Just played my first game.

Downloaded civ rev this morning and played my first game. I use to play civ 4 a lot. Played on king level (middle) with the French. Won a domination victory in 2044 and could have gotten a cultural victory also. Game seems much easier than civ on the computer. Couple of surprises. I did some typical computer strategies like:

1- rush to riflemen
2- build army
3- attack ...but

I was attacking a greek city with riflemen and my attack level was like 13 and the hoplite was defending at 22. So that was an unpleasant surprise.

I took 5 cities through culture and great people so that was different.

Seems the game favors very heavy early exploration to get bonuses and lots of defensive bonuses.

I think the domination and cultural victories are probably going to be easiest. Everyone was behind in tech no where near a space victory. One reason was the almost constant warfare. I spent the entire game at war with 2 or 3 civs. Even sacrificing techs to make peace only gave me a couple of turns of peace. The financial victory wasn't going to happen either. Most money I had was 2000. Noone else was close to that and I kept spending money to rush units and buildings and to build roads.

Overall it was decent especially when it was free. I do wish some of these games going to xbox like civ or minecraft or risk would concentrate more on a detailed strategy game and less on the cheeseeeee graphics.

Deffinetly going to play some more so...

What is your favorite civ?
What victory do you go for?

Welcome to the world of Civ Rev. It was my favourite game a few years ago. Unfortunately, I don't have an XBox360 at the moment so I can't play it in glorious technicolour (although I currently have the Nintendo DS version so I can still play it).

Yes, the game is generally easier than the PC Civ games. Multiplayer games are a lot more challenging than single player.

The single player artificial intelligence (AI) system can be a bit dumb at times, i.e. roaming around with single knights instead of forming an army and attacking. They are quite aggressive but don't really send out overwhelming force.

For me, the key to winning every single player game is simply to have more cities than my opponents, and a decent tech lead (at least militarily).

Actually, the real key, I think, is to go multiplayer. My gameplay massively improved once I started playing multiplayer, and it's often a tight race to see who can get to tanks first - that's if you've survived being "rushed" by hordes of Zulu warriors (who get +1 movement) or Aztec horsemen armies who automatically heal after a battle.

Once you go multiplayer, I recommend picking a civ to play for a couple of dozen games (so that you become good at knowing the strengths of that civ), and read one of the strategy guides posted by some of the great players, in the strategy section of this forum (and the official forum).

You'll learn some really great and fun strategies that will also give you a much better chance in multiplayer, and make you completely rule the AI civs, even on deity.

I played the English for a while online, and got into the top 100 rankings at one point. The English are great to play online (but also with single player), because the +1 archer defense bonus makes it harder for people playing Zulu, Aztec, American or Chinese to "rush" you (that is, to set out straight to conquer you early on, typically with warrior or horseman armies). The early culture from Monarchy is quite nice and can sometimes help to flip a city or two. Plus, their double naval support in the modern era is immensely powerful. It's kind of funny using single archers to attack a city with a 54 attack bonus from your battleship fleet's naval support

I also liked playing the Japanese, because your cities can grow much faster with the +1 food from sea squares, meaning you don't need to use up land squares on food.

The Spanish are also fun because of the free Navigation tech, meaning you can build a galleon, send out settlers and own all the islands before other civs even know they exist, then get those islands pumping out gold perhaps for an economic victory.

I don't play them much myself, but probably the most powerful civ are the Americans, because a lot of online players use the 1/2 price rush bonus to pump out settlers and churn out cities everywhere. It's hard to stop the Americans when they've got 20 cities on the map and can buy whatever units they need for half price! Best to take 'em out as early as you can (or steal as much money as you can from them), because once you see their cities spreading, its hard to stop.

That's what I love about multiplayer. So many clever strategies. Unfortunately, you have to have your wits about you, because chances are at some point, somebody will suddenly turn up at your capital with a ship containing 10 knight armies, which is never fun to defend against!

Thanks for the input. Just started my second game this morning and am already playing a better game now.

I used to play Rev a lot on the DS. Stopped it after I discovered civ4 though.
Zulu rushes would be the easiest way to win, and my favourite civs were Aztec and America.

I think I'm missing something. Several times with different civilizations I open up the city to do something and find a size 3 city using only one tile. If I click on manage workers and click one of those then it will make full use of every citizen. I have not done anything to manage the workers previously. At first I thought I may have accidentally clicked a wrong button but it is happening on a regular bases with different cities different civs and different games. Is this a game glitch or is there some setting I have over looked. It happens in maybe 20% or 30% of my cities and I often find it when I have not even entered the manage workers option so I'm not mismanaging it from there.

Also WOW. The naval bombardment bonus is very powerful.

Edit: I have played as the French, Greek and my current game is Spain. This is my third game.

I don't think it's a glitch. If it's only using one tile, chances are the other workers are "in the city" and working on production. In other words, those workers are still being used, but if they're not assigned to a square I think they produce a hammer or something like that. The city management, without any guidance, presumably thinks its better to just put them to work on hammers in the city.

Yes, naval support is powerful. Just wait until you play the English, with their DOUBLE naval support. That is insanely powerful!

A lot of online players consider the French to be one of the weakest civs in terms of bonuses, although the free cathedral can be useful for culture and producing more great people. The Greeks are good if you want to play a less aggressive game (hoplites mean you're probably untouchable at least until Knights, and Democracy means you can tech up faster). My brother followed one of MorteEterna's Greek strategies for a while, and did really well. The Spanish are also fun because you can expand quickly out to sea with settlers, and if you like to play aggressively, you can also use galleons to provide your armies with naval support while your opponents are still floating around the coastlines with triremes

By the way, spies are fun to use. The computer civs tend to settle their great people quite a lot, and you can often kidnap a couple of them. Haha. Or if a competing civ is building up a huge treasury of gold, send in the spies to steal large chunks of it off them

Arctica said:

I don't think it's a glitch. If it's only using one tile, chances are the other workers are "in the city" and working on production. In other words, those workers are still being used, but if they're not assigned to a square I think they produce a hammer or something like that. The city management, without any guidance, presumably thinks its better to just put them to work on hammers in the city.

Yes, naval support is powerful. Just wait until you play the English, with their DOUBLE naval support. That is insanely powerful!

A lot of online players consider the French to be one of the weakest civs in terms of bonuses, although the free cathedral can be useful for culture and producing more great people. The Greeks are good if you want to play a less aggressive game (hoplites mean you're probably untouchable at least until Knights, and Democracy means you can tech up faster). My brother followed one of MorteEterna's Greek strategies for a while, and did really well. The Spanish are also fun because you can expand quickly out to sea with settlers, and if you like to play aggressively, you can also use galleons to provide your armies with naval support while your opponents are still floating around the coastlines with triremes

By the way, spies are fun to use. The computer civs tend to settle their great people quite a lot, and you can often kidnap a couple of them. Haha. Or if a competing civ is building up a huge treasury of gold, send in the spies to steal large chunks of it off them

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Thanks that makes some sense about the workers. Went back to a saved game and saw I had some production hammers in the city without working a hammer tile.

I have been playing around with the spys and spy rings. Looks like you can only reduce fortifications 1 time. I don't seem to get much gold stealing either so I stopped doing that but use them to lower defenses and steal great people.

OK another question. How come when I found a new city it sometimes has multiple population? And what exactly happens when you combine a settler with an existing city? Is it just increase in population?

I only use spies to steal gold from civs that I know have gold, i.e. if they've just cashed in a great person for 200 gold, or if they've passed 3 or 4 economic milestones.

I think any new city that is founded normally has a population of 2. Exceptions are the Chinese, who get a bonus +1 pop for every new city founded (i.e. each new city has a pop of 3), and I think Mongol barbarian huts get converted into 1 population cities. On a related note, you can't build a settler until your population grows to 3, because a settler uses up 2 population (unless you're in Republic, then you can, because a settler only uses 1 pop).

I think when the game first came out, adding a settler to a city increased the population of that city by 1. However, they patched that because people were apparently misusing it. Now it adds to the food thingies (or whatever the food units are called), but doesn't add 1 pop. In other words, it reduces the time that city needs to increase by 1 pop, but doesn't actually increase it. I don't know the exact formula for how many settlers it takes to grow the city pop. I suspect 2 would do it, although to be honest, I've never tried.

The consensus among the top Civ Rev players seems to be that, the more cities (and therefore land) you control, the better. So if you have a spare settler, you're almost certainly much better off founding a new pop 2 city.

Thanks that's helpful. Just had another WOW moment when I built that DaVinci Workshop or Leonardo Workshop whichever it is. When it says it will upgrade all units I thought it would give a promotion like to veteran or something but I had just researched modern infantry a couple of turns before completing the workshop and it turned warriors, archers etc into modern infantry. WOW. Lots of very powerful stuff in the game.

Started playing at Emperor level now and have found an exploitable AI trait. After exploring started using militia men and single warriors as trip wires. Have them defend a square between my cities and enemy cities preferably in forest or a hill. In my current game, because of mountains and lakes 3 squares at 3 different access points are bottle necks to my cities by land. So I placed a single militia man or warrior at these locations. The Romans and Mongols are both at war with me and neither will attack these sentries; even though they both have several superior units. They just move their forces back and forth on their side of the barrier never being able to reach or attack my cities.

I'm sure everyone else already knew this stuff years ago but I'm just finding this out.

Yeah, that's a good strategy. Those locations are often called "choke points", and you want to control them as much as possible. I've noticed that the computer does attack fortified units at times, but it seems kind of random as to whether and when they will do so.

IAM said:

catering
Started playing at Emperor level now and have found an exploitable AI trait. After exploring started using militia men and single warriors as trip wires. Have them defend a square between my cities and enemy cities preferably in forest or a hill. In my current game, because of mountains and lakes 3 squares at 3 different access points are bottle necks to my cities by land. So I placed a single militia man or warrior at these locations. The Romans and Mongols are both at war with me and neither will attack these sentries; even though they both have several superior units. They just move their forces back and forth on their side of the barrier never being able to reach or attack my cities.
I'm sure everyone else already knew this stuff years ago but I'm just finding this out.

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You're right, the information is already shed. Yadumal all know...

OK so I have won every victory condition on King and Emperor. Last game I was Russia and won a domination victory in 1870 so this morning I'll start my first game on Deity.

I have played almost every civ. My favorites are Spain and Japan (love their starting stuff). Least favorite is the Mongols. Capturing those barbarian villages was more trouble than it was worth. Bad city placement and only one population.

I have looked at some strategy guides and typically start my games by switching my first city to 2 production squares and make 4 warriors and a galley. Start exploring the map and get a settler at 100 gold. Ussually I get most of the Wonders in the world and can even get free currency at 250 gold pretty quickly.

If I can get horses quickly I also make an effort to capture settlers to build my empire. Last game 5 of my first 7 cities were gotten that way.

A few questions:
1. I there a list of the Wonders that you can explore and find and what reward you will possibly get? I remember the Lost city of Atlantis gives like 3 techs or so but don't remember all the others.

2. In my last game my first or second great person was a great leader. So I settled him in my best production city with a barracks and started pumping out units. I would combine an elite veteran with unpromoted units to form an army. My understanding is that it gives me an elite army. Is that correct?

3. When you capture a city do you get the benefits of the wonders? Assuming they have not been made obsolete by tech research.

My biggest failures so far have been stupid mistakes. One game I was losing cities, early in the game, to culture flip and failed to build walls to stop it. Another game I was rushing (Bismarck) and took out Russia then failed to defend my capitol and an enemy galley dropped off a unit and took it. The unit was in trees and I wasn't paying close enough attention. Both those games I stopped half way through because I felt like such an idiot. Probably could have recovered both situations but it was unfun at that point.

I have tried to look up answers to some questions but can't seem to get the right information. I did find out why my cities start with different populations. In each era a city starts with one more population than the previous era.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

Well just finished my first game on Deity. Played as Japan and won a domination victory in 1986. I was also 6 turns away from UN victory. Was more difficult but I took my time and planned ahead. I did have to nuke the Romans to prevent them from getting a cultural victory. I think on Deity level the AI gets a 40% production bonus compared to king level. Think I'll try Spain now or the Romans. I want to get at least one of each type of victory.

IAM said:

OK so I have won every victory condition on King and Emperor. Last game I was Russia and won a domination victory in 1870 so this morning I'll start my first game on Deity.

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Excellent. I think you'll do fine with deity.

I have played almost every civ. My favorites are Spain and Japan (love their starting stuff). Least favorite is the Mongols. Capturing those barbarian villages was more trouble than it was worth. Bad city placement and only one population.

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Yeah, Spain is fun. I've been practising a stratgey with Spain that involves getting to Mathematics (for catapults) as quickly as possible, and then sending out a couple of veteran catapult armies along with a galleon fleet to crush everybody else's capital. (The key to this strategy is to grab as much money as quickly as possible.) That's usually pretty hard to stop if the enemy is defending with archer armies. And if the catapult armies (CA's) get the Ninja upgrade (100% city attack) they are completely devastating

I agree about the Mongols. They would be even trickier to play in multiplayer, when people often try and rush you in the first 2000 years. The problem is the lack of money, since you can't get money from a barb hut. I guess switching to all gold would generate cash, but would also slow you down in science. I only play as the Mongols if I want a *real* challenge

I have looked at some strategy guides and typically start my games by switching my first city to 2 production squares and make 4 warriors and a galley. Start exploring the map and get a settler at 100 gold. Ussually I get most of the Wonders in the world and can even get free currency at 250 gold pretty quickly.

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That sounds like a good beginning. Definitely getting the free settler with 100 gold is a *must*. If I get some cash very early on, like from my first exploring warrior, I'll often pay to rush the production of my 2nd and/or 3rd warrior, just so I can get them out sooner. This is especially important in multiplayer, when there is more competition to find those barb huts and artifacts first, so it's good to get used to doing this in single player as well.

A lot of players talk about getting out 3 or 4 warriors as quickly as possible (I usually go for 3 unless I think there's a *lot* of land around me to explore), and then switching the capital to growth until the city's population is at 3, and then switching all to science for either bronze working or horseback riding. I tend to do this if I have the time. The extra pop can be useful for quicker science growth - but again, it's all dependent on what's going on in the game.

Especially in multiplayer, your opponents are going to be more sneaky than the AI, and will certainly try and grab barb huts before you, and maybe go for your capital if it's poorly defended - so, for example, if I know Zulus are playing (multiplayer only) I will be definitely looking to get my warriors out a.s.a.p (to snap up the barb huts before their +1 movement warriors get to them, and get some money), and then get bronze working a.s.a.p. If you meet the Zulus fairly early on in multiplayer, know that they will be sending a warrior army your way just a few turns later!

Another counter is to get horseback riding, and go on the attack yourself. Zulu warriors are fast movers but they're still just warriors, and usually a multiplayer Zulu player will send out the warriors to find their opponent's capital cities and at the same time, to collect gold, and only army them up when they're ready to attack - so if you can take out a Zulu warrior or two, they have less opportunity to form an army. Even better, send your horseman army to *their* capital and get your revenge

Most of this only applies to multiplayer. The AI Zulu doesn't usually rush, as far as I can tell.

1. I there a list of the Wonders that you can explore and find and what reward you will possibly get? I remember the Lost city of Atlantis gives like 3 techs or so but don't remember all the others.

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Yes. They are called artifacts. You can download the Nintendo DS extended manual, which contains all the info on artifacts, wonders, etc, from here:
http://downloads.2kgames.com/civilization/revolution/Civilization_Revolution_Expanded_DS_Manual.zip

...but basically, the 6 artifacts potentially available in each normal game are:

Angkor Watt
The civ that discovers Angkor Watt will instantly have a Wonder constructed in one of their cities.

Ark Of The Covenant
The discovery of the Ark immediately causes temples to be constructed in all of your cities. If a city already possesses a temple, the city gains a cathedral instead.

Knights Templar
The discovery of the Knights Templar will gain an immensely powerful military unit.

Lost City of Atlantis
Discovering the site of the lost city of Atlantis immediately grants a civ knowledge of several new technologies.

School of Confucius
Within the School of Confucius can be found several great people awaiting discovery.

Seven Cities Of Gold
This relic provides an immediate and hefty boost to the discoverer's treasury.

2. In my last game my first or second great person was a great leader. So I settled him in my best production city with a barracks and started pumping out units. I would combine an elite veteran with unpromoted units to form an army. My understanding is that it gives me an elite army. Is that correct?

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The settled great leader gives each unit a special upgrade. If it's non-vet unit, it becomes veteran. If a new unit is veteran already because of the barracks, you get to pick the upgrade for that unit, usually based on 2 choices, i.e. you may be presented with a choice of Infiltration (100% bonus when attacking an enemy city) or Blitz (extra move after attack). Unfortunately, the names of the units are different to the names of the upgrade, so for example, a unit given the Infiltration upgrade becomes a Ninja unit, and the blitz upgrade creates a Lightening unit. The manual doesn't explain this, so it's something you have to remember through experience.

By the way, the above DS guide also contains very useful charts, such as a chart of the specific promotions available.

3. When you capture a city do you get the benefits of the wonders? Assuming they have not been made obsolete by tech research.

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Yes. Wonders aren't destroyed by an invasion. Other buildings can be.

My biggest failures so far have been stupid mistakes. One game I was losing cities, early in the game, to culture flip and failed to build walls to stop it. Another game I was rushing (Bismarck) and took out Russia then failed to defend my capitol and an enemy galley dropped off a unit and took it. The unit was in trees and I wasn't paying close enough attention. Both those games I stopped half way through because I felt like such an idiot. Probably could have recovered both situations but it was unfun at that point.

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Haha, we've all made mistakes, small and big ones. The worst, for me, is getting ready to rush a Wonder with your great person, and then settling him instead! Nightmare

I have tried to look up answers to some questions but can't seem to get the right information. I did find out why my cities start with different populations. In each era a city starts with one more population than the previous era.

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Ah yes, that's right. Also, I just noticed in the manual (something I didn't realize myself, which shows why it's important to read the manual one day...lol), about those guys who aren't out working in the field:

TRADESMEN
"When a city has more workers than spaces available for them to work, the excess workers stay in the city itself and become 'Tradesmen'. (Further, you can manually assign workers to become Tradesmen; see Manually Shifting Workers.) The productivity of each Tradesman is determined by the size of the city and by the number of Tradesmen in the city."

There is more to it, as explained in the manual, but bottom line, once the city grows to 7 or more, some of those Tradesmen will become specialists and will also generate you trade (in addition to 1 hammer), ranging from +1 to +5 trade.

I didn't know this (and I've been playing the game since 2008 lol), so looks like you really *do* learn something every day

WOW. Thanks for all the great info. Just finished my second Deity game. Played as Spain this time. It was the most intense game so far. Both America and the Aztecs started launching ship parts and I was #4 in techs. Another game of almost constant warfare was draining my resources. I saw earlier how far behind I was and switched every city to max gold production.

Short story. Before their ships reached the destination I was able to squeak out a win by building the world bank. In the final turns I was being raided by so many enemy bombers that they killed every army I had in several cities but were not able to get troops in there before I could bring in more sacrificial units. Just needed to hold them off until I could finish the world bank. Really, really thought I was going to lose that game but had decided to play it out to a lose.

2002 World Bank win. Humans Rule.

Well I have hit a wall. After winning my first 2 deity games I am getting beat badly. Every game is the same either 2 or 3 civs declare war on me early and don't let up. It takes all my efforts building troops and walls just to hold my own and I can't expand and start falling behind in techs, culture and money.

I have tried giving them techs to make peace and then bribing them to war against each other; but their stacks of armies just sit outside my borders and declare war again as so as they can.

I think one problem I'm having is my dependence on early exploration. At King level and even Emperor I could get most villages and artifacts. That gave me a quick first settler, tech bonuses and gold to rush a barracks and stuff. At deity level I'm not getting that much stuff so the AI just overwhelms me. So I have decided to go back to King level and do 3 things.

1- play every civ
2- find a powerful civ I really like and play for every victory condition
3- try out different tactics like early horse rush etc.

That way when I try again on Deity I will be very familiar with the civ I'm playing.

Learned some new things too.

1- A roaming barbarian attacked my warrior across a river. So his attack was at level 0. That was funny. I think his village motto must have been "Life is too long. We must die today."

2- When entering a friendly village you have a chance of getting a tech your researching so before entering I switch to the tech that takes the longest then switch back after.

3- Bismarck is a big meany pants.

Yeah, I think the key with deity is having a decent number of cities in the BC era, when the AI's are at their most "peaceful".

I used to play very defensively early on, archer armies etc., but after reading lots of posts and strategies (especially on the official forum, i.e. forums.2k.com ) I realized I was probably wasting too many resources on defensive units, and not enough on attacking ones.

A lot of players say, "Attack is the best form of defense". Not just attacking the AI cities, but also when they invade, have some attacking units in your territory so you can wipe out the attacking armies and get free upgrades!

Walls are just too expensive to build everywhere. I usually don't bother with them except when I don't want a city to be culture flipped, or if it's a key city that I've just taken in the heart of my enemy's territory (again, to prevent culture flipping).

[By the way, side note: Culture flipping happens to you a lot *more* in multiplayer, so be careful about stationing too many troops in one city. Nothing worse than building or moving a large army in one city, only to lose it to a culture flip! The AI rarely culture flips, but online players do it a lot.]

Usually by the time the AI starts to get really aggressive, I have enough attacking units to fight back.

I think one problem I'm having is my dependence on early exploration. At King level and even Emperor I could get most villages and artifacts. That gave me a quick first settler, tech bonuses and gold to rush a barracks and stuff. At deity level I'm not getting that much stuff so the AI just overwhelms me.

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Yes, the AIs do tend to explore more in deity, but you should still be able to get your 100 gold more often than not. If you're a bit short, you can always sell Warriors for 10 gold (at least on the console versions. For some bizarre reason, they don't have this feature on the DS version, which is annoying.)

But not being able to get most of the huts and artifacts is just a fact of life on multiplayer, so I still think you're better off playing deity and just adapting to getting less gold, but perhaps focusing less on pure defense, and have some attack units to kill AI units as they come close to your cities.

Also, I probably wouldn't rush a barracks too early on. Might be better to rush a settlers instead, especially while you're in ancient era and they're cheap, and then perhaps wait and settle it when you hit medieval, for the +1 pop.

Definitely agree with sticking to one particular civ for a while and getting to know their bonuses. You always want to take advantage of the civ specific bonuses, which can make a big difference to how you play.


At the moment I'm practicing with the Germans. I'm just reading on the official forum some of the German strategies. One amazing thing about them is that, since their warriors are automatically veterans from the start, combine them with a barracks and new warriors become elite (i.e. you get to pick an upgrade for them). Then (with certain conditions), German elite units get automatically upgraded to new units, i.e. when you discover Iron Working, warriors become legions, and then become knights when you discover feudalism! Basically, you churn out warriors early on (avoiding Iron Working [IW] at first), and then head for IW and then Feudalism as quickly as possible, and you have 8-10 knight armies! It's fun, but I don't think I followed the strategy properly, so getting there was a bit slow. I'm currently testing a slower strategy that uses their +1 hills production.

By the way, with your deity games, take a look at how many cities your opponent has. You always want to aim for many more cities than the AI, otherwise you'll struggle to get enough attacking units together. I've rarely seen the AI produce more than about 7 cities. In that case, you want 10.

By the way, many online players (particularly playing certain civs like the Americans or Chinese) will go for 10-20 cities or more(!), the more the better. Single player, 10 is usually enough, but always aim for at least 2 or 3 more than the AI.

Thanks for the advice! I'm playing on xbox 360. How do you sell units? A couple of games I had over 30 cities but have found that 10 to 12 seems to give me enough of an empire to go for victory. How do you know how many cities the AI has? Well if you have explored the world you could count them. Is there another way? Is there a way to offer a tech trade with the AI without currency being involved?