Okay I'm trying to play the game but it always seems the AI out paces me in EVERYTHING. I'm a big veteran of Civ 5 so coming into this game I'm stuck in my old ways of thinking. I need to know what works and doesn't work in this. My most recent game was against the Drakken. I'm not sure if I'm a newbie or has a bad start, but it was basically nothing but food all around me. And I was in the cold north with only two luxury resources.



I've lurked the forums and some people have said some techs are absolutely mandatory like the upgraded weapons and army slot system. I'm playing this game with mostly my friends and want to get better. Thanks.



So in this game I built up my cities a few population then switched to production built all my starting buildings and then started building settlers. I did this because I wanted to cut off the AI from getting to the other side of the continent and settling.



Right from the start I was behind in everything from where I settled and couldn't keep up. It didn't help my friend was using a custom race. Which I greatly dislike since I feel it just opens up the game for infinite abuse. Is the Drakken any good against other players? It didn't help he was a faction who couldn't be at peace. By around turn... 88 I had 540 diplomacy points.



When I settle cities what do I want to settle them around?



Edit

My friend had a custom race designed for war. I need to beat him at his own game. He was using the vaulters as a base for his custom creation.

Well, the first question is - Who do you play as? Pick one faction/race and learn the in/outs of them.



Your first choice will help decide who you play as. You also mentioned playing against your friend. Is MP play your only goal here?

Okay as the Drakken then. I want to learn everything about how to play them. Also I will mostly be playing multiplayer with friends. Though may dabble in singleplayer.

Hey, Gamgee



Here is what I have learned form my games and watching some youtubers play. Food is the first priority, try to look for location wich will give you some industry as well. Set your wroker to generate industry and finish Founders Memorial asap, while researching Mill Foundry. When the FM is done, switch your worker to food production. The main goal is to establish a solid capital with "the holy trinity" - Mill Foundry, Seed Storage and Public Library.



And remember to juggle your workers. It's like:

"Oh, im getting more industry form mill foundry? So you workers go make more food."

"More workers? Ok go finish the seed storage" Etc, etc.

I hope you get the idea.

You may want to check neighbourhood if you are wondering about initial position. For a couple of turns you can spread out and see if there are anomalies which could produce happiness and/or massive boosts for the young city. After a couple of turns you should choose the site, if you don't get spot-on site on first turn. Regroup with the Hero with your initial army as the more troops he/she commands, the faster the experience rolls in.



There might be games that the initial surrounding simply suck. Reroll a game if you play agains AI, it's not shameful.



Of the expanding-wise, try to get in a position where you can form a long "double-line" of districts, in any direction. It will give you boost for happiness as the city grows due to good amount of Level 2 districts, while still exploiting a lot of surroundings.



Usually the regions that has little low-end resources tend to have some high-ends instead.



Don't expand too rapidly, because happiness bonuses work for you food and industrial producion locally, and science & dust production derive from global happiness. With low-end technology you can get 4 regions without significan problem.

If your friend is using a custom race, then it is to be expected for him to have an unfair advantage.

Getting outpaced by the AI though is a problem. What difficulty level are you playing at? At high difficulty levels the AI gets an unfair economic advantage (at endless for example they get a 90% discount on buying things with dust. Yes, that means they pay 1/10th the price)

But at normal difficulty the playing field is level and you should not be falling behind like that.



1. Are you using dust to buy buildings to accelerate growth?

2. Are you using luxury boosters?

3. Are you making sure to get decent food production going on to grow your towns fast?

4. Are you getting the library tech as an early research?

5. Are you making sure to only research useful things (since the cost of each subsequent item rises up)

6. Are you managing your happiness? (happiness is extremely important. Each city's happiness gives between -50% and +30% to food and industry. And a weighted average of your entire empire's happiness gives the same to dust and science).

7. Are you hitting the bottom, right, and left quadrants on the empire plan (+25% happiness is awesome. the -33% to construction cost reduces cost of buyout as well as construction. +1 D per pop is awesome, etc)

8. If you can, try and grab governors (ideally cultist heroes) for cities for more boost.

Personally, I like Ardent Mage governors. They can prop up science, and later on they eliminate the number of cities unhappiness -penalty. Everything else you can have access to city upgrades: food, industry, science, dust and influence. Only happiness is in high demand.

The best governors hands down are the Cultists.

Well, if you aren't going to invest in happiness-raising techs, I can see how AM governors would make sense as a suitable alternative. But for a Drakken player like the OP, the Cultist Heroes' Influence boost seems a better fit, I guess.

Do you get the benefits of an anomaly if ANY of your city squares are on it?



Or does the city center (or later a borough) have to be ON the anomaly to get the benefits?



Similar question.... can you get the benefits of being on water (build docks, etc) if ANY of your city squares are on it? Or again, do you have to have a city center (or borough) ON the coastal tile?

Idaho wrote:
Do you get the benefits of an anomaly if ANY of your city squares are on it?

You get the benefit of an anomaly if it is under your:

1. city center

2. borough

3. exploitation



the exploitation is all terrain that is one hex away from a city center or borough but isn't a borough or a city center. That is, when you initially settle a city it will have 1 city center and 6 exploitations and 0 boroughs. Once you build a borough it will remove one exploitation, but add 3 more, increasing your total to 1 city center, 1 borough, and 9 exploitations.



As for the water, same rules apply, only you can't build on it except for the docks, which count as a borough but don't expand exploitation

Drauglir wrote:
Of the expanding-wise, try to get in a position where you can form a long "double-line" of districts, in any direction. It will give you boost for happiness as the city grows due to good amount of Level 2 districts, while still exploiting a lot of surroundings.

Hmm, Yeah I remember seeing a little map/chart showing how its best to expand. I am still playing my first game, (about 120 turns in) IS there a Level 3 district later in the game? or does it top out at Level 2?

NJohnny wrote:
IS there a Level 3 district later in the game? or does it top out at Level 2?

Level 2 is max for all factions except Cultists, who can go up to level 3 max with their city and boroughs.

Ok Thanks.

I like to settle with food and production priority, i consider "good" spots to be one anomaly and river and forest (tough im playign Wild Walkers , for other races forest prolly isnt so good. ). River adds food and there is plenty of later techs that get bonuses from rivers.



I also noticed it really helps to search alot of ruins early as you are likely to stumble upon some luxuries as reward, and can apply the boost before expanding.Then you can expand quickly, not worrying for some time about approval.Hopefully you will build sewers in your new cities before the booster approval bonus runs out.