Tutorial for Beginners

amateurgamer88

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Hi everyone! This is amateurgamer88 and this thread has the purpose of containing tutorials for beginners. In addition to the basics, I will from time to time add in some advanced stuff to help those with higher difficulties. The goal is to help those new to the game while adding knowledge that others might find useful in their games. There's a lot to cover so I honestly don't know how many parts will be included.

The tutorials will be in two formats (Screenshot Playthrough and Video). Screenshot Playthrough will be text and screenshots while Video is, well, a YouTube video. I understand that people learn differently so hopefully one of the two formats will work for everyone. I will try to keep the two formats similar in information but my videos might include more as it's easier to go off at a tangent for those. I will try to make the videos shortish (10 to 15 minutes) so people can watch them in small bits without feeling like a big marathon. If the topics are big, expect a mini-series for those.

Below is the Table of Contents regarding the various things I plan on adding for tutorials. I plan on regularly updating it to ensure that people can find what they want. Some of these will over time get subcategories indicated by letters beside the number. Without further ado...

Table of Content:
1. Why play Vox Populi?
2. Installing and Starting the Game
3. Recommended initial setups (civ, map, difficulty, etc)
4. Ancient Era Policy Trees
5. Happiness Management
6. Ancient Era Technology
7. Early Build Orders/Options
8. Pantheons
9. Resources and Monopolies
10. Early Wonders
11. Religion
12. World Congress
13. Corporation
14. Making Modpacks
 
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Why Play Vox Populi?

A legit question for many playing Civilization V is why they should play Vox Populi (VP). What does this mod put to the table that makes it a more tempting option than just Civ V BNW? This post aims to answer the question of what VP has to offer so people can decide if they want to give the mod a chance.

First and foremost, the mod is being actively updated with the modders listening to opinions and suggestions. Since feedback is generally taken seriously, you can expect VP to be headed in the right direction. If the base VP isn't quite your cup of tea, there's a good chance one of the available mod mod will fill whatever niche you desire or if you're like me and want to develop your mods for VP, there's an amazing community to help get you started on your modding "career."

Secondly, VP gives the player more choices. For vanilla BNW, certain patterns and strategies are necessary to win games. For example, you might be going for the ranged units build to win wars because they are largely what you need to defeat the AIs. VP does it differently where all units have their niche and none can carry the entire game. While some units might [resent a huge military spike, you generally need a more diverse military to win wars. VP also provides more options regarding what civilization you want to go for. There are some civilizations in vanilla BNW that are just absolutely terrible and should only be reserved for challenges. VP balances unique abilities (UA), unique units (UU), unique buildings (UB), and/or unique improvements (UI) in a way where all civ are playable. Some might need more tweaking but the balancing is far better. Given that changes are still being made, you can be sure that the very underpowered civilizations will be getting some love too

Thirdly, :c5science: Science is king in vanilla BNW. Nothing makes a game more one-dimensional than a single yield being the main victory condition. VP makes it so you cannot neglect any of your yields so focusing on just :c5science: Science isn't going to help you win games. Since the requirements for victory conditions have also changed in VP, certain yields will be more important in-game compared to another. These emphasize the importance of doing well in all yields while focusing heavily on the one that can get you to your victory condition faster than all your competition.

Speaking of competition, you are probably wondering about the AIs. Do they still get bonuses on higher difficulties in VP? They still get bonuses but the bonuses are less overall and scale over the eras. How much less? Remember the free Settler, 2 free Workers, and other units vanilla BMW Deity AI gets? That's quite an advantage this early in the game. VP Deity AI gets a combat unit and an exploration unit. There are other changes but that will be cover in a future update. With improvements to AI diplomacy, combat decisions, and other aspects of the AI game, you can be certain these AIs will be giving you a tougher time. It's no longer reaching parity with AI and victory is guaranteed. Some games might even go down to the wire.

There are so many other incredible changes that we sadly cannot cover here. Curious? Interested? Why not install VP to give it a try yourself?
 
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Installing and Starting the Game

You have decided to give VP a try? Wonderful! Let's get to the installation steps then. This should be straightforward but, due to various reasons like where Steam keeps your files, it can trickier than you might imagine. So, hopefully, this guide will help you through with most of the problems you might encounter.

First, we need a version of VP. We'll first head to Civfinatics Forum and find the section where Community Patch Project (the former name for VP). You can find it through Home > Forums > CIVILIZATION V > Civ5 - Creation & Customization > Civ5 - Project & Mod Development > Community Patch Project.

Then, we'll find the post with the version we want to try out. For this guide, we'll go with the June 19th, 2020 version. You can see it below. You'll find the patch notes nicely organized. You'll also notice three names: Gazebo, ilteroi, and Recursive. These are the three main modders for VP so they are the people, along with many unsung heroes who have all did incredible work, you thank for how incredible VP is. There's a link at the bottom of the post that you can download.

Spoiler :

tutorial2a.png



You have downloaded the version of VP that you want? Wonderful! Let's get to installing it. Before I install it though, we have to move the downloaded to the right folder. You'll see a bunch of files as I got too lazy to delete the older versions. You'll see some versions having a -2 after the date like 6-19-2. These are oftentimes hotfixes in response to bugs and they come out shortly after the release of the version once testers report them to mods. You will move your downloaded file to Documents > My Games > Sid Meier's Civilization 5 > MODS. This will ensure that your mod files are installed at the right location so your game can access them.

Spoiler :

tutorial2b.png



Next, we get to install the game. I'm not going to explain how to install the game but, rather, the different versions you have access to. There are seven options in total. I have always used the Vox Populi (including EUI) so I believe that will work for most players. However, I'm certain some people might select the version that caters to their taste. Below is a general overview of the different options (with some help from @tu_79 ):

Community Patch only option allows the players to play Civ 5 BNW with better AI, some bug fixes, and the option to use many other mods. VP (no EUI) is the full mod with all the features made possible through five big mods. VP (EUI version) is the full mod with the enhanced user interface mod. VP (43 civs) allow you to play all the civs in one match without City-States enabled.
Spoiler :

tutorial2c.png



Let's say that you have installed the mod and wanted to play without waiting another day. Maybe you haven't gotten into mods before so this is unfamiliar territory for you. The following instructions will help you get started. Naturally, the first step is clicking on MODS when you load up the game. You have to enable (see screenshot in the spoiler below) a bunch of the mods. I'm using the VP (EUI version) and I enable the following mods: (1) Community Patch (v. ??), (2) Community Balance Overhaul (v. ??), (3) City-State Diplomacy Mod for CBP (v. ??), (4) C4DF - CBP (v. 11), (5) More Luxuries - CBO Edition (5-14b) (v. xx), and (6a) Community Balance Overhaul - Compatibility Files (EUI).

Spoiler :

tutorial2d.jpg



Once you click NEXT with all your mods enabled, it can take a short while or, if you have a potato laptop like me, a very long time before they are all loaded. Then, you go Single Player >> SET UP GAME. After that, you can pick a civilization, map, difficulty, and all that stuff. I'll cover those in more in future updates.
 
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Recommended Initial Setups

With VP installed, you are now ready to play the game. Now, you have a lot of choices to make and that can be tough as with everything that requires a lot of choices. So, what must you figure out then? What civilization are you going to play your first game? What map will you be using? What difficulty? What speed? A lot of decisions and I'm certain that many people don't want to spend too much time on these as they want to get started. Below are some of the recommendations I have regarding all those questions mentioned above.

First, we have to decide on the civilization. There are 43 civilizations so this is going to be difficult. It's also a lot of work going through the Unique Ability (UA), Unique Building/Improvement (UB/UI), and Unique Unit of each civilization. Below are five civilizations that I think are the best civilizations for newcomers. This is very subjective but hopefully, it's a good starting point for newcomers.



Spoiler Carthage :

tutorial3c.png


Carthage is a great civilization for those learning how to go wide and mastering a few other mechanics that can be very powerful if used properly. This civilization also shows the importance of having a strong early game as it can translate to a stronger mid and late game.

First, the UA is what makes going wide powerful. The :c5gold: Gold from finding cities is incredible in that it gives you lots of options. You can either focus on improving your infrastructure so your cities become more productive or you can focus on a stronger military than your neighbors by purchasing units. These give players access to many interesting decisions that could potentially change the rest of the game. Then, you have coastal Cities gaining Lighthouses. While this can be situational depending on maps, lighthouses allow players to settle cities which would've been problematic otherwise due to unhappiness from isolation. As for the TR resource diversity modifier, that's something most players won't have to worry about until they are getting into really advanced things.

Secondly, the Carthaginian UU, Quinquereme, is quite an interesting unit as it's a naval melee unit that's unlocked in the Ancient Era. Against cities this early on, the unit is quite the menace due to fewer counters to it and its ability to take cities very quickly. The unit also gains experience by exploring so it's possible to cross the Ocean to find distant continents with the right promotions. Finally, this unit is a perfect tool to learn about tributing city-state. While tributes have been nerfed in recent patches, it's still something a human player can take advantage of, especially if they go for Authority. The Quinquereme will teach you how to use military leverage to gain yields to potentially snowball very early in the game.

Finally, the civilization has a unique national wonder, Great Cothon. This nation wonder improves all the free lighthouses you gain from the UA and the harbors you will build to improve your coastal cities further. It doesn't seem like an amazing national wonder at first glance but it will help you dominate the seas by providing you with more tools in improving your coastal cities.


Spoiler Ethiopia :

tutorial3d.png


Ethiopia is a pretty good starting point for learning religion mechanics. His kits help him secure a religion while also benefiting from doing various things you want to achieve in-game. Overall, it's a strong civilization that can teach you a bit about planning and be knowledgeable about some of the key mechanics of the game.

First, you have a UA that provides technology when you complete one of three actions: complete a Policy tree, adopt a belief, or choose your first ideology. While it can be fun to pick some policies from each policy tree, it's generally advised to complete the trees because you get additional benefits as a result. Since the UA encourages such, you will ideally develop a good habit of finishing your policy tree. Since religion plays a big role in the game, you are getting rewarded for grabbing a religion. Finally, ideologies are vital for the late game so you are once again rewarded for doing the right thing. To maximize the UA, you will need more advanced strategies like timing your technology so you can get the most expensive techs. This UA will help you with that but, even with sub-optimal plays, it's still quite powerful. The extra Faith from Strategic Resources is just the icing on the cake.

Secondly, the Ethiopian UU, Mehal Sefari, is pretty meh when it comes to UU. It's nice when it comes to fighting around your capital but just alright when you are going on the offensive. With the promotions given to Gunpowder units, this UU can still be useful unlike in the past. However, it's still not something you look forward to as much as some of the other UU.

Thirdly, Ethiopia has the UB, Stele. This UB and the UA are likely the reason why the UU isn't that spectacular. The Stele is a Monument that gives Faith, the same amount as a Shrine. While other civilizations have to choose between Monument (Culture) and Shrine (Faith) from turn one, Ethiopia doesn't have to make that choice as Stele is the combination of both and the civilization can still build a Shrine. Therefore, Ethiopia has a very good chance of finding a religion since its cities, without taking into account of Pantheons, can produce up to 4 Faith each turn and that's nothing to scoff at.


Spoiler Russia :

tutorial3b.png


Russia is a very interesting candidate because it's quite versatile. Generally, this civilization is great for players wanting to learn how to expand peacefully since a wide playstyle is a viable option in VP. Russia is also quite suitable for war as transitioning into a powerful war machine is very much possible.

First, you have a UA that provides :c5science: Science which is a very valuable yield in the early game. It doesn't hurt that expanding your borders is generally encouraged since it helps you both secure resources and is an indication that your :c5culture: Culture output is at decent levels. Doubling of strategic resources can be very powerful because strategic resources now have bonuses when you control 25% and 50% of the total amount. This will encourage you to expand more to take advantage of the bonuses.

Secondly, the Russian UU, Cossack, can be good practice for good positioning due to its ability to inflict more damage to enemies that cannot retreat or disrupt enemy positioning by forcing them to retreat into unfavorable positions. While the mounted ranged unit Cossack replaces isn't incredible in VP compared to other units of its age, there's certainly a niche for this unit, especially if you are fighting defensively where you use your enemy's numbers against them. The unit, while not broken, can certainly be used very effectively in defending your borders.

Third, Russia has the UB, Ostrog, which is likely the reason why Cossack isn't more powerful. Ostrog is known to be mini-Great Walls because it hinders the enemy by forcing them to expend an extra :c5moves: Movement while traversing through the territory of your city that has built this incredible building. Mobility is critical into moving units into position but this building slows the enemy down enough that a smaller force can defend cities or enough time can be brought to recall your units from another front. In addition, this building provides a pretty massive boost to your city's :c5gold: Gold and :c5production: Production to assist you in whatever victory you want to go for.


Spoiler Songhai :

tutorial3a.png


Songhai is a very powerful war focused civilization. If you are a player who wants to experience war, then this civilization is great due to its various tools to ensure its dominance in war. What are some of their tools?

First, you have a UA that gets you more :c5gold: Gold from Barbarian Encampments. For those going on the warpath and picking the war-orientated policy tree, Authority, clearing Barbarian Encampments is a must and this UA encourages you to do that. In addition, the UA will make your units quite versatile in their movement since what are normally obstacles meant to bog down attackers will now become your strength during your offensives.

Secondly, Songhai has the UU, Mandekalu Cavalry which is arguably the strongest Ancient Era Unit. This unit can easily win your wars so you can learn how to manage puppets, annex certain puppets, and plan on how to conquer all of your competition through snowballing early game.

Thirdly, the Songhai UB, Tabya, provide valuable :c5production: Production to assist you in building infrastructure and military faster. These are all critical to ensuring your continued conquest without needing to slow down your momentum for world domination.


Spoiler Spain :

tutorial3e.png


Spain is arguably one of the strongest religious civilization. This civilization is said to be OP by some and boring by others. Regardless, this civilization can be extremely powerful if played properly and should teach a player a lot about spreading religion aggressively to overwhelm foreign religions.

First, Spain has a UA that prevents the spread of foreign religion, whether through missionaries or passive spreading, to owned Cities and Allies City-States. This means that you don't have to worry about defending your religion so you can focus solely on spreading it. You also gain :c5faith: Faith and :c5food: Food from capturing or founding cities which helps you get your Pantheon and Religion sooner than most of your competitors while gained cities are converted to your religion. Finally, you can purchase Naval units with :c5faith: Faith. That's a lot of powerful bonuses revolving around :c5faith: Faith so religion will be the most powerful tool in your toolkit.

Secondly, Spain has the UU, Conquistador, that's not only a decent unit with solid combat strength and can attack cities without any penalties but also settle cities with more buildings built like a Pioneer. Unlike Settlers and Pioneers who cannot be sped up with anyway, a Conquistador can be purchased so getting more cities at this point is made possible with this unit. It's a very unique approach but can be fun for those wanting to try out a different play style.

Thirdly, Spain has the UB, Mission. This UB can be bought with :c5faith: Faith which Spain has a lot of. It gives more defenses and HP to the city making cities harder to take for your enemies. When a citizen is born, you get an instant yield of :c5faith: Faith and :c5gold: Gold to help you with whatever plans you have in mind. Finally, this helps to apply more religious pressure on your enemy cities so you are more likely to spread your religion further.


What maps should you try out? Below is a list of maps you can try out. I don't know the differences well enough to highlight their strengths and weaknesses so this is largely you trying them out to see what you like. Some of them must be downloaded though.

Spoiler :

Continents
Continents++
Communitu_79
Frontier
Pangaea
Planet Simulator
Terra


You have your civilization and map picked out? What's next? We have difficulty and game speed. VP is balanced on Standard speed so, for the most balanced experience, Standard speed is recommended. People do pick Epic and Marathon speed because these speeds allow them to use their UU more as opposed to seeing the turns pass too quickly. Regarding speed, it's mostly a preference but note that Deity on Marathon is easier than Deity on Epic which is easier than Deity on Standard. These are largely the case because more turns shift the advantage more in favor of humans than the AI.

On the topic of difficulty, it's never a bad idea to start on lower difficulties to learn the mechanics. As a general rule, players should pick 2 difficulties lower than the difficulty they play in BNW. With the VP AI constantly improving, that might no longer be the case but it's a good starting point for anyone to try.
 
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Ancient Era Policy Trees

There are three Ancient Era policy trees available: Tradition, Progress, and Authority. Progress is a modified Liberty while Authority is a modified Honor. There are enough differences that I will cover the Ancient Era policies individually in a future tutorial. Below is a general summary of the strengths and weaknesses of these trees. One important thing to note is that, unlike BNW policy trees, VP policy trees must be completed to unlock their respective Wonders.

Tradition is still focused on the :c5capital: Capital so this is the policy tree for a tall play style. Unlike the BNW Tradition, the VP Tradition focuses on Great People generations and improving the :c5capital: Capital. Each policy unlocks a unique building that gives the :c5capital: Capital valuable yields and specialist slots. Since Tradition is made for tall, you will want to send your :c5citizen: Citizens somewhere and those specialist slots will be very tempting options. By working those specialist slots, you get more Great People that you expend for more yields with the help of Tradition. Unlike BNW Tradition where your first four cities benefit from some of the policies, VP Tradition provides smaller bonuses to your satellite cities to help the early game while your :c5capital: Capital is expected to carry you to victory. One of the bigger weaknesses of Tradition is its weak military. You shouldn't expect to get a large military to defend your borders while your capital can build whatever you need. The improvements in AI diplomacy should make tall play a high risk, high reward playstyle.

Progress is still focused on a peaceful wide playstyle with emphasis on infrastructure and more cities. It also has bonuses that scale with the number of cities you have and bonuses to finishing buildings but, unlike BNW Liberty, there are no longer bonuses to training Settlers or a free Settler in Progress. Progress players will need to build Settler from scratch like everyone else. Progress still has a faster Worker improvement rate and you can still get a free Worker, though these bonuses are split between two policies instead of being packed into one single policy. :c5trade: City Connections are also better rewarded so you generally want cities connected sooner rather than later. There's also a policy designed purely for :c5happy: Happiness management. This policy tree can be slow to start but it can become quite powerful mid to late game. The more cities you possess (to a certain limit of course), the better position you are in defending yourself while just outproducing your competition in all yields.

Authority is still focused on expanding through war. How Authority focuses on war is different though as players will notice this. While some aspects like garrison provide :c5happy: Happiness and :c5culture: Culture still exist in VP, there have been noticeable changes. BNW Honor has sped up the production of units, give free Great General, give military units more experience and cheaper upgrades while Authority gives more yields from killing military units and capturing/founding cities along with policies encouraging Tributes, providing a free Settler, reducing costs of Roads and unlocking access to gold purchasable units once you get the necessary technologies. Authority requires the player to be very proactive from the very start like hunting barbarians, clearing barbarian camps, tributes, and going to war. This is the most snowball heavy policy tree because, once you get things going, your competition might not have the chance to catch up to you.

To summarize everything, you have three policy trees with different focuses. Tradition is your go-to for tall play style. Progress is a peaceful wide where you look to expand through Settlers. Authority is a snowballing policy tree that requires a lot of conquests to get things started. What you pick will depend on your civilization, neighbors, play style, and numerous other factors. For those beginning, the best policy tree is usually the one best suited to your civilization. For the civilization suggested before, you can go for the below:

Carthage - Progress
Ethiopia - Tradition
Russia - Progress
Songhai - Authority
Spain - Progress/Authority
 
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Happiness Management

Happiness management is exceptionally important in all games and poor management can make the gaming experience extremely frustrating. The following will provide some basic tools regarding what a player can do to ensure that one's happiness is always at a reasonable level so one can go for a victory condition eventually.

First, we should look at the consequences of poor happiness management. Maybe this will convince you to pay attention to happiness or your game will not be very enjoyable. Your happiness has a global value (or Empire Happiness) and local value. The global value has far-reaching effects and this is often what new players should pay attention to. However, the local value affects the global value so you cannot ignore one without ignoring the other. The global value is shown as a percentage (see the value shown in the yellow rectangle in the screenshot below) and anything above 50% is considered happy. That's generally where you want to be at but it's not the end of the world if you drop slightly lower than this, especially during the early game when you are settling new cities. Between 35% and 50%, your empire is merely unhappy. This means that military units & Settlers are more expensive and growth in your cities will be lower. These can set things back a bit but they won't tear your empire apart. Less than 35% is a whole different story. You'll have barbarians spawning all of your empire and cities can flip. When cities flip, they can return to their former owner or become a City State. Overall, this would be difficult to address so avoid hitting these low values if you can. If your happiness is maintained at reasonable levels, you will be able to work towards a victory as opposed to fighting unhappiness for the rest of your game.

Spoiler :

tutorial5c.jpg



Secondly, let's look at what causes unhappiness so you know what to avoid. When you check your city view, you'll notice four primary unhappiness: distress, poverty, illiteracy, and boredom. These four are associated with :c5food: Food & (not or as the UI suggest with /) :c5production: Production, :c5gold: Gold, :c5science: Science, and :c5culture: Culture respectively. You will experience this unhappiness if you are growing but your yields aren't fulfilling the needs of your citizens. There is math involved here but I won't be going into details here. However, I will show you (in the screenshot below) how you can better deal with this unhappiness. This part of the UI is very useful for those of you who, like me, don't want to do math all the time when playing civ. What this UI provides is showing you what unhappiness you'll gain and/or lose by growing your city another population. This will help you better decide how you want to grow your cities and what buildings to prioritize as a result. By hovering over the Growth Icon (see the yellow circle in the screenshot below), you will see, at the very bottom of the UI, the very useful values to give you a good idea of what problems you need to tackle.

Spoiler :

tutorial5b.jpg



There are also other sources of unhappiness your cities can experience: Isolation, Urbanization, Starvation, Religious Divisions, War Weariness, and Pillaged Tiles. This unhappiness cannot be ignored but they are triggered differently than the four primary unhappiness mentioned above. Three of this unhappiness are largely an issue caused by war so peaceful games shouldn't see these as often. One is meant to slow down tall playstyle while the other is the product of competitive religion competition to see who can convert more of the world. Let's look at them in a bit more detail.
Spoiler :

Isolation: Unhappiness caused by cities that aren't connected to your capital through either roads or Lighthouses. This will also happen when your city is blockaded by the enemy. The value does scale with the population so a larger city will experience more Isolation if any of the conditions above are met. The civilization, Polynesia, also doesn't experience this unhappiness. When your cities are connected, you will be notified that the city has a city connection with your capital. Infrastructure, Trade Routes, and/or eliminating blockades are the solution to Isolation.

Urbanization: This unhappiness is created by your specialists in the city. Each specialist creates one Urbanization Unhappiness in your city so cities with or intended to have lots of specialists cannot ignore Urbanization. Urbanization can be solved through policies and infrastructure.

Starvation: This unhappiness is, as it suggests, caused by not having sufficient food in your city. There are several causes for these issues. Maybe you are at war and your enemy has pillaged your food tiles necessary to support your large cities. When you advanced to a new age, your specialists consume more food so, for cities that weren't producing much of a food surplus, entering a new age can see your city starving. The only solution to Starvation is ensuring enough food is available either through infrastructure or fewer specialists.

Religious Divisions: This unhappiness is caused by the diversity of religion in your cities. Essentially, the more religions there are fighting over your city to gain a majority, the more Religious Divisions you will experience. The solution is usually removing the heretics through Inquisitors as they will rid all the foreign religions while increasing the numbers of your followers. This unhappiness can be an ongoing situation if you have a fierce religious competition as the pressure can also create Religious Divisions even if Missionaries aren't being used as much.

War Weariness: This unhappiness is directly caused by wars. The longer the wars last, the more War Weariness you will suffer. War Weariness is also increased when your units take damage with those attacking acquiring more while those defending getting less. Taking or losing cities can also increase your War Weariness very quickly to encourage you to end wars sooner rather than later. For those with poor happiness management, wars can easily tank one's happiness causing lots of issues. The only way to combat War Weariness is not to fight wars. While some policies and UA can reduce the amount of War Weariness you acquire, you can still gain lots of this unhappiness if your wars last long enough.

Pillaged Tiles: This unhappiness is caused by either war or Barbarians. Barbarians are a problem in the early game when they pillage your tiles and these can create more unhappiness for your civilization. Wars will generally see most, if not all, of your tiles, pillaged. These will create lots of unhappiness in addition to starvation and other issues that will arise due to fewer yields. It does seem ridiculous that we have a lot of unhappiness that stack onto one another but that's just something to encourage you to pillage more during wars to convince your neighbors to concede defeat sooner. The only solution to Pillaged Tiles is to repair those tiles with your Workers.


An important note is that your unhappiness is largely capped by your population. A 4 population city cannot have more than 4 unhappiness unless you have Urbanization at which you can go over the value.

Now that we know of the unhappiness, let's look at the sources of happiness you use to combat all that unhappiness. First, we will look at the global value that's shown as a percentage. Several values affect your civilization as a whole as opposed to your cities individually.
Spoiler :

Difficulty Level Happiness: Depending on your difficulty, you'll get different happiness bonuses. For Settler, you can get up to 12 (value might have changed) happiness while Deity only sees 6 happiness. Each successive difficulty increase will see your bonus happiness dropping by 1. As you can imagine, lower difficulties will see fewer happiness issues while, for those wanting a bigger challenge, happiness management will matter a lot more. This doesn't necessarily mean that happiness management isn't important for lower difficulties but, instead, the early game is easier to play sub-optimally.

Natural Wonder Happiness: The Natural Wonders don't necessarily give you happiness but discovering them will provide you with happiness. In the early game, the happiness you gain from discovering Natural Wonders is quite significant and shouldn't be overlooked. Naturally, we have no control over how many Natural Wonders and certain ones like the Great Barrier Reef are great since you get two for the price of one.

Luxuries/Some Monopolies: Whenever you connect luxuries, happiness goes to your global happiness as opposed to your city's happiness. The happiness provided by luxuries scales with your city so, the larger your empire, the more happiness each luxury will provide. There's each a policy that doubles the happiness you gain from luxury but I will cover that in the future. In addition to the luxuries themselves, some luxuries provide a monopoly (controlling more than half of the same luxuries in the game) that provides a +6 happiness bonus. This might not be impressive late game but, in the early game, this can be a very powerful tool as it can allow you to grow your cities more and/or settle more. There's another policy that can give you more happiness from these monopolies but we'll cover this in the future as well.

Policies: Policies as a whole provide happiness to cities or buildings so they affect local happiness as opposed to global happiness. However, one policy does improve the empire's happiness and it's the Exchange Markets in Statecraft. The policy provides you happiness for each Trade Route active (will need confirmation for this).

Beliefs: Beliefs, like Policies, are largely affecting local happiness. However, it too can affect the empire's happiness. One belief is Inquisition where placing a spy in foreign city nets you 2 happiness while the other is Faith of the Masses where you get 1 happiness for every 2 cities following your religion.

City-States (CS): City State can provide a couple of different sources of happiness. First, allying a CS sees you potentially getting a luxury you lack, and that luxury will be seen as owned by you until you lose that alliance. Secondly, Mercantile CS give happiness when you are friends and/or allies with them. Naturally, allying a Mercantile CS gives you more happiness, and losing alliance or friend's status with the CS will result in losing all the happiness gained. The only permanent happiness you can gain is CS quest rewards. CS gives out quests from time to time and some of those quests give you happiness. If you secure those, the happiness will be permanently added to your empire's happiness for the rest of the game.

Great Musician: When a Great Musician is popped as a tourism bomb, it will not only increase your tourism with the civilization your Great Musician is within the border of but also grant you happiness for your empire. This usually happens quite late in the game since Great Musician is generally chosen for their Great Works. However, it's another source of happiness if you desperately need it late game.


Now that you know what can give you empire happiness, let's see how this happiness affects your empire. Let's say you start with 10 empire happiness. If you only have your capital, then you'll have 10 local happiness for the capital. If you settle your second city, both cities will gain 5 local happiness. When you settle your third city, then your capital gains 4 local happiness, and the other two cities both get 3 local happiness each. By the time you get your fourth city, then your capital and second city gain 3 local happiness each while the last two cities gain 2 local happiness each. Essentially, you are spreading the empire's happiness to your cities as equally as possible with the extra happiness prioritizing the cities that are settled earlier than the other cities. As you can imagine, you get less local happiness in your cities as you get more cities so you need to make sure that you get more empire happiness and/or reduce your unhappiness in your cities.

For the more observant players, you will notice that empire happiness is shown as a % as opposed to a single number. The empire's happiness is mentioned above while the empire's unhappiness is the sum of all the local unhappiness in all your cities. 50% is when your happiness equals your unhappiness so, to stay happy, you need to make sure you have more happiness than unhappiness.

On the topic of unhappiness, let's now discuss the local happiness and unhappiness of cities. We will first need to look at the image in the spoiler below:

Spoiler :

tutorial5a.jpg



We'll start with the local unhappiness first and, as you see above, there's quite a bit to cover. We have the Distress, Poverty, Illiteracy, and Boredom I mentioned earlier along with Isolation, Urbanization, Starvation, Religious Divisions, War Weariness, and Pillage Tiles. What you see above regarding the first four is mostly too advanced for what we need to discuss here. Therefore, I still encourage you to just pay attention to how your happiness changes with growth as it's indicated by the citizen icon or at the bottom of this UI. The rest is math but the numbers will change depending on how the other civilizations are doing. However, we will talk a bit about Needs Factors: Technology, City Size, and Empire Size.

Spoiler :

Technology: The more advanced your civilization is, the more needs are expected of your civilization. This will become an issue if you advance quickly through the ages without building all the infrastructure to keep up with your needs. Therefore, you shouldn't neglect your infrastructure if you don't want unhappiness to grow rampant in your empire.

City Size: The larger your city is, the fewer needs are expected of your citizens in a city. This might, at first glance, encourage tall play all the time. Yet, one must remember that needs are satisfied by the yields your citizens are working with. Therefore, a larger city means that there are fewer great tiles available and there is a point where this needs factor couldn't counter the unhappiness from a larger population. Growing cities tall is certainly a viable option but knows that there are factors that make it tougher to do so beyond a certain population.

Empire Size: The larger your empire, the more needs your citizens have. As you can imagine, the weaker cities will suffer more from this since their yields are lower as a whole compared to other cities. While this needs factor is there to limit a very wide playstyle, there are certainly ways to counteract this like policies and just better infrastructure as a whole.


For the local unhappiness, you can reduce these through Wonders, buildings, Public Works, policies, and beliefs. The reduction will reduce the unhappiness but your happiness will stay the same. Therefore, each reduction only nets you one positive happiness for your city and the empire itself. To gain happiness, you also have similar methods as the reduction like Wonders, buildings, Public Works, policies, and beliefs along with increasing your empire's happiness. We will have future tutorials that will cover in more detail the various sources of unhappiness reduction and happiness increases.
 
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Ancient Era Technology

Understanding the technologies in the Ancient Era is often vital to success. New technologies can unlock the following:
  • New Units
  • New Buildings
  • Reveal Strategic Resources
  • New Wonders
  • New Promotions
  • New Improvements
  • New Trades
  • Etc....
As you can see from the list above, technologies greatly shape your civilization, and, depending on the situation, it can vary quite a bit depending on your priorities. There aren't necessarily useless technologies but some will certainly be pursued sooner than others. The goal of this tutorial is to cover all the Ancient Era technologies so you have a better idea of which technology to pursue and when. We will start with the first column and then move onto the second column. Regarding the tech order, we will cover that at Early Build Orders/Options.

Spoiler Pottery: :

This tech holds great importance because it unlocks the Settler. Settlers are necessary for expanding your territory so neglecting this technology can come to bite you back later. However, it's important to note that Settlers do require your city to reach a population of 4 and uses up a population. Therefore, this tech isn't very useful if you lack the requirements to build Settlers.

For the above issue, we have the Granary that's also unlocked the Pottery. Here, we have a building that provides not only :c5food: Food yields to help grow your city faster but also given an instant yield of 25 :c5food: Food to further speed up the growth of your city. If you have resources like Wheat, Deer, Bananas, and Bison, then Granary is going to help provide you with a sizable amount of food in the early game.

If you have a coastal city, Pottery can also provide possible benefits by revealing Fish on the map. Fish is another big source of food early game and discovering some near your city can be very worthwhile. If you don't discover Fish near your capital and the Granary is already built while you desire more :c5food: Food, there's still the Food process that's unlocked by Pottery too. This converts 25% of your :c5production: Production into :c5food: Food. While this seems like a small number, even 1 extra :c5food: Food can be a difference you getting a Settler a couple of turns sooner.


Spoiler Trapping: :

This tech is more situational than Pottery but it can be of high importance depending on several factors. First, it unlocks the Archer unit. The Archer is your first ranged unit with 2 range. It can be useful against Barbarians while its upgrade can help you win wars. There was a time when Archer rushes could help you capture cities in the Ancient Era but such a rush isn't as consistent as before. Regardless, this is a useful unit that you might consider if your Warriors are not cutting it. Archers are also decent units for defensive purposes early on so consider them if you have a city at a choke point and some firepower will help keep it safe.

Next, Trapping reveals Deer and Bison, two resources that mainly provide :c5food: Food. These two resources also share the similarity of being improved by Camps. Coincidentally, the Camp improvement is unlocked at Trapping as well. Therefore, the main strength of Trapping is the Camp improvement and the varying degree of usefulness of camps for your civilization is why it's so situational. Certain luxuries require Camps to improve like Fur and Truffles. Certain Pantheons rely on Camps. If you have a lot of resources (strategic or standard) that need Camps, Trapping will naturally move up in priority. Unless your start position sees you starving for :c5food: Food (like a tundra heavy start) and Deer could potentially fix your :c5food: Food problem, this technology isn't pursued until you are close to or have already gotten a Worker as Camps cannot be made possible without Workers.


Spoiler The Wheel: :

This tech is similar to Trapping where it's either your highest priority or much lower before several other techs. What makes this tech a higher priority is Stonehenge, one of the first two Wonders you have access to. The Stonehenge provides enough :c5faith: Faith to unlock a Pantheon and, on certain difficulties in most cases, it will guarantee that you get the first choice of a Pantheon. That alone makes this very powerful in addition to the +2 :c5faith: Faith, +1 :c5culture: Culture, +1 :c5greatperson: Great Engineer Points, and a free Council. If grabbing a Wonder or securing a Pantheon early is important to you, then the Wheel is going to be your first tech as delaying it might result in you losing the Wonder.

The Wheel also allows the building of Roads. Roads create city connections that have benefits in itself along with some other benefits provided by Pantheons and Policies. Therefore, your strategy might require you to build roads sooner rather than later to take advantage of the bonuses. This, like Camps, should only be pursued until you have or will have Workers available to build the Roads.

Next, the Wheel also reveals Stone. At first glance, the Stone doesn't look very impressive with an initial base yield of +1 :c5production: Production. However, what makes the Stone potentially powerful is its +10% :c5production: Production when building pre-Renaissance Wonders bonus. Once improved, the Stone can speed up your Wonder production by a tiny bit early game when a turn could be a difference of gaining or losing a Wonder. Do note that Stone is improved with a Quarry and a Quarry is unlocked by Construction tech. Even if you don't unlock Quarry early, the extra :c5production: Production from a Stone is usually a helpful boost to your city, especially when it spawns on a Grassland or Hill tile.

Finally, the Wheel allows the player and AI to build the Council. The Council is your first :c5science: Science building and, while +1 :c5science: Science doesn't seem like much, it's a reasonable boost to your overall :c5science: Science. The Council also grants 5 :c5science: Science for each new :c5citizen: Citizen and this isn't something to scoff at. While the overall amount seems small, this extra :c5science: Science can add and have a big impact on your early game. Don't underestimate how useful the Council can be.


Spoiler Animal Husbandry: :

Animal Husbandry is largely focused on Horses, Cattle, and Sheep that are revealed through this technology. The resources are all valuable in that they provide more yields to existing tiles while Horses is a strategic resource for some powerful units in the early and mid-game. Since Pasture is also unlocked by Animal Husbandry, you can improve these resources to get even more yields. Overall, these resources can be a big boost to your economy whether improved or not. Certain starts like those on Grasslands and Plains can especially benefit for the boost due to the higher odds of these resources spawning there.

The tech also unlocks the Chariot Archer. This is the first unit that can move after attacking and since it's a ranged unit, it can perform hit-and-run tactics quite well. This unit has been changed a lot over the patches so it's difficult to gauge how they are. Some say they are useful while others never build them. Given when Chariot Archers are unlocked, it's usually very tough to get these units when there are other things higher in the priority for your production queue. This is one of those units that aren't recommended unless you wish for early wars and Chariot Archer happens to fit the bill.


Spoiler Mining: :

One of the big reasons for going Mining is the Pyramid. The Pyramid Wonder first provides the builder a Settler upon completion. A free Settler can be incredible as it frees the player from needing to reach 4 :c5citizen: Population and doesn't need to use up one of those citizens. In addition to a free Settler, the Pyramid also gives :c5goldenage: GAP when you expend Great People and this ensures more Golden Ages throughout the entire game. Players can go for Mining for the Pyramid alone because it can be a decent start.

Mining also unlocks the Well, a building that's very helpful for Capitals that don't start next to Fresh Water. The building provides +1 :c5food: Food and +2 :c5production: Production which are very powerful this early in the game. If your city is lacking yields, the Well can provide a pretty big boost. It also provides more :c5production: Production that scales with your Population. Overall, this isn't a bad building to build early to improve your cities faster.

Mining also allows your Workers to build Mines. If you start near luxuries that are improved by Mines, this tech will help you connect those resources faster. Mines are nice boosts of :c5production: Production early game so this makes the tech quite high up in priority for certain starts. Certain Pantheons make use of Mines so you shouldn't neglect this if those Pantheons are part of your gameplan.

Finally, Mining lets your Workers cut down Forests. When improving certain resources like Banana and Citrus, you may need to cut down the Forest before you can build a Plantation. Therefore, you need this tech to do so. VP changed it so, while you can cut down Forests with Mining, you won't get the full amount of :c5production: Production when the Forest is chopped down until Bronze Working (50%) and Iron Working (50%). As a result, chopping down Forests at this point is purely for connecting resources and not speeding up the City's production.


Spoiler Fishing: :

Fishing tech is fairly simple when it comes to when you want the technology. You either have resources like Fish and Pearls that require Fishing Boats to improve or you need to explore more and embarking is necessary to make that happen.

Let's first talk about Fishing Boats. Unlike resources on land that are improved by Workers, sea resources are improved when you expend a Fishing Boat that's built by your cities. Like improved land resources, improved sea resources also give more yields while the luxury resources give monopoly bonuses if you control enough of them. Unlike land improvements, sea improvements won't be pillaged by Barbarian units so those improvements are safe once they are built until you are at war with one of your neighbors.

Embarking is the ability of your units to travel on the water. They are vulnerable to naval units when embarked but, early on, this ability lets your Pathfinders cross Coast tiles to do more exploring. Depending on the map, this may or may not be vital to you winning the game so, as a result, this aspect isn't a priority in many games. This ability doesn't apply to Polynesia who starts with the ability from the very start so, unless Polynesia needs Fishing Boats, this tech can be delayed for a while.


Spoiler Trade: :

Trade tech has, as the name suggests, a focus on your :c5gold: Gold. It first unlocks the Market building that provides a nice boost to your early game economy while improving nearby Cinnamon and Sugar resources. Incoming :trade: Trade Routes (TR) also generates +1 :c5gold: Gold for both the TR owner and the City. The Market is also tied to a Pantheon so this tech is naturally what you go for if you want to get the most out of the Pantheon.

Next, you can also build the Wonder Petra if you unlocked Trade. Petra requires your city to be on or adjacent to a Desert tile. Once built, it gives +1 :c5gold: Gold to all Desert tiles worked by the city. While Desert tiles are generally pretty awful, certain tiles like Flood Plains are considered Desert tiles so they can be quite amazing as a whole with a base of 3 :c5food: Food and 1 :c5gold: Gold when Petra is built. Petra also gives an additional TR and a free Caravan along with some :c5culture: Culture when Archaeology is discovered.

On the topic of Caravan and TR, Trade unlocks both of those. Your need TR to build Caravan and eventually Cargo Ships as the two civilian units are capped by your total number of TR. The Caravan travels on land and has a limited range. If there are possible tradeable cities within that range, you will have the option of sending your Caravan there. Depending on various factors, you will gain a certain amount of :c5gold: Gold and possible :c5science: Science, :c5culture: Culture, and even Religious Pressure. We will go into details more in the future about TR as it deserves its own tutorial. What's important to note is that you get yields from these TR and TR can affect Pantheons, Policies, and UA of various civilizations. If your strategy ever revolves around TR, then Trade might be something you want to pursue sooner rather than later.


Spoiler Calendar: :

The Calendar tech first unlocks a Worker's ability to create Plantations. There are over a dozen resources that are improved through Plantations so odds are at least one of the civilizations will need Plantations to develop its infrastructure. You might have a start where Plantations are a must to improve your cities so that can be a good reason to pursue this tech. However, some Plantations aren't possible if you cannot chop down both Forest and Jungles.

For those with a good memory, chopping down Forests is unlocked by Mining. This might seem illogical but I'll explain this more in detail once we get into Bronze Working. The Calendar gives the player's and AI's Worker the ability to chop down Jungles. Certain resources improved through Plantation spawn on Forest and/or Jungle so sometimes unlocking Calendar alone isn't enough to improve the resource. It's a tricky thing that players must be aware of when they play.

The Wonder, Temple of Artemis, is also unlocked through Calendar. This is an interesting Wonder because it a couple of different things. First, it gives a gree Herbalist to the city (more on that in a moment). Secondly, it gives +10% :c5food: Food to all Cities. :c5food: Food is a pretty valuable resource and a boost of any sort is decent. This isn't the strongest bonus you can get early in the game but it's a nice thing to have. Then, it also speeds up the :c5production: Production of Archery units in the city. This includes all the ranged, non-mounted units you can get throughout the game. Therefore, this bonus will be more felt later in the game. Finally, this reduces two :c5unhappy: Urbanization unhappiness (for more details, please check out the Happiness Management tutorial). Overall, it does a bunch of things in small but noticeable amounts.

Regarding that free Herbalist, the building revolves around Jungle, Forest starts that have a reasonable number of Plantation and Camp resources. It first gives +1 :c5food: Food for every 2 Jungle or Forest tiles worked by the city. Then, it gives +1 :c5production: Production to Plantations and Camps to bolster your early :c5production: Production. This isn't a must-have building in all your cities but certain starts can see this building paying off dividends, especially if a Pantheon buffs the building further.


Spoiler Construction: :

The Construction tech is quite important for a number of reasons. First, it unlocks the Walls, the earliest defensive building that you can get. Cities without Walls are terribly vulnerable to attacks while Walls with the right conditions can hold off any attacks until the Medieval Era. For those not aiming to go on the offensive but hope to defend against any aggression, the Walls are a must-have. Given the cost of the Walls, you definitely don't want to pursue this tech when war has already started as you aren't likely to get Walls ready in time.

The tech also unlocks the Quarry improvement that's needed to improve half a dozen resources. Two of those resources happen to be Stone and Marble so, if you want an early boost to your Wonder :c5production: Production, then this might be tech you want to prioritize. This improvement is also necessary to make it possible for a City to build the Stone Works.

The Stone Work is unlocked through Construction and, in addition, to boosting certain resources near the City, it also gives you a small :c5production: Production boost. The extra :c5production: Production you can get from this building and improved Stone and/or Marble can certainly give you an edge in Wonder building, though the increasing cost of subsequent Wonder does quickly diminish your advantages.

What if there's an option to get a Free Stone Works without needing to improve one of the required resources? That's where the Wonder Mausoleum of Halicarnassus comes in. This Wonder, once completed, gives a free Stone Works while giving your city a 10% boost to :c5science: Science, :c5production: Production, and :c5gold: Gold during WLTKD (more on this in the future). There are certain synergies that go well with WLTKD so, if that's a strategy you are pursuing, then this Wonder is a good addition. It also saves you the :c5production: Production otherwise spent on a Stone Work so there are benefits to pursuing this Wonder.


Spoiler Military Theory: :

This tech largely revolves around warfare so, for those not keen on early wars (whether offensive or defensive wars), this might be lower on the priority. First, the tech unlocks the Barracks. This is your first building that provides your units with 15 XP which is equivalent to one promotion. Promotions can make your units very powerful if you keep the unit alive long enough and getting a head start with Barracks is definitely a great way to start snowballing. An added plus is that Barracks provide +1 :c5science: Science and reduces one Distress :c5unhappy: Unhappiness. Therefore, this building is even helpful for those expanding a lot as it helps your :c5science: Science and makes happiness more manageable as a whole.

Next, this tech unlocks two military units, Horseman and War Elephant. The Horseman is a fast-moving unit great at hit-and-run tactics. It's reasonably strong for the Ancient Era and, except for Spearman, doesn't have any other reliable counters. The War Elephant is a slower Horseman that packs a bigger punch. However, it does require improved Ivory and a Barracks to build so it requires some investment initially. Once you get this unit, then it's going to be a pain for your opponents to fight against.

Finally, this unlocks the ability to convert 25% of your :c5production: Production into Defense. This is pretty useful throughout the game as I generally want defensive buildings like Walls and units to defend your cities. You don't want to spend resources that don't give you a return after the war has ended. Overall, it's an option for the player but I don't recommend it.


Spoiler Bronze Working: :

Bronze Working is another tech that focuses heavily on war. It however does it differently than Military Theory. First, this technology unlocks the Statue of Zeus, the only war-focused Wonder. The Statue of Zeus gives a free Barracks and reduces one Distress :c5unhappy: Unhappiness. It also gives all units more Combat Strength when attacking Cities. This boost is fairly significant when early units tend to have at most one promotion and such a boost is definitely noticeable. For warmongers, the extra boost can be a difference between winning a war decisively and barely capturing an enemy city that happened to get Walls.

The tech unlocks the Spearman as well and it's an interesting unit. It has been changed a lot over time and the latest change, Formation I, makes it more viable overall. The main purpose of the Spearman is anti-mounted so it's a great counter against enemy Horseman and War Elephants. While early rushes with Spearman is a viable option, it's still overshadowed by units that are unlocked early Classical Era.

Bronze Working also reveals the Strategic Resource, Iron. Iron is used for more powerful units starting in the Classical Era and tends to make their tiles more worthwhile to work with due to more :c5production: Production overall. Iron can also be traded with other civilizations if you know you won't be needing any for the time being. Iron is the reason why Jungle and Forest chopping aren't both unlocked through Calendar. Iron can potentially spawn on Forests so, if Forest chopping isn't unlocked through Mining, you have a situation where you cannot improve the Iron at all until you research a technology very far from Bronze Working. This is the main cause of the issue of why the Forest and Jungle chopping isn't on the same tech. The current solution is the best of both worlds given the situation.

Finally, Bronze Working ensures that you get 25 :c5production: Production after chopping Forests and/or Jungle on Standard speed. This makes chopping down those features worthwhile as they help speed up whatever is in production.


Now that we covered the basics of each Ancient Era technology, we will talk about Early Build Orders/Options.
 
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If I may suggest something, I would move Making Modpacks to the bottom of the list, because it's only needed for multiplayer and usually a player get to know a game first before he recommends it to others to play with him.
Before talking about policies in details, I would add a section where you overview most important changes in VP to make a reader interested.
 
If I may suggest something, I would move Making Modpacks to the bottom of the list, because it's only needed for multiplayer and usually a player get to know a game first before he recommends it to others to play with him.
Before talking about policies in details, I would add a section where you overview most important changes in VP to make a reader interested.

Modpacks is that high up because I use them to speed up the loading of my games. I use a potato laptop so that's why I prioritize them higher. However, you are right so I will move them down the list. As for the most important changes, I'll see what I can do. I actually mostly skipped vanilla and jumped straight into VP so I'll need to compare wikis at this point. Thanks for the suggestions!
 
It's best if you compare VP features to BNW ones as you play through the game, e.g.

"Unlike vanilla, you cannot instantly buy a building in VP. You only invest in buildings/wonders to reduce the production required by 50%/25% respectively. Some policies or unique abilities can reduce that further."

"Faith required for pantheon is the same for everyone (50 faith in Standard speed) instead of favouring the first founder."

"In VP, the yield of every resource tile can be boosted further by at least one building, scattered throughout eras. Since I have a Sugar monopoly, I'm prioritizing Trading to get Markets ASAP, which also synergizes with my pantheon."
 
Nice man, I really like the happiness part where you are explaining what the UI does I think that might be one of the most useful ways to teach a new player, as once they can understand the UI that will answer a lot of questions for them.

Regarding speed, it's mostly a preference but note that Deity on Marathon is easier than Deity on Epic which is easier than Deity on Standard

Pretty sure this is now fixed as of 6-19. AI bonuses were not scaling correctly with gamespeed before. Military stuff is probably still better on epic/marathon as you have more time but that should be the only difference.

Authority requires the player to be very proactive from the very start like hunting barbarians, tributes and going to war.

Killing camps gives a big amount of culture as well which I believe is new in VP. This is usually my priority in early game as Authority.

On the topic of unhappiness, let's now discuss the local happiness and unhappiness of cities. We will first need to look at the image in the spoiler below:

One thing that might be worth mentioning here is that Unhappiness (from most sources) is capped at your pop in a city. You can actually see that in the image there is 0 from Boredom even though there should be 1 because the city is already at 4 unhappiness by the time it gets to boredom.

This, amongst other things, means usually in a game your best bet for countering unhappiness is to use the avoid growth in a city. As you mentioned, you can see when unhappiness will increase if a city grows so this can be a good cue for you to avoid growth if it's about to become a problem.

I would also say perhaps unhappiness should be a little further down the list as most of the management of unhappiness begins a bit later in the game. Initially if you get your lux online you should be fine for a while.

Also I would tell a new player to play Byzantium so they can have all the cool religious beliefs without the stress of founding but that's personal preference ofc.:smoke:
 
Nice man, I really like the happiness part where you are explaining what the UI does I think that might be one of the most useful ways to teach a new player, as once they can understand the UI that will answer a lot of questions for them.

Pretty sure this is now fixed as of 6-19. AI bonuses were not scaling correctly with gamespeed before. Military stuff is probably still better on epic/marathon as you have more time but that should be the only difference.

Killing camps gives a big amount of culture as well which I believe is new in VP. This is usually my priority in early game as Authority.

One thing that might be worth mentioning here is that Unhappiness (from most sources) is capped at your pop in a city. You can actually see that in the image there is 0 from Boredom even though there should be 1 because the city is already at 4 unhappiness by the time it gets to boredom.

This, amongst other things, means usually in a game your best bet for countering unhappiness is to use the avoid growth in a city. As you mentioned, you can see when unhappiness will increase if a city grows so this can be a good cue for you to avoid growth if it's about to become a problem.

I would also say perhaps unhappiness should be a little further down the list as most of the management of unhappiness begins a bit later in the game. Initially if you get your lux online you should be fine for a while.

Also I would tell a new player to play Byzantium so they can have all the cool religious beliefs without the stress of founding but that's personal preference ofc.:smoke:

The UI is very useful when you don't understand the numbers. I know it helped me crunch less numbers and play the game more.

As for the difficulty, I'm still unsure about it. The AI bonuses are scaled more to gamespeed but there are still many things like policies and such that aren't properly balanced. I honestly don't know if those ever will be. However, the military aspects is pretty big so I think the statement still applies overall.

That's a good point! I meant to include it with hunting barbarians but I can see how that's confusing. I'll update it soon!.

I thought I mentioned the cap but apparently I didn't. I'll include that as well. Thanks for the catch!

I'm hesitant to suggestion Avoid Growth because it can hurt you in the long run. I recall playing Progress, using Avoid Growth a lot and not doing as well as I'd expect. There's also talk of changes to Progress happiness so I'll wait and see.

There are two stages of the game when I see unhappiness being an issue. The very early game when settling cities is involved and later in the game when you need proper infrastructure. I included here because, if new players suffer from unhappiness early on, they are going to not enjoy rest of the game. You are right about getting luxuries but I'm not sure if new players know how to prioritize that effectively while trying to understand all the mechanics of VP.

I thought about Byzantium but sometimes more choices is bad for you. Imagine trying to figure out what beliefs to take as Byzantium.

Overall, thanks for the feedback! :)
 
I thought about Byzantium but sometimes more choices is bad for you. Imagine trying to figure out what beliefs to take as Byzantium.
Most civs teach us one aspect of the game or another. Byzantium is the religious belief master, you get three of them of your choice so you get to play with them more, learn more.
Wanna learn about city state quests? Play Austria.
Wanna learn about managing growth? Play Inca or India.
Wanna learn how to abuse trade routes? Morocco here.
Trading? Netherlands. And so forth.
 
Most civs teach us one aspect of the game or another. Byzantium is the religious belief master, you get three of them of your choice so you get to play with them more, learn more.
Wanna learn about city state quests? Play Austria.
Wanna learn about managing growth? Play Inca or India.
Wanna learn how to abuse trade routes? Morocco here.
Trading? Netherlands. And so forth.

While you are right, I wouldn't recommend these civilizations for a beginner. Byzantium is the religious belief master but, lacking proper knowledge of the beliefs, you won't be playing her to her full potential. Austria has nothing in the early game so she requires knowledge on how to get to mid and late game. Inca is likely getting a rework so I can't say much about it. India doesn't have Missionaries so that's a very different mechanic for newcomers. If someone's new to religion, then relying on pressure could be challenging indeed, especially when certain beliefs depend on spreading your religion. Given how much players have to learn initially, I wouldn't recommend a civilization that relies so heavily on TR to them as even early build order can take a couple of games to get a feel for. As for trading, there are better civilizations than Netherlands. Even Russia is decent with how many AI is paying for strategics. For those of us familiar with mechanics, we can work on the various things. Swamping newcomers isn't something I want to do.
 
Don't think a new player will be playing any civ to it's full potential lol. I played civ 6 for the first time a couple of months ago and one of the more frustrating things was having no concept of religion, like how fast I needed to get it or how useful it could be. I think being able to choose from all beliefs is fun too.

Also with Austria you can basically just do the city state quests and have a good game so could give some good direction.

I guess it doesn't matter too much it's probably just good to play to a civ's strengths and try to avoid the weirder civs like Celts and Venice.

Also btw strategics price is getting changed next patch I believe.
 
Nice job! I think these tutorials will be of great use to new players, and your attention to detail is commendable. :)

You may want to proofread a bit more grammatically, however - while I understood everything you were communicating, your sentence structure could use some improvement. I'm sure someone here could help you with that if you have difficulties with it.

A few corrections:

War Weariness is also increased when your units take damage with those attacking acquiring more while those defending getting less.

The loser (of units/cities) receives more war weariness than the winner, not the other way around.

The happiness provided by luxuries scales with your population so, the larger your empire, the more happiness each luxury will provide.

This was removed a while ago, it's simply 2 Happiness per luxury (+ the Industry policy if you have that) now.

Keep up the good work!! :)
 
Don't think a new player will be playing any civ to it's full potential lol. I played civ 6 for the first time a couple of months ago and one of the more frustrating things was having no concept of religion, like how fast I needed to get it or how useful it could be. I think being able to choose from all beliefs is fun too.

Also with Austria you can basically just do the city state quests and have a good game so could give some good direction.

I guess it doesn't matter too much it's probably just good to play to a civ's strengths and try to avoid the weirder civs like Celts and Venice.

Also btw strategics price is getting changed next patch I believe.

I guess I just want to limit the frustrations of players because they have to figure out the basic mechanics along with the important mechanics in playing certain civs. They are free to play what they want but they can't blame for suggesting weirder civs or those that requires more knowledge than most civs.

Nice job! I think these tutorials will be of great use to new players, and your attention to detail is commendable. :)

You may want to proofread a bit more grammatically, however - while I understood everything you were communicating, your sentence structure could use some improvement. I'm sure someone here could help you with that if you have difficulties with it.

A few corrections:

The loser (of units/cities) receives more war weariness than the winner, not the other way around.

This was removed a while ago, it's simply 2 Happiness per luxury (+ the Industry policy if you have that) now.

Keep up the good work!! :)

Thanks! I know I needed a lot of help to learn the basics and I'm still learning a lot from coming to the forums.

As for grammar, it's sadly my weak point. If other people are willing to help, I'd appreciate it. However, I doubt there are people wanting to get involved with something so tedious.

For the war weariness, that's not I'm saying. It's possible that this has been changed. I recall something about unit combat where both the attacking and defending units take, for this specific example, equal damage. In this case, the side of the attacking unit gets more war weariness from this while the side of the defending unit gets less war weariness. It's possible that this has changed over time but I recall this being something I'm worried about regarding the Huns who just make it worse for their enemies.

I will change the happiness per luxury thing. I can't keep up with all the updates as so many small things change over time.

Thanks! :)
 
Nice job! I think these tutorials will be of great use to new players, and your attention to detail is commendable. :)

You may want to proofread a bit more grammatically, however - while I understood everything you were communicating, your sentence structure could use some improvement. I'm sure someone here could help you with that if you have difficulties with it.

A few corrections:



The loser (of units/cities) receives more war weariness than the winner, not the other way around.



This was removed a while ago, it's simply 2 Happiness per luxury (+ the Industry policy if you have that) now.

Keep up the good work!! :)

Yeah war weariness is a bit confusing.

I think OP is saying that the attacker suffers more than the defender. So if both players lost 10 units the attacker would have a higher penalty. Which I have no clue if it is true or not.

Even if you lose zero units it will slowly tick up so I'm guessing it isn't just units lost that causes it. Is it just damage deal to units in general?
 
Even if you lose zero units it will slowly tick up so I'm guessing it isn't just units lost that causes it. Is it just damage deal to units in general?
I think it's for killing units and also just slowly increases over time.
 
I thought luxuries give 2 happiness plus a bit more per city you own?
 
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