Tips: Science from Research Agreements, Trade Routes, Espionage, and City States
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“Science? The Savage frowned. He knew the word, but what it exactly signified he could not say.” - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Research Agreements, Trade Routes, Espionage, and City States are your main tools for science. They are the only three resources in the game that are independent of your own civilization's progress, so their efficacy will not suffer as a result of playing from behind. In fact, their efficiency is actually greatly enhanced by our backwardness, creating good synergy. As you'll see, the theme of “getting efficient science” will be belabored throughout this section. Staying small has a natural science disadvantage, but a natural science efficiency advantage, so we want to be sure we're getting the benefit, because we have already paid the cost!
Research Agreements. Research agreements post-fall patch are capped by the amount of science the weaker of the two civilizations generates. They're still good, but this means that besides the gold savings, there's an additional efficiency benefit of generating less science than the AI. Since they take 30 turns to finish, adds to the AI's incentive to stay peaceful in relation to you, and you have a ton of gold anyway, you should be sure to have RAs in place with every civ that you are have a declaration of friendship with as soon as your Universities come up (which will be fairly late by design). Quite simply, they are well worth the gold. This means that the first round of RAs should bulb somewhere in the Renaissance, between you finishing the Medieval Era and hitting Industrialization. The next one or two rounds of RAs should bulb on your way to Plastics. The final round should bulb on your way to Globalization (or, if you're fast, soon after; this is your security blanket).
Trade Routes. Trade routes give one science for each tech that you are behind in. So, the difference between being on tech parity (usually only have 2 techs that are different) and being behind in tech (usually having 13-14 techs that you don't have) is 6 science per trade route. 6 science per trade route is equal to 4 population in a non National College city. So, starting in the Renaissance Era, where a good Tradition science strategy would get tech parity, and when you have 5 trade routes, you should be getting the equivalent science as 20 additional pop! That's very significant, for mid-game. So, once you move into your science focus in the Renaissance, you should be running all international routes, except for up to 2 food routes to the National College city. Remember, food loses value the higher the total population, and each additional pop in the National College city will only be worth 12 total science in the endgame (unless you are unable to fill all the specialist slots, in which case they are worth 16 science per turn). Do a little math as to how many extra pop each food route for 20 turns is offering, and what the opportunity cost is in trade route science. As a rule of thumb, in mid-game any food extra to a 5-turn per additional pop rate is worth more in raw science as a trade route, not to mention the very significant amount of extra gold.
Espionage. Ah, spies. You will get these probably before you even hit the Medieval Era. Send them immediately to steal tech from anyone except the tech leader (but keep checking the demographics screen and the spy screen every few turns to make sure that civ doesn't become the tech leader). The AI protects its tech when it is ahead, and steals tech otherwise. In any case, it should take you less than 10 turns to steal each tech. This means you can level up the spy to level 3 before the earliest time you might need the Spy to help pass Scholars in Residence. Leveling up the spy is important for couping city states later in the game. As a general rule, each additional spy (including replacement spies) should be sent to steal technology from unsuspecting civs (remember, everyone is ahead of you in tech, so you can steal from any of them) until they reach at least level 2. If your spy is about to finish stealing a tech before you could finish it, you should have not researched that tech and waited to steal it (Banking, Printing Press, Economics and Industrialization are good targets). Whenever you are caught spying, promise not to spy again, and pick a new civ to spy on. You'll take a diplomatic hit, but unfortunately this is the only way to level up your spies. Be sure to build espionage buildings after the national wonder becomes available at Radio so you can upgrade all of your spies to be more effective (time to finish with Penicillin). In the end game, remember which city states are contested by coups, and see which ones do not offer easily fulfilled CS quests to place your spies. In the final few turns before victory, if you are relying on Globalization, remember that your diplomats need 5 turns to move and then set up before the vote.
City States. These are the bread and butter of our mid-game science, and international political power. In the early game, focus on faith and culture city states close to your religious spread zone. Food is secondary. Military and happiness are mostly useless. For science: We want to have as many as possible after we get Scholasticism in the Patronage tree. Remember, the larger the city state, the more science they are likely to generate. On Deity, city states will be doing better than any of your non-national college cities, and they do not incur a per-city science benefit. Thus, each 3 city states is probably equal to another city's worth of science. This is an incredible benefit to staying small. When Scholasticism first triggers, don't be surprised to see City States accounting for more than half of your total science output. For diplomacy: before half of the civs reach the Industrial Era, we must absolutely need to be able to king-make a civilization of our choice. This usually involves either a ton of gold (so don't waste your gold on infrastructure buildings not needed for national wonders), or strategic couping of city states owned by competitors of your religious ally. Usually, you will use a mix of these two strategies. When couping City States in mid-game, if there are six turns or less to rigging the vote, you'll want to wait until the turn before the rigging takes place to coup, so that the additional influence prevents a counter-coup. Remember to check your diplomacy after each coup. The AI gets increasingly mad at you for couping more of its city states, so either focus them on an enemy, or spread them out so no one gets very mad at you. Finally, culture and faith city states up their bonus provided to you when you enter the Medieval Era, and when you enter the Industrial Era. Our technology path enters both of their eras relatively quickly partially for that reason.
One more note about City States. Keep them alive! If a city state is at war with a major civ, and in the way of the major civ's conquest, coup it or buy it out. Do your best to not let City States die. You can lose 4 city states and still win the game on the first vote without Forbidden Palace. Do not lose more than this!
Tips: World Congress Diplomacy
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“The gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated in the last resort, by the people who organize society; Providence takes its cue from men.” - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
The World Congress is our greatest and most powerful tool, initially for diplomacy, then for science. Ultimately, it will be our victory. You will only be able to pass 5 resolutions in the world congress before the first vote though, so make them count!
Hosting the Summit. Although you will not found the World Congress, you will be able to propose a vote if you have scouted the world. So, this should be a priority. If you are unable to be the first host, don't worry! You will only lose 2 resolutions, and your strategy is still in tact. Just be sure to start bribing the AI to your friend before you propose Scholars in Residence. When you are asked to vote for a host, be sure to vote for a host of your religion (if you have two, pick the one more likely to go culture or diplomatic victory). The only time you should vote for yourself is when entering the third and final vote for Host (when one civ reaches the Information Era, or half of the civs reach the Atomic Era).
World Fair / Arts Funding. These two resolutions do not help us in any way. In fact, we would prefer to not have either pass. However, they are the top crowd-pleasers for when the World Congress first opens, and you'll want to propose one of these two to start. This allows you to make friends from distant civs and to start building up a relationship which will last until ideologies. For an extra bonus, Arts Funding makes more civilizations more likely to go for a culture-victory grand strategy, which makes the world more peaceful, slows down the tech pace, and sets you up for World Religion (see below).
Scholars in Residence. This provides a 20% discount on discovered technology, which is stacked additively to the discount you naturally get for each civ that has discovered a particular technology. Together, the discount is somewhere around 20%-40% cheaper (depending on how many civs have discovered the technology in question). This is applied after the per city tech penalty is applied. This also affects science you get from trade routes and city states, which Rationalism does not affect. By not being tech leader, each of your beakers, from any source of science, effectively gets a +20%-40% bonus! That's the equivalent of 3-4 additional social policies in Rationalism. This is a HUGE bonus, and is one of the main reasons why we were unconcerned with our science for most of the game. As soon as half of the world moves into the Industrial Era, and City States get a vote, this should be proposed. This will likely make a couple of civilizations mad, but by this point, you have already set up DoFs, which the AI will not break, and have general green diplomacy markers. If any of these civs are your neighbor, start bribing immediately. In any case, be sure to follow it up with a crowd-pleaser.
World Religion. This is the only resolution that you can reliably force the AI to propose. And, it is vital that the AI proposes this, because we do not want the massive diplomatic hit this proposal will cause to five civilizations. Instead, by selecting as host a civilization that we converted, and keeping good relations, we can ensure that that civilization will have a proposal. It may take a proposal or two before the AI gets around to this, so be sure to start this process immediately. Making proposals that your buddy wants to make (and ones that his allies like as well) will pre-empt that civ from making those proposals, and thus push World Religion to the front of the queue. This is also a great time to burn a prophet to convert a civilization your new WC host is friendly with. If you have converted two civilizations, at some point, you should bribe them to go to war with the same civilization so that they become friends. Because this is a top priority for civs executing a culture OR diplomatic grand strategy, be sure not to coup city states from civilizations to whom you have spread your faith, if you leave your buddy with more City States, he'll be more likely to think he has a shot at a diplomatic victory.
International Games. Much like the World Fair and Arts Funding, this should be a huge crowd-pleaser. Except, by the time we get Radio, we have enough CSs on our side to effectively downvote our own proposal. Do it. We do not want other civs competing with our CSs and have no need for more happiness. We will also not get a diplomatic hit for downvoting our own resolution, whereas if left up to the AI, we will incur a diplomatic hit with the proposer.
World Ideology. This is it! This should be the last vote of the game, right before you are voted World Leader. There are ways to induce the AI to attempt this vote, but because this is the last vote (and assuming you don't want to reload a turn if it fails), you don't want to take the chance. See the Ideology section below for how to minimize the impact this vote will have on your diplomatic relations with major civs.
Tips: Ideology as Diplomacy
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“If one's different, one's bound to be lonely.” - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Normally, players use Ideology for its powerful tenants, and only give passing thought to the diplomatic side of things beyond keeping happy. This is flipped on its head when playing diplomatically. The end goal here is to get every civ to go one ideology. What!!?!?!?, you say. Yes, almost every AI civ can be manipulated into going down the same path. The key is to block off other ideological choices and flip with unhappiness if necessary.
Pre-game. Throughout the game, you should have very little tourism going for you. You should be behind in tech, # of social policies, wonders, land, population, and pretty much everything. Your score should be god-awful. Your civ should suck. On top of that, be sure to sell your open borders consistently to the AI throughout the game, especially the ones that are culture/tourism focused. When ideological battles begin, you want to be unknown to everyone, and to have as many people be exotic/familiar to you as possible. Be diligent about this. Also, don't hold all the CSs, just make sure you're #1. Be sure to hold at most only one mercantile CS, let the AI have the rest. It's not like you're short on happy anyway. Remember, you have no cities and no pop. =D
Get an Ideology. You need to get ideology quickly. Luckily for you, Industrialization is easily beelined (only one pre-req). Use Oxford on it. Always. You don't need to be the first one there, although you likely will, because the AI sucks at building 3 factories, while you can CS-ally + cash-buy. This is your first great leap forward, and the key strategy here is to be one of the first three civs to reach ideology. Normally, you do it for the two free tenants. But, we don't care about that here. For now, pick two tenants you'll use immediately (Freedom's usually the best choice here for a small civ, due to the Civil Society allowing you to work specialists you otherwise wouldn't be able to; Order has Skyscrapers, which is also very nice; Autocracy has Industrial Espionage). If given a choice, pick Freedom, then Autocracy, and pick Order only when you absolutely have to (I've never had to do this, so I cannot promise the rest of this strategy works if you go Order after the AI goes Autocracy and Freedom).
Wait for Board to Settle. Wait patiently. Amazingly enough, no one will want to be your ideological buddy, despite the fact that you were so nice to them all game! It's crazy how that works. (In reality, it's because you're an awful ideological ally to have, as you will not provide any ideological happiness help; bonus points for picking Freedom/Autocracy and controlling CSs, so the AI has even less reason to pick those ideologies. You will, at most, get one follower. 80%+ of the time, the AIs will all pick the other two ideologies, oftentimes even leaving that one free tenant on the table. That's how little respect they have for you! Stay patient... you'll show them who's boss in the end. For now, figure out how far behind the stragglers are. Once all of the "contenders" have picked their ideologies, you can move on to the next step. When this is happening, bribe and tribute the heck out of everyone. You need to never be the target of a DoW. This period will probably last for ~20-40 turns. You will slowly lose all your friends. Don't die. Use your WC proposals to propose crowd-pleasers (and then vote against them if necessary). If things still look dicey, then bail on the plan and join the more popular ideology. You'll still be fine, just no style points for you (and more upkeep in bribes, and less gold from AI trade routes because the world is at war).
Flip the Board. Now that the board has settled to two clear sides, likely Order and Autocracy/Freedom, you'll need to do some manipulation First, hover over the ideology tab to figure out which ideology your people want (this is the only ideology you can flip to). This will be your future ideology, so lets help these guys out. Freedom civs generally have some CSs, coup them, buy them up, throw all your resources at it. Autocracy civs usually run low happiness anyway and are hated, king-make their enemy AI (either through host, or by being host yourself and couping everyone else's CS-es), and that AI will embargo your target. In either case, stop trading happiness to your target AI, bribe it to go to war with someone nearby (so they actually lose units and have to replenish), and pay handsomely for their luxuries (you'll also complete several CS quests this way, so not a total loss). All of this seems like it's going to cost an arm and a leg! Yes, it will. But, lucky for you, gold is the one thing you do have, right?
Flip Yourself. Sell all your luxuries until you are unhappy. Use the money to buy out the city states that are affiliated with the other ideologies. Then, flip yourself. You'll lose the two free tenants, all of your culture (so, time this well), and your cities will be completely unproductive for 2 turns. On the bright side, you'll have gained what should be at least 4 new super-powerful allies, ones that will act as a buffer against the one or two civs left that is not your ideology. Also, any civs who haven't picked an ideology now will join your side, because you've picked the side with more ideological pressure, and then converted yourself and another civ (hopefully) to add even more power.
Reach Across the Aisle. Now that, you have more than half of the AI as your forever buddy allies, it's time to totally ignore them. Your security and diplo with those civs are fine now. Continue to pay bribes to civs you've spied on or denounced, but stop all other bribes. Instead, it's time to make proposals that the remaining civs of other ideologies love. Until your "final blow" of proposing World Ideology right before World Leader, you should be the favorite civ in your ideology to those who are not in that ideology.
World Ideology. Once any civ enters the Atomic Era, keep track of how close you are (or another civ is) to entering the Information Era and triggering the World Leader vote. Make sure you propose this before that. And, make sure you have the most CSs before that too to be the final host. Then, propose the World Ideology of your Ideology. You should have built up enough diplo at this point that those of other ideologies won't DoW you, although, to the extent you were friends before, they probably won't continue to be your friend.
Troubleshooting: They Killed My CS!
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Relax. On a 16-CS board, if you are host, and have world religion and world ideology, you can lose a CS and still win in round 1 (or lose 2 and win in round 2, which is still earlier than any AI wins). If you have Globalization, you can lose 4, or 5 for round 2. Even after the fall patch, the game is pretty generous. The AI will almost never take out more than 1-2 CSs, because the warmonger penalty is so insanely high that everyone will gang up on that AI and it will die. You can also use your gold to buy city states that are involved in a war where they might be captured, to save them for such fate.
But, what if you do lose too many CS? I have never lost 4 CS in a game, but if you do, then it's time to re-think your plan. Instead of trying to trigger the vote early with Satellites, or going Labs --> Globalization, you need to militarize. Lucky for you, you have a ton of gold. Focus on creating a navy/air force (battleships and/or bombers). It doesn't have to be great, it just has to selectively liberate a couple of CSes while that AI is fighting another war. At this point, you're all in on this army being able to take back the CSs. Lucky for you, the AI is crap at military, so anything targeted that you want to do militarily should be a piece of cake. You might also want to prioritize Autocracy over Freedom if too many CS went off the board early. Remember, you don't HAVE to trigger the World Leader vote, you just have to win it. Oh, and while your at it, if the civ with Forbidden Palace isn't too popular... well, you already have an army.
Troubleshooting: I See Greece, Sweden, Siam, Austria, Venice!
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Run! Or, use spies. If Greece is in the game, and is running away (because of course you set a couple AI after him, right?), you'll be in for a fight for CS control. Globalization is no longer a nice backup now, but a necessary backup. Run even more gold than you normally would. Greece is as vulnerable to coups as anyone else, but take care to not lose too many CS to coups (they each cost 1k to bring back to neutral, so late-game failed spies are very costly). The normal process is to coup then immediately buy influence. The biggest benefit to using Greece is that Greece can't be an AI enemy if you're Greece! (sad, but true). Greece is hardly an insurmountable obstacle, but attempting a diplo victory in a game where the AI Greece is thriving is another difficulty level. So, prepare your treasury well. Sweden and Siam are slightly less vigilant about their city state desires, but still a force to be reckoned with.
If Austria is in the game, you can prevent her from taking any (or many) city states by coup-ing or just making sure she never has 5 consecutive turns of alliance with a city state or continually trading for her gold. Austria's AI is a bit wonky right now, and they won't actually end up purchasing that many city states, because they're programmed to go for a diplomatic victory themselves. If Venice is in the game, you should be prepared to lose some city states (their diplomatic victory preference is moderate, not strong). However, as with Austria, by removing the city states from the game (instead of conquering them as other civs would do), the total number of votes required actually DOES drop. So, instead of being able to lose 4 city states and win on the first vote, our strategy can now withstand 8 Austria/Venice city state conquests (that's a lot). If Venice starts getting out of hand, he should be a natural target for the other AI civs, but if not, then a small bribe is advisable. Note that once Venice or Austria takes a city state, that city state loses its city state characteristic, so can never be liberated.
In case you were wondering, Carthage, America, and Japan can also all be as bad as an average Greece game in terms of the AI behavior, although this is less frequent (20% of the time).
Troubleshooting: Lost the Religion War
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You should be able to stand toe to toe on a single religious front 100% of the time, even facing a Piety civ. But, let's say you overextended and lost everything. Well, that's a blow. But, you still have good faith generation, so put the focus on great scientists instead! Religion is always a nice to have, but even in this case, it is not central to the win. The win is about CSs, religion just a diplomatic tool, like any other. Losing the religion war is far less damaging than losing a real war early, compared with failed military strategies. You are now at the same point security-wise as a peaceful Tradition/Liberty opener that misses Forbidden Palace. I would not recommend proposing World Religion yourself, as it instantly makes five enemies.
Build Order
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Please note that the below build order is just a suggested guide to give you some idea of what to do. The whole point of going small is to not worry about the start. So, if you're stressing about this part, relax. None of this is set in stone, not even wood, not even sand.
Social Policies (in order):
Piety - opener, organized religion;
Other Policy; (sometimes, it is necessary to take a policy here if you are running high culture, and are very far away from temples and/or having enough faith to purchase your first missionary. Tradition, Honor, and Patronage openers are all fine here as filler.)
Piety - mandate of heaven, theocracy, religious tolerance, reformation;
Patronage - opener, consulates, philanthropy, scholasticism, (for fast win, skip the next two) cultural diplomacy, merchant confederacy;
Rationalism - opener, secularism, sovereignty, humanism, free thought, scientific revolution;
No ideology tenants
Technologies (in order):
Pottery
Animal Husbandry (and Sailing, timing depends on if you need cargo ships or just extra trade route)
Luxury Tech(s)
Philosophy
Engineering
Currency
Civil Service (if necessary for open borders)
Compass
Metal Casting
Education (then, Chivalry/Physics/Machinery in any order)
Banking
Astronomy (if needed for Observatory; if only need to cross oceans, save for post-Acoustics)
Industrialization (for ideology)
Acoustics
Fertilizer
Electricity
(for secure win: )
Biology
Plastics
Globalization
(for fast win: )
Railroad
Satellites
Capital Build Order:
Scout
Monument (pause)
Shrine
Monument (finish)
Granary (if bonus resource; otherwise, don't build until post-aqueducts)
Caravan/Worker
Settler
Archer/Trireme (if needed)
Worker/Caravan
Temple (whenever available)
Caravan
Library
Aqueducts (assuming culture / science city)
Market
Workshop
Gold Buy Order:
Caravan/Worker
Settler
Caravan/Worker/Buildings/Units (as needed)
Expansion City Build Order:
Shrine
Temple (if available)
Monument
Workshop (if available)
Market
Granary (if bonus resource; otherwise, don't build until post-aqueducts)
Aqueducts
Library
