Why do I find the mediaeval period boring?

[couerdelion]

I don’t know what it may be but I am getting very bored at or around the middle game here. I’ve played the game twice up to around the level of guilds/optics and the last one seemed to have several problems

1) At the time I was still running at maximum health – not really a problem for cities that have unworked 3/0/1 or 2/0/2 tiles
2) No real territory left
3) No civilisation will trade tech with me because they say I am too advanced (yet they have more techs than me!!!!)

I think it was the last point that did it for me since it seems some fix to help the AI. If I were playing at Deity level then I guess this might be understandable but I was two levels below Deity (Emperor??).

In some ways, I was probably finding the game a little too easy but also very slow to develop at this stage. War seems out of the question simply because all my cities have happiness and health building requirements and have done for the past 20 turns. In any case, wars take a long time to prepare and I am sure something else would turn up to take my attention.

I guess I might also be missing something on the GP side of the game. Specialists seem useful for making money if you have run up against a population max but I can’t see any other compelling reason to have them if there is an improved tile to work instead.

[Ralph_Jackson]

Now I am definitely a novice, so don't take this as Vel level commentary!, but as it is about boredom / enjoyment I guess we are all qualified to comment.

Whenever I have been bored it has usually been a pointer to me that I have "missed the point about what I should be doing in this period" - and indeed it hit me at certain points in the game.

e.g Beginning - exciting mapping out where my cities will be...
Late game - Exciting rush to which of the AI's will beat me first (Novice remember).

So don't know if this helps; but for me the medieval period is the period where I.

1. Identify who the biggest threat is & what should I do with them

2. Decide on what sort of victory (in my case still defeat!) I am aiming for.

3. prepare for War number 2 (I am usually aiming to damage the biggest threat so by definition will be behind so needs preparation!)

4. Choose who my long term buddies will be and start investing in that (Not hard to be friends with most civ's other than the manic ones in the early game but I think you have to Choose and target your long term allies in the medieval period).

Note these are all "thinking" style tasks which need me to almost stop playing (definitely stop clicking buttons) for a few turns which can be dull.

Anyway I am sure more expert people will have beeter pointers - just my 2p's worth.

ralph

[DirtyMartini]

couerdelion,

I agree -- by the medeival, I'm usually spending time adding grocers and banks to my cities in order to combat disease and beef up my income. I find war difficult to wage as it can take a fair number of catapults to wear down AI cities. My typical nemisis, Izzy (sometimes Saladin), has a medeival UU, so I try to avoid them.

While this period is boring, I find that how I come out of it determines my success in the rest of the game -- I usually get to the Medieval in pretty good shape, but If I'm not careful I can come out of it in a very bad position. The big question is -- can I beef up my income well enough to keep up in science or do I start to stagnate irretreivably. On my Monarch games, the latter generally happens.

My aim is generally to get the empire in order and prepare for a nice cavalry war later on.

[couerdelion]

When to fight wars

It may well be the case that I am just ahead (although I know I am behind in techs and almost certainly in army).

The two biggest competitors on my continent are Alexander (North East Border) and Saladin (North West – with main direct link through two narrow valleys). With both I have a history of open borders, trade and common religion so the idea of any direct conflict is unlikely.

Thanks for the low-down on Saladin’s UU since he just annoyed me by beating my settler to one of the last half-decent sites on the board. Such things are liable to lead to me holding a personal grudge against Saladin and perhaps responding. Now I will just “hold” the grudge.

The Aztecs are really the only ones to dislike me but they are a long way from me and their UU has now passed its sell-by-date.

I do, unfortunately have one big problem with wars and that is my empire location. Think German in the late 19th century and you can imagine the problem. In fact, now that I look at it like that, I can see an interesting diplomatic slant on the game. But my problem is still that there are 8 nations who are developing techs comfortably with me so I guess they are trading among themselves. Despite the fact that I am producing more gold, I can’t hope to keep pace with two or three nations developing techs together.

My techs will quickly advance and if I ever reach city maximum size, each city will be forced to decide on whether it goes for science or gold. I’m not so sure if production and military are exclusive options within this choice although thinking about it, some cities will have a production bias and perhaps others may even have culture bias. Anything which I plan to increase beyond 15 people (that’s most) will have to contain a market and grocer (for the happiness and health) and probably also an aqueduct.

Then there is the GP generating city whose sole purpose is to use land tiles with farm improvement simply to generate the growth required to feed whatever specialists it needs. I suspect that, this last city can be an important early game feature which I simply have not considered in this particular game. I’ve also, since starting this game, discovered the interesting “whipping production” technique which I hope to use to accelerate city builds in the early game.

[DirtyMartini]

IIRC Saladin's UU isn't particularly powerful, just don't need resources to produce it.

In my current game, I had my own island -- decent but it means my two religions haven't spread. Once Optics rolled around I found the world populated by zealots who hate me. Luckily, my nearest neighbor was Izzy, far behind in tech, with neither bronze nor iron = no Conquistadors. So, despite my impending stagnation, I've been picking off her cities with spare knights while I slog through the infrastructure building. If I can rebuild my science lead, I anticipate an eventual assault on the far continent by my favorite method -- amphibious assault. Marines rule.

[gus_smedstad]

Depending on the game, sometimes the Medieval period is an age of massive conquest for me. I've played a lot of games on Monarch where my army of Macemen and Catapults is in continuous use until the enemy gets Grenadiers.

Then again, I often play on Terra maps, which means I always have fiesty neighbors. Continent maps can be a lot less interesting if start on your own island or conquer everyone on your continent early on.

- Gus

[gentle]

play deity then^^

[couerdelion]

Deity!!!

I first want to be able to comfortably handle Emperor level before making a step up to a level where I know I have to play a very strong game just to catch up the early losses.