[R&F] Way into R&F, still not playing efficiently...

[riddleofsteel]

This is more of a general question. At least in R&F, does your "order of operations" depend on what difficulty you're playing on? My habit on King always tended to be rushing to drop as many cities down (as in maybe 4 or 5) around my starting city so other civs can't starve me out resource-wise. After that I would try to flesh those cities out to the best of my ability and/or what the local terrain allows. Is this the right or wrong thing to do? In trying to copy other peoples advice either from posts or videos, I find that I end up faring much worse than my neighbors in terms of science, culture, faith and military. Sometimes this lasts for more than one era.

 

[liv]

Not exactly sure what you are asking but in general on any difficulty the surest way to win would be to settle or conquer as many cities as possible as early as possible.
I am not sure what flesh out means but you would want to develop the luxuries to use or sell and do mines to get production and get up your districts. It is not significant if you are a little behind as you will catch up.
The most important decisions in the game are the early ones, where you settle, what you build first etc.
You can share some early pictures and saves of your game and people will help you out.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

At least in R&F, does your "order of operations" depend on what difficulty you're playing on?

Probably not. Minus an early barbarian rush or an aggressive neighbour at Immortal/Diety level, any approach should work, and the "most efficient" doesn't particularly vary by difficulty. An early Scout may be a little better early on easier difficulties, but some very good players believe a Scout should be built first regardless.

My habit on King always tended to be rushing to drop as many cities down (as in maybe 4 or 5) around my starting city so other civs can't starve me out resource-wise.

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Yes, the more cities the earlier the better. I try to position them to carve out territory that I can then "back fill" additional cities into later.

After that I would try to flesh those cities out to the best of my ability and/or what the local terrain allows. Is this the right or wrong thing to do? In trying to copy other peoples advice either from posts or videos, I find that I end up faring much worse than my neighbors in terms of science, culture, faith and military. Sometimes this lasts for more than one era.

Despite my prior comment, if you're just building cities, you're missing some opportunities. Your biggest source of early culture/science is inspirations/eurekas. Ideally, you wouldn't finish any civic / tech without the boost, and certainly not the early ones.

The Craftsmen inspiration is particularly powerful because it's a double whammy. That first Builder gets you a bunch of Culture and boosts the productivity of your Capital, speeding up it's production.

A couple of other things to look out for: Settling on a luxury allows you to trade it for early Gold without using a Builder charge. You can use that Gold to buy any number of useful things. An early Campus is really useful for early Science. Monuments are great for early Culture. ​

 

[Draco84]

Just keep playing, you will get the hang of it.

Ignore Magus for now, no sense handicapping yourself by not learning how to play the "proper" way once he finally gets nerfed.

Sounds like you know how to war, so you just need to figure out what to build. Some things that never hurt, Monuments, campus, commercial hub, theatre, even entertainment complex if you are low on amenities. Don't be afraid to sell a resource if it means you can buy a worker with the profit and grab another one 10 turns earlier.

I really hate the late game, having tons of cities and not caring what they do, I wish you could set a governor, or puppet cities. but during this phase, usually I'll just set my cities to build districts (really doesn't matter which) and the buildings for it. be warned, Commercial Hub and Harbour share the extra trader from the level 1 buildings, so only get one of the them usually. I prefer harbours since usually I'm landlocked.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I really hate the late game, having tons of cities and not caring what they do, I wish you could set a governor, or puppet cities. but during this phase, usually I'll just set my cities to build districts (really doesn't matter which) and the buildings for it.

I do this, too, because it feels like what the cities should be doing and I like to drag domination games out long enough that I'm fighting era-equivalent enemies.

If you're trying to play optimally, though (i.e. win quickly) the most efficient thing is to run projects at this stage, as you won't get a return on late game districts or buildings.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe I'm just not getting it, but if I focus on improving / attacking from just one city, the AI seems to go crazy and starts dropping new cities like mushrooms. If I give up advancing in technology or military in favor of dropping new cities, the AI gets noticeably more powerful than me and starts to denigrate me because I'm weak. Any way to temper this or is it unavoidable?