The only valid strategy in Civ 5...

[Vajrajina]

Found 4 cities and turtle until the industrial era.

I tried so hard to make other things work, but this game simply does not want me to get creative. I tried going wide with Isabelle, using the extra 500 gold and the liberty tree to expand quickly but there are only so many good spots for a city, I would have been better off without it.

I tried early warfare with Montezuma, but now everybody hates me, I can't trade with anyone and I'm behind in tech.

I don't understand why they wanted to force you to play one specific way when the point of the game would be to let you play different strategies.

It doesn't matter what you want, the best way to do it is to go Tradition, found 4 cities and get as much science as you can. Anything else and the the entire world will unite against you. I even remember a mongol game, where all I did was founding 6 cities and lo and behold, I got denounced by everyone.

Such a waste. This game could be so much better.

Any ideas why they wanted players to play this specific way? Are they going to fix this in the next installment of the series?

 

[meatpardle]

Well it isn't the only way but it's certainly where the game drives you. Try some of the AI mods, might offer something slightly different.

 

[historix69]

This game could be so much better.

You are free to mod the game rules. I used to play with modified rules on Giant World Map, marathon speed, founding/conquering dozens of cities and having fun ... (e.g. I turned off the per-city-rules of national wonders.)
If you like to warmonger, you can simply turn off the warmonger-penalty and the denouncing by modding the diplomatic values.

Which map size do you use for 4-city-turtle? Do you know that the culture/science-penalty for additional cities is lower on huge/giant maps ...

 

[Ribannah]

Liberty is quite viable, but you have to know what you're doing. There are more decisions to make.

If the AI thinks you found too many cities they will get angry. So if you wish to avoid that, keep a close watch on what they are doing themselves. If there is an AI with many cities, you can follow suit.

 

[Chum]

Sounds to me like you're just not as good at making other things work as you are at making 4 city tradition work.

So try more. Liberty is viable. Honor/Commerce is viable.

 

[SULOMON]

ICS can be viable, not optimal but viable (also very fun).

 

[darkskies]

Keep trying and pushing and you'll learn. Look up specific advice or ask for specific help. I usually go liberty and on deity win most of those games, on lower levels always. But I play huge maps/marathon ymmv. I've tried going just Honor first and won that too but didn't much care for it. In short build your skills.

 

[Vajrajina]

Sounds to me like you're just not as good at making other things work as you are at making 4 city tradition work.

So try more. Liberty is viable. Honor/Commerce is viable.

Honor would be okay if you are going to attack early, and is always good for the Aztecs.

To those who say I'm bad, I play on 6 (I think that's Emperor?). Certainly not the highest difficulty, but I also beat the game on Immortal, so I'm not that bad.

 

[darkskies]

Honor would be okay if you are going to attack early, and is always good for the Aztecs.

To those who say I'm bad, I play on 6 (I think that's Emperor?). Certainly not the highest difficulty, but I also beat the game on Immortal, so I'm not that bad.

Yes but your original complaint suggests you need to build your skills if you want to be able to try different things and succeed, it's a big game there's always new things to learn .

 

[Illianor123]

4 city tradition is certainly the easiest, other strategies are a bit harder and will often have you fighting for lands.
When I do domination I often don't have anyone to trade with, simply because they're all dead Recently I was playing continents as the Huns, took honour and clearled my continent by turn 100, then spent ages teching, to battleships and crossed the seas to to win.

Also, on Emperor and above, you will be behind in tech and will need to catch up in tech. What turn where you up to as the Aztecs? How many people had you killed? Did you just take the capitals or wipe them out completely?

 

[noto2]

I'd suggest giving Acken's Mod a try. I only play with it enabled now. It keeps changes to a minimum, so it's not one of those mods that adds units or techs or buildings, it just rebalances things. For example, going wide in Acken's Mod is easier and more rewarding, which means sitting on 4 cities won't allow you to keep up with an empire that has 10+ by the time the game hits the industrial age, in most cases. The AI is changed a lot. It's more goal-oriented (read: aggressive), and will often actively try to conquer its continent. Honestly, it's worth playing a couple games to see what you think of it.

 

[sunbeam]

I tried so hard to make other things work, but this game simply does not want me to get creative. I tried going wide with Isabelle, using the extra 500 gold and the liberty tree to expand quickly but there are only so many good spots for a city, I would have been better off without it.

I don't play on deity so the game may be different at that level.

But all the comments I see like "settle city spots with two unique luxuries" ... what map are you guys playing on? I struggle to find THREE spots that meet this criteria. And quite often the AI beats me to them.

The other thing is, watching let's plays, it seems like every time someone faces a happiness issue there is an AI civ with a luxury item they are willing to trade.

In my games they don't have any spare luxury items to trade. Or they have the wrong ones, or I haven't met all the AI's, etc. Or they have their own silk, and could care less about trading their silver for my silk.

And often they have no gold, or just plain don't want to trade with me.

Without fail on those videos they find someone who will give them a gold per turn or something for just one horse or iron.

I've peddled my wares quite often and gotten no takers.

Think I read somewhere the AI's are a lot more likely to have spare luxuries and willing to make deals on higher difficulties. I think I can believe it, because what I see on the videos and what I see in games are two different things.

 

[liv]

In your other thread you are saying you are playing emperor. I have certainly gone wide with emperor many many times. Although I usually have a short pause in expanding to build the NC at some point.
I know there are several guides as how to win the game on deity with a liberal opener so there are different ways to play even on very high difficulties.

 

[Matthew.]

While the game is overly in favor of tall play, you can still play wide.

Take good city locations from AI. As long as you aren't completely removing them from the game, you can usually keep favorable relations with most of the other AI's.

Wide play takes a slight adjustment in your thinking and how you approach the game. It isn't as simple as just dropping more cities and expecting it to play out like a 4 city tradition game... with more cities.

 

[danaphanous]

Going tall is definitely the most straightforward, but going wide can work--you just need to change up your strategy. For instance, in wide empires you need to micro your cities so they stop growing for parts of the game and possibly buy a lot more buildings to get to your national wonders. Getting happiness and culture sources from religion will help you out a LOT going wide as well. A strong religion is one of the best supporters of a wide empire. Religion is pretty viable up through immortal in my experience.

For war, you can't do what the AI do. Unless you start isolated with another civ on an island early war is a bad idea as it makes everyone hate you. Bide your time, build a good military, make some friends, and go to war WITH them when you do or bribe them to start it first. All these are good ways to keep friends while wiping out other civs. If you don't do this expect to take on the entire world...which I've done with Shaka on emperor but the standard civ might have trouble with that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The game is poorly tuned for sure. If you're not trying to mow everything down with military to end the game outright, the 3-4 city trad is over-dominant.