[GS] Too many things to do

[GeoffreyCZ]

Hey all,

would like to get your opinion on one of my problems I have been constantly having in all of my games. Wha I got from many youtube civ videos and guides is to settle many cities early which I am trying to do. BUT I don't know how to do it when there are much more things to produce - builders, army for protection, districts, granaries and monuments. How do you handle this?

Also, is it better to wait for Magnus settler promotion, 50% settler production policy and gov. district settler building and then spam settlers or build them sooner? Cause if I wait for all those settler bonuses, I feel it is already too late and I may lose some of the juicy land.

PS: I usually play domination or science games on immortal.

Thanks!

 

[Bitterman]

No, you settle since the beginning and continue to settle faster as you get more bonuses, but try to occupy all land that can be occupied asap.

What you produce depends on how well developed the city actually is and what type of victory/objective are you aiming for. If you think there is nothing specially valuable, look at the great people window and try to attract one of those with city projects or hight gold/faith. You can also look at CS quests to see if there is something you can do about it. If not, wonders are another bullet.

 

[Tech Osen]

You're basicly discibing the entire crux of the game. Finding that balance is what it's all about.

 

[Scaramanga]

Do what's expedient but have some sort of long term plan based on your civ.

 

[Victoria]

When you play efficiently there is always competing needs

builders, army for protection, districts, granaries and monuments. How do you handle this?

Districts only for eurekas, inspirations or another good reason.
Army is key, if you are safe is you can put it off a bit but you do need it and the 50% cards make it easier and more efficient.
Settlers, get maybe 2 out them wait for the 50% card at early empire... and here is a choice decision... early empire or go for early government building... not an easy choice and swayed by other choices perhaps.
Monuments, typically buy them if you can and granaries need to be got somehow sometime unless you make a conscious decision not to.

 

[GeoffreyCZ]

When you play efficiently there is always competing needs

Districts only for eurekas, inspirations or another good reason.
Army is key, if you are safe is you can put it off a bit but you do need it and the 50% cards make it easier and more efficient.
Settlers, get maybe 2 out them wait for the 50% card at early empire... and here is a choice decision... early empire or go for early government building... not an easy choice and swayed by other choices perhaps.
Monuments, typically buy them if you can and granaries need to be got somehow sometime unless you make a conscious decision not to.

I feel like if I focus on army and postpone campuses, I will get behind with science and will be out-teched by the enemy and therefore will not be safe. It happened to me few times already. Was at war with Japan, got stronger army but in the moment he fot crossbowmen, i was screwed and was unable to get his cities.

 

[Victoria]

he got crossbowmen, i was screwed and was unable to get his cities.

Since the last patch the Ai seems to beeline crossbowmen and the general strategy of infrastructure first before districts does mean you will lag before you overtake. You can get your districts up earlier but it is at the expense of other things. As long as you understand that and the dynamic because you can end up starting ahead then lag behind with that approach.
You are playing on immortal and it is difficult. Do you place your districts but not build them? This helps a lot later of whenever you choose to build them. The chopping example you may see below as a link is a bit old but does still cover the topic relatively well.
The Xbow wall since last patch may not show up on older play through's but it is a serious wall that happens now and has to be dealt with in its own way and attacking cities with xbows is not a sensible option.

 

[GeoffreyCZ]

Since the last patch the Ai seems to beeline crossbowmen and the general strategy of infrastructure first before districts does mean you will lag before you overtake. You can get your districts up earlier but it is at the expense of other things. As long as you understand that and the dynamic because you can end up starting ahead then lag behind with that approach.
You are playing on immortal and it is difficult. Do you place your districts but not build them? This helps a lot later of whenever you choose to build them. The chopping example you may see below as a link is a bit old but does still cover the topic relatively well.
The Xbow wall since last patch may not show up on older play through's but it is a serious wall that happens now and has to be dealt with in its own way and attacking cities with xbows is not a sensible option.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense, never thought about that. So if I want to have a religion, I push for holy sites and shrines, other districts can wait for my army and settlers/builders to finish first. Thanks!

 

[Victoria]

Oh, that makes a lot of sense, never thought about that. So if I want to have a religion, I push for holy sites and shrines, other districts can wait for my army and settlers/builders to finish first. Thanks!

NP, if you want to have religion then this also is a slow down. My approach to religion (unless going for an RV) is to get up a site, spam in 2 projects and leave the rest of the building until phase 2 at about T80. Phase 1 is for settler, monuments, granaries and ofc, army.

 

[GeoffreyCZ]

NP, if you want to have religion then this also is a slow down. My approach to religion (unless going for an RV) is to get up a site, spam in 2 projects and leave the rest of the building until phase 2 at about T80. Phase 1 is for settler, monuments, granaries and ofc, army.

Ok, will try that i my next game where I want to try religion domination (I usually don't bother with religion).

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Welcome to the Party!!
Many of us struggle with the choices in the game.
It's a balancing act that most of us are addicted to.

I find the map settings makes a world of difference.
You can change the maps to have more or less of everything.
If you ask me I would say water maps are far easier than large land masses.
I find things are much more difficult with sparse land.
I guess my point is you can make things a little easier with settings like Wet and New World.
This will give you massive amounts of chops and hills for production.
I play everything Standard except that I make it Low Sea Level.
I find the spawns to be very erratic.
So the problem is being able to identify your situation asap and act accordingly.
Sometimes it is easier said than done for us mortals.

 

[GeoffreyCZ]

I always play with New World setting on since I really like volcanoes and mountains maps. Wet makes the map have more woods and rainforests?

 

[Disgustipated]

If you want, you can alternate until you get the hang of it. Military unit, builder, settler, trader, and then alternate military units, district, settler. Or something like that. But there is always the option to take what you want from the ai. Then it's mostly military units. This may not be viable if they are too far away, or too strong.

 

[Victoria]

trader

So you get to foreign trade and your trader costs 43 production or 170 gold.
You want to build a trader but there are other pressing things to build so you decide to build it a little while later and find that same trader now costs 50 production (or 200 gold) so you start building it
Meanwhile another civic is discoverd by you and you find your trader which is still being built has increased to 53 production so you decide to buy it now but you do not have enough gold because it is 210 gold to buy.
By delaying your trader build it cost you 10 more production. If you are willing to buy it for 170 gold you get it maybe 5-8 turns earlier and a trader that much earlier is also going to get you 5-8 more production and 5-8 more food or 15-24 more gold... and you know how this speeds up your game curve... as long as you do not lose your trader.

Builders are also dynamic in the queue, you put a builder in your queue for 54 production then deide to buy a builder and suddenly your builder production increases to 58 production. Build builders in 2 cities for 54 prouction and the one finished second will suddenly increase in cost.

I agree, some simple queue to start but I just do not use queues in this game because the situation changes so much and there is so much to consider.

 

[Bitterman]

My advice about religion is: unless you have a specific civ with specific religious bonuses, do not place high hopes on this. It depends a lot on what other civs do you have in the match.

For example, Arabia means you can get only 1 religion out of 5. Russia will also get a religion before anyone else 99% of the time because their Lavras and so will Poland because their extra wild card slot (this would also be the case with Greece, but due its bonuses they don't push that hard for it). Japan and Hungary have extra production to district under certain circumstances and they do like religion. Aztecs can spend builder charges to get theit Holy districts faster. And China can get Stonhenge any day and steal a religion if they want. And so on.

In contrast, heavy religion focused civs like Spain, Khemer, and Georgia have 0% bonuses to founding a religion, so if you are using one of them, just do your best and pray (pun intended).

 

[Scaramanga]

In contrast, heavy religion focused civs like Spain, Khemer, and Georgia have 0% bonuses to founding a religion, so if you are using one of them, just do your best and pray (pun intended).

With Spain I will start researching Astrology first and build a scout right away with hopes of finding a natural wonder. But then finishing astrology regardless if I find one, UNLESS virtually no one has great prophet points.

 

[GeoffreyCZ]

So, I've got an update on my situation. Was able to win several immortal games with ease so I decided to step up my game and tried deity. Played several games and lost all of them, most due to my own mistakes but I want to point out two of them. Both I played on deity as Alexander on Huge map with 9 other civs, Continents and islands, wet, balanced start, age - new.

First game:

Was surrounded by 4 civs (FML) but still was able to settle 7 solid cities. Build my campuses and few encampments, build an army and decided to join with Jadwiga with her war on Saladin and get few of his cities. Managed to get 1 but lost it due to dark age loyality issues to Poland and after that several oponents were so much ahead of science and technology I decided to end it. Gilgamesh had so much cities and so much science, same with Ghandi and Jadwiga. So I thought, hmm, I should have build my army earlier and get some enemy cities sooner, so I started game nr. 2.

Second game:

With the knowledge from game one, I decided to build my army around the time when Macedonian UU is researched, tossed a catapult and 3 archers and declared war on Mansa Musa. I advanced slowly cause according to the military strength he had much more units than me so I wanted to use a mountain range to lure him and kill his units one by one. That went really well, decided to move my units to take first city but he already had hiss crossbowmens and was unable to do anything to that city. So i made a peace and decided to settle the rest of the free land I had. Few turn later, Nubia declared surprise war so I moved my units to defend myself and was able to do it very successfully. She hasn't gained anything and lost many many units but still was able to pump more with her production. 30 turn later, she was again one generation units ahead (I had knights, crossbowmans, she had pike and shoots and cuirassiers). I did have the tech for field cannons and cuirassiers developed but had no gold to upgrade my units since Mansa Musa declared war on me too and pillaged all trade routes that were traveling to his cities.

I know I had to make many mistakes, some of them are apparent to me but I would still like your insight on this. Thanks.

 

[Victoria]

I know I had to make many mistakes, some of them are apparent to me but I would still like your insight on this. Thanks.

Campus early is good, you need to maximise adjacency then slot the double adjacency card.
It is quite subtle but you do need culture early too but science is the beast in the game and without knowing more about your game play it is hard to say. Deity is not easy and 7 cities is great... you do Feudalism chop strategy?

 

[GeoffreyCZ]

No, I don't. My main issue (at least from my perspective, you would probably disagree) is that I don't know how to successfully take cities before observation baloons and the ability to bombard cities from safety. The AI just spam crossbowman and I can't keep up with their unit production. And if I spam units, I get behind in science cause I am not building libraries and universities.

It's funny to me, some time ago I was in similar situation when king was very easy and emperor too hard, now I can easily win immortal and not been able to win deity (except for one a bit lucky win few years ago with Nubia where I used the UU to get me many cities early).

 

[Victoria]

The AI just spam crossbowman and I can't keep up with their unit production.

On deity I tend to get 3 slings, 3 warriors, 3 chariots and a spearman earlyish because the eurekas and inspirations are well worth it. The (not simple) decision about which ones to take and which not is important too.
If my neighbour is distracted or I can hold them off and they look vulnerable, I will try for an early attack (I tend not to play Aztecs or Babylonians etc. Who always early attack) otherwise I will not go near cities because of XBows unless I pushed for a GG in which case I wanted to attack early.
With a GG your artillery can move and fire and your foot troops are that bit stronger, tougher and faster with a ram to take a walled city. Anti ranged promotions are pretty much a must.
You can always try to bait her out but it does not always work, remember that the AI likes to be able to see you so killing her vision helps bait her.
Another trick is misdirecting fire, a catapult and a warrior advancing together normally gets the warrior shot, not the cat... so having sacrificial troops helps also (I use scouts in this role). So maybe do not promote every warrior. She targets weak combat strength units.
Taking all their gold before war is another approach,then you pillage their plantations and they end up decommissioning their xbows... cities and encampments do not get GG bonuses
Finally there is loyalty and sometimes a city can be vulnerable... or even a whole civ is you have worked it out and can be fast enough.
Xbows in walled cities, especially with encampments and GG are not at all nice... and if you see encampments, that normally means GG. In these cases I stand back and out tech them. Then curassiers pillage them, wreck their lands and maybe try for a loyalty attack or just attack... especially if you have Akkad.

I think I might add this to my city combat guide as it seems a pretty handy list now I look at it.