Are advisors really helpful? (and other strategy questions)

[megabearsfan]

I've found that some of the advisors can be helpful about giving you information about A.I.s. For example, you military advisor will give you info about the relative strengths of your military versus another civ. Similarly, your tech advisor will tell you if you're being out-teched by other civs. And the trade advisor can tell you if you there are trade deals that you can do. These can be useful things to know, and you don't have to wait for the "People with the Pointiest Sticks" popup or whatever. Other than that, I haven't found much use for the advisors. However, most of this is info that you can find in other screens anyway, such as the Demographics panel or the Diplomacy menu.

They're much more useful for new players who are just learning the game mechanics; although, they can advise you into following bad habits, so be careful!

 

[GoStu]

Eh, mixed bag. Mostly useless overall though.

Military Advisor has information I can't get any other way, but it's sometimes dubious. I think he just counts units and places way too much importance on swarms of unupgraded trash. A handful of pikemen aren't going to do anything in Industrial, but he'll still count a dozen pikes as a threat against your city and two Gatlings. Also, stop telling me every city I have a Barracks in. Tell me which cities (in one tab) that I have the best promotion/production in.

Economic advisor is pretty useless to me. She has no idea where the actual resources are, and I'd have to click through a dozen impossible ones to find any actual suggestion.

Foreign advisor is probably the best of the lot. She actually has suggestions like "liberate a city-state!" or tells me when a good trade could be set up. She tends not to realize that selling strategics isn't actually all that dangerous though: if they use the units against me, they'll all have that nasty penalty...

Science advisor should be fired. Only if I've really, truly neglected a city will he prompt to build anything. Worthless.

City settlement/construction is kind of useful because it can hint at where unrevealed strategics are at.

 

[viper_1986_1986]

I like to use them for deciding when to build things such as a hotel.
Like it won't suggest you build one in city X, unless that city has culture.

Or they suggest to build a work boat only if you have a workable fish tile that isn't already improved.

So i like to use them like that.

 

[Væringjar]

If you are new to game, they give great advice. but after becoming veteran to the game they becomes useless.