Strategy Help: Tell me if (and what) I'm doing wrong.

rylasasin · Jun 17, 2012

Okay, I've made a similar thread in the Strategy and Tips section, but since it's with the NIGHTS mod they suggested I come here. so made a thread here with the hope that I'll get some better help here.

So here's the deal

Okay, so i'm playing as Poly, trying to for a sea-based domination or Scientific victory.... playing archepelligo on Warlord difficulty (I know a lot of you would probably play on something higher, but.... hell if I can't even get this right on warlord then whats the point?)Epic timescale, Yet every single time... it just doesn't seem to go right.

So after about 20+ restarts to get the ideal starting conditions, I finally get some pretty good starting conditions (I think? maybe I'm doing that wrong too). Yet... about turn 80 (epic timescale, again), I'm still pretty much the lowest when it come to score, and everything else. Everyone has more gold, more soldiers, more cities, more wonders, etc. more EVERYTHING.

I keep trying again and again, but... same thing.

Happens just about every single time I play.

I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong, here. And it sucks even more that no one I know plays this game so no one can tell me what i'm doing so wrong.

So this time I've started a fresh new game, about a couple rerolls untill I got the ideal contditions (Costal start with at least two fish/pearls/whales. This time I got incredibly lucky with 2 fish and 2 whales.) and this time instead of just including the save I've kept a log file of my every (significant) move.

Hopefully someone can look at either or and tell me what exactly i'm not doing right. For some reason it's easy for me to see that i'm not doing something right, but I have a hard time telling what exactly it is i'm doing wrong. Which makes it hard to learn from my mistakes if I don't know what my mistakes even are.

Mods used: NIGHTS (duh), InfoAddict.

Spoiler :

markusbeutel · Jun 18, 2012

I would definitely go Mining then Masonry (for the quick marble) at this point, then build a second city right above the natural wonder for the free +5 happiness when its in your borders. That will be stretched out a bit, but seeing you havent run into anyone yet you should be fine. Mining will also come in handy for chopping production bonuses whenever you decide to build a wonder, as you should never start one early on without at least 1 Worker helping to chop out bonus production - not chopping just makes early wonders eat up way to much time when you could be expanding.

If you plan on playing a seafaring game, your next policies should definitely be in Commerce to get all of the coastal city bonuses - and especially since you can then fully make use of Hegemony, which, combined with your docks and the production bonuses from Merchant Navy under Commerce, should set you up for some of the stronger upcoming wonders, (the Tower of Babel if you can get it). If ToB is still available, definitely try and time Feudalism so you can start building it in your capital, which will be a production powerhouse at this point. At some point pretty soon you will also want to get Moai Statues in your capital for the production.

If you start lagging behind the AI in Science by quite a bit, get Rationalism and adopt Legalism to start playing specialists provided you have enough specialist buildings available at this point. Otherwise, Organized Religion under Piety would also be a good early policy for science, as it would really accelerate growth in your capital especially with the 4 fishing boats you would have there. Also, regarding science, if you do not start building Apothecaries pretty early on, just avoid them and go straight for Libraries, as the Apothecaries will just become obsolete eventually. Dont feel like you have to be forced into this, though, if you are on the verge of ToB, or some other wonder like that which either gives you a huge population or science boost.

Also, with population tied to science, quick expansion is pretty important and you will probably want at least 4-5 cities up by turn 100, (grab the free Settler from Caste System under Tradition if you have to). On Epic you might be able to keep pace with the AI with 3 cities if you go early on Apothecaries and Mines, but the terrain doesnt really favor that in your game.

rylasasin · Jun 18, 2012

markusbeutel said:
I would definitely go Mining then Masonry (for the quick marble) at this point, then build a second city right above the natural wonder for the free +5 happiness when its in your borders. That will be stretched out a bit, but seeing you havent run into anyone yet you should be fine. Mining will also come in handy for chopping production bonuses whenever you decide to build a wonder, as you should never start one early on without at least 1 Worker helping to chop out bonus production - not chopping just makes early wonders eat up way to much time when you could be expanding.

Definate thanks for that. Mining + Masonry it is then. Should I go for stonehenge then or just pass it up for something else (probably TOB as you mentioned later)? I mainly want it for the free city monument (which would save time having to build that), but then again well placed Moais could serve just as well.

markusbeutel said:
If you plan on playing a seafaring game, your next policies should definitely be in Commerce to get all of the coastal city bonuses - and especially since you can then fully make use of Hegemony, which, combined with your docks and the production bonuses from Merchant Navy under Commerce, should set you up for some of the stronger upcoming wonders, (the Tower of Babel if you can get it). If ToB is still available, definitely try and time Feudalism so you can start building it in your capital, which will be a production powerhouse at this point.

Definately my plan (especially the earlier-middle part of commerce.), though I hadn't considered Hegemony or TOB... I'll have to see what that does.

markusbeutel said:
At some point pretty soon you will also want to get Moai Statues in your capital for the production.

I assume you mean Moai Statues the Nat. Wonder, not Moai statues the improvement?

markusbeutel said:
If you start lagging behind the AI in Science by quite a bit, get Rationalism and adopt Legalism to start playing specialists provided you have enough specialist buildings available at this point. Otherwise, Organized Religion under Piety would also be a good early policy for science, as it would really accelerate growth in your capital especially with the 4 fishing boats you would have there. Also, regarding science, if you do not start building Apothecaries pretty early on, just avoid them and go straight for Libraries, as the Apothecaries will just become obsolete eventually. Dont feel like you have to be forced into this, though, if you are on the verge of ToB, or some other wonder like that which either gives you a huge population or science boost.

At this point, is it "early on" or "too late" though?

markusbeutel said:
Also, with population tied to science, quick expansion is pretty important and you will probably want at least 4-5 cities up by turn 100, (grab the free Settler from Caste System under Tradition if you have to). On Epic you might be able to keep pace with the AI with 3 cities if you go early on Apothecaries and Mines, but the terrain doesnt really favor that in your game.

soo, try to pump out 3-4 settlers ASAP then? I'm already working on one so should I pump out another and give up StoneH or continue with that? And turn 100, is that standard or epic timescale?

By the way, is there anything I could have done better given the steps I took so far? Any place I screwed up? That's actually what I was kinda looking for right there: see if there was/is any mistakes i'm making so I don't make them again.

BTW: Part 2 of my log. I'll think I'll cut it short here for tonight since I came a very long ways.

Spoiler :

Okay, it seems that most civs occording to my military advisor have better mliitaries than me, and everyone has caravels now so no advantages.... where did I go wrong? What do I do?

kruszelnicki · Jun 20, 2012

Do you have an earlier save? I would be more inclined to give it a quick playthrough then proide comments if I can't do a better job myself!

The only thing i can think of off the top of my head would be to try and open with Piety because of the ridiculous happiness -> culture policy

rylasasin · Jun 20, 2012

kruszelnicki said:
Do you have an earlier save? I would be more inclined to give it a quick playthrough then proide comments if I can't do a better job myself!

The only thing i can think of off the top of my head would be to try and open with Piety because of the ridiculous happiness -> culture policy

Sorry, the one on the first post seems to be the earliest one... which is pretty early all things considered (it's turn 35, which on epic is very early.)

markusbeutel · Jun 21, 2012

If I had to choose between an early wonder and settlers, I'd go for Settlers everytime, especially since there are more wonders in Nights compared to vanilla CIV V. Even if you don't get Stonehenge, which is very powerful, chances are something will be available in the Classical/Medieval era that'll help you out. Take the Mausoleum for example, if you're falling behind in military but can manage to get this in your capital, even if you lack tech and have inferior units, you'll get a huge boost to military unit production which will allow you to at least fend off attacks.

As for Caravels, (and ships in general), the progression of units isn't as fast as land units, so even if you fall behind and don't have Caravels yet, I wouldn't necessarily worry too much about that. I'd only start worrying once Frigates or Ironclads come out, if they happen to be way out of your reach.

And depending on your difficulty level, on epic, I'd go for 3-5 cities on the lowest settings, and a minimum of 4-5 on mid/higher settings, provided you have the happiness. On Standard speed, I usually try and get anywhere from 6-8 cities out by turn 100, as most of the AI's will probably have anywhere from 5-10 (10 if they happen to start on poor terrain, in which case they expand more quickly to make up for lower population in these cities). You'll usually have to at least get 1 of the free workers from either Order or Tradition for this to all go smoothly.

thadian · Jun 21, 2012

I would REX Honeycomb a 3 city cluster right next to my capital then i would put out 2 more cities where i needed them.

Actually, that mod that lets you found puppets seems to work with G+K and with NIGHTS, that mod is a real winner.

My social policies... Thats where i struggle, some day i will upload a pre-NIGHTS, and call it MORNINGS (pun) however the way the "government" vs "district" policies in that build (v8) was very different than what we have today and i love it. both actually.

Think Civ 3 if you played it - you need to REX out 3 settlers ASAP, forget workers. Settlers of Catan all the way, you need cities. Settle the BEST spots, even if they are farther away - and backfill later, i personally found puppets to achieve this.

Cultural Capitals are nice as well - you don't NEED wonders in NIGHTS and in fact there are so many of them you can think back to civ 4 and let your enemy build it for you XD. Your doing better than i was my first few months, and when i finally got used to NIGHTS, i had a heck of a time playing normal games, i was expanding TOO fast.

Strategy Help: Tell me if (and what) I'm doing wrong.

rylasasin

Paranoid Panicking noob

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markusbeutel

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Paranoid Panicking noob

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