosen it will make the rest of the game extremely easy.

King is the first level in which it can be difficult to actually complete it. (AI starts with Pottery on King) If you get beat out it's a complete waste of hammers as the fail gold won't even buy a regular library.

If you succeed in building the GL, then as long as you use it correctly it can shave a lot of turns off your victory compared to the regular library.
That is actually:

1. Choose Philosophy
2. Immediately start National College.
3. Spam out settlers to get up to 4 self founded cities quickly. (Unless playing Venice)
4. Any GS born from Great Library pre Education should definitely be made into academies.

However, I note that doing this is extremely poor preparation for Emperor level, where it is even harder to build Great Library than on King.

 

[Rooftrellen]

A good emperor start makes the Great Library doable, but it tends to go pretty fast. Nothing wrong with getting it while you can though, certainly.

Anyway for king being so hard...my advice would be to try prince again. My first emperor game, I steamrolled everyone. Game was never in doubt, but I lost the next several in a row. I find it odd to struggle on king, because once I moved to king, I was actually moving DOWN to prince to get ready to move up to emperor. King AI's get bonuses, but most of them end up helping the human. RA's (research agreements) and actually getting full value out of early resources is rare on prince, but on king, those little AI bonuses allow them to fork over what you should be getting, without being so over the top it's hard.

If prince really isn't a problem, king really shouldn't be either, but only one game to reference on prince doesn't say much about your ability to actually play that level. I'd say try at minimum one more prince game and see how it goes. If prince really is that easy for you, and king is brutal for you, cook the map settings.

In preparation for moving up to immortal, I have been playing emperor with map settings that go against my civ. Looking forward, my first immortal game is likely going to be rainforest with Brazil (my best civ), all the settings in my favor. You could choose making the map hard on prince or easy on king, but it creates a bit of between-difficulties level, assuming you don't go totally off the wall and do something like tiny islands Inca or great plains Polynesia.

 

[Ryoga]

When building settlers assign them to every hammer tile you have, the city can't starve while you are building a settler..

However Settlers are a special case and food counts into their production as well as hammers, so this isn't always a wise choice.

 

[Sessy]

A good emperor start makes the Great Library doable, but it tends to go pretty fast. Nothing wrong with getting it while you can though, certainly.

Anyway for king being so hard...my advice would be to try prince again. My first emperor game, I steamrolled everyone. Game was never in doubt, but I lost the next several in a row. I find it odd to struggle on king, because once I moved to king, I was actually moving DOWN to prince to get ready to move up to emperor. King AI's get bonuses, but most of them end up helping the human. RA's (research agreements) and actually getting full value out of early resources is rare on prince, but on king, those little AI bonuses allow them to fork over what you should be getting, without being so over the top it's hard.

If prince really isn't a problem, king really shouldn't be either, but only one game to reference on prince doesn't say much about your ability to actually play that level. I'd say try at minimum one more prince game and see how it goes. If prince really is that easy for you, and king is brutal for you, cook the map settings.

In preparation for moving up to immortal, I have been playing emperor with map settings that go against my civ. Looking forward, my first immortal game is likely going to be rainforest with Brazil (my best civ), all the settings in my favor. You could choose making the map hard on prince or easy on king, but it creates a bit of between-difficulties level, assuming you don't go totally off the wall and do something like tiny islands Inca or great plains Polynesia.

that's a really interesting point, I never thought of using map settings as a sort of between tier in difficulties. Would you say that it's just the map type that would give you advantages or handicap you, or do you play with the other settings?

I'm not sure if legendary start or strategic start would make the game easier for you, but rainforest on Brazil is going to be awesome, brazilwood camps are one of the best improvements.

I think nerfing yourself is a bit difficult depending on the civ you play, since most civs have benefits that work under any circumstance (persia, babylon, poland, assyria, france, etc.) but the ultimate handicap might be greece with no city states

 

[Vajrajina]

Hello guys!

Thanks so much for the answers!

From what you've been posting, I picked up that I should get 4 cities ASAP and THAN turn my attention towards whatever goal I'm pursuing (War, Science or whatever).

Is that how I should roll?

To the guy who suggested rushing GL and College: I've done just that, and I was eating my way through the tech tree REALLY fast, but I was behind in everything else: Capital size, city numbers, army, everything. I still don't understand how the romans managed to get 2 ballistas, 2 archers, a horseman and about 3 infantry in 70 turns though (less).

I will try another game with the Japanese, I already got 1 peaceful victory, now I long for more violence. I will try looting rather than conquering. I will also rush 4 cities.

However, I must ask: I thought Tradition was about getting 1 big capital and some small ciites, while Liberty is more about rushing lot's of medium sized cities. Is that so?

 

[Rooftrellen]

The hardest civ to handicap is probably Poland. I'm a hardcore failure with them, but there's literally nothing that prevents their UA from working.

Having played a bit with the settings, legendary start to help more on smaller, more crowded maps. On larger maps, it does little. I imagine it could make deity a nightmare, though, with the AI swarming your start location for some of that legendariness.

Strategic balance, I find, helps civs that depend on iron or horse, but otherwise just makes the game a bit less interesting.

Sparce resources and any map type likely to make you NOT meet everyone and split up resources hurts Persia (Persia is considerably better on Pangaea than Continents.) Babylon isn't so hot in tundra, especially dry tundra (where there tends to be fewer forests) or most desert (where the first academy will either need food support or be placed on those valuable flood plains), though they are indeed pretty good, so long as the start is decent. Assyria actually seems fragile to me. They need good food to get to their UU fast, while still getting cbows out, but also need the production to make those units early. France, much like Babylon, is all about the capital early, so the surrounding land doesn't matter as much, so they benefit from good starting locations you tend to get put into.

If the OP is interested in trying, I'm sure we can help him work out a proper "difficulty level" with any civ. Japan isn't hard to do it with at all, since they appreciate enough ocean to get extra culture and enough land to carry on samurai wars (and lack of either is fairly detrimental, though as a peace living civ hippie, I like their UA more ), if he's interested in using them again.

Edit: Tradition should go for a big capital, yes, but there's no reason to keep other cities small. You should have few (maybe no, on king) happiness problems letting your cities grow wild and free. Liberty is about self founding more than 4, ideally at least 6, cities, and the happiness hit per city leads to some happiness issues much earlier than tradition can face them. As such, liberty requires much more population control. generally only growing into local happiness. Once ideologies come around, there is a happiness explosion and liberty can start to grow cities fairly large, but tradition doesn't need the happiness nearly as much, and big cities mean big science. The 4 city tradition path is great for a standard size map. Larger maps give much more room to expand (on huge maps, it's not uncommon for me to grab 8+ self founded cities), and, as such, tradition is slightly weaker, though still awesome. If you're using standard map size, 4 city tradition is very beginner friendly because it requires so little management and gives great results.

 

[joncnunn]

Hello guys!

Thanks so much for the answers!

From what you've been posting, I picked up that I should get 4 cities ASAP and THAN turn my attention towards whatever goal I'm pursuing (War, Science or whatever).

Is that how I should roll?

To the guy who suggested rushing GL and College: I've done just that, and I was eating my way through the tech tree REALLY fast, but I was behind in everything else: Capital size, city numbers, army, everything. I still don't understand how the romans managed to get 2 ballistas, 2 archers, a horseman and about 3 infantry in 70 turns though (less).

I will try another game with the Japanese, I already got 1 peaceful victory, now I long for more violence. I will try looting rather than conquering. I will also rush 4 cities.

However, I must ask: I thought Tradition was about getting 1 big capital and some small ciites, while Liberty is more about rushing lot's of medium sized cities. Is that so?

Tradition is about getting ALL cities big if possible, but yes your capital bigger than the rest by a healthy margin. Yes, a Great Library means the other cities will have smaller population than without, however the capital will be even bigger.
That's why I mentioned to get the other settlers out immediately following NC to catch up in this.

Liberty by necessity will have smaller cities and less of a difference between capital than the other ones. (Lack of Tradition bonuses to capital and lack of free aqueducts), in some cases you may actually end up with your second city being bigger by the end of the game.

 

[z284pwr]

First suggestion about Great Library.....don't even be tempted to build it. Trying to build in on King is bad habit training when you want to move up in difficulty. The loss in production that could be put towards something better is much more crucial in the early game. Yeah you may get in on King but if you don't....that really hurts. The higher the skill level the more it hurts. I would rather build an extra scout and hope for a ruin tech from one....or hitting a free citizen ruin. Both better than hoping and praying you get the Library.

Instead of playing King Slayer just build some archer defenses and work on getting the citizen management and science skills of the game down. Those skills are much more valuable once you get to King and higher. Get 20-30 techs ahead on King then you can destroy anyway with no problem at all

 

[Vajrajina]

Okay, big update.

The food-focus seems to have done it's thing: I had a much better start and am ahead in technologies (although it does bug me that the Polish are considered Renaissance with fewer techs than me).

However, I still don't see myself winning this game. It's turn 182 and I only have 6 cities. The diplomatic penalties for warmongering are so severe, I literally cannot trade at all, and I have neither the luxury resources nor the local happiness to keep my folks cheerful.

I only made 3 conquests in the course of almost 200 turns, yet everyone hates me to the guts and considers me a warmonger (I did break a promise to Gandhi at the beginning, but come on, that was 2000 years ago!). Even when I offer 2 luxury resources for 1 they just won't take it.

I have -13 hapiness and that's with 4 units garrisoned and making use of the cutural bonus that gives me 1 hapiness for each city with a garrison. With 5 Samurais I have a deficit of 9 gold per turn. I have to keep chasing horsemen with my infantry to make them pillage as little land as possible.

What I've done so far:
I destroyed Gandhi's 2nd city, which he built JUST where I wanted to found my 4th one. That was at something like turn 80-90.

I captured cape town as the ONLY source of Iron anywhere nearby. Also, some gold. That was something like turn 120-130.

And finally, I took Delhi not so long ago, about turn 170

That's IT. That was all the warmongering I've done, yet my empire is in unrest, diplomacy and trade is impossible, and my treasury is screaming for mercy.

The only thing that's working out nicely is Science. In 8 turns I will have national college (taking Delhi stopped it from building), I have 4 universities that can finally begin to profit from the jungle tiles I left up, but I still haven't steamrolled the others into submission with my superior intellect.

I tried to take screenshots, but my pc is a stupid and won't let me do it, so that won't be happening. Just imagine 6 cities with a few smoke columns and 13 angry faces. That's what matters. If you want to know the specifics, just ask. I will go back to playing with hippies, warmongering seems to be a lot more effort than it's worth.

 

[z284pwr]

it's a little late now it seems but one thing to help with the warmonger penalty is to bride or convince other Civs to go to war with you. It cuts down on the penalty quite a bit. You should also consider the happiness hit from taking cities before you take them. Keep them as Puppets first before liberating them. Don't just go button clicking without considering the consequences to happiness.

 

[Rooftrellen]

Your warmongering involved first taking half the cities someone else had, then commiting genocide twice. That's pretty bad.

Having 6 cities before the Ren era is pretty early for Japan. After all, your UU comes just before you get there. Normally, if you want to conquer the world, it's best to tech until you're ready to either take all the capitals or deal enough of a massive blow to everyone else that you'll have a commanding lead even though everyone hates you.

It also sounds like you got the NC kind of late. If I have 6 cities before I get it, I might not get it. It takes a heck of a long time to build with lots of cities, and the more cities you have, the less of an effect it has, since happiness isn't going to capital population.

If someone has Notre Dame, that sounds like your next target. 10 happiness can do a lot to better your situation.

In the future, it may be advisable to stay with your 4 cities as you tech up (still raise an army, and remember some, but not all, UU abilities are kept on upgrade) and invade once you get an ideology, since, at that point, you can get more happiness and many of the better national wonders have already been built.

It is normal to have low happiness around the Ren era, but you shouldn't be seeing unhappiness like that, but it's coming from the fact you killed so many people (again, two civilizations, were wiped off the face of the earth by you) so no one wants to trade and that 6 cities is actually quite a lot at that point in the game for a tradition start.

 

[Illianor123]

Only trade for luxuries they have at least two copies of, if they only have one they won't trade it for any reasonable deal.

Annihilating Civs has a major diplomatic impact.

National College after universities is really slow. Generally on standard with three cities before NC you can get it up by turns 70-80.

Make sure where you found cities have luxuries nearby.

Are you using trade routes? Cargo ships are much better than caravans (twice as good in fact). Send to other Civs or city states for gold.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Only trade for luxuries they have at least two copies of, if they only have one they won't trade it for any reasonable deal.

Unless you can afford it and your capital demands that resource for we love the king day.

Light reading by the best player of civ, living or dead
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378&highlight=poland+strategy

 

[Vajrajina]

I already built courthouse in Delhi (now Derhi because we just couldn't wrap our tongue around that strange consonant), the -13 is AFTER we cut our extra unhappiness off. Before it was -20something.

How do I convince them to go to war with me? If I have inferior military, why would I want them to attack me, if I have superior, they would be stupid to attack first.

Wow. Having 6 cities at turn 180 is EARLY? I mean, the game is half over, and I have only 6 cities and that counts as rushing? In that case, I officially don't get it. Am I supposed to sit on my bum for 200 turns than unleash some massive horde all at once?

Also, about my conquests:
If I didn't take that city eary I would not have had space for the fourth, as I started on a peninsula. It was a must grab.

If I didn't take cape town I would have had 0 iron. Meaning no UU. Meaning no medieval powerspike. I could not have took Derhi without it.

And Derhi itself...It was the only city that I could take. Literally it was blocking everything else from me (apart from a small indonesian village that was randomly founded not far from where I started, and Gandhi kept bugging me with random elephant raiders and what not. He had to go down. After this I can either go to the north to take some city states, to the northeast for Indonesia or to the East for Poland (to the East for Poland). Again, I fail to see an alternate option.

NC: there was always something more important going on. But again, it was very easy to build at that point (only 2 turns).

The polish got the Notre Dame, but lo and behold, I would need to amass a huge army to take them, and take even more unhapiness to the face while doing so. I call mission impossible.

But I honestly don't get it. I only did my first real conquest when I got my UU, what else was I supposed to do? Just when should I start to work on my world domination?