No matter what you do, you will lose a ton of political power in your second and third turns because warming hasn't stopped and species are going extinct. However, you can compensate for this by getting power from maxing out happiness and completing fast projects.
With this in mind, go through your research and infrastructure tabs and start every project that can be completed in 10 years or less, and sign every policy that only costs 5 points except the malthusian one ("stop food aid"? fuck those guys). This should give you a nice head of steam so that by turn 3 you're getting a ton of political power from completing projects and the results of your policies.
Balancing energy takes more trial-and-error, all I can say is that they have a pretty nuanced simulation and sometimes you'll find that moving to a more polluting energy source actually decreases emissions because you need fewer power plants to meet demand. Look at the info on the bottom of the screen as you make your changes and try not to cause shortages.
my second victory (2050) was way quicker and easier than my first, and i focused a bunch of cheap short term stuff at the start as well as the longer-term stuff
early biodiversity stuff seems good - you get points and also it helps prevent a lot of extinction type events that further tank your contentedness (and soon gives you lots of positive contentedness events too). increasing biodiversity damage to reduce emissions early is bad, and switching to biofuels is a big mistake, i discovered
dont be too afraid of ramping up electricity use, as you switch to more electricity and less fuel you can be making your electricity more renewable at the same time (the offshore wind is particularly good, and the batteries are important too)
and a slightly slower path to world veganism via meatless mondays and vegetarianism worked better than saving up all my points to make everyone vegan on turn 2, as much as i wanted to
putting more than 1 point into a research/infrastructure project doesnt seem worth it until a bit later when you have more points to work with - better to spread it over lots of projects, ive found
Any tips on how to play? I keep losing because my contentedness goes to zero.
No matter what you do, you will lose a ton of political power in your second and third turns because warming hasn't stopped and species are going extinct. However, you can compensate for this by getting power from maxing out happiness and completing fast projects.
With this in mind, go through your research and infrastructure tabs and start every project that can be completed in 10 years or less, and sign every policy that only costs 5 points except the malthusian one ("stop food aid"? fuck those guys). This should give you a nice head of steam so that by turn 3 you're getting a ton of political power from completing projects and the results of your policies.
Balancing energy takes more trial-and-error, all I can say is that they have a pretty nuanced simulation and sometimes you'll find that moving to a more polluting energy source actually decreases emissions because you need fewer power plants to meet demand. Look at the info on the bottom of the screen as you make your changes and try not to cause shortages.
Aaaaaaaaah. I was wondering why that was happening. Okay.
Bread and circuses
Champagne socialism + Recycling initiatives are good for an early game happiness boost (and the recycling initiative eases biodiversity pressure)
my second victory (2050) was way quicker and easier than my first, and i focused a bunch of cheap short term stuff at the start as well as the longer-term stuff
early biodiversity stuff seems good - you get points and also it helps prevent a lot of extinction type events that further tank your contentedness (and soon gives you lots of positive contentedness events too). increasing biodiversity damage to reduce emissions early is bad, and switching to biofuels is a big mistake, i discovered
dont be too afraid of ramping up electricity use, as you switch to more electricity and less fuel you can be making your electricity more renewable at the same time (the offshore wind is particularly good, and the batteries are important too)
and a slightly slower path to world veganism via meatless mondays and vegetarianism worked better than saving up all my points to make everyone vegan on turn 2, as much as i wanted to
putting more than 1 point into a research/infrastructure project doesnt seem worth it until a bit later when you have more points to work with - better to spread it over lots of projects, ive found