Normally I'm okay when starting a new round and developing a framework, but there are a few things I sometimes have trouble with that end up crippling me for/having an impact on the rest of the game. I'm playing as Washington on Prince difficulty.
1. Start Location: Getting a good starting location is mainly luck-based, but it can still impact the developing of your framework. There will me instances where either I have a lack of good food or production tiles, and others where my luxuries will be in bad locations (I won't be able to get the luxury in time for my free Liberty settler, and I don't want to end up in negative happiness this early on). Still, this is the least of the problems.
2. Dodge the Barbarians: Everyone knows how annoying barbarians are, but sometimes the placement of the encampments can make them difficult to deal with. My main problem is when they're timed so either multiple show up at once or they show up within short intervals of each other. The big problem is that if this happens, then my workers have a hard time getting things done. I'll have to constantly pull them back to protect them, and the barbarians that show up manage to pillage important tiles before I can get rid of them. As a result, I keep having to repair the same tiles and less gets done. This has gotten even more irritating recently due to pillage healing.
Also, at the time, I don't always have enough units to fully deal with the encampments (they ALWAYS spawn more units on top of me as I'm about to get rid of the encampment guard).
3. Early Game Wonders: Usually I tend to go for the Great Library as my first wonder, but after building a few other things in my capital. Usually I end up getting it, taking Philosophy as my free tech, and building The Oracle soon after. However, I end up wasting time if the wonder is taken before I build it. Should I start building just a regular library instead? What should I do to reduce dependance on The Great Library?
4. Very Early Game Wars: I don't build many units during the first 100 turns, as I'm concentrating on the framework of the empire. However, I've recently had AIs attack me before I can build ANY defense (usually around turn 50). They end up taking an important city that I'm not always able to protect. I know how to fend off warmongers, but now they'll sometimes attack before I can do anything.
5. Stagnation: Not really an early-game thing, but a general problem I sometimes have. Sometimes I'll have a city in a location with a decent food yield that'll still stagnate. The problem is that even if I have plenty of good tiles, the surplus will stay at +0 no matter what I set the city's focus to. How do I fight this kind of stagnation.
In fact, I just started a game, my capital is in the plains next to a river. I'm working on a Granary, but it managed to stagnate at only 2 POPULATION.
6. Score: Not really a big deal, but the last few games my neighbors managed to safely found 5 cities before I could even found my third. This resulted in them having much higher scores, when I normally had a small score lead early on.
7. "Ballooning Literacy" Civs: I usually go for science victories, so this has always been a problem for me. If I have a good early game, even if I stay ahead in Literacy for quite awhile, they're will sometimes be an AI who manages to "balloon" to 3 techs ahead of me very suddenly, and it's ALMOST ALWAYS Sejong or Harun Al-Rashid.
So, these pretty much sum up my troubles in the game. Any tips on how to combat these issues and improve my playstyle?
1. Start Location: Getting a good starting location is mainly luck-based, but it can still impact the developing of your framework. There will me instances where either I have a lack of good food or production tiles, and others where my luxuries will be in bad locations (I won't be able to get the luxury in time for my free Liberty settler, and I don't want to end up in negative happiness this early on). Still, this is the least of the problems.
2. Dodge the Barbarians: Everyone knows how annoying barbarians are, but sometimes the placement of the encampments can make them difficult to deal with. My main problem is when they're timed so either multiple show up at once or they show up within short intervals of each other. The big problem is that if this happens, then my workers have a hard time getting things done. I'll have to constantly pull them back to protect them, and the barbarians that show up manage to pillage important tiles before I can get rid of them. As a result, I keep having to repair the same tiles and less gets done. This has gotten even more irritating recently due to pillage healing.
Also, at the time, I don't always have enough units to fully deal with the encampments (they ALWAYS spawn more units on top of me as I'm about to get rid of the encampment guard).
3. Early Game Wonders: Usually I tend to go for the Great Library as my first wonder, but after building a few other things in my capital. Usually I end up getting it, taking Philosophy as my free tech, and building The Oracle soon after. However, I end up wasting time if the wonder is taken before I build it. Should I start building just a regular library instead? What should I do to reduce dependance on The Great Library?
4. Very Early Game Wars: I don't build many units during the first 100 turns, as I'm concentrating on the framework of the empire. However, I've recently had AIs attack me before I can build ANY defense (usually around turn 50). They end up taking an important city that I'm not always able to protect. I know how to fend off warmongers, but now they'll sometimes attack before I can do anything.
5. Stagnation: Not really an early-game thing, but a general problem I sometimes have. Sometimes I'll have a city in a location with a decent food yield that'll still stagnate. The problem is that even if I have plenty of good tiles, the surplus will stay at +0 no matter what I set the city's focus to. How do I fight this kind of stagnation.
In fact, I just started a game, my capital is in the plains next to a river. I'm working on a Granary, but it managed to stagnate at only 2 POPULATION.
6. Score: Not really a big deal, but the last few games my neighbors managed to safely found 5 cities before I could even found my third. This resulted in them having much higher scores, when I normally had a small score lead early on.
7. "Ballooning Literacy" Civs: I usually go for science victories, so this has always been a problem for me. If I have a good early game, even if I stay ahead in Literacy for quite awhile, they're will sometimes be an AI who manages to "balloon" to 3 techs ahead of me very suddenly, and it's ALMOST ALWAYS Sejong or Harun Al-Rashid.
So, these pretty much sum up my troubles in the game. Any tips on how to combat these issues and improve my playstyle?