So, what's the secret behind Kiev?

[SebastianP]

Ok, spent this weekend playing twice as Kiev. Both times I fail to achieve UHV3, which is 25.000 food produced. What's the secret here? I'm getting frustrated because I have no idea how I could possibly achieve that by changing my strategy.

I managed to withold the Barbarians to the south and swiftly expanded. When I failed the first time, I thought I was too slow in city building. I restarted and went for max expansion. By 1200 AD I had all the required provinces under my control for UHV2. UHV1 was very close too. But food was again only at 12.500 with about 250 increasing each turn. Simple maths it's not going to be 25.000 until 1300 AD, especially since I'll have to deal with marauding Mongols soon.

I DO place a farm on every tile available. I go for barley, wheat etc. first and usually build a city on them to get their food immediately. Maybe I'm too slow in building up farms? But then my cities don't grow fast enough either to use the new farms, so speed shouldn't be the issue.

What's the trick?

 

[gilgames]

Well it is hard for sure. At start all 3 cites build a new settler before anything. and the new vities as well. trade byz for happiness res and mostly neglect war. chock barbs at kaypoints and pray to rng. ainm for blast furance and build 2 druz asap to keep barbs at bay. after settlers new cities build temple monasteries and workes 99% until 1200. expand everywhere . to summ up inkeywords.

 

[SebastianP]

Thanks gilgames, that's good advice. I'll try it again this weekend and see if that leads to success.

 

[Andrrew]

See my guide here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ed-uhv-strategies.666786/page-2#post-16199887

I expanded to 16 cities and put farms everywhere to maximize Food production; that can get you to above 400 Food per turn.

 

[SebastianP]

I just successfully finished a game with Kiev, even though it got really heated towards the end. The Mongol stacks of doom are nasty and arrive just at a time when stability dropped for me because of cities outgrowing themselves - but I hadn't finished UHV3 yet! I did so eventually by ending up with something like 25.800 - it was a close call anyway. The trick here was indeed, as gilgames suggested, to immediately build settlers on start and build new cities asap as gilgames suggested. My mistake was that I had built workers and only then settlers in my previous games (because I thought improving tiles initially was crucial). Still, leaving some cities unprotected while trying to keep the Cumans at bay in the south made for a game of sweating hands. Thanks for the advice, guys - you helped to turn this from frustration into joy

Next project: the Danish. Gotta read up on Andrrew's experience first ..

 

[gilgames]

yw