Struggling to consolidate empire

[nathanvjbrown]

I keep abandoning games mid-game ish because despite having a huge lead most of my cities end up being absolute trash. My strategy is to settle the available land and cycle Magnus around my early cities for chop/clear bonuses to rush growth/hammers for district placement/building. In the meantime I build city centre buildings for more housing and builders to develop tiles. Once the city is growing nicely and has decent hammers I try to churn out buildings in the districts and/or finish building the remaining districts.

This is what I try to do anyway but in reality I end up with maybe 1-3 decent cities (including capital), a bunch of cities at various stages of development and spotty tile improvements. In some areas I have large swathes of improvements and then other cities I've had for 30-40 turns will have nothing. I'll spend so many turns constructing buildings everywhere I'll later realise I've got a bunch of empty trade slots, and no army or navy.

Let's take my Pericles game on Prince which lasted 163 turns:

Jungle start
Settle 2 more cities
Germany invades -> conquer his 4 cities
Wave of settlers/builders/cycling magnus around
Use chops to build districts

End up in renaissance with no army, no navy, lots of empty districts, undeveloped tiles, no trade routes, unreformed religion (w/ 1 holy site), but lots of high pop cities with poor production. Just about managed to get an ampitheatre in most acropolis districts but I'd already accumulated a backlog of artists and musicians with nowhere to put them.

At this point I still had the most science, culture and converted cities. The remaining civ (scotland) attacked one of my CS (I was suzerain of all I met) and I wiped out his army from a protectorate war. I'd easily win the game at this point by continuing to press end turn but I didn't see the point when it was taking so long to construct buildings and wonders were 30 or more turns each for the most part (and I had no more chops as I thought it was best to rush growth, place districts and chop them).

Any suggestions?

 

[liv]

Do you know about overflow?
You use a card like agoge build a melee unit and then chop at the very end to use the overflow towards the building of a district or wonder. Using the card and Magnus you create extra production. That way you can chop and get an army at the same time. If you play on continent chopping with the marine card is very beneficial.

It may be good to place the districts but not build them right away. That saves on turns it takes to build them since they get more expensive later.

Chopping gets more valuable as you progress so you should probably save some off or build more cities in places where you have more to chop.

Move up in difficulty maybe. It gets somewhat harder on higher levels. And you would need units to deal with barbarians and early invasions

 

[knighterrant81]

About what turn is this, and about how many cities do you have? I'd say that having up to 10-15 cities or so that are developing well in the Renaissance is doable. It sounds like you know about how powerful chop can be. It sounds like you might be short on production, or perhaps you are putting too much production into builders and then building too many farms.

The hard core types will tell you that anything over 7-10 pop in a single city is more trouble than it is worth. Don't sweat it when the game tells you you are running out of housing throughout the middle of the game.
Make sure you found your cities near or on good sources of production such as hills or bonus resources.
Don't build too many farms. Getting the Feudalism bonus for me usually requires counting on farms from a neighbor I've conquered.
Be judicious on which districts you build, and always try to place the district as soon as possible after you hit the next pop benchmark that allows a new district (1 pop, 4 pop, 7 pop, 10 pop). This is really gamey, but because of the way district costs work it helps keep your districts cheaper.
You don't *need*: More than 2 Holy sites (unless going for religious victory), More than 3 Trade Route sites (Harbor/CH). You don't really need Theater Districts or Campuses unless you are going that particular victory route (although 1 or 2 of each are helpful). You don't need encampments at all (although the great general points can be helpful and they give a few helpful inspirations). You only need enough industrial zones to cover each city for Factory bonuses later in the game. The workshop is meh and only really good for getting the Industrialization eureka. You don't need Holy sites at all if you are not going for a Cultural or Religious victory (should be obvious?)

You don't need a huge army, either. 3-4 archers, 3-4 warriors should get your through the ancient era. Might add a battering ram if the AI gets up a wall. 6 Chariots converted to Knights will turn you into a powerhouse. 2-3 Galleys and 2-3 Quadquiremes will do it for a navy. All of that stuff can just be upgraded (using the 50% off upgrades card of course) with gold throughout the game. You might have to build a few more units once you reach the era of corps and armies, but really this should last you the entire game unless you are going for Domination.

Pay attention to which city-states you have access to. Favor building more of the districts that benefit from your Envoys.

 

[nathanvjbrown]

Thank you both - best advice was like Liv said tbh, up the difficulty. It made me change how I play and I'm feeling much more satisfied. I don't have like 10+ cities, got 7 in my current game and it's actually quite fun as I'm trapped between Egypt and Poland who keep taking turns declaring war lol.

I think upping the difficulty has made me prioritise my building better and my cities (bar a couple which are developing) have pretty decent outputs. I'll try to take advantage of that overflow mechanic if I can (I used to do something similar with China to build wonders at the same time as units/buildings).

Thanks Knightterraant81, I'll try to aim for an army around that size. I've got 0 holy sites atm, I think I need to work on getting some faith infrastructure even if I'm not going for religion/religious victory I guess.

 

[knighterrant81]

I only build holy sites for religious and cultural victories. There are only specific circumstances where I build them otherwise, like if I'm playing a civ that gets specific bonuses from religion, like Arabia or Poland. I wouldn't build them otherwise, Religion isn't as powerful as it was in Civ 5 and it requires more effort at higher difficulties. The army thing is true, but remember at higher difficulties the AI gets combat bonuses. The better you are at out-wargaming the AI, the fewer troops you need.

 

[Sykes179]

Don't focus on ONE thing. The game is so complex with many many factors that it's easy to lose sight of some things whilst ficusing on something else. You become so obsessed with moving Magnus and chopping that you neglect envoys, trade routes, spies, amenities, money, great people etc.

As for chopping in general, don't get me started.