Strategy Discussion and Guides

i tough about gifting stuff but in my game i had to run London on research cuz germany almost beat me to printing press and that was like 10 turns which i couldve got some galleys, still unlucky, but really most of the time every city is producing something that is in need eg settlers workers longbows(atleast for the NA, Africa cities where there has to be some defence) and i usually dont have spare time to produce galleys.

its really dependant game as England but yea you are right the more u play it the more u feel it .... that was deep

by the way i settle the NA cities like seattle denver regina LA becouse i dont like them being flipped by the americans and i usually prefer to kill them on spawn if i have the chance, thats why i lack coastal ones with good production

And also which continent do u like to settle first except the ones which you get from conqurers - Africa/Australia I got Africa first becouse Netherlands usually settles in south where the good spots are and east is usually occupied by portugal, but i think that developed australian ones can give me some good ships.

Xfactor said:

Any strategy suggestion on British second UHV goal? I got the first with no problem, even captured the Hindu shrine while my trading company event triggered so i got + gold per sec on 90% science (australia cities did bleeded me out..) and around 300g, but i noticed that in 1700 when i got the first i had 6-7 frigates out of 25 and i sank 17/50 ships mainly becouse i DoW Vikings in the begining when i had carvels and they had trierimes/galleys, just to get it going. I think its nearly impossible to get 25 frigates in time becouse London and Edinburgh get ones in 2 turns with Navial dominance, and even if i get it i cant amass 25 while sinking ships, becouse usually i m unlucky even against galleons...I have a decent tech lead, france is the only one who follows me, but they dont have much colonies and frigates even tho they are second in score idk how

Any suggestions how i can get the other 33 ships and the frigates?

difficulity is Viceroy/Normal/3000bc start

Click to expand...

This stumped me too, at first. Privateers! Research Chemistry as soon as possible. Build Privateers, harass European trade routes. 1 Privateer beats a Galleon; 2 Privateers usually beat a Frigate. Send Frigates to the Caribbean to hunt down barbarian Privateers. If they are Combat III, thanks to Trafalgar Square, they should survive. Once you get Chemistry, you should not need to build anything except ships, Trafalgar Square, and perhaps Settlers. This way, you should be able to build at least 0.8 Frigates per turn in Britain.

The other UHV goals: there is a very quick path to the Industrial and Modern Eras involving Chemistry, which is another reason to make it your research priority from day one. Once all your Settlers are ready, you can found all the cities at once, then give them independence after you earn your UHV goal, so their population doesn't slow down your research.

As you note, Australia and Africa are not very competitive, but Africa is more so; nonetheless, I would recommend not bothering with these areas as productive parts of your empire and to focus on improving land in the Americas. You can build your boats in Britain instead. Asia can be won with Trading Company; Central/South America with conquerors; if you take the Aztecs, you can send Settlers from Mexico City up to Denver, Chicago, Edmonton, Toronto, ... wherever. Mexico and Denver should have good production.

Generally, consult the UHV thread for some good English strategies. England is very strong and you can afford to over-extend, thanks to your island status. Have fun!

Sorry for the bump, but I think this topic is still relevant. So, I think I haven't played any civ from 2012 till a week or so ago and while some things come back quickly there are others that I've either forgotten about or weren't in when I last played it.

As I understand it, the tech rate grows slower when your civilization gets bigger. How exactly does that work? Is it size of territory, number of cities, number of population?

Specifically I was thinking about playing China and between increased maintenance cost and decreased tech rate I was wondering if settling the cities I need as quickly as possible is really the best way to go about it.


Edit: Okay, I just read in another thread that it's by population. Not sure if knowing that helps me.

I wouldn't worry about the tech rate. If you can expand to such a size, and you do a decent job of developing the colonies, it should help your nation; not harm it.

As Prussia, I quickly colonized Australia. The result was an amazing stability (from economy), amazing tech rate (from all those cities being developed), and overall better nation. You might think that my core being small would be a problem, but so long as you keep your core high in population (24 Berlin, 12 Hamburg, 8 Frankfurt), you have nothing to worry about.

Whats the strategy for Prussia? I went for early aggression but you start out kinda even in military and all those defensive pacts and random dow:s are really getting me.

I started by conquering Amsterdam and razing Copenhagen. Expanded some to Africa and Australia. But then Portugal, Russia and France declared war on me. Together with those **** congresses I cant keep all those nice cities.

ezzlar said:

Whats the strategy for Prussia? I went for early aggression but you start out kinda even in military and all those defensive pacts and random dow:s are really getting me.

I started by conquering Amsterdam and razing Copenhagen. Expanded some to Africa and Australia. But then Portugal, Russia and France declared war on me. Together with those **** congresses I cant keep all those nice cities.

Click to expand...

Early aggression is a waste of Prussia's potential. Their ability to upgrade for free is their greatest strength. The longer you wait, prepare, and manipulate, the more satisfying world war will be.

That being said, -razing- Poland and the Netherlands really helps increase core population (and thus increase stability) and increase production. However, razing Poland will allow for Russia to easily declare war on you all the time... it's a double-edged sword, and I imagine the best decision depends on the game.

As Prussia, Africa is worthless. Go straight for Australia, Oceania, and the Pacific coast of North America.

Here should be your train of thought when it comes to cities.

1. Expand peacefully
2. Create infrastructure with workers
3. Increase production
4. Create low-production units that can be improved later (airships, frigates, riflemen)
5. Build espionage buildings

Also, don't get involved in world affairs until you have the military to help you. Alliances only will pull you into wars. Don't sign alliances unless you plan on declaring war (for instance, France was allied with Turkey and Russia. Before declaring war on France, I allied with Canada, the US, Britain, and Korea. The result was, when Russia and Turkey sided with their allies, mine sided with me.)

I also am a fan of building wonders. Make sure Berlin has its entire fat cross, so it takes advantage of the civic. Frankfurt should have the Ironforge. All great merchants should also be settled there. Great engineers go towards building wonders (world or national, depending on the above list). Scientists bulb discoveries. I built my national park in Cairns, Australia.

havent played a proper game with Prussia since my Domination Victory, but here is my approach:

1. conquer Amsterdam with your starting troops, sent 1 unit towards India via land and 1 ship towards South America/Japan via sea, switch to republic & secularism (you get more GPs and everyone will sign open borders)
2. make Russia declare war vs Poland, raze Copenhague, 2-3 turns afterwards (when the troops are healed up and in Position) join in the war vs Poland and conquer them. (this gives you a positive relation with Russia and if you are lucky Poland conquered Kiew which you can then raze to ease the pressure from Russia a bit
3. gift your Iron away and build cats (build pikemen before and after that) for a future war
4. conquer Scandinavia and try to get 1-2 cities on other continents.
expand slowly until flight (high tech prio, beeline it basically after your first prio, nationalism)

I think I had conquered the French & Spanish by that point (late 1800s) but basically if you own about 8-10 cities in Europe and 1-5 abroad you can win if you reach flight first.
I kept the English around to steal techs from. Try to get the Russians and Ottomans to fight each other.
Make sure all your core cities steal all tiles they can get from non-core-cities they overlap with. (Amsterdam basically gets to keep 2-3 land tiles and 2-5 water tiles but is still worth keeping, imho)

Once you get Nationalism you can draft, supplementing your cannon (cats upgraded) reserve to go on the offensive. Try to focus on the less developed and weaker civs before taking on the big guns (if at all) like Russia, Ottomans, etc.

Flight allows you to quickly get troops to the frontline and with air superiority you should win all fights unless they are more developed than you (which you can negate with spying on them, since you dont need research after flight).
Drafting keeps your cities somewhat small helping deal with that expansion stability, it might even be an idea to go for Levy Armies so that you can keep your cities small without letting their food surplus go to waste.

Perhaps this is just me thinking slowly, but is it at all possible that in some update somewhere something happened that keeps the Vikings from being able to achieve their UHV? It's a mystery to me how I'm supposed to reach america. I know that having culture on an ocean tile means I can enter it, that's how I got past Iceland and I assumed that I had to employ the same method to get me all the way, but I'm unable to settle anywhere on Greenland (or Baffin Island for that matter). I'm not supposed to have galleons, am I? I'm running out of ideas.

You cannot reach Newfoundland?

Leoreth said:

You cannot reach Newfoundland?

Click to expand...

The attached screenshot is right after I discovered Optics. I can see across the strip of ocean, but the galley doesn't find a way.

ezzlar said:

Whats the strategy for Prussia? I went for early aggression but you start out kinda even in military and all those defensive pacts and random dow:s are really getting me.

I started by conquering Amsterdam and razing Copenhagen. Expanded some to Africa and Australia. But then Portugal, Russia and France declared war on me. Together with those **** congresses I cant keep all those nice cities.

Click to expand...

1. Conquer Amsterdam and Poland right away. By building cats and pikes --> Instantly upgrading them you definitely should be able to pull that off.

2. Buddy up with Russia. If you're going for UHV they (together with England) are going to be the toughest to conquer. They should be willing to make a defensive pact with you, which you then can subsequently abuse them into getting wars.

I'll give you an example of my previous game: me, Russia and the Ottomans all had defensive pacts with each other, making a direct assault on Russia impossible for me. However, the Ottomans also had a defensive pact with Ethiopia, which I then subsequently declared on - causing the Ottomans to declare war on me, and Russia to retaliate on them. After letting the Russians die in the Kaukasus I took over Russia - which now had no defensive pacts left and was at war with the Ottomans.

3. Production is your friend. Because of the precarious situation you are in, you'd better have the economy to quickly make an army. This means that Industrialism and Central Planning become good civics, while Assembly Line, Railroad, Steam Power and Electricity are high priority on your tech list.

4. Take advantage of the situation. France's too strong to tackle? Wait until they are warring with Spain. Russia has huge armies but is unstable? Panzerblitz their capital. Everyone is in defensive pacts with each other? Carefully calculate to see which Declaration of War is going to net you the most.

5. Take advantage of your Unique Unit and Power. They encourage a militaristic playstile, and Panzers give you the punch to do pretty much anything you want if you reach them before your enemy has either Tanks or Flight.

6. Grow your core. If you follow this strategy, you'll end up with a lot of land - which makes a high core population a must to counter overextension. Yes, it does hurt to put farms on those pretty towns, but stability is more important than commerce.

anyone got some pointers for me on how to play Mali on Paragon/normal @ SVN?

I am having trouble with the culture expansion mechanic in combination with city placement and low production:
- the GM-timing requires the luck that barbs won't pillage my road towards Arabia or he wont make it in time
- by the time I research paper (I immediately start researching it and then trade fishing, sailing, code of laws, machinery and calender from other civs) I have ~10-18 turns to build Sankore and train a GPriest, how do you do that?

I think that with the correct city placement and the luck that Islam spreads between your cities that might be done by 1 city working on the Priest while another "builds" my GM, but right now I need the one missionary that I have to hurry the market via organized religion.

okay seems Ethiopia is also impossible on Paragon, I guess.
The UB is awesome as it lets you work 2 priest specialists, but since Theology costs you >2k beakers and 1 GP is only worth 1k I am at a loss on how to get UHV1-goal. I tried getting 2 GPs (work 2 priests in one city and 1 in the other upgrading it to 2 asap - around the time the other city produces its priest), but that takes too long. But my research output is in the neighbourhood of ~15-18 beakers/turn at 100%. Any suggestions?

Has anyone ever tried to warrior-rush Babylon while playing as China? I don't know how well it'd work for Egypt, with Jerusalem in the way, but China seems possible at least. I've conquered Babylon before, but that was later in the game (usually when it collapses after Persia spawns), but I was wondering if it could be done earlier and if it'd be worth the delay to your domestic economy/industry. I imagine it'd also be much more manageable if you farm the 'tribal huts' for warriors and/or exp....

I'm just brainstorming here, I have no idea what might work. My games usually focus on growth and expansion to start; the only times I really start on a military footing is when I play as the Romans.

yeah it works pretty well. You can destroy Babylon quite easily if you hit the right turn:
around turn 36 (I think) Babylon will have completed a settler (~70% of the time) and send it out, if you hit the right turn Babylon will only be guarded by a single Warrior/Archer. 2-3 Warriors can then take the city thus destroying Babylon.

I dont recommend keeping Babylon as it will drain your money quite quickly but it does seem that the best option for China is to start with 3-5 warriors to conquer Babylon and pop all the huts.

Hi,

I searched several pages but couldn't find a strategy guide for Indonesia.

How to you get the biggest pop. in 1300 AD.

Is there way to do this peacefully or do you absolutely have to conquer China ?

How do you do this with only some archers ?

Thanks a lot!

Btw. I noticed that youtien uses a different graphic package for the terrain. What is he using ?

The first UHV for Indonesia is somewhat tricky, here is my approach:

Found your capitol in your starting spot plus one city on each of the islands east (1 on the stone and 1 just north of the banana), connect the iron to your capitol and build 2-3 swordsmen (I usually build a barracks first but thats maybe not necessary) - alternatively you can upgrade 1 archer to a crossbowman instead of building a swordsman.

Conquer the Khmer if they dont have Elephants in Angkor. After this (or instead) go for the indian holy city. Produce a settler and found Manila.
Whip as much as you want until ~900-950AD.

When you can (Khmer collapsed) get Hanoi as well as Pagan.

Research path: Alphabet (can be traded for Currency, Calendar and maybe more with Japan, Tibet, Korea)

with these cities you can easily get the biggest population in the world by 1300 - unless you get hit by the plague between 1200 and 1300AD.

remember: bigger cities count a lot more than smaller ones. Try to get all 3 of your core cities to size 15-17.

I never attack China as Indonesia, however it is quite profitable to build an early courthouse in one of your cities (I usually chose the one above the banana) and work a spy specialist, so you can steal all of Chinas, Mongolias or the Mughal techs around 1300-1400 AD

this works well on all difficulty levels including Paragon and with the current SVN version (however I recommend playing Indonesia on one of the normal difficulties first before trying them on Paragon)

Thanks a lot for the quick answers,

I already noticed about the good food prospects on the two cities east, but actually I founded Manila before founding any city on Borneo bcs. of the copper.

The plan of taking Khmer early works brilliant. With the starting gold you can actually upgrade all three starting Archers to Crossbowmen. This is enough to take Angkor Wat after only a few turns into the game. With the remaing Crossbowmen you can set out to take Pagan. Pagan takes a lot of time to develop but is totally worth the effort. As soon as Pagan is up and running and has some culture it will become a city with Banana-resource, 1 Fish resource (it is easy to get more culture than Kolkata), Tea resource (just great !) and two hills for mines. Not too shabby!

Which terrain set are you using that you can see on the screenshots, e.g. by youtien ?

I'm currently playing Portuguese game and it's now around 1700.
Having just 2 cities in Iberia, I'm thinking about changing my capital to Chicago or somewhere.
My blueprint for future gameplay is - after America being spawned,
crush it just after 10 turns, then take whole North America and head to northern Brazil, where I don't have any cities now(2 in Iberia and 3 in mid-western America are all I have).
So does it seem a good idea for expansionist game play?

Rod: don't forget Pataliputra. The 2 shrines will allow you to run 100% research/spionage for almost all of the early-game.
And if you conquer/raze Kolkata you get cotton+tea, 2 more happy-res that you need for UHV2. Add in the Incense from Tibet and maybe get a worker (2 move, available early, can cross any terrain) to Russia/Turkey via the Chinese north-Mongolia-Samarkand-route you might be able to buy Wine as your final happyres.

But you need to build some defense there, as the Mughals will eventually declare war on you for pataliputra.

Biso: you need to keep in mind that your expansion stability is independent of your palace-placement. Haven't played Portugal in a while but I think I'd leave my Capitol in Lisboa and instead would try to get either some Spanish or Moorish cities. With Palace & Summer Palace you can have 2 centers of your empire where these buildings lower maintenance costs.