Condensed tips for beginners?

[lobster]

Sorry if this is too noob... but how should I choose between Mercantilism and Free Market?

I'm not sure which one is better under what conditions.... I always use Mercantilism but I don't know if I'm missing out something here for not using the FM.

 

[cabert]

Sorry if this is too noob... but how should I choose between Mercantilism and Free Market?

I'm not sure which one is better under what conditions.... I always use Mercantilism but I don't know if I'm missing out something here for not using the FM.

the question is not noob at all (but sticking with mercantilism every time is )
this is a very much discussed issue.

My guess is (not taking into account anarchy from going from to the other) it's better to use relevant combos.
Mercantilism pairs well with representation and caste sytem (and in a lesser extent with pacifism).
Free market pairs well with bureaucracy (and in some indirect way with "cottage happy" civics).

If you cannot use caste system (because you run slavery and don't want to lose the ability to whip), mercantilism is a soso civic, since newly built/conquered city will only give you a free citizen=1 hammer
If you have representation, it's 1 hammer and 3 beakers
Sounds better, but you totally lose the flexibility of the specialists.
A free artist in a fresh city is giving you expansion in just a few turns.

other point, under mercantilism, you have no foreign trade routes. Those routes are very good, if they exist (ie there are enough foreign cities for all the trade routes for all your cities + open borders).
Under free market you have more trade routes, including foreign ones. But if there aren't more foreign cities than trade routes, the new trade routes will be domestic (= 1 gold)!

Meaning there is a point where free market gives just 1 more base commerce to every city (not exactly true since best cities get the routes first, and they have the better multipliers most of the time).

To sum this up :
if you have more than 40% of the cities (use the land %, in the victory screen, a good enough approximation), don't bother with Free market. Stick with mercantilism+caste system (+representation if you can) until State Property is available.
if you have less than 20 % cities, free market may be better. caste system is probably not usefull anymore then. Emancipation or slavery are better.
If you have a large empire, state property is usually better than both Mercantilism and free market.

 

[MrCynical]

Sorry if this is too noob... but how should I choose between Mercantilism and Free Market?

I'm not sure which one is better under what conditions.... I always use Mercantilism but I don't know if I'm missing out something here for not using the FM.

A good rule of thumb is: Are you able to open borders with anyone at all? If the answer is yes, you should be running Free Market. Mercantilism will almost invariably do more harm than good to a cottage based economy (yes, it's even worse than Decentralization), and is of debatable value to a specialist based one. It is only good if you can't form foreign trade routes anyway, i.e. you are at war or on too poor terms with all other civs to get open borders.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Hello first time poster here (and yes, as so many others, long time lurker). I'm a CIV-novis, haven't played any of the other titles in the series but am seriously hooked on this game. Just one short question about worker activity. If you got some badly placed citys that doesn't fill all the tiles between their fat crosses, are thoose tiles wasted then? When my workers have cultivated all the tiles within the fat crosses I usually set them to work those "lost tiles" as well. Is there any gain in doing this or is it better just to put them workers to sleep and shorten the turns from useless activity? And just to clarify, I'm not talking about resource tiles, just regular tiles.

And by the way...

Got my first domination victory on Noble today. Whooopie! I'm going after a cultural victory with my next game. Playing as Ghandi on a continents map, sharing my continent with Toku. Could be interessting. Going over to read the beginners crash course to cultural victory now.

 

[MrCynical]

There's no benefit to improving non-resource tiles that are not in a city's fat cross. The only small exception is that it is occasionally necessary to build farms outside the faqt crosses of cities in order to connect up irrigation. Building cottages, workshops, lumbermills and so on outside fat crosses is always pointless.

 

[lobster]

Thanks guys for all your help!

 

[yavoon]

A good rule of thumb is: Are you able to open borders with anyone at all? If the answer is yes, you should be running Free Market. Mercantilism will almost invariably do more harm than good to a cottage based economy (yes, it's even worse than Decentralization), and is of debatable value to a specialist based one. It is only good if you can't form foreign trade routes anyway, i.e. you are at war or on too poor terms with all other civs to get open borders.

I dont think this is true, if ur going for domination it can be beneficial to deny other ppl the open trade routes. the computer can be massively helped by ur cities which are generally big, numerous, and far away. while u get much less benefit from his less numerous cities.

 

[opus95]

I remember seeing this concept mentioned, but now I can't remember where.
Is it possible to "pre-build" a stack of units in a city?
In other words, building a unit up to the point where it's "one turn to go" (it's ready to appear the next turn) but then stopping, and starting a new unit up to the "one turn to go" point, etc., so that you can have, say, 5 units all "one turn to go"? I've tried doing this, but when I try to use the "control" key to put the next unit at a the top of the list, it still appears below in the queue. How do you do this, if it's possible?

Thanks

 

[DaveMcW]

I cant seem to set rally points. I select a city, right click an empty tile, get a yellow circle on it, but then nothing moves to that tile. very annoying! how I do fix it?

Turn off auto-promote to make rally points work.

 

[UncleJJ]

I remember seeing this concept mentioned, but now I can't remember where.
Is it possible to "pre-build" a stack of units in a city?
In other words, building a unit up to the point where it's "one turn to go" (it's ready to appear the next turn) but then stopping, and starting a new unit up to the "one turn to go" point, etc., so that you can have, say, 5 units all "one turn to go"? I've tried doing this, but when I try to use the "control" key to put the next unit at a the top of the list, it still appears below in the queue. How do you do this, if it's possible?

Thanks

Yes this is possible. It is particularly useful if you want to build a lot of units under Vassalge and Theocracy for the extra exp. What I do is say assign an Infantry and let it start building and when it has 1 turn left I assign a Marine and then later a Tank. I do that in several cities while running other civics like Free Speech and Organised Religion for the rest of my empire.

When I want to build my army I switch to Vassalage and Theocracy and the units pop out on successive turns Tank, Marine and Infantry. That is is very useful to build a high quality army and avoid paying maintenance. Also you run other civics like Free Speech and Organised Religion that are more useful for cities not involved in the military build up.

Concerning the second part of your question, I have never found a way to build 2 units of the same type (say 2 Infantry) in this way as it always defaults back to the one I started. But as long as you are satified with differnet unit types it is a very useful technique.

 

[thadeus]

Been reading the boards, need some clarification.

What does it mean to "pop rush."

Please explain CS slingshot.

What is "spamming a religeon" or spamming anything?

Are these strategies legit or considered under handed?

Thanks.

 

[cabert]

Been reading the boards, need some clarification.

What does it mean to "pop rush."

it's, when under slavery civic, you spend population to finish a building/unit (arrow going up, over the governor's buttons)

Please explain CS slingshot.

slingshots are done by burning great persons on expensive techs. For this you need to not research some techs (although valuable) and research others (although not so great). The CS slingshot is a combo with the Oracle and the Great Prophet you can get from it.

What is "spamming a religeon" or spamming anything?

It's a massive building of missiobaries that you send everywhere around the map. This way, the religion becomes dominant, and if you have the shrine for it, you let the gold flow in...
spamming is a notion of massive action (cottage spamming is improving almost every tile to a cottage)

Are these strategies legit or considered under handed?

no problem with those strats
personnaly i dn't like the slingshots, because you feel you have a tech lead but in fact you don't

Thanks.

you're welcome

 

[russinmn]

If you are playing at higher difficulty, dont research alphabete, research writing and make a beeline to the tech to build oracle, then have at least 2 worker chop wood to rush build oracle, use the free tech bonus to get alphabete. alphabete is just too expensive to research early.

I disagree a tad. What I do is research to get Oracle going and while it's being built, I research writing so my free tech is Theology and I have a religion with a missionary. I chop the trees to make sure I get Oracle. I have been beaten more than once so I don't like that.

 

[Lukitas]

im a begginer, but im improving a lot, learning from my own mistakes, and this are the tips thet i´ve found from my own:

1- Play normal speed at first, so you can finish some games and realize how the game structure works.

2- Focus in your objective. Read and think very well what are the benefits of each thing you build, or religion you adopt, according to your objective. Example, if you want to win killing everyone, only focus on everything that helps you in a military way. Everything else will come by trading or not, but you don´t give a f**k cause you have the biggest army, the giant penis.

3- Stablish the first city in the place where you begin, no matter how bad it is. Then, think (a lot) where do you want to put your 2do city, according to resources. The first one will give you a quick start, and the 2nd one the goodies.

4- Go first for a religion. It´s important to have one as soon as possible, to have bonuses in each city.

I hear suggestions and corrections if i have amistake here. Bye

 

[cabert]

im a begginer, but im improving a lot, learning from my own mistakes, and this are the tips thet i´ve found from my own:

1- Play normal speed at first, so you can finish some games and realize how the game structure works.

2- Focus in your objective. Read and think very well what are the benefits of each thing you build, or religion you adopt, according to your objective. Example, if you want to win killing everyone, only focus on everything that helps you in a military way. Everything else will come by trading or not, but you don´t give a f**k cause you have the biggest army, the giant penis.

3- Stablish the first city in the place where you begin, no matter how bad it is. Then, think (a lot) where do you want to put your 2do city, according to resources. The first one will give you a quick start, and the 2nd one the goodies.

4- Go first for a religion. It´s important to have one as soon as possible, to have bonuses in each city.

I hear suggestions and corrections if i have amistake here. Bye

4 is wrong. At higher levels you won't get the religion anyway, and what is more you can get religions without founding them! They spread like plague
The reast is kind of alright, but can be wrong in specific situations.

 

[HectorSpector]

3- Stablish the first city in the place where you begin, no matter how bad it is. Then, think (a lot) where do you want to put your 2do city, according to resources. The first one will give you a quick start, and the 2nd one the goodies.

Agree with that to a certain extent. The game will always put you in a starting spot with decent resources. Some may not be immediately apparent, but you will usually have hidden resources in your fat cross if you only have visible at spawn.

 

[Bre]

What is "fat cross"? I'm new to the game.

 

[MrCynical]

A city's "fat cross" is the area of tiles that it is possible for the city to use. This are consists of 21 tiles (including the tile the city is on), arranged inthe shape of a 5x5 square with the corner tiles missing. This vaguely resembles an extremely thick cross.

 

[General N]

The two most important things you can do for both the Civ newcomer and the die-hard Civ fan...

1. Read the manual. (Seriously, READ it. Very important)
2. Read the manual a few more times.

Whera I am going to find them. I usualy find only manual for civ II III ...

 

[frankcor]

Whera I am going to find them.

The manual comes with the CD in the box you bought at the store.