Condensed tips for beginners?

[yanner39]

I wouldn't say it this way, JujuLaute, I'd say growing costs only half as much food with a granary as without. It has no effect on the food output at all.

Thank you to both mystyfly and JujuLaute.

So in essence, a granary will allow a city to grow faster without increasing the food production. When it would normally take a city 4 turns to grown, with a granary it would take only 2.

Would a disadvantage of a granary be that the city grows to a point where there is isn't enough food in the BFC to sustain it?

 

[JujuLautre]

So in essence, a granary will allow a city to grow faster without increasing the food production. When it would normally take a city 4 turns to grown, with a granary it would take only 2.

Yup; after, you can say that it's like having the food output doubled like me, or that it takes half less time to grow the city like mystyfly, it's up to you

Would a disadvantage of a granary be that the city grows to a point where there is isn't enough food in the BFC to sustain it?

Definitely not; you will grow to that point anyway, and there is usually no real negative point in growing faster

 

[Sian]

well ... in some very rare cases you'll grow that fast that early that you'll have to whip faster than the unhappyness from it disappear ...

 

[mystyfly]

You don't have to work your foodtiles.

Also, there lies an advantage of tile overlapping.

 

[CynicalMagician]

I know that Granary is compulsory in every city, but what if you're playing a non-Creative leader and wanted to grow a city's BFC? Do you build Theatre? Library? Monument?

A few options. My favourite early game is to wait until 1 turn before the city grows from 1 to 2 and start building a monument, then whip it next turn for 1 pop.

Chopping one forest for a monument can get it out pretty quick, especially if you work a plains forest or something else that makes decent hammers until it's done. If you have a good food source it's better to do the former though, and use the forest for something more useful.

I don't usually build stonehenge, because I don't usually want GPs (I let the AI found religions and then take their shrines). The times I do are when I'm far from boxed in and I know I'll be building at least 5 or 6 cities peacefully, and I have lots of forests and/or stone and/or an industrious leader. In my opinion the hammers are usually better spent on more settlers/workers.

For my interior cities I use libraries, since I almost always want the library anyway, and getting culture out instantly isn't as important for seizing tiles from the enemy (or blocking areas off). I like the library over theatres.

With a state religion and a missionary missionary, if I'm settling away from rivers, roads, or coasts, I drop the missionary in right away to get the +1 culture (rivers, roads, and coasts means trade routes and connections to your other religious cities, which typically means the religion will spread there quickly on its own).

The incans have the terrace which is the best early UB in the game as far as I'm concerned. It's the granary with +2 culture. Awesome to build/chop first in new cities.

After drama you can build culture in cities. Doing this for 3 or 4 turns at the start is a simple option.

Specialists can be used sometimes, particularly with some combination of caste system, mercantilism, sistine chapel, statue of liberty. Running an artist for a few turns pops your borders quick, at the expense of growth.

 

[morin37]

No matter how I a start my city I always get my butt kicked..... I settle next to foods as I cultivate it the group armies move in for the kill.

 

[yanner39]

You don't have to work your foodtiles.

Also, there lies an advantage of tile overlapping.

Come again?

 

[yanner39]

well ... in some very rare cases you'll grow that fast that early that you'll have to whip faster than the unhappyness from it disappear ...

This what I thought as well. If you grow too fast, more unhappy citizens. Thankfully, I know how to deal with that now.

 

[mystyfly]

Having a tile in more than just one city BFC is tile overlapping. This way, both cities (only one at a time OFC) can work the tile. For example a grown city (that shouldn't grow anymore due to -cap) can "lend" a food-tile to a city that is still growing. To change the city that works the tile, just click on it. This way you can also direct which city gets a chop, should the forest be in more than one city's BFC.

A good idea is to have your cottage-spam city grow and only work matured cottages while surrounding cities "develop" newer cottages, as your major cottage should have more resesarch-multipliers. Example of good use of overlapping: The cottagespam city probabely wants an university, so you work mines. Instead of having your cottages and hamlet stagnate in growing, your surrounding cities mature them so that once the university is done, you'll probabely have towns to work, which is kind of best-case-scenario

 

[yanner39]

Pretty sure I know the answer here, but building a farm or cottage outside a city's BFC does not make more food/commerce available for that city right? Same goes for the effect of a workshop?

If so, what should be built there? In my current game, the cultural borders of my capital city has pushed out quite alot and I am finding myself with alot of free space outside the BFC. I can't really create another city since it is too close to the BFC of my capital city.

What can I do?

Also, this was probably answered before, but each turn, I keep getting blue circles around mines I have built on hills near one of my city. Now I know this circles are suggestions. However, I have no idea what is being suggested. The mines yield the highest production rate, I have road built. What else could it be?

 

[JujuLautre]

Exact. Improvements outside BFC's usually give no benefit. With one huge exception, which is the present of the correct improvement (or a fort in BTS) on a resource, which combined with a road/river/coast can give you access to that resource.

As for the blue circles... Well, sometimes the computer has weird ideas But in the current situation, he perhaps suggests to put a windmill on the hill.

 

[yanner39]

Exact. Improvements outside BFC's usually give no benefit. With one huge exception, which is the present of the correct improvement (or a fort in BTS) on a resource, which combined with a road/river/coast can give you access to that resource.

As for the blue circles... Well, sometimes the computer has weird ideas But in the current situation, he perhaps suggests to put a windmill on the hill.

Thanks Juju. I thought of putting a windmill, but this is for my production city and from what I could see, a windmill would not produce more hammers than a mine? Am I wrong?

Also, any suggestions on what I should build as improvements on land outside the BFC apart from a fort?

 

[JujuLautre]

nope, no suggestion; unless you want to build improvements in advance for a new city or you want to trick the AI into making them pillage where they should not, I see no use.

Also, unless you fear attacks or want to keep forests/jungles, build improvements more than forts on resources.

 

[Hurricane]

Pretty sure I know the answer here, but building a farm or cottage outside a city's BFC does not make more food/commerce available for that city right? Same goes for the effect of a workshop?

If so, what should be built there? In my current game, the cultural borders of my capital city has pushed out quite alot and I am finding myself with alot of free space outside the BFC. I can't really create another city since it is too close to the BFC of my capital city.

What can I do?

If there is no particular reason to improve the tile, I would not touch it. With a little luck, a forest might grow there. Chopping it gives some extra hammers.

 

[DionyKH]

This is a simple question, I suppose, so I'll put it here.

When I'm the only civ on a continent, should I prioritize making my cultural boundaries take up all of the land area? Will get a screen of the continent soon.

 

[mystyfly]

You don't need to have the land covered in culture ASAP. Don't overespand, you usually need economic techs like CoL, currency and Sailing first.

Having cities (and/or units) fogbust (avoid "dark" tiles) avoids barbs. You don't always want to avoid barbs as they can be useful in several ways: 1) You can use them as "bootcamps" to have a units reach 10xp to unlock HE or 2) you "cultivate" them to build cities/tile improvements where you get free cash for razing/pillaging.

 

[bramirez]

Not sure this is the place to ask the question but in simple terms: how does speed of play and size of map interfere with normal play: standard size and speed

Advantages and disadvantages

 

[CCRunner]

Slower speeds are massive advantages to warmongers because techs and building take longer but unit movement speeds remain the same. Therefore, it is easy to take out several close civs with any unit before it goes obsolete. Larger maps counteract this becuase it takes longer to get to an enemy civ. Also, larger maps generally have higher pop cities because there are more happy/health resources.

For faster speeds and smaller maps, just reverse what I said.

 

[bramirez]

Slower speeds are massive advantages to warmongers because techs and building take longer but unit movement speeds remain the same. Therefore, it is easy to take out several close civs with any unit before it goes obsolete. Larger maps counteract this becuase it takes longer to get to an enemy civ. Also, larger maps generally have higher pop cities because there are more happy/health resources.

For faster speeds and smaller maps, just reverse what I said.

Any thread discusses this in detail. I failed to find one.

 

[CCRunner]

None that I know of. Sorry.