been playing civ forever - this is my strategy

I am not good at civ5, I've just been playing casually since civ3 and Im 20, which means for around to half my life.

I always do the same thing, and I play on immortal, which makes me wonder what the experts think of it:

- build a monument immediately

- ignore faith and religion altogether because cannot figure out how to get it at the pace of other civs on immortal. ends up being a waste of money and time because I cant compete.

- go straight to great library. this delays first city alot.

- always go for tradition first for the +3 culture in home city, then get honor to gain culture from killed barbarians (I always play on raging barbarians) then get Liberty until I reach "each city you found will increase the culture cost of policies by 33% less than usual" then settle my second city.

-stay on two or three workers for a very long time and never automate them.

- prioritize science buildings for the rest of the game

- rush to frigates then rush to oil then rush to planes

I dont win games on immortal but I survive until someone else gets a culture victory

I cant figure out how to do anything in civ5 without rushing to great library.


is this a bad strategy? I do this over and over. just feels comfortable.

Mitch

mwood95 said:

- build a monument immediately

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Unless you're on island maps or play with ruins disabled, build at least one scout first. A lot of players open the game with 2-3 scouts. They're very valuable because they find ruins, meet CSs and AIs, steal workers, pillage caravans, find natural wonders.

- ignore faith and religion altogether because cannot figure out how to get it at the pace of other civs on immortal. ends up being a waste of money and time because I cant compete.

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I think you should always try getting a pantheon at least, a lot of pantheons are worth the 40 production you spend on a shrine. The early scouts will help here too, because meeting religious CSs gives you faith. And starting from turn 20 you can also get faith from ruins, so if you find a ruin around turn 17 and there are no AI units nearby, you can try waiting a few turns and take the ruin on turn 20.

- go straight to great library. this delays first city alot.

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This hurts you in the long run. Secure good city spots early, or the AIs will. A city is worth so much more than one free tech.

- always go for tradition first for the +3 culture in home city, then get honor to gain culture from killed barbarians (I always play on raging barbarians) then get Liberty until I reach "each city you found will increase the culture cost of policies by 33% less than usual" then settle my second city.

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I wouldn't recommend mixing more than 2 policy trees early on, because that delays the good stuff in your "main" tree too much. Try Honor/Liberty or Tradition/Liberty, or a non-hybrid build. Most players consider Tradition the easiest SP tree to play and win with. Liberty and Honor are pretty good too, Piety is usually the worst choice.

-stay on two or three workers for a very long time and never automate them.

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Never automate = good. Number of workers depends on how many cities you have, try to have at least 1 per city.

- prioritize science buildings for the rest of the game

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You should get those quickly, but remember that science buildings are worthless if your population is low. Granaries before libraries, aqueducts before universities.

- rush to frigates then rush to oil then rush to planes

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This is fine if your goal is to win a domination victory

I dont win games on immortal but I survive until someone else gets a culture victory. I cant figure out how to do anything in civ5 without rushing to great library. is this a bad strategy? I do this over and over. just feels comfortable.

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Try getting out of your comfort zone, perhaps on a lower difficulty first. Here are two good early game guides:

Tradition 3-city: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371
Wide liberty: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=559009

Even if you don't plan to start your own religion it is a good idea to start generating faith so I wouldn't ignore building a shrine. I would give up on the great libray, yeah it is a good wonder but the hammers it takes to build it that early will hurt your overall development and as already mention put you behind on getting the best settle spots. Your second and third city will make up for the lost GL science.

Just watch people play deity games on youtube.

You'll be amazed at how easily abused the AI is lol.

I usually build in this order: scout, monument, shrine, settler, pyramids, settler. I go tradition with 1 point in liberty so I can build pyramids. Building them is a pretty close decision between settler and pyramids... Maybe a 2nd settler would be better first.

I'd say that's pretty bad.
You waste one policy entirely, since liberty opener is total garbage and it delays getting the last 2 policies in tradition, which are super juicy.
You also delay your 3rd city by like 20 turns, which in turn most likely delays your national college to like turn 110+ when you should aim to have it build before turn 90.

Pyramids is only good if you can get it "for free", like if your capital has time to make it before you start national college, which is very unlikely on Deity as the AI gets pyramids turn 40-45 in almost every game.
But an almost strictly better plan is scout,scout, monument or shrine ( shrine if you see a strong pantheon you think you can get, like desert folklore or sun god ), settler, settler, buy settler for 500, granary, caravan, caravan, national college.

Just no time to build pyramids in capital. You could build it in one of your expansions or build caravans there and then pyramids in your capital if it's awesome, but it's unlikely since opening liberty will cost you getting the good growth policy from tradition.

The only wonder I seem to reliably get in an expansion city is Oracle. The AI loves Pyramids so there's no way to get it on Deity without sacrificing a settler, unless maybe you play as spain and find two natural wonders, then maybe you can just buy settlers only with cash and then build your pyramid in the capital...

actually half the time the AI ignore pyramids altogether. It's not very high on their wonder list. I've gotten it most of the time on immortal and sometimes on Deity. You an tell when they aren't going for it because it's still around by turn 55 then it is often safe to build. I presume this is because only a couple Deity choose liberty, piety and tradition are more popular so on standard size often you have no competition.

I agree it is not worth building super early just like any wonder isn't but since it is workers you can build it earlier then you think with some chopping without really cutting into your build order much. In a wide empire you wanted those early workers anyway and often can only steal half the number you need early.

Your build order looks like a tradition build order so I don't know why you are giving it as advice for liberty and pyramids. For instance, with liberty you aren't buying a settler for 500 gold. You have them for half hammers in the capital so it is a better deal to buy your caravan and build all your settlers plus the one for free from the settler tenet for a total of 5 built settlers and one free and 7 final cities. Build your second caravan in an expo along with an early army for defense. It is also not recommended to stop and build national college as you rarely have time for all expos to finish libraries before you settle your last city. Otherwise the big time gap risks losing the 6th and 7th city spots on Deity. You can then resume growth and build NC after libraries and monuments finish empire-wide. Usually this takes enough time it's safe to build Pyramids in the capital if it is still around or even in your first expo if it grew well. I've seen pyramids not get built for a LONG time. You just have to watch your game and see if that is the case when you have the opportunity as it is a great wonder for wide play.

He wasn't going liberty, he was just putting one point into it for pyramids :/

I haven't explored actual liberty too much on deity yet. It does seem fun. If you use engineer to rush college, I'm sure you can get pyramids most games... pyramids is fun times.

mwood95 said:

I am not good at civ5, I've just been playing casually since civ3 and Im 20, which means for around to half my life.

I always do the same thing, and I play on immortal, which makes me wonder what the experts think of it:

- build a monument immediately

- ignore faith and religion altogether because cannot figure out how to get it at the pace of other civs on immortal. ends up being a waste of money and time because I cant compete.

- go straight to great library. this delays first city alot.

- always go for tradition first for the +3 culture in home city, then get honor to gain culture from killed barbarians (I always play on raging barbarians) then get Liberty until I reach "each city you found will increase the culture cost of policies by 33% less than usual" then settle my second city.

-stay on two or three workers for a very long time and never automate them.

- prioritize science buildings for the rest of the game

- rush to frigates then rush to oil then rush to planes

I dont win games on immortal but I survive until someone else gets a culture victory

I cant figure out how to do anything in civ5 without rushing to great library.


is this a bad strategy? I do this over and over. just feels comfortable.

Mitch

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- Build 2 scouts first (except on island-ish maps)
- Chose 1 Policy tree and stick to it (preferably tradition if you like to think this game is Sim City, Liberty if you like fun, honor / piety if you like wasting policies). 3-4 cities with tradition, 5-7 with liberty.
- Don't build monuments if you are going for tradition. Otherwise, monuments will most of the time be your first building in new founded city (though you should adapt the strategy depending on the city's soil and it's foundation date)
- Ignoring faith has no drawback, and many people invest way too many hammers in faith compared to the return. Ignoring faith is the default route. However, early pantheons are nice if your soil is appropriate, and if you can get a good shot at a religion (have a religious civ, met many religious CS early, have a natural Wonder generating faith, have a great faith generating pantheon, or preferably if you have 2 from this list), there are some really great beliefs, the best ones being pagoda, dime, and production bonus
- Ignore all wonders, especially the Great Library. Really. There's a hidden cost in wonders which is called an "opportunity cost". Very rarely a wonder is worth the hammer you are putting in. Take the time to play without wonders, and when you get to understand the mechanics a little better, you'll know when and what wonder to build.
- 1 worker per city at least. Remember that you can seal them from the AI early with your warrior / scouts.
- You are right on pursuing science, which is the best route (though not the most fun). Standard route is to take the technologies that will improve your soil, then go straight for civil service -> education -> accoustics -> scientific theory -> radio -> plastics. If you have taken liberty, grab construction and currency before writting as collosseum and markets are more important than libraries.

Stick to these basic strategies at first, and after one or two games you should be able to try other routes more efficiently.

I am not good at civ5, I've just been playing casually since civ3 and Im 20, which means for around to half my life.

> I've played civ since 1993 or so, original Civ on an old cheapo Macintosh.

I always do the same thing, and I play on immortal, which makes me wonder what the experts think of it:

- build a monument immediately

> No, build scouts. Get the RUINZ.

- ignore faith and religion altogether because cannot figure out how to get it at the pace of other civs on immortal. ends up being a waste of money and time because I cant compete.

> On Immortal you can get a religion but you might not be first. Be flexible. If you get a prophet or two from a ruin you could get the first religion. Also religions give beefy bonuses or give you amazing free buildings.

- go straight to great library. this delays first city alot.

> I'm surprised you can actually get great library on immortal. The AI always tries to build it and they often start with the pre-requisite tech on 4000 ad.

- always go for tradition first for the +3 culture in home city, then get honor to gain culture from killed barbarians (I always play on raging barbarians) then get Liberty until I reach "each city you found will increase the culture cost of policies by 33% less than usual" then settle my second city.

> I know people do it, but I wouldn't mix tradition and liberty as a default. Patronage is a better "default" choice because it gives you a good science bump and lets you get CSes to be BFFs with you longer.

-stay on two or three workers for a very long time and never automate them.

> People will tell you not to automate but I'm lazy so I do after things I need are improved. I wouldn't automate from the beginning because they will leave salt unmined and go farm some no-fresh-water plains instead when you are at zero happiness and about to gain population. 2-3 workers isn't super low for a small tradition empire. Better to have more.

- prioritize science buildings for the rest of the game

> Sounds fine. You should be doing this.

- rush to frigates then rush to oil then rush to planes

> Sure I guess, but what are you doing with the frigates? Conquoring people? Battleships are much better than planes for coastal conquoring. Good planes are much farther up the tech tree (GW bombers have terrible range).

I dont win games on immortal but I survive until someone else gets a culture victory

> If it's always a culture loss then it sounds to me like you should build more culture buildings, maybe take some explodey action against the runaway culture civ, or not give them open borders, etc.

I cant figure out how to do anything in civ5 without rushing to great library.

> Great library sets you back on higher difficulties because the only way to build it is to go on a mad rush for it (even then it might be dicey). Though TBH if you stole a worker and chopped down 4-5 forests you'd get a wonder faster than if you just started building it with unimproved dirt.

is this a bad strategy? I do this over and over. just feels comfortable.

> Well you aren't winning. That's not good. Maybe try some of these things:

- If you're on an island, conquor the island you're on before the rest of the world links up. Nobody will hate you for it and you'll probably get 2-3 extra "good" cities because you would have taken capitals.
- Your own culture victory. Go liberty - exploration. Max out on museums and dig up as many relics and secret relics as you can, then spam hotels and airports.
- Science victory - you're already prioritizing science anyway. Go Freedom or Order and rush all of the good late game science wonders like Hubble.
- Conquor the world. The game punishes early aggression by giving you terrible early military units (though some proz can take cities with archers and scouts or whatever). A few composite bowmen and a horseman can take a few cities early on. After that you can usually win by maximizing ranged units and having a few melee units to take cities. Artillery does make things easier because of the 3 range, but that's really far up the tech tree.

Mitch[/QUOTE]