Rich Warmongers

[timtofly]

It looks like the developers realize the difficulty of running an economy with fewer cities. In the upcoming patch they are adding a national wonder similar to wall street from Civ IV. If you keep your empire small, it will be easier to put the requisite building in all of your cities to be able to capture this national wonder. It will probably require banks or stock markets in all of your cities, which will be difficult to accomplish if you're war mongering and especially if you are annexing some of your conquered cities.

I am having trouble with Hermitage. I need 76 museums built. The game also is pausing longer and longer when I build a new city.

You know, the simple solution here is to just be a warmonger!!!

Yep, that's my problem.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Didn't you notice the massive "WarMonger 5" caption on the box of your game?

 

[Öjevind Lång]

Didn't you notice the massive "WarMonger 5" caption on the box of your game?

Warmongering is so obviously the way to go. It took me some time to discover that, since I am generally a builder. The tremendous bias towards warmongering does annoy me.

 

[arjaaaine]

When your cities reach that level of population do you convert your farms into trading posts?

The workers automatically do it to give the maximum gold without letting the population go into -ve.

But yes, I try to set it up so that my city grows in 50-60 turns without maritime support. (with food focus it would grow in 14-15 turns.

 

[bonafide11]

In every Civ game, larger empires = more production, more gold, and more science. I don't see anything wrong with that. But yes, it pays to expand significantly, especially early on.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

In every Civ game, larger empires = more production, more gold, and more science. I don't see anything wrong with that. But yes, it pays to expand significantly, especially early on.

Well, something is wrong when unlimited expansion and conquest is the one sure winner. Some of us want to have a reasonably level playing field. That's why the developers are now making expansion less rewarding in the patch we are all wating for.

 

[Civsassin]

Well, something is wrong when unlimited expansion and conquest is the one sure winner. Some of us want to have a reasonably level playing field. That's why the developers are now making expansion less rewarding in the patch we are all wating for.

It's one sure winner: not THE ONE sure winner. You can have a good game with fewer cities if you don't want to expand via conquest. I didn't play a one city challenge (OCC mode) and still won with just one city using Siam (King). You can expect to do it with more than one city while still keeping your numbers down.

I won a game with Songhai (Emperor) and about eight cities. I waged war to destroy and not conquer civilizations - razing as I went. In fact, once I reached and took enemy capitals, I returned them in the peace deal. I had a powerful, albeit small, empire. I leveled the playing field by keeping my enemies small.

There is really no way around going to war, but you can still play a good game without unlimited expansion.

Civ V still has a variety of ways to win depending on your style of play even before the patches - and ICS was only one way.

Think creatively.

 

[Civsassin]

I am having trouble with Hermitage. I need 76 museums built. The game also is pausing longer and longer when I build a new city.

Winning via culture is more difficult with larger empires. There were some mathematics done that gives particular numbers required per city in terms of culture. Capturing the Hermitage is one of the more difficult national wonders to capture. Most of the other ones require you build first level buildings in each of your cities:

libraries = national college
workshops = iron works
monuments = national epic
barracks = heroic epic

But the Hermitage requires museums, which requires an opera house, which requires a temple, which requires a monument. This is no easy task if you have a large empire. Stop expanding and focus your cities' production on these buildings. If you have a lot of gold, you can purchase them in cities that have limited production. If you have puppets, you don't need them in those cities.

I usually manage to capture the iron works, national epic, heroic epic and national college during the course of a game. I sometimes am able to capture oxford university, but I've only ever gotten the hermitage once.

 

[EscapedGoat]

Warmongering is so obviously the way to go. It took me some time to discover that, since I am generally a builder. The tremendous bias towards warmongering does annoy me.

It's not really about the warmongering in itself, it's about the number of cities. A (successful) warmonger will have many cities. An alternative is to expand yourself, hence why ICS is strong - it's basically the fastest way of getting MOAR cities fast, faster even than conquering. More cities = better. It will be that way after the patch also, but let's hope fewer, bigger cities will be a little bit more competitive.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

It's not really about the warmongering in itself, it's about the number of cities. A (successful) warmonger will have many cities. An alternative is to expand yourself, hence why ICS is strong - it's basically the fastest way of getting MOAR cities fast, faster even than conquering. More cities = better. It will be that way after the patch also, but let's hope fewer, bigger cities will be a little bit more competitive.

Thank you. That's my point exactly. Almost everyone (including, apparently, the developers) agrees that infinite urban sprawl is overpowered, so I'm puzzled by angry denials of this and opposition to make other victory paths somewhat less second choice.

 

[EscapedGoat]

Thank you. That's my point exactly. Almost everyone (including, apparently, the developers) agrees that infinite urban sprawl is overpowered, so I'm puzzled by angry denials of this and opposition to make other victory paths somewhat less second choice.

What's really puzzling is why they took out the city maintenance from CIV 4 which worked pretty well to curtail ICS. I think some of the CIV 5 design is a little "arrogant" towards CIV history. I mean, it's fairly easy to predict that ICS will dominate vanilla CIV 5, and it took the community like 2 weeks to figure this out. Let's hope the patch will make the vertical vs. horizontal growth decision a little more interesting.

 

[Bibor]

Having a larger own-built empire (i.e no puppets) is as good as having an ICS empire, although the spacing might be a bit more loose. It offers a different experience from having, say 5 cities.

Unlike your own cities, AI cities are always made either in completely ******** spots or are position to fit into the enemy empire. In either case, they are either to be razed and replaced or turned into puppets.

Depending on how long you want your game to drag on, ICS/large empire cities can still catch up in policies by having a universally larger money income (investment into cultural city-states) and having the ability to tech faster, thus grabbing the culture/policy wonders.

The beauty of large empires is that policies aren't that crucial for a successful empire. A few bits from Freedom and Liberty, some investment into Piety or Commerce and you're basically set until Order.

The reason why cultural victories are harder to get with a larger empire is not just the increased policy cost, but the fact that different policies benefit smaller empires. For example, Constitution (100% culture in every city that has a wonder) benefits small empires because national wonders also count (and these you can spread out nicely).

So it's not just a question of "how many from cities per turn".

 

[arjaaaine]

It's not really about the warmongering in itself, it's about the number of cities. A (successful) warmonger will have many cities. An alternative is to expand yourself, hence why ICS is strong - it's basically the fastest way of getting MOAR cities fast, faster even than conquering. More cities = better. It will be that way after the patch also, but let's hope fewer, bigger cities will be a little bit more competitive.

Big difference. Warmongering doesn't affect your culture benefits much (if you make puppets)

But ICS does.

And Many cultural benfits are game changing.

 

[timtofly]

Winning via culture is more difficult with larger empires. There were some mathematics done that gives particular numbers required per city in terms of culture. Capturing the Hermitage is one of the more difficult national wonders to capture. Most of the other ones require you build first level buildings in each of your cities:

libraries = national college
workshops = iron works
monuments = national epic
barracks = heroic epic

But the Hermitage requires museums, which requires an opera house, which requires a temple, which requires a monument. This is no easy task if you have a large empire. Stop expanding and focus your cities' production on these buildings. If you have a lot of gold, you can purchase them in cities that have limited production. If you have puppets, you don't need them in those cities.

I usually manage to capture the iron works, national epic, heroic epic and national college during the course of a game. I sometimes am able to capture oxford university, but I've only ever gotten the hermitage once.

Well I am down to 55 needed now. In 20 turns I should be even closer. I have 5 Libraries left. There are a few spots left for cities, but land has dried up, so I should be able to catch up soon. I still have 120 turns left. This is not an ICS game. Although I have gone back and filled in some spots where unused culture areas (areas just out of reach of established cities) left some room for expanding. I am on terra, and the Saharra is one large farm. I hope they let us do something on ice in an upcoming patch. I have a couple large cities that have a very high unemployment rate.

I did National before my 3rd wave of expansion. Between 3 and 4, I did Iron works instead of National College since Science doesn't need help pre-patch. If I had put more effort into getting Museums instead of Libraries 30 turns ago, Hermitage may have come before National College. Does any one know if the Constitution Policy works on wonders built after it goes into effect, or only for existing ones?