I am having a very difficult time winning a game on prince level. Only time i have ever won a game is when i had an ideal location. The problem is the computer player has double the cities i do. if i try and expand like he does i have major unhappiness problems. I just dont understand what i am doing wrong. Any suggestions will be helpful
Trying to play on prince
- Thread starter Taz5100
- Start date
Shurdus
Am I Napoleon?
MadDjinn had some very good videos on youtube where he beats the game on deity. A good place to start would be there. See what he does, see if you can use some of those things.
The thing about this game is that expansion is not always the best idea. This is not a game where more is always better. For that reason alone it is not always a good idea to try to keep up with the AI in city count.
Ways to deal with unhappiness is to acquire more resources by settling, trade or from city states, get happy buildings, happy policies, or from natural wonders.
If you want more specific advice on what you might do, you can always try posting some screenshots and ask for feedback, or you can post a save.
The thing about this game is that expansion is not always the best idea. This is not a game where more is always better. For that reason alone it is not always a good idea to try to keep up with the AI in city count.
Ways to deal with unhappiness is to acquire more resources by settling, trade or from city states, get happy buildings, happy policies, or from natural wonders.
If you want more specific advice on what you might do, you can always try posting some screenshots and ask for feedback, or you can post a save.
I understand the less is better i actually prefer a small empire. But the problem i face is if i have 5 cities and he has 15 he can beat me in every aspect of the game except culture. he gets more science more gold and has a huge army lol how can i win the game against that.
Get a lot of puppet cities? Or you can still pull out a science or culture victory with 5 cities. Just have to be careful they don't buy up all the city states and win by diplo.
Anyway for the original question, set up an ideal game with map type and win conditions suited to your character. e.g. England on an archipelago vs other non naval civs. Reroll soem starts until you get a good one. This you should be able to win, maybe even on King, and it will give you confidence.
Five cities is actually plenty for a human to win a science victory with even with the AI founding 2X the cities.
Sell surplus strategic resources and luxuries to get cash for research agreements.
As to the AI, its playing on the Chieftain happiness level.
Sell surplus strategic resources and luxuries to get cash for research agreements.
As to the AI, its playing on the Chieftain happiness level.
PhilBowles
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2011
- Messages
- 5,333
What's important in Civ V is population more than cities - so if you only have 5 cities, you can still beat your opponents if you have greater overall population. A city with 10 pop and a library produces as much science as a five cities each with 2 pop and a library. You also want to make use of the research agreement mechanic (available once you research Philosophy) and producing Great Scientists if you're struggling to match the AI in science.
The key is happiness. Pick social policies that give you happiness, build happiness buildings, improve luxury tiles and buy off city states that have a luxury you don't and you'll have more happiness then you can use.
I recently finished a game where I had a massive puppet empire of 30 or so cities, plus 5 more of my own settled cities, with 20+ population in each settled city and through a combination of the things I mentioned above had +93 happiness when I won the game.
It's not all that hard to stay ahead of the AI in nett happiness if you focus on it and you should focus on it as, as you know, it's the limiting factor for everything in the game with the arguable exception of culture victories.
Derpy Hooves
Grand Inquisitor
Sadly enough the gameplay kind of has it's manual, generally people don't have to settle as much cities as the AI because we tend to only select the locations that will produce a good city, what's also important is to realize how important warfare is and how to do it, unless you have a specific UU you want to abuse generally try to go for a mix of units that should contains siege weaponry and whatever units you can defend them with best (I personally like to have around 3-5 siege weapons that I keep alive during the game so it get's insane promotions then a couple of swordman or the relevant era's equivelant a couple of archers to take down advancing units quickly).
Eventually you will very likely have more cities then the AI, but not because you built them.
What's also very important when conquering a city is to see how useful it will be, look at what buildings it has, it's position and if it looks bad just burn the place, if your not gonna use it it's probably just gonna be a burden.
Your opponent will pretty much always have more warring units then you, the only way to deal with this is superior tactics, use your siege weaponry effectively, build units with alot of movement points to take theirs down. The AI is terrible at positioning and knowing what the terrain values means so often times you can just select a good bottleneck they will have to pass, deplay your siege weaponry and just murder them while they try to reach your units, you can also turn your Great Generals into Citadels that are absolutely amazing at slaughtering units, even if they stand on the citadel they will still lose 30% of their hitpoints per turn and any unit that is adjascent to it, so perfect if you have to defend a more open position.
It's pretty simple really, the AI will always cheat but it will make up for it by being terrible at pretty much everything, exploit it by warring, rushing tech, rushing wonders (especially happiness and science boosting wonders are very important, Notre Dame, Porcelain Tower) and generally not making bad decisions (like make buildings that just drain money but hardly do anything), and if you really have no idea what to do just check some of the LP's that people have alluded to earlier.
Eventually you will very likely have more cities then the AI, but not because you built them.
What's also very important when conquering a city is to see how useful it will be, look at what buildings it has, it's position and if it looks bad just burn the place, if your not gonna use it it's probably just gonna be a burden.
Your opponent will pretty much always have more warring units then you, the only way to deal with this is superior tactics, use your siege weaponry effectively, build units with alot of movement points to take theirs down. The AI is terrible at positioning and knowing what the terrain values means so often times you can just select a good bottleneck they will have to pass, deplay your siege weaponry and just murder them while they try to reach your units, you can also turn your Great Generals into Citadels that are absolutely amazing at slaughtering units, even if they stand on the citadel they will still lose 30% of their hitpoints per turn and any unit that is adjascent to it, so perfect if you have to defend a more open position.
It's pretty simple really, the AI will always cheat but it will make up for it by being terrible at pretty much everything, exploit it by warring, rushing tech, rushing wonders (especially happiness and science boosting wonders are very important, Notre Dame, Porcelain Tower) and generally not making bad decisions (like make buildings that just drain money but hardly do anything), and if you really have no idea what to do just check some of the LP's that people have alluded to earlier.
apocalypse105
Deity
- Joined
- May 17, 2011
- Messages
- 2,705
Look at you're starting location and tech proparly for the luxury resources..
If you have wine tech to pottery for callender.(if gold tech mining)
Settle you're new cities next to luxury resources you don't have So you get new happiness.
Expand slowly and try to sell some luxury resources for 30 turns(the turns you don't expand for gold.
If you play it right you can have 4 cities ...
If you have wine tech to pottery for callender.(if gold tech mining)
Settle you're new cities next to luxury resources you don't have So you get new happiness.
Expand slowly and try to sell some luxury resources for 30 turns(the turns you don't expand for gold.
If you play it right you can have 4 cities ...
chazzycat
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
- Messages
- 3,085
to match the AI in city spam, you have to really focus on happiness. The AI gets massive bonuses to happiness so they are not restricted that way like the human player. To me the best ways to get over this and spam some cities are:
1) at first only settle new cities that offer a NEW luxury
2) get meritocracy for +1 per city and +5% overall (you want liberty anyways if you want to expand)
3) Go for organized religion under piety for +2 per city (you should build monuments & temples anyway). If you go wide and pull it off, you don't need rationalism (trust me)
4) If playing a very aggressive game, take honor instead of liberty, then piety. Settle less cities and conquer more instead. Puppets will build walls & stuff that increases happiness. Don't let puppets grow too much - build TPs on hills to slow down growth & increase production.
5) Investing in patronage can really help. CS are a good source of luxuries, even if you don't get to that policy that increases happiness. This is somewhat map dependent, but usually there is a decent benefit to selecting patronage when you can afford the gold for CS upkeep.
6) Later, take order or autocracy. Order is generally better unless you have annexed a lot of cities.
Then there's wonders. Wonders are an integral part of the happiness mix, especially for wide empires. Even the "minor" happiness wonders like Chichen Itza and Taj Mahal give as much as luxury, which is nothing to sneeze at. Notre Dame, Forbidden Palace, and Eiffel Tower are all VERY powerful. ND is probably the single most important because of how early it comes and the high happiness value. Education is always an important target so you should be able to build it by turn 100 or so. IMO it can be more valuable than the porcelain tower in a lot of situations.
That's if you want to play the game like the AI. Of course you could just stay at 3 cities, sign a crap-ton of research agreements, and win the game almost every time.
1) at first only settle new cities that offer a NEW luxury
2) get meritocracy for +1 per city and +5% overall (you want liberty anyways if you want to expand)
3) Go for organized religion under piety for +2 per city (you should build monuments & temples anyway). If you go wide and pull it off, you don't need rationalism (trust me)
4) If playing a very aggressive game, take honor instead of liberty, then piety. Settle less cities and conquer more instead. Puppets will build walls & stuff that increases happiness. Don't let puppets grow too much - build TPs on hills to slow down growth & increase production.
5) Investing in patronage can really help. CS are a good source of luxuries, even if you don't get to that policy that increases happiness. This is somewhat map dependent, but usually there is a decent benefit to selecting patronage when you can afford the gold for CS upkeep.
6) Later, take order or autocracy. Order is generally better unless you have annexed a lot of cities.
Then there's wonders. Wonders are an integral part of the happiness mix, especially for wide empires. Even the "minor" happiness wonders like Chichen Itza and Taj Mahal give as much as luxury, which is nothing to sneeze at. Notre Dame, Forbidden Palace, and Eiffel Tower are all VERY powerful. ND is probably the single most important because of how early it comes and the high happiness value. Education is always an important target so you should be able to build it by turn 100 or so. IMO it can be more valuable than the porcelain tower in a lot of situations.
That's if you want to play the game like the AI. Of course you could just stay at 3 cities, sign a crap-ton of research agreements, and win the game almost every time.
My understanding is on Prince, AI gets no extra bonuses or penalties (thus the massive happiness you see on higher difficulties isn't as much of an issue)--is this not true?
Also, re: selling luxuries, spamming RAs, remember the OP is specifically referencing Prince. The strategies that win on Deity/Immortal aren't quite as elegant on Prince. Not that you can't still sell, of course, but know that AIs will have way way way way less money than on Deity.
Also, re: selling luxuries, spamming RAs, remember the OP is specifically referencing Prince. The strategies that win on Deity/Immortal aren't quite as elegant on Prince. Not that you can't still sell, of course, but know that AIs will have way way way way less money than on Deity.
TentacleMayor
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2008
- Messages
- 87
So does the AI cheat with happiness even on Prince? I'm inclined to think so, I'm always at the bottom in approval. Anything else they get extra?
chazzycat
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
- Messages
- 3,085
this is a common misunderstanding. For happiness, the AI operates at chieftain level, no matter what difficulty level the human player is playing at. This is a huge cheat for the AI basically. I don't recall the specific numbers but it's definitely very significant.
On higher levels they also have growth bonuses, which can be even harder to deal with. Free happy + faster growth than the human = dangerous AI.
NotSure
King
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2011
- Messages
- 712
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ5/difficulties
From what I can tell the AI starts with 12 happiness (player starts with 9); AI only suffers 60% unhappiness from cities and population. Does that look right?
From what I can tell the AI starts with 12 happiness (player starts with 9); AI only suffers 60% unhappiness from cities and population. Does that look right?
bozosmithy
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2011
- Messages
- 45
watch replays on youtube i have found wainy very good at explaining tactics and the right wonders to go for and when where to use GS and GE. As for AI not having gold they will still except the deal on GPT so you can cripple them by making the give you all there gold and have non in reserve and then taken them over?
chazzycat
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
- Messages
- 3,085
This is true, in that you don't really want to match the AI city for city. They do build some pretty stupid ones. But I wouldn't totally discourage playing with a wide style. It is a good strat in the right situation, and just requires a bit more effort on happiness.
@Notsure - yeah I think that's the thread I remember. Pretty major advantages...
After about 3 cities it becomes difficult to keep up with happiness for awhile until you get CS allies, policies, luxuries, ect.. Once you have the happiness to support another city you might as well capture an enemy city that is already developed instead of settling a new one. In SP it usually doesn't make sense to go wide most of the time.
chazzycat
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
- Messages
- 3,085
I guess I prefer a more flexible approach, probably because I usually play random map/random civs (on immortal). I have a pretty good success rate on both my tall & wide games. Sure, maybe a 3-city RA-heavy game will win slightly faster than my wide games, but who wants to do that every time? I'm not really arguing that wide is ideal, just that it's a totally viable (and fun) option in the right situation. It MAY be ideal in some situations, I can't say for sure.
NotSure
King
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2011
- Messages
- 712
I settle a wide empire in most of my games too. As you go up that becomes harder, unless you get a great start and/or conquer some land. I play most of my games at Emperor or Immortal, so I take about all of the land I can can get. I do it for the same reason as chazzycat. The only thing this approach limits is the ability to go for a cultural victory. Well, I guess it can get you killed if you don't do it right. There's that little thing...
Advantages to REX are a better long-term economy (that's probably the biggest one), pinning back neighbors and denying them the chance to build a strong empire and have access to strategic and luxury resources, and better long-term production. The three city tech tree blitz is a lot harder when there isn't mammoth piles of AI gold everywhere.
Advantages to REX are a better long-term economy (that's probably the biggest one), pinning back neighbors and denying them the chance to build a strong empire and have access to strategic and luxury resources, and better long-term production. The three city tech tree blitz is a lot harder when there isn't mammoth piles of AI gold everywhere.
