Share a "one-liner" simple strategy that can help beginners, seasoned players and maybe even be a gem that one of the pros can learn from.
Feel free to explain your tip, but avoid complex, in-depth strategy.
1. Steal a worker early on from a neighbor. Declare war and snatch a worker. If it is early enough, the AI won't come after you and will quickly make peace with you.
2. If the AI offers a tech trade that also involves cash, count on it to be a (relatively) fair deal and consider taking it. Espionage shows time and again that what on the surface may look like a horrible trade is actually fair because you or the AI have already extensively researched one of the techs involved in the trade.
3. If you have to reload your game, exit to the main menu first and then reload. It will be a lot faster.
From SirDrake, edited into the first post:
Feel free to explain your tip, but avoid complex, in-depth strategy.
1. Steal a worker early on from a neighbor. Declare war and snatch a worker. If it is early enough, the AI won't come after you and will quickly make peace with you.
2. If the AI offers a tech trade that also involves cash, count on it to be a (relatively) fair deal and consider taking it. Espionage shows time and again that what on the surface may look like a horrible trade is actually fair because you or the AI have already extensively researched one of the techs involved in the trade.
3. If you have to reload your game, exit to the main menu first and then reload. It will be a lot faster.
From SirDrake, edited into the first post:
The thread is compact and concise enough that no summary is required.
However, I decided to print out the list, so here it is if anyone else wants it:
Spoiler :
1. Steal a worker early on from a neighbor. Declare war and snatch a worker. If it is early enough, the AI won't come after you and will quickly make peace with you.
2. If the AI offers a tech trade that also involves cash, count on it to be a (relatively) fair deal and consider taking it. Espionage shows time and again that what on the surface may look like a horrible trade is actually fair because you or the AI have already extensively researched one of the techs involved in the trade.
3. If you have to reload your game, exit to the main menu first and then reload. It will be a lot faster.
4. Build more workers, you never have enough. (If you're a noob)
5. Slavery is an amazing civic. Use it aggressively.
6. Don't judge your research rate on the position of the science slider. An empire with more cities and working more tiles with a low slider can still earn beakers better than a smaller empire with a higher science slider.
7 Read The Power of Sushi
8. Yourfarm laid a Great Artist? Found Civilized Jewelers in your Wall Street city and turn that
into
. In addition to
, Civilized Jewelers gives each franchised city
! Get rich fast!!
9. Your first priority is to expand to middle-of-the-pack in size, your second priority is monarchy and cottages. (aka early happy cap/income = critical)
10. Farm your 1st GS early. In the BC's. The 2nd one comes early ADs at the latest. Then set up a GP farm to crank them out faster.
11. A big part of this game is to make super cities out of all the multiplier buildings, especially bureaucracy with library, academy, university, oxford, observatory. (When I started doing this, I started teching faster than a lot of people can manage with a perfect pyramids start with rep. Of course, if you mix it with the pyramids on a good start then......)
12. If you're really good at farming Great Scientists and managing perfect tiles, you can win the liberalism race. In 100 AD.
13. Do yourself the favour of reading the very experienced forum user's strategy articles and guides. I never grasped Specialist Economy until after a good guide, now it rocks way more than Cottage Economy for my games.
14. Play with your given tools, utilize the Traits, UUs and UBs. While I still haven't had any luck with CE with a non-FIN leader, I've had plenty of good expereicnes with SE with a non-PHI leader - IND is good for this.
14 1/2. Prioritize. Pick the single most important thing you need at the moment and get it at all costs, once it is achieved you move on to the next goal. Example: don't try to build wonders and infrastructure and win a war all at the same time. You'll probably stalemate the war, or worse, lose it, not get the wonder, and not get infrastructure up. Do one thing at a time.
15. Build more siege than you think you need (if you are mid-level player).
16. Flanking rocks. An enemy without siege is no enemy at all
17. Eat snacks in moderation
18. MP tip: Settle on hills, plains hills preferably. The defense bonus from the hill is permanent and archers and longbows will get +50% defense over what they would normally have.
19. You can't make friends with everyone. Choose your side(s) carefully.
20. When you get a new map of another continent, trade it around for a lot of gold (read this in another post today).
20 1/2. Declare war/attack a city at a diagonal. Except in special cases this is always the method that gives your target the least amount of notice and time to prepare a defense.
If you have, for example, a stack of maces and trebs, and they are attacking a city with 1 border pop, they can start attacking the city the turn after you DoW them if you come from a diagonal. If you come from the side, they won't be able to attack til the third turn.
21. Build a fort on Oil resource, then when you get combustion, you can put it to work immediately.
22. Once you have an oil rig, build, but do not finish a fort on the site of your rig. Stop building it one turn before completion. If an enemy bombs the resource or destroys it by espionage, you can finish the fort and still have oil. (credit to Tephros)
23: try to do your revolutions and conversions during your Golden Ages. if you dont play a Spi-leader, it can save you a few turns during the game.
24: Dont overexpand!
Re 24: It's only ovexpansion if can't get out of tech hell - usually happens when stuck researching towards Code of Laws or Currency.
25: When in a peacefull Golden Age, switch to pacifism the first turn of the GA. you'll get 200% extra great ppl generation. also switch on a few more specialists for extra effect. one turn before the GA is over, switch back to the original civic. (I tend to run SE and that makes this a golden tactic for popping some great ppl a few turns earlier.)
Re 25: Pacifism does nothing special for Golden Ages - you get a regular +100% multiplier. It is usually worth to attempt to run a few additional specialists though.
26: never trade away oil, coal or uranium.
27: I think this is quite bad advice. As a general rule:Trade excess resources to weaker civs for gold.
27a: Regularly renegotiate since strategic/luxury resources they don't have, you can usually get all their available gold per turn (in addition to possible surplus resources for your corps)
28.: Look for meat grinders. If an AI keeps reinforcing a flatland city where you pick apart their units without casualties it might to do more for your war effort than conquering it outright.
Often you can do this for a few turns until the AI collapses in on itself because it doesn't have an army or the population to produce/whip one.
29. War doesn't have to be decisive. Stealing workers, pillaging them dry, then bullying them for a tech or two is fine even if you don't take a single city.
Against Protective or Creative leaders you might declare war just to annoy them and slow down their expansion, because they are annoyingly hard to dislodge.
30. The less you automate, the more you win.
31. Save keys to open doors!
32. Build a bigger navy than you think you need - the spares can bring siege (guarded by defenders) to the gates of coastal cities early -- useful since your conquest usually moves at the speed of your siege.
33. If you are playing a game and don't want to go to war you can still pop a great general. Use privateers against you neighbors to gain enough experience to pop a great general. (Or discover fascism first.)
34. Demand money, resources or techs that you are at least 3/4 finished researching from civs that are pleased with you. Do not ask more than every 20 turns (I am not sure if this applies to epic or marathon). Demand from your weaker neighbors as well, but only if you can take the diplomatic hit.
35. Chop early. Especially Workers and Settlers.
36. Espionage is a powerful weapon. Learn how to use it and you will have an advantage over most players.
36 1/3: Build production cities on hills and/or location with lot of hills, save Ironwork and all your G Generals for your most productive production city and watch as you roflstomp Shaka, also put spread + food corporation into that city to increase productivity
36 2/3: Try to ally with the strongest civ by converting to their religion, take out heathen civs/weaker civs with the same religion, then just rolfstomp your precious ally
37. If you want a lot of gold with corporations, you must found Sid's Sushi, Aluminium Co., Creative Constructions, and Civilized Jewelers Inc. in your wall street city....and expand them.
38. Remember save a GM, GS, GE, and GA for 37....
39. At regular intervals, check cautious or worse opponents for 'we have too much on our hands already' and look if the computer is preparing something potentially against you.
The computer will not always give you a trigger to see it against you (especially so if they have greater power than you)
40. When playing Spiritual, change your religions and Civics at the drop of the hat to get bonuses with other civs, and parlay those bonuses into long term benefits by grabbing Open Borders and Defensive Pacts.
41. Always bribe every possible civ to attack anyone you are fighting. Wars are short term, the 'our mutual struggle brings us together' bonus means a new long term ally.
Corollary to 41: ...if you think you need the help. It's really aggravating when your enemy becomes a vassal of a former war ally.
42 Try settling exactly 4 MIL instructors in your coastal HE city. If you build drydocks, pentagon, and west point as well, you can build blitz-battleships, and with back up from bombers, 5 of those can take on any stack AI throws at you. This way you only need 1 drydock, and you can manage with small fleets.
43.
44. Many units have 2 possible upgrades: if you only research the tech for one upgrade, you can build the basic unit and then upgrade the following turn, effectively hurrying the unit with gold. Frex: Warrior to Axeman, Archer to Longbowman, Maceman/Pikeman/Crossbowman to Rifleman.
45. Remember to look at the graphs.
The power and culture graphs especially can save you from an unexpected defeat.
46. if you're really serious about hitting the higher difficulty levels, you need the BUG interface. something as simple as being alerted when a city is about to jump in population can be crucial to early-game tile micromanagement & worker planning.
47. in the heat of war, never let yourself get distracted from domestic micromanagement issues. i know you might be keen to grab that shrined capital on the next turn, but ensuring everything is proceeding in your planned direction on the home front is always vital.
48. Don't be afraid of being relatively in the red per turn, as long as you have some money, and you're rushing something very important.
49. Don't build everything in every city. Only build buildings that complement your slider bar percentages (e.g. if you're over 70% on something, build buildings that work on that something---culture, gold, or research).
50. Praetorians really are as great as everyone says. A swordsman with the strength of a maceman is an incredible advantage. A stack of 7 or 8 can annihilate just about anything (including LB once they get a few promotions)
51. Courthouses, courthouses, courthouse. If your planing a game to go into the AD timeframe at all, build them in all your cities.
52. Adjust your play style to the map, not to your leader or civ. Don't be afraid to divorce yourself from the strategy you thought you'd use.
53. Have enough workers (stolen or built) for 2 per city and stack them in pairs (or 3s or 4s once your earlier cities are completely improved.
53 1/2. Chop border forests first so you don't lose the hammers to the bordering AI.
Corrolary: This includes forests in no man's land! You can even 'flank' enemy cities, sending workers out to chop forests to the side or behind the enemy. You don't get as many hammers, but even 6 makes a difference on the borders, and it's a permanent weakening of your neighbour.
54. Run enough espionage points to see research, especially if you find civs on different continent. You can sell techs to weaker civs that are at 1 or 2 turns from learning the tech. If they took a lot of turns to learn the tech, trade at 2 (or 3 in some cases) turns from discovery. You will usually get a good chunk of change. If the AI is slow to get to the tech, you won't get squat for the last turn. If they research it in fewer turns, they are getting many more beakers per turn and may still need a lot of beakers to get the tech in one turn, so you may get good coinage at one turn in this situation. Another reason to trade at 2 turns is often the AI will get the tech next turn even though it says they are 2 turns away.
55. If you raze an enemy city, don't forget to pillage all of the improvements, starting with the cottages. That's free money!
If an ally captures an enemy city, the surrounding cottages will be no man's land and so can also be razed for considerable amounts of gold.
56. If you are about to lose a city, see if you can gift it to someone. This is especially useful early on if it has your state religion; giving it to someone without a religion will both give diplomatic bonuses *and* shift them to your religion - then after barbarians/opponents take the undefended city, you can retake it.
57. Sometimes it is better to allow an enemy to invade so you can fight them in your cultural boundaries. You will not have any increase in war weariness for losses you incur and the attacker's war weariness will increase due to losses in your cultural boundaries-plus if you have the GW you will gain 2 times the Great General Points. Just be sure that your culture is dominant in the tiles that you are fighting in. After destroying their invading forces, counterattack their weakened empire.
58. Initial promotions on your starting warrior should be Guerrilla 1&2; double movement doubles exploration speed, especially as hills give extra visibility.
59. Use a work boat to explore coasts. They are cheaper and come quicker than the galley. This is situational, but can really be of benefit in the right circumstance. Research costs decrease when you meet more civs, therefore, this has secondary benefits.
59a. Sometimes the AI can actually teach you something. For example, work boat exploration. The AI also taught me to throw a fort up on resources outside the fat cross.
59b Using Workboats to explore can - on certain beneficial maps - get you "circumnavigating the world/prove the world is round". I did that with Ragnar once, on Archipelago. Either make two boats and send them in opposite directions, or just chance it and have them explore automatically.
60. Unless you need a unit immediately, consider leaving it in the build queue (with one turn of building required) and starting something else! Once you have a few units queued in each of your cities, switch from Bureaucracy/Organised Religion to Vassalage/Theocracy get the most out of your 6 turns of +4 XP; then switch back. Works best for spiritual civs; downside is requires more micromanagement.
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