Two noob questions

[BandofBros]

First I would like to thank those who take the time to help, sincerely.

1 - My city is unhappy due to "its to crowded" what are the potential solutions?

2 - I am still loosing, consistently on Noble and often what seems to mess me up is a never ending battle defending my tiles from the black flag. Not always but often enough, before I get anything really going these barbies are coming at me 3 or 4 at a time and never ending. It seems like I'm fighting barbies and all the AI civs are advancing their armies. Is there anything one can do to handle this situation?

 

[Norton II]

First I would like to thank those who take the time to help, sincerely.

1 - My city is unhappy due to "its to crowded" what are the potential solutions?

2 - I am still loosing, consitently on Noble and often what seems to mess me up is a never ending battle defending my tiles from the black flag. Not always but often enough, before I get anything really going these barbies are coming at me 3 or 4 at a time and never ending. It seems like I'm fighting barbies and all the AI civs are advancing their armies. Is there anything one can do to handle this situation?

1. "It's too crowded" indicates unhappiness due to population (one for every point of population in a city). There are several things you can do in the early game to keep unhappiness from exceeding happiness:
1) acquire luxury resources and hook them up to your trade network: gold, silver and gems are available with mining, fur and ivory with hunting--for the rest, you'll have to wait until calendar and (for whales) optics
2) research monarchy (or build the Pyramids), switch to hereditary rule, and crank out cheap units--you get one for every unit stationed in the city under HR
3) if you do manage to build the Pyramids, switch to representation for two in your five largest cities (in 1.61 at least)
4) found a religion and adopt it as your state religion for one in every city with that faith; research priesthood and build a temple for any religion in a city for one per temple

Another way to manage unhappiness is through whipping: research bronze working, adopt slavery, and when angry citizens start showing up, pop-rush a unit or improvement to get the city back down below the happiness limit. But remember that you'll get one for 10 turns every time you do this, so the happiness limit will be one population point lower until the effect wears off.
Click here for a more comprehensive guide to potential sources of happiness.

2. Barbs are definitely a pain, especially when barb axemen start showing up. To deal with them, research animal husbandry, the wheel and bronze working and try to hook up either horses or copper early (preferably with your second city--if you're lucky, one of them will show up in your first city's radius). Then build barracks, followed by a few chariots or axemen. Give the axemen Combat I, followed by Shock when they get up to 5 XP--that'll make them more effective against warriors or axemen. Chariots should be given Flanking I, followed by Sentry--that way, you can use them as fog-busters to make it harder for barbs to show up in the first place (barbs can only materialize on parts of the map that no civ can see at the moment).

 

[flamingzaroc121]

Study this, for everything you need to know about happyness is inside

 

[Cam_H]

BandofBros,

On the latter point, Barbarian activity seems to get revamped with each vanilla patch and after that Warlords;

• Prior to Vanilla 1.61, fortifying Archers/Skirmishers or Axes on forested or jungle hills was pretty much all you needed - the Barbarians would simply suicide against the unit, and before you knew it, it had risen to 10XPs - qualifying for the Heroic Epic.

• Vanilla 1.61 may be the toughest of lot depending upon your access to resources, as the Barbarians become more numerous and less prone to attack units where there is little chance of survival. Norton's suggestion above is good here.

• Warlords gives Chariots +100% vs. Axemen, and they're tough enough to take out Archers on open terrain. They will not suicide like they did in the early days, but you can counter them more effectively if you mix your stack up. I have found the Egyptian War Chariot to be an excellent unit for dealing with early-game Barbarians, and I'm sure Impis and other early-game UUs probably do just as good of a job. The Great Wall is the other big addition of note with Warlords with regard to this problem, and getting points towards Great Engineers opens The Pyramids gamit.

Hope this helps, and best of luck!

 

[gamedude107]

ive always wondered about how to quickly lose population, never noticed i could just make units or get slavery lol

 

[BandofBros]

Right On, thanks for your help folks

I of course went right on and started a game based on your advise. I was most successful than I have been, however still headed for a but woopen I'm afraid.

Norton's bit about the Barbies not forming where they can be seen I found most interesting and therefore put quite an effort into clearing a large area around my ground. I found his statement to be true to an extent. As I cleared the fog I distroyed a number of hostile villages and I believe those would have been Barby kingdoms if I had not done so. As the game advanced there were no black areas formed within the fog busted zone, figured I had me a pretty good go here as that was a very large area. However, what took place was somewhat of a expanded time period where I was able to build, but once those Barbies start showing up, they came on hard. At this point the Barbies are hitting me in fours and fives, they have axe men because it was a good period of time and it is all I can do to keep them out. At the same time my biggest neighbor seems to be protected from them because of location. I seem to be holding the ground between him and the Barbies and consequently while I fight to survive he is expanding like the SOB that he is LOL can you tell I'm addicted.

This all causes me to ask a question. Do you have games where after a certain period of time you would just quit, knowing you are not going to win? Or do you play on knowing that there is always a way to win?

Do not get me wrong, a game is not a game if there is not a possibility to loose. However, the same goes if there is not a possibility to win. Are there those who are good enough at this game so that no matter the set up they can win? As apposed to a set up that no matter how good you are there is no way to win.

 

[Norton II]

Once you've got some fog-busting units out there, the next step is to settle the land so that barbs can't show up there again. If the land's crappy (e.g., lots of tundra and ice or desert), just keep your fog-busters out there until the AI settles it, then let them pay the maintenance costs for junk cities. Also, if a barb city shows up in a good location, by all means, keep it! Nothing like getting a city without having to build a settler. Another thing to remember is that if there's even one tile in the fog, barbs can show up there.

As to your new question, I probably quit a bit sooner than I should. I don't know if every game is winnable (though there are some who probably can win with almost any start), but but with reasonably good land and sufficient resources, you should be able to win more often than not.

BTW, can you post a save file of your current game? As long as it's not Warlords, I'll be able to look at it, and if it is Warlords, someone else can look at it.

 

[cabert]

Up to prince level, I believe I can with any (with the possible exception of moutains blocking all path out of a one tile spot of land) set up.

I must confess I never tried a prince map with raging barbs, always war, tech trading on ... Those may be a bit too harsh, even at prince level.
I must also confess that I never played a game with no tech trading, as it seems to beat the purpose of civilization.

With those restrictions, I play any map I get on monarch level too, and never got into a non winnable game.
The few I tried at emperor level are different.
I quitted most of them after a while, because I just couldn't imagine how to win those.
My most humiliating experience there was with HC. It's just the story, in the spoiler

Spoiler :

I managed a good tech lead, and some solid friends on my continent.
I got bold and went to war with russia on the other continent.
I took 2 cities. I just forgot that taking and keeping are 2 different things
I got kicked out of the continent, then invaded at home and lost a few of my core cities to seemingly endless stacks of units .
Being reduced to 3 cities made me somehow low on production as you can imagine. I just couldn't see any positive end to this game, and retired.

 

[JimT]

With limited exceptions as long as your playing at your level a game should be winnable IMO unless you get a bad start. Someone posted what had to be the worst start I have ever seen (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=207344) but even then he may have adapted early enough and got to the next continent by galley. This doesn't mean you should always win. I didn't lose a game on Prince but while I found it challenging at times it never put me in an unwinnable position. The only game I have lost is GOTM and thats because I didn't expect raging barbs to be quite that raging, but i don't play enough and only recently stepped up to Monarch.

I would say avoid always war (war weariness kills) and quick as a game speed. Simply beacause of the effect they have on how much you enjoy the game IMO.

I would also expect raging barbs to knock you down a level, but it is worth it. They will be less of a problem on crowded maps, having less places to spawn.

 

[Yeekim]

If Barbs seem to ba an annoyance, try more crowded maps. One of my favourite setups was playing One City Challenge on duel maps with 9 opponents. Never saw as much as an animal