A Civ5 Guide for the Civ4 Veteran *Updated 9/24*

[Trickster7135]

THIS GUIDE IS NOW OUTDATED, GO HERE FOR THE NEWEST VERSION: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9776234#post9776234

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Civilization Analysis
2. National Wonders
3. Yield Changes
4. City Specialization
5. Paths to Victory
6. Expanding
7. City-States
8. Military Strategy
9. Promotions
10. World Wonders

VERSION INFORMATION
1.0.3.0 10/13/10 - Created National Wonders section.
1.0.2.1 10/12/10 - Continued working on promotions section, almost done!
1.0.2.0 10/03/10 - Finished wonder section.
1.0.1.1 10/02/10 - Begun wonder section, procrastinating finishing promotion section.
1.0.1.0 09/28/10 - Finished civilization analysis, started promotions section.
1.0.0.1 09/27/10 - Rewrote most of the civilization analysis.
1.0.0.0 09/25/10 - Finished the initial version with as much information as I could provide, given the limited playing experience we've had yet.


1. CIVILIZATION ANALYSIS

AMERICA
Washington – Manifest Destiny: all land military units have +1 sight. 25% discount when purchasing tiles.
Minutemen - Replaces musketman, ignores movement terrain penalties.
B17 - Replaces bomber, free Evasion and Siege 1 promotions.

The American civilization has two unique units, neither of which fundamentally change the strategy of those units. It's leader trait, Manifest Destiny, encourages early exploration, gold based economies, and having spread out cities. The leader trait has very little useful for a cultural victory, and encurages a rapid expansion policy early in the game. The leader trait doesn't have a lot of synergy for a warmonger, other than the sight bonus, as conquered cities retain their cultural boundaries, meaning most nearby resources will already be connected.

The ignore movement terrain penalties ability for the Minuteman gives this musketman replacement something of a scout's usefulness to quickly explore terrain. However, at this late in the game, most land territory would already be revealed, unless you are just setting foot on a new continent during the Renaissance. Defensively, the ability is marginal, as roads will still allow for faster travel. The real value of the ability is to always allow defensive positioning when moving troops, ensuring your minutemen are never caught with a crippling -33% combat penalty for being in open ground.

The B17 bomber comes with two free promotions: one for survival against anti-air, and another to support what a bomber does best: acting as a modern era siege unit. While certainly powerful for its age, and promoting a warmonger strategy very well, when a civilization has a unique unit or building in this late of an era, many times it can feel as if they don't have it at all. Only on very large maps would you be able to capitalize on a late-modern era unit.

ARABIA
Harun al-Rashid – Trade Caravans: +1 gold per trade route, double oil resources.
Bazaar - Replaces market, provides an additional copy of each luxury resource found in the city.
Camel Archer - Replaces knight, replaces standard knight attack with a slightly weaker ranged attack.

The Arabian civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, with the first being a radical departure for the unit it replaces, while the other is exceptionally powerful with the right strategy. It's leader trait, Trade Caravans, provides a very small gold bonus and a late-game bonus for warmongers. It is exceptionally weak, unfortunately, as most warmongers won't reach such a late era to take advantage of the double oil resources, while the gold bonus is almost negligible - as trade is only domestic, and roads or harbors are fairly expensive. Trade routes in general only seem to provide an adequate compensation for building them - at least unit the late game population boom. Either way, a small, non-scaling bonus is hardly relevant.

Where the leader trait is exceptionally weak, the unique building is exceptionally strong. It effectively doubles the number of domestic luxury resources you have, but only if you build a market in every city. The bazaar has two components that are required to make it effective: you must be pursuing a gold based economy strategy to make building the market in every city worthwhile to begin with, and you must be playing a victory type that allows you to have civilizations to trade with. Double luxury resources does nothing if you have no one to trade with. If you are pursuing a peaceful victory, especially one that would be focusing on building a lot of gold, such as a diplomatic victory, than you will find Arabia to be an excellent choice to pursue that strategy.

The Camel Archer is rather strange - it is akin to a medieval chariot archer, and follows the same strategies that unit does, instead of the knight. It is also weaker than a knight, a trade off for its ranged abilities. The really unfortunate aspect of this unique unit is that its movement is the same as the knight, but has a very weak melee combat score like all ranged units. This makes the standard knight the best counter to this unique unit. It can not move and shoot without being overtaken by a knight the next round.

AZTEC
Montezuma – Sacrificial Captives: gains culture for each enemy killed.
Jaguar - Replaces warrior, +50% combat bonus in jungles, heals 2 health whenever it kills a unit.
Floating Gardens - Replaces watermill, reduced maintenance, provides +15% food bonus as well as +2 food bonus from worked lake tiles.

The Aztec civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, with the fist being 'interesting', while the second radically powerful. It's leader trait, Sacrificial Captives, provides a small culture bonus for social policies whenever an enemy unit is killed. This trait does not scale with the eras, and provides the same small bonus all throughout the game. Honestly, this trait can be ignored. You would be required to kill ten barbarians at the start of the game just for this trait to give you the first social policy for free.

The Jaguar is very interesting for a unique unit. It replaces the warrior, and gives it two bonuses that encourage exploration. The jungle bonus is obviously only relevant in jungles - which means this unique unit won't help you take any cities early on. The other bonus, the health from decisive victories, can act as a pseudo-march promotion, allowing your exploring Jaguars to kill barbarians and continue exploring without missing a beat. The drawback of Jaguars is that they replace warriors, not swordsmen, not even spearmen. Warriors are the weakest unit in the game, and the Jaguar are the weakest unique unit as well. Use them for exploration, and especially for playing games with 'raging barbarians', but don't expect them to be relevant for very long - if at all.

The very real strength of the Aztec is their unique building. Aztec cities will be able to grow much quicker, thanks to the extra food from both building and lakes. However, the requirements that the city be placed next to a lake or river to build the Floating Gardens is a very real limiter on the strength of this building. While the capital can almost always be guaranteed to freshwater nearby, having other lakes and rivers for your other cities is very luck dependent.

CHINA
Wu Zetian – Art of War: effectiveness and spawn rate of Great Generals increased.
Paper Maker - Replaces library, gives a small gold yield per library built.
Chu-Ko-Nu - Replaces crossbowman, may attack twice per turn, weaker ranged combat score.

The Chinese civilization has a unique building and a unique unit, with the first being a marginal upgrade of the building it replaces, and the later being an offensive upgrade of a defensive unit. The leader trait, Art of War, is tied with the Japanese leader trait for best warmonger trait in the game. The Benefits of this trait are huge: Great Generals provide a +45% combat bonus instead of +25%, and they spawn twice as quickly. Great Generals are best used for taking cities, and no one takes cities better than the Chinese.

There seems to be a trend, where very weak traits have excellent unique buildings, and China is here to prove the reverse is true: strong leader traits make for weak unique buildings. The only different between Paper Maker and a regular library is that Paper Makers yield +4 gold. This bonus will cover the maintenance cost of the building itself, and perhaps one or two other buildings. While gold and science do have some synergy, mostly from the rationalism social policy, the benefit of this building is marginal at best. It doesn't help that Paper Makers provide no direct benefit to warmongering, something China otherwise does very well.

The Chinese unique unit is rather unusual. It is an offensively upgraded defensive unit. Crossbowmen are best used to garrison cities - they are cheap to produce and maintain, and don't require strategic resources like siege units do. Chu-Ko-Nu can attack twice per turn, but have a ranged combat strength of ten instead of twelve. This overall leads to more damage, but the best use for these units is to supplement - not replace - siege units in city attacking. The Chu-Ko-Nu can attack a city twice for moderate damage, or they can weaken two incoming enemy support aiming at your siege units. In this way, they act like a pikeman, defending your siege units, only attacking a city if it has nothing better to do.

EGYPT
Ramessess II – Monument Builders: +20% Production towards Wonder construction.
War Chariot - Replaces chariot archer, is faster and doesn't require horses.
Burial Tomb - Replaces temple, no gold maintained, provides happiness, reduced culture bonus, double gold from being pillaged.

The Egyptian civilization has a unit unit and a unit building, both being powerful upgrades to their respective replacements. The leader trait, Monument Builders, provides a +20% bonus towards wonder construction, encouraging wonder spamming. Wonders in general are most useful for cultural victories, and both the unique unit and unique building have moderate synergy with that strategy as well. However, any victory type can make use of some wonders, so this trait is rather open ended in its application.

The War Chariot has five speed instead of four, and can be built without horses. While the movement increase is nice, its the second boon that makes this a game changer. During the Ancient era, you have to be lucky to have horses spawn next to your capital, and if you're going for an early rush you can't build too many settlers and workers to gain access to the resources you need. This unit removes the luck component to early game starts: if you want to early rush with chariots, Egypt says you damn well can. And enjoy the movement speed, War Chariots will be the fastest land unit in the game for a long time. It might even be worth keeping a few un-upgraded for scouting purposes into the medieval era.

Burial Tombs have a nest of changes. They require no maintenance, which is nice, but give double gold when an enemy pillages your cities. So, no downside there. They only give 2 culture instead of 3 like temples normally do, but they also give 2 happiness. Even for a cultural victory, the benefits of extra happiness per Burial Tomb far outweighs the loss of one culture point. This building effectively makes cities free from happiness costs associated with placing a city. If you have five happiness and settle a city, gold rush a Burial Tomb and you're right back up enough to build up to five population in your new city. A powerful building to go with a powerful unique unit and a powerful leader trait.

ENGLAND
Elizabeth I – Sun Never Sets: +2 movement for all naval units.
Longbowman - Replaces crossbowman, has increased range.
Ship of the Line - Replaces frigate, is slightly cheaper, is slightly stronger, has increased sight.

The English civilization has two unique units, one a powerful defensive bonus to a defensive unit, and the other a general upgrade over its replacement. The leader trait, Sun Never Sets, provides your navy with extra speed. This speed bonus is most pronounce in the early game, when your triremes are zipping around at six tiles a round. A movement increase mostly assists exploration and retreating, as well as tactical usage of ships. Obviously, this trait most useful on archipelago maps, weaker while playing continents, and mostly useless playing pangaea. It is therefore a map dependent trait, and will benefit players more than the AI, as most players would play a map dependent trait where it is most useful.

The Longbowman has three range instead of two like all other ranged units at this point. This is powerful in a way that only someone used to the tactical nature of Civ5 would immediately get: the strongest counter to crossbowmen, and all ranged units really, are cavalry. Knights have a movement of three, while crossbowmen have a range of two. Normally knights will always be able to hit a ranged unit first, and that's all a knight needs with such a strong combat score. Longbowmen even the playing field, allowing knights to be hit once before they close in, reducing the effectiveness of the crossbowman's greatest threat. The use of their additional range while garrisoned in a city is just icing on the cake.

The Ship of the Line has a multitude of small improvements over frigates: -20 production cost to build, +2 ranged attack score, and +1 sight, as well as the +2 movement from the leader trait. Overall, this makes Ship of the Line's the de facto naval champions until ironclads. Take your naval superiority and run with it.

 

[Trickster7135]

FRANCE
Napoleon – Ancient Regime: +2 culture per turn per city before Steam Power.
Musketeer - Replaces musketman, increased combat score.
Foreign Legion - Replaces infantry, gaining a combat bonus outside friendly territory.

The French civilization has two unique units, both in the same line of upgrading, and both powerful for aggressive warmongering. The leader trait, Ancient Regime, provides a small culture bonus per city that is deceptively synergistic with warmongering into a cultural victory: puppet states grant the additional culture bonus as well as not increasing the culture cap for social policies. The warmongering aspect of this synergy certainly plays well with its unique units.

The Musketeer has a combat score of 20 instead of 16 like the musketman. This makes it immediately better than the longswordsman, who is otherwise still stronger than the musketman. Unfortunately, none of the medieval units upgrade into the musketeer, so it may be best to use the late medieval era to buildup and prepare for war in the renaissance. The musketeer with eventually upgrade into the Foreign Legion.

The Foreign Legion, unlike the musketeer, does not have a simple combat bonus upgrade. Instead, it gains a +20% combat bonus when not in friendly territory, making this unit all about warmongering. This effectively gives them a combat score of 43.2, instead of the base 36 for infantry, allowing them to dominate the industrial era.

GERMANY
Bismark – Furor Tuetonicus: 50% chance to gain free barbarian unit and 25 gold whenever you defeat one in their encampment.
Landsknecht - Replaces pikeman, production cost is halved.
Panzer - Replaces tank, has increased combat strength and movement speed.

The German civilization has two unique units, one a production bonus on a defensive unit, another a powerful upgrade to a powerful late game city attacker. The leader trait, Furor Tuetonicus, gives a 50% chance to convert barbarians to your side, and gain 25 gold, whenever you defeat one in their encampment. Obviously this trait only has a use in the early game, when barbarian units are still a threat and populous. This trait will allow you to quickly build a small army from only one or two warriors, and eliminate a nearby civ or two. After the classical era this trait quickly becomes forgotten, but its the ability to take a capital or two at the start of the game that makes this trait powerful. This trait is map dependent, but works fairly equal on continents or Pangaea, just don't expect it to do much on archipelago.

The first unique unit, the Landsknecht, costs only 50 to produce instead of 100. It is in no other way stronger than the pikeman which it replaces, which is rather unfortunate, as pikeman are much weaker than longswordsman of the same era. The maintenance cost of these units is the same as well, so being able to keep a large number of these units is not the same as being able to produce a large number. At least, these unique units will allow you to mount a quick defense in case of a cavalry rush.

The Panzer has 60 combat strength and 5 movement speed, compared to the 50 combat strength and 4 movement speed of the generic tank. This makes it the strongest land unit of its era, and will really allow a warmonger some late-game presence.

GREECE
Alexander – Hellenic League: City-State influence degrades at half-rate and recovers twice as quickly.
Hoplite - Replaces spearmen, combat strength and production cost is increased.
Companion Cavalry - Replaces horsemen, increased combat strength and movement speed, increased great general rate.

The Greek civilization has two unique units, both in the classical era, showing that the best time to expand the empire is in the early game. The leader trait, Hellenic League, is arguable the strongest trait in the game. In addition to halving the loss rate of city state influence, there is a hidden benefit that allows Greek troops to move through a city-state without causing negative influence. City-states have some powerful benefits, and Greece can manage them at half cost, either cutting the number of cities needed to maintain the gold to support the city-states, or doubling the number of city-states Greece is allied with. Alexander is a shoe in for a diplomatic victory.

The Hoplite has 9 strength instead of 7 strength compared to the spearmen, but costs 60 production instead of 50. This increased strength makes Hoplites excellent city attackers very early in the game, and combined with Companion Cavalry, give Greece an overwhelming advantage early in the game.

The Companion Cavalry has 2 more strength and 1 more movement than the horseman, and has an increased great general growth rate from combat. Companion Cavalry have double base strength compared to spearmen, putting them at equal ground compared to their supposed counter. Their increased movement is nice, but has little tactical application other than to have them able to catch up or escape from enemy horsemen easier.

INDIA
Gandhi – Population Growth: half unhappiness from number of citizens, double unhappiness from number of cities.
War Elephant - Replaces chariot archer, increased melee and ranged combat strength, increased production cost, reduced movement speed, doesn't require horses.
Mughal Fort - Replaces castle, slightly cheaper, provides increased defense, provides culture, provides gold after flight is researched.

The Indian civilization has a unique unit and unique building, the first turning an early game cavalry into a pseudo siege unit, the latter a building that encourages the strategy the leader trait does as well. The leader trait, Population Growth, halves unhappiness from number of citizens while doubling unhappiness from number of cities. This trait makes early expansion difficult and emphasized building up happiness resources and buildings. A small empire that has a large population is well suited towards a cultural victory. This trait greatly discourages warmonger, as most conquered cities will have to remain puppet states for much longer to accommodate the increased unhappiness compared to other civilization. Overall, the unique building and leader trait encourage a peaceful victory, something Gandhi would approve of.

The War Elephant changes the chariot archer drastically. It's strength, both melee and ranged, are increased by two, while it's movement speed is reduced by one. It's production cost is increased by 20, but it no longer requires horses to build and has no penalty for moving on rough terrain. This turns the normally quick to scout and harass chariot archers into pseudo siege units, capable of taking down cities when applied in large numbers, but able to counter spearmen and archers thanks to their higher movement speed. It is a pity that the other aspects of the Indian civilization do not line up with early conquest like the unique unit does.

The Mughal Fort is 20 production cheaper than castles, which is not much at this point. It adds 2 culture and has a higher defense score of a few points. It also adds some gold after flight is researched. Normally walls and castles are not built in every city, but this unique building has excellent synergy with the small empire the leader trait encourages. If your empire is concentrate, it is best your defenses are as well. The additional culture also has synergy with a cultural victory.

IROQUOIS
Hiawatha – The Great Warpath: Forests and Jungles function as roads for unit movement and trade routes within friendly territory.
Mohawk Warrior - Replaces swordsman, +50% bonus in forests or jungles.
Longhouse - Replaces workshop, slightly cheaper to produce, gives +1 production on worked forest tiles.

The Iroquois civilization, thankfully no longer summarized as the native americans, has a unique unit and unique building. The first has a defensive bonus for a city attacking unit, while the second makes the best tiles even better. The leader trait, The Great Warpath, is rather marginal in a vacuum. Increasing movement speed in forests and jungles within friendly territory would be rather marginal, except that the Iroquois are programmed to always start in forests, and usually rather vast ones as well. Their leader trait has synergy with both their unique unit and building, and overall encourages either a warmonger or scientific victory, as the heavy reliance on forests results in exceptional production in all cities with forests.

The Mohawk Warrior is a swordsman with a 50% combat bonus in forests and jungles, which is rather unfortunate, as swordsman tend to be the best city attackers of their era. If Mohawk Warrior replaced spearmen instead, this would have been a better use of a defensive upgrade. At least this unit has excellent synergy with the forest start the Iroquois have.

The Longhouse is a fantastic upgrade of the workshop, being 20 production cheaper, and giving +1 production to all forests tiles, which when improved with a lumber mill and the appropriate tech, is the best production tile in the game. Of course, building a trade post on these tiles will instead provide a very well rounded tile, providing 1 food, 2 production, and 2 gold. Befriend a few maritime city-states, and you wouldn't even have to worry about farms.

JAPAN
Oda Nobunaga – Bushido: unites fight as though they were at full strength even when damaged.
Samurai - Replaces longswordsman, greatly increased great general rate, stars with Shock 1 promotion.
Zero - Replaces fighter, gains a combat bonus against other fighters.

The Japanese civilization has two unique units, which is rather appropriate considering it's leader trait. It's leader trait, Bushido, is tried with Art of War as the best warmongering leader trait. Having all your troops being able to continue fighting at full strength despite their injuries allows Japan to aggressively push forward at times other civilizations would have to fall back and heal. This trait has excellent synergy with the March and Medic promotions, creating a nigh-unstoppable army.

The Samurai, not only the coolest damn troop in the game, is also a very powerful version of the longswordsman. The boosted great general rate is excellent, but it's the free Shock 1 promotion that really sets the samurai apart. The Shock line of promotions are generally not as useful than the Drill line, because any unit in flat terrain already has a -33% combat penalty. However, getting either Shock or Drill to level three gains access to the best two promotions after that for the Samurai: March and Blitz. With the appropriate buildings of this era, a freshly bought or produced Samurai can start at level 3 Shock.

The Zero gains a bonus against other fighters. This bonus will let you rule the skies once you hit that era, taking down enemy aircraft easily. However, the Zero doesn't gain any bonus against anti-air land units, so be careful where you apply them.

OTTOMANS
Suleiman – Barbary Corsairs: 50% chance of converting a barbarian naval unit and earning 25 gold.
Janissary - Replaces musketman, gains a 25% combat bonus on the attack, fully heals after killing a non-barbarian enemy unit.
Sipahi - Replaces lancer, increased movement and sight, can pillage at no movement cost.

The Ottoman civilization has two unique units, both encouraging aggression and warmongering. It's leader trait, Barbary Corsairs, grants a 50% chance to convert barbarian naval units and earn 25 gold. This trait can be difficult to take advantage of, and is obviously map dependent. The best way to utilize this bonus is the use your Triremes to scout islands with barbarian encampments, steal their navy and kill their units, but leave the encampments, and station your trireme there to continue this activity. Utilizing this strategy will give you a quick and strong naval advantage early in the game, which can be important for an archipelago map, simply nice if playing continents.

The Janissary has two powerful upgrades: it gains a 25% bonus to attacking, effectively making its combat score 20, the same as the French unique unit, while also giving it a full heal after the unit kills any non-barbarian unit. This set of bonuses greatly encourages full stop aggression, and will be an excellent unit to prepare a warmongering strategy for. Note however, that musketmen, the unit this replaces, cannot be upgraded from any of the medieval units, they must all be bought from scratch.

The Sipahi has +1 movement and sight compared to the lancer, and has no movement cost to pillaging. This makes the Sipahi excellent scouts and harassment units, able to pillage up to five tiles per turn. Sending Sipahi against a far away opponent, simply to declare war, pillage their lands, and declare peace without trying to really take any of their cities, is an effective strategy with the Sipahi, and provides a huge gold boost. It may cause negative relations with the civ, but will cripple their economy, especially if you can steal their workers as well.

PERSIA
Darius I – Achaemenid Legacy: +50% Golden Age length, units get +1 movement and +10% combat strength during a golden age.
Immortal - Replaces spearmen, increased combat score and production cost, heals at double rate.
Satrap's Court - Replaces bank, increased happiness.

The Persian civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, the first promoting aggressive warmongering early in the game, the latter synergizing well with the leader trait. The leader trait, Achaemenid Legacy, increases golden age length by 50%, as well as proving a +1 sight and 10% combat bonus to units during golden ages. Obviously, the strategy for Persia is to try to string together as many golden ages as possible. Golden ages can com from excess happiness, great people, and building a few key wonders. Persia will need to beeline to techs that unlock those wonders and attempt to build them faster than the other civilizations, to really take advantage of this trait. The combat bonuses cannot be overlooked as well, but managing to build wonders, string together golden ages, and maintain a strong warmongering strategy can be a bit daunting of a task.

The Immortals have 8 combat strength and cost 60 production, and have the additional bonus of healed at double speed. This second ability has excellent synergy with Medic and March promotions. The increased combat strength will encourage warmongering at the classical era, which can be the best time to expand your empire in preparation for peaceful building.

The Satrap's Court replaces the bank, and increases happiness by two. Satrap's Courts can only be built in cities which already have a market, so this unique unit demands a gold based economy to be most effective. The increased happiness has excellent synergy with the leader trait, accelerating the next golden age to take advantage of.

ROME
Augustus Caesar – The Glory of Rome: +25% production to any building already built in the capital.
Legion - Replaces swordsman, increased combat score and production cost.
Ballista - Replaces catapult, increased ranged combat score.

The Roman civilization has two unique units, both encouraging city attacking, and both in the same era as well. The leader trait, The Glory of Rome, increases production for any building already built in the capital by 25%. In Civ4, this ability would have been ridiculous, but Civ5 has a production problem. Normally, building maintenance and long production times for buildings will lead to city specialization: only trade post cities build markets, only production cities build barracks, etc. This would result in a rather weak if you don't accommodate for it. Make sure you capital is a production city - save forests to build lumber mills, for example, and try to build every building available in the capital. It would be helpful if your capital has iron or marble to enhance it's production, but you can't accommodate for luck like that. You will be paying a bit more in maintenance, and not building a many wonders or units as you normally would in a production, but the long term benefits for a large empire would overshadow these penalties.

The Legion costs 10 more production to build, and have 2 more combat power over the swordsman. This unit works very well with the Ballista, and a classical era war to expand the empire has great synergy with the leader trait. This makes playing Rome somewhat luck based, as your exceptional units are limited by iron resources. Having few or even no iron weakens the great power of the Roman Empire.

The Ballista has four more ranged combat score, and comes in the same era as the Legion, both excellent city attack units. It only has two less ranged combat than the Trebuchet, but costs much less production. It can be more cost effective to build Ballista even into the medieval era, and not upgrade the ones you have leftover from the classical era. The unfortunate problem with both unique units, is that they both require iron resource, making it hard to fully capitalize on both units in the same game.

RUSSIA
Catherine – Siberian Riches: +1 production on all strategic resource, double quantities of iron, horse, and uranium.
Krepost - Replaces barracks, reduces culture cost of acquiring new tiles by 50%.
Cossack - Replaces cavalry, increased combat strength against weakened enemies.

The Russian civilization has a unique building and a unique unit, the first a powerful encampment to a warmongering cultural victory strategy, the latter a strong upgrade to an already strong unit. The leader trait, Siberian Riches, increases production on all strategic resources worked by a citizen, and doubles the quantity of iron, horse, and uranium resources. As long as Russia has at least one iron resource in it's borders, it should never bother with producing spearmen or pikemen. Likewise, archers and crossbowmen are unneeded for city attacking, as siege units will always be available to build. The horses bonus will allow a large cavalry until the industrial era and tanks. Late game, nuclear powered buildings and units will be rapidly available.

The Krepost is an interesting spin on a barrack: halving the culture cost of acquiring new tiles. The strong emphasis on military and expansion that the leader trait and unique unit provides, combines well with a military building giving an advantage to culture buildings. Russia is poised to have a strong cultural victory, after a strong game of warmongering.

The Cossack gains a 50% bonus against weakened troops, making this cavalry replacement an excellent scout and harassment unit, quickly dispatching of runners and reinforcements. Pillage terrain to bait the defending player into sending troops to defeat it, have a few more cossack in reserve just outside the sight range of the defending player to quickly swoop in and tag team enemy units.

SIAM
Ramkhamhaeng – Father Governs Children: +50% food and culture from city-states.
Naresuan's Elephant - Replaces knight, increased combat score, reduced movement speed, bonus versus mounted units.
Wat - Replaces university, reduced maintenance, provides culture.

The Siamese civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, the first a defensive upgrade to an offensive unit, the second providing a small buff to a cultural victory. The leader trait, Father Governs Children, increases food and culture from city-states by 50%. cultural city-states provide an exceptional amount of culture when going for a small empire cultural victory, while the food bonus from maritime city-states provides a generally excellent bonus for a large empire, especially for having a large number of production cities. The problem with this trait is that cultural city-states are most effective when your empire is small, while maritime city-states work in the opposite direction. Only if you're going for a diplomatic victory will you find yourself gaining a good benefit from both types. It is interesting, unfortunately, that militaristic city-states do not get a bonus from this leader trait.

The Naresuan's Elephant is a radical change on the knight, increasing its combat score by four, reducing it's movement to two, and gaining a 50% bonus against mounted units, as well as not requiring horses to build. This makes these units no longer a counter to ranged units, but giving your own siege units a strong unit to defend against enemy cavalry, while being strong city attackers themselves. If iron is short, Siam can skip building melee units to attack with, and stick with these units instead.

The Wat costs one less gold to maintain, and provides 3 culture. This makes the Wat a decent replacement for the university when going for a cultural victory, as cities in these empires typically have a small number of high population cities, but still have a long string of techs to advance through this early in the game.

SONGHAI
Askia – River Warlord: triple gold from barbarian encampments and pillaging cities. Embarked units can defend themselves.
Mud Pyramid Mosque - Replaces temple, no maintenance, produces more culture.
Mandekalu Cavalry - Replaces knight, 30% bonus while attacking cities.

The Songhai civilization has a unique building and a unique unit, the first a great boost to cultural victories, the second a strong mid game city attacker. The leader trait, River Warlord, triples gold gained from pillaging barbarians encampments and cities, as well as having embarked units defend themselves. The tripled gold from encampments emphasizes early exploration with melee units, especially on archipelago maps where your melee units can pass by barbarian galleys without worrying about being destroyed. The tripled gold from cities makes taking border cities and island cities, even if just to raze them, a good strategy, and is synergistic with the unique unit.

The Mud Pyramid Mosque is a maintenance free temple with 5 culture instead of just 3. These unique buildings allow for early cultural expansion, as well as emphasizing cultural victories. Alternatively, build these buildings in lue of building late game cultural buildings when going for a domination victory and wanted some culture border popping in newly conquered cities.

The Mandekalu Cavalry has a 30% bonus while attacking cities, which has strong synergy with the leader trait. Mounted units normally are only used to take small and undefended cities, and this unit does that especially well. Make a deliberate effort to take down border and island cities, even just to raze them. The amount of gold raked in with this strategy is exceptional. Three of these units are usually enough to take down an undefended city in on turn, never giving a defending civ the time to send reinforcements.


2. NATIONAL WONDERS

National wonders are wonders that every civilization can build, but require every city to have 1 of a single type of building in every city. This makes national wonders much harder to build in large empires, but can be well worth the extra maintenance and production costs from building all those buildings.

Hermitage - Cultural output in this city is doubled.
Requirements: Archaeology tech, 300 production, must have built a museum in every city.

The Hermitage is a fantastic wonder for a cultural victory. Build it in your wonder city, and settle all great artist as landmarks in this city as well. This is one of the easiest national wonders to have access to, because cultural victories typically have small empires with all cities focused on building culture.


Heroic Epic - All newly trained units in this city receive the moral promotion, increasing combat strength by 15%.
Requirements: Iron Working tech, 300 production, must have built a barracks in every city.

The moral promotion can only be received from the Heroic Epic. It is a decent promotion, and works well if you want to gold purchase units in this city as well. Having one city pumping out military constantly can be useful for a domination victory, but this national wonder must be built early in the game, as puppets can't be be counted on to build barracks.


Ironworks - Production output in this city is increased by 20%.
Requirements: Chemistry tech, 150 production, must have built a workshop in every city.

Workshops tend to be good investments for medium or small empires. The Ironworks has good synergy with the Heroic Epic, but comes much too late in the game to be feasibly built for a large empire. If you only have invested in one production city, whether for wonders, military, or space ship parts, this national wonder is an excellent investment.


National College - Science output in this city is increased by 50%.
Requirements: Writing tech, 100 production, must have built a library in every city.

The National College is available very early, and is most effective when settling great scientists in this city. If you use your great scientists to pop techs, then this national wonder won't have such a strong impact. As popping techs is currently grossly overpowered over building an improvement with a great scientist, this wonder is somewhat lacking.


National Epic - Great People output in this city is increased by 25%
Requirements: Philosophy tech, 100 production, must have built a monument in every city.

The nice thing about this wonder is that it is pretty much a guarantee you will be able to build it, as monuments are typically the first thing built in any city. It's actually effect is rather small, but will be appreciated if you dedicate at least one city to specialists early in the game. Building it in the same city as the Hermitage or National College is an effective strategy.


Oxford University - 1 free technology.
Requirements: Education tech, 250 production, must have built a university in every city.

The Oxford University is a very good wonder if you're trying to beeline towards a particular tech. You can hold off building it until it is necessary, as you don't have to worry about other civs competing with you to build it.

 

[Trickster7135]

3. YIELD CHANGES

The yields of food, production, and gold work similarly to their Civ4 counterparts. The biggest changes are in their availability and use.

FOOD

Food builds similarly to how it does in Civ4. The big change is that farms only provide one additional food until Civil Service, and then only provide two food if built by fresh water. There is no irrigation in the game, so farms can be built anywhere, but farms not by fresh water only yield two food with the Fertilizer tech, which comes much later than Civil Service. Another change on food yield is that buildings like the granary build food directly, instead of storing food for population growth.

The biggest change that comes with food is that science is now dependent on population size. So increasing your food yield increases your population, which increases your beakers. This interaction is the best reason to not rapidly expand cities, and focus your happiness on increasing population. This is why maritime city-states are so powerful.

GOLD

Gold comes much slower than in Civ4. Trading Posts increase gold yield by two, which is much lower than what fully developed cottages with the proper techs and civics in Civ4 would give. It’s important to note one thing about gold: gold is everything in this game. With enough gold, you can buy a worker, monument, temple, ect for a new city and not worry that it has no production initially. Use gold to buy buildings, buy military, buy city-states, buy land. Everything but techs and improvements can be bought in this game. That said, buying buildings is too expensive beyond the initial food and culture buildings, but it allows a newly founded city to jump-start itself. Buying units is effective for emergency defense units, but a dedicated production city is still very important. Gold is the best way to maintain good relationships with city-states, so for a diplomatic victory route, gold yields are a top priority.

Maintenances in Civ5 have changed dramatically compared to Civ4. Cities no longer generate a maintenance fee – the buildings you build in them do. While an individual building may only cost one to three gold per turn, these expenses add up quicker the greater number of buildings you build and the greater number of cities you have. This change results in careful consideration on whether a building is worth building or not – don’t just build because you have nothing else to build. What is the net result of this? One, having a smaller number of cities greatly reduces maintenance costs, while the 32 tile radius of cities allow for much greater populations. Two, specializing cities will help reduce overhead costs.

Unit maintenances have also changed. All units now incur maintenance costs, including workers. The cost per unit seems to be much higher, up to ten gold per unit, although there is no clear cut values in the interface, and unit upkeep costs seem to be unknown. Most likely a patch in the future will fix what appears to be an interface bug. The last point to make is that there are no free units anymore. Remember to delete excess workers captured from war, or you may be wasting gold.

PRODUCTION

Production, like gold, comes slower than in Civ4. Mines only provide a single production bonus, with a mined hill providing only one more production than a lumber milled forest, which trades that production for a food yield. There are no workshops anymore, so the main way to build production is from mines and lumber mills. It’s important to leave forests intact if a city has a lack hills in the nearby area.

The only cities that need more than three or four production improved tiles are those focused on building military units, and those focused on building wonders. There are additional considerations to make when designating these cities. The Forge, a building which gives a production bonus on building military units, can only be built if iron is available in the workable tile range of the city. Likewise, for the wonder production city, the marble resource boosts wonder production in only the local city it is found in.

This reduction in overall production has a strong impact on the game. Combined with the gold per turn maintenance of buildings, the very slow rate of building results in only a fraction of the number of buildings available being built in most of your cities. Buildings that enhance production in a city are generally not worth building in most cities, as it may take 50 or more turns to recoup the lost production, and this goes double for military buildings, where it would take too long to build a military unit in a city not specializing in it.

4. CITY SPECIALIZATION

There are three main kinds of cities: gold production city, specialist production city, and production production city. Each of these cities will want science buildings, as well as many cultural buildings as you desire. There is a dedicated choice you must make when choosing what specialists you’re going to focus on. Merchants and Engineers have a slower great person rate than Scientists and Artists, simply due to how many buildings enable these specialists. If you want to have Great Merchants and Engineers, don’t build Specialist cities. If you want Great Scientists and Artists, simply don’t apply any merchants or engineers in their respective cities.

GOLD PRODUCTION CITY

This will be your most common city. Gold is a necessity in this game, and you’re going to need a lot of it, either to support your troops or to keep city-states in your pocket. Only someone going for a space race or cultural victory will have a small number of these cities. Most tiles should be farms and trading posts, as well as a few lumber mills or mines. Only have workers on production tiles when building an important building, such as any science or gold increasing building. Have happiness buildings building slowly in the background unless you’re coming close to your happiness cap, shifting to production tiles as needed. Take extra considering when designating cities to have gold production cities have gold or silver resources, as this allows the building of a Mint, increasing gold yield.

Despite the fact that there is a separate category for specialist cities, gold production cities will be generating merchant specialist, if you choose to. Great Merchants have one unique use: city-states love them. Send one to a city-state will prove more cost effective than sending them gold constantly. In order to acquire gold and silver resources, gold production cities may not be able to build by fresh water to build Gardens, which boost great specialist rate. If you want to focus on Great Merchants, as part of a Diplomatic Victory strategy, don’t build regular specialist cities. Markets only allow one merchant specialist each, compared to the two specialist for each Temple and Library.

SPECIALIST PRODUCTION CITY

If you don’t change from the default citizen placement, the AI will naturally build a few specialists in every city. This is a fairly poor use of citizen in cities that don’t focus on specialists. Specialist focused cities will build mostly farms to support their specialists, as well as a few production improvements. It is especially important that these cities be built right next to fresh water, as this allows the building of Gardens, which boost great person rate.

The specialist you will be building in these cities are scientists and artists. The Great Scientist is the only specialist who can light bulb techs, while the Great Artist lets you culture bomb tiles to quickly expand your empire, even allowing you to steal resources from bordering civs.

PRODUCTION PRODUCTION CITY

A silly name, but the best way to describe these cities. Wonder builders, Warmongers, and those going for a space race will want to build several of these cities, everyone else can get away with one or two. More than the other cities, production city placement is dependent on terrain. Without workshops to increase production on flatland, all production yield must come from either lumber mills on forests, or mines on hills. Of course, a fair number of farms must be build, so fresh water is highly desired, as the best a lumber mill will produce is one food. I've come to the conclusion that food producing buildings, such as granary, are only worth building in these cities, and then only if there is a general lack of freshwater grassland to farm. This is because these buildings don't really produce food, they convert gold into food, and can take a long time for a non-production city to build. Farmed plains produce one production, but are only a way to supplement existing mills and mines. Always build these cities on flat land, as you can’t build Windmills, which boost city production, if the city is on a hill. Of course, all the production buildings will be prioritized.

Now a general production city will not be efficient enough for the discerning player. While every production city can be repurposed for space ship production, there are three subsets of production cities, any or all can be combined in the same city. The first subset is the Wonder Production city, which really only needs to have Marble as a local resource, which boosts wonder production by +25% in the city it’s found in. The second subset is the Military Production city, which will want Iron as a local resource. Iron allows the Forge to be built, which boosts land unit production by +15%. The multitude of other military buildings will of course be built, most likely after building the production enhancing buildings.

The last subset is the Engineer specialist city. It would be pointless to dedicate a city to just building Engineers, as they require the production buildings to be built. Simply apply an engineer or two to any number of Wonder or Military production cities. Great Engineers are especially great for Wonder builders, as they are the only way in the game to hurry Wonder production. Of course, ensure these cities are built by fresh water to build a Garden, and avoid having Specialist Cities, which allow for far more artists and scientists.

5. PATHS TO VICTORY

There are four paths to victory: domination, science, cultural, and diplomatic.

DOMINATION VICTORY

Domination Victory is far easier in Civ5 than Civ4. You only have to capture every civilization’s capital in order to win. A large army will require a large gold income, so plan to build a fair number of gold production cities. Of course military production cities will also be emphasized. The only specialist that would help achieve a domination victory would be the Great Scientists, who can light bulb any tech.
It should be noted, that to achieve a domination victory, you are only required to fight playable civs. You can ignore city-states, conquer them, or ally with them. City-states are especially easy to pocket in the early game, just wait for them to be attacked by a bordering civ, and use that as an excuse to start your warmongering. Doing so will get that city-state in your pocket for a long time, gold free. While military city-states are the most useful, the free food from maritime, or the free culture from cultured are also useful.

Building culture is very useful for every victory type, domination included. Culture unlocks social policies, and the ones you want to focus on are Honor, Order, and Autocracy. You can moonlight in Commerce and Rationalism, but you generally won’t be generating enough culture for that.

If you are as successful in war as you hope to be, you’ll very quickly run into a happiness problem. Having a huge empire with numerous annexed cities is very taxing on happiness. They best way to control this is to initially turn captured cities into puppet, annexing them one by one, until you’ve built a courthouse in each of them. Use these new, largely unspecialized cities, to mass produce happiness buildings.
Military strategy is a broad enough topic to deserve its own section, so refer there for more information on combat.

SCIENCE VICTORY

Science Victory, or the space race, moderately coincides with a domination victory. Both need a large number of high production cities. But where the warmonger builds numerous gold production cities and few specialist cities, for the cosmonaut, the situation is more mixed. Trade Posts provide science with social policies, but the benefits of Great Scientists cannot be overlooked. Military units will largely be for defense, although you may need to conquer a few civs in the early game to ensure you have a strong enough production.

The Social Policies to focus on are Rationalism and Freedom, both late game social policies. The early game can focus on Honor to improve your military and make conquering easier.

CULTURAL VICTORY

Cultural Victory is dependant entirely on building social policies. The interesting way that culture works, is that the smaller the number of cities you have, the less culture you need to generate to unlock social policies. Befriending cultural city-states is a great way to augment your small empire, as are Great Artists. Building their improvement is impressive, being the only improvement that adds culture. Having only a single wonder production city, and only a handful of gold and specialist cities is the way to go. While conquered puppet states add culture without raising the culture cap, being able to provide a strong enough production base, while supporting your military with gold cities, would undermine your Great Artist cities.

As far a social policies go, you need five fully developed to win a cultural victory. The best social policies are Tradition, Piety, Freedom, and Order. The last social policy is at your digression, depending on whether you want to improve your military or commerce. Note you can’t have Rationalism with Piety.

DIPLOMATIC VICTORY

Diplomatic Victory is the most changed of all victory types in this Civ version. While you still have to win the UN vote, now every playable civ votes for itself. Each vote counts as one point, independent of population. City-States also vote, also as one point. To win a diplomatic victory, you have to befriend a majority of the city-states. The best way to do this is through gold. Great Merchants are a great way to maintain relations with city-states, so specialist cities will be avoided entirely. The fun part of this victory type is that you will regularly be defending city-states from playable civs, and its rather enjoyable to band together your military with the defending city-states, as well as any other nearby. Most cities need to be gold production cities, and of those, some producing Great Merchants as well. Military production cities will be a necessity, you will be waging defensive wars a lot. You will even occasionally find the united troops of you and your many allies enough to topple stronger and aggressive civs, simple by virtue of attacking from so many fronts. Team *insert civ*, World Police indeed. You may even find it in your benefit to aggressively liberate conquered city-states from other civs, as well as other civs. City-States and playable civs you’ve liberated will always vote for you in an election.

The de fact social policy is Patronage. After that, Rationalism will boost your rather ridiculous number of trade posts, and you can go into Freedom if you choose to produce Great Merchants. Any excess social policies should be funneled into the militaristic policies, with a special note for the first policy in honor: locating and killing barbarians are a great way to get in good graces with city-states early in the game.


6. EXPANSION

REXing no longer exists like it did in Civ4, especially in the harder difficulties, which start with much less happiness. Considering that cities work much more tiles than in Civ4, and the numerous city-states take up room on the map in addition to regular civs, there is usually only enough room to settle three or four cities before you will have to go to war to expand your empire. Happiness is a soft cap on expansion, where if you drop below the happiness cap, population growth rate is cut by 75% empire-wide. The only time to settle a new city which would put you close to or under the cap is if you are settling into a happiness resource you don’t have yet. Mind you, just settling the city will reduce happiness by three, two for the city itself and one for its initial population. Don’t bother settling a city if you have five or less happiness. You will quickly outgrow your happiness and stagnate your empire. Running under the happiness cap while all your cities have six of more population isn't so terrible, but negative happiness detracts from your current happiness buildup towards a golden age, so try to avoid it as much as possible.

Now that that’s done with, let’s talk about when to settle your first city. Since happiness is the main limiting factor, waiting until you have researched calendar is a good idea. Most resources you can build a plantation on provide happiness. The only alternative is if you have a mineral resource that provides happiness, tech to mining or masonry.

While you’re waiting to tech to your preferred happiness resource, build a warrior, followed by a worker or two. Barbarians are more aggressive and populous in Civ5, and you’ll need the extra defense, unless you want your workers stolen. Explore your world with your warriors, don’t bother with scouts. Both units have a move of two, but warriors can kill barbarians and raid encampments, as well as upgrade to spearmen. Scouts just run around being useless.

Okay, so you’ve research calendar, sent your worker or two to improve a happiness resource, and are now ready to build a settler. Great! Now to plan where to settle him. The optimal city distance is six tiles apart, but that is largely unnecessary. Four tiles would be an absolute minimum, however. Anything less and you’ll quickly find your citizen without good tiles to work. While exploring your map, note where marble, gold, and silver are, as those will be appropriate wonder and gold production cities. It’s important to settle next to a happiness resource you don’t have yet, so that you can continually expand. Don’t be surprised, however, when you run out of either happiness or room after only three or four cities.

Settling on fresh water is less important than in Civ4. Fresh water only allows you to build three extra buildings: a water mill, which acts as a second granary, a garden, which boosts great person rate, and finally a hydro plant, much later in the game. It is, however, important to have freshwater nearby, as farms built on freshwater will get a food boost far earlier in the tech tree than those which are not.

The number of workers per city is about a ratio of 1:1. Workers can no longer be stacked, roads are built sparingly, and the workers themselves have unit upkeep. Keep them to a minimum, and don’t feel bad about deleting them if they have nothing to do.
As you are expanding and building your empire, keep a military unit in each border city. Barbarian encampments will pop up frequently in the classical era, and the attack of cities is poor until you build it up with walls and castles. While on the subject, city defense buildings, like walls and castles, provide a permanent boost to city defense, and never go obsolete. They do have gold upkeep, but it is rather small compared to most other buildings.

 

[Trickster7135]

7. CITY-STATES

City-states are one of the biggest changes in Civ5; a change for the better, in my opinion. Diplomacy in Civ5 feels more realistic, because now not only are you worried about the super-powers that are the playable civs, the minor nations that dot the world also play their tiny hands. To put it in a real world context, city-states are the Cubas and Vietnams to the world’s Americas and USSRs. They can be economic allies, places to mass weaponry, neutral borders between super powers, or just pit stops for steam rolling warmongers.

There are three kinds of city-states: cultural, maritime, and militaristic. Each one provides a specific kind of benefit for befriending them. Cultural provides a moderate culture bonus that scales with the era. While obviously useful for those going for a cultural victory, building culture builds social policies, which is something every victory type desires. Maritime provides a flat food bonus in every city, so it is much more powerful in large empires, and is the best type for a warmonger who has many puppet states. Militaristic city-states provide a random military unit every couple of turns. This type tends to be the most swingy, because the unit is always an up to date one, but there’s always a chance to get a scout. Sometimes you’ll unlock Chivalry, and get a free knight the next turn. But don’t count on it.

In addition to these bonuses, all city-states provide a few other benefits. First, allied city-states provide full visibility in their territory. Second, you can station unit in their territory, which is very handy when you want to prepare to attack a civ across an ocean. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you gain full access to any resources they have in their territories. In the early game, befriending city-states is a good way to acquire much needed luxury resources, and during war you can tap into their strategic resources as well.

There is one last main use for City-States: the Diplomatic Victory. City-States hold just as much weight on their votes as regular civs, that is, one point per vote. Considering that standard maps contain double the number of city-states as regular civs, befriending city-states is the main (and really only) way to win diplomatically. Also, regular civs now always only vote for themselves, unless you’ve liberated their capital.

So how do you befriend city-states? The most obvious, and most common way, is to buy them. While the exact value changes over the game, it’s about 250 gold per city-state to maintain your relationship for 30 turns. Note that you have to ally with them first, which can take up to 500 gold initially. That said, there are other, better ways to befriend them. The first is to do quests for them. The best quests are defending them from barbarians, and providing them with a resource. The last quest type is to conquer another city-state that they hate, but this is generally a bad idea overall. If you conquer too many city-states, they will all end up hating you and will be always at war with you.

Another way to befriend them is to send Great Merchants to them. This is a far more effective way to keep good relations than simply sending money, but requires an investment of farming great people to capitalize on, and prevents you from having other types of great people.

The final, and de facto best way to keep good relationships with city-states, is to liberate them from civs who conquered them. This will be fairly common in the later game, as the AI love to conquer them. Only Alexander regularly allies with them. Liberating them has an additional benefit to the free reputation: they will always vote for you in a Diplomatic Victory.

8. MILITARY STRATEGY

Combat in Civ5 has gotten a complete overhaul. Civ is now a tactical hex-based game. Another major change is that military units cannot occupy the same tile anymore, forcing strategic grouping and placement of troop. All units have at least a base movement of two. Ranged and siege units now actually have ranges, which allows for a great diversity in army composition.

Every unit has ten health, that regenerates one health per turn when the unit is stopping to heal. Combat strength determines damage and defense, so everything is relative. Luckily, the UI does a very good job informing you just how much damage each unit will take – and there is no random component to damage anymore. Like in Civ4, a weakened troop has a weakened combat strength.

If you skim through the units in the civilopedia, you’ll notice that very few units have a flat xx% bonus verse another type of unit. This is because the tactical changes rendered those bonuses moot. For example, all cavalry have a movement of three or greater. All ranged units have a range of two tiles. Cavalry counters ranged units not because of some xx% bonus, but because they can move into strike range of ranged units without allowing ranged units to pepper them with an attack first. Ranged units now have two combat values: one for ranged attacks, and another for melee combat (which is usually much lower). Ranged units counter melee units because they can weaken or kill them before the melee units can reach them. Only melee units retain their xx% bonus versus cavalry, and then only for spearmen and pikemen.

Naval combat is now much more interesting, and having naval superiority would actually matter if the AI wasn’t complete dumbasses with ships. Naval units are all ranged, and all have very large line of sights. They also have a higher base speed compared to Civ4. The best part, though, is that Naval units can bombard cities and units from the sea, although ranged units from land can attack back. Siege units are far more effective for ranged combat than ships though, but this I balanced in the fact that ships can move so much more quickly, and are much faster to produce.

Cities have greatly changed as well. Cities now defend themselves, although a ranged unit can garrison itself in a city and attack without worrying about retaliation. That said, a city’s base ranged attack is pathetic, usually only hitting for 1 or 2 damage per turn. City can defend themselves against a single troop or barbarian well, since even if their damage is pathetic, they do have excellent defense. An ungarrisoned city won’t stop a barbarian from stealing your workers or pillaging your improvements, however.

The one unit per tile change has greatly reduced the number of troops you can maintain and need. A well fortified city can be besieged and taken with ten troops or less. An ungarrisoned city without city defense buildings can be taken by a single cavalry or strategic melee unit.

Strategic resources are another change in the game. Some units, such as cavalry, and some siege and melee units, require you to have a strategic resource. Let’s say you have a single horse resource in your cities. It may provide five horses, which means you can build five knights, and only five knights. If you have three horsemen and two knights, you can’t build any more knights either. The units that require strategic resources tend to much stronger than the units that don’t in their era. Defensive troops, such as archers and spearmen, don’t require strategic resources.

Siege units and some melee units both spare a need for iron resources, so you can’t have a large number of both. To put this in perspective, during the classical era, you can build archers and catapults as your ranged units. Archers have a ranged combat score of six, while catapults have a ranged combat score of fourteen. The only caveat, is that archers can move and shoot in the same turn. Siege units must spend a whole turn setting up before they can attack, and cannot move without wasting another turn setting up.

The basic melee units are spearmen and pikemen, who don’t require any strategic resources and have a bonus against cavalry, but only have a combat score of 7 and 10, respectively. Their strategic betters, swordsmen and longswordsman, who require iron and have no bonuses versus cavalry, but have combat score of 11 and 18. You can see just how much more powerful strategic units are, where the classical era swordsman is more powerful than the medieval pikeman. A tech lead alone won’t compensate for strategic resources, greater numbers will be required as well.

Unlike in Civ4, walls and castles provide their defensive bonuses all game, even against gunpowder units. Gunpowder units have no special distinction in this game, and the first gunpowder unit you can build - the musketman - is actually weaker than longswordsmen. Gunpowder units are considered melee units, and do not have ranged attacks like archers do. Gunpowder units also do not require strategic resources, and neither do siege units starting in the Renaissance. Tanks, airplanes, and ships starting in the industrial age will require the oil resource, and numerous units will require aluminum in the modern age.

City attacking has greatly changed from Civ4. The units used in city attacking are primarily melee (which includes gunpowder units), and siege units. The main attack force is dictated by Great Generals: Great Generals now provide a flat +25% combat bonus to any unit in their tile or within a two tile radius. Cities cannot be taken by siege units alone, and melee units will not be able to take a city quick enough without siege support. The standard attack force for taking a city are: two to three melee units in front, and two to three siege units in back. Adding more siege units is usually more effective than melee units when trying to take difficult cities. The middle unit that rests with the Great General can either be another siege unit, or a defensive melee unit, such as a pikeman, to help protect your siege units from flanking cavalry attacks. It should be noted that Great Generals are treated as 0 powered military units, so if left undefended, any enemy unit can destroy it. Melee units will be doing double duty when taking cities: use them to take the city itself or help the siege units bring down the city health faster, or to protect the siege units from any enemy reinforcements who will quickly destroy them.

In addition to this main fighting force, you will want to bring two or three cavalry to take out enemy support units, especially enemy cavalry who will rip through your siege units very quickly. A melee unit in the attack force can only do so much to protect siege units: while they may be able to take down cavalry once it has destroyed a siege unit, melee units won't stop it from getting the first hit in, unless you blanket the siege units with surrounding melee units. That isn't a very practical solution. If you're running low on iron during the classical or medieval era, its best to replace some of the melee units with their lesser, non-strategic brethren. The siege units will be doing most of the damage to the city, the melee units are there mostly just to take the city itself and to protect the siege units.

Now on defense, a Great General won't be very effective. If you garrison a Great General along with a ranged unit, it will provide its bonus to the unit, but not the city. If you're trying to prevent enemy units from getting to your cities at all, you can build a line of melee units with ranged support behind them to block any enemy advancement. This strategy is very successful, but only if you have a choke point, such as a lake or mountains, that allows you to stop their entire incoming army with only a few tiles of defense. A Great General in this situation is very helpful, but it will more than likely act as a deterrent - the enemy army will look for another route into your territory. If you can somehow manage to support a very large military, you can divide an entire continent with an army this way, especially once you enter the Renaissance where gunpowder and siege units no longer require strategic resources. Fortifying a line of units this way would be akin to trench warfare. If you think that you're looking at a long term need for a military wall, you can build a line of forts underneath the fortified units.

The military combat in the industrial and modern eras are far more complicated once you add things like aircraft and submarines. I've had very little experience with combat in these eras, as I've usually won the game before those variables come into play. It may take awhile before I can provide detailed tactical information on the use of these kinds of units.

9. PROMOTIONS

Heal Instantly
Units no longer heal instantly when they gain a promotion, instead they have the option to heal instantly using this promotion. Generally, avoid using this 'promotion' unless having to stop and heal is impossible for the unit because of nearby enemy units, or would result in the loss of a city. It is a waste of the experience to use this promotion, so avoid it at all costs. Alternatively, you can be very cheap with it. Stack up a couple of promotions for a good city attacker unit, and just steamroll from one city to the next, using these promotions whenever the unit's health drops in the red zone. Build a barracks and the other military buildings, and you can use this tactic with an entire army.

MELEE

Melee units in this game include gunpowder units, and have the longest chain of upgrades, from warrior all the way up to mechanized infantry. Both the strategic and non-strategic medieval units upgrade to riflemen.

Melee units have the choice between drill and shock as the first promotions a unit can get. Either one of these promotions can be used to unlock the more advanced promotions. It is best to invest full three promotions on either shock or drill, instead of building them both equally. Each one gives a +20% general combat bonus in a type of terrain for the first two levels, and a +25% combat bonus with the third tier. It should be noted that neither of these promotions provide a bonus while attacking cities, as cities gain no bonuses or penalties from terrain placement.

Drill provides a bonus - both offensive and defensive - for rough terrain. Rough terrain is anything but open flat land, such as hills, forests, and jungles. These terrain types normally provide a +25% defensive bonus, so taking drill promotions is best for scouting troops who are positioning themselves defensively, as well as defensive troops who need the extra punch against city attackers taking advantage of defensive terrain near your cities.

Shock provides a bonus - both offensive and defensive - for open terrain. Open terrain is anything open and flat, without hills, forests, and jungles. These terrain types normally have a -33% defensive penalty, so taking shock promotions is best for city taking units who many not be able to position in defensive terrain when taking cities. Taking shock to give a bonus against enemy units in open terrain is usually not needed, as the penalty already ensures victory for matched troops.

For melee units, taking drill 1 or shock 1 will unlock Cover 1 and Medic. The value of Medic is much higher in Civ5, as individual units are more important than in Civ4, so always having a Medic available is important. Cover 1 provides a 25% defensive bonus against ranged attacks, so is ideally suited for city attackers. If you're using non-strategic units to take cities, these promotions will be very useful, as just keeping these troops alive may be hard. Strategic units will usually wait until after getting the offensive promotions.

Once melee units build to either drill 2 or shock 2, the promotions that will be unlocked are Ambush 1, Charge, Formation 1, and Siege. If you want a melee unit to protect your siege units, Ambush is useful against armored units. Charge, which provides a bonus against weakened units, is an extremely useful promotion for when using melee units to chase down and kill enemy units - but that's a role much more suited for mounted units. Formation provides a bonus against mounted units, providing a similar role to Ambush before the industrial era. Note that this promotion loses it's strength for units being upgraded once you're facing tanks. Siege is ideally suited for melee units, improving what melee units do best: take cities.

The final tiers of shock and drill will unlock Blitz and March. Blitz allows multiple attacks per turn, an excellent promotion for city attackers. However, each attack will provoke a retaliation from the city, making Siege a better promotion for city taking, although they are best combined. March allows the unit to heal on the move and attack, and combined with Medic to allow an almost non-stop aggression.

The ideal promotion path for non-strategic units used for defending siege units would be: drill 1, medic, cover 1, cover 2, drill 2, ambush 1 or formation 1, ambush 2 or formation 2. Siege defenders are ideal medic promotion units, as their main role is support and deterrent. A lone knight would be wary to charge into a nest of trebuchets and pikemen. Considering that siege defenders are the rear guard of a city attack force, they have more options for positioning themselves in defensive terrain.

The ideal promotion path for non-strategic units used for city taking would be: shock 1, medic, cover 1, cover 2, shock 2, shock 3, march, siege, blitz. Using non-strategic units for city attacking greatly lengthens the process to take cites, as they will be required to stop and heal far more often. They are also much more likely to be killed from concentrated fire, which is why the cover promotions are taken so early for an attack unit.

The ideal promotion path for strategic units used for city taking would be: shock 1, shock 2, shock 3, march, medic, siege, blitz, cover 1, cover 2. If you can get a unit to four or more promotions, you want to ensure they survive to keep on getting promotions, but strategic units typically have a much higher combat score than the defenders, so most attacks only do 1 or 2 damage. Healing is more important than reducing damage. Getting medic early would allow for more survivability, but having a unit stop to heal will leave it open to attack from mounted units, so units typically will need to retreat to neutral territory to heal regardless.

 

[Trickster7135]

RANGED

Ranged units in this game include siege units as well as archers and crossbowmen. Archers and crossbowmen will upgrade to riflemen, a melee unit, and lose the effects of most of the available promotions they get as ranged units. It can be a useful tactic to hold off promoting crossbowmen if you think they'll survive until riflemen are unlocked.

Ranged units have a choice between accuracy and barrage as the first promotion a unit can get. Either one of these promotions can be used to unlock the more advanced promotions. It is best to invest full three promotions on either accuracy or barrage, instead of building them both equally. Each one gives a +25% ranged combat bonus when attacking against a unit in that type of terrain. Neither of these promotions provide defensive against melee or other ranged, so a ranged versus ranged battle heavily favors the promoted attacker. It should be noted that neither of these promotions provide a bonus while attacking cities, as cities gain no bonuses or penalties from terrain placement.

Barrage provides a bonus - only offensive - for rough terrain. Rough terrain is anything but open flat land, such as hills, forests, and jungles. These terrain types normally provide a +25% defensive bonus, so taking barrage promotions is best overall for ranged attackers, as they already get the -33% combat score in their favor against open terrain.

Accuracy provides a bonus - only offensive - for open terrain. Open terrain is anything open and flat, without hills, forests, and jungles. These terrain types normally have a -33% defensive penalty, so taking accuracy promotions isn't very useful at all for ranged units, as they already get an advantage against units in those terrains.

For ranged units, taking barrage 1 or accuracy 1 will unlock Cover 1, Siege, and Volley. Cover 1 provides a 25% defensive bonus against ranged attacks, so is ideally suited for strategic siege units, whose primary purpose is attacking cities, although ranged units typically won't take damage from ranged if they have melee support. Siege increases unit attack against cities, and is again ideally suited for strategic siege units. Volley increases unit attack against fortified units. Fortified units include units sitting in forts, as well as units healing. This bonus doesn't apply against units garrisoned in a city, as you can't attack them directly. Non-strategic ranged units that accompany melee units in hunting down enemy units will find this promotion useful.

Once ranged units build to either barrage 2 or accuracy 2, the promotions that will be unlocked are March and Formation 1. March is of questionable use for ranged units, as they typically take very little damage, or are killed in only one attack from a mounted unit. Formation provides a bonus against mounted units, both offensively and defensively. Even with this promotion, mounted units typically completely overpower ranged units anyways. Note that this promotion loses it's strength for units being upgraded once you're facing tanks.

The final tiers of barrage and accuracy will unlock Logistics and Range. Logistics allows multiple attacks per turn, an excellent promotion for all ranged units. As ranged attacks don't provoke an attack of retaliation like melee attacks do, this promotion is fantastic. Range increases ranged unit attack by 1, allowing most ranged units to go from attacking from 2 to 3 tiles way. This promotion allows your ranged units to attack from a farther distance than other ranged units and cities, preventing them from taking damage.

Ranged units can be used either offensively, taking cities, or defensively, garrisoned in cities or behind melee units to pepper attackers. Both uses for ranged units should take barrage over accuracy.

The ideal promotion path for offensive units would be: barrage 1, siege, barrage 2, barrage 3, logistics, range, march. Ranged city attackers are in little fear of being attacked, as long as melee units are positioned to defend them. Because of this, defensive promotions are largely unneeded. March is the best of the bunch, if only because siege units may take a small amount of damage from cities and the units garrisoning them.

The ideal promotion path for defensive units would be: barrage 1, barrage 2, barrage 3, range, logistics, volley, march. Ranged defenders are either immune to attack by being garrisoned in cities, or are accompanied by melee units if out in the field. Ranged defenders in cities typically can't risk leaving the city to attack, so the range promotion is very important to be able to attack enemies. Out in the field, wounded or other units that are fortified will typically take to rough terrain to enhance their defenses, so volley can be skipped until barrage is fully promoted.

NAVAL

Naval units only include ships, as embarked units are still considered their respective types. When a naval unit moves into the space of an embarked unit, it automatically destroys the embarked unit.

Naval units have a choice between bombardment and targeting as the first promotion a unit can get. Either one of these promotions can be used to unlock the more advanced promotions. It is best to invest full three promotions on either bombardment or targeting, instead of building them both equally. Each one gives a +20% combat bonus against a particular type of unit.

Bombardment provides a bonus - both offensive and defensive - against land units. This promotion is best for naval units to attack enemy cities, as they are more likely to come against siege units defending on the shore. Siege units will rip naval units apart if they get the chance, and this promotion will provide both offensive and defense against them.

Targeting provides a bonus - both offensive and defensive - against naval units. This promotion is best for naval units to defend your shorelines or embarked units. Unless the naval units are going to be providing ranged support for embarked attackers, targeting is generally the better promotion to take.

For naval units, taking bombardment 1 or targeting 1, the promotions that will be unlocked are mobility and sentry. Mobility provides +1 movement, and is a good promotion for scouting naval units. Sentry provides +1 sight, and is also a good promotion for scouting naval units.

Once naval units build to either bombardment 2 or targeting 2, the promotions that will be unlocked are range and supply. Range functions the same for ranged units, and is very good for naval units used to attack cities, as it allows them to reach one tile deeper into enemy territory. Hills and forests will still block attacking though. Supply allows naval units to heal outside friendly territory at a rate of 2 health per turn. This is another great promotion for naval attackers, and is fundamental for long distance wars.

The final tiers of bombardment and targeting will unlock logistics. Logistics allows two attackers per turn for naval units, which is very powerful considering ranged attacks don't provoke retaliatory attacks.

The ideal promotion path for offensive units would be: bombardment 1, bombardment 2, supply, bombardment 3, logistics, range. Supply is the most important promotion, as the only way to heal for naval units without it is to retreat back to friendly territory, which can be very far in large maps.

The ideal promotion path for defensive units would be: targeting 1, targeting 2, targeting 3, logistics, sentry, mobility. Targeting is the most important promotions for defensive units, as attacking and defending naval attackers is the only thing they will be doing. The scouting promotions will help patrol the waters far from your shoreline.

AIR

Air units come very late in the game, and are unlikely to get very highly promoted before the game ends. Air units have four choices for the first promotion they can get: interception, dogfighting, siege, and bombardment.

... to be continued ...

10. WORLD WONDERS

Ah, wonders. There are wonders that benefit every victory type in the game, and every civilization should plan ahead on what wonders to focus on. Some wonders are better on different maps, and some are better for different victory types, and each will be explained how to best utilize each for the best role available. The wonders will be divided by era, following their chronological tech path.

ANCIENT ERA

The Great Lighthouse - All military naval units receive +1 movement and +1 sight.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great merchant point.
Requirements: Sailing tech, 130 production, city must be built on the coast.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

The Great Lighthouse is a map dependent wonder, being far superior on an archipelago map than a pangea map. On continents is can be very useful, assuming you are able to secure an entire continent to yourself. This wonder lends itself to no particular strategy, other than naval superiority. As it's primary benefits are long term, as well as having limited use before unlocking caravels, this wonder can easily be skipped in favor of conquering the city that ends up building it later in the game.

Stonehenge - +8
Bonuses: +1 great engineer point.
Requirements: Calendar tech, 120 production.
Victory Type: Cultural.
Priority: Medium.

Stonehenge is the only wonder which providing culture is its primary benefit. This would make it an obvious inclusion for a cultural victory, and it is. It is just that the benefits it provides are actually fairly small. While +8 culture is hefty in the early game and will unlock social policies quickly, it's long term benefits are minimal. This is especially true if social policies are conserved for a later era. If you feel like you have a strong lead to build this wonder, either from having marble in your capital or playing Egypt, then go ahead and being construction. Just don't feel bad if you need to skip it to build settlers or warriors this early in the game.

The Great Library - One free technology.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great scientist point.
Requirements: Writing tech, 150 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: High.

The Great Library is an excellent wonder to build for any victory type, as it allows you to 'slingshot' through the tech tree, allowing you to enter the medieval era far quicker than the other civilizations. The best tech to slingshot to would be Civil Service, increasing productivity of farms and allowing you to build the pikeman unit. Civil service is also 60% higher beaker cost than any other tech at its level. The Great Library is the best wonder of the Ancient Era, and the best reason to quickly settle a city near any available marble.

The Pyramids - Worker construction speed increased by 50%.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great engineer point.
Requirements: Masonry tech, 175 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

The Pyramids are the most expensive wonder in the ancient era, and yet seem to give the smallest benefit. Increasing worker construction speed is a fairly weak benefit, as population growth is much slower than the time it takes for workers to build improvements. Not that the benefit is useless, it's just very weak. The only real reason to build the Pyramids is because you teched to Masonry first to get your marble up and running for your wonder city - this will be the only wonder available at the time.

The Colossus - +1 gold from water tiles worked in this city.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great merchant point.
Requirements: Bronze Working tech, 150 production, city must be built on the coast.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

The Colossus is one of only two wonders that can go obsolete - in this case, at Navigation tech. On the surface this wonder seems even worse than the Pyramids, and it usually is. The Colossus shines only in a specific case, when you are doing a one city challenge with a coastal start, especially with 3 or more coastal resources. For the far majority of games, however, this wonder can be completely ignored. This is different than the Pyramids, which there is never a specific situation to take advantage of by building it.


CLASSICAL ERA

The Oracle - 1 free social policy.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great scientist point.
Requirements: Philosophy tech, 150 production.
Victory Type: Cultural.
Priority: High.

The Oracle is on the short list for wonders to build for a cultural victory. It gives a free social policy - not just free of the culture needed, but free from raising the culture cap for the next social policy as well. This facet of this wonder makes its value not the culture you would have saved for the next social policy, but the culture you would have needed to get the last social policy. This makes its effects extreamly long reaching, greatly shortening the time it takes to build the Utopia Project, and one of the must have wonders for a cultural victory. If you get beat to this wonder, you might want to rethink your victory path. All that said, this wonder is still decent for any other victory type. Obviously not something to rush to, but if you feel like you have a decent shot at building it, well, every victory type can benefit from social policies.

The Hanging Gardens - +1 population in all cities, +3 happiness.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great artist point.
Requirements: Mathematics tech, 200 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

The Hanging Gardens suffers from bad timing. At this early in the game, most empires are fairly small, so very few population are added from this wonder. The happiness bonus, as seems to be the case with all happiness wonders, to be very small considering this is a wonder, when compared to other happiness buildings. It should also be noted that the Hanging Gardens will create more unhappiness than happiness, excep whe built in a very small empire, where it is the most useless.

The Great Wall - Enemy units must spend an additional movement per tile moving in your territory.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great engineer point.
Requirements: Constrution tech, 350 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

This is the most expensive wonder this early in the game, which is rather unfortunate as it's fairly decent bonuses it had in Civ4 have been replaced with one of the worst bonuses any wonder offers. Fighting a defensive war in your territory isn't something a player with a good grasp of the game would encounter very frequently. The most common attackers would likely be barbarians - which only further highlight how much more abysmmal this wonder is compared to it's Civ4 version.


MEDIEVAL ERA

Angkor Wat - Culture cost of aquiring new tiles reduced by 75%.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great engineer point.
Requirements: Theology tech, 300 production.
Victory Type: Cultural.
Priority: Medium.

Angkor Wat is an interesting wonder. It really only has an effect for those going for a cultural victory, but doesn't do anything directly to furthur that victory. Instead, it allows all your high culture cities to spread thier culture - and aquire resources - far more dramatically than they would normally be able to do. A point to note is that there doesn't seem to be a limit on how far a single city's culture can spread, or at least the limit is very high. Building this wonder early, you will see your cities taking tiles five or six hexes from the city itself by the end of the game, allowing you to control an incredible amount of terriory from only a small number of cities. This wonder furthur propegnates the culutural stategy of building a small number of spread out cities. Don't bend over backwards trying to build this wonder, but you will be very happy if you can.

The Hagia Sophia - +33% Great People generation in all cities.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great artist point.
Requirements: tech, 300 production.
Victory Type: Cultural or Scientific.
Priority: Medium.

The Hagia Sophia is a good wonder for any strategy involving specialists, which will usually be cultural and scientific victories. The problem with this wonder is that the bonus it provides is spread over your empire, instead of being concentrated in only one city. Considering that for most of the game, only a few cities will be large enough to maintain a specialist population, and this bonus really only applies to the city that has the most specialists and modifiers. It is still a good wonder to build for those victory paths, just not a great one.

Chichen Itza - Length of golden ages increased by 50%.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great engineer point.
Requirements: Civil Service tech, 450 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: High.

Chichen Itza went from one of the worst wonders in Civ4 to one of the best in Civ5. Nearly every victory type can utulize this wonder. Popping great people is the best way to string wonders together, so the large number of great people cultural and scientific victories generate will be easy to utulize this way. Domination victory will generate a large number of great generals, which can also be popped for golden ages, while diplomatic victories will find the free great people from city-states useful for poping golden ages as well. If you're planning on building this wonder, and you really should, make sure to save your great people to pop golden ages after this wonder is built. You will get much better value out of them this way.

Machu Pichu - +20% gold from trade routes.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great merchant point.
Requirements: Currency tech, 550 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

Machu Pichu suffers from the changes trade routes went from Civ4 to Civ5. Trade routes cost gold to maintain, and for large empires the gold from trade routes will usually only cover the cost of the route itself. In compact empires with large populations, trade routes become a semblance of income, but it is still usually a small number like 10% or 20%. Trade routes are usually cheaper to maintain in coastal cities which rely on harbors instead of roads. Combined with the Commerce social policies, which encourage naval power and provide an additional trade route modifier, this wonder could be useful for certain strategies. It still is nothing to rush towards, though.

Notre Dame - +5 happiness.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great merchant point.
Requirements: Education tech, 500 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

Compared to the Hanging Gardens, which comes an era earlier, this wonder is the lesser of the two. If you find yourself at enough lesuire and resources to build this wonder, you might want to play your next game on a harder difficulty, especially considering how many good wonders there are available in this era.

The Porcelain Tower - A free great scientist when this wonder is built.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great scientist points.
Requirements: Education tech, 400 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: High.

Don't be fooled by the great scientist - this wonder is not only for scientific victories. While the +2 great scientist points certainly encourage that, the great scientist should be viewed like the Great Library - a means to slingshot through the tech tree, immediatly reaching the Renassaince. The best tech to pop towards with the great scientist is largely dependant on your victory path. Nearly all the first Renaissance techs are useful for one or another victory type, with Acoustics or Astronomy being the easiest techs to reach once this wonder can be built.

Himeji Castle - +25% combat strength for units fighting in friendly territory.
Bonuses: +4, +2 great engineer points.
Requirements: Chivalry tech, 600 production.
Victory Type: Cultural.
Priority: Medium.

The Himeji Castle is deceptively strong, it initially seems as weak as the Great Wall. It would be just from its main bonus, but its the +4 culture and +2 great engineer points that make it useful for a cultural victory. Great Engineers are great for building wonders, which the cultural victory typically does more than any other victory type. The +4 culture is half what Stonehedge provides, but is still far more than any other wonder up to this era. Build it if you can, but don't sweat it if you can't.


RENAISSANCE ERA

Sistine Chapel - +33% culture in each city.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great arist points.
Requirements: Acoustics tech, 650 production.
Victory Type: Cultural.
Priority: High.

After the Oracle, this is the second 'must build' wonder for a cultural victory. If you get beat to this building, its best to go to war and capture the city it's built in - it's that important. Luckily its bonus is applied over the game instead of just a one shot effect.

The Kremlin - Defensive buildings in cities are +50% more effective.
Bonuses: +4, +1 great scientist point.
Requirements: Acoustics tech, 650 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

The Kremlin is a weak wonder. It provides +4 culture, so is some use to a cultural victory, but also provides +1 great scientist points, which are useless. This is the kind of wonder you hate when the AI builds it, but is otherwise negligible.

The Forbidden Palace - Unhappiness from number of cities reduced by 50%.
Bonuses: +1, +1 great artist point.
Requirements: Banking tech, 600 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

The Forbidden Palace is no longer a nation wonder, it is now a one time world wonder. In very large empires, the unhappiness reduction will be sizable, and combines with a late game social policy to reduce unhappiness to 0 from number of cities. In medium sized empires, the Forbidden Palace may not justify building it, and in small empires it can be even worse than Notre Dame.

Taj Mahal - Immediate starts a very long golden age.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great artist points.
Requirements: Printing Press tech, 600 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: High.

The Taj Mahal is a fantastic wonder, especially when coupled with Chichen Itza. On standard game speed, the golden age will be 22 turns long! Every victory type can use golden ages, and every victory type should emphasize building this wonder.

Big Ben - Cost of gold purachases reduced by 25%.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great merchant points.
Requirements: Economics tech, 700 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: High.

Big Ben is a great wonder if your empire focuses on building gold. A Diplomatic victory path would emphasize this the strongest, but all type can use this wonder. From units to buildings, Big Ben reduces the cost of them all. Don't just think your empire is gold focused beause it has trade posts. If you have enough production in your cities that you never feel the need to buy units or buildings, than you can skip this wonder.

The Louvre - Two great artists appear when this wonder is built.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great artist points.
Requirements: Archeaology tech, 700 production.
Victory Type: Cultural.
Priority: Medium.

A cultural victory can view this as another stonehendge, providing +9 culture from two landmarks the artists would create as well as the wonder itself. Anyone can benefit from building this wonder, however, as the great artists can simply be used for two short term golden ages. Either way, this is a useful but not critical wonder to build.

Brandenburg Gate - A great general appears when this wonder is built.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great scientist points.
Requirements: Military Science tech, 550 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

Brandenburg Gate isn't a terrible wonder, as anyone can use the great general to pop a short term golden age. It is just that the victory type this wonder is suited for, Domination, typically will have more than enough great generals at this point in the game.


INDUSTRIAL ERA

Statue of Liberty - Specialist give +1 production.
Bonuses: +1, +3 great engineer points.
Requirements: Replacable Parts tech, 1200 production.
Victory Type: Cultural or Scientific.
Priority: Medium.

The Statue of Liberty is a good wonder for specialist focused empires, typically cultural and scientific. At this point in the game, once hospitals are built, there is usually enough population support for every city to run four or more specialists, and this wonder will really allow them to pay off. The +3 great engineer points is the equivelent of a engineer specialist as well, the highest so far. A solid late game wonder.

Cristo Redentor - Cost of adopting policies reduced by 33%.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great artist points.
Requirements: Telegraphy tech, 1200 production.
Victory Type: Cultural.
Priority: High.

Cristo Redentor is the third of the 'must build' wonders for a cultural victory. It is a good strategy to save social policies until after this wonder is built, and is coming close to the time when the utopia project can be built.

Eiffel Tower - +8 happiness.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great merchant points.
Requirements: Radio tech, 1000 production.
Victory Type: None.
Priority: Low.

Considering how late in the game the Eiffel Tower is available, and how much production is costs to build it, it is unfortunetly the worst wonder in the game. A minor happiness bonus is peanuts at this stage of the game.


MODERN ERA

Pentagon - Gold cost of upgrading military units reduced by 50%.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great merchant points.
Requirements: Radar tech, 1200 production.
Victory Type: Domination.
Priority: High.

The Pentagon is the perfect clinch for a Domination victory game that needs one more push in military power to conquer the world. The Radar tech is on route for modern armor and the best flight units, and upgrading to those units as easily as this wonder allows should be all you need for world domination.

Sydney Opera House - 1 free social policy.
Bonuses: +1, +2 great artist points.
Requirements: Globalization tech, 1000 production.
Victory Type: Cultural.
Priority: High.

If the game is going on late, and you're lagging on your cultural victory, the Sydney Opera House is exacally what you need to reach the utopia project. Most games will be over or building the utopia project by this point, but if you were unlucky and beaten to a critical wonder, or simply planned poorly, this wonder will make up for it.

 

[devhyfes]

This is because of building maintenance: every building has a gold per turn upkeep, greatly encouraging city specialization.

I've seen it this statement numerous times throughout the Civ 5 forums, and I just don't get it. Now that you have ~30 tiles per city to choose from, it seems to me that cities are more or less ubiquitous. They are no longer really defined by the character of their surroundings. Additionally, there are fewer wonders to distinguish your cities, so they will all largely have similar progressions.

The only types of buildings that you might to decide not to build BASED ON THE CITY are +XP and +H-for-Unit buildings. Because you don't build giant stacks of units anymore, you don't need to have every city capable of producing units.

But Happiness buildings are all +X for your civ, not based on the city- so you can build them anywhere, and won't decide based on "specializing" a city. You'll just see your happiness getting low, and order the next available city to build.

+Research buildings are the same- you'll build as many as possible no matter what city you are in, because research is the key to winning a game. +% Research Buildings are more or less the same- you'll Prioritize based on which cities have high research already, but over time, every city will slowly build all these buildings.

+Production and +% Production - There is no reason to avoid building these in every city, because of the Wealth/research production settings. If you plan on doing research in the city, paying 1 gold/turn to get +20% production is similar to paying +1 gold/turn for a library. For wealth, it's a no brainer- these +production buildings will always pay for themselves. The workshop makes sense for EVERY city as well.

+Gold buildings - Again, a no brainer. In goes one gold and out comes many gold. Indeed, what I've found so far is that as long as I always build the +gold buildings in each city as it comes available, I have no trouble paying for the other buildings.

+food buildings- Some of these buildings won't make sense to build (or cannot be built based on terrain) but the majority should be built. The granary gets you +2 food per turn at a cost of 1 gold per turn. In other words, you pay 1 gold to get 1 supported citizen who can now earn 2 gold on that trading post or river tile, or as a merchant.

+Culture- Because culture is required to buy social policies, you are again limited by how much gold you want to spend on culture, rather than the specialization of a city. But even more importantly, every city needs to either spend gold or generate culture to grow. So in a real sense, the +C buildings actually SAVE you gold.

In Civ IV, terrain heavily influenced the direction of a city. You knew that you wouldn't be able to get enough food in some, or that they were mainly about money (gold and gems), or that they would have lots of health problems (flood plains). And this required you to choose specific buildings to keep that city growing.

To me, Civ 5 de-emphasizes the uniqueness of a specific city. Sure, there are some exceptions, but by and large, most of the buildings in a city are required by every city because they either contribute to your civ-wide pool or they pay for themselves. Even most of the wonders improve your civ far more than the city, and so don't matter as much where you build them.

Anyway, I like the start of your guide- but it felt like that statement was getting too much traction, when it doesn't seem to be as true as others make it out to be.

 

[AtriumComplex]

While I think specialization is less important then most in this game, it would be pretty silly to waste valuable gold/turns to build a market when you could be building a experienced unit in a production city. I doubt a 25% increase on 3 gold will ever pay for itself.

 

[Alexfrog]

I think specialization is extremely important, but not only becasue of maintenance. Its even more because of the fact that production is scarce and you dont actually have time to build many buildings per city. So you only have time to build the ones that really matter for that city.

Because of this I believe Rome is a very weak civ.

The civs that seem strongest to me are Greeks (the city state ability is amazing, and the cavalry rule), Siam (again, awesome city state power, and their Knight upgrade is amazing), and Persia (longer golden ages that give you crazy combat powers). Thats just from among the basic civs.

 

[Alexfrog]

In response to devhyfes' post:

Happy buildigns: I agree, build them everywhere, they allow you to continue expanding (or give golden ages, and with piety tree culture as well).

Science buildings: You could build them everywhere to maximize tech. Another strategy would be to build them all in one city that is a scientist specialist farm and settles many great scientists academies around it, to generate a ton of science from one city.

+% Production: I dont agree that you should build these everywhere, only in good production cities. A city thats going to max out at 8 production shouldnt waste its time getting say a 20% bonus. For that 1.6 hammers a turn youre going to pay 2 gold upkeep and 100 hammers up front. That will not pay itself back.

+Gold buildings: You should probably have one money city where these are built, and not elsewhere. You would only build them everywhere if you were doing a strategy involving trading posts everywhere. (Which you might do for the rationalism ability that gives 2 science each).

+Food buildings: I believe that you should not ever build a single one of these ever anywhere, with the exception of if you are the Aztecs you build the +15% food one. This is because maritime city state alliances are massively more efficient.

+Culture: Depends on strategy, probably worth it everywhere. However, culture doesnt give much border expansion in this game, at all.

+Great People generation: you either build these in only your one great person farm, or not at all. The bonuses are so minor. We already know from civ 4 that +100% GPP bonuses only yield relatively small increases in number of great people produced. Now the bonuses are pathetic 25 and 33%s.

 

[Trickster7135]

This is a good discussion, and I'll go into far more detail about city specializiation when I get to that section of the guide. Right now I'm working on a major update to the guide, will be able to post it tomorrow. Should be able to have at least half of the sections complete.

 

[adrianj]

Regarding Catherine's Unique Ability: I don't agree with your assumption that you're unlikely to get any use out of it simply because you can't spare the for maintenance. What this ability does is lets you field a more Efficient military. Instead of 2 swords and 2 spears, you can now build 4 swords. Instead of 2 catapults and 2 archers you can now have 2 catapults and 2 swords.

I think actually dreaming up troop combinations is kind of meaningless... but the point is: if you're only going to have a constant number of units, this ability ensures they are the best you can get.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

One note about Economic buildings. None of them have maintenance (the likely assumption is that they pay for themselves) and so I disagree with the previous poster who said they shouldn't be built everywhere. It may take a few turns each age, but since most of my small cities will go to wealth as they wait for the next building to arrive it's fine by me since the bonuses will add up.

 

[devhyfes]

All-

I still don't see the argument that the 1G maintenance leads you to specialize- since most buildings pay for themselves by either giving you more gold or giving you something you'd have to pay gold for otherwise.

I can see the argument that scarcity of TIME (rather than gold) could lead you to prioritize certain buildings in certain cities. But I think this is different than specializing cities. I have yet to have a game where my capital city couldn't build most regular buildings. Sure- if I devote it solely to building wonders, I might not be able to get the buildings done until the medieval age (but going whole hog after wonders is a risky way to waste that scarce time given how aggressively the AI targets them). So to me, the Roman power is never wasted (though it is hardly the best in the game.)

There is mention of cities with 8 production or only three gold...I...guess I have been doing something wrong, because every single city I've worked so far has had access to much more than that. Either there are hills to be mined, or forests to build lumber mills. You have 30 tiles available to you...That means when I need to build a large building, I move guys around to maximize production, and then maximize food when I've got all my buildings built.

So if you are constrained by time, I can understand choosing one set of buildings- but once a city controls 10+ tiles, I guess I've never had a situation where the cities have a huge backlog of buildings. There are choke points for sure when the first gluts of classical-era buildings get researched. But when you get to civil service (more food, freeing up citizens) and steam power (more hammers from forests), you clear through these early buildings quite quickly.

As I said, there are exceptions- maybe one or two specialized cities maxing out science (if you had a wonder there) or production (if it had really good resources) but I don't see specialization as the target for everyone.

 

[Martin Alvito]

In principle, you'd want to build most buildings in most cities.

In practice, this isn't feasible on the higher difficulties. Hammers are scarce, units are expensive, and you need quite a few units to keep AIs fighting AIs. If you miscalculate on the number of units you need, they will all dogpile you in an effort to get your territory before their rivals take it. You cannot survive that on Deity.

Not sure I agree that naval warfare is useless on higher difficulties. Troops on the bottom of the ocean can't capture your cities, and the AI isn't much of a naval strategist.

 

[Trickster7135]

All-

I still don't see the argument that the 1G maintenance leads you to specialize- since most buildings pay for themselves by either giving you more gold or giving you something you'd have to pay gold for otherwise.

I can see the argument that scarcity of TIME (rather than gold) could lead you to prioritize certain buildings in certain cities. But I think this is different than specializing cities. I have yet to have a game where my capital city couldn't build most regular buildings. Sure- if I devote it solely to building wonders, I might not be able to get the buildings done until the medieval age (but going whole hog after wonders is a risky way to waste that scarce time given how aggressively the AI targets them). So to me, the Roman power is never wasted (though it is hardly the best in the game.)

There is mention of cities with 8 production or only three gold...I...guess I have been doing something wrong, because every single city I've worked so far has had access to much more than that. Either there are hills to be mined, or forests to build lumber mills. You have 30 tiles available to you...That means when I need to build a large building, I move guys around to maximize production, and then maximize food when I've got all my buildings built.

So if you are constrained by time, I can understand choosing one set of buildings- but once a city controls 10+ tiles, I guess I've never had a situation where the cities have a huge backlog of buildings. There are choke points for sure when the first gluts of classical-era buildings get researched. But when you get to civil service (more food, freeing up citizens) and steam power (more hammers from forests), you clear through these early buildings quite quickly.

As I said, there are exceptions- maybe one or two specialized cities maxing out science (if you had a wonder there) or production (if it had really good resources) but I don't see specialization as the target for everyone.

Of course you don't have to specialize your cities. Having and extra 5 gold upkeep from additional buildings won't be much of a problem... unless all your cities are like that. Then your small six city empire will have to tackle an extra 30 gold upkeep, or about 15 extra citizens on trade posts.

And of course you can build 10 mines or lumber mills in every city to ensure you always have lots of production, but then that means 10 of the 15 citizens are not working trade posts, and the remaining five have to work farms just to keep from starving, and then your population growth is slowed or stunted. Not to mention you're not making any gold in that city to support your military, city-states, or buildings.

You don't have to specialize your cities - and on easier difficulties, you really don't have to. You specialize because its efficient - and that efficiency is how you have a stronger economy than the other seven or so civs trying to win the game as well.

As far as time, it really is an issue. If you focus on population growth over expansion, you'll find yourself quickly in the tech lead, researching a tech every five turns or so. This is especially true if you focus a city or two on producing Great Scientist - which I advocate for anyone pursuing a science or domination victory.

 

[Trickster7135]

Not sure I agree that naval warfare is useless on higher difficulties. Troops on the bottom of the ocean can't capture your cities, and the AI isn't much of a naval strategist.

Well that's kind of why naval warfare is a joke in this game. Just like in civ4, the AI is damn near terrible at naval warfare, so it really doesn't take much to protect coasts or embarked units.

 

[alcaras]

Arabian bonus:

It’s important to note that there are only domestic trade routes in this game, and only to the capital. So the maximum gold bonus this ability will give you is one less than the number of cities in your empire.

Isn't the +1 gold to Trade Routes added before modifiers (e.g. Bazaar, Market, Stock Exchange), so technically it'll be more than just (n_cities-1)?

 

[Trickster7135]

Arabian bonus:


Isn't the +1 gold to Trade Routes added before modifiers (e.g. Bazaar, Market, Stock Exchange), so technically it'll be more than just (n_cities-1)?

Yes, but its easier to compare leader abilities if we only deal in base yields. Siberian Riches produces more production if you have the buildings that modify production as well, but in either case, the point is that these bonuses are too small to matter. A large empire that yields 250 gold per turn gross, isn't going to notice if that 10 extra gold is really 14 or not - it's simply a pathetically small bonus.

 

[Corbeau]

Napoleon –[/B] Ancient Regime: +2 culture per turn per city before Steam Power.
The cultured trait in Civ4 was considered moderately useful, mostly as a means of quickly expanding your borders while using a rapid expansionist policy. In Civ5, cities start with six hexes available to work, and can buy nearby tiles with gold. Also, rapid expanding no longer is possible in Civ5, as the happiness cap comes into play very quickly. The real strength of Ancient Regime is the quick access to social policies, encouraging a cultural victory. In that regard, it does only a subpar job. Even without the fact that Ancient Regime becomes outdated in the industrial era, +2 culture per city is nothing compared to the large number of culture late game buildings as well as artist specialists will generate.

No, no, no.

The power of France's special ability is not a cultural victory. In fact, I wouldn't even try a cultural victory with France - the benefit from +2cpt is deeply offset by the 30% increase in policy costs when going for the cultural win.

Though I just realized that I don't know if the +2cpt applies to puppet states. If it does, there might be a cultural victory in France after all.

My point, however, is that France's ability is an economic and industrial one. It is designed to get social policies quickly and steadily at zero hammer or gold cost. The resulting savings can be enormous if this is exploited to the maximum, if the social policies are taken advantage of with one's un-blunted early production. It may not be the best trait, but treating it as a cultural victory trait would be a disservice. You can rex pretty hard with France if you take the Liberty path (cheap settlers, cheap workers, border pops for maximum luxury resources), and I can easily imagine a militant (fastest Great General ever?) or builder strategy coming out of early Honor or Tradition.

 

[Trickster7135]

Though I just realized that I don't know if the +2cpt applies to puppet states. If it does, there might be a cultural victory in France after all.

I'm pretty sure it does.

As far as border popping goes, having only +2 culture without building any other cultural buildings won't pop your borders fast enough, unless you have a very slow population growth. If all you're aiming for are the resources, just buying the tiles is faster. I did note that it is a good way to get social policies though, it's just not a great way.