Same Game every game?

[AirBear31]

is it just me, or is every game generally the same?

I seem to focus science and culture early, expand to 3-4 cities, and coast to victory because I get such a huge lead before mid-game. I will usually have to fight off 1 war on the way which leads me to building a decent sized army and then nobody declares on me after that. I pretty much don't bother with expansion/conquest whatsoever. I befriend a few city-states and just use the cities I settle.

In addition, I keep reading strategy about "specializing cities" but by mid-game, I usually have every culture, science, and production building for my two biggest cities. I then eitehr fill in with new units or military upgrades in between once I get every wonder I want. When I research something new, I build it, then I have nothing crucial to build again.

I play on hard currently, am about to start a game one level up and see how that goes...

[Optimus Princeps]

Ya the earlier difficulties are pretty easy after the first era or so. The game starts to be a challenge at about immortal and maybe the one below it. I cannot beat diety but have had a few immortal victories. On the harder difficulties being poor at the beginning and being behind on science is the hardest part.

You can try switching strategies around and maybe play a game where you declare war on everybody you meet to make things interesting but on the harder difficulties it is nice to have friends.

[Supermanpong]

Originally posted by JManeri131:

is it just me, or is every game generally the same?

I seem to focus science and culture early, expand to 3-4 cities, and coast to victory because I get such a huge lead before mid-game. I will usually have to fight off 1 war on the way which leads me to building a decent sized army and then nobody declares on me after that. I pretty much don't bother with expansion/conquest whatsoever. I befriend a few city-states and just use the cities I settle.

In addition, I keep reading strategy about "specializing cities" but by mid-game, I usually have every culture, science, and production building for my two biggest cities. I then eitehr fill in with new units or military upgrades in between once I get every wonder I want. When I research something new, I build it, then I have nothing crucial to build again.

I play on hard currently, am about to start a game one level up and see how that goes...

try not playing on baby difficulties lol. basically 7-8 are the only ones that will give you somehwat of a challange.

[Staber13857]

play different styles and see how it goes
I.E. try the honor comerce autocracy or the piety patronage commerce route
Look them up in the forums or on civ fantics or reddit.
They offer an alternative to the classic 4 city tradtion win.

[americanman_4_life]

Change up the setup of map. If you like playing vs the AI, but get too bored vs having only AI, but can't seem to find loyal enough players to hang in game til end... try HOTSEAT mode in Multiplayer.

Hotseat allows for multiple Human players to lead a different Civilization, all on same map, and same game, each person taking his or her own turn on their own Civ, in a... sort of like a pecking order, every turn. The design was originally for a group of people getting together in real life, meeting on same computer, to play the game against eachother, even so far as allowing each player to create optional password, as ea Civ (player) needs acknowledge it's their turn.

However, for any size game and map, with any amount of players, you can set all of them to human players, or only 2 and the rest AI... in the past, when i've been bored of the same ol Civ V game... I would create a 6 player Hotseat game, 2 human players, 4 AI players, and split it in teams, with the two Human on same team, and 2 teams of 2x AI each... and I would PLAY both Human players controlling them on Hotseat.

Currently, I'm actually building a 6x player map, and test running it. I created a 6x Player Hotseat, controlling all 6x players... its become quite interesting to say the least. I've gotten in to the game, for ALL 6x players, and trying to play to win for each one, despite conflicting withother.

So, just ideas, change things up, by creating a Hotseat game, usingonly some, or all, the seats as Human Civs, and putting against eachother, or work together!

[americanman_4_life]

Completely different idea... check out the Broadcast tab ontop, or if you have any friends who play, and have their permission (if needed) right click name when they in game, and select WATCH... you actually Tune In through Steam Browser to their game as long as they have it available, and online... and you watch them as they play. See what they see. Though you can learn something and it can be quit intriguing to see how others think in many situations, it can also get quit boring. All depends on the player.

Check out the Broadcast!

[Strategikal]

Every game is the same because you keep playing it the same way. I fell into this trap too. Once you learn what works you tend to fall into the habit of using the same strategies every game. But there are many different strategies you can use. Watch some YouTube videos to see what other players do.

Try playing a completely peaceful game, or immediately declare war on your nearest neighbour and for all out conquest. Build a small number or large cities, or spam settlers and expand as much as you can. The first techs you research are pretty important. A lot ot people try to grab the Great Library early for a free tech, others go for Iron Working. But if you're on the coast, why not go for sea techs and build up a really powerful navy?

The easiest way to introduce variety into the game is to play on different maps. A highland map filled with mountains and choke points requires a very different style of play to an ocean maps with many tiny islands. Play in a jungle, play on a desert.

Use the advanced options to vary the game. Choose the civs you want to play against, add extra civs (cram a load of civs onto a tiny map for example), add more city states, or get rid of them altogether, add raging barbs, mix up the leader personalities. Start in different era (later eras give a much shorter game but you start with more units, cities come with buildings ready built, you can't build the early wonders).

There's many ways to add variety to how you set up a game, and different strategies work better in different types of game.

And then there's mods... Use a mod to halt research in a certain era to stay in that era for the rest of the game. You can start and end in the same era, so you could play a purely classical game, or industrial or whatever. So many different ways to play.

[Eben]

Get in on the Scenarios, most players don't bother but some of them are incredibly difficult at the higher difficulties. When you get really bored a great challenge is attempting to get all of the achievements, particularly the scenario achievements. There are over 280 of them and I've got almost a thousand hours on this game and still don't have them all.

Mods are a lot of fun but you wont get any achievements with them.

[la_nague]

this is a sign of too low difficulty, you win early and feel like the game just drags on.

And you win easily and do not need to react to circumstances, so you can play the same way every time.

[Eben]

Originally posted by la_nague:

this is a sign of too low difficulty, you win early and feel like the game just drags on.

And you win easily and do not need to react to circumstances, so you can play the same way every time.

Yup

[zxcvbob]

So play something completely different. Like maybe this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=521674 (Piety opener strategy)