Condensed tips for beginners?

[blue_7]

from what ive read marathon breaks the game. if your trying to learn it you should always play standard. but do what you like. 6 or 7 on huge maps? i would expect more than that.

 

[cabert]

on huge maps, it should be you + 10 AIs
and I think marathon suits huge maps good.

But cities fogbust better than units

 

[h@@kon]

BtS is so much better. What's more, with the 3.19 patch for BtS, there's no disk-check either

I'm the proud owner of BTS now, sitting with a complete edition between my hands. Looking forward to the weekend.

You might think this is off-topic, but it's kind of a strategy question (family-strategy, how to keep peace at home ):

My son wants to play with me/against me. Is it possible to install the game on two homecomputers, and let him join my game via home-network when only one BtS CD? ( I presume we have to have the same version-number)

 

[Arakhor]

I assume that if both are patched to 3.19, you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[kcd_swede]

I'm the proud owner of BTS now, sitting with a complete edition between my hands. Looking forward to the weekend.

You might think this is off-topic, but it's kind of a strategy question (family-strategy, how to keep peace at home ):

My son wants to play with me/against me. Is it possible to install the game on two homecomputers, and let him join my game via home-network when only one BtS CD? ( I presume we have to have the same version-number)

Yes, multiplayer via LAN using BtS 3.19 does not require the game disk be in any computer, and game can be installed on both computers using same disk.

 

[h@@kon]

Played Bts to about 500 BC (always Marathon). Marathon on Bts compared to Vanilla is not the same...

It counts to 350 rounds, and the later years it count down every 10 year. I am pretty sure on vanilla it counts 15 years the whole way.

On vanilla i have about 6-7 towns about 1 AD, and not playing differently on BtS i had 6 about 700 BC plus got the message about 250 000 population...On vanilla i am very pleased if i get that message about 1 AD

My first impression is that is also way much easier to get money. On vanilla i found (if i was lucky) about 90 gold in a camp...now i found 200 in one and 300 on the second one.

So my conclusion is that they are different. Vanilla seems more difficult before 1 AD?

 

[Sisiutil]

Played Bts to about 500 BC (always Marathon). Marathon on Bts compared to Vanilla is not the same...

It counts to 350 rounds, and the later years it count down every 10 year. I am pretty sure on vanilla it counts 15 years the whole way.

On vanilla i have about 6-7 towns about 1 AD, and not playing differently on BtS i had 6 about 700 BC plus got the message about 250 000 population...On vanilla i am very pleased if i get that message about 1 AD

My first impression is that is also way much easier to get money. On vanilla i found (if i was lucky) about 90 gold in a camp...now i found 200 in one and 300 on the second one.

So my conclusion is that they are different. Vanilla seems more difficult before 1 AD?

In addition to the more obvious changes (new civs, leaders, wonders, etc), yes, Firaxis made numerous little tweaks to several more minor gameplay items, either in the expansion packs or in patches.

I believe you're correct, they changed the marathon turn/year timing, though I can't remember exactly when. I know that in one of the more recent patches they tweaked the gold-from-a-hut probability so that it scales with the game speed, IIRC.

Does it seem like vanilla is more difficult at first? Maybe, but in some respects you're comparing apples to oranges--so many major and minor changes to gameplay were made that I would hesitate to draw too many conclusions from the comparison you've made.

 

[h@@kon]

Does that mean its more total turns, or is the period after 1 AD shorter?

 

[cabert]

there are more turns (and more wonders, more techs, a need to wait after launching the space ship for it to reach the stars, ...)

 

[Krunchyman]

Simple tip to win any game, scenario, random map, whatever. When in the middle of a game, simply go into the toolbar where you can save and load games, quit to desktop and such. Click on "World Builder." There, you can give yourself whatever you could possibly want, such as advanced units, culture and tech. Place and build what you want, exit the builder, and bingo.

 

[Arakhor]

Cheats never prosper.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Cheats never prosper.

On the first turn, I take quick look at the map with WorldBuilder to make sure it is not an island game, and regenerate if necessary. I HATE island games, because they are BORING and I ALWAYS lose!

 

[dalamb]

I think I agree with TheMeInTeam that there's no such thing as cheating when you're playing a solo game. It only applies when you're trying to compare your games with someone else', such as in an xOTM. So, world-build away -- just don't boast about how well you did!

 

[millahnna]

I won't lie; sometimes for giggles I worldbuild the holy bejeebus out of a game. I never play it out for long though; it's gets boring when you're just stomping on everything because you gave yourself a buttload of bonuses. Now if the RNG gives me a bunch of bonuses all on its own, that's another story.

In all seriousness I found cheating with worldbuilder really helpful when I first learning how to specialize my cities. For me, it was beneficial to see the city types in ideal circumstances. It gave me a better grasp of the mechanics behind different buildings, specialists, etc. that helped me figure out how to specialize cities in less ideal conditions. I've always been good at math but when I try to read the breakdowns in the strategy articles my eyes glaze over for some reason. Go figure. But doing it hands on totally helped once I saw it "perfect" first.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Is it acceptable to use the Maoi city as a GP farm?
The thing is... it has 2 fish resources, has the most food of all cities and other than GP or Maoi, I can't use it for much else. But I will also miss most wonders in it.

Should I start looking for a better GP farm and devote this city to production, or am I fine? To be honest, I'm terrible with generating great people.

 

[Sisiutil]

Of course you can use the Moai city as a GP farm, though it might not be optimal. Things to think about:

• Building the Moai Statues in your GP farm gives you a slightly increased chance of generating a Great Prophet. Do you have a use for one of those? Or would you prefer Great Scientists or another type of Great Person?
• Ideally, you want to keep the GP points in your GP farm as clean as possible so you can generate the type of GP you want, so that actually means relying on specialists rather than wonders to generate the Great Person points (GPP).
• A mere specialist city becomes your GP farm by building the National Epic in that city. If the Moai Statues are already built there, once the NE is completed you've built your two national wonders in that city and cannot build any more. The problem with this is that there are other national wonders (such as Oxford, Globe Theatre, Wall Street) that allow you to run additional specialists and might be a better choice for a second national wonder in the GP Farm/NE city.
• Using a coastal city for your GP farm is usually not optimal because there is no way to increase the food yield from the water tiles without seafood. Land tiles, on the other hand, will gradually increase their food yield with basic irrigation (Agriculture), chain irrigation (Civil Service), and finally with Biology. This is important because the "price" of each successive Great Person increases, so the increasing food yield in the game allows you to run more and more specialists to keep pace with this.
• That being said, if the coastal city is by far your best food city and will be for some time, then you might be best off building the NE there and loading it up with food. It's usually preferable to get your GP generation happening ASAP rather than waiting for the "ideal" city location.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Thank you!

I didn't think about the increasable food.
This city spot has just three land tiles, one is a silver mountain, another is a forested tundra and another is a forested grassland. Farms aren't really an option.

I guess I should put the NE in another city, although at the moment, I don't have literature yet. I hope I capture a good GP farm until 500s CE.

The thing is... getting a GP farm city is what I dislike most about city planning. Almost all cities which would be good GP farms would also be great commerce cities. I just don't have the heart not to cottage them.

 

[Sisiutil]

Thank you!

I didn't think about the increasable food.
This city spot has just three land tiles, one is a silver mountain, another is a forested tundra and another is a forested grassland. Farms aren't really an option.

I guess I should put the NE in another city, although at the moment, I don't have literature yet. I hope I capture a good GP farm until 500s CE.

The thing is... getting a GP farm city is what I dislike most about city planning. Almost all cities which would be good GP farms would also be great commerce cities. I just don't have the heart not to cottage them.

Great People > cottages. Sorry, they just are. For most of the game, scientist specialists in particular will give you more than a cottage that same citizen might have worked. On top of which, those scientists will eventually generate a Great Scientist, who can lightbulb techs such as Philosophy. That's 1300 at normal speed on a standard sized map. How long will it take your cottages to produce that many research points? Especially if they're immature, and you're dividing your commerce between research and your treasury. And that's just one potential use for one type of Great Person.

Don't get me wrong, you'll need to generate commerce from somewhere--preferably the capital and any city site that lends itself to cottaging. I usually look not just for riverside tiles, but for high-commerce resources (gems, gold, silver, dye). If the city just has riverside tiles and at least two food resources, it's probably going to serve me best as a specialist city.

But early in the game, once I've explored most of the map near my capital and have revealed some of the basic strategic resources--possibly even earlier--I start planning my cities. Not just their locations, but their purposes. I find it's vital to figure out which city will be your main commerce city, which will be your GP farm, and which will be your military/Heroic Epic city as early as possible.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Hm... you've almost convinced me to go more towards specialists. And since I'm trying emperor out (might be overconfident with this, though ), I guess bulbing is a lot more important. This is the first difficulty level in which I've actually had the chance to buy worthwhile techs from the AI in the BCEs.

The problem with specialists, for me, is that the last time I tried it out, I had enough scientists to get a lot of early research, but my upkeep was beginning to be too much an I didn't yet have caste system, to have some merchant specialists, for instance.

If I opt to have more specialists, are 2 commerce cities, one early and one 5th-6th city, enough?

~~~
And a more specific question: Would you cottage this or would you farm it? I mean... it looks perfect for a GP farm, but it also has room for a lot of cottages which it can feed. - city with two corn resources and a river through all of the green land.

 

[Sisiutil]

If you want to try out a Specialist Economy (SE), read up on it--there are several excellent articles in this site's War Academy. I can tell you that one of the key elements of the SE is to have a strong commerce-focused capital with which you leverage Bureaucracy (with its +50% commerce bonus) to the max, because you do need some commerce coming in. If your capital is better-suited to a different specialty (say, being a GP farm because it has food galore but no exceptional commerce tiles), then you'll want to move the palace to your best commerce city.

Which looks like the case for the city in the screenshot. I'd be inclined to make it a specialist city. It has 3 food tiles and 5 grassland tiles that can be irrigated with Agriculture, and the two corn will be irrigated come Civil Service. Granted, the 5 immediately irrigable tiles are riverside and therefore get 1 , but that's not exceptional. Look around and see if there's a site nearby with several grassland riverside and/or flood plains tiles and, even better, at least one high-commerce resource. Found a city there and plan to move the capital to it before you finish researching Civil Service. If the city I'm describing is someone else's capital, rush them and take it for yourself.