Recent content by JustBen

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=324408 Apologies to forum viewers who've seen me spam this link before, but this is the definitive guide for OCC games. Even if you're not shooting for space you'll probably follow this guide closely up to the point you switch into military...

Liberalism. The shadow it casts reaches back to Civil Service at least, to Aesthetics quite often, and sometimes it even touches the Oracle. You can turn the game on a war with HBR, Construction, Knights, Cuirs, Rifles, or not at all -- but which you choose is influenced by when or whether you...

Since you spoiler the choice of map script I'll spoiler my question.

Most of the posters on this forum play normal speed and standard size. A smaller but persistent group play marathon. Players who prefer Quick or Epic speeds are quite rare. If you're interested in having a shared experience of Civ4, normal speed does so best with marathon a distant second. I...

Here's a very old game of AbsoluteZero doing so on a good map. Creative libraries let him bulb Mathematics, though he still doesn't finish the wonder until 1600 BC. I seem to recall him doing a lot of interesting Oracle plays around that time (it's his Deity #7), but this is the only one I...

You also have to look at your city size(s). If your base is undersaturated (more improved tiles than population), you can afford to slowly and efficiently improve tiles with single workers. If your base is oversaturated (more population than improved tiles), it is usually best to get 1 new...

Survivors are diplomatic nuisances. They can make demands, sell tech to your enemies, vote in the AP, vassal to enemies, and occasionally even pay for a war bribe. Vassal them or kill them. This is Civilization after all, not European Border Dispute.

This has been my experience too. Use with caution, I still accidentally reject a lot of demands no matter how hard I try to remember.

Charismatic Monuments feel a little like a bonus UB. And fortunately Chm-Ex is a really cool pair of traits in the early game, especially if you can't get an ancient luxury. No one likes whip cycles on a 4-happy city. Cheap workers synergize with the bigger cities until you stop building...

I find a horse unit that receives defensive bonuses to be pretty darn impressive myself. Even after you tech cavalry as Spain, it's worth having a bunch of conqs around. Standard caveat of "unique unit does not make-or-break the leader", but it's a pretty slick bonus that no other UU gets.

I don't enjoy interacting with the vassal system, but I leave them on because it's important. The AIs are simply incapable of winning a military victory without it. With the system, a runaway Great King is possible at almost any tech level. One of Absolute Zero's early games is played...

If you're interested in espionage economy, you can't miss the deity always war series by snaaty. I think 2 and 3 are the games with the detailed EE discussions so I've linked them, but there are 1st and 4th games too in case you care. Deity AW 2 Deity AW 3 I think they settled on GW...

Holding together an empire of 7+ cities requires advanced technology in the Iron Age. Whether you settled a lot or conquered a lot, this is the time you need to worry about Currency for trade routes and CoL for courthouses. The need for these happens suddenly, and it is not obvious that they...

The master will 100% refuse to capitulate until he has no vassals. Sometimes it's easier to peel off (or exterminate) the vassal , but usually you're in a war like this because the master is a threat. In that case it's probably safer to pump damage into the master.

Basically yes, but a little easier. Cuirassiers ignore city walls and dominate all units till Rifling hits. It's kind of like a HA war against an AI with no metal, except he can't cheese a resource deal to get out of it. Lib plays mean your window for abusing this is slightly bigger. It's...