Questions from a Civ IV player

[Quibblesome]

Trying to work out the efficient ways of playing this game and I have a bunch of questions if anyone fancies helping me out:

1. Four cities. Unless one is going for domination asap it looks like the only cities you should settle are the first four. The rest should be taken from other people later on. Is that correct?
When I "expand" later by stealing cities do I actually take them or just raze them to ensure my happiness doesn't spiral out of control or will later techs/tenets/etc save me from the incredibly punishing happy cap?

With this in mind what the hell is the purpose of that tenet that makes a new city 3 pop at the start? That sounds completely pointless. Also I swear I've seen screenshots of people with tons of cities at pop levels of smth like 14 or so but still with positive happiness. HOW? For a Civ IV player the global happiness feels incredibly restrictive.

Also what's the primary purpose of the first four? I'm often confused if I have one left to found and have some average nearby spots or a spot far away that secures another luxury or two. I usually go for the extra luxuries, is that wise?

2. Delaying workers. In Civ IV most opening builds start "worker". However in this game the yield improvements are very minor (usually +1 something as opposed to +3 you can get in Civ IV). This means we delay the workers at the start in favour of scouts that can give us money to buy a granary (+2 food) or discover things that help (pop, culture, faith).
I build the workers after the first scout or two and then the first settler when I'm around pop 3 or 4?
How many workers do I want overall? I tried a game out with 1 per city but it didn't feel like enough as my cities still ended up working unimproved tiles.

3. Build order. Essentially what we're looking for is National College and Libraries after all the worker techs and building stuff like granaries and water mills, is this correct?
The AI usually rushes writing but I personally leave it quite late right now.

4. Wonders. They don't obsolete?!? With the small number of cities of tradition they seem ridiculously strong if you _can_ fit them in (I imagine this is less possible on Deity). Are there any that are particularly powerful? The colossus looks good and I'm personally quite fond of the one that gives +2 gold on masonry spots if I start with 2+ masonry spots. Lesser "good" ones seem to be Hanging Gardens (+6 food) and Artemis (+10% growth combined with all the other available growth modifiers).
Which other early ones are also situational?

5. Religion. I don't really get religion yet. Beyond the benefits it brings your civilization (like forever needed happiness) I'm not really seeing the point yet. Does it provide diplo modifiers? Is there a religious victory condition I've just flat out not noticed?
That desert +faith Parthenon seems pretty OP on flood plains starts. Which other ones are really good?

6. Great people resource improvements. Last game I played I basically just made great merchant stuff so I just burned all my dudes on those lovely +4 gold plots. They seem pretty good. Are they?

7. Patronage policies. City states seem important but these policies feel really weak, is that true? I feel like I should just get commerce instead because that will easily give me enough cash to keep city states happy and commerce gives the sickest happy boost in the game(?).

8. Tech leads feel much less strong. Trading with someone behind gives them science and stealing science seems easy for the AI to do and the stuff to prevent stealing feels incredibly weak (reduce chance by 25%, possibly kill the spy but the spy will re-appear a bit later). Is that a fair assessment? I feel like being super science isn't really so strong due to how easy it feels to steal tech.

 

[civtilidy]

This game is only about one thing and that is
Yes happy faces. Whatever you do it will always restrict you. Good at growing or expanding? Happiness will punish you to hell. The better you do the more this game will punish you. Stay at civ 4 because ciV is where the civseries is degrading. Want to win diety? Build 4 keshiks
Want a good fight? Dont be too good and catpure a city because everyone will hate you and you can say goodbye to diplomacy.

 

[Aea]

From the perspective of a Deity / MP player:

1. Four cities. Unless one is going for domination asap it looks like the only cities you should settle are the first four. The rest should be taken from other people later on. Is that correct?
When I "expand" later by stealing cities do I actually take them or just raze them to ensure my happiness doesn't spiral out of control or will later techs/tenets/etc save me from the incredibly punishing happy cap?

No. It just depends on your happiness and land. The thing is people look at "Tradition" and extrapolate it to "Tradition should not settle more then four cities, because you only get free buildings in the first four." This combined with the relatively high cost of settling more cities (mostly happiness) leads to the "Four City" strategies. I personally like to take 2-4 Cities into NC and then go from there. It's usually three however.

I've had tradition openers that go onto 6-8 self-settled cities with the right luck (i.e. Egypt and Happiness Wonders on MP). I've also had tradition openers where I only settled three cities. It just varies based on land and happiness.

If you're playing Single Player then happiness is actually more important, because once you hit Ideologies the influence can be really problematic. And it's easier to have 20+ happiness going into Ideologies knowing that you might lose most of that to pressure. Mostly a problem on higher difficulty levels.

If you can sustain the expansion, more cities is always better. Yes, especially w/ Tradition.

With this in mind what the hell is the purpose of that tenet that makes a new city 3 pop at the start? That sounds completely pointless. Also I swear I've seen screenshots of people with tons of cities at pop levels of smth like 14 or so but still with positive happiness. HOW? For a Civ IV player the global happiness feels incredibly restrictive.

Also what's the primary purpose of the first four? I'm often confused if I have one left to found and have some average nearby spots or a spot far away that secures another luxury or two. I usually go for the extra luxuries, is that wise?

It's a crappy tenet, unless you're starting your game in the Industrial / Modern Era. Might still be crappy then. Many tenets aren't balanced, or benefit the AI more then you. The only time I settle a city that late is if I need a strategic resource.

It's often four because tradition only gives free buildings (Culture Building + Aquaduct) to your first four cities. Additional with National Wonders you need to build a building in all of your cities before building it. So it's easier with smaller empires to grab National Wonders in the BNW game.

If you want to go wide I suggest you try the "No Quitters Mod," it's designed for multiplayer but it really fixes Liberty.

2. Delaying workers. In Civ IV most opening builds start "worker". However in this game the yield improvements are very minor (usually +1 something as opposed to +3 you can get in Civ IV). This means we delay the workers at the start in favour of scouts that can give us money to buy a granary (+2 food) or discover things that help (pop, culture, faith).
I build the workers after the first scout or two and then the first settler when I'm around pop 3 or 4?
How many workers do I want overall? I tried a game out with 1 per city but it didn't feel like enough as my cities still ended up working unimproved tiles.

You have this right. Generally two scouts are essential, because ruin bonuses are far in excess of anything you can produce yourself. My typical open order will be:

Scout, Scout, (Shrine, Monument, Worker, or Granary), Settler, (Granary or Worker). Faith is very powerful and the pantheon scaling in the base game pretty much forces you into an early shrine. If you're playing on Deity you might as well skip the Shrine early. The Monument is situational, if you can't find any culture ruins it might be worth it, especially on longer game speeds. I rarely build Monuments because Culture Ruins are so prevalent.

A lot of players like to steal workers too. From a CS or even better from an AI. Almost impossible to steal a worker from a competent human player early game. Also not the best idea diplomatically.

As you've observed, you want to start building a settler around population 3 or 4 unless you have a *LOT* of growth (e.g. 3+ Wheat probably means granary before settler).

Don't be afraid to move things around during construction. This is what you should be doing. If you just hit 3 pop and have 80% left go on a Granary, the right decision might be to switch to Settler, and finish Granary later.

Only your first 2/3 excess food really helps your settler production.

3. Build order. Essentially what we're looking for is National College and Libraries after all the worker techs and building stuff like granaries and water mills, is this correct?
The AI usually rushes writing but I personally leave it quite late right now.

This is a good approach. Science is ultimately built on population, so more population is more important then early science.

Don't forget Granaries and Trade Units. Early game you can send a caravan for +3 food. That's huge. In fact I think Granaries are among the most important buildings in the early game for this reason. You will need Animal Husbandry and Sailing to get 2 trade routes. Both are easy techs.

4. Wonders. They don't obsolete?!? With the small number of cities of tradition they seem ridiculously strong if you _can_ fit them in (I imagine this is less possible on Deity). Are there any that are particularly powerful? The colossus looks good and I'm personally quite fond of the one that gives +2 gold on masonry spots if I start with 2+ masonry spots. Lesser "good" ones seem to be Hanging Gardens (+6 food) and Artemis (+10% growth combined with all the other available growth modifiers).
Which other early ones are also situational?

The Great Wall in the base game does. But yes, they're powerful. You're actually a bit wrong about ToA and Hanging Gardens. Those are great wonders because food is everything. They just take a different approach. ToA pays dividends long term, but does very little early. Hanging Gardens pays dividends RIGHT NOW but is weaker long term. A Hanging Gardens is basically like 2 grassland farms. You will tend to get it a while before Civil Service so that's a huge growth bonus.

I am a huge fan of the Colossus. +5 Gold, and a free Cargo Ship. That's massive food (if you have coastal cities) and massive GPT. The Great Merchant point in the base game is somewhat annoying though.

MoH is not a great wonder, unless you have 3-4 Quarries. It's extremely contested by the AI but rarely built super early in Multiplayer.

5. Religion. I don't really get religion yet. Beyond the benefits it brings your civilization (like forever needed happiness) I'm not really seeing the point yet. Does it provide diplo modifiers? Is there a religious victory condition I've just flat out not noticed?
That desert +faith Parthenon seems pretty OP on flood plains starts. Which other ones are really good?

Religion is massively powerful, and the answer really can't be stated in a simple forum post. Basically the things that make it great are:

1. Tithe
2. Pagodas
3. Cathedrals
4. Mosques
5. Religious Community

And towards the end of the game you can purchase Great People with Faith. It's almost OP.

6. Great people resource improvements. Last game I played I basically just made great merchant stuff so I just burned all my dudes on those lovely +4 gold plots. They seem pretty good. Are they?

Super powerful. Merchants are also among the weakest. Great Scientists and Great Engineers among the strongest. Don't underestimate Great Artists or Great Writers either. It's such a fundamental part of good gameplay that I can't huge to cover it a forum post.

7. Patronage policies. City states seem important but these policies feel really weak, is that true? I feel like I should just get commerce instead because that will easily give me enough cash to keep city states happy and commerce gives the sickest happy boost in the game(?).

Base game I will always take commerce. It's typically Tradition -> 1-2 points in Commerce -> Rationalism

8. Tech leads feel much less strong. Trading with someone behind gives them science and stealing science seems easy for the AI to do and the stuff to prevent stealing feels incredibly weak (reduce chance by 25%, possibly kill the spy but the spy will re-appear a bit later). Is that a fair assessment? I feel like being super science isn't really so strong due to how easy it feels to steal tech.

A small tech lead can make the difference between capturing a capital and getting stomped at the border. It's all about timing pushes.


P.S. I strongly recommend reading http://www.carlsguides.com/strategy/civilization5/

 

[Quibblesome]

Wow what an amazing reply! Thank you so much Aea, that really answers a lot of my ponderings.

I'm weirdly bemused by receiving a Civ IV master race reply so early as well from civtilidy. I did play Civ V at release but dismissed it as "a bit " but now there is a fair amount of DLC I thought I'd give it another try. I'm going to try to keep an open mind on the subject, at least for now.

edit: jesus, since when did we implement this bloody stupid swearing filter? That's rather annoying.
edit2: hey, its yank biased. bollocks, tosser.

 

[claudiupb]

Just to add some things to question #8: having a tech lead is very strong in this game and will let you snowball through the game, as being first to something has great benefits.

Being first to ideology let's you pick whatever you want and get you 2 free tenets and a number of turns without ideology pressure or diplomatic repercussions. Being first to a new era gives you an extra spy until others tech to that era. Being first to a certain tech gives you a good chance of completing a wonder, or reveals resources on the map, etc.

But the big advantage comes from the 1 unit per tile system. This means that you need to have the best units out there, you can't compensate by having twice the number of units because half of them are not even close to the battle field. So if you go to war, you need to have good units that can perform the task fast and not become obsolete on the battle field. For example if you are attacking with artillery and the opponent has flight it will just snipe your artillery with great war bombers one by one, and you can't do anything about it until you get some Anti Aircraft yourself. If you have a tech lead this means you can safely use artillery to take a great number of cities before someone tech something that can counter them.

The espionage system is in no way a deterrent to having a tech lead. Having a spy in your capital will let you catch enemy spies once in a while, but the big bonus is that with every spy caught your spy levels up and has an even bigger chance of caching them again. When he is level 3 you can put him on other tasks (like performing coups on city states) or just leave him there to catch enemy spies. On the other hand if a spy gets caught stealing a tech it will lose all it's levels. When a new spy is born it has level 1 and will steal at a much slower rate, so the stealing isn't completely risk free. Also, from what I know, the espionage buildings don't actually decrease the cost, they increase the time needing for stealing techs, and this means that by modern era it will take a lot of time to steal a single tech and if your level 3 spy gets caught there is almost no point in stealing because it takes to much.

Having the tech lead is too much of an advantage, it doesn't even matter that the AI gets to steal a couple of techs from you.

 

[beetle]

Trying to work out the efficient ways of playing this game and I have a bunch of questions if anyone fancies helping me out:

Thanks for asking specific questions. I will take a stab with somewhat contrary advise!

1. Four cities. Unless one is going for domination asap it looks like the only cities you should settle are the first four. The rest should be taken from other people later on. Is that correct?

Yes, with Tradition. Fewer than that is leaving too much on the table. Liberty wants 6-8 self-founded. Honor and Piety maybe only three. You need three cities to use factories to unlock Ideologies, so that is one reason for a minimum. People like to try winning with only one city too (OCC).

When I "expand" later by stealing cities do I actually take them or just raze them to ensure my happiness doesn't spiral out of control or will later techs/tenets/etc save me from the incredibly punishing happy cap?

Puppet is the safe choice if the city is in a decent location, Raze otherwise. You can always Annex later, after you get the sense of things. Yes, Ideology tenets come with lots of Happiness. Commerce finisher is sweet too.

With this in mind what the hell is the purpose of that tenet that makes a new city 3 pop at the start? That sounds completely pointless.

That is one of the least useful tenets. Maybe not the worst, but close.

Also I swear I've seen screenshots of people with tons of cities at pop levels of smth like 14 or so but still with positive happiness. HOW? For a Civ IV player the global happiness feels incredibly restrictive.

There are a few ways, but the most obvious is the Autocracy 2nd Tier tenet that makes your empire happier the more you conquer! The global happiness mechanic is an unwelcome shock to many IV players -- but I personally find it to be a good change. The sliders always felt too gamey to me. V has fewer cities than IV, but each is more important. Keeping positive cash and happy really sets the pacing of your expansion, and keeps the game interesting IMHO.

Also what's the primary purpose of the first four?

I think it is just because that is the most that can reasonably easily be managed. And you don’t want to be smaller than that do you?

I'm often confused if I have one left to found and have some average nearby spots or a spot far away that secures another luxury or two. I usually go for the extra luxuries, is that wise?

As you move up difficulty levels, spots that are not on your road/rail network become a liability, mostly because they are hard to defend. A mediocre nearby spot, with Tradition, will be net contribution to your empire. With Honor or Piety, I would probably skip it. Each city increases cost to science, social policies, and National Wonders (which I personally over value).

2. Delaying workers. In Civ IV most opening builds start "worker". However in this game the yield improvements are very minor (usually +1 something as opposed to +3 you can get in Civ IV). This means we delay the workers at the start in favour of scouts that can give us money to buy a granary (+2 food) or discover things that help (pop, culture, faith).

Good observation about how meager are the terrain improvements!

I build the workers after the first scout or two and then the first settler when I'm around pop 3 or 4?

Monument and Shrine before worker. People are going to say you should steal your first workers, but that is kind of cheesy IMHO. Yes, settlers early but after first worker, probably by pop 4 or 5 or 6 even (because you want two scouts, monument, and shrine first).

How many workers do I want overall? I tried a game out with 1 per city but it didn't feel like enough as my cities still ended up working unimproved tiles.

Yeah, if you get the mids (with its faster workers) 1 per city is enough. Otherwise you want 1 or 2 more.

3. Build order. Essentially what we're looking for is National College and Libraries after all the worker techs and building stuff like granaries and water mills, is this correct? The AI usually rushes writing but I personally leave it quite late right now.

Sounds good. I really like the Water Mills, but I don't let it hold up NC. Writing and Libraries can wait so long as NC is not delayed. Typically, the first building in my last-expo-before-NC is a Library. The other expos can usually build a granary before the Library.

4. Wonders. They don't obsolete?

The Great Wall does (but quite late in the game) and some are mostly an instant-effect (like a GP).

With the small number of cities of tradition they seem ridiculously strong if you _can_ fit them in (I imagine this is less possible on Deity). Are there any that are particularly powerful?

Relative to the opportunity cost, most of the early ones are actually kind of mediocre. As you observe, many are not obtainable on Deity anyway, notably Great Library and Stonehenge. The ones you mention are good, but not game making/breaking. Pyramids is nice since the hammer cost is not much more than two workers, so no opportunity cost at all.

5. Religion. I don't really get religion yet. Beyond the benefits it brings your civilization (like forever needed happiness) I'm not really seeing the point yet.

It adds a lot of interest to the game. I really like to found. But the benefits are actually kind of marginal. I have yet to have a game where I felt like my religion made the difference between winning and losing.

Does it provide diplo modifiers?

Yes, but the positive modifier is modest, and applies only if you an AI share a religion and one of you did not found. The diplo penalty OTOH, for converting cities of an AI that founded, is severe.

Is there a religious victory condition I've just flat out not noticed?

No.

That desert +faith Parthenon seems pretty OP on flood plains starts. Which other ones are really good?

Yes, very OP, none of the others come close. If you want to found, you pretty much you need a faith-oriented pantheon that matches your dirt. Fortunately, there are several to choose from, and they are good enough (even at deity) if you get started early enough).

6. Great people resource improvements. Last game I played I basically just made great merchant stuff so I just burned all my dudes on those lovely +4 gold plots. They seem pretty good. Are they?

No, GMe plots are the weakest of the lot, and GMe are on the same counter as GS and GE -- so they should be avoided. Early GS plots are good, later you want to bulb them. Most people like GE for rushing wonders, but an early GE plot can be extremely valuable too.

7. Patronage policies. City states seem important but these policies feel really weak, is that true? I feel like I should just get commerce instead because that will easily give me enough cash to keep city states happy and commerce gives the sickest happy boost in the game(?).

Most people seem to favor Commerce over Patronage -- but Patronage is pretty strong too, especially if you get the resting point boost early. CS are quite important, it is easy to underestimate how much they can help your game. The imbalance is that Science is so very important, so that Rationalism trumps everything else.

8. Tech leads feel much less strong. Trading with someone behind gives them science and stealing science seems easy for the AI to do and the stuff to prevent stealing feels incredibly weak (reduce chance by 25%, possibly kill the spy but the spy will re-appear a bit later). Is that a fair assessment?

Yes, spy prevention mechanic is weak, but your assessment of the importance of science is incorrect. For late game wins, strong science is essential for CV (Internet), DiploVC (Globalization), SV (obviously), and DomVC (XCOM). If you get an era ahead of the AI, it matters not at all that they steal tech. You cannot get a tech lead by stealing, but nor can the AI!

 

[Quibblesome]

Wow thanks claudiupb and beetle!
A wealth of information there. I can't really begin to start with the thanks I have for clarification, the levels of spies is knowledge that is vital to me as well as all the learned clarifications from beetle.

One thing I have discovered with some questions elsewhere is that religion can be a game winning mechanic, specifically faith generation + building creation + tourism for faith created buildings for a dirty sounding quick cultural win. Probably a bit situational though, I'm trying (pathetically) to do it right now just to see how tricky it is.

 

[beetle]

…religion can be a game winning mechanic, specifically faith generation + building creation + tourism for faith created buildings for a dirty sounding quick cultural win.

That would be the Sacred Sites exploit. It is pretty hard to pull off in Deity. Pretty much there is an exception to everything I wrote! I just gave you rule-of-thumb answers to your specific questions.

 

[jungleman3955]

Just so we're clear, the main bonus of MoH is the 100 gold you get from expending a great person not the gold on quarries. In a single game (depending on speed) that's easily 1k-2k gold over the game. Unlike most ancient wonders that give an instantaneous bonus, besides ToA, it's a long term investment. It's a actually a very powerful wonder for non-tradition starts seeing as tradition has gpt baked into the tree.

 

[jungleman3955]

And by non-tradition I mean liberty.

 

[Mahasona]

Spies can only steal tech that is already available to research by the thief.

Eg: If tech C requires techs A and B and only tech A has been researched, then tech C cannot be stolen.

So don't get too worried by all those tech stealing announcements.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to General Discussions

 

[fyar]

You already got some very good, detailed answers from Aea and beetle. I'm curious though that both mentioned Commerce as a common strategy. Beetle in particular mentioned that "most people seem to favor Commerce over Patronage". That surprised me: I almost never take Commerce until late in the game. Patronage, on the other hand, is my default choice once I've finished my base tree (either Tradition or Liberty), especially before the Renaissance. Why is Commerce generally favored? I think of Gold as the least valuable resource (when compared to food, hammers, science, culture, faith, or tourism). If I open commerce at all, often it's because I've got all the SPs I need from my other policy trees / ideology tenets, and it's already the Atomic Era with Big Ben still available. Am I missing something? Why do people favor Commerce?

 

[claudiupb]

With commerce gold becomes more valuable. Not only commerce gives you a lot more gold it also gives a little bit of science (effectively 2-3 beakers per city, before buffs), a lot of happiness and a big reduction in purchasing (40% with big ben and mercantilism). With commerce you would be making more gold and gold becomes more valuable (think of it like saved hammers that you can instantly use when convenient)

 

[Crus8r]

Commerce is pretty nice, overall, especially if you wanna play wide.

Even if you went Tradition to start with, then your capital probably generates a fair amount of Gold due to Monarchy, and the buff to capitol gold from the Commerce opener increases that. Unlocking Big Ben is nice, and the Mercantilism policy stacks nicely with it, resulting in 40% cost reduction on purchases (VERY helpful for those Freedom SS part purchases). Most tall empires will stop there...

It's true that the left side of the tree is less appealing, but the reduced road maintenance can help wide empires maintain road connections. Entrepreneurship (+25% GMerchant points) is not a good policy, but at least it has a hidden bonus for water maps: it increases embarked move by 1...on some maps, this is a very big deal.

Protectionism is one of the most powerful happy policies in the game if you have good lux diversity, far superior to Patronage's Cultural Diplomacy (City States usually have pretty bad lux diversity, with most of them having one of 3ish different luxes).

Finally, the bonus to Trade Posts is pretty stout for wide puppet empires...puppets love to work those trade posts! (if you have Free Thought from Rationalism, this also results in a not inconsiderable amount of Science...)

Crus8r

 

[fyar]

Interesting. My feeling was always that only two out of the five commerce policies (Mercanitilism and Protectionism, of course) were useful, and having to get the take the other 3 to get them just wasn't worth it. The opener is only good if you went Tradition (i.e., tall), and Wagon Trains only if you went Liberty (i.e., wide), so they don't synergize well. I never buy Landsknechts (should I?). And fast Great Merchants just slows down by Engineers and Scientists. I never even build trading posts except for jungles (I'll always take +2 or +2 over +2 anyway), so only the 25% discount in Mercantilism is useful.

Maybe I'm just not seeing things though. I'd be open to holes being poked in my argument.

 

[claudiupb]

Commerce really shines with warmongering. The opener gives you a little bit of gold, then wagon trains gives you a lot because you probably have spammed a lot of roads, and the cities may be far apart. Wagon trains also boost your caravans, and sometimes you can't get external cargo ships because you are constantly at war, so that gives you more gold. Entrepreneurship is kind of bad because you might accidentally get a natural GM, but it does gibe +1 movement to embarked units and you can buy GM with faith for a gold boost when needed. And then there is the discount for purchasing, Mercantilism + Big Ben, that is huge and really turns gold into something valuable. If you add another discount from order or autocracy then you will be getting very cheap building or units. And then there is Protectionism which is just a huge help for happiness, but might be overkill if you are not warmongering.

For peaceful play, I think commerce is good for 3 policies, up to mercantilism, the opener is even better with monarchy, but you do waste that policy for Landsknechts. If you get them while they are good then you can buy them instead of Pikemen, but usually they come too late, and the only thing they are useful for is spamming them to block the AI if he is advancing towards you. You can also use them as medics around cities with planes, but that doesn't justify the cost of an entire SP. Nevertheless Mercantilsim + Big Ben combo is pretty good and it justifies using 3 SP on it.

 

[beetle]

I never buy Landsknechts (should I?).

It is very situational. I usually buy a couple or three upgraded to lancers. The no-movement to pillage means they can pay for themselves pretty fast. If you game goes long, the pillaging Helicopter Gunship is a hoot. Also, it is a nice buff to Lancer UU, if your civ has that. Still, not worth an SP, but you have it unlocked, so have some fun with it!

Also with Freedom, you can use the Landsknechts to get 20 CS influence for 120 gold (I think that is the discounted price), so that is pretty good. My problem is that I usually like that tenet less than the one that boosts landmarks, so it would be my forth 2nd tier pick. So the cost for that is a useless fifth 1st tier Freedom pick, and Freedom trade routes are online before that!

 

[ShakaKhan]

1.) Three cities will do with Tradition. Four is probably better, but ever so slightly so. Playing at higher levels, you'll frequently be beaten to the logical 4th city site, possibly the 3rd or 2nd. Your options then are:

a.) wipe out the troll city to get the location
b.) pick an inferior location
c.) wait until exploration techs become availlable, most notably astronomy
d.) settle for three cities.

a.) isn't a great option because it's either too early and you can't handle the pariah label and everyone hating you and declaring war on you, or it's too late and you can withstand the pariah aspect but there isn't enough game left for the city to be worth it's cost and investment. b.) is rarely a good option as you're rarely lucky enough to have 4 good city locations, let alone backup options. c.) is too late for the city to be worth the investment. Leaving d.), which works just fine. Having three instead of four means that you sacrifice some overall production and gold potential for more efficient research and culture costs, less happiness problems and (almost always) better diplomatic relationships.
Bearing that in mind, you may think "well if three cities works almost as good as four, how about 2?" Two cities is not enough. It can be done, even OCC can be done, but it's much harder. The problem is the fewer cities you have, the bigger you need them to be, and having two cities means you can only have one internal TR feeding the capital, three cities doubles this. With four cities, you don't need internal routes.

2.)Global Happiness is the ceiling to how powerful you can become. Like all civ games (but not all TBS-games, civ seems to really struggle with this), technology dominates all other elements of the game, and research is based on population whereas in Civ4, research was based on commerce. Much like Civ4, population controls the amount of citizens you're working which influences your production, your economy, and many other elements. But now that research is directly based on population (with some notable exceptions) in addition to the other elements, population is the most critical element of creating a monster/runaway/powerful civilization. Happiness is the ceiling of how powerful you can become.

3.) worker-stealing. It's already been mentioned that stealing a worker from a CS is usually more favorable than a civ, the optimum scenario is to steal a worker that has been captured by a barbarian - you don't have to declare war on anyone and don't suffer an influence penalty.
I applaud your observation that workers don't increase the yields as much as they did in Civ4 but disagree with your conclusion that they aren't that important. 1 or 2 food doesn't seem like much, but think of it in terms of percentages: increasing the yield of a 2food tile by 1 or 2 is a 50% to 100% yield increase respectively, very significant returns.

4.)Wonders. That's a rather contested issue and several things factor into which ones you want, if any at all, the biggest factor being the difficulty level you're on. My opinion (one of the few that the forum concurs with me on ) is that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is the best, first because you can pick a Great Engineer and get the bonus of any other wonder you want in addition to the bonus it gives, and second because as you noticed, great people are very powerful tools in the game and having more of them is obviously an effective strategy.

5.)Religion. Not necessary. No, there is no religious victory condition, Yes, some of the elements of religion can make the victory conditions easier, but the best beliefs (elements of religion) are the ones that the AI will chose first on higher levels and, much like wonders, once a civ claims a religious belief, it can't be incorporated into another religion (with some technicality exceptions.) I'd advise mastering the other elements of the game before focusing on religion because unlike research/social policies/military, religion is an element of the game you can completely ignore and still have success. I'd argue that many (not all, but many) of the games that players made these huge investments (and early investments) in religion, they would have been equally or even more successful if they ignored it entirely.

6.)Patronage vs. Commerce: Another debated game element. It's pretty much accepted that tradition/rationalism or liberty/rationalism are the most powerful social policy picks. Since rationalism isn't available immediately upon finishing tradition/liberty, you need an interim filler. My opinion is that the patronage opener is stronger than the commerce opener and having the opener plus one policy is stronger with patronage than commerce, but the complete Commerce tree is significantly better than the complete Patronage tree.

7.)Landsknects: I love 'em. First off, pikes are one of the best units in terms of strength: hammer ratio. Landsknects are twice as good in this ratio as they are half as expensive. Further, they are the only unit (except maybe the free Foreign Legions from Freedom? but either way, that's a one-time thing. anyway...) that can be purchased and move in the same turn. I have had countless experiences where someone surprised me with a DoW and the ability to spit out 6 units, all in the same turn, for just a few hundred gold, and then move them to block entry to my land the same turn, saved me. The free pillage is nice as it can keep 'em healthy while offsetting their initial cost, and getting double gold from city capture means that the difference in capturing a single city with a landsknect instead of another unit can pay for the entire landsknect army. Later on, it's not worth it to upgrade all of them to lancers (very expensive), but lancers with the double-gold-capture promotion play 2 critical roles when you have artillery - first they can move in to get sight on a city for the artillery to fire, and then move out of range before the city can hit them. Second, they can start from out of range of a 0HP city and take it without being hit.

But from one former civ4 player to another, the biggest thing to adjust to is:

Diplomacy - it's such a slippery slope, and religion plays a much smaller role in it than it did in CIv4. In Civ4, the strongest alliance you can possibly have is Spain with the same religion. Other civs factor in religion heavily in determining who is friend and who is foe, but not to the same extent. In Civ5, having a different religion is one of many factors in diplomacy and one of the weaker factors at that.
More on diplomacy, it's a very slippery slope, and it cascades out of control quickly. You have things like denouncing, which essentially means, "because I don't like you, I now don't like you even more." Also, the AI doesn't like it when you do things to make yourself stronger, so the better you do directly equates to them disliking you more - Having more CS allies, having wonders, having military in place in critical border locations, having more cities, and having well-positioned cities are all things that make you stronger and make them hate you for it.

 

[fyar]

6.)My opinion is that the patronage opener is stronger than the commerce opener and having the opener plus one policy is stronger with patronage than commerce, but the complete Commerce tree is significantly better than the complete Patronage tree.

I think this pretty much sums it up for me. The thing is, if you're also trying to go through Rationalism and your ideology tenets, I just don't have time to go through the whole Commerce tree (or the whole Patronage tree). If I prioritize those, then it'll be far too late in the game for me to make much use of Mercantilism or Protectionism. I think that's the reason I prefer Patronage.