Feel free to post any short tips/tricks you have for CivRev here... :)

I will start:

Always try to keep some gold around... it will come in handy when you find you really need to rush a few units to defend yourself, or need to rush a wonder.


In the beginning, try to save up your first 100 gold (ex. from exploration, caravan, barb camps), so you can get a free settler. After I got the free settler, I usually spend the money on roads.


On the City Screen, clicking the L3 button on PS3 goes directly to the custom worker management.


When you receive a great people, always choose "Let me think about it.." option first. If it's a great scientist, you can go to your research technology screen to change to the technology that takes longest time to research, then immediately research the tech using the great people.


You can delete a unit by clicking R3 button on PS3.


Know well the bonus of the civilization your are playing, and consciously try to take advantage of those bonus as much as you can.


When attacking a city, move your units to forest tiles or hills whenever possible. Forests give you 50% defensive bonus while attacking from hills gives you 50% attack bonus.


Avoid attacking across a river, since there is a -50% attack penalty, for most units. Some units such as artillery don't have this penalty.


Usually it's best to settle your first great scientist and great explorer in cities, than use them up for instant money or tech.


In diplomacy screen, the discuss current events option can yield some interesting intelligence, such as how many units a city has or which city is building a wonder.

- When you see an enemy settler for the taking, consider this: does this civ have technology I don't have (starting tech or tech they get by getting to the medieval era). If so, let the AI settle and conquer the city once it's settled. You get a city and perhaps tech too!

- Form caravan 'trains'. The interest (or whatever it is) is the same for a single caravan or a train, but your revenue is tripled. That way you don't give away too much free money to the other civ.

- Always start your first turn putting your regions to production, so that you have warriors out there as quickly as possible.

- After you have made a third unit in a city, form an army. After you've formed your army, consider which army you want to build next. A single unit means nothing. It's all about armies. So plan ahead!

- Use offensive units to kill defensive units and use defensive units to kill offensive units when you are being sieged. That way you can boost the promotions of all your units.

- Don't attack with your great general and try to protect him fiercely.

On the City Screen, clicking the L3 button on PS3 goes directly to the custom worker management.


Very good tip! I was beginning to grow a bit tired of going through the menus :)


When forming armies, try using one veteran/elite along with two newbie units. This makes the whole army veteran/elite. This is of course unless you want more than one elite promotion on the army.


When you've formed an army, it gets the max amount of movement from the three units. This means that you may move two units onto a tile with a third, for an army, and then move the whole army as long as the third unit could move.


When keeping extra units no the same tile as great people or settlers. You can activate the settler or great person by "scrolling" through the units. In this way you could use a settler or activate a great person even if they've used all their movement points for that turn.

- If you tend to get lots of spies from barbarian huts or villages, put them on your galley(s), and keep track of the AI's (or opposing player online) cities. If you notice a great person flag, simply move your galley nearby and land the spy (far enough way so that you can move the spy into the city next turn, and so that the AI can't steal the spy). Steal the great person, load him up on your galley, and bring him back to your cities and decide where he best belongs. A galley is nice because its safer than land traveling, especially early in the game when the AI is out exploring.

Also don't be afraid to keep those spies on your galley if you don't notice any great people flags right away. Even later in the game you can use this method to quickly take away the opponents advantage, and turn it into your own.

-Make sure you use your great people effectively, and always hit the "let me think about it" button (not exactly sure if that's what it's called). This way you can analyze where to best settle your great people, or if hanging onto them for a important tech or wonder is more beneficial.

Also, if your going to use a great person to quick-build a wonder, rush the building the city is currently on, then start the wonder and use the great person to finish it off. If you just switch from the building to the wonder, all the production you had is pretty much wasted, because the great person will finish the wonder in one turn anyway. You can always wait to finish the building then use the great person to quick-build a wonder, but if you Rush the building then things happen quicker, and you get the bonuses from the building and wonder for a longer period of time (even if it is just a few turns, having the bonuses immediately can be handy).

Well I just played my 2nd game on emperor this afternoon, and won a space race victory. In both games on emperor I've found it harder to complete important wonders. In my first game, I didn't get Leo's Workshop, and in my second game I missed out on the Manhattan Project!

So I'm not sure if this is really a "tip" but, if you ever are in the process of building a wonder, and the AI or an opposing player gets it before you, instead of switching to a different wonder with all your production, switch to military units.

In my 1st game I was able to build 6 tanks in 1 turn, and I just got the technology so they were quite advanced and I blew through the opposition.

In my 2nd game I was going for a space race victory, and all the AI were at war with me. I was going for the Apollo program wonder, but switched it to a SS part, which was complete in 1 turn. Then I built another SS part in 1 turn. After that I built Modern Infantry. I didn't rush any of this, it was all off the Apollo Program production. Next turn, I created 6 Modern Infantry armies in that city (it was size 31, and no I didn't use a mega city strategy, I never have. The city was on the coast, with 2 fish, 1 dye, and iron and mountains for production). I was quite shocked when I hit "form army" six times...

So, as a tip, I guess, if you ever get beat to a wonder, consider whether the remaining wonders you can build are really all that useful to you, or whether those extra armies can help you conquer (maybe even conquer the civ that took the wonder in the first place, and get whats rightfully yours!). :D

- Protect your catapults, cannons and artillery always.

- If your adviser says "War is COSTLY." you should follow their advice because rushing troops to the city one by one is NOT such a good idea.

- If you have too many cities, try switching others from reseach to gold by pressing the triangle button (PS3) in the city menu screen.

Keep the tips coming, eveyone! Lots of good tips there! :thumbsup: Here are a few more from me:


Very early in the game, if you see an AI settler or caravan, you may want to consider capturing it if you are able to. One important thing to note is that CivRev's AIs don't have good memory of your past actions, unlike Civ4. So you could capture that settler unit (usually defended by an archer) with your army and sue for peace a turn or two later.


Naval units in CivRev can carry TONS of land units/armies, so don't let the oceans keep you from conquering you foes.


Bomber wings is a great way to take down enemy city defenses, especially if your enemies don't have fighters.


If you are aiming for culture win, courthouse in all cities + Magna Carta wonder is a must.

When keeping extra units no the same tile as great people or settlers. You can activate the settler or great person by "scrolling" through the units. In this way you could use a settler or activate a great person even if they've used all their movement points for that turn.
That's new to me. :) So even if the settler unit has used its turn, as long as you have a unit on the same tile, you can make the settler form a city this way?

- When you are losing a city to a culture flip, consider whether the city is really worth building a wall in. A temple is not always enough when the city is pretty small. In stead, set the output to gold and rush a settler each turn and drain its population. Let the other civ worry about getting the population back from 1. Meanwhile you can build a few new cities or raise the population of a slowly growing production house.

- Don't underestimate the power of naval support, but don't overestimate it. When you have the upper hand, you don't need to bother with a navy. Build aircrafts to sink your opponent's fleet in stead. If you're getting crushed, fleets can give your defense a nice boost. I've seen an enemy civ getting +27 defense for their great scientist :mischief:

"Never bring a Galley to a Trireme fight."

"If you capture a city, you will slow them down for a turn. If you nuke the city, you will slow them down for a lifetime."

"Put your shoulder to the battling ram."

"Any society that would give up a little military, to gain a little economy, would deserve neither, and loose both."

"We will make guns so cheep, only the rich will carry swords."

"Never procrastinate a land war with Japan."

"If you chase two warriors, you will loose them both."

Some don't have a meaning, and the others you need to think about to get. But I did come up with them all.

DS version: Land units on a boat can move onto another boat -- just ignore the red 'can't move there' symbol.

On higher levels, if you encounter an enemy's capital (preferably one of the stronger civs in the early age, like Zulu, Aztec, Egypt or France), just hang around the capital, preferably on a hill 2 regions away from the city. Once you see the capital decrease in size (either by the number or by the worked regions), you know a settler has been produced. The settler is usually escorted by an archer, so it only moves 1 square per turn. Locate the settler or the newly built city and enjoy the easy win. Rush an archer the next turn and offer peace.

- When you are losing a city to a culture flip, consider whether the city is really worth building a wall in.

I usually like to figure out which city is causing the flip and then capture it :)

One thing I like to do is try to build my roads such that a main "highway" is created with offshoots going to each individual city. In picture form, here's a game I played last night (badly recreated):

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/7095/city1jg2.png

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/920/city2zh6.png

The first one is good because any unit can get from one city to another in 1 turn. The second one is bad because traveling between distant cities requires intermediate stops in other cities, costing a movement point and usually making the trip take >1 turn.

You generally do this by building the longest road possible at first - for example, from the city on the bottom to the most distant city it will allow. Then, you build roads from the middle cities to other cities in a manner such that they connect with the main road you created at first.

The problem with the one long road is that a single enemy fighter positioned on said road will cause you a huge pain in the @$$.

I constantly use fighters to disrupt enemy logistics in multiplayer. I would cause that highway owner immense frustration.

That's quite possible, my multiplayer experiences have been plagued with disconnections and quitting thus far so I've mostly stuck to SP.

Especially when going for an economic win, pay attention to turns remaining and rush costs for marketplaces and banks, as well as gold increasing wonders.Example: If a bank will take a further 5 turns to finish or cost 100 to rush, provided the city is currently providing at least 20 gold rushing is far more economically sound. This is because over the following 5 turns the 20 bonus from the bank earns back the rush cost. If the city was already earning 30 gold then rushing would leave you with a 50 gold improvement after the 5 turns than if you built the bank with hammers. (30 x 5 =150, 150-100=50) With the internet, remember it doubles your ENTIRE gold production, which can often more than justify a hefty rush cost in the long term

When you want to build a city on an island straight off the galley/galleon, move your settler to that spot. Move your militia to that same spot. You cannot move the units anymore, but you can flip through the units and see that the special abilities are still available. You can build the city that same turn!

Same goes for great people, but you can only access the special ability when the units are in a stack.

If you form an army, every unit takes on the characteristics of the strongest guy. Always try to group 1 vet with 2 non vets and you'll still get a veteran army. This means you don't need a barracks in every city. Also, if you get a great military leader, make sure you settle them in a city with a barracks, and then your units will be elites instead of just veterans.

^ to expand on this, every unit takes on the characteristics of every other unit - so if you have a ninja unit and a lightning unit and combine them with a regular unit, you'll get a ninja + lightning army.

One thing I like to do is try to build my roads such that a main "highway" is created with offshoots going to each individual city.


Great Tip! I never paid attention to how my roads were laid out but last night I used this tip and found it extremely helpful! Thanks for the tip!

^ to expand on this, every unit takes on the characteristics of every other unit - so if you have a ninja unit and a lightning unit and combine them with a regular unit, you'll get a ninja + lightning army.

This can be especially effective with defensive units. Stacking Engineer, Leadership and Loyalty will make them very hard to defeat. Fortified with walls and luckily with a great general can make an early defensive unit relevant well into the game.

#1: save your game at the start, and then you can explore as usual. If you get beat to a village or make a dumb mistake early on...you can start over with the benefit of hindsight!

#2: I will make three warriors to start; the 1st for battling barbarians, the 2nd for exploring and finding barbarians (leave the fights to #1), and the 3rd to protect my capital. After exploring, bring everyone back and form a great army.

#3: If you find a wonder, considering posting someone next instead of "capturing" it (or whatever the term may be). For example, the El Dorado wonder produces more gold later in the game, and the Arc of the Covenant is more productive if you have more than one or two cities.

#4: When another civ demands a great person always say NO! Typically within a few turns you can diplomatically suggest peace and they will usually accept a technology rather than the great person (which cannot be replaced).

#5: Playing at the chieftan level provides many insights! You can try new strategies, learn a civ's special characteristics, and better understand the tech tree (and the bonuses granted to the 1st to learn a tech!).

couple things I noticed this weekend:

#6: End game wars: When other civ's recognize you are winning and start declaring war, immediately ask to talk to the warring civ's leader. Often the AI is automatically triggering a war, even if you have good relations. Occasionally that civ will back off immediately, even right after declaring war.

#7: Tech jumping: 50% of the required techs for a future tech must be completed, but additionally the tech jump must be within 10 turns (I think its ten). Sometimes, in order for a tech to even show up as an option you must adapt your cities' production to science. For example, I was playing as Americans and wanted to build factories for the triple production bonus but I was a ways off from the tech. All I had to do was change my gold production city to science and told my science city to focus on science (rather than being balanced for growth), and the option to study industrialization came up after a turn. I quickly cranked out factories relatively early in the game and snatched up most of the modern wonders!

#8: Sometimes an exploring unit will get trapped due to the growing culture of a civ that blocks a chokepoint. Rather than disbanding the unit for gold, consider placing it on top of a special resource. I had a great game in which I received the Great Wall from Angkor Wat. After receiving a horseman for defeating a barbarian village and realizing both my warrior and horseman were trapped, I placed them on important resources on the peninsula. The enemy civ couldn't declare war, and had to focus its efforts on getting engineering just to be able to expand (but of course, without these resources the civ was severely crippled).

#7: Tech jumping: 50% of the required techs for a future tech must be completed, but additionally the tech jump must be within 10 turns (I think its ten). Sometimes, in order for a tech to even show up as an option you must adapt your cities' production to science. For example, I was playing as Americans and wanted to build factories for the triple production bonus but I was a ways off from the tech. All I had to do was change my gold production city to science and told my science city to focus on science (rather than being balanced for growth), and the option to study industrialization came up after a turn. I quickly cranked out factories relatively early in the game and snatched up most of the modern wonders!

In my experience researching a tech you don't already have the pre-reqs for is a bad decision, because it costs more beakers to research than it otherwise would - and I think the extra "tax" is the same as the number of beakers of the pre-req.

So if you can do, like, Masonry in 2 turns and Mathematics in 5, then it's pretty much always a smarter idea to do Masonry, because once you're done Mathematics will only take 3 turns, and at the end of the 5 turns you have two techs instead of one.

In my experience researching a tech you don't already have the pre-reqs for is a bad decision, because it costs more beakers to research than it otherwise would - and I think the extra "tax" is the same as the number of beakers of the pre-req.

That won't be the case if:

- You skip prereqs of prereqs (thus saving even more beakers).
- This helps you reach the first-to-discover bonus.
- You manage to later backfill the techs you jumped.
- It is a necessary or extremely helpful tech at the moment.

The extra tax is less than the missing prereq cost. 10 less I think. At the moment, since you are skipping prereqs of prereqs, the prereq might not even be available to you...

In my experience researching a tech you don't already have the pre-reqs for is a bad decision, because it costs more beakers to research than it otherwise would - and I think the extra "tax" is the same as the number of beakers of the pre-req.

So if you can do, like, Masonry in 2 turns and Mathematics in 5, then it's pretty much always a smarter idea to do Masonry, because once you're done Mathematics will only take 3 turns, and at the end of the 5 turns you have two techs instead of one.

Not always true. I've seen where the future tech was 6 turns away and the prereq was 4 turns. By your theory, if I complete the prereq first, the future tech would take only 2 turns to complete. Wrong, it took another 4 turns. So I ended up getting the future tech 2 turns later than if I just jumped.

- This helps you reach the first-to-discover bonus.
- You manage to later backfill the techs you jumped.
- It is a necessary or extremely helpful tech at the moment.

The first thing you mentioned (skipping prereqs of prereqs) is a good point, but the three above can all be responded to with "...but getting the earlier tech + future tech in succession will often take the exact same amount of turns as getting the future tech by itself." i.e., you gain absolutely nothing by skipping the prereq.

The extra tax is less than the missing prereq cost. 10 less I think.

Yes, so earlier on in the game the 10 beakers might save you a turn or two (which may be what Chinese American was referring to), but by the time your empire is pumping out 50+ beakers per turn the 10 beakers becomes irrelevant and you're effectively still charged two techs' worth of beakers to research one, when you could just use the same # of beakers to research both.

same total beakers doesn't necessarily equate to same research time. I'll use the example used in the strategy article on tech tree.

Univerity - 240 beakers
Democracy - 120
{Inflated Cost} = 240 + 120 - 10 = 350 beakers


Assume you get 50 beakers a turn.
No jumping Democracy to get University, it will take you 120/50 = 3 and 240/50 = 5, = 8 turns to get Uni.

Jumping Demo to get Uni will take 350/50 = 7 turns.

We see from this example, jumping lets you get the tech one turn earlier. Beakers don't carry over, but give you gold instead. (I guess they learned from Civ IV.) So it depends on if you think that extra turn will cost you the tech's bonus (in this case, a free pikeman or a +1 science in all cities.) In short, you really need to bust out the calculator if you want to micromanage to this degree.

For PS3 (unsure if it's like this on the 360): You can use both sticks to move around the map faster - about twice the speed of normal stick movement speed.

You can cycle through your cities to find a specific unit in a stack you want to utilize.

Use spy rings (a spy army) to knock out a single enemy spy, and then choose "leave quietly". Follow up with a single spy to do her dirty work, saving the spy ring for another battle.

Use a spy to destroy troublesome enemy walls. (The AI builds walls in cities threatened by a culture flip.) Unfortunately, you don't have any control over which building the spy will destroy, so this might take more than one attempt.

Spies and caravans can collect friendly huts, and with their multiple moves can make good explorers if you get them from a barbarian village in the early game.

Initiate diplomacy as soon as you meet a rival AI. The location of their capital will be revealed on your map.

The free militia you get with galleys and galleons are useful even after the world has been explored. They have the "scout" ability, which reveals defender strength before you attack. Stack one with your modern army or supporting fleet, and use your upgrades for something better.

Dedicate at least one city to Science. Make sure it has lots of trade and is set to produce beakers. Build a library and university (but don't bother with a market or bank, which will be useless). Settle a Great Scientist.

Dedicate at least one city to Gold. Make sure it has lots of trade and is set to produce gold. Build a market and bank (but don't bother with a library or university, which will be useless). Settle a Great Explorer.

Sites with many sea squares make for a excellent specialized Gold or Science cities. Build The Colossus or the Trade Fair of Troyes in your specialized cities. The East India Company is even better, as it works with ALL your cities. If they city has low production don't worry -- rush!

That's new to me. :) So even if the settler unit has used its turn, as long as you have a unit on the same tile, you can make the settler form a city this way?
on the ds version you dont even need other units on the same tile

you just select the unit with the stylus and you can settle it

great for russian starts as you can move two spaces to get two resources in your courthouse range and still build the city on your first turn

Sorry if this one has been mentioned before:

Late game use of spies:

If you would like to infiltrate a city that may have a ring of spies guarding it (seems fairly rare on SP, but has happened to me several times), group a solo fourth spy with your spy ring- Use the spy ring to defeat the defending spies, then quietly leave the city. Send in the solo spy for your intended purpose- This way you accomplish the same outcome but only use up the solo spy, leaving the ring free to infilitrate another city, accomplish another goal at in the same city, or return to defend one of your own cities against AI spies.

Often, a decision NOT to build certain buildings will make or break your strategy. At high difficulty levels you will need lots of armies to be able to defend yourself effectively, so being efficient with buildings is extremely important.

Remember that a single veteran unit is enough to make a veteran army. For this reason, you rarely need more than one barracks for each major landmass in your empire.

If your city has two or fewer desert tiles, don't bother building a Trading Post. I generally consider the hammer from a tradesman more valuable than the trade from desert tiles. Egypt is an exception, of course.

Temples are a low priority early on. However, they are quite valuable in large cities.

Courthouses are nice, but not always necessary. Often, your tradesmen are more valuable than your workable city tiles. Build courthouses to capture outer ring resources or upgradable tiles like hills or plains, but don't bother if all you are getting is forest, grassland, or sea. Usually, only the first four tiles from the outer ring worth working (enough to grow your city to 12), and after that tradesmen take over (at 1 Hammer / 2+ Trade each).

Build walls only in cities that are close to enemy palaces. Keep enough gold on hand to rush a wall if you are threatened with an invasion or culture flip. Beware a neighboring civ that switches to Monarchy!

Typical build order for a city: Granary, Workshop, Library (or marketplace or barracks), Harbor (or Courthouse), Temple, then advanced buildings. All of these buildings are valuable enough to rush with gold if you can afford it. If your city has an abnormally high number of upgradeable tiles of a specific type, this may influence your build order. For example, if you have 3 hills, rush your workshop first.

Hi, Im new here!

Just thought I'd ask a quick question about building up my military. Can an army (formed by 3 units) be expanded any further?

Hi, Im new here!

Just thought I'd ask a quick question about building up my military. Can an army (formed by 3 units) be expanded any further?
Nope. Once you have an army, the only way to improve it is to win battles.

However, the effectiveness of an army can be improved with naval support, spies, the Himeji Samurai Castle, and Fundamentalism government.

Hi, Im new here!

Just thought I'd ask a quick question about building up my military. Can an army (formed by 3 units) be expanded any further?

I wish...wouldn't a tank army-army be nice?

One thing you can do with armies which is easy to miss is get 6 upgrades. Before someone tells me I'm talking toot, I'll explain. Starting with a standard (non-vet) army, or a vet army, you can obtain 3 elite upgrades, e.g. blitz, march and guerilla. However, if you can get 3 units each with at least 2 unique upgrades, they all stack. For example, if you were to create a legion army from the following:
Legion 1 - Blitz + Medic
Legion 2 - Infiltration + March
Legion 3 - Guerilla + Scout
then the army would have all 6 upgrades. It can be tricky to get 3 individual units with 2 unique upgrades each, since your upgrade choice is sometimes limited, but when you do the resulting army is incredibly versatile. Any combination of upgrades works, e.g. 0+0+6, 3+2+1, 4+1+1

Any more tips? I've been dying to see some updates!

I've started playing CIV4 recently and I am struggling quite a lot! I've read some on these forums and I've seen a lot about science city's, production city's and super science city's. I want to understand what they do and how you build them up.

I've started playing CIV4 recently and I am struggling quite a lot! I've read some on these forums and I've seen a lot about science city's, production city's and super science city's. I want to understand what they do and how you build them up.

Those strategies are relating to Civ Rev and not to Civ4. Post your question in the Civ 4 forum and you will get more reasonable answers. Although many of us active in this forum is both Civ Rev and Civ4 players, including me but I´m by principle not discussing Civ4 in this forum.

Hi. I recently picked this up, and I'm no expert but I've collected a number of tips that the next beginner might find useful. Many of them have been listed already. Apologies for it being obvious ones to exp players:

- Pick nice surroundings when founding city, but don’t wander too long
- Explore area for nice spots for huts & relics
- Don't settle city on useful tile. Settling tile becomes useless (becomes normal city tile)
- Use hills to attack from and forrest for defence. Protect hills next to city (excellent attacking position for opponents)
- Note that battling across a river adds to defense of opponent (attack weakens)
- Note that attacking from Naval unit weakens your attack
- Don't leave cities idling. All cities should always produce (hammers/science/gold/trade)
- Expand – get more cities, and grow all cities (look for nice spots in exposed area nearby. Build border/choke cities with heavy defense
- Grow culture – easy way to get cities (culture flip)
- Combine strong attack with strong defensive units and move them together
- Remember "Form Army" option
- Attack with multiple units (pref. armies) to take city
- Find choke points and exploit them
- Don't just build roads because you can. Ops/AI will also use them. If you do build roads, block them with a defensive unit in the middle. Do the same on Op's roads
- Use Spies (e.g. to steal GPs.) First send ring of spies, leave quietly, then send single spy
- Group of Caravans adds more to your gold but keeps other civ's tax the same
- Democracy is good for “Defend and Develop” approach
- Constantly check on Gold vs Science and switch some cities to your benefit when needed (a city can only do one of them, not both at the same time)
- Use ships for Naval support in battles to boost your chances
- Don't use GP immediately – wait first, and check options/progress. Also look at other city to settle GP in
- Consider option for Great Scientist to rush tech, but wait first to check progress. Use appropriately
- Consider option for Great Builder to rush Wonders. Wait first, start a wonder, then use super power
- Consider option for Great Thinker to flip cities
- Check advantages of Civ you are using (like techs during eras)
- Get Nuke first and either fire it or defend that city heavily (Manhattan Project). There is only one. A capitol can't be destroyed, but perfect to sack after nuke.
- Use Diplomacy to gather intelligence
- Militia can be used as scout in attacking force after exploration (put in same stack as armies)
- Check aircarft units for low fuel warning

Use it, don't use it. These are not hard & fast rules, just advice.

couple things I noticed this weekend:

#6: End game wars: When other civ's recognize you are winning and start declaring war, immediately ask to talk to the warring civ's leader. Often the AI is automatically triggering a war, even if you have good relations. Occasionally that civ will back off immediately, even right after declaring war.

#7: Tech jumping: 50% of the required techs for a future tech must be completed, but additionally the tech jump must be within 10 turns (I think its ten). Sometimes, in order for a tech to even show up as an option you must adapt your cities' production to science. For example, I was playing as Americans and wanted to build factories for the triple production bonus but I was a ways off from the tech. All I had to do was change my gold production city to science and told my science city to focus on science (rather than being balanced for growth), and the option to study industrialization came up after a turn. I quickly cranked out factories relatively early in the game and snatched up most of the modern wonders!

#8: Sometimes an exploring unit will get trapped due to the growing culture of a civ that blocks a chokepoint. Rather than disbanding the unit for gold, consider placing it on top of a special resource. I had a great game in which I received the Great Wall from Angkor Wat. After receiving a horseman for defeating a barbarian village and realizing both my warrior and horseman were trapped, I placed them on important resources on the peninsula. The enemy civ couldn't declare war, and had to focus its efforts on getting engineering just to be able to expand (but of course, without these resources the civ was severely crippled).

No, about the pre-reqs it works in this way:

You have to have the pre-reqs of the technology you want to get, let's say, you want irrigation and you got pottery (pre-req).
The cost of irrigation skipping masonry is:

Irrigation + (Masonry - 10 beakers). In this way, it's 70 instead of 80, but normally, I would get the first to get bonuses, because it's almost every time a good thing.

Hi. I recently picked this up, and I'm no expert but I've collected a number of tips that the next beginner might find useful. Many of them have been listed already. Apologies for it being obvious ones to exp players:

- Pick nice surroundings when founding city, but don’t wander too long
- Explore area for nice spots for huts & relics
- Don't settle city on useful tile. Settling tile becomes useless (becomes normal city tile)
- Use hills to attack from and forrest for defence. Protect hills next to city (excellent attacking position for opponents)
- Note that battling across a river adds to defense of opponent (attack weakens) Rivers only gives your units -50% attacks (only catapults, artillery, bombers don't get this, and maybe I'm missing others)
- Note that attacking from Naval unit weakens your attack It's -1/2, different from -50% because a % is counted normally, let's say a legion is 2 attack, with veteran and infiltration, then it becomes 4. Attacking from a river, it's 3 (deleting one of 50% bonuses), instead, if you attack from a naval unit, it's 2, because you add 100% (infiltration and veteran) first, then you lose 1/2

- Don't leave cities idling. All cities should always produce (hammers/science/gold/trade)
- Expand – get more cities, and grow all cities (look for nice spots in exposed area nearby. Build border/choke cities with heavy defense
- Grow culture – easy way to get cities (culture flip) Not a good advice, only going for culture or improving this before military or economics (science/gold) thins would kill you, normally

- Combine strong attack with strong defensive units and move them together
- Remember "Form Army" option Remember also that if you got 3 units and all one got 1 moviment, and you know your units are better than the enemy, you can attack with the first two ones, then form the army without losing any movement, and remember you don't have to heal

- Attack with multiple units (pref. armies) to take city Well, it's normal, how would you conquer a city? And, waiting for many armies while you can attack before, is not always a good advice, then, it depends on situation

- Find choke points and exploit them
- Don't just build roads because you can. Ops/AI will also use them. If you do build roads, block them with a defensive unit in the middle. Do the same on Op's roads
- Use Spies (e.g. to steal GPs.) First send ring of spies, leave quietly, then send single spy
- Group of Caravans adds more to your gold but keeps other civ's tax the same
- Democracy is good for “Defend and Develop” approach but really bad for military approach
- Constantly check on Gold vs Science and switch some cities to your benefit when needed (a city can only do one of them, not both at the same time) If you read some of my "strategies", you can see also how to produce gold and science in the same time. Just "exploit" the market, you can still produce like 300 gold per turn easily with the right bonuses, while producing science

- Use ships for Naval support in battles to boost your chances
- Don't use GP immediately – wait first, and check options/progress. Also look at other city to settle GP in a city
- Consider option for Great Scientist to rush tech, but wait first to check progress. Use appropriately
- Consider option for Great Builder to rush Wonders. Wait first, start a wonder, then use super power
- Consider option for Great Thinker to flip cities Consider also to wait. If the enemy is attacking you, and you got a good culture, if he takes off one of your cities, you can instantly flip it getting his units. That's how I won a game against tanks, when I haven't got them before the enemy (cool game, against another top player)

- Check advantages of Civ you are using (like techs during eras)
- Get Nuke first and either fire it or defend that city heavily (Manhattan Project). There is only one. A capitol can't be destroyed, but perfect to sack after nuke.
- Use Diplomacy to gather intelligence And sell technologies to AI, whatever you can if you want, that won't be a problem for you, take care about your enemies however, they could attack the AI and get your tecnologies

- Militia can be used as scout in attacking force after exploration (put in same stack as armies)
- Check aircarft units for low fuel warning

Use it, don't use it. These are not hard & fast rules, just advice.

I added comments on your post

PS: some advice are good ;)

Thanks for the clarification, MorteEterna. I don't mind. Even though this is by far the game I'm spending the most time on, I still feel new to it compared to the levels of achievement I read on the forums.
Which strategy explains the Gold plus Science trick? I can understand that certain "get Tech first" bonuses and certain wonders and GPs gives the +1 ... or sometimes +50% in city. Is that it? I would have thought that these bonuses are more beneficial in a relevant city (like multiply your Gold city as far as possible, or same for science)?
Thanks for the tips!

ok you probably meant this one:
How to use Market and Library in the same time by MorteEterna
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=298996

ok you probably meant this one:
How to use Market and Library in the same time by MorteEterna
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=298996

Yes, it is. There are a lot of things in this game..

Here's a trick I discovered:

If you are behind in the tech race, try talking with the tech leader(s). Sometimes they'll offer to go to war for money, even if they are currently a democracy. If you can afford it, pay them. They'll frequently switch from the tech-happy democracy to the tech-hostile fundamentalism, giving you several turns to catch up. Of course, sometimes they'll start bullying you.

I used this strategy when I was trying to set myself up for an economic or technology victory (as Spain). Greece was in the game, happily piling on tech at an alarming rate (and they were on an island, to make it worse). I realized they were going to get to AC before I could build the world bank, since I was currently besieged by two hostile AI civs. But I paid them to go to war, and they never quite got back into the tech race.

One cute trick: Block enemy ports with your obsolete ships. I discovered a hostile barbarian camp on an island late in the game, and they gave me a galley to go along with the Cruiser parked next door. What to do? I found a use for it.

Since you cannot build a ship if your only port squares are occupied, I parked it in the only water square of an enemy city. Once I controlled the rest of the sea it sat on, it was safe from enemy attack. It happily sat in port, preventing any ships from being built, until I finished the game.

It was awfully amusing to see it doing the victory dance right next to my fleet of battleships.

One cute trick: Block enemy ports with your obsolete ships. I discovered a hostile barbarian camp on an island late in the game, and they gave me a galley to go along with the Cruiser parked next door. What to do? I found a use for it.

Since you cannot build a ship if your only port squares are occupied, I parked it in the only water square of an enemy city. Once I controlled the rest of the sea it sat on, it was safe from enemy attack. It happily sat in port, preventing any ships from being built, until I finished the game.

It was awfully amusing to see it doing the victory dance right next to my fleet of battleships.

much in the style of zulu impi warriors camping out in the enemy's squares, parking ships next to the enemies cities is a very useful thing to do. The most powerful and easiest way to do this is with the americans.

Basically, after five techs, you get the half cost unit bonus, but this is really 1/3 cost in the medieval, since it's half the cost of ancient era rushing price. So basically, once you get galleons from navigation, or just galleys, start rushing them for 30 gold a piece (it's not hard raising money with the americans, in the medieval you can basically convert hammers to gold by selling units), and then just suffocate you enemies cities on the coast, taking out his fish, whales, and dye first. This is extemely effective on H2H, on FFA it's a little harder to do since you've got more cities to do this to, but still can be done on a prioritized basis.

Courthouses are nice, but not always necessary. Often, your tradesmen are more valuable than your workable city tiles. Build courthouses to capture outer ring resources or upgradable tiles like hills or plains, but don't bother if all you are getting is forest, grassland, or sea. Usually, only the first four tiles from the outer ring worth working (enough to grow your city to 12), and after that tradesmen take over (at 1 Hammer / 2+ Trade each).


This isn't necessarily accurate if your city has any gold or science multiplier buildings (library, market, etc) since the multiplier buildings do not apply to the trade generated by unassigned workers. So in a city with a university, a worker on the water (2 trade) will generate 8 science, while a tradesman working in the 13-16 pop slot would only generate 2 science.

much in the style of zulu impi warriors camping out in the enemy's squares, parking ships next to the enemies cities is a very useful thing to do. The most powerful and easiest way to do this is with the americans.

Basically, after five techs, you get the half cost unit bonus, but this is really 1/3 cost in the medieval, since it's half the cost of ancient era rushing price. So basically, once you get galleons from navigation, or just galleys, start rushing them for 30 gold a piece (it's not hard raising money with the americans, in the medieval you can basically convert hammers to gold by selling units), and then just suffocate you enemies cities on the coast, taking out his fish, whales, and dye first. This is extemely effective on H2H, on FFA it's a little harder to do since you've got more cities to do this to, but still can be done on a prioritized basis.

Haven't you stopped giving tips for Americans? :D

However, workers in the city get 2 gold/science after 7 pop (or 6)

When going for Domination by 1000AD...

I marched Settlers with my armies over to the last two longest distance Civs.

Built a city and a road and then pummelled them with additional Armies...

Nice Thread. Good tips here, It is really helpful to me.
All tips are very interesting and I teach something new over here. Nice information.
My heartiest thanks for sharing.

I didn't read the entire thread but if you have a unit stacked with a settler, you can establish a new city even tho it has used it's movement points for the turn.

When you have a settler unstacked (tsk! tsk!) it won't let you get to his options after his move points are gone.

EDIT: Ah poop someone already posted this.

I love this game. I've put more time on this game than all my other PS3 games combined.

Things i'll add...

With the highway approach, you should have plenty of time to build an archer+catapult army to patrol the road system, before enemies can "block" it effectively. Defeating the fighter problem is easy... be the first to build the "advanced tech" wonder (Alexandria?)

Beware that the "leave quietly" option places your spy ring back to the last square, so if it's unprotected... you'll lose the ring, and have to destoy THEM to get back into the city. Also on the same note... placing archer armies near enemy capitols early in the game helps give spies the protection to steal GP/destoy Bldgs, when that civ is soaring up the tech tree/cultural ladder

Something i haven't seen here...
Does anyone use the "chain of defence" approach?
Having a "chain" of defenders link your choke points so a freshly built defender can be placed where it's wanted/needed (thru reinforcement). This also helps when the AI gets aggressive, as you can form a few armies quickly, to stop the onslaught. Another thing is that an entrenched archer on every coastal square of a land mass is better (as well as cheaper) than building walls, and virtually eliminates invasion of that mass until an enemy has flight

a question about enemy spies...
Has anyone seen one prior to it destoying your fortifications?

With the highway approach, you should have plenty of time to build an archer+catapult army to patrol the road system, before enemies can "block" it effectively. Defeating the fighter problem is easy... be the first to build the "advanced tech" wonder (Alexandria?)

Oxford University. It gives you the highest tech that you have a prerequisite for. Popular choices are Steam Power->Flight, Industrialization->Advanced Flight, Corporation->Networking.


Beware that the "leave quietly" option places your spy ring back to the last square, so if it's unprotected... you'll lose the ring, and have to destoy THEM to get back into the city. Also on the same note... placing archer armies near enemy capitols early in the game helps give spies the protection to steal GP/destoy Bldgs, when that civ is soaring up the tech tree/cultural ladder

Spies are pretty good for stealing GP. I don't usually bother destroying buildings except maybe if a civ with temples and stuff is near where I want to expand.


Something i haven't seen here...
Does anyone use the "chain of defence" approach?
Having a "chain" of defenders link your choke points so a freshly built defender can be placed where it's wanted/needed (thru reinforcement). This also helps when the AI gets aggressive, as you can form a few armies quickly, to stop the onslaught. Another thing is that an entrenched archer on every coastal square of a land mass is better (as well as cheaper) than building walls, and virtually eliminates invasion of that mass until an enemy has flight

Yeah, that's good. Also if you have a small island, you can fortify a unit on every tile to prevent enemy units from landing easily.


a question about enemy spies...
Has anyone seen one prior to it destoying your fortifications?

You never see the AI moving spies and GP around. It can teleport stuff, especially spies and GP, but also sometimes armies will teleport to your fog of war and sometimes AI settlers will teleport to islands, even when the AI doesn't have any naval units. The AI can't teleport units to areas that are currently in your view, so you can curtail this behavior by putting old warriors on hills and things.

According to a 2K rep on another site, the AI does not get free units. So it can teleport legion armies into the heart of your empire, but it's not making them out of thin air. They still cost gold/hammers.

Yea, that's basically what i was referring to with entrenching all coastal squares. The smaller the mass (island), the quicker you can get to building important things... IE; a 3 or 4 square island w/ oak is a beautiful thing to see. Just build appropriate # of archers to entrench all squares, then you can build bldgs and wonders with great efficiency.

Teleportation? Ha... that's a great way of explaining what i consider a major flaw in the game. Teleportation won't even be possible by 2100 (when the game ends), in reality lol

Also...

Regarding the galley scout and teleportation, placing your scout on or the closest hill from a chosen city site will negate (to a great degree, at least) the "teleportation" of settlers, and armies appearing out of nowhere
Remember that a "teleported" army will march to your city (usually your capitol), and demand peace... giving you an opt-out. Point is, don't panic...

what about caravan spy movement... stack them and head into enemy borders. chances are high you shall get the spy into their territory. Only one downside: caravans get captured by "bandits" :( not really a strong solid technique but its good if its a civ with some culture and alot of GP

Spanish Armarda-Atlantis technique: earlyish on when you are relatively stable in defence spam the enemy with galleons and "defend" atlantis with about 5 galleon fleets and then if you do get the chance of using Leonardos Workshop you could upgrade to cruiser/battleships and justr patrol atlantis seeing as the enemy can "teleport" units here and there. also build some naval bases close by with reserve galleons and fighters (late game) to add extra security to the region. result: advanced/modern technology late on with only what 500-750 hammers spent between whole empire to secure a tech finish. hope this has helped :)

The diagonal trick: There is almost always a special resource two diagonal steps away from your starting square on turn one. S=That square is very special because it will be outside your city radius even with a courthouse and it will be too close to your capital to efficiently settle there. However, if you move one space diagonally before settling (still on turn one), you will have that resource in your initial city radius. So it is a good idea to look at your initial position and ask yourself if you can move one step diagonally in any direction and still get 2 grass, 2 forest and 2 water in your initial radius. If you can, do it. Three civs really stand out with respect to this strategy. The Russians get 2 food from plains right away, so they have a greater chance of being able to move without being short on food, the games most critical resource. They also can see the resource they are getting on their fun local area map. The Japanese get food from water tiles, so they are not as dependent on having grassland in their initial radius. FInally, the Greeks with a Courthouse in Athens can almost always move before settling, because their outsized city radius will almost always reach the initial required resource squares (i.e. 2f, 2h, 2t).

Noob Trick: If a new player is wary of what a flag in your city means then put 3 GP and a spy ring inside the city this makes it look heavily fortified and if you are still a little scared put some tank armies behind the city for counter offensives if they get too close.

If you are going to build Oxford, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS (Yes, it's that important to be repeated and in all caps) make sure Industrialization is your last researched tech. If you see you're going to build Oxford before getting Industrialization, switch to building a different wonder for a turn or two, and if you are going to get a new tech before building Oxford, quickly switch research to another tech. This is that important because your free tech will be Advanced Flight. This allows the building of Bombers /way/ before your opponent can build Fighters. For pretty much an entire era you'll be able to drop bombs from the sky, destroying your enemy's armies with your 108 attack veteran Flying Fortress Wings (Then again, I was playing on Warlord today, just because I can. It is a little lower on the real difficulties), killing everyone and thing that dares to stand in your way.

hi new to this website but wondering if you can help me out, i read someone’s thread saying if you settle on four plains = 20 gld early on in the game? If this is right is there another special resources apart from the obvious?

This is an obvious one - but I didn't see it posted directly and I never started using it until I started playing online:

When you are at war with another civ build single defensive units and place them in the roads, production and food squares of enemy cities - this cuts them off from their resources and once your units get fortified it can be a real pain to get rid of them.

I have the Iphone version and PS3 version and to be honest dont bother with being diplomatic on the Iphone version... was really nice to Monty Abe and Izzy early game then late game they stomped me while I was finishing the UN -_-

Destroy coast huggers... so when somebidy drops a galley in your bay it stops boats being create and also the AI can throw catapults and legions out in ancient era and then without moving the galley 2000 years later you have rifles, cannons and knights on your doorstep... I just found out on Deity with Toku -_-

On the City Screen, clicking the L3 button on PS3 goes directly to the custom worker management.

You can delete a unit by clicking R3 button on PS3.



Does anyone know the controls for the 360?

Does anyone know the controls for the 360?

Press the thumbsticks. Left for custom workers, right for selling a unit.

Okay cool thanks. I got so used to the DS version that now I have to learn the 360 one.

Great tips BTW. I'm trying several of them as I go for the achievement for winning with all civs.

When you're done getting your achievements, you should come online. There's still quite an active multiplayer community. You wouldn't know it from this forum, but there are a lot of us posting over at the 2K forums: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?39-Civilization-Revolution-General-Discussion

Sounds like fun, though I'll probably get slaughtered.

My GT is Vypernight by the way.

Is there a way to start a random game without your city getting immediately built? I was playing as the Indians, and they placed me just out of reach of some MAD resources. If I'd had a couple turns, I could've placed my city right next to them (They let you in the DS version though).

Still, I must've done something right because I built the UN in 3 turns under Monarchy (I have no idea how I pulled that one off!).

Sounds like fun, though I'll probably get slaughtered.

We're pretty good about training people up. The game has been out for a few years and pwning noobs has very much gotten old. We want quality opponents and will help you get there.


My GT is Vypernight by the way.

Mine is El Thrasher. Feel free to add me when you're ready to jump online.

Is there a way to start a random game without your city getting immediately built? I was playing as the Indians, and they placed me just out of reach of some MAD resources. If I'd had a couple turns, I could've placed my city right next to them (They let you in the DS version though).


Are you playing on Chieftain level? All you have to do is move up to Warlord and you'll start the game as a settler instead of a city. Most of us do make it a habit to move our settlers are the start.

Yeah I was playing chieftan as I tested out civs and strategies. I'm ready to move it up though.

Yeah I was playing chieftan as I tested out civs and strategies. I'm ready to move it up though.

Hey, I'm not judging. It's a game for fun! Chieftain is the only difficulty in which you start off with your city settled. Some of the scenarios start you off with multiple cities settled (in horrible locations usually), but in the vanilla game above chieftain (and in MP), you start as a settler.

Not a problem. For my next game, I want to try Mongols on the Earth map, sort of a Khan's Revenge game. I figure for a dmonination victory, I need to get my new cities to grow quickly, at least at first, so they can be instantly be turned into army factories. I also want to get to Feudalism ASAP for Knights. Should be a fun game no matter what happens.