Recent content by Trickster7135

Yes. G&K changed so much I had to scrap everything I wrote before though. I'll get to it eventually. ;)

Fortresses are only built in two circumstances: 1. playing tall in the mid/late game as insurance on your borders, past where you can access the tiles anyways. 2. forming a circle around citadels to create a nearly impenetrable defense.

Don't expand just because there is room, make sure you have to units to back up the expansion. ICS works just as well, if not better, if you focus on letting the AI drop cities and then conquering them, settling your own just to backfill as you can. At high levels were the AI will have tons of...

This is the outdated version. The updated version is here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=469176

This article answers that in depth: Empire Management. But the gist of the difference: sprawling wants to have as many useful cities as possible. There must be something to make that city useful - good terrain, resources, etc. ICS wants to maximize per city bonuses by having as many cities as...

Distance of cities doesn't effect anything directly, but it does increase road maintenance since you have to build more roads. Each city reduces happiness by a base amount, dependent on map size. One of the most important sources of gold for an empire that builds many cities is trade route...

I didn't say ICS, I said wide. Rome isn't that great for ICS, for the reasons you stated. For a general wide game though, it's perfectly good, since you usually at least attempt to find good tiles to work for each city.

Actually Rome does wide very well, since it gives a production bonus to cities that need it the most, which is everything but your capital. Going tall means every city has enough production to build the buildings it needs, and the UA doesn't help with wonder or unit production. As far as units...

^^ Then your only solution is to bring more siege units. Have one or two switch off as the target and heal. Medic promotions from melee and ranged units allow this process to be far less painful.

Siege units are incredibly powerful, but require far more protection than archers. Proper use of siege units can allow you to take a city in a single turn. Highly defended cities will go down much, much faster with siege units than archers. If you have problems defending the siege units from...

Actually, that's exactly why I listed it only as tall. Tall usually has less gold per turn than sprawling, so an ability that reduces the cost for maintenance for units will be more valuable for a tall empire than a sprawling one. Obviously, it's a pretty flexible ability so Germany can do just...

Okay I've updated the guide based on the discussions. Thanks to everyone who contributed! I'll keep updating it here until I'm sure it has the civfanatics forum seal of approval ;)

That's true, but very situation. I think they'd be much better if they started at +2 base and capped at +4.

I just played a game with Poly and tried to work the Moai to the max. Went for a tall culture game on small continents. Here's what I found: you can only build them on the coast, they grant +1 culture and +1 culture for each Moai adjacent to them. Except for some very rare land formations...

Personally, I build roads as I expand. Like, I have the workers building the road at the same time I send a settler there. Trade route income is important, but there are other modifiers for trade routes like the liberty policy that increases happiness, the religious policy that increases...