WoundedKnight's CIV Strategy Guide

It is rarely possible to get every wonder, and so some prioritization is in order of which wonders offer the greatest benefits. Some wonders offer considerable early benefits, but expire. Others offer mediocre benefits that expire regardless. Still others offer great gamelong benefits.

This is a list of wonders that I make priorities, keeping in mind that the wonders different players favor will vary widely depending on their play style and tactics.

PRIORITY EXPIRING WONDERS
Stonehenge (obelisk, +1 culture in every city, expires @ calendar). Interestingly, unlike CivIII, wonders seem to expire when YOU get the expiring tech, not when your neighbors do. So I sometimes try to hold off on trading for the calender tech until all my cities have experienced border expansion from stonehenge,

Great Library -- +2 scientists is a big deal at a time when many of your cities can't dedicate the pop to specialists, especially if you build this in your great people focus city. Unfortunately the GL expires.

Parthenon -- +50% GP birth rate in all cities. Fabulous for philosophical civs, but unfortunately doesn't last forever.

NON-EXPIRING WONDERS
Hanging Gardens (+1 pop, +1 health in all cities) -- this is a huge early wonder that can catapult your civ ahead, especially if you have many small or modest-sized cities. Adding an extra pop and health point to every city boosts your economy, your research, your productivity, etc.

Notre Dame - +1 happiness for all cities on continent

Versailles - reduces maintenance in nearby cities

Statue of liberty -- a free specialist in every city. Absolutely fabulous, especially for philosophical civs. Probably my # 1 wonder in the game.

Pentagon - +2 experience points for units trained in all cities

Three Gorges Dam - power for all cities on continent

Eiffel tower (free broadcast tower in every city) gives a big culture boost

[note: this post has been corrected to reflect new data[

Inflation is not covered anywhere in the civilopedia or manual that I can find, but it is an important expense. Inflation can go up but never seems to go down over the course of a game. Inflation increases over time at a steady rate, regardless of spending breakdown.

Inflation adds an additional percentage to your expenses, including:
civic upkeep
city maintenance (distance and city number)

This percentage can get quite high. If your expenses are 100 per turn and your inflation is 30%, your final cost is 130 gold. The organized trait has at least some advantage here, because it is saving "pre-tax" rather than "post-tax" dollars. In other words, if your civic upkeep were 50 and inflation were 0%, the organized trait would save only 25 gold (50% of final upkeep), but if inflation were 40%, your real savings are 50+20 (40% of 50) = 70/2, or 35 gold. I still don't think organized is a great trait, but it is something to consider for individuals who like expensive civics.

As noted, inflation cannot apparently be controlled, it inevitably increases as the game progresses.

WoundedKnight said:

Inflation increases over time when you mint any money at all money (I.e.: when your slider is set to gold rather than research), and the further your slider is set towards gold, the faster inflation increases. I.e.: the only way to avoid some inflation would seem to be to set your slider on 100% research (or culture) through the entire game, which in most cases is simply not possible.

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Hmmm... Very Interesting.... I'm working on a time-scale mod, and I was not aware of this fact... it bears experimentation ... thanks, WK

Inflation increases over time when you mint any money at all money (I.e.: when your slider is set to gold rather than research), and the further your slider is set towards gold, the faster inflation increases. I.e.: the only way to avoid some inflation would seem to be to set your slider on 100% research (or culture) through the entire game, which in most cases is simply not possible.

Wrong. It's just time-dependent. Even 100% research doesn't stop it.

Dog of Justice said:

Wrong. It's just time-dependent. Even 100% research doesn't stop it.

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Thank you. I have done some tests and have loaded several save games I have and have found that inflation is in fact at a predictable level in each year. For example, it is 27% in 1515 AD in two of my games on different size maps with different civs and different playing tactics. It appears that you are correct, so I have corrected my inflation post above to reflect this data.

It's a shame that inflation isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual or in the civilopedia.

From my limited survey, WK, *if* your observations are correct, then it's coded in the Python, not the XML...

WoundedKnight said:

MERCHANT CITY
Where to build: area with abundant commerce
improvements: focus on cottages ->towns
Buildings:
Market (+25% gold)
Grocer (+25% gold)
Bank (+50% gold)
Airport (+1 trade route)

National Wonders:
Wall street (+100% gold)
GP focus: great merchant

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In most cases, you are running 100% or 90% science, so a city with abundant commerce does NOT generate much gold, UNLESS it has some extra source of income which goes to coffer directly. What's that extra source? Holy shrine, and possibly, merchant specialists.

Heroes said:

In most cases, you are running 100% or 90% science, so a city with abundant commerce does NOT generate much gold, UNLESS it has some extra source of income which goes to coffer directly. What's that extra source? Holy shrine, and possibly, merchant specialists.

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Absolutely true; the main advantages of commerce improvements with a high science slider are the health (grocer) and happiness (market).

The advantage of financial trait is not so much that you can dedicate a larger proportion of income to research, but that the entire commerce "pie" is bigger -- research goes faster because you have more commerce to allocate among all sources.

More on civics

Government Civics

Hereditary rule: medium upkeep, + 1 happiness per military unit in a city. Since most cities will have at least one military unit for defense, this tech can be a real benefit in the early middle ages when you are still developing your luxury resource network and constructing happiness buildings.

Representation: low upkeep, +3 research per specialist, +3 happiness in 5 largest cities: A pretty good bonus, especially for a philosophical nation with many specialist. The largest cities are the most likely to get unhappy, so this civic gives you the happiness bonus where you need it.

Police state: high upkeep, +25% military production, -50% war weariness. Great for the warmonger or for wartime defense, but the high cost makes it undesireable in peacetime.

Universal Suffrage: moderate upkeep. The +1 production boost to towns and ability to complete production with gold (units/buildings, not wonders) makes this my preference in the late game; however, it is of little use in the early and mid game when cottages have not yet developed into towns. Don't get snookered into getting this in the early game with the pyramids, as upkeep is high and you will have no towns to provide the productivity bonus.

Legal Civics:
Vassalage: high upkeep, +2 experience per unit, lower unit support costs: a good tech for a warmonger, but the high cost makes it prohibitive for others. Consider this temporarily while in a war.

Bureacracy (+50% production/gold in capital, medium upkeep) is good in the early game, but liberalism is close enough around the corner from civil service that often I hold off for free speech. As the slider is usually set heavily to research, the primary benefit of this civic is usually production rather than gold.

Nationhood: low upkeep, can draft 3 units per turn, barracks +2 happiness. Also a good civic for a warmonger that is better sustainable long-term than vassalage because of its low cost, in addition to adding happiness benefit.

Free Speech (no upkeep, +2 gold from towns, +100% culture per city) is my favorite for the late game, but won't do you much good if you don't have towns. I like to get bureaucracy for the production boost while towns are developing, and then switch to free speech once I have enough towns to justify it. At no upkeep cost, the price is right, and this one can provide a great boost to your economy.

Labor Civics:

Slavery (low upkeep) -- can sacrifice population to finish production. But in the early game while cities are small and slow to grow, before granaries, lighthouses, etc., why would you want to? I haven't found much use for slavery yet as it seems to offer short-term gain at the expense of long-term productivity and growth.

Serfdom (low upkeep) -- workers build improvements faster. I usually have a large enough army of workers building improvements and clearing jungles that this one isn't as attractive as the others.

Caste system (medium upkeep) -- unlimited scientists, artists, merchants in cities. A good choice if you have food to spare, don't yet have enough town improvements to allow specialists otherwise, and can afford the upkeep. Still a good choice for philosophical or great people focused civs.

Emancipation (no upkeep) is great for mid to late game. It doubles rate of cottages -> towns; a big synergistic economic boost when combined with appropriate techs, free speech, and universal suffrage.

Economic Civics:

Mercantilism (medium upkeep) - 1 free specialist per city, no foreign trade routes. Getting this civic is like having the statue of liberty wonder and is a huge boost for philosophical or GP oriented civs. It is moderately expensive, and shuts down foreign trade (which can also hurt, or at least won't help, your relations). Nonetheless very valuable in synergy.

Free market (low upkeep) - +1 trade route per city. A nice financial or research boost, although only modest in size. However I rarely use this as state property is only a few techs away.

State property (no upkeep) is great (no distance maintenance costs, +1 food from watermills). I find that with my tendency to build many cities, it saves me as much or more than I would earn from the extra trade route, plus upkeep is free, plus you get extra food. As I tend to build watermills along almost all river tiles because of their boost to productivity (+2 with appropriate techs), food (+1), and economy, a river city may be able to support a couple more citizens that can be made specialists to boost your GP generation. My most-used economic tech.

Environmentalism (high upkeep) is nice at the very end of the game when you get ecology (+6 health, +1 happiness from forests and jungles). Unfortunately I've harvested most forests and jungles long before the ecology tech comes around, and find that my cities already have good health and happiness well before then and are more limited by food. The expensive upkeep is also a drawback, so I tend to use state property more frequently.

Rather than getting environmentalism, I prefer to research future techs (+1 health and happiness each for your entire civ), since ecology is already near the end of the tech line), rather than paying the fat environmentalism upkeep fees. At least that part of environmentalism is realistic

Religious civics:

Organized religion (moderate upkeep, +25% building and wonder construction) is great when you are in a building mood and only requires monotheism. Think of this as essentially a forge in every city, excepting of course that the bonus does not apply to unit builds. The +25% is also a big advantage in the wonder race: even if your civ is not industrious, it can make it a lot more competitive. This is usually the first civic of the game I adopt.

Theocracy (medium upkeep), +2 experience points for units created in cities with state religion, no non-state religion spread) -- okay for a warmonger, but expensive.

Pacifism (no upkeep, +100% GP) is phenomenal as it can essentially bestow the philosophical trait on a non-philosophical civ, or make philosophical civs even better. Since I like philosophical civs and enjoy having more great people, I frequently employ pacifism. The no upkeep is counterbalanced by the +1 gold per military unit, so this tech can be cheap or expensive depending on your military size.

Free religion (low upkeep): I never get free religion as losing all the state religion bonuses really hurts, as well as losing LOS to all converted cities in other nations. At end-game usually I have plenty of luxuries and am not so desperate for a few more happy faces that I would want to deal with the hassle of having to get 4 or 5 religions in each of my cities to make this civic worthwhile. The +10% tech bonus -- while meaningful -- doesn't seem to make much of a difference for me this late in the game. While nice, it doesn't seem to really compare with the +25% build rate or +100% GP offered by other religious civics -- plus you have to pay fixed upkeep to boot.

WoundedKnight said:

Labor Civics:
Emancipation is the only one I bother with (doubles rate of cottages -> towns; a big synergistic economic boost when combined with appropriate techs, free speech, and universal suffrage).

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I find by the time I have emancipation generally all my cottages are built up to towns already. I also found a great use for serfdom in my last game as I had a TON of jungle to clear out and that +50% worker speed was a huge help. Slavery is awesome in the early game. Whipping can speed up the growth of new cities very quickly. Caste system is huge if you have a high food city that can kick out great people like no tomorrow.

WoundedKnight said:

Economic: State property is great (no distance maintenance costs, +1 food from watermills), while environmentalism is nice at the very end of the game when you get ecology. Because of their position in the tech tree, I usually end up getting economic civics last of all.

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I find free market to be way better than both of these. By the end of the game some of my cities are getting 10 commerce per trade route while on average they're getting around 4. That's a ton of commerce.

WoundedKnight said:

Religion:
Religious civics are great. Organized religion (+25% building rate) is great when you are in a building mood and only requires monotheism. Pacifism (+100% GP) is also pretty good. I never get free religion as losing all the state religion bonuses really hurts, as well as losing LOS to all converted cities in other nations.

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I almost always take free religion by the end of the game. I'm not sure what you mean by "losing all the state religion bonuses". There really aren't that many of them. While you pick up an extra +10% science and more often than not get a huge boost to diplomacy since they don't hate you for having a heathen religion anymore. I guess if you managed to spread your religion to everyone then free religion would be bad, but generally on higher difficulty levels that isn't the case. You also get extra happiness for having more than one religion in a city. I think the bonuses far outweigh the bonuses you'd get from the other religion civics in most cases.

Heroes said:

In most cases, you are running 100% or 90% science, so a city with abundant commerce does NOT generate much gold, UNLESS it has some extra source of income which goes to coffer directly. What's that extra source? Holy shrine, and possibly, merchant specialists.

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If you're at 100% science all the time then it's in your best interest to go get some more cities. People think of 100% science and still making a profit as a good thing. Well, really, it's not. More cities will make you lower your slider but will make you generate more beakers. Not to mention the additional production.

Shillen said:

I find free market to be way better than both of these. By the end of the game some of my cities are getting 10 commerce per trade route while on average they're getting around 4. That's a ton of commerce.

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Uh, Mercantilism anyone? The corresponding Wonder costs 1500 shields and is still worth building...

Shillen said:

I find by the time I have emancipation generally all my cottages are built up to towns already. I also found a great use for serfdom in my last game as I had a TON of jungle to clear out and that +50% worker speed was a huge help.

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If you still have lots of jungle, then obviously you don't even have cottages built on many squares, let alone developed into towns. I focus on clearing forests and building cottages everywhere very early. But since I shoot for the democratic techs fairly early, not all of my cottages have grown by the time I get there. Plus, cottages have to be worked to develop, and so your cities will be growing during this time.

Shillen said:

Slavery is awesome in the early game. Whipping can speed up the growth of new cities very quickly.

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To clarify, do you mean growth or buildings? Slavery *sacrifices* growth (population) to finish buildings. This can help development, but sacrificing population probably won't enhance your growth, unless I am misunderstanding you?

Shillen said:

I find free market to be way better than both of these. By the end of the game some of my cities are getting 10 commerce per trade route while on average they're getting around 4. That's a ton of commerce.

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Let's assume then 4 average gold per trade route x the number of cities -- perhaps 15 or 20 on a large map. An extra 60 gold or so is certainly worthwhile.

On the other hand, I tend to have watermills in almost every river square. With state property, they all suddenly get +1 food. For a river city with 6 squares, this can allow you to support 3 more specialists -- launching you ahead in GP points, in addition to producing more income, culture, and production than a trade route should. The free trade civic is nice, but for my tactics I find state property to be more advantagous, and is only a little further ahead in the tech tree. Also, state property has no upkeep, while some of the benefit of free trade will be lost on upkeep costs.

Shillen said:

I almost always take free religion by the end of the game. I'm not sure what you mean by "losing all the state religion bonuses". There really aren't that many of them. While you pick up an extra +10% science and more often than not get a huge boost to diplomacy since they don't hate you for having a heathen religion anymore.

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Usually by the mid to end game, I have luxury resources and happiness flowing out of my ears, and so the happiness bonus of free religion isn't a big deal. Plus, to really benefit from this, you have to spread not one religion, but multiple religions to all your cities. 10% science is nice, but I would generally rather have the +100% great people or +25% building rate of other theology civics. Losing a LOS to all converted cities in other countries, as well as the friendship of coreligionists, also hurts.

WoundedKnight said:

If you still have lots of jungle, then obviously you don't even have cottages built on many squares, let alone developed into towns. I focus on clearing forests and building cottages everywhere very early. But since I shoot for the democratic techs fairly early, not all of my cottages have grown by the time I get there. Plus, cottages have to be worked to develop, and so your cities will be growing during this time.

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Serfdom comes way before emancipation. Of course I do the opposite and get democracy very very late in my games. And that was only one specific game where I had a huge continent all to myself since I destroyed the other civ. It took a long time to get cities built in all the jungles to the south. More of a situational use.

WoundedKnight said:

To clarify, do you mean growth or buildings? Slavery *sacrifices* growth (population) to finish buildings. This can help development, but sacrificing population probably won't enhance your growth, unless I am misunderstanding you?

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I mean making them produce the maximum hammers/beakers per turn. Whipping granaries and lighthouses in high food/low production cities will pay themselves back in a short fashion.

WoundedKnight said:

Let's assume then 4 average gold per trade route x the number of cities -- perhaps 15 or 20 on a large map. An extra 60 gold or so is certainly worthwhile.

On the other hand, I tend to have watermills in almost every river square. With state property, they all suddenly get +1 food. For a river city with 6 squares, this can allow you to support 3 more specialists -- launching you ahead in GP points, in addition to producing more income, culture, and production than a trade route should. The free trade civic is nice, but for my tactics I find state property to be more advantagous, and is only a little further ahead in the tech tree. Also, state property has no upkeep, while some of the benefit of free trade will be lost on upkeep costs.

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You can't have watermills across from each other, nor on the corners of a river. So even a city with a lot of river you're lucky to have 4 watermills. And then there are all the cities with no rivers at all. I guess on a high river map that's great to have. Really, all of these civics can be useful in certain situations, which is great. I also don't value communism technology much and get it late, but I'll give state property a better chance the next game I play if I haven't won by that point.

WoundedKnight said:

Usually by the mid to end game, I have luxury resources and happiness flowing out of my ears, and so the happiness bonus of free religion isn't a big deal. Plus, to really benefit from this, you have to spread not one religion, but multiple religions to all your cities. 10% science is nice, but I would generally rather have the +100% great people or +25% building rate of other theology civics. Losing a LOS to all converted cities in other countries, as well as the friendship of coreligionists, also hurts.

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Maybe I suck at spreading religion, but I very rarely have more than 1 other civ with the same religion as I do, unless I'm playing on a low difficulty. So going to free religion will take a -4 penalty off of about 5 or 6 civs and I'd lose a +2 to 1 civ. I don't bother spreading multiple religions around my empire just for the happiness bonus, the AI's do a good enough job of that already. I have used pacifism a bunch in late game, so I shouldn't have said I almost always use free religion, I just wanted to make the point that free religion can be quite useful, especially if you want to improve relations with the AI.

Now one of my favorite topics -- maximizing great people. This is one where you can really get some great synergy between traits, civics, wonders, and improvements. If you want a lot of great people, get as many of these as possible.

Note that all bonuses are additive, not multiplicative. For example, 2 100% bonuses on top of a 100% base produce a 300% rate (100% base +100% x2), not 400% (they only add their bonus to the BASE rate, not to the final rate after other adjustments). Also, all fractions in the game are rounded DOWN (i.e. a 25% bonus of 7 is rounded down to 1, a 25% bonus of 8 is necessary for +2)

Great people bonuses:
Philosophical trait : +100% GP generation civ-wide

Civics:
labor - caste system: unlimited scientists, merchants, artists in all cities
economy - mercantilism: +1 free specialist per city; or (in games with many rivers) state property for the watermill food bonus, allowing higher POP and thus more specialists
religion - pacifism: +100% GP birth rate in cities with state religion

National wonders:
national epic - +100% GP in city where built (only)

World Wonders:
parthenon: +50% GP generation civ-wide, expires with chemistry
Statue of liberty: +1 free specialist in all cities
great library: +2 free scientists in city where built, but expires.

A civ with max upgrades (not including great library) would have:
- a 300% great people rate (100% base + 100% philosophical + 100% pacifism) + 50% from parthenon (before expires) + 100% more in city with national wonder
- 2 free specialists in all cities (mercantilism statue of liberty). At 300% return on a 3 GP base per specialist x 2 specialists, this would provide 18 GP points *per turn* even in your least developed cities with no wonders.
-unlimited ability to allocate scientists, artists, and merchants in all cities.

Note again that the wonder bonuses expire when YOU get the tech in question, not your neighbors...therefore a philosophical civ with the parthenon may want to push back getting chemistry as late as possible.

Of course some great people types are more valuable than others. Great engineers allow you to rush wonders which can incur key benefits for your civ in a close game. And great scientists can allow you to build an academy (+50% research) in every city. great merchants, artists, and prophets, while still valuable, have effects that are generally somewhat more modest in terms of long-term gameplay. Since the chance of getting a great person of different types depends on the wonders and specialists in each city, I like having separate cities focus on great engineers and scientists without mixing with the other types as much as possible (you don't want to have your city with engineering wonders drowned out by large numbers of merchant, artist, or priest specialists pushing the GP probability towards other types). Merchants, artists, and prophets I don't have a strong preference between, and so will build wonders generating all 3 in the same city.

Bonuses allowing you to turn citizens into engineers are generated only by:
forge (allows 1 engineer)
factory (allows 2 engineers)
ironworks (allows 3 engineers)

engineer GP points are generated by:
west point (+1 GP)
hanging gardens (+2)
pentagon (+2)
pyramids (+2)
three gorges dam (+2)

as you can see, your military city is the most natural choice for an engineer GP city (forge + factory + ironworks + west point + pentagon).

since forges eventually go almost everywhere, I like to make sure that the engineer slot is filled in every city with a forge.

@WoundedKnight
Great observations and very helpful.

Please could you clarify one thing:

WoundedKnight said:

Organized religion (moderate upkeep, +25% building and wonder construction) ....

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The manual states only +25% faster buildings.
If that extents to wonders as well as standard buildings that would make an already good civic so much better.
BTW the manual also has this one down as high upkeep.

WoundedKnight said:

Bureacracy (+50% production/gold in capital, medium upkeep) is good in the early game, but liberalism is close enough around the corner from civil service that often I hold off for free speech. As the slider is usually set heavily to research, the primary benefit of this civic is usually production rather than gold.

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but science requires gold so the more gold you have the more science?

Wonders counts as buildings as far as Organized religion is concerned.

Shevek said:

@WoundedKnight
Great observations and very helpful.

Please could you clarify one thing:

The manual states only +25% faster buildings.
If that extents to wonders as well as standard buildings that would make an already good civic so much better.
BTW the manual also has this one down as high upkeep.

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Yes, I have verified in-game that organized religion DOES boost wonder speed, which makes it a terrific civic, especially considering how early it is available.

Sometimes wonders are considered buildings (i.e. the organized religion bonus does apply to wonders) and other times they are not (i.e. universal suffrage allows rushing of units and buildings for cash, but not wonders). It's somewhat confusing and this distinction is not made in the civilopedia or manual.

gakkun said:

but science requires gold so the more gold you have the more science?

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Not in this case. It is somewhat confusing as sometimes "Gold" and "commerce" are used interchangeably when in fact they are distinct concepts.

As I understand it (others please correct me if I am wrong), squares with or without improvements produce *commerce*. This commerce can then be used to fund research, culture, or turned into gold. Improvements (towns etc) and the financial trait actually give you commerce, not gold.

Then the benefit of city improvements depends on both your base commerce and your sliders. Say you have a small city producing 10 commerce, and your research slider is on 80%, with 20% going into finances. A library (+25% research) will give you an extra 2 beakers (base research = 80% of 10 = 8, 25% of 8 = 2 more). A grocer, however (+25% gold) would seem not to have any benefit to an economy this small (base gold = 20% of 10 = 2, and 25% of 2= 0.5, rounded down to zero).

Now of course there is some gold *outside* of the commerce system: namely, gold generated by religious buildings. I think that specialist gold also goes directly to finances and is not general "commerce" that can be converted to research.

In other words, the benefit of the improvements depends highly on the position of your sliders. If you played with research on 20% and money on 80%, obviously the financial improvements (market, grocer, bank, etc) would be more valuable. Since in most games however research plays such an important role, science improvements tend to offer greater benefits.

Again this is my understanding of things, and I welcome any corrections or other data.