Some advice for a noob.

[vayasen]

Hi all.

Had this game ages but only recently gotten round to playing it for various reasons.

Can I ask your opinion of the following queries please, you might just say 'thats how the game is' which is fair enough. Im liking the game atm, but not 'loving' it.

1- My games all seems the same- I cant afford many units, there is a sense im just sat in my towns, rallying my troops together to massacre the AI when they come at me and stand outside my towns. I defea tthem en masse, I advance and they have built a load of new units. I can beat these np, but it would take me a long time to recover from such a defeat in the field.

2- I never seem to sail anywhere or find the need for it? Even tho I play as England (navy stuff), I just find myself playign them as im from England....and their bowmen outrange cities.

3- I dont feel like im building an empire, just a constant struggle to keep my people 'happy'. Maybe thats because me increasing towns and population too quick? I always feel im fighting the 'unhappyness' with each building.

4- How can I slow the game down. The early days just seem a blur to me. Pointless doing anything but building up. Before I know it im firing artillery at things (ive set it to the long setting (I think), marathon I think its called. The game seems to breif and ive never yet known a war or real battle between ancient civilisations....jsut skirmishing in a race to tanks etc.

Cheers for any advice.

 

[vayasen]

Oh one other question.

do the difficulty levels actually effect AI, or do they just get cheating boosts to stuff such as build times, gold etc?

 

[elprofesor]

1. Try upping the difficulty, it helps. Massacring the AI isn't fun.
2. Sailing may not be useful, depending on the map (for example, Pangaea). Otherwise, sailing helps you meeting new city states to spend your money on, civs to sign RAs with, city spots to get new luxuries and keep expanding, and that's about it. BTW, there is a small tech discount for techs that the civs you've met have already researched.
3. With the right Social Policies, and if you war less/raze more, there will be less pressure to keep your people happy. Some wonders help too. And with printing press and theaters, you will start feeling less pressure on it. By the way, never settle a new city unless there is at least one luxury resource nearby (there are some exceptions to this, though).
4. There must be something wrong in here. Marathon is REALLY slow. I get you might feel that eras flash in front of you at standard speed, but that certainly shouldn't be the case on marathon.
The skirmishing feel might come from the high cost of military units in Civ 5. You will rarely field huge armies in this game, until very late (~modern era)
5. Difficulties only affect how much the AI cheats. They do need those cheats badly, though, since they aren't very smart.

 

[Ellye]

--- Forget it, misread.

 

[sparkyal]

Well, the advice above is quite good. Marathon would take forever. To be honest, money is my biggest problem too. But the social policies can realyl help with this as can the buildings. and...attack tha barbarian, getting after them gives you gold. and if you play as say Arabia, you get a lot of money from the trade route boost as well as selling the extra oil and extra luxuries.

 

[headcase]

I can understand what you mean with "Even Marathon is too fast" I haven't played marathon, but all it does is make everything take more turns. This doesn't really "slow down" the game, unless there is a lot going on on the tactics side. Otherwise, you're simply skipping more turns.

the only ways to truly "lengthen" the game are:
- Have more buildings\units\techs (personally I'd keep the tech tree pretty similar, but add more units\buildings to it).
- Aesthetically make the game look different each era

As for the AI tactics, I believe they are effectively the same every difficulty, except they are less willing to go to war on difficulties below Prince. The penalties and bonuses between one difficulty and the next is pretty staggering, so most of the effect must be taking place there.

From another thread:

The AI on higher difficulties is dangerous in the same way that a small child is dangerous carrying a loaded gun rather than a inflatable novelty mallet.

 

[torfish]

Vayasen, the best tip is spend time browsing these forums for advice. I've done this for the past three months. I started out a beginner, not grasping the concepts which did not give me much enjoyment out of the game. Now I'm a much better player, playing on Prince and winning! The game is a favorite and I've spent over 150 hours played. It gets better as you learn.

 

[chazzycat]

if you are just building up the entire game until you have industrial/modern units, you should consider moving up in difficulty levels. What level are you at now?

I'll try to help with point #3 because I can understand the frustration of not having enough happiness. Happiness is a huge part of the game, and requires good planning to keep growing, or especially if you want to expand or conquer. Here are my tips:

- at first, only build new cities that have access to new luxuries. Eventually you can settle other sites once you have a bigger happy surplus, but those are the priority for the very beginning of the game. This enables the new cities to grow to a useful size and allows expansion to continue. If you are lucky to find a spot with 2x new luxuries, do not hesitate to claim that spot ASAP.

- if you want to expand beyond a few cities, make circuses/coliseums/stoneworks higher priority than usual.

- If you are playing OCC or otherwise the vast majority of your pop is in the capital, going tradition for monarchy can help

- Otherwise a combination of liberty/honor/piety is generally better. You generally want to choose one of liberty/honor, depending on if you are playing peacefully or warmonger style. Then take piety through organized religion (+1 happy from monument/temple) if you still need happiness and don't plan on going rationalism.

- Prioritize Notre Dame for +10 happy. Generally the best way to get it is via Great Engineer from liberty finisher or Hagia Sophia (there are tons of threads on this subject).

- A little later if you are still having happiness issues there are a couple more key wonders...Forbidden Palace and Eiffel Tower. The AI tends to get FP really early so you have to prioritize to get it.

- Astronomy is underrated in providing happiness, especially if you have a bunch of the same type of luxuries and are just waiting to meet trading partners. Get some caravels out there. There's no reason not to trade luxes with the AI if you prefer happiness to gold at the moment. The AI gets such massive happy bonuses anyway that it's unlikely to help them much.

- If you have many city state allies giving you luxes, the policy at the bottom left of patronage can really add a good amount of happiness. I swear every time I take this policy it gives me more than I think it will.

- If you have many cities, the Order opener is another really good policy for +1 happy each.

- If running a lot of specialists, the policy on the bottom right of freedom can contribute significantly

- If you are conquering a lot and not worried much about culture cost, annexing puppets then buying courthouses will add a lot of happy (too much actually...its bugged). Furthermore this effect can be strengthened by using the autocracy policy.

 

[vayasen]

Thanks for he input, much appreciated.

Currently playing 'Prince'.

How many cities do you often expand to, or dies it vary game by game and your style? Sorry for so many questions ;]

 

[chazzycat]

Definitely varies depending on the map and civ. I try not to go into the game with preconceived plans but to work with what the map gives. I expand peacefully as much as the map allows...sometimes that means just 3 cities. 3 cities is generally enough to win. However, I would prefer more if I can get them. 5-7 cities at first then creeping up to 10-15 later in the game is how I prefer to play if possible.

 

[elprofesor]

Vayasen, the best tip is spend time browsing these forums for advice. I've done this for the past three months.

Pretty much the best advice you could receive

 

[headcase]

The War Academy has an impressive set of articles:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=451