Condensed tips for beginners?

[cabert]

I know there probably has to be some thread about it somewhere but i am not in a mood to look for the answer there...

Soo If I build research are those hammers multiplied by library/uni/OU?

depends on the version you play
vanilla yes, but you start out with 1 beaker for 2 base hammers
other versions no, and it's 1 beaker for 1 "modified" hammer

 

[vranasm]

depends on the version you play
vanilla yes, but you start out with 1 beaker for 2 base hammers
other versions no, and it's 1 beaker for 1 "modified" hammer

ah thanks. So it basically is about trade commerce, specs and riverside if i don't build cottages. (we're talking bts).

 

[Sisiutil]

Ok, so this seems to be my problem now I'm running into rapid pop growth, but there's not enough buildings or bonus resources to even out the happiness in those villages.

So, the fix then is to make more workers or settlers. I'm gonna go with workers since it is AD and I have the recommended 6 villages.

I have been trying to build cottages, yet the economy is only +3 per turn. I am running the science beaker at 100% though. Is this what the cottages are for? Or am I not using the gold from the cottages correctly?

Thanks for all the n00b help everyone, it's making the game very enjoyable, although a bit more complicated

The fix also includes incorporating a few bonus resources in the fat cross, and to research the techs that allow to improve them.

Running the slider at 100% science is not unusual early in the game when your cities are small, as is your empire. You should expect to have to lower the slider to keep in the black as the game progresses. As a novice player, try to keep the slider in the 50% - 70% range when at peace (you can expect to have to lower the slider below 50% during and for several turns after a war, especially if you conquer some cities). Trying to keep the slider at 100% through the whole game is a common (if understandable) beginner's mistake.

The cottages come into play here. Early in the game they won't make much difference as they are immature and not bringing in much commerce; fortunately your expenses are low, so you don't need much commerce. As the game goes on, your expenses rise, but the cottages mature, bringing in more commerce. You will also have completed some buildings (market, grocer, bank) that multiply those maturing cottages' income.

Back to the slider: you can use its position as a gauge for what you should be doing. When it has to fall below 50% to turn a profit, you should concentrate on improving your economy; when it rises to 70% or higher, you should expand (either peacefully or through war).

As Cabert said of his advice above, these are not hard and fast rules. They are guidelines for a beginner; the more comfortable and confident you become with the game, the more you can stray from them.

 

[Ghengas Moz]

So what do you do to improve your economy if you've already built a market,grocer,and bank in the villages?

Also, I know this is gonna be a n00b question, but at what populations is the BFC expanding...and how many tiles in each direction is that village able to work? This question is assuming that the village in question is not abutting another village,competing for workable tiles. The reason I ask is, I settled a village with 3 gold resource tiles around it, but had to move a bit away from 2 of them so i could include a rice resource for food. Now the village is 14 pop,has a couple world wonders and has yet to expand its workable tiles (to the right in the village screen where you click which tiles to work) to include these other 2 gold resources. I'd like to mine them for the big money gain,but I'm not able to. Why?

 

[Ghengas Moz]

Oh, I did manage to found Christianity and spread it to a couple other civilizations and also to a couple of my village. When I sailed to the other continent, one of the things I threw into a negotiation with Julius Caesar was "convert to Christianity".
My question, do I receive income from the civilizations I spread Christianity to, or just from the Roman civilization's towns because they "converted"?

Man, soooo many different concepts in this game!!

 

[Sisiutil]

So what do you do to improve your economy if you've already built a market,grocer,and bank in the villages?

You have to have citizens assigned to work the tiles with cottages. This is done in the city screen. The commerce multipliers won't do you much good if there's very little commerce to multiply.

Also, I know this is gonna be a n00b question, but at what populations is the BFC expanding...and how many tiles in each direction is that village able to work? This question is assuming that the village in question is not abutting another village,competing for workable tiles. The reason I ask is, I settled a village with 3 gold resource tiles around it, but had to move a bit away from 2 of them so i could include a rice resource for food. Now the village is 14 pop,has a couple world wonders and has yet to expand its workable tiles (to the right in the village screen where you click which tiles to work) to include these other 2 gold resources. I'd like to mine them for the big money gain,but I'm not able to. Why?

The BFC will expand almost indefinitely, but each border expansion requires more culture, not population, in order to expand. You can only assign citizens to work tiles within the 21 tiles around the city, including the BFC--essentially a 5x5 box, excluding the 4 corners:

XOOOX
OOOOO
OOOOO
OOOOO
XOOOX

Any resources outside of that "Big Fat Cross" can be claimed by eventual border expansion, but cannot be worked by a citizen unless they fall into the BFC of another city. You may be able to trade those resources for other resources you lack, or for gold per turn, so it's still worthwhile having them.

Trading surplus resources for gold per turn (GPT) is another way to help your economy. So are trade routes.

All of these concepts--commerce, culture, the BFC, etc.--are covered in more detail in my Beginners' Guide (link in my sig). If you haven't read it yet, you might want to have a look.

Oh, I did manage to found Christianity and spread it to a couple other civilizations and also to a couple of my village. When I sailed to the other continent, one of the things I threw into a negotiation with Julius Caesar was "convert to Christianity".
My question, do I receive income from the civilizations I spread Christianity to, or just from the Roman civilization's towns because they "converted"?

Man, soooo many different concepts in this game!!

It is a very complex game, and that's why so many of us love it. Again, I recommend having a look at my Beginners' Guide.

To obtain income from spreading a religion, you must build the shrine in the holy city where the religion was founded. To build the shrine, you must produce a Great Prophet, a type of Great Person; send him to the holy city and one of his/her action buttons will be to build the shrine. Once built, that city gets 1 for every city, foreign or domestic, with that religion present. Make sure you build all the commerce multipliers in that city, and if the religion spreads enough, you will eventually want to build Wall Street there.

 

[Ghengas Moz]

Ok, that was an amazing read,thanks. I like the part about combing Mt Rushmore, Police State, and Jails to equal 0% war wariness. That's awesome right there

I'll have to move through each of these concepts in my future games and attempt to blend them each time I play. I'm on my second game after reading some guides and posts. I began using the thought processes behind GPs and growth, but quickly got stomped by an opportunistic AI warmonger as I was waaaay behind in my military count.

So next game I took the GP thought process and duplicated it, but kept an eye on my military numbers and also put more emphasis on creating a solid base for a CE. I'll have to take your advice and put Wall Street in the village that founded Christianity to reap the financial rewards from that (playing as America too). So far I am number 1 in culture,strength, and wealth

Thanks for the tips fellas!!

 

[SneakyJes]

I'm really focusing on city specialization and city placement. The one question I have is when you make a Gp farm, which GPs should you make and what do you use them for? Is there a guide out there for that, or is someone willing to expand on that a bit?

Thanks

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm really focusing on city specialization and city placement. The one question I have is when you make a Gp farm, which GPs should you make and what do you use them for? Is there a guide out there for that, or is someone willing to expand on that a bit?

Thanks

Check my Beginners' Guide (link in my sig) for more information.

Produce whatever Great People--or mix of them--fit into your strategy and desired victory condition. Furthermore, the GPs you want may change as the game progresses. For example, you may found a religion and want to produce a Great Prophet early in the game to build the religion's shrine in the holy city; after that, you may want to produce Great Scientists to "lightbulb" your way through the Liberalism race; after that, you may want to produce the GPs you need to found the corporations you want (a Great Engineer for Mining Inc. and a Great Merchant for Sid's Sushi are my favourites). But in a different game, these goals may vary, prompting you to attempt to produce different Great People.

 

[SneakyJes]

Thanks Sisiutil. I've been reading it, just hadn't gotten to that part yet!

I've also been reading 3-4 guides about specialization. One question I have is whether it's more important to place a city to maximize the bonus tiles within the cross or to place it to mazimize the overall tiles based on the specialization you want? Hope that makes sense.

Thanks

 

[Sisiutil]

Thanks Sisiutil. I've been reading it, just hadn't gotten to that part yet!

I've also been reading 3-4 guides about specialization. One question I have is whether it's more important to place a city to maximize the bonus tiles within the cross or to place it to mazimize the overall tiles based on the specialization you want? Hope that makes sense.

Thanks

I usually base the specialization upon the bonus tiles. For example, if I can place a city to claim at least 2-3 food resources along with several tiles with a fresh water source, it's going to be a specialist city. If I can place it to claim a few dye, gem, or gold tiles, it's going to devote itself to commerce.

Now if I have a location that combines those resources, I may place the cities to accentuate the specializations. For example, rather than placing one city to claim all the food and dye tiles, I will probably shift things around so that I get 2 cities--one claiming the food and running specialists, the other claiming the commerce tiles (and hopefully another food tile, without stealing one from the specialist city).

Hope that helps.

 

[cabert]

city specialisation is something that works a lot better when you have a lot of cities.
If you only have a handful+1, you just need to know where you're going to put your national wonders.
Thus if you're in "low number of cities" mode, your specialisation is not real, it's all about taking your best city for every purpose.

If you're in "high number of cities" mode, several of them will have only marginal resources. Not enough to decide for a specialisation.

My guess is to "specialise" from what you need.
If you're low on commerce, choose a good commerce site and specialize for commerce.
If you don't have good GP farms, look for one, settle it and work it.
If you're low on production, look for a good production site and get all those units you want...

 

[pigswill]

Btw don't confuse civ borders with BFC. A city can only ever work tiles inside the 21 tile BFC while borders expand beyond the BFC depending on culture.

 

[steve_w]

I've just finished reading all of the previous 2073 posts (and have virtually lost my eyesight!)
A big thank you to all the experts for your very detailed answers. I now feel ready to make the move up from Noble

 

[steve_w]

Should I be exchanging maps? I never do - I consider it giving the AI a huge advantage.

 

[Sisiutil]

Should I be exchanging maps? I never do - I consider it giving the AI a huge advantage.

It's all about timing. If winning the circumnavigation race is going to be valuable on your current map, then yes, keep your world map close to your chest. Also, if you've found a somewhat isolated and unsettled landmass you wish to claim, you may want to keep its existence under wraps until you get settlers there.

But once those races are over, you can sell your world map for a not-inconsiderable amount of gold to other civs--often more than once, since you'll often get their world maps thrown into the deal and will be able to turn around and sell the even-more-complete map to the same buyers. Frankly, if the AI doesn't get the map from you, they'll get it from each other, so you may as well benefit from it while you can.

Obtaining more complete world maps can benefit you in other ways as well. Your trade routes may get recalculated and become more lucrative, for one thing. You have more knowledge about the AI and they about you, but that's balanced.

Finally, remember that obtaining maps may help you win the circumnavigation race. I can sometimes trade techs and have the AI throw their map into the deal while I keep mine to myself. A few times I've even been able to do this and with the circ race without building a single boat!

 

[Ghengas Moz]

Im finding that trading maps is also a good way to secure resources that may have not popped up for the AI yet... due to my lead in the tech race. Makes for a good choice of where to put settlers so as to keep the AI down, militarily speaking anyways.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Im finding that trading maps is also a good way to secure resources that may have not popped up for the AI yet... due to my lead in the tech race. Makes for a good choice of where to put settlers so as to keep the AI down, militarily speaking anyways.

Another potential uses of maps involves the Liberalism beeline. If you're the first to paper, you can make the AI pay through the nose for maps. If you buy somebody's map, you can then shop it around to the others. You can get 100's of gold this way. IIRC the AI doesn't see the resources on your maps until they research the tech to see the resource. In other words, after Sci Method you can see their oil but they can't if they don't have Sci Method. You can then explore and sell the maps again when the AI is getting close to paper themselves.

 

[vranasm]

how viable it is to fight WE+cats war against protective longbows? I have not much practice with medieval warfare since i usually try to skip this era with cuirs after Lib, but I am now trying some game where I think about stomping the continent with WE's and cats and am not sure how quickly the AI's get to LB's

 

[cabert]

how viable it is to fight WE+cats war against protective longbows? I have not much practice with medieval warfare since i usually try to skip this era with cuirs after Lib, but I am now trying some game where I think about stomping the continent with WE's and cats and am not sure how quickly the AI's get to LB's

It's possible but the cost is really high.
It's only a good option if you don't have any easier target nor any way to get maces or trebuchet short term.
you will lose something like 3 catapults before hurting the top defender... After that, it's easy, but it means you're losing at least 3 catapults per city.