Beginner Tips on some Intricacies of the Game

[mavajo]

New player here. I've got some basics down, but I'm still unclear on some of the intricacies of the game. Anyone that can help will be greatly appreciated! The more detailed you can be, the better!

Open Borders: Besides the obviously facet of allowing passage between borders, what are the other benefits of Open Borders? I tend to decline Open Border offers. I'm a land whore and I like to use my early cities as barriers to prevent other civs from accessing certain areas, so that I can settle those areas later.

Trading Goods: What exactly does this do, other than eventually build a 'fair trade' diplomacy bonus? If I'm trading a +/+ item for another +/+ item, am I gaining anything? Or are we basically swapping the same thing? I do understand that trading for a resource I lack (ie. trading for Copper when I have none) will allow me to build things I could not have built otherwise. But Wine, for example, is not a necessary ingredient for anything - so is there any need to trade for something like that? I tend to avoid trades since it runs the risk of incurring the "Trading with our enemy" diplo modifier.

Land Improvements: I'm pretty lost on land improvements. I'm read some guides, but they really didn't help much. When and why should I build windmills? Watermills? When I can build either a cottage or a farm, how can I determine which is more advantageous?

City Specializations: Same deal as Land Improvements. I've read guides, but still kind of lost. What exactly is a commerce city? I always tend to focus on city growth, so lots of farms and such. After all, bigger is better, right? Well from what I've read, apparently not...how do I balance specializing a city for commerce/production with adequate food/growth? How do I determine if a city should be specialized a certain way (specifics would be appreciated!)? I really have trouble getting a "GP Farm" going - my best cities only generate a few GPs in a standard game (usually over by about 1500-1900 AD).

Special Citizens: How and when should I use the specialists (scientist, artist, engineer, etc.)? Is there a certain population where I should start focusing on these guys? How do I know which specialist to use in which city? I'm completely lost.



I tend to win easily in all my games, but I'm playing at the lower levels. When I read these forums, people are talking about all these critical facets of the game that are completely absent from my play, lol. City specializations especially. The only specialization I really do is grouping my wonders according to their benefits (for example, Heroic Epic and West Point in one of my high-production cities). I feel like I'm particularly lost because I never played Civ 3...I made the jump from C2 to C4, and there's a TON of new stuff. I'm also terrible at producing culture - I feel like I'm producing every cultural improvement possible, but I'm still no where near having three legendary cities. Is that a particularly tough victory condition? Thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can offer.

 

[Gwil]

Trading Goods: What exactly does this do, other than eventually build a 'fair trade' diplomacy bonus? If I'm trading a +/+ item for another +/+ item, am I gaining anything? Or are we basically swapping the same thing? I do understand that trading for a resource I lack (ie. trading for Copper when I have none) will allow me to build things I could not have built otherwise. But Wine, for example, is not a necessary ingredient for anything - so is there any need to trade for something like that? I tend to avoid trades since it runs the risk of incurring the "Trading with our enemy" diplo modifier.

(happiness) Yes, you are gaining something assuming that:

A) The resource you are giving to them is SURPLUS. If you are trading wine, and you have only one source of it, you are losing that wine and therefore the +

If however, you are trading the wine and you have 1 source for yourself, and another you are giving away, you keep the + and gain whatever your opponent is giving to you (assuming they are)

So, you are also gaining if say -

B)

You are giving 1 of your 2 wines for their source of Gems, a resource you yourself do not possess - You keep the + from the wine, and gain another + from the gems. Keep in mind though, that if you have 2 gems, 2 wine you don't get +4 . You only get 1 for the resource, even if you have multiple sources.

You will need to trade for the gems/wine/fur etc to maintain happiness, and therefore order in your cities. If you are experiencing disorder issues due to angry citizens, that's when you seek out happiness resource trades (or indeed bump up the culture slider by 10/20% etc)

Diplomatic bonuses:

As for "you traded with our worst enemies!" - sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet and accept that you will make worst enemies. The skill is maintaining friendships with people who are useful to your game plan. More often than not, it is other factors which hold more sway over peoples view of you than resource trading (eg past wars, religion and random events)

I hope this clears things up somewhat, sorry if it seems a little garbled

 

[Gwil]

Cultural Victories:

I feel like I'm producing every cultural improvement possible, but I'm still no where near having three legendary cities. Is that a particularly tough victory condition? Thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can offer.

The key is to try and amass religions or wonders which help the culture output - Sistine (I think?) for instance gives +culture for each specialist.

It's a victory you have to decide early on you wish to pursue, and plan your teching accordingly. You want to have access to at least 3 religions for your culture cities, and build the corresponding buildings that give +50% culture boost.

Also, you'd try generating great artists as your primary peoples - earlier on in the game, you can settle them for +10 ? culture, later on, you can do a great work for +4000.

Those are some general points but the key is deciding early. Try looking round this forum, i'm sure some of the walkthrough games have focused on obtaining a cultural victory. Most of them are using leaders appropriate to such a victory also, eg Huayna Capac (wonder boosting) or Creative leaders (Louis).

 

[MrCynical]

Open Borders: Besides the obviously facet of allowing passage between borders, what are the other benefits of Open Borders? I tend to decline Open Border offers. I'm a land whore and I like to use my early cities as barriers to prevent other civs from accessing certain areas, so that I can settle those areas later.

It also allows you to form trade routes to their cities and through their territory, substantially increasing your commerce, and hence science and gold. Other than when I'm sealing off uncolonised lands with my borders, I'll generally open them to any civ I can for maximum trade benefit.

Trading Goods: What exactly does this do, other than eventually build a 'fair trade' diplomacy bonus? If I'm trading a +/+ item for another +/+ item, am I gaining anything?

If you're trading away a spare then yes. Suppose I have 2 wine resources in my territory. Wine gives one in each regardless of how many wine resources I have. I could therefore trade one for a different resource that I don't have a source of (say gold), and end up with 2 in each city.

Land Improvements: I'm pretty lost on land improvements. I'm read some guides, but they really didn't help much. When and why should I build windmills? Watermills? When I can build either a cottage or a farm, how can I determine which is more advantageous?

Even beginning to cover this topic would take pages, and the guides can probably explain it better than I can. Look at your city, and decide what you want it to do. Do you want it to be good at building things? Then build mines, workshops and lumbermills, and only as many farms as you need to get enough food to work them all. Do you want it to make science? Cottages are the way to go? Decide what you want each city to do (and what the basic terrain is suited to) and improve accordingly.

City Specializations: Same deal as Land Improvements. I've read guides, but still kind of lost. What exactly is a commerce city? I always tend to focus on city growth, so lots of farms and such.

OK, possibly I should have read this bit before I typed the previous bit.

A commerce city, as the name implies, produces as much commerce (and so usually research and gold) as possible. It will fare better with cottages than farms in the long run.

After all, bigger is better, right? Well from what I've read, apparently not...how do I balance specializing a city for commerce/production with adequate food/growth?

Is a bigger city better? Not always. A production city probably doesn't need to be above size 20. As to balancing food, look at the tiles. Tiles which give 2 food are essentially food neutral. For any tiles that give more than that, add up the extra food above 2 from each one. Subtract 1 for each tile that only gives one food. Subtract 2 for each tile that gives no food, (but does give something else. Now build as many farms as are needed to bring your grand total up to zero. You now how the minimum number of farms needed to work all tiles - OK for commerce and production cities. Again, there are many articles on this subject in the war academy.

How do I determine if a city should be specialized a certain way (specifics would be appreciated!)? I really have trouble getting a "GP Farm" going - my best cities only generate a few GPs in a standard game (usually over by about 1500-1900 AD)

Some terrain types can go to more or less any type of city. Riveride grassland will suit a GP farm, a commerce city, or even a production city just as well. Some terrain does however lend itself to specific functions. A city with a large number of food reources and farmable tiles will make a good GP farm, since essentially you want to maximise food, hence maximise specialists, and hence get GP. A city that has 20 water tiles is never going to be much of a production city, but it's OK as commerce (and frankly has little option to be anything else.

Special Citizens: How and when should I use the specialists (scientist, artist, engineer, etc.)? Is there a certain population where I should start focusing on these guys? How do I know which specialist to use in which city? I'm completely lost.

Your GP farm should obviously run as many specialists as it can (allowing some spare food for growth until it reaches its maximum). Beyond that, play to your strengths. If it's a science city, run scientists. If it's production, go for engineers. There is such a thing as a Specialist Economy, which is based entirely on these special citizens, but that's tricky to run, and I don't think you're ready for that yet. Stick to cottages except at your GP farm until you get the hang of it.

 

[xanadux]

For land improvements, of course a bigger city can be a better city, but ...

Food is the most valuable commodity, but only because it gets you:

Production by working mines and other productive squares that have less than 2 food.
Production by using slavery.
Faster city growth to work more tiles more quickly.
Commerce through faster city growth and working 1-food cottages.
Surplus food to run specialists.

Food is very very good. But if all you do is make food, and don't do anything with it (city with all farms, little production, no cottages, no specialists), you get very little in return for it.

Just starting out in the game, you should build mines wherever possible, a lot of cottages, and only as many farms as you need to have the food to work your mines and cottages. The one exception is to make a 'Great Person Farm', which is a city that produces as much food as possible to support as many specialists as possible.

Specialists are primarily important because they produce Great Person Points which produce Great People. They have many uses. They can be used to research a tech in an instant. They can start Golden Ages. Scientists are particularly important because they can build Academies which give a 50% boost to science in a city. Prophets can build religious shrines which spread your religion faster and give +1 gold per city with that religion. Engineers can hurry the production of a building, usually completing it in 1 turn (good for expensive wonders). All great people can be settled for a significant boost to that city.

 

[mavajo]

Thanks for the help guys! I know my OP may have made me seem pretty helpless/lazy. But trust me, I've read the guides - it just kind of went over my head, since a lot of them seem to be technical and crunching numbers. I can get to that point eventually, but being that I'm new it's much more helpful for someone to just say "Do this, do that" - and then later on I can look at why that was the thing to do and and get into the details. You guys have helped a ton so far!

One more quick question...how do I decide a city should be a "science city?" When I get a Science GP, I usually look at my City Advisor screen and plop him in the city with the highest beaker count. But 9 times out of 10, it's usually just my biggest city. It seems way too simplified for the strategy to be "Have your Science GP build his improvement in your biggest city." What exactly do I do to make a city a 'Science' city? The first thing would obviously be to build the science buildings (University, Library, etc.), but I tend to have those things in every city... Follow what I'm saying? What else am I missing to establish a city as uniquely a "Science" city? Certain wonders? Specialists? I'm assuming a Science city would have lots of Cottages, correct?

And just to make sure I'm getting it...

1) A potential GPFarm should have lots of farmable land.
2) A potential science city should have lots of cottages, with enough farmable land to promote growth (and scientific specialists).

How should I balance production tiles (ie. Watermills/Mines) in GPFarm or Science/Commerce cities? The focus in these cities isn't on production, but I need to have some or else it will take forever to build improvements and wonders.

 

[futurehermit]

A good rule of thumb from DaveMcW: If a city can support 10 cottages (and presumably still grow) prior to biology then it becomes a commerce/science city.

How do you know if it can? One cottage needs 2 food to feed itself. So a grassland cottage is food neutral. 10 grasslands = check mark. Floodplains is 3 food so for every floodplains cottage you can have a 1-food plains cottage. Surplus food tiles like seafood/grains/livestock can also help you work 1-food cottages. So you have to count some tiles. Once you get practiced at this it becomes second-nature.

If your city doesn't meet this rule of thumb chances are it will be a production city working a mix of mines and farms.

Watermills are good late-game production city improvements.

Windmills can be a good improvement for your commerce cities when there are (especially plains) hills and you don't have tons of food (windmill = +1 food). They are also good in low-food cities period.

 

[dermoth]

I quite understand the problems you're having absorbing the guide info, mavajo - many of these concepts seem straightforward, but when I apply them to my games I suddenly find things are less clear.

If you haven't already, I'd recommend reading through the ALC threads and some of the other example games in the Strategy forum, as these allow you to see these strategies in action. I've found this to be more informative than the plain strategy guides. Orion's Noble game threads are especially good.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246889
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=248945
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=248945

 

[noto]

Mavajo, welcome to Civ. Okay, I can easily answer your first two questions. Open borders not only allows passage through territory but it also enables your cities to trade with the cities in that other empire. If you look in the city window you will see that cities get trade routes. These boost commerce in the city, which will boost science and gold production. The number of trade routes changes throughout the game, check the civilopedia entry on trade routes. The value of open borders then is that your cities can trade with foreign cities instead of just each other, and foreign trade routes are worth a lot more.

On trading goods: I'm wondering if you understand that duplicate goods do not help you. If you have 2 cow resources you aren't getting +2 health, just +1. You get +1 for having cow, whether you have 1 or 5 cows, it doesn't matter. If you can then trade those extra cows for, say, corn, when you don't have any corn, you will then get the health benefit of both.

As for your next 3 questions, I'm not going to attempt to answer them. You've basically just asked the 3 most hotly debated topics on this forum. There are a lot of articles (I think over 30 now) in the war academy and at least 20 of them answer your questions 3-5. Go check em out!

 

[noto]

Oh, and one more thing. Foreign trade routes make religion pass automatically between cities (sometimes) and especially when those cities have no religion. Religion is very useful in this game. Opening borders will not only allow missionaries to be sent, but also the religion will automatically spread. This can help you if you have no religion and want one, or if you want to spread the one you founded.

 

[futurehermit]

Open borders also gets you diplomatic bonuses with the civ you have open borders with, but it also means they will scout out your defenses. If you don't have a strong military and open borders with an aggressor...

 

[madscientist]

Open borders also gets you diplomatic bonuses with the civ you have open borders with, but it also means they will scout out your defenses. If you don't have a strong military and open borders with an aggressor...

Although in BTS the can scout out your defenses with spies anyway, open borders or nonw.

 

[LilBoyBlu]

Guys - as a Fellow Noob (but not totally) TY TY TY for theese helpful bits. I too have a few quick questions if I might:

When is it good NOT to build city improvements?
like - does every city need a forge, or a factory, or whatever?

I find in my marginal cities especciall, 1/2 dessert, low food/commerce potential, max population around say 10, whats the best use? Do you build a few basics, throw in the towel and just turn them over to science/ gold production, and never build another improvement there again? How do you judge if its worth 10 turns to build a market, banks, or other semi-expensive imrovement?

Another item .. Whats the best way to rate a game early on ? I'm very new at rating leaders, and what their potential strenghts/weaknesses are. Also

Finally:
I've been playing a lot of "quick" civ .... is this a bad thing ? I'm betting it leads to playing a certain few strategies and things .. and pros or cons ? This is left over from Civ3 playing on GameSpy .. all those ancient starts.

I'm very interested in playing harder levels of play now... I can whip the AI on noble quite a bit, getting a 5,000 to 10,000 score with a culture win or just points. But normally I'm so far ahead I could have done a conquest or domination win before then just by trying. What I really want to do is start learning to do winning on Prince and higher settings, then eventually racking up those BIG points totals.

Thanks !
John

 

[madscientist]

Guys - as a Fellow Noob (but not totally) TY TY TY for theese helpful bits. I too have a few quick questions if I might:

When is it good NOT to build city improvements?
like - does every city need a forge, or a factory, or whatever?

All buildings (improvements are what your workers do) are useful, but some more useful than others. If a city is production with little commerce, you want a forge long before a library. Your holy city with a lucrative shrine should have a market/grocer/bank ASAP. By the end you may have all buildings but it's a matter of priority. That new wonder worth building if your next door neighbor is going to take your city?

I find in my marginal cities especciall, 1/2 dessert, low food/commerce potential, max population around say 10, whats the best use? Do you build a few basics, throw in the towel and just turn them over to science/ gold production, and never build another improvement there again? How do you judge if its worth 10 turns to build a market, banks, or other semi-expensive imrovement?

I manage the best I can. Usually there is some decent resource or land which is why you settler there. Sometimes I'll settle on ice just because it's my only access to oil. They are soso.

Another item .. Whats the best way to rate a game early on ? I'm very new at rating leaders, and what their potential strenghts/weaknesses are. Also

There are some excellent articles talking about traits and trait combos. The majority think financial and philosophical are the best. I tend to include organized myself. Charismatic and agressive are the best warring traits. If you want good leaders to start with take Elizabeth (financial/philosophical), Darius (Organized/financial), Bouduca (agressive, charismatic), Hannibal (financial, charismatic), Hyuna Capac (Industrious, financial)

Finally:
I've been playing a lot of "quick" civ .... is this a bad thing ? I'm betting it leads to playing a certain few strategies and things .. and pros or cons ? This is left over from Civ3 playing on GameSpy .. all those ancient starts.

whatever speed you are comfortable with. Myself I prefer marathon and take several days to play the same game.

I'm very interested in playing harder levels of play now... I can whip the AI on noble quite a bit, getting a 5,000 to 10,000 score with a culture win or just points. But normally I'm so far ahead I could have done a conquest or domination win before then just by trying. What I really want to do is start learning to do winning on Prince and higher settings, then eventually racking up those BIG points totals.

score points are generally insignificant. They favor early victories with lot's of land, not a well played late tech/spaceship win. It is something to use to gauge how you stack against an AI (if your last there is a problem) but is not a end all.

Thanks !
John[/QUOTE]

Your welcome.

 

[futurehermit]

Although in BTS the can scout out your defenses with spies anyway, open borders or nonw.

Ah yes, very true. There really isn't much reason not to open borders these days unless you're trying to block off territory or unless there are severe diplomatic relations you are trying to negotiate.

 

[seizer]

Guys - as a Fellow Noob (but not totally) TY TY TY for theese helpful bits. I too have a few quick questions if I might:

When is it good NOT to build city improvements?
like - does every city need a forge, or a factory, or whatever?

I use as a rule of thumb: if the building will "generate" more than 4 commerce/science/gold per turn, it gets built.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

When is it good NOT to build city improvements?
like - does every city need a forge, or a factory, or whatever?

It is not a good idea to build a city improvement any time something else is more valuable than the improvement.

 

[Belisar]

I find in my marginal cities especciall, 1/2 dessert, low food/commerce potential, max population around say 10, whats the best use?

Most of your cities in a typical game should be founded based on economic desicions, meaning maxing ressources and fertile tiles.
If you have a lot of marginal cities (with standard map settings) you should reconsider your city-placement (for example planing ahead by making dot-maps)

There are exceptions what I call strategic placement, for a number of reasons including getting a vital ressource (as stated by madscientist), blocking land from the AI or generally filling unclaimed territory.
But even if you found such cities you should try to max the economical value.
Example: A peninsula with tundra and ice but a shiny ressource you need desperately, you would make the city 1) coastal, and 2) maxing sea-tiles.
1) gives you a potentially ok income from trade routes and
2) while beeing only so-so sea-tiles can be at least self-supporting in terms of food and add commerce.
That said, most of my marginal cities will get decent commerce cities.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Land Improvements:
City Specializations:
Special Citizens:
?

City specialization IS how you decide what land improvements and special citizens you use.

-A production city will get farms and mines and watermills. You won't build a single cottage or windmill in a "production" city that is optimized to build hammers (i.e. units). Build the forge, skip the university and bank.
-A commerce city will get farms and cottages and windmills. You won't build a single watermill or mine in a optimized commerce city. Factories (and sometimes even the forge) are usually a waste of your scarce hammers.
-A GP city is food rich (a minimum of two special food tiles for a really good GP city), spending all its time building the buildings that let you work the most city specialists, and where you managed to build key GP improvement wonder/buildings. No cottages go here.

It took me forever to realize that you almost never have to build a unit in a commerce city... just build one in the production city real quick, and MOVE it to the commerce city. A commerce city pays the bills and feeds your tech progress, while a production city builds your entire army. This one realization moved me up a whole difficulty level in skill.

edit- earlier posts were more specific (I should have read more of the responses first) but hopefully they all help. (I noticed my answers all have unspoken exceptions, but those were covered earlier. )

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I'll toss in my 2 on a couple points:

City Specializations: Same deal as Land Improvements. I've read guides, but still kind of lost. What exactly is a commerce city? I always tend to focus on city growth, so lots of farms and such. After all, bigger is better, right? Well from what I've read, apparently not...how do I balance specializing a city for commerce/production with adequate food/growth? How do I determine if a city should be specialized a certain way (specifics would be appreciated!)? I really have trouble getting a "GP Farm" going - my best cities only generate a few GPs in a standard game (usually over by about 1500-1900 AD).

This is a topic particularly near-and-dear to my heart and the area of improvement I give credit for allowing me to play at Monarch.

I recently gave my brother a walkthrough on how I dotmap and choose a city's specialization. I decided to share that knowledge on the forums also, so here is the strategy article I wrote on City Specialization and where I do it.

I'm not sure I can sum it up very effectively here, but basically, prior to the Industrial Era, your land is the biggest factor in determining how to specialize a city. Coming in a very close second to that is what your empire actually needs (i.e., not building/specializing yet another production city when your economy is in the crapper).

The lay of the land is typically going to be heavy in one or more of 3 things: , or . Of those 3, is the one most affected by tile improvements, civics and technology, so you'll be doing most of the work when building up a strong city. On the other hand, and are more "natural", so you want to utilize them as best as possible when available.

As an oversimplification:

Look at your dotmap and rank your cities based on their available food from resources only, feedable production from resources and hills and commerce from resources and feedable potential Towns.

I think having a good production city is most important, so pick the best production site and specialize it for Military spam. Of what's left, take either the best food or production site and specialize it as a GP Farm. Of what's left, take the best commerce area (usually a bunch of riverside grasslands with decent food and ok production) and specialize it for Commerce.

As another oversimplification:

In an economy where your science slider is above 50% (such as a CE), your best Commerce City should be your Science City; and your best Gold City should be a Religious Shrine, Corporate Headquarters or Merchant-Specialist City.

In an economy where your science slider is below 50% (such as an SE), your best Commerce City and/or Shrine City should be your Gold City; and your best Science City should be a Scientist-Specialist city.​

In similar fashion, continue down your list of cities and choose a specialization for each city (many of these will likely change around the Renaissance/Industrial Era ... which is ok). After the top 3 or 4 cities, the type of specialization each city will receive is largely dependent upon what type of victory you're seeking (i.e., A military victory typically calls for more production centres ...)

City specialization IS how you decide what land improvements and special citizens you use.

QFT.

How you specialize each city helps you determine the city's build order and specialist/citizen assignment.​

Special Citizens: How and when should I use the specialists (scientist, artist, engineer, etc.)? Is there a certain population where I should start focusing on these guys? How do I know which specialist to use in which city? I'm completely lost.

Hand-in-hand with my view on specializing cities, decide from turn one what the city is going to become. Not only will that help determine if the city needs any specialists at all, but it also helps determine what type of specialist to assign there (i.e, If the city is a commerce or production city, you typically won't assign many specialists; and most of the specialists you do assign will likely be Engineers or Priests.)

As to when to assign them, I typically grow the city to its target population quickly and then assign the specialists to the point of stagnation. I'm not sure if this is the best method, but it's always served me well, so I keep doing it that way.

I'm also terrible at producing culture - I feel like I'm producing every cultural improvement possible, but I'm still no where near having three legendary cities. Is that a particularly tough victory condition? Thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can offer.

I think the Cultural Victory is the hardest easy victory condition. The concept is very simple, and given the entire length of the game (especially in BtS), it's fairly simple to accomplish. However, quickly and effectively executing a strong, early Cultural Victory is an artform involving a fair amount of luck and a large amount of focused early-game management (especially in the form of city specialization).

Many of the finer points of cultural mechanics are explained in the post, Culture Mechanics Disassembled.


I hope some of that was helpful ...


-- my 2