Condensed tips for beginners?

[JayaTheCat]

So barracks it is then. Cheers for all the helpful responses

 

[damerell]

I noticed some players conserve using their promotions on units when they go to war, choosing to use them after a battle to heal quickly. The downside, of course, is that you have weaker troops. What is the optimal choice?

In my view, it depends if you have a tech lead or not. If you do not, many of your troops are going to die; an untaken promotion does them no good, so promote them first and give them a better chance of not dying.

If you do, most of your troops will survive their first assault anyway, without the promotion; so an untaken promotion will let them heal rapidly, keeping a blitzkrieg going.

But it also depends on the ease of natural healing. Are there units with Medic promotions available? Is it a short walk to friendly or neutral territory (or even a co-belligerent's city), or is sea transport available to take injured units out of enemy territory, or are we using tanks and mechanised infantry which can retreat quickly when damaged? All of these would suggest there is less use in promotion healing.

For what it's worth, I never hold back promotions. Better to be sure, in my view, that the first assault succeeds; deal with the consequences after.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Yep, I'll maximise promotions when I'm fighting at low odds. If I'm fighting at high, 90+% odds, I might use the promotion to heal afterwards. Keeping a promotion saved can mean an entire turn of healing, meaning you can jump that unit back into the battle sooner.

Of course, it depends on the timing as well. If there will be no more units to fight after this battle, then I'll max out promotions. If I don't care about healing time, like I'm anticipating another wave of reinforcements to arrive, then I'll fight after promoting.

 

[Tristan_C]

If I'm fighting at high, 90+% odds, I might use the promotion to heal afterwards. Keeping a promotion saved can mean an entire turn of healing, meaning you can jump that unit back into the battle sooner.

I consider 90% odds in my favor to be a very dangerous battle that I'll probably lose. Such is the way of the CIV RNG.


Also consider extra exp gained for fighting at worse odds (BULL reveals the potential exp for a fight). Playing an under-promoted unit that will gain more exp for winning is essentially gambling hammers for a better strategic position. Makes some sense, if you have ready replacements for the unit.

 

[RedAndWhiteArmy]

i had the last archer unit successfully defend city against me with 0.1% strength

anyway, that aside i have a ?

im a sucker for building roads, everywhere, and while i know that it helps me greatly in obv movement costs and connecting resources i cant seem to get it in my head that my mines(no resource)/cottages/watermills/windmills/farms etc produce the same food/hammers/coins for me unroaded and unconnected. please just confirm to me they do and i can stop roading everything once built as im losing worker turns they may be much better used elsewhere in the early game

 

[damerell]

iim a sucker for building roads, everywhere, and while i know that it helps me greatly in obv movement costs and connecting resources i cant seem to get it in my head that my mines(no resource)/cottages/watermills/windmills/farms etc produce the same food/hammers/coins for me unroaded and unconnected. please just confirm to me they do and i can stop roading everything once built as im losing worker turns they may be much better used elsewhere in the early game

Roads do not augment tile yields. Railways do, but by then you might have more worker turns to spare.

 

[Sisiutil]

im a sucker for building roads, everywhere, and while i know that it helps me greatly in obv movement costs and connecting resources i cant seem to get it in my head that my mines(no resource)/cottages/watermills/windmills/farms etc produce the same food/hammers/coins for me unroaded and unconnected. please just confirm to me they do and i can stop roading everything once built as im losing worker turns they may be much better used elsewhere in the early game

What damerell said. Though if your worker is on a tile that costs movement to get there (hill, forest, jungle), it might make sense to build a road rather than pay that movement cost again later on.

 

[RedAndWhiteArmy]

thx for quick replies guys.

ok, running specialists. never have done in past as it seem too complicated for some reason but i am now playing prince level games and want to try it regularly.

couple quick ?s:

is there a guide or game i can read/go through that helps with this?
do you literally appoint a specialist every time the pop increases or have i got that wrong?
do you have to run caste system most of the time and do you lose the specialists when you change civic from it?

cheers!

 

[Sisiutil]

is there a guide or game i can read/go through that helps with this?
do you literally appoint a specialist every time the pop increases or have i got that wrong?
do you have to run caste system most of the time and do you lose the specialists when you change civic from it?

cheers!

• My Beginners' Guide (link in my sig) has info on specialists. Also check the War Academy/Empire Management section on the specialist economy.
• Nope. You still have to work tiles to build things, grow the population, etc.
• No, you don't have to run CS, though it certainly puts a SE into overdrive. You don't necessarily lose your CS specialists if you switch away from the civic; that depends on the city's food surplus, as the CS specialists are not "free". However, you do lose the ability to run unlimited artists, scientists, and merchants, so the specialists you can run depends entirely upon the buildings in each city.

 

[damerell]

is there a guide or game i can read/go through that helps with this?
do you literally appoint a specialist every time the pop increases or have i got that wrong?
do you have to run caste system most of the time and do you lose the specialists when you change civic from it?

There are a few guides, but what it comes down to is this; each specialist both grants the city a bit of a bonus (for example, an engineer is worth 2 hammers) and gives great person points (GPPs) towards their flavour of Great Person. So you have, to a degree, to balance what the city wants with the kind of Great Person you most desire to produce. Each specialist is about as good as the others, except Citizens (who are inherently weaker, but there's no limit on the number of them - but if you are ever forced to have Citizens, you are doing something wrong), or if you build Angkor Wat or another wonder which improves a particular kind of specialist.

The basic thing which is perhaps not obvious is that a specialist is a point of city population which is not working a tile. A city with a population of 21 will always have at least one specialist; but you might voluntarily not work tiles to have more. A specialist doesn't produce as much as an ordinary tile with an improvement - but working the tile wouldn't produce GPPs. A specialist is always better than working a junk tile like tundra.

Whenever a city grows, the game automatically assigns a specialist either if there are no tiles left to work or if it feels the remaining tiles are not worth working. It tends to favour engineers, then priests. If you have a different desire, you will want to check the worked tiles and assigned specialists whenever a city grows. This is much easier with BUG.

Caste system is not necessary, but normally the numbers of each specialist are limited by the buildings present in the city, making total concentration on your favoured specialist impossible. If you switch away from CS you won't lose specialists (after all, you don't lose points of population, and that's all they are), but they might change jobs.

Some wonders and civics (eg Statue of Liberty, Mercantilism) grant "free" specialists. These don't have an associated point of population, so they can't be removed from the specialist board and assigned to work a tile. Otherwise they act like any other.

 

[Ogane]

There are a few guides, but what it comes down to is this; each specialist both grants the city a bit of a bonus (for example, an engineer is worth 2 hammers) and gives great person points (GPPs) towards their flavour of Great Person. So you have, to a degree, to balance what the city wants with the kind of Great Person you most desire to produce. Each specialist is about as good as the others, except Citizens (who are inherently weaker, but there's no limit on the number of them - but if you are ever forced to have Citizens, you are doing something wrong), or if you build Angkor Wat or another wonder which improves a particular kind of specialist.

The basic thing which is perhaps not obvious is that a specialist is a point of city population which is not working a tile. A city with a population of 21 will always have at least one specialist; but you might voluntarily not work tiles to have more. A specialist doesn't produce as much as an ordinary tile with an improvement - but working the tile wouldn't produce GPPs. A specialist is always better than working a junk tile like tundra.

Whenever a city grows, the game automatically assigns a specialist either if there are no tiles left to work or if it feels the remaining tiles are not worth working. It tends to favour engineers, then priests. If you have a different desire, you will want to check the worked tiles and assigned specialists whenever a city grows. This is much easier with BUG.

Caste system is not necessary, but normally the numbers of each specialist are limited by the buildings present in the city, making total concentration on your favoured specialist impossible. If you switch away from CS you won't lose specialists (after all, you don't lose points of population, and that's all they are), but they might change jobs.

Some wonders and civics (eg Statue of Liberty, Mercantilism) grant "free" specialists. These don't have an associated point of population, so they can't be removed from the specialist board and assigned to work a tile. Otherwise they act like any other.

thanks thats helpful

 

[h@@kon]

Not sure if this can be answered without a savegame. Playing prince, BtS, marathon, huge.

Me and Julius are equally big, situated at an island with 2 other nations. I have discovered Caravelle and found other civilizations but not Julius. I have open borders agreement with everyone except montezuma which is low in rating (4 cities),

Looking at demographic "Import and export" my number is 2 and Julius number is 53.

That makes no sense to me. Should have been the other way around since i am trading with others nations?


Edit: after a bit of searching a found the answer. When you are big you often get a negative number (more traderoutes in to you than off to you). And i presumed the number 53 was julius, but that is not certain.

 

[Manco Capac]

The demographics don't matter generally speaking. The only thing that matters is the bpt. To me, if you get by +300 at 100% science by 1AD, you got a strong economy. By 1000 AD, that should be ideally 1000 bpt.

 

[CivNoobie]

The demographics don't matter generally speaking. The only thing that matters is the bpt. To me, if you get by +300 at 100% science by 1AD, you got a strong economy. By 1000 AD, that should be ideally 1000 bpt.

i assume you play on the settler level?

anyways, it should be 100 bpt when u enter medieval, 300bpt at renaissance, 600bpt when you hit industrial, 1000bpt when you hit modern.

 

[Manco Capac]

Settler level! Hey, there are players out there who can reach 350-400 bpt on deity with the right conditions. You already forgot what Cseanny has done for instance!?
In extreme cases, on modern times, I can reach near +10000 bpt with a large empire fueled with corp.

Your targets are completely wrong.

 

[PolishNoble]

Regarding the BPT benchmarks, approx. how many cities do you have at the various stages of the game to achieve those numbers? And how many cities would you say are major contributors to your BPT?

 

[Manco Capac]

Well, it depends of which kind of empire you set up. Many land available can lead to many settled cities, assuming most has at least one food source. Early rush? Can lead to the same result.

But assuming starting with a small peaceful empire with expansion constraints, often, 6-8 cities empire is enough for early game (and that number of cities is not arbitrary; for standard size map, it is min allowing to unlock certain national wonders). And reaching ~150-300 bpt range is really feasible depending of the lands. The city that contributes most in the BC is mostly always the capital due to its strength (normalizer makes the capital better than average cities) and the palace contributing +8 commerce for free. Ir the capital is rivery, you can lay cottages, build an academy, beeline CS and reach >100 bpt only with the capital.

 

[kenwyn]

Is there someplace that translates all these initials U experienced types here throw around?

Seems you are putting out good info... but like gov't bureaucrats, your words of wisdom are being wasted on many of us, especially new to these forums.

 

[damerell]

Is there someplace that translates all these initials U experienced types here throw around?

"U"? Oh, the irony.

 

[Pangaea]

Is there someplace that translates all these initials U experienced types here throw around?

Seems you are putting out good info... but like gov't bureaucrats, your words of wisdom are being wasted on many of us, especially new to these forums.

It's a huge stumbling block unfortunately. There are still things that make me scratch my head in "WTH-ness", but in the beginning it was actually infuriating because it was almost like reading declassified/leaked military documents.

Here is a list, but it's far from complete. The main ones should be there though.

If we just take some of the recent ones above

BPT = Beakers Per Turn (your research)
CS = Civil Service
BtS = Beyond the Sword, the latest expansion pack to Civ 4.

Another bug bear of mine is the CIV and CiV, which is apparently supposed to mean Civ 4 and Civ 5. I mean, it's hard enough to know what people are speaking about to begin with, now we have to take special notice of capitalisation too?