Strategies

[Lempo]

So I've searched this section of the "Strategy and Tips" forum for some real solid general strategies and haven't been able to find what I'm looking for. Basically, me and my brother are casual players, and we want to play together on Deity but...it's hard. We aren't the great players that many here on the forums are, but we want to play like we are. The thing is we both don't have as much time as we'd like to be able to learn.

Searching through this section I thought I'd find some great "great library science victory strat" or "Swordsmen rush military genius strat" strategies, but honestly, after scouring this forum, I'm still confused with what I should be researching, building, and doing with my land in order to actually compete at a higher level (deity preferred).

I'm not looking for a play by play (that wouldn't be fun) but a general "this tech before this one. This wonder or bust."-kinda strategy. My understanding, after reading a bit, is that most of this information is common knowledge now (subject to acronyms and shorthand). But perhaps, for the sake of us newbies (or just occasional-ies), we could list those well known strategies and preferred and generally accepted methods of success in one place? That'd be amazing.

Thank you to anyone who helps us out!!!!

Cheers

 

[DaveMcW]

Play immortal, where strategies actually matter.

Deity is about learning AI weaknesses and abusing them.

 

[Ruler]

Dont waste your time play lower levels, they are so easy its not even same game, so just go to Emperor/Immortal and you do what you must and everything just flows from there, you probably bang your head against a wall but you get over it.

 

[Waywocket]

This wonder or bust."-kinda strategy

Well I would say Porcelain Tower or bust quite a lot of the time. And in turn, that may not necessarily imply Hagia Sophia, but it does nod and wink suggestively.

 

[hix]

Deity is about learning AI weaknesses and abusing them.

As an occasionally successful Deity player, I would love to hear some specific details from a great player. Enlighten me, Dave.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

It seems to me in the macro view of things is that there aren't that many 'great' tiles so the micro strategy ends up being based on what those tiles are. Think about it. 50-60 turns in the game you are going to control maybe 20-24 tiles of which of which maybe 50% are 'great' tiles if you got a good map. Plus what these tiles specifically are can do a lot to determine what strategy you decide upon.

That said it's hard to imagine anything much stronger than a Porcelain Tower based path.
I like money and I like science and the advantages it provides. My strategies usually feature acquisition of gold as a very high priority. I trade for it from the AI, I work my tiles as much as possible with gold holding a priority in the gold/hammers/food balance. I don't put it on gold focus, usually it's production but I make sure I'm not missing a gold here and there.

I also try to get to 2nd and 3rd spots fast too. I know who this will put pressure on and I plan accordingly. This typically means defending with as small a force as possible through the inevitable early DoW's. It is not unusual to be able to execute this defense and return enough pressure to get a fairly generous early game peace bargain, or you can continue to add a few troops and put real pressure on a Civ or 2.

After that you have the choice to push toward any of the victory conditions.

 

[Treso]

I understand the OP. I am a casual-regular civ5 player. I still have some difficult to find something like a build order for a strategy.
What techs research for an Iron Rush? or if you are going Education what you reserch or what military to build.

 

[Ra's Head]

I have been using this strategy with success at Emperor and sometimes immortal. It incorporates a fair amount of what I have learned from these forums.

Your starting position is important. Normally, I research pottery -> writing and start the great library as soon as possible. It is 22 turns of research to get their and 20+ turns of production depending on your tiles. I normally get the great library if I finish it before turn 50. While building the great library research the techs you need to hook up luxuries and protect yourself. (mining calendar archery masonry animal husbandry trapping). Use the free tech from great library to get philosophy. Immediately build the national college.

I use culture on the liberty social policies primarily for the free worker. Otherwise I have to build or steal it. Normally my build order is scout monument granary great library or something similar. If on continents or pangaea I consider a second scout. Trade your luxuries for cash (early in the game you don't need any happiness) hold onto the cash to buy archers if you are attacked by an ai early.

Once the national college is done, I normally have the free settler from liberty ready to build my second city. At this point I expand as much as I can. If I can build the Hanging Gardens I do it, but this is sometimes built earlier. It is not necessary, but it is very strong. At this point I fill in some techs and push theology so I can build the Hagia Sofia and take a great engineer. I also try to finish liberty for the great engineer before I hit education. I use those to instant build the porcelain tower and notre dame. The tower is more important.

Research compass and use the great scientist from the tower to bulb astronomy so you are in the Ren. era and can start taking rationalism policies. Use money from selling excess resources to sign research agreements. Build universities and fill them with scientists to get great scientists. From here, you can get a technological advantage either for domination or technological victory.

This is probably a fairly standard opening NC start. Not everything has to go right for it to work. You can miss the hagia sofia or the hanging gardens or notre dame. You can even miss the great library although that does set you back a bunch. It is vulnerable early and is slow to expand which can cause you to get boxed in. You have to use your tech lead to win one war to gain territory probably.

 

[Mesix]

I have been using this strategy with success at Emperor and sometimes immortal. It incorporates a fair amount of what I have learned from these forums.

Your starting position is important. Normally, I research pottery -> writing and start the great library as soon as possible. It is 22 turns of research to get their and 20+ turns of production depending on your tiles. I normally get the great library if I finish it before turn 50. While building the great library research the techs you need to hook up luxuries and protect yourself. (mining calendar archery masonry animal husbandry trapping). Use the free tech from great library to get philosophy. Immediately build the national college.

I use culture on the liberty social policies primarily for the free worker. Otherwise I have to build or steal it. Normally my build order is scout monument granary great library or something similar. If on continents or pangaea I consider a second scout. Trade your luxuries for cash (early in the game you don't need any happiness) hold onto the cash to buy archers if you are attacked by an ai early.

Once the national college is done, I normally have the free settler from liberty ready to build my second city. At this point I expand as much as I can. If I can build the Hanging Gardens I do it, but this is sometimes built earlier. It is not necessary, but it is very strong. At this point I fill in some techs and push theology so I can build the Hagia Sofia and take a great engineer. I also try to finish liberty for the great engineer before I hit education. I use those to instant build the porcelain tower and notre dame. The tower is more important.

Research compass and use the great scientist from the tower to bulb astronomy so you are in the Ren. era and can start taking rationalism policies. Use money from selling excess resources to sign research agreements. Build universities and fill them with scientists to get great scientists. From here, you can get a technological advantage either for domination or technological victory.

This is probably a fairly standard opening NC start. Not everything has to go right for it to work. You can miss the hagia sofia or the hanging gardens or notre dame. You can even miss the great library although that does set you back a bunch. It is vulnerable early and is slow to expand which can cause you to get boxed in. You have to use your tech lead to win one war to gain territory probably.

The only change I would make is to tech Philosophy and Trapping while you are building the Great Library. Then you can take Civil Service for the free technology which is a much more expensive tech than Philosophy. This also allows you to build Pikemen early and gets you to Education (and Universities) faster.

My other advice for playing on higher levels is to not let the AI get the Great Wall. When warring early, the Great Wall is great to slow the AI down, and difficult to overcome if you have to invade the player who beat you to it.

Now for the more advanced (taking advantage of a broken game mechanic) information. Using the GE from Liberty to rush the Porcelain Tower and then burning the GS to bulb Astronomy is important for this key reason. Sell Open Borders and spare resources to the AI for gold which you then use to sign cheap early game research agreements. Once you get the Porcelain Tower you research agreements will pay off more. A complete guide to abusing research agreements can be found in the War Academy.

 

[qutsemnie]

In the current deity game I am in with all standard settings the GL went to the AI on turn 32. On like my 6th try at this and I finally got a game where I survived the first wave of an AI attack and could press back a little. There are soooo many units on deity. The rub: I put it on OCC thinking to myself screw it I can never expand anyway! So, pressing back will be just to wipe out an enemy it wouldn't gain me anything.

I think I will try again starting like OCC but not OCC. That way I can take advantage of this situation. There are so many units on the board that cities are no longer serious problems to take if you survive the battle. It has become apparent that cities are less of the overall proportion of military defense as settings go up. Taking a neighbors city that you have already survived is not a problem. The problem is the surviving in the first place when they unleash that unholy wave upon you.

 

[TomMcV]

Just add that I think the Hanging Gardens is immense. Always in my capital: GL, then HG. The Hanging gardens turns your city into a production powerhouse, and consequently you can usually churn out wonders very quickly. I never need use a Great Engineer on wonders in my capital - I save them to get wonders in my outlying cities (+33% culture with Piety). Usually I use my Liberty Engineer to nab a wonder that I think my opponents are close to getting, and the Hagia Sophia Engineer to put a Notre Dame somewhere. After Hanging Gardens I have never had a problem building the Hagia then the Porcelain Tower in my capital. (& then beeline to get Forbidden Palace, then Kremlin, then Brandenburg Gate, fitting in national wonders as and when).

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

In the current deity game I am in with all standard settings the GL went to the AI on turn 32. On like my 6th try at this and I finally got a game where I survived the first wave of an AI attack and could press back a little. There are soooo many units on deity. The rub: I put it on OCC thinking to myself screw it I can never expand anyway! So, pressing back will be just to wipe out an enemy it wouldn't gain me anything.

I think I will try again starting like OCC but not OCC. That way I can take advantage of this situation. There are so many units on the board that cities are no longer serious problems to take if you survive the battle. It has become apparent that cities are less of the overall proportion of military defense as settings go up. Taking a neighbors city that you have already survived is not a problem. The problem is the surviving in the first place when they unleash that unholy wave upon you.

In my opinion on deity the great library is a fool's bet. At least when it's gone by turn 32 you won't have wasted too many hammers on it if you got aced. If your used to getting the great library on emp/imm you might be surprised how solid just pushing the library/national college path is, especially with decent production.

 

[Lempo]

So from what I see here is getting the GL and PT really your only chance of success? Or are there other strategies as well, maybe a growth strategy with a beeline to HG somehow (if you don't expect to get the GL on diety)?

The game we plan on playing is actually sort of a hybrid AI/multiplayer game. It'll be me and him playing as a team (either permanent team or not) against 6 diety level civs (not teamed up). It should be easier this way, but obviously only one of us can take a GL->PT strategy. Is the game so unbalanced that there is really only one real strategy on these harder levels?

 

[Tabarnak]

So from what I see here is getting the GL and PT really your only chance of success?

Nope, even at Deity. I try to follow unusual paths since a couple of weeks and find that the GL and PT strategies are not that ''optimal'' as most players think. In some multiplayer games, i managed to get better results than going for GL, HS and/or PT.

The 4 cities sword rush is one example.

Here is an example of a game i played without researching writting at all(deity), using the 4 cities sword rush :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=445082

Other peaceful strats like getting NC first and expanding after can do a good job as well.

For better long term strategies(especially in mp, against all humans), Chichen Itza represents the strongest wonder you can get for your empire. The free GE from Liberty should be used for it if you plan to.

The PT and HS are easy to get against the AI and this is one big reason to get them. But keep in mind that it's not ''optimal'' to get these wonders to dominate and . A tech lead is nice, but if you can't produce sufficient defences a human player can break through your superior units if he overflows you. Against the AI, and peaceful, the PT is nice but not needed(you will want to go for rationalism though).

The strongest strategy is a strategy that let you dominate from the beginning of the game until the end. It not gives you the fastest finish, but it certainly let you resist against a lot of threats.

 

[chazzycat]

I play on immortal, here is my general "strategy"

- almost always go liberty, unless going for OCC (tradition), or are surrounded by hostiles (honor)
- focus on fast expansion to grab any good city sites that are nearby before the AI
- early goal is getting up to 3 cities/3 workers ASAP, or more if there are more good city sites - use the free stuff from liberty, buy a worker or 2 from lux sells, etc. 1 settler should be hard built in the cap when you hit pop 4-5 and have collective rule (almost always 2nd policy choice).
- only settle cities with a new luxury. Take care with placement of horses/ivory to allow for the max number of circuses to be built. Circuses are amazing little buildings for the fast expander. Get a worker to improve the horse, work that 3 production tile and get the circus up ASAP.
- if possible try to guide expansion towards one particular nasty AI to avoid the rest of them hating you. try to isolate that civ diplomatically and befriend the others
- focus on happiness to keep expanding and growing. If the map allows for expansion past 4 or 5 cities, I will go for piety instead of rationalism for the +2 happy per city. Rationalism is only needed if you stay small and rely on RAs. Likewise if I have expanded a lot I will go for Notre Dame over PT.
- If there is only room for a few cities, I will make a determination as to whether I can win with those cities. Using a lot of RAs and scientists, it's usually possible to get a science win if the cities are decent. If you try to do this make sure you know how the RA system works. With a little knowledge/practice it becomes pretty easy to fly through the tech tree.
- If the cities suck, in that case you'll need to expand via warfare to have a chance. At that point I would go military and try to attack in the classical with swords & catapults if i have iron. Having only a few crappy cities and no iron - that is where things get difficult. If I have no iron and can't get any (rare) I would probably try a turtle approach, signing mad RAs and defending myself with crossbows, and bide my time till artillery can turn the tide back in my favor.
- If you go wide you should have more gold, generally i will spend this on city states and military upgrades and not very many RAs. If you go tall you'll have less gold and will need more RAs, so gold is more valuable (be careful with it).
- I don't like to warmonger for the most part. If I can expand peacefully to enough cities to win the game I will try to do that. I generally will only attack other AIs when my land is not good enough, and fight mostly defensive wars. Sometimes an opportunity presents itself that is just too juicy to pass up, but generally I do try to restrain myself from attacking other civs unless I really need their land.
- artillery is your best friend on immortal, IMO it's the biggest game changing unit other than Keshiks. You can sometimes come back from a pretty awful game if you just survive long enough to get artillery.
- either way if you go tall or wide, try to get a couple scientist factories going. A few well timed bulbs to rifling, artillery, etc. can go a long way for your military, or if you play peacefully save them for the end game to knock out the most expensive techs and launch the spaceship.
- if you go wide, the best wonders are happiness related. Notre Dame, Forbidden Palace, and Eiffel Tower are the best. Also if you can fit in Chitchen Itza/Taj Mahal, that is very nice.
- For tall it's more important to boost productivity, tech, gold, etc. Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Oracle, Porcelain Tower are the most important. PT is a must if you are relying on RAs to power your science. Colossus is underrated if you have a good seafood city.
- try to predict where attacks will come from and set up good defenses - ideally ranged units on hills with strong melee units protecting them. Setting up an effective death zone is key to turning back the waves. Rivers should be used such that when an enemy unit crosses the river, they are in a position to be hit with several ranged attackers, so they die before they get to move again.
- In general i use one of 3 main paths in a non-OCC game:
1) growth/expansion/wide empire - liberty-->piety-->patronage-->order. I would fill liberty completely, take only 2 policies from piety, and a few in patronage depending on the situation. If CS placement is very bad/unlucky, I will go for commerce instead. Order is great with the +1 happy and big science boost for factory cities.
2) tall empire/RAs - liberty-->rationalism opener-->freedom-->rest of rationalism
3) total war - honor-->piety-->commerce-->autocracy. Again I would only take 2 policies in piety, and commerce can be switched with patronage if you want. I prefer commerce for it's eventual synergy with autocracy, but that is going for the long haul, and in a lot of games patronage might be a better choice.

Sorry for the long post, it's kind of all over the place, but I though it might be helpful.

 

[vanjito]

Strategy for most fun on Immortal - I find most entertaining building wonders and fighting;

Policies:
Go Tradition+Aristocracy then left then right side of Honor (whole tree) then Legalism and Monarchy and optional Rationalism/Piety (tech or happiness whichever you lack) Autocracy for cheap bomber purchase

Tech:
Pottery, Writing, Mining, Luxuries (pop Philosophy) Iron-working, Civil Service, Theocracy, Education, Gunpowder (bulb Chemistry for production boost), Biology, Radar

Build order:
Scout, Monument, GL, NC, (units and/or improvements) HS, PT, (settle GS) University (slot scientists), Workshop, Garden, National Epic, all the rest until - Opera House+Hermitage

Settling:
One settler for Iron or very nice location (coastal if capitol is not)

Units:
Starting warrior+1, 2 archers, 1-2 horseman, 2 catapults and 2 unique units (or that will promote into those)
Not ever ever lose one of these
Bomber spam

General tips:
Gather money for first worker, sell lux or CS steal for other. Chop forest for GL and NC, build settler if need Iron. Ally Cultural CS (preferable Iron).
Gather XP while crusshing first AI, puppet all. After first AI is down (one city left) proceed to next one, puppet all, trade post+stop growth of puppets.
Grow capitol as high as you can. Spam RA-s when you can when you start building HS.
Settle only first GS (on Horses or such) save one for Chemistry and the rest for Radar/Stealth.

Save the money for Radar, find Oil, buy 5-10 bombers and kill the rest of AI's...
(upgrade to Stealth as soon as possible) 2-3 Tanks should be enough, the rest of the army is slow...

You'll get a lot of GG's for GA, and a lot of extra culture/happiness from garrisoned units, not to mention that puppets build gold buildings then walls - everything you need

Options for low gold is Oligarchy and Commerce...

 

[MadDjinn]

Nope, even at Deity. I try to follow unusual paths since a couple of weeks and find that the GL and PT strategies are not that ''optimal'' as most players think. In some multiplayer games, i managed to get better results than going for GL, HS and/or PT.

This I disagree with, except the MP portion. In MP, the core reason to get the PT is the science side, but a human player is more likely to attack you with swords, so you'd have less defence against it. You'd have better 'tech' but not military tech.

There are plenty of other strategies that 'get the job done' though, for Deity.

Of course, super fast win time bends to the Liberty/HS/PT/ND combo. There's no other strategy that works quite as fast (if the AI went back to mass upgrades, rather than build new, then it might not be as safe).

So as long as you don't care about winning Dom pre-250, then there's plenty of options (this also depends on the map choice).

Winning tech - no choice.

Winning culture - similar choice (it's basically the same with a few different wonders required).

Winning Diplo - no choice.

So really, the only other 'good' strategy choices are built for Domination (which is sad, really).

 

[Tabarnak]

So really, the only other 'good' strategy choices are built for Domination (which is sad, really).

That's right. I didn't give enough precision. When you don't build HS, PT or ND, you really want to go conquering them or at least make AIs suffering enough to not fall behind. But still, you can win without these wonders but not without headaches. That's why i said you don't need PT and HS. But at which price? Why not taking them? Obviously, if you don't build PT or HS, it means that you are going for something more ''brutal''.

For full peaceful victories, a 4 cities sword rush can help you to reduce DoWs probabilities or at least resist fairly well to early attacks. But if you want to stay peaceful with your 4 cities, HS and PT(with the rationalism tree) are there waiting to be built. You can always go at war later with far more superior units.

To win a wonderless game at deity, you must go for domination right of the bat and preferably beeline Steel and Machinery and steamroll continuously.

And yes, that's pretty sad.

What i mean by ''optimal'' is more like what is the best ''failureness'' strat. Hence the 4 cities swords rush.

 

[Syailendra]

I play deity, and usually win, but not as quick as other posters though, many through dom or diplo, and all at turns 450+
1)scout early so you know all your neighbours. Pick one that you'll think will be your 1st target.
2)get your 3rd city on or near iron and build/upgrade swords quickly,
3)get your 4th city on a hilly area or 1 tile off river that will hold enemies movement. This city are better as neas as possible to your target civ to provoke him. Buy a cat. Buy walls if possible, if not build it first.
4) if the target not provoked, DOW him, and let him send waves of waves of troops to your 4th city and KILL THEM ALL!! (its not easy but absolutely fun)
5)if you managed to finally researched longswords, then it's time to counter attack, dont stop until you cornered him into 1 bad city, then make peace to prevent warmonger status.
6)you should have enough land now to face other ai toe to toe, then build more units to prevent DOW, and happiness building to prepare for future expansion.
7)don't let other ai have points more than 2x of yours. If they have, bribe others to DOW him of attack together if possible.

The game will be a constant headache but fun... I hope... lol

 

[EnDoerner]

Well, this is my first post in the forum, hehehe.

I followed the advices of Ra's Head with great success at Emperor difficulty, but in general in Civ V I am very confused with the city placement.

When I play in Civ IV usually I found my cities towards my enemies, taking as much land and resources as I can, leaving a sustancial gap between the capital city and the "first wave", that I fill later with a second wave of cities, for a total of 7 or 8 cities in my empire.

But in Civ V due to the happiness penalties is really difficult to settle fast a large amount of land, and what is worst, the road costs (in time and gold) makes very difficult the first stage of the game. Usually I end with economic or happiness problems. And always exists the possibility that the AI puts a city in the gap that is left between my cities, making the things worst.

So, would be better a "steamroller" expand (founding cities no far away between each other), what would recomend you?.