Archipelago or Large Islands or Small Continents sound nice but not having inland cities doesn't feel as immersive as having a variety of terrain in the game.
The food from 2 or more cargo ships is too much for a liberty capital in terms of happiness. 1 cargo ship is fine early on but getting too much population in the capital too early with liberty starves out the early growth of expansions. Tradition capital with up to 7 overall cities can get to 21 pop to work all the guilds and university early on with just 2 cargo ships. At 21 pop it consumes only 8 happiness.
The AI won't realize you bought their only coal for factories while guaranteeing coal for yourself just in case you don't have it. Then you get free social policies for first ideology.
I think it's way better to settle 4 cities even if the cities share some tiles and are not as good as individual cities.Having only 3 cities hurts your science so much in terms of having a lower overall population and less great scientist generation. If the 4th city has some tundra it's whatever, send a trade route to boost it and buy a 3rd ring fish.
This was in multiplayer with 2 players and 4 Immortal AIs. Standard multiplayer settings like Small Pangea with strategic balance and low sea level.
Moved to a Mountain on a copper hill to start and decided to go liberty after getting a culture ruin. 7 cities were good. Initially down to -9 happiness and "No Science!" due to huge GPT difficulties but I turned it around by rushing Currency for Petra Engineer into Machu and then workshops. NC was late, like I usually do after workshops. I took Copper/Iron/Salt and it was very good early game with limited happiness. Switched to trading posts and Cargo ships just around Research labs. I bulbed into Apollo, completed it on turn 165 and won the game within 4 turns on 169 by buying ALL the spaceship parts.
Any culture from tiles counts for Tourism
Tourism is gained from **ANY** culture from improved tiles when the city has Hotel/Airport.
I really like pushing workshops to get overall more consistent games.
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Many times I tech luxuries -> writing -> sailing -> construction -> engineering - metal casting -> philosophy and crank out my NC after the workshop in my capital.
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I tend to push more wide than tall and squeezing more cities into my land to get a strong late game economy and science output. This tends to be a bit more wide and need colosseums before libraries sometimes, in addition to workers. Libraries are not the biggest priority when trying to grow and have all worked tiles improved. Usually libraries before aqueducts though. Probably watermill or lighthouse before a library.
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Got Cotton as regional luxury so I went with the God-King Celts start and built shrines to get a religion. Constantly paying aggressive neighbours Huns and Germany to war each other. Didn't get a musician before Internet which might have been a mistake since by 2nd musician just spawned (bought 2 with faith and sent them to Huns). Could have just timed my musician with Internet and produced a couple Great works earlier.
Deity Shaka is a MONSTER. They get impis in before you even have composite bowmen. Only way to survive is bribe them to war. Here I bribed them to attack William for 1 gold per turn and an Embassy. Sidon took out Amsterdam...
Hiawatha is thought to be one of the worse civs since you actively lose out on the 10% production bonus of the normal workshop. Also the forests you keep you are not chopping to get out early infrastructure or even fresh water farms at Civil Service.
This time I went for it and got some nice looking Hydro Plant Lumber Mills (1 food 5 production). Also one with a trading post (1 food 3 production 3 gold 1 science)
My 6 city tradition game was meant to be a space victory since Deity level Austria was in the game. I had Forbidden palace which I engineered early on.
I lucked out on 2 Siam and Russia both making sure Austria couldn't diplomatically marry the city states. When I realised that I had over 10k in the bank for spaceship parts, I sent all my spies to be diplomats, bulbed my scientists for Globalization and won on turn 252 which is a pretty good time to win.
Settings: Deity, Standard speed, Standard size, Continents (Low sea level)
I like to utilise my land to the fullest and avoid making cities with exclusive access to good tiles. I think sharing tiles is fine and the goal of a city should be to be 11-12 population at unis (workshops first) so it has enough to work the slots instantly.
Also I don't like goint past 20 pop in my expands since there really isn't any local unhappiness to counter that, the growth cost is high and I can get a lot of yields from trading posts, lumber mills and mines with specialists of course too by just stagnating at 20 pop which gives the tradition +1 happiness per 10 population.
Many people play this game almost never opening the tech tree or managing their citizens. Civ player base seems to be more casual than Paradox grand strategy game player base, where you have to watch a 2 hour tutorial on youtube before playing a new game.
So it's understandable that if you boot up the game and choose a tech you can research from current option, build a building you see right in front of you in the list, fix a happiness issue only once you go unhappy, the game just progresses way slower.
Once you look into the game mechanics and think more deeply abour opportunity cost you can win on Deity. Then the "Hard" and "Very Hard" difficulties become "Easy" and "Very Easy". Deity does remain very hard since there is a soft time limit to win Culture or Domination before a runaway AI wins a Science victory.
Have you leveled up your game skills so that past difficulties feel too easy? When I play Emperor or Immortal the games feel very casual. I think casuality is kind of relative to your skill level when you play without thinking too hard, and players with more experience make better decisions casually also.
Playing a 2 player 6 AI game on Immortal difficulty I am the better player thus I am playing suboptimally to have fun. Here goes the story:
As the poor Chinese peasants found their capital city in the middle of a frozen wasteland, they know their only option is to fight for a better future. They compensate for the lack of production by choosing Liberty and planting 4 new cities which start contructing composite bowmen after the please the masses with some colosseum entertainment. After the Chu-Ko-Nus have been upgraded and a road has been pre-built to a Carthage with no walls, the proud Chinese march straight to Korea who also happily accept the Chinese way of life.
The Chinese encounter a problem, a great wall has been built by a proud clan, known as the Shoshone, who excell and defending their land with a 15% bonus strength. As the Chinese are bogged down in a jungle, the Shoshone rush for Himeji Castle and musketmen. The Chinese have mastered the Art of War, as Sun Tzu says: “Appear at places to which he must hasten; move swiftly where he does not expect you”. The brave Chinese divert the attack to Indonesia and move switchly make make light work of the galleas and Kris Swordsmen defending their cities. The Chu-Ko-Nus now have +1 range but the Shoshone have build the Red Fort, making their capital a whopping 72 defence. The Chinese Citadel appears on theri boders and the +1 range Chu-Ko-Nus start a 10-turn siege of Moson Kahni, which falls to Chinese hands.
China, now the undisputed hegemon of their continent are still poor. The peasants are starving and as 3 factories are contructed with 3 Coal from a friendly City State of Byblos, a new movement of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics forms and new cities get founded by the new urban population starved for housing. Some settlers from Beijing are used to the harsh cold climate take residence in even the High North to live a simple life fishing in the arctic.
Mostly asking people who have attemted this, although suggestions from anyone are welcome! After a brief break to play some Total War Shogun 2 (Great game from the same time when this game came out!), I am considering deity domination inspired by screenshots of earth maps in this sub.
Most likely will take Marathon speed. Should I do TSL 43 civs or 22 civs, or just take the base game random Earth with 12 civs? Have to decide my Civ and strategy: Get my own religion or not? Gold from founder beliefs could be nice but if I do more than 12 civs the ammount of religions won't scale up, which would make religion a risky play. Probably need to get at least factories and schools before building a major fleet but on marathon speed controlling the seas will be important to stop the AI from embarking carpets of doom.
Do you rush for Universities or Workshops first? Is Civil Service on your priority list?
Which difficulty do you play? Available wonders will be in Theology and Civil Service much more likely on lower difficulties. Same is true for Notre Dame which is gone on Deity before you could even have an engineer for it.
I personally play it safe and go for workshops first. If I'm tradition I'll pick up national college before Metal Casting but if I'm wide liberty then workshops first. That snowballs my production so that I don't have to worry about falling behind on infrastructure in terms of temples, markets and gardens.
Main strategy:
Settle 6-9 cities close to eachother on river systems. Sharing tiles is fine, you only need 10 decent tiles to support growth in each city. Focus on getting Colosseums, Aqueducts and workshops. National college is not a priority, since the fast critical infratructure and population will give you your advantage. Your aqueducts should be ready by the time you get civil service.
Focus on getting workers. You should only declare war on 1 city state but you can multisteal from one if possible by not peacing out with them after the steal. Build maybe even 2 workers before settlers since you can wait a bit for you settler speed policy. This allows you to focus on luxury trades with AI and you will always have a worker ready to improve new cities as they get settled. If a new city has forests in the surrounding tiles, build a worker before a monument and chop those forests to speed things up. This should give you early workers to create a mine in each city in case you need to stagnate at pop 3 to crank out colosseums fast.
Use liberty great person to plant an scientific academy on a NON-fresh water food tile since you don't want to waste your farm potential at this point. This should be the only academy tile in your game and will make up for late NC. Libraries are only useful at pop 6ish which may actually be after workhops in some cities. Focus on getting faith to either found an early religion or have enough faith to purchase faith buildings while they are cheap before the renaissance. These are important for faith generation, happiness and culture generation. It's important that you get to workshops before you need to open a filler policy since this strategy requires commerce. If you don't have a super strong city with production potential, then it's fine to work a workshop slot asap in your capital to create an engineer to save for Statue of Liberty. That will require 20+ pop to actually engineer the wonder in 1 turn. If you get the engineer fast enough you can engineer Leaning Tower and take another engineer from it for Statue of Liberty. Having an engineer for it will give you tempo to build infrastructure faster while working specialists instead of having to wait for multiple turns to get the benefit after reaching the tech.
You should open commerce and head towards the gold purchasing discount in there but open rationalism as soon as you can, since the purchasing is important for spaceship parts. Focus on getting writers and artists guild asap after universities. Build them in your best cities with at least gardens and start working the slots for culture. Save the great people for later.
Head to windmills and factories first since you will need to focus on production buildings to get stock exchanges in every city. Ideally you ally a cultural city state or two with you first spy or by doing quests to fill rationalism 3 around the time you get schools and ideology. You should be getting 2 free tenants from freedom and you should have at least 13 pop in each city to work
Work university slots at latest when you get secularism in each city and build public schools asap. If you don't have coal, then rush Radio for ideology or buy the coal from AI. Work as many engineers but don't spawn more engineers. Around Research lab timing you can fully stagnate and work even your newly built stock exchanges for the science and gold. This gold is important to start generating as early as possible for the spaceship parts as you won't be hardbuilding any of them if you don't have a great city for that. If you are isolated and in a safe spot you can bulb a scientist for Apollo project a few turn after labs finish and you are working gold specialists for the science.
Hopefully you are at around 18-22 pop in each city. Working specialists is important since you should be taking the Golden Age +50% and -50% unhappiness from specialist policy at latest from as soon as you get that, you should bulb your artists for the gold generation. If you won worlds fair you should bulb your writers during that, otherwise wait for this golden age. You should be taking happiness from Mints Banks and Stock exchances too as your third policy on your way to either Arsenal of Democracy or Foreign Legions and finally Spaceship Purchasing. Along that you will finish rationalism. If you won worlds fair before labs or otherwise bulb your writers at that point, you can use the rationalism free tech for plastics to start building labs faster or use it later for Satellites. You should have enough faith to purchase 2 scientists from rationalism.
You can pre-build Hubble to finish along with you last natural great scientists since Hubble increases the cost. Big Ben is usually still there after labs so you can build it in the capital after the lab there. Now your gold should be enough to purchase many spaceship parts after you bulb your scientist for all the techs. Use Oxford University for one of the late techs.
Profit.
