What Am I Missing?

[erronius]

I am struggling to win against the AI at any difficulty higher than Warlord, even though I have done various things to attempt to make the game easier - "Sedentary Barbarians" "Less Aggressive" AI (what a joke), as well as creating a custom biq file and modifying one race to have extra traits. So before all the "Wow, you must really suck" comments. Yes, I really suck. What am I not getting? Here's how my games usually go:

I try to expand like crazy at first, snagging any tradeable resource, bonus resource, etc that looks good. I don't clump my cities super close together as I've heard some do, but I try to keep them close enough for reasonable defense and corruption reduction. I build a network of roads between/around my cities. Other than granaries, I usually stick to building more settlers/workers to try to expand faster instead of lots of units, city improvements, or wonders.

I make contact with other Civs and usually they are friendly at first, trading technologies. But pretty soon they start making demands for technology, and when I don't capitulate, they attack me. In most of these games I am a match for any one enemy Civ but often get attacked by 2-3 at once. I often am able to sack several of their cities and win a lot of fights, but they just build more and keep coming. Am I supposed to just give them the tech? Cause I feel that if I do, they will just get even stronger and I'll be less able to resist them when they attack.

So I get attacked, often by 2 or more Civs, and at some point a hole opens up in my defenses. Maybe I mismicro a unit (really frustrated that Civ has no "undo" function I'm aware of) or just forget about approaching units, or get a series of bad luck in engagements, and they take one of my cities, which are usually fairly developed by this point. This is the beginning of the end, as I'm usually on an even foot defending, but having to take back a city is very difficult, plus you have to rebuild every single improvement (ugh).

I'm happy to answer questions about details - I'm not sure what exactly is relevant that I'm doing so wrong, but I tried to give an overall picture of how most games tend to go for me.

Thanks,
erronius

 

[robbus]

how about a game save or 2

 

[erronius]

Well, here is my latest. Not giving up on this game yet, but I'm about to lose a city with no guarantee I'll be able to take it back, and I'm at war with 3 different civs.

Totally wrong file. Sorry. Please ignore.

 

[erronius]

Sorry, THIS is my most recent game. The previous one I won (Warlord and I had all 8 traits)

 

[tjs282]

I am struggling to win against the AI at any difficulty higher than Warlord, even though I have done various things to attempt to make the game easier - "Sedentary Barbarians" "Less Aggressive" AI (what a joke), as well as creating a custom biq file and modifying one race to have extra traits. So before all the "Wow, you must really suck" comments. Yes, I really suck. What am I not getting?

I won't say you really suck (everyone gotta start somewhere), but from the below, it sounds like you're trying to play Civ3 as if it was Civ1, which isn't going to work out well. I haven't checked your savegame (yet), but here's what I think of your general approach:

Here's how my games usually go: I try to expand like crazy at first, snagging any tradeable resource, bonus resource, etc that looks good.

This is a good initial tactic, especially at Regent (arguably also at Monarch) and below, when the AI won't be able to produce Settlers/Workers nearly as fast as you can (because it sucks at tile-improvement prioritisation, and can't micromanage to avoid food/shield wastage). But there comes a point where you need to stop expanding outwards, and start building up those towns.

I don't clump my cities super close together as I've heard some do, but I try to keep them close enough for reasonable defense and corruption reduction. I build a network of roads between/around my cities.

Also a good move. Roughly 2 tiles' separation between towns , i.e. City-tile-tile-City (CxxC), is a good rule of thumb to follow, since then each town gets at least 8 potential 'exclusive' tiles to work -- and more than that if the road between the towns (roughly) follows the N-S or E-W axis. CxxC also means that foot units can move (along roads) from 1 town to the next in a single turn, if you need reinforcements. BUT if your cities are staying small because you're constantly siphoning off pop-points into expansion/ tile improvements, then you're not going to be able to use all that territory that you've claimed. So let your towns grow -- at least to Pop7 if possible (makes no difference to military support under Despotism -- 4 units per town, and 4 per city -- but a big difference under Republic: 1 unit per town, 3 per city). If you have lots of (spare) Workers running around, adding them back into your Pop7+ cities might be a good idea.

Other than granaries, I usually stick to building more settlers/workers to try to expand faster instead of lots of units, city improvements, or wonders.

Avoiding Wonders and unneeded improvements in the early stages is also sensible, but deciding what is needed can be trickier: e.g. Granaries are not needed in all towns in the early game. Yes, they help a town grow 'faster', but 1 Gran costs the same shields as 2 Settlers -- or 3 Archers, or 6 Warriors -- and regrowth in a 'standard' +2 food-per-turn (fpt) town will still take 5 turns, even after you've built the Gran. It's generally better to restrict Grans to your food-rich towns (i.e. those with Wheat and/or Cattle in the Fat-X), ideally those towns which have freshwater, and can get to +5fpt under Despotism (i.e. growth every 2 turns, with a Gran), and then use those Gran-towns to build most/all of your Settlers and Workers (search for 'Settler-pump' on CFC for more information.)

I settle in approximate 'rings' centred on my Capital, and generally work on the principle that each new city needs a unit to guard it, and a Worker to improve it. As each new 'ring' around my Capital is (near) completed, towns further in should concentrate on growing and building units (and then improvements). In the early game, units are usually more important than buildings: if you don't build much/any military, you're going to end up looking very weak to the AICivs (who will generally build two defenders per city, then start building attack-units -- even if only Warriors and Archers). A good guideline in the early game is to build mainly/only attackers, with maybe 1 defender per border-town, and to check your military advisor (F3 screen) every so often for his assessment of your immediate neighbours' strength (or not).

Once you have an adequate military (defined as mil-units, not including Workers/Settlers = free unit allowance), then you can start thinking about improvements -- but while a town is still below Pop6, aim to build no more than 1-2 useful improvements, based on the town's need(s) and strength(s). For example, growth is king, so 'Ducts will definitely be needed in dry towns. In towns which will have >30% corruption/ waste (e.g. if the town is producing 3 shields, but 2 are wasted), it's usually worth building a Courthouse before you do anything else. Then the 'extra' improvement might be a Gran in a food-rich town, a Barracks in a shield-rich town, a Lib in a high-commerce town, etc.

I make contact with other Civs and usually they are friendly at first, trading technologies.

Because at this early stage in the game, they won't have built much in the way of military...

But pretty soon they start making demands for technology, and when I don't capitulate, they attack me. In most of these games I am a match for any one enemy Civ but often get attacked by 2-3 at once. I often am able to sack several of their cities and win a lot of fights, but they just build more and keep coming.

Two things to say here:

(1) They start bullying you because you appear weak, most likely because they've built more attackers than you have -- and once they go to war, they only build attackers, so if you've got too many towns hung up building improvements rather than units at this stage, you're at much higher risk of getting overwhelmed. And the more units/towns you lose, the weaker you'll appear, and the more likely you are to get 'dogpiled' by the rest of your opponents. When there's blood in the water, it attracts more sharks...

(2) If someone attacks you, but you successfully counter-attack and take towns, you can usually make peace fairly soon, and possibly also demand concessions (in order of increasing value: their gold, their techs, more of their towns) from them instead. But if you're losing a war, it's better to lose gold/tech-advantages than towns, so make peace with your attacker as soon as you can, even if you have to pay for it -- before you get more AICivs pitching in against you. If things go really pear-shaped, and you start losing the war before you can make peace with your attacker, it may be worth buying in an ally or two, so that it's your attacker who's obliged to fight on multiple fronts, rather than you.

CAVEAT: Signing alliances will put your trade-reputation on the line: Trade-reputation breakage lasts the rest of the game, so if it's important to you, you'll have to hold to the alliance until it's over (either reached its 20-turn limit, or broken by your erstwhile ally(s)), before signing peace with your attacker.

Am I supposed to just give them the tech? Cause I feel that if I do, they will just get even stronger and I'll be less able to resist them when they attack.

This is kind of what I mean about playing like it's Civ1. In Civ1, the AICivs would almost always turn (that tech) against you almost immediately, so defiance was often (always?) the best option. But in Civ3 there are penalties for deal-breaking (which admittedly don't always discourage the AICivs from doing so, but it can help reduce the frequency of occurrence a little), so bribery/ concessions can be useful for staving off attacks, if you're not ready for war. By caving to a demand, you buy yourself some breathing-space, which you should probably use to build up your forces, to discourage further demands -- or to allow you to bully/ attack them instead.

In general in Civ3, since techs have 'fixed' costs (rather than depending on how many you've already got, as in Civ1), and since you need to acquire all the 'obligatory' techs in order to advance in eras, (tech-) trading is necessary, both to keep on good terms with the AICivs, but also (at higher levels) to keep up with the tech-race.

And at Warlord, you should be able to out-produce all the AIs by a large degree. Don't let yourself become a soft target, and you're less likely to receive the ultimatums in the first place. (You can make them instead!)

 

[Nathiri]

I am struggling to win against the AI at any difficulty higher than Warlord, even though I have done various things to attempt to make the game easier - "Sedentary Barbarians" "Less Aggressive" AI (what a joke), as well as creating a custom biq file and modifying one race to have extra traits. So before all the "Wow, you must really suck" comments. Yes, I really suck. What am I not getting? Here's how my games usually go:

I try to expand like crazy at first, snagging any tradeable resource, bonus resource, etc that looks good. I don't clump my cities super close together as I've heard some do, but I try to keep them close enough for reasonable defense and corruption reduction. I build a network of roads between/around my cities. Other than granaries, I usually stick to building more settlers/workers to try to expand faster instead of lots of units, city improvements, or wonders.

I make contact with other Civs and usually they are friendly at first, trading technologies. But pretty soon they start making demands for technology, and when I don't capitulate, they attack me. In most of these games I am a match for any one enemy Civ but often get attacked by 2-3 at once. I often am able to sack several of their cities and win a lot of fights, but they just build more and keep coming. Am I supposed to just give them the tech? Cause I feel that if I do, they will just get even stronger and I'll be less able to resist them when they attack.

So I get attacked, often by 2 or more Civs, and at some point a hole opens up in my defenses. Maybe I mismicro a unit (really frustrated that Civ has no "undo" function I'm aware of) or just forget about approaching units, or get a series of bad luck in engagements, and they take one of my cities, which are usually fairly developed by this point. This is the beginning of the end, as I'm usually on an even foot defending, but having to take back a city is very difficult, plus you have to rebuild every single improvement (ugh).

I'm happy to answer questions about details - I'm not sure what exactly is relevant that I'm doing so wrong, but I tried to give an overall picture of how most games tend to go for me.

Thanks,
erronius

What popped out to me, especially at that year was:

1. Lack of Defense

2. Lack of Workers

3. Lack of Expansion

Almost all your cities have no defense, not even 1 for military police, that is bad, because it is good to always have a unit for military police for happiness, but also to reinforce another city. But if you have alot of cities and many rings, then your inner rings do not really matter, if you have plenty of units on the outer.

Workers are one of the best things on their own that you can do to improve your game. Having 2-3 workers always together roading, mining, and irrigating. Having only 1 really makes your cities take a long time to be productive.

Your expansion is very limited here for the year that you are on. More cities are always better. The land of course is not amazing, and you have snatched the best of it, but there was a couple spots left. Judging by this save, you may not be watching your growth very well so you can time when to build settlers, as you should be able to to out-build the AI on this difficulty.

What sometimes I do is, when you build your first cities, eventually switch them out to the new cities, and the old ones become better cities. But you have not built enough to do that.

 

[justanick]

I try to expand like crazy at first, snagging any tradeable resource, bonus resource, etc that looks good. I don't clump my cities super close together as I've heard some do, but I try to keep them close enough for reasonable defense and corruption reduction.

Corrruptions is calculated by adding distance corruption and rank corruption. During despotism distance corruption dominates, thus minimizing distance may at least appear reasonable. In the later stages, usually starting around the late medival age, rank corruptions starts to dominate. Rank corruption is minimized by reducing the amount of cities. Aiming at around 18 tiles for each city to use is best in the long run, but as that is only possibly once you have hospitals short term considers may differ in a significant manner. The subtle details really only become relevant at the higher difficulty levels. At emperor and below you probably donnot need to care much about it.

Am I supposed to just give them the tech?

Small amounts of gold or the cheap techs of the ancient age are something you can usually give up in good conscience. Later tech are far more expensive, thus then you should be prepared for war by having a strong military. This is also deters AI from bullying you in the first place. Bullying AI yourself might not be a good idea. A much better idea is that once war seems convenient you ally with some other AIs against one enemy and completely whipe it from the map. Dead enemies make no trouble.

So I get attacked, often by 2 or more Civs, and at some point a hole opens up in my defenses. Maybe I mismicro a unit (really frustrated that Civ has no "undo" function I'm aware of) or just forget about approaching units, or get a series of bad luck in engagements, and they take one of my cities, which are usually fairly developed by this point.

They are way too developed. You have many buildings like temples and colloseums that are not needed before you have hospitals and factories and so on.

What you really are missing is to found enough cities. Usually having less than 20 cities by late ancient age or early medival age is a bad sign.

Donnot leave tiles to not be used by your cities. First settle like crazy, then build up workers to improve your tiles and then let your cities grow in a manner that each tile improved is used and each used tile is improved. Optimizing the recruitment of workers and the creation of new citizens working tiles to each other is one of the key challenges in the early game.

 

[erronius]

Thanks very much for all the responses, guys! I will try to implement it in my next game. Specifically on the diplomacy front, I did not realize that giving tech away gives you 20ish turns of peace from that nation; that's very good to know. Also yes, on Warlord I generally do OK, unless I combine a poor start with bad play. The production differential on Warlord means that I am able to dominate the AI. It's when I get up to Regent that I'm really struggling. I will clearly need to give up on my desire to be stingy with the military budget =). One additional question I have, if anyone has a good answer: how much do you find the game to be dependent on luck, at say Regent difficulty and above? Taking for granted that at lower difficulties especially Chieftain the production bonus relative to the AI should ameliorate a bad start. For example, I am also playing a multiplayer game with a friend. His starting area had a lot more grassland, and also critically had rivers (frustrating for troop movement until you get Engineering, but amazing for development) so he was able to expand his population *much* faster.

 

[Nathiri]

Thanks very much for all the responses, guys! I will try to implement it in my next game. Specifically on the diplomacy front, I did not realize that giving tech away gives you 20ish turns of peace from that nation; that's very good to know. Also yes, on Warlord I generally do OK, unless I combine a poor start with bad play. The production differential on Warlord means that I am able to dominate the AI. It's when I get up to Regent that I'm really struggling. I will clearly need to give up on my desire to be stingy with the military budget =). One additional question I have, if anyone has a good answer: how much do you find the game to be dependent on luck, at say Regent difficulty and above? Taking for granted that at lower difficulties especially Chieftain the production bonus relative to the AI should ameliorate a bad start. For example, I am also playing a multiplayer game with a friend. His starting area had a lot more grassland, and also critically had rivers (frustrating for troop movement until you get Engineering, but amazing for development) so he was able to expand his population *much* faster.

There's always a certain amount of randomness in terrain, but most terrain is usable and you can overcome what you have. Most starts do not have so bad of terrain that it is unplayable. A not so great start though can push you to be more aggressive as you have to fight the AI to obtain techs and slow them down.

Normal grassland not necessarily that helpful early on as irrigation doesnt help until your switch to a new government. Bonus grassland is much better. Plains and grassland are very similar in food supply if you irrigate the plains during despotism. What Rivers do help with is that it makes cities not require an aqueduct, and more GPT for teching and going over your unit support.

 

[justanick]

Specifically on the diplomacy front, I did not realize that giving tech away gives you 20ish turns of peace from that nation;

I donnot think it works quite like that.

It's when I get up to Regent that I'm really struggling. I will clearly need to give up on my desire to be stingy with the military budget =).

If you have enough cities(at size 7 or higher) the free unit support helps with still being semistingy. What you really need to change is not so much military, but diplomacy. You did not open any embassies. Once you have writing you should open embassies. Having embassies reduces the risk of being declared war upon and it enables you to sign military alliances.

Also you need to improve on workers. Plains need to be irrigated. Building fortresses is usually a waste.

One additional question I have, if anyone has a good answer: how much do you find the game to be dependent on luck, at say Regent difficulty and above?

If your capital has a river and a food surpluss of 5 very early on it helps a great deal. If you have a very bad start at desert only or tundra only it hurts a lot. But within mediocre starts the variance is not too much. At above emperor luck is needed in terms of AI because AI starts with a great deal of military.

 

[tjs282]

Just had a look at your save, and second everything Justanick said. Too many buildings, too few military, and not nearly enough cities.

Is this really what you think of as 'expanding like crazy' ? You have some potentially great territory there, but some of your city placement is... questionable -- and why have you left that huge hole N-NW of Washington? In addition to the one you had fortified in Washington (which I sent to live by the lake), I built another Settler out of there (it will recover quickly with some more irrigation), and set NY to build one as well. They could help fill in the holes, and you should populate your southern coast as well. Remember: town-tiles in Civ3 always get 2 food and 1 shield, regardless of underlying terrain, so it's better to settle on low-/no-food tiles (Tundra, Desert) if you have the option to do so (as discussed at length in your earlier thread) and then irrigate nearby Plains/Grass for extra food.

Workers generally: I agree with Nathiri -- you need more of them (1-2 per town while there are still tiles to improve), and you need to direct their actions more usefully (don't even think about automating them in the early game!). Although you'd built a decent road-network (good for trade and transport), a lot of your worked tiles were otherwise unimproved (i.e. the tiles' productivity isn't maximised: not good). Also, a lot of those roaded tiles couldn't be used by your current cities, either because their populations weren't high enough, or because the tiles were outside the FatX (represents wasted Worker-turns -- bad); at least 1 Worker was even building a road in an unusable Forest on your border, while you were at war (very bad!).

(Side note: it's always quicker, and almost always preferable, to chop a Forest before you road the tile -- ideally into a building, since you only get the 10-shield chop-bonus once per tile. Chop the Forest-tiles adjacent to a town first, so that incoming enemy units have no trees to hide behind).

Atlanta is a particularly egregious example of over-building the town and under-improving its tiles. Even though you'd built a Duct there (which wouldn't even have been needed if you'd founded on the riverbank 1E or the lakeside 1SW, rather than halfway between them), it's stopped growing at Pop5 because it's run out of excess food: only one of its tiles has been irrigated and you were working Forests instead of Plains. You would have got the same shields, but a lot more trade/ money/ beakers if Atlanta had worked the (irrigated) Plains (including the Sugar-tile) instead, and got up to Pop12. As an Industrious Civ (one of the Americans' base-traits), there's really no excuse for not irrigating.

(Side-note: irrigating Plains is also quicker than mining Grass, for the same outcome: 2 food and 1 shield).

Diplomacy: I signed peace with India (cost me Literature and 260 g, but meant I didn't lose Seattle), and Egypt (to protect the Worker I/you were about to lose; Cleo conceded her 3 crappiest towns, which hurts her a lot more than it does me/you). I also sold Lit to Xerxes for 135 g, to make sure that Gandhi couldn't profit further from his extortion. I cash-rushed a Courthouse in Philly to get it done quickly (you had loads of gold, so I used it!), which will allow you to build units out of there, and micromanaged a few towns for instant unit-builds over the 270 AD inter-turn (which happened unexpectedly, because you hadn't turned on 'Always wait at end of turn' in the Game Prefs). I didn't build any Embassies yet (but you still have more than enough gold to do so).

The Greeks didn't seem to be much of a threat, since they were only sending Warriors, Archers and reg. Swords at you -- but they just finished the Great Wall, which will make their cities harder to take, so I started moving your Celtic-American Sword-Army back west. I also raised the LUX%-slider to 10%, which meant no city was in danger of rioting -- Colosseums could probably safely be sold in the smaller cities now, and if you pushed LUX% to 20%, they could probably be sold everywhere, especially if you go and settle on the Tundra 4SW of Chicago, which will snag the adjacent Silks-tile (giving you 3 Luxes, which allows your Markets to start boosting the Lux-happiness). This game is easily winnable at Regent, especially given your Civ-buffs.

In the Game-Prefs, I switched on 'Wait at end of turn' (allows me to ensure that I've done everything I want to do before the interturn), turned off nearly all the animations to speed things up, and also turned off 'Cancel Orders for Enemy unit' -- because having this setting switched on wastes Worker-turns. ('Cancel Orders...' means that if an enemy unit arrives in an adjacent tile, the Worker will stop what he's doing, wasting all the time he's already spent on a job -- even if that Worker is protected under a full-strength Army, which the AICivs generally won't ever attack directly).

The screenshot (made in CivAssist) shows where I would put more towns (the 'Pop0' New Cities), based on current placement, and the new save is attached:

 

[erronius]

Re: tjs. A lot of things I understand, and some I don't. I do know I need to be more efficient with my workers; I think I will try the "show production on tiles" setting to see that more visually. The settings information is definitely useful; I (eventually) figured out the part about "always wait at end of turn", cause a lot of the time I would not necessarily realize that the unit I was moving was the last one and then have to reload because a worker is captured. In terms of expansion, I built settlers until I was pushed up against the AI; I guess I need to "fill in the holes" more. I tend not to go for areas that don't have at least some bonus resource or river or something to recommend them, but I guess that's a mistake. Re: diplomacy I have *never* gotten the AI to give me a city, even when I clearly have the power to crush them, so I'm a bit confused by that. They always say no. I did not realize building embassies gives you a sort of "passive" diplomatic benefit; I haven't really experimented with that because I find the AI civs are always so unfriendly; they usually seem to expect deals to be weighted in their favor, sometimes heavily.

One thing I really don't get is the happiness issue. On regent you get 2 content citizens per city, right? So for a population of 7, you will have 2 content and 5 unhappy before any happy/content faces come into play. Luxuries are obviously good at providing happy faces, but don't you need city improvements (temple, cathedral, colosseum) for content faces? My understanding is that happy faces get "cashed in" for content faces (or vice versa) at a 3:1 ratio. So back to that population 7, with only a temple you'd need 6 happy faces to maintain the overall "content" status and an additional 3 more happy faces for each citizen, basically? Maybe I should be prioritizing Monarchy over Republic since it allows military police? I do try to make a priority of course to get out of despotism as soon as possible of course.

 

[Nathiri]

Re: tjs. A lot of things I understand, and some I don't. I do know I need to be more efficient with my workers; I think I will try the "show production on tiles" setting to see that more visually. The settings information is definitely useful; I (eventually) figured out the part about "always wait at end of turn", cause a lot of the time I would not necessarily realize that the unit I was moving was the last one and then have to reload because a worker is captured. In terms of expansion, I built settlers until I was pushed up against the AI; I guess I need to "fill in the holes" more. I tend not to go for areas that don't have at least some bonus resource or river or something to recommend them, but I guess that's a mistake. Re: diplomacy I have *never* gotten the AI to give me a city, even when I clearly have the power to crush them, so I'm a bit confused by that. They always say no. I did not realize building embassies gives you a sort of "passive" diplomatic benefit; I haven't really experimented with that because I find the AI civs are always so unfriendly; they usually seem to expect deals to be weighted in their favor, sometimes heavily.

One thing I really don't get is the happiness issue. On regent you get 2 content citizens per city, right? So for a population of 7, you will have 2 content and 5 unhappy before any happy/content faces come into play. Luxuries are obviously good at providing happy faces, but don't you need city improvements (temple, cathedral, colosseum) for content faces? My understanding is that happy faces get "cashed in" for content faces (or vice versa) at a 3:1 ratio. So back to that population 7, with only a temple you'd need 6 happy faces to maintain the overall "content" status and an additional 3 more happy faces for each citizen, basically? Maybe I should be prioritizing Monarchy over Republic since it allows military police? I do try to make a priority of course to get out of despotism as soon as possible of course.

I usually just right click the tile to see the yields, but most I know from memory.

More cities are always better, because of the increased unit support and gold per turn. So you do want to fill in the holes. Most terrain can be made profitable by irrigation and mining, so all cities should be able to produce something, even more so by railroads. Though Tundra is not necessarily the best, except if you build it on the coast for the harbor bonus. If you have alot of tundra tiles that other cities cannot use, you could still fill it up with cities as otherwise it wouldnt be any use, and that adds more unit support and GPT, even if its only a 2 population city, but having said that, there are usually other things to prioritize than filling tundra up.

You do not need all your citizens content/happy in order to have a productive city. Your main goal is to not let it go into civil disorder. Using temples, cathedrals, and colosseums give maintenance costs which lessen your GPT, so you dont want to build them unless you have to. They also take time to build when you could of built something else. Luxuries and Marketplaces are much better and cheaper. You can also use luxury slider and military police, but it is not good to have the luxury slider too high as that will run into money as well.

The AI often give cities when they feel they are in a weakened state after war. This mostly happens when you have taken some cities of theirs in war, and they really want to stop war. In normal peace-time diplomacy, it was disabled in a game patch, because the AI were a bit too generous.

 

[justanick]

One thing I really don't get is the happiness issue. On regent you get 2 content citizens per city, right?

The first 2 citizens are content by default, above that they are discontent by default.

My understanding is that happy faces get "cashed in" for content faces (or vice versa) at a 3:1 ratio.

No, it is always 1:1. While there are content citizens a happy face(green ) will turn a content citizen into a happy one. If no content citizen is left, then a discontent citizen is turned into a content one. Content faces(orange ) from buildings or military police can only do the later. For a city to not go into riot the amount of discontent cizizens must not exceed the amount of happy ones. So at regent 5 happy faces suffice to keep a city of 7 citizens calm.

You kept your cities way too happy, usually that is a grave mistake due to the attached costs. There is one exception though, the "We Love The King Day", short WLTKD. When a city has at least size 6, does not have a food defizit, does have no resisting citizens, no unhappy citizens and does not have more content citizens than happy ones, than WLTKD does occur. It reduces the corruption on shields only. In most circumstances it is not worth the effort, but exceptions can occur.

I suggest you try your next game as an agricultural civ like the maya. That helps with pushing out settlers and as the Maya are industrious aswell you can get those tiles improved fast. But donnot build their javelins, they are expensive have the potential to induce an approach to the game that is not really so good.

 

[erronius]

OK so I did get that "understanding" from the Civilopedia:

"If there aren't enough faces of the appropriate sort in a city, extra faces will have a limited "carry over" effect. For example, if a city has the capability to generate 5 happy faces, yet there are only 2 content faces in the city, then those 2 content faces will become happy and the remaining 3 happy faces will carry over to unhappy citizens at reduced efficiency." -Civilopedia entry on happy faces

I admit that it does not specify the ratio of the limited carry over effect. But are you saying the civilopedia is incorrect?

 

[tjs282]

Re: tjs. A lot of things I understand, and some I don't. I do know I need to be more efficient with my workers; I think I will try the "show production on tiles" setting to see that more visually.

That helps, but what you need to aim to do is to keep a Worker or 2 near each city, progressively improving the most useful tiles as the town grows (so a newborn citizen immediately has a maximally productive tile to work), and ideally without shuffling the Worker(s) around too much on unroaded tiles (an IND-Worker can road a tile in 2T even in the early game, so it's really worth doing that before he leaves any tile)

In terms of expansion, I built settlers until I was pushed up against the AI; I guess I need to "fill in the holes" more. I tend not to go for areas that don't have at least some bonus resource or river or something to recommend them, but I guess that's a mistake.

It's not a mistake to prioritise settling near river- and bonus-tiles first, but it is a mistake to then leave massive unclaimed holes in the middle of your territory, when you could build multiple productive cities in those holes instead (both raising your income, and pushing up your free-unit allowances). And at higher levels, the AI will frequently send in Settlers to fill those holes up for you, which may put your towns at higher risk of flipping, and/or cut you off from your resources...

Re: diplomacy I have *never* gotten the AI to give me a city, even when I clearly have the power to crush them, so I'm a bit confused by that. They always say no.

Nathiri already covered this -- I got Cleo's towns as tribute for my mercifully agreeing to sign a peace-treaty with her (you must have really hammered them -- good work, fella!). I don't think they're really worth keeping, but that's a different question -- you can always just build Workers out of them (to add to other towns), or Settler-abandon them (i.e. build a Settler at 0 fpt, and the town will disappear once it's accumulated 30 shields -- you can even do this at Pop1, although it takes a long time), since the population is now completely yours.

I did not realize building embassies gives you a sort of "passive" diplomatic benefit;

As well as allowing you to sign more treaties (Alliances, RoPs), having an Embassy produces a (short-term) improvement in your relations with the AI. At higher levels, where they have more cash to splash, they'll often build Embassies with you, which saves you doing it, but (I believe) still gives the same effect. But kissin' don't last...

I haven't really experimented with that because I find the AI civs are always so unfriendly; they usually seem to expect deals to be weighted in their favor, sometimes heavily.

Hah! If you think they're stingy now, just wait till you move up to Emperor...

Maybe I should be prioritizing Monarchy over Republic since it allows military police? I do try to make a priority of course to get out of despotism as soon as possible of course.

For shorter games, or games on smaller maps, e.g. games where you simply aim to slaughter all the AIs as fast as you can, or finish before (or shortly after) going Industrial, Monarchy can be advantageous. But for the duration of a long game (e.g. Huge maps, or for Space- and/or Diplo-games), Republic is a much better all-purpose gov than Monarchy. Yes, you do get War Weariness and can't use MPs to keep order, but with some care and attention, the extra commerce under Republic can more than make up for that.

 

[justanick]

OK so I did get that "understanding" from the Civilopedia:

"If there aren't enough faces of the appropriate sort in a city, extra faces will have a limited "carry over" effect. For example, if a city has the capability to generate 5 happy faces, yet there are only 2 content faces in the city, then those 2 content faces will become happy and the remaining 3 happy faces will carry over to unhappy citizens at reduced efficiency." -Civilopedia entry on happy faces

I admit that it does not specify the ratio of the limited carry over effect. But are you saying the civilopedia is incorrect?

I donnot see that the statement you quote is openly wrong, just easy to missunderstand.

If no content citizens are left, than a happy faces will make one discontent citizen content and a second happy face will make him happy. So 2 happy faces are needed to make one citizen happy, which can be seen as a reduced effeciency.

The relevant thing that happens is that the amount of discontent faces must not exceed the sum of happy faces and content faces, else riots will occur. Discontent faces are caused by overpopulation, war against home civilization, war weariness, drafting units and whipping your population away.

Discontent faces from overpopulation are limited to population minus 1 or more below emperor. Discontent faces from war against home civilization are limited to the amount of foreign workers whose home civilization you are at war with. Discontent faces from war weariness are limited to 100% of population. Discontent faces from drafting units and whipping your population away are not limited to current population. In some cases discontent faces may by far exceed the current population of a city, but still one content or happy faces is needed to compensate for every discontent face. In some cases 5 or more good faces are needed to make a citizen content and one happy face to make him happy.

Avoiding all causes of unhappyness but overpopulation has a high priority. Having large metropolises is sort of the goal of civilization, keeping towns at size 1 or 2 usually makes no sense. The extra commerce of republic usually makes it easier to keep your cities away from rioting as luxury rate is very powerful tool.

As well as allowing you to sign more treaties (Alliances, RoPs), having an Embassy produces a (short-term) improvement in your relations with the AI. At higher levels, where they have more cash to splash, they'll often build Embassies with you, which saves you doing it, but (I believe) still gives the same effect. But kissin' don't last...

The effect of embassies is permanent. Still you can offset their positive effect by permanent negatives from declaring war etc..

 

[Theov]

Try to use different popheads - I made one for my mod, which shows in shades how happy they are. Light shade is happy, dark shade is unhappy.
More unhappy than happy = civil disorder.
And yes, that is Elvis.

View attachment 403609

First understand that every people after x is born unhappy, where x is difficulty level. Then you will need a luxury to make a content people happy or a building to make an unhappy person content.
In the end, it's quite the same, so make sure you use the lux slider, get luxuries, and buildings. Despotism (2), monarchy (3), fascism (4), feudalism (3) and communism (4) also have military police. So stationing military units will make unhappy people content.

 

[justanick]

First understand that every people after x is born unhappy, where x is difficulty level.

One could think that chieftain = 1, warlord = 2 etc..

At Chieftain there are 4 free citizens, at warlord 3, at regent and monarch 2, all else has only 1 free citizen.

 

[Theov]

One could think that chieftain = 1, warlord = 2 etc..

At Chieftain there are 4 free citizens, at warlord 3, at regent and monarch 2, all else has only 1 free citizen.

yes, thanks for clarifying.