Chenneth's top tips tp guarantee victory

Chenneth

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Jul 14, 2007
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There are many ways to win Civ however these tips are generic and should be adopted no matter what your ultimate aim is.

1. Firstly your entire civilisation rests on having a strong economy (you must pay, soldiers, maintenance, scientific research etc.) Therefore it is absolutely key to build this up and exploit opportunities where you can. I always play a civ with the financial trait. This allows you to gain significantly more gold in each city.
2. The start of the game is the most important part, get it right and you’ll probably win. You must build up quick (especially on the harder settings) and create a good base from which to build up.
3. Always build polytheism to start. Chances are you’ll actually get it, and therefore you get the holy city and the happy bonus.
4. Get the Pyramids – this is by far the most useful and important wonder as soon as you’ve got it switch to representation (personally I keep this for the entire game)
5. Get bronze working it allows you to cut down trees. I only ever use them to build wonders or settlers. However be careful as forest can increase health of cities.
6. Use you warriors to harass those around you. The Inca’s Quetcha unit is superb for this as it get 100% bonus against archers. Try to steal workers, and also just hack up stuff. It’ll stop slow the enemy down and allow you more time to build up and over take them. Its usually quite easy to make peace if needed.
7. Another useful tip is that the comp. will always try to keep to archers in a city. If for example the comp as two cities, just leave units out side the weaker and keep attacking it so that there is only one unit left. The comp. will always try to send reinforcements from its main cities. Just kill them on the open road, the comp. can do anything and you gain lots of experience for units.
8. Get Stone Henge it’ll get the Great Person ball rolling plus if you found a religion then you can build the special wonder which can get loads of cash. (ideal if its in the capital and combined with bureaucracy civic.)
9. Get the Parthenon excellent wonder for the GP.
10. Get the Spiral Minaret great wonder to get in the cash.
11. Use Representation, Mercantilism. By doing this you gain the +3 science per specialist. Mercantilism gives a free specialist in every city.
12. The statute of liberty is very useful with the above point as it also gives a free specialist that’s 6 science without doing anything.
13. The great library is useful with Representation too. Get it in the capital and you have two free scientists +3 science, +3 each for representation, and with bureaucracy you’ve got a grand total of +18 science not to mention the addition of libraries etc. or a academy.
14. Use a great scientist to build an academy in the capital. Mix with bureaucracy it’ll give you a lot of science.
15. Oxford Uni and Wall street are good in the capital with bureaucracy
16. Pacifism is useful because its free and good for great people. The money you save can be spent on science therefore equalling free religion but with the great person bonus.

Hope that’s of some help. Just remember seek out opportunities and work with the best combinations and you be successful:)
 
3. Always build polytheism to start.

I might be a bit of a no-hoper, but when I play at the higher levels, I get more out of hooking up resources than founding Hinduism. I find that early axes are much more use to me than that religion. But I guess that depends on what strategy you are using.

Thanks for the tips.
 
Many of these tips seem geared towards a lower difficuly level. What difficulty do you play on?
 
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Perhaps. If you're spiritual and starting with mysticism, it can be a good aim. I've found on Monarch that even starting with mysticism, I'm often beat to polytheism. I've also found that it's generally easier to let your neighbour found the religion and then liberate his holy city.
4. Pyramids are nice if you have the stone. I prefer letting a neighbour build them and then stealing them with the axemen I built with the saved hammers. Pyramids are great, but they are awfully expensive and a pretty big gamble to take early on.
5. Bronze working is far more important for the slavery civic than chopping trees.
6. I don't agree with this. If you're going to war with your neighbour, build up units and then pillage on the way to the capital. If one follows your advice they could find themselves screwed on the diplomacy front with no real objective gained. Now instead of building granaries, monuments and the like, the AI is building fortified archers which will be much more difficult to dislodge when you actually are ready for war.
7. Maybe. I prefer quick kills and making my wars as short as possible to minimize the impact on my teching.
8. Stonehenge is good and I often go for it. Sometimes it isn't worth it though if I have religion or if I'm creative. Again, then I just liberate it from the neighbour.
9. I rarely go for this. Generally only if I have marble. Otherwise I'll get beat to it by an industrious civ and/or one with marble.
10. Maybe. It's a good wonder, and I sometimes go for it but never have made it a rule. It requires building a lot of temples and such when building units could result in a bigger return on the investment.
11. But is that extra specialist worth the trade routes? Sometimes, but there are many games when I skip mercantilism altogether. I would not say this is a rule at all.
12. SoL is a great wonder and definitely a good one to have.
13. GL is one that I almost always shoot for. But you definitely want marble and be able to lightbulb your way to literature early to get it. The AI loves this one.
14. Generally I end up with an academy, but the timing is everything with GS. Instead of building the academy, a crucial tech pop at the right moment can make the game.
15. Yes, but there are games when my major moneymaker isn't my capital.
16. It's a good civic at the right time, but it can be costly if you're military is large. Similarly if you're building a lot of infrastructure or spreading religions it might not be the best civic to be using. If you're gearing up for a war, you'd be crazy not to use theocracy for the XP. Pacifism is useful when the situation warrants it.

There are many people here that know far more than me and have more experience playing than I do. My difference in opinion is just based on my experiences in the game. I just recently moved to Monarch level and I can tell you that a lot of what you're advocating won't work there. Some of it isn't a good idea on Prince either.
 
There are many ways to win Civ however these tips are generic and should be adopted no matter what your ultimate aim is.

:nope:
I will just comment on some of them.

3. Always build polytheism to start. Chances are you’ll actually get it, and therefore you get the holy city and the happy bonus
Especially on higher difficulty levels, many people don't even bother to found a religion. Instead they may go directly to BW, IW or what else. Choosing a religion may be detrimental to the health of your civilisation as other civs will grow angry with you.

11. Use Representation, Mercantilism. By doing this you gain the +3 science per specialist. Mercantilism gives a free specialist in every city.
For a culture win, for example, you won't want any of them. You aren't even doing scientific research there later on.

12. The statute of liberty is very useful with the above point as it also gives a free specialist that’s 6 science without doing anything.
For a conquest win, idealiter you don't get anywhere near the statue of liberty. Depends on some settings though. Even then, why bother building the costly statue when the city could have produced military instead?

15. Oxford Uni and Wall street are good in the capital with bureaucracy
:mischief: Indeed a nice synergy, but...
If you like to have 100% science later on, wall street in your capital may net you nothing. Build it in a city that has one or more holy religions founded and has the according shrines (or plans to get them). Sometimes I deliberately found two or more religions in my second city, so this one becomes the wall street city.

Overall, your heavy reliance on wonders and GPs and a dominating capital is just one way of playing the game and not neccessarily geared towards some of the victory conditions.
 
i think you missed my point of the religion... you invent it first - fairly easy even on higher levels and build the holy shrine you capital will have a a mass of wealth. couple this bureacracy, wall street etc. and you'll have a huge amount of cash.
I should of been more clear that the capital is the way forward.

Through this i have managed to gain 45gp a turn with 100% science.

I admit my comp is not that quickk to i shy away from military victory cos it would take forever. so i cant comment to well on that. However, on higher difficulties do you stand a chance of beating the comp when it has such a huge advantage??? I mean immortal and deity
 
This is the stratgey i use for the highest levels. I have comleted it on all of them using this.:king:

Obviously these are not absolute rules just general guidlines.

Unfortunately my comp. is quite slow and therefore military victory is out as it would take forever and so i'm not used to using that strategy. However i do not believe that on deity level it even works... you start of too handicapped against the comp. and therefore must bide your time to defeat it.

I prob should of mentioned that i do alway ake attacks on the comp at start to steal a worker.

Also religion at start = holy city in capital + holy shrine equals loads of money x by buruecracy, banks ect. and you got a winner. I have had a game (on immortal) with 100% science and i still made 45gp a turn.
 
I do take that its a fair point it wont work with kind of victory but it a good way to build up a strong civ.
 
Maybe the reason Deity eludes so many of us is that we don't always build the Spiral Minaret to get in the cash.
 
I aways try and get these, partly because been able to change civic early on is very useful. With representation you get the happy bonus for 5 cities. now chance are you've only got a few cities anyway so it very handy to get them to a good size without wasting time on temples and stuff. Also if you dont build them then the comp. which is a big disadvantage to you. It all very well to say that you will capture the city with them but that means you have to be near that city and be able to capture it.
 
Just on a different note i have been trying the strategy of getting axemen straight away and attacking the computer and I can say on deity this does not work. By the time i had four axemen the comp was on the longbows stuff and even those civs that were'nt doing so well had far more troops than i could defeat.

I think this is a good tactic to on the lower levels but on the higher difficulty i think you are just to disadvantaged to make it work early on. You need to catch up the comp a bit to defeat it.
 
I too am getting the impression that this is mostly for low difficulty. A lot of this simply isn't practical (at least not consistently) on high difficulty level. A few comments:

1)True, though it's commerce, not gold that financial boosts. I suspect you're confusing the two from some of your later comments.

2)True

3)Nope. Bronze working is the tech to go for. Only on low difficulty levels can you waste time on polytheism. At high levels the AI can out research you at this stage, and many of their leaders will beeline the three early religions. Far better to get the slavery/chop rush/axeman combo.

4)It's rare to have a serious shot at the pyramids at high difficulty, except maybe for an industrious civ with stone. Far sounder is to build a load of axemen with the hammers, and then capture the pyramids.

5)True

6)The stealing worker options have been largely removed with the AI improvements, as it doesn't leave them undefended anymore. Can sometimes be done with a Quecha, but that limits you to one civ.

7)This is a solid strategy, particularly with the changes to makke the AI reinforce cities under attack.

8)Stonehenge is practical even at high level, though will damage your expansion rate. As I've said though founding a religion at the start (the only time you'll get a shrine in the capital) is too unreliable at high level. There's no reason to combine the religious shrine with the capital bureaucracy though since one generates gold and the other commerce. There's no synergy unless you're running a sub-50% science rate for much of the game, which is seriously bad news.

9)The parthenon isn't bad if you have marble, but its far from stunning.

10)The Spiral minaret again isn't bad, but isn't that important and requires a state religion, which isn't always desirable. It's late enough to be viable at any level though.

11)Mercantilism and Representation obviously go together, but Mercantilism is itself a dodgy choice. Consider very carefully whether the specialists are worth the crippling of your trade routes; this frequently isn't the case.

12)True

13)Ugh... While the great library does work well with representation, you're really mixing up commerce, gold and science. The free scientists generate science, not commerce, and so are unaffected by bureaucracy, which boosts commerce. Two scientists with bureaucracy is still only 12 beakers pre-building modifiers.

14)To some extent true, but that has to be a seriously important tech to beat the number of extra beakers an academy will give over the course of a game.

15)Again, it looks like your lack of understanding of gold/commerce/science, is messing you up. It is generally not a good idea to pair Oxford and Wall street unless you're running the science rate at about 50% and have no shrine. While it may seem simple to stick them both in your highest commerce city, in practice you'll spend most of the game with most of your commerce going to science. Oxford works best in the capital, true since it matches with bureaucracy and a high science rate. Wall street goes with your religious shrine though, which it doesn't matter where it is. Unless you get an early religion (impractical at high level, as I've said) the shrine is not going to be at the capital.

16)Civic upkeep is not always so high that Pacifism being free is going to counterbalance the 10% science of free religion. Also it's more expensive if you have significant military (a must at high level). It's an important civic if you rely on specialists, but free religion is often a better choice.

I think you really need to straighten out the gold/commerce/science distinction. It's subtle and a lot of people make the same mistakes you have, but some of your strategies are not sound simply because the game doesn't work the way you think it does.

Chenneth said:
Also religion at start = holy city in capital + holy shrine equals loads of money x by buruecracy, banks ect. and you got a winner. I have had a game (on immortal) with 100% science and i still made 45gp a turn.

Shrine gold is not multiplied by bureaucracy. You're making the same mistake as with the specialists from the great library.
 
Also religion at start = holy city in capital + holy shrine equals loads of money x by buruecracy, banks ect. and you got a winner. I have had a game (on immortal) with 100% science and i still made 45gp a turn.

Reading your post closely again, I have to agree with MrCynical that you confuse gold and commerce. Running 100% science and bureaucracy don't add up gold-wise.

If you set your science and culture sliders to 0%, that's another story. ;)

I stand by my post: I usually like to get a holy shrine (or more) in another city than my capital, having the 2 national wonders per capital (Wall Street should really be in your gold/holy city) in mind as well as the benefits specialist merchants will have in the other city. You may be much more reluctant to run merchants in your capital, which is much more likely to be a science powerhouse.
 
I too am getting the impression that this is mostly for low difficulty. A lot of this simply isn't practical (at least not consistently) on high difficulty level.


My impression too, these basic advices are geared for lower-level playing.

I have won on Deity quite a few times on Civ vanilla, haven't played much at Warlords or BTS.

However, although it's true that you can win on the higher levels without wars (someone has a good thread on this) normally war is a must.

I'm surprised Chenneth you recommend to build so many Great Wonders. On higher level (Emperor onwards) I don't recommend to build wonders (the AI outbuilds them anyway) rather capture them. Also don't have a state religion at first until you come playing from behind so as to mitigate the negative attitude modifiers that lead to unprepared and early wars you don't want.

The most important advise in the higher levels is to attack as soon as you can (pret rush, keshik rush, axeman rush, quechua rush etc...) crippling your neighbouring civs reducing them to a manageable size. You ought to take down at least 2-3 civs before you pause due to the lack of funds to continue expanding so as to avoid your units going on strike (unless continued conquer provides nice city gold plunder as regular revenue) but this creates a ball effect. You can also use the Pyramid changing civics to prolong and maximize the anarchy avoiding loss of funds per turn.
 
I must agree with other comments that these tips seemed to be aimed at Prince or below level.

The first two points are very true and very important. Other than that, I'd have to disagree with most of them.

If I was playing monarch or above, I'd never play for founding Hinduism. I might make a play for Taosim if I could bulb Philosophy from a GS and it hasn't been founded. I'd never attempt the stream of wonders you suggest. I might make a play for the Great Library if I was first to Alphabet (which should be one of your tips - try to be first to Alphabet), not always possible on Deity (usually is though).

Also, if you're trying for a military victory, Pacifism is horrible as its not free but adds 1gp per military unit you have.
 
I could actually find situations where I disagree with all points, even the first two.

(1) Economy is obvious ... but saying therefore you "always play a Civ with Financial trait" is dubious at best. Lots of good players will sneer and say financial is the worst trait pre-Warlords.

(2) Experience is that most players going into Emperor+ for the first few games would choose not to build up from the start but to find the opportunity to capture AI's cities, then build up when they are in equal footing with other AIs in terms of city numbers.

I hereby refer you to other rebuttals for the rest of the points ... one wonders why I bothered if the OP clearly couldn't even distinguish commerce from gold ....
 
i can see the point of building up a good army at the start and i certainly would recommend this be done. I'm not saying dont go to war, in fact i always do at the start of the game. But try to balance this with wonder building etc. I usually use my capital to build wonders and focus the rest of my cities on the task in hand be it gettting more troops or building up libraries.

I think to say the finacial trait is the worst is totally wrong, since the majority of the game revolves around commerce (including maintaining an army).
what about expansionist?? waste of time if you can create the happy people to match the health bonus.
 
@OP: I think what some critics are getting at is that you are selling this as the Must Do things to win, even at very high/hard levels, and you may not be right.

For example - this is what you say in the first post:

"There are many ways to win Civ however these tips are generic and should be adopted no matter what your ultimate aim is."

(My emphasis in bold)

You say these things must be done. People have pointed out that getting Polythesim first is very difficult to do at higher levels (the 3 early religions all are). So to pursue that policy just wont work. Yet you are saying it must be done.

For another example, in the first tip you say you always play as a financial leader. I'm not sure how many character traits there are off the top of my head, but there must be 15,20? Look at Sistuil's ALC games to see how there are different ways of winning with the different traits. Although finance is important, it does not mean the financial trait is the best.

Check out the War Academy for some excellent articles on things you need to be aware of to win at the higher levels.

I think you point out some useful tips to those that are new to the game. But for you to suggest your tips are always needed, I think is misleading. Your game style has to change a lot when playing at Prince and above.
 
I see what your saying definately bad grammar on my part that. i was really only refering to the first two as things that should be done.
There are 8 traits - financial, aggressive, spiritual, organised, expansive, creative, philosophical, and industrious.

Depending on strategy determines on which ones too choose. However as commerce is essential for any style of play i believe that organised and financial have the most benefit overall, as there bonus to commerce or maintaince will allow you to expand for rapidly and futher. Also if you need to fight it will allow you to support a big army.

Everyone says they have a problem getting poly but i honestly do not find it difficult even on diety. Even if you dont get that there's always mono.

P.S. I've been messing around with goin to war very early on in deity and found it a total diaster. Unless your luckly enough to have all the resources on the door step it is remarkably difficult to achive this.
So far i've find the inca's are good. but plz let me know thoughts on this
 
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