Social policies - selection order and strategy

[The Pilgrim]

That is my conclusion. It's tough having a tall empire making lots of money. It's not a major issue but it will still take 4 turns to build an artillery unit to defend city no.3 when Japan has decided to launch an all-out invasion on my no.3 city. Answering myself again, more strategy and preparation seems to be involved when not simply buying units for the next turn. Games just seem to be tougher without earning hundreds of $ every turn.

That's the biggest downside of playing tall. On the positive, your diplomatic status is usually better, more trading partners and especially RA partners. However, the higher the level, IMO, the more risky it becomes. You rely on AI's trustworthiness which is often a dead end. So one should always keep in mind that at any given point s/he might need a defensive force. I try to sell as many stuff to potential enemies. If they decide to play naughty, 1. their units might find themselves with resource lack penalty; 2. I can resell the goodies to someone else and use that money for rush buying defense/upgrading existing troops.

 

[joncnunn]

That's the biggest downside of playing tall. On the positive, your diplomatic status is usually better, more trading partners and especially RA partners. However, the higher the level, IMO, the more risky it becomes. You rely on AI's trustworthiness which is often a dead end. So one should always keep in mind that at any given point s/he might need a defensive force. I try to sell as many stuff to potential enemies. If they decide to play naughty, 1. their units might find themselves with resource lack penalty; 2. I can resell the goodies to someone else and use that money for rush buying defense/upgrading existing troops.

Sounds likes this player had Japan as a neighbor anyway. The founding of the 4th city likely moved up the war by several turns, but it was going to happen anyway.

Yup, that's the way to make most trades entirely risk free.

Its only broken RAs that could hurt. For that, there are actually very simple rules of thumbs that should reduce the risk down to less than 5%:

1. NEVER make an RA with a neighboring AI. (Neighboring AIs ALWAYS develop land envy. Chances are very high that a neighbor showing friendly is actually doing the pretend friendship thing even if he's giving you full trade values.)

2. If already showing any red text: Don't sign an RA with them.

3. If they are only willing to pay 86% of normal trade values for border agreements or luxury / resource sells: Don't sign an RA with them either.

4. The white text of nothing important has happened is safe.

5. The white text of you've been at war in the past but they aren't holding a grudge is NOT safe. They will get a grudge later after they rebuild their army.

6. The victory condition red text going away is real. (The AI really does change its mind on how it thinks your going to win.) While expiration of the denouncement removes an extra cause of friction, the underlying cause is still there and so its not safe to RA with that player. The rest of them going away are mostly shams. (AI pretending).

 

[joshua43214]

A few thoughts;

5 cities is too many for a tall empire. Going tall allows you to avoid piety and take rationalism instead. If you have that many cities you are often forced into piety and order. Tall empires generally take rationalism and either freedom or autocracy.

Your populations are only possible on King. I know it feels like you are struggling, but honestly, you are doing very well. I would recomend aiming at moving up to Emperor very soon, King is teaching you to do less with more. Moving up a level will teach you to do more with less.

100gpt is massive income that early in the game. I am usually very happy if I am making ~20-40gpt at that point unless I have a nice pupett empire going. I suspect you have been able to get away with not making alot of buildings in favor of wonders so your mainainance costs are low.

4 turns for an artillery is excellent, but at 100gpt there is no real reason to make them. You should have a small (3 or 4 units) standing army for defense. With roads you can get them to whatever city will come under attack quickly. The only time I build more is when I get Japan as a neighbor, which it sounds like you have. It is paramount to kill Japan's units, not leave them wounded. A couple extra range units are very important to make sure you kill them. You want to kill the melle units that will capture your city, ignore his range units unless they are a threat to yours.

When taking a diplo victory, the top two patronage are essential. Keep in mind though that you don't need them until the end of the game. Taking them earlier gives you the advantage of cheaper CS's, which means extra hapiness so you can sell your luxeries and make more gold. But really all you need is a nice gold pile and a good production city to make the UN, then just buy all the CS's off on the last turn.

 

[regeneration64]

Thanks for your replies guys. They've been very constructive.

I should perhaps clarify some points for the pure strategy element of my current game:

* I was aiming for three cities but Rome forced my hand in the early game when they DoW me. They were my initial neighbours on the continent. I raised all their cities aside from their capital, obviously and decided to annex it later because Babylon (my other neighbours) were also breathing down my neck.

* I've recently conqured Babylon's capital and will get round to raising their final city soon. I've also annexed this which may or may not have been a wise move. Why raise these cities? I don't want the unhappiness as I'm riding on frequent Golden Ages

* I'm on turn 282 and have +61 gpt. The ~100+ figure was from last Golden Age. My mistake. Either way, maybe joshua43214 you are right, it's not that bad. And yes, in most of my games I beeline for certain wonders and, currently, I've got 17 wonders! (I'm a bit of a wonder whore).

* Japan... I chose random civs and got unlucky but I like a challenge. Japan was on a continent of their own and their latest invasion was a large naval one but unsuccessful. They have started settling on my continent now and it's only a matter of time before they launch a decent land-based invasion but I'll be ready for them, especially as I'm only around 20-30 turns off getting some modern era units

* Diplomatic victory - joshua43214, what you say about diplo victory is intriguing and from my initial dislike of Patronage maybe your strategy is something I will try instead in the future and open up alternative SPs

* Difficulty - I've only tried Emperor once and that was a duel on a small continents map vs Germany. A reasonable opponent but they didn't DoW me once and I won an easy Science victory using the SPs in my OP (mainly). Was pleasantly surprised but I think the real challenge will come when I try a 'proper' Emperor game with more civs. Tbh, I'll probably try this for my next game and aim for a Domination victory (with my usual wide empire) and perhaps with the following, more focused, selection order:

1. Liberty (yawn!)
2. Honor
3. Commerce (at least start this to rush buy units)
4. Autocracy (if game is still going)


Here's a question - does anyone have a particular social policy selection order for a Time victory?

 

[joncnunn]

Here's a question - does anyone have a particular social policy selection order for a Time victory?

These are just ideas as other than scenarios with time limits I've never bumped into it. (You DON'T need to win by time to get the all victory types achievement)

Raw score is primarily population & land driven.
So seeking to be the leader will normally involve conquering one or two of your neighbors.
(In fact, I think I'd go so far to say that the easyist way to try to achieve time victory would be to persure a Domination victory but fail to do so within time allotted.)

So, that would be:

1. Liberty first as always
2. Honor (war mongling bonuses)
3. Piety (more happiness)
4. Open Tradition [only] to catch up on tile expansion.
5. Maybe open Patronage if you aren't in Industrial era yet if there's city states in the game. Or perhaps Commerce, won't really matter
6. Autocracy (start as soon as your in Industrial; In this case since your not planning on winning until 2050 anyway, you'll actually complete this tree in time to use the attack bonuses the full X turns from the finisher, while in many Domination games you have already effectively won before Industrial era opened.)
7. Won't really matter, but more of the trees you left open.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Its only broken RAs that could hurt. For that, there are actually very simple rules of thumbs that should reduce the risk down to less than 5%

I think if I were following your guide, I'd never signed a single RA.
Usually even when the red stuff starts to appear, you have some time till that AI will actually do something. So you can often get away with one RA. But even if not, the risk is worth it. RA's are too powerful to skip the opportunity. It's better try and lose than not to try at all (unlike with wonders, right? )

5 cities is too many for a tall empire. Going tall allows you to avoid piety and take rationalism instead. If you have that many cities you are often forced into piety and order.

5 is that many? Really? I was never 'forced' into Piety with 5, 6 or even 8 cities. Liberty+Rationalism work just fine. All cities than can either crank out GS or build a spaceship part aren't redundant.

And yes, in most of my games I beeline for certain wonders and, currently, I've got 17 wonders! (I'm a bit of a wonder whore).

Don't listen to Joshua then. Move up straight to immortal. You'll get cured in no time.

 

[joshua43214]

, I've got 17 wonders! (I'm a bit of a wonder whore).

Here's a question - does anyone have a particular social policy selection order for a Time victory?

Wow!

Most of the tips here from experienced players are geared toward playing on immortal/deity. You will find a typicall game on these levels only gets you 2 to 5 wonders depending on victory conditions. Pretty quickly you will find yourself crushing the game on King, then quickly after that crushing it on emperor. At that point the game stops being interesting unless you move up to immortal or find another game. The hardest adjustment is finding yourself up against the happiness wall in less than 80 turns, barbs that will capture your capitol, and your favorite wonders gone before you even get the tech for them. HG is iffy on immortal, and impossible on deity for example.

Never seen a time victory on immortal, the AI is programed to actually win the game at that level and always will unless prevented. I'm pretty sure the AI is programed not to win some victory types on king, or atleast drag it feet to the point where it loses. I've seen unlaunched spaceship parts outside of capitols when I was playing on king, never seen that on immortal...

 

[joncnunn]

I think if I were following your guide, I'd never signed a single RA.
Usually even when the red stuff starts to appear, you have some time till that AI will actually do something. So you can often get away with one RA. But even if not, the risk is worth it. RA's are too powerful to skip the opportunity. It's better try and lose than not to try at all (unlike with wonders, right? )

I do sign some RAs but it's mostly with those civs saying Neutral saying nothing major has happened.

I play on epic speed where it takes 45 turn for a RA to complete. 45 turns from the time red text starts appears is really pushing it. (When that AI intends to DOW you at all)

RAs are indeed really powerful when they work; the truth is though:

On Emperor: I often find the AIs cash to be a limit in RA signing. But the truth is I could easily win a science victory without signing a single RA at this level as a normal civ. (One without any bonuses towards science)

On Immortal level: Here I do need to sign a few RAs to win if some of the AIs are "too peaceful". But on this level I need a bunch of cash for unit upgrades to keep my army up to date (its going to be one DOW after the other from my neighbors) and so my limit on signing is often my own cash on hand.

I agree with your comments about not being forced into Piety when going wide. In fact, after you have some universities & public schools in place, with rationalism you can choose humanism to get happiness. The main time I advocate Piety over Rationalism is when your planning Domination and that has to do more with your reliable RA partners are quickly going to be reduced to the empty set if you DOW two or more players. Happiness from conquests is easily managed simply by saving enough cash to buy court houses.

 

[regeneration64]

I got round to finishing my latest game (England, Standard Continents Plus, Standard size and time, King). I lost! See above for the details. As stated I was trying out different SPs to usual, had a decent tall empire, and was aiming for my first diplomatic victory.

SPs:

1. Liberty
2. Piety
3. Patronage
4. Freedom

Aside from Liberty, I don't usually go down that route. The three other policies useful but I'm not sure whether I should have swapped Piety for Rationalism to achieve my desired victory as Russia (runaway civ) won a science victory by some margin - around 15 turns. I also believe that Patronage was a waste.

I think though that the fatal error I made was a strategic one and I could still have won it using Piety and Patronage. I simply left Russia doing its own thing too long and by the time they started the space race it was all over in a few turns (their production must have been insane). I was safe on my own continent and had no worries from the other (two) remaining civs - even Japan! - and had some really good peaceful tall cities.

I actually enjoyed using the alternative SPs and having a tall empire but on most of my games I play wide with Commerce and Big Ben I am able to purchase numerous units and launch an attack fairly quickly. Without Commerce and a tall empire I wasn't able to get to Russia in time.

Conclusion...

I am going to try out Emperor with a few more civs and again aim for a Diplomatic victory. This time, however, I am going to adopt a more warlike approach and take the runaway AIs capitals ASAP so that they cannot pip me to the post. I think I'll adopt a semi-wide empire with cities between 10 and 25 pop by the end game.

SPs:

1. Liberty
2. Piety (I'm going to give it another shot as I think I will need the happiness boost more than the Science boost from Rationalism)
3. Commerce (to finance my warmongering and to pay those expensive city states)
4. Anything or cherry-pick from the other trees

EDIT: I am still going to aim for those wonders too. Maybe when I move up to Immortal I will be cured. And maybe I will take Rationalism. I'm not sure...

 

[joshua43214]

Russia will always try to run away, and always go after whatever civ seems weak to her, and almost always go after a science victory.

She is safe enough to ignore provided you parade a new unit past her borders from time to time. The best solution when competing with her for a peaceful victory is to nuke her capitol when she finishes the Apllo program. All you need is 4 uranium (you can buy cheap) and an boat to carry them - missiles are far better than bombs. On Emperor and below getting the needed tech should be easy when teching a culture victory, and a tiny stretch when doing a diplo victory. Its important (far all VC's) to run some science specialists and bulb the needed modern techs.

Patronage will give you far more mileage than commerce for paying for city states

 

[The Pilgrim]

I play on epic speed where it takes 45 turn for a RA to complete. 45 turns from the time red text starts appears is really pushing it. (When that AI intends to DOW you at all)

Oh, ok. I'm not used to epic, but it probably makes things a bit riskier. However, I'd assume that RA's are even more powerful. Takes forever to research late techs.

On Emperor: I often find the AIs cash to be a limit in RA signing. But the truth is I could easily win a science victory without signing a single RA at this level as a normal civ. (One without any bonuses towards science)

On Immortal level: Here I do need to sign a few RAs to win if some of the AIs are "too peaceful". But on this level I need a bunch of cash for unit upgrades to keep my army up to date (its going to be one DOW after the other from my neighbors) and so my limit on signing is often my own cash on hand.

I've won on deity without RA's. Bulbing military techs mainly to survive, thus far from optimal path. But it has to be the 'right' game. World wars and decent raw beakers (through warring, obviously). On immortal I'd say it's doable regardless. Just grab enough land by whatever means, plop universities everywhere and you're good.

I got round to finishing my latest game (England, Standard Continents Plus, Standard size and time, King). I lost!

Most likely SP choices had nothing to do with this loss. If you lost a space race to king level AI, you science rate was way too low. What turn was it?

 

[regeneration64]

Most likely SP choices had nothing to do with this loss. If you lost a space race to king level AI, you science rate was way too low. What turn was it?

It was Turn 359 (1939). As I stated, I think my fatal error was letting Russia get too strong. She had 30 cities by the end game (it's crazy how the AI happiness works!!) and as I was beelining for the UN she was a few techs ahead doing the same thing for the Spaceship. I wish I had got nukes and DoW her 50 turns earlier.

 

[The Pilgrim]

It was Turn 359 (1939). As I stated, I think my fatal error was letting Russia get too strong. She had 30 cities by the end game (it's crazy how the AI happiness works!!) and as I was beelining for the UN she was a few techs ahead doing the same thing for the Spaceship. I wish I had got nukes and DoW her 50 turns earlier.

You could shave off up to 100 turns by beelining Education, building universities early and filling them with specialists. Bulbing late game techs with great scientists saves huge amount of time. Science is always the key. Happiness is manageable, but if you don't pump those beakers, you're gonna lose pretty much every time.

Based on number of policies I also suspect you invested too much in cultural buildings. I'm not sure they all can come from CS allies alone. Anyway, when playing for diplo/science you don't need that much culture. It's nice and all, however science buildings should get the highest priority.

 

[pspboy7]

social policies are useless unless you are going for a cultural victory. kill everything that moves.

Very true, Liberty is the only really useful tree in the game no matter what circumstance, everything else is just situational.

 

[The A.K.T]

What i run for an Agressive game:
Liberty OPener
Free Settler Policy
Free Worker Policy
Bonus hammer Policy
Rest of Liberty

Piety Opener
Happiness Policy(gives Happiness for Cultural Buildings)

Order all the way down

 

[Muskie]

I've been playing a bunch on Level 7 and my strategies for winning regularly on Level 6 have been coming up a bit short. I don't usually start out with a dogmatic plan to win culturally or scientifically. I generally try to maintain the peace with my neighbours and trade, so I build tall.

Rushes are a bigger worry on Level 7, but even with an isolated random start I'm still losing. I've had to put a lot more effort into staying relevant with tech, so Piety is out. Also the AI seems to be able to easily out expand and outgrow me and if I expand past a fifth city to get more resources, my social policy growth comes too slow. I'm going to refine my approach further but I documented my pre G&K observations.

Civ V Findings

I really have to accomplish some things but today I've had power outages and Internet outages and my computer seems to run worse and worse. I think I'm going for a bike ride... Anyway I'm thinking of trying harder to stay at 4 cities as perhaps then my culture would grow well enough to pursue my peaceful aims. But being even pickier where I settle may result in more wars... I am too tempted to annex capitals so I think I'm going to try to puppet rather than burn down enemy cities. I still may burn a few. I try to have a good shape and a defence able formation to my empire. I often settle cities in defence able positions, but I think I need 4 solid city sites and then to just bunker down.

Using rationalism and great people I can be competitive on tech. I just can't rely on being able to buy City States anymore, let alone enough to win diplomatically. The AI always seems to make more money than me, so perhaps as Arabia or Spain I'll have the funds I need to wheel and deal in peace.

Liberty, Rationalism almost seem necessary at the highest levels if you want to pursue a peaceful path through the game. After dogmatically completing those two, I'm not sure it matters, but probably Freedom than my old favourite Patronage.

Spain can have large cash reserves just by finding natural wonders. I just have to resist my natural tendency to want to settle good sites I found, which often pisses off the AI.

Cheers,