Generally accepted strategies

[sschmalz]

Looking through these threads I can't help but wonder what strategies could be listed out and generally accepted by most. There is a lot of debate about a lot of things, but surely there are a few things that can be carved into stone to help newer players or players looking to improve.

Obviously there is the war academy which is a great resource, but it's outdated and more in depth than what some people want. I have something simpler in mind...like an enumerated list of simple strategies that most of us can agree on in just about every scenario.

Here are a few examples of things I THINK (that's a big think) we can agree on?

1. make a scout your first or second build unless you know you're on archipelago and do not auto-explore with your scouts
2. after pottery for religion, your first few techs should be those that allow you to improve your luxury resources
3. unless you morally object (it's a game) then stealing a worker from a city state or even another civ very early is a good idea
4. try to have at least one worker for each city
5. always sell/trade excess luxuries/resources or gift them to repair/improve relations
6. try to build the National College by turn 100 (standard speed)
7. the tradition tree is great for a tall empire, liberty is great for a wide empire, completing one of those trees quickly is usually best; while honor is fun it isn't as ideal as tradition or liberty
8. manually managing tiles in the city view is a pain but often necessary, do not assume that the game does a good job of managing anything without your input
9. among the many benefits of trade routes it is usually a step towards maintaining peace and building relations with neighbors
10. progressing to the higher difficulty levels requires among other things that you abandon building most early wonders, don't even try
11. an AI which moves units back and forth just outside your borders is on the verge of declaring war on you; take action by building up defenses OR get another AI to declare war on them first OR make a pre-emptive strike OR all of the above
12. pay close attention to the attitudes the different AI civs have with one another (info addict mod very good for this), making a declaration of friendship with a widely disliked civ will negatively impact your relationships, on the other hand, denouncing widely disliked civs will positively impact your relationships
13. pay close attention to city state quests, some are very easy to reach. also, some city state quests overlap with others', e.g. if a city state wants you to connect cotton then try to do a quest with another city state that has cotton
14. constructing an archeological site in an AI's land gives you a positive modifier with that civ and at the same time makes it so that they don't get a great work from the site, this is a great way to repair or improve relations; on the other hand you can take the great work for yourself but get a negative modifier with that civ
15. most all unique units are good and they maintain their abilities even after being promoted often making them the most powerful units you will have all game, it's a good idea to build several of these units even if you don't plan to play for a domination victory

So that's a start to what I think is a good idea, a community driven thread of generally accepted strategies. Maybe someone gathers all this stuff and puts it in the war academy?

 

[klaskeren]

1. make a scout your first or second build unless you know you're on archipelago and do not auto-explore with your scouts
2. after pottery for religion, your first few techs should be those that allow you to improve your luxury resources
3. unless you morally object (it's a game) then stealing a worker from a city state or even another civ very early is a good idea
4. try to have at least one worker for each city
5. sell excess luxuries/resources
6. try to build the National College by turn 100
7. the tradition tree is great for a tall empire, liberty is great for a wide empire, completing one of those trees quickly is usually best; while honor is fun it isn't as ideal as tradition or liberty
8. manually managing tiles in the city view is a pain but often necessary, do not assume that the game does a good job of managing anything without your input
9. among the many benefits of trade routes it is usually a step towards maintaining peace and building relations with neighbors
10. progressing to the higher difficulty levels requires among other things that you abandon building most early wonders, don't even try

?

1. No, not always, at lower difficulties warrior is superior alot of the time, as well as with the aztecs.
2. Again, not always, it depends on how much you want to expand early, when you will wage war, if there are nice food tiles nearby etc. Most of the time, horseback riding after pottery to see where horses are and work them early, cus you dont really need lux that early.
3. yes, i agree
4. Some exceptions like going all out war and not needing city development, but generally at least 1, better to have 2/city in science game with lots of growth though.
5. not always, sometimes you are really in need of happiness, and you are willing to wait trading away your excess resource until AI has lux to give you instead of gold, but most of the time yes, i agree.
6. in a science game, yes, in a domination game this is far from obvious.
7. not true at all, lots of discussion about this.
8. yes, i agree.
9. Yes, the AI is less likely to attack you if you send or they send trade route, i think.
10. i would rephrase this as: you dont need to build wonders early to win deity. Because you can in fact try for some wonders early and still win the game, even GL, its just not a good idea most of the time.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

I generally agree with all 10 points in OP.

I also expect all 10 items can, and will be, argued.
Its a solid list of 'general' rules for a standard Pangaea game type.

 

[sschmalz]

7. not true at all, lots of discussion about this

You disagree that tradition is good for tall empires and/or that liberty is good for wide? I've been in some of those discussions, and you're the first I've seen to disagree with this generality.

As for that and all your other disagreements, I wouldn't even make an attempt at something like this if I thought everyone was going to try to nitpick everything. It's really just meant to be some general rules of thumb for lesser experienced players, not a debate over 1,000 things at once.

 

[beetle]

It's really just meant to be some general rules of thumb for lesser experienced players, not a debate over 1,000 things at once.

In the spirit it was offered, nice job OP!

 

[Minor Annoyance]

3- there is one thing I was not aware of until recently. If you declare war on city states twice then the influence degredation for all non-hostile sity states increases to -2. I had never heard this mentioned anywhere before. So you can get one only worker for free.

You disagree that tradition is good for tall empires and/or that liberty is good for wide? I've been in some of those discussions, and you're the first I've seen to disagree with this generality.

It's the characterization of honor's value he's disagreeing with.
7- if you are going a war route you should at least open honor first. You'll fill out the whole thing eventually but the barbarian bonus will be most used early on.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

While there are exceptions to all of those, I think as a general set of rules, I agree with all of them EXCEPT for #7, which implies that tradition and liberty are equal. They're not -- Tradition is just plain better on average.

I would also say that #8 only really comes into play on harder difficulty levels. Micromanaging can be a pain and is probably the least important of all the tips.

Nice list! I would say that anyone who tries to follow those rules should be crushing King regularly, and probably Emperor.

 

[S.O.T MAHak]

3- there is one thing I was not aware of until recently. If you declare war on city states twice then the influence degredation for all non-hostile sity states increases to -2. I had never heard this mentioned anywhere before. So you can get one only worker for free.

You can get as many as you want! Don't make peace once you've gotten the first worker pillage one of his improvement that is 2 or 3 tiles away from the city and move your units away, the AI will think the danger is over and soon send out a new worker to repair that improvement and BAAAM!! you snatch a new worker.

 

[Resipsa]

I'm not going to argue with anything you've said are there exceptions; yes but that's why they are exceptions.

 

[sschmalz]

While there are exceptions to all of those, I think as a general set of rules, I agree with all of them EXCEPT for #7, which implies that tradition and liberty are equal. They're not -- Tradition is just plain better on average.

I would also say that #8 only really comes into play on harder difficulty levels. Micromanaging can be a pain and is probably the least important of all the tips.

Nice list! I would say that anyone who tries to follow those rules should be crushing King regularly, and probably Emperor.

Yeah, I kind of knew I was going to take heat for #7 no matter how I worded it. Had I elevated one above the other I would have taken even more heat. In fact I'm taking enough flak for not putting Honor on the same level...

I started this with the idea that some folks might have other things to add to the list, strategies that most of us would agree on. I think it would interesting to compile a much longer list.

 

[beetle]

It's the characterization of honor's value he's disagreeing with. 7- if you are going a war route you should at least open honor first. You'll fill out the whole thing eventually but the barbarian bonus will be most used early on.

I would like to learn more about this, preferably through a pointer to another thread. My understanding of the general consensus is that opening honor is not worth delaying the close of tradition/liberty for, nor worth delaying the opening of rationalism for. I would appreciate reading more about this debate though.

 

[sschmalz]

I would like to learn more about this, preferably through a pointer to another thread. My understanding of the general consensus is that opening honor is not worth delaying the close of tradition/liberty for, nor worth delaying the opening of rationalism for. I would appreciate reading more about this debate though.

I actually really like honor. It's fun. However, I agree completely with your understanding of the general consensus.

The general school of thought against honor is: 1. tradition/liberty are too powerful to ignore 2. combat is already easy if you're doing it correctly 3. it doesn't help build your base empire, i.e. the benefits aren't immediately and perpetually recognized like tradition/liberty (unless you go to war from the start and stay at war throughout the game)

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I would like to learn more about this, preferably through a pointer to another thread. My understanding of the general consensus is that opening honor is not worth delaying the close of tradition/liberty for, nor worth delaying the opening of rationalism for. I would appreciate reading more about this debate though.

I'm not sure there is a debate I can point to. It's mostly just me having just played with raging barbarians on, so it was probably just my recent situation.

 

[dinanipedro]

opening honor is viable if going for any sort of domination victory and the plan is set from early on, ie wide epic sci/dom victories - honor really does not help other victory conditions and there are better policy choices in all era's

 

[sschmalz]

It's mostly just me having just played with raging barbarians on, so it was probably just my recent situation.

Raging barbarians is the exception, I think most people would suggest opening honor in that case

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Raging barbarians is the exception, I think most people would suggest opening honor in that case

I was also playing as the Aztecs. Double culture from killing barbarians. So yeah, that was a situational example.

 

[Moriarte]

You disagree that tradition is good for tall empires and/or that liberty is good for wide? I've been in some of those discussions, and you're the first I've seen to disagree with this generality.

As for that and all your other disagreements, I wouldn't even make an attempt at something like this if I thought everyone was going to try to nitpick everything. It's really just meant to be some general rules of thumb for lesser experienced players, not a debate over 1,000 things at once.

Yes, i disagree with the premise too. Tradition is good for wide empires. Examples? Just finished a tradition wide domination game on t.280 (standard time), huge continents. Had 30+ tall cities and 50 excess happiness after capturing the last capital. Without religion or FOY.

The value of liberty is not in it's "wideness", but rather in bonuses, which enable access to certain early game goals. (like rush)

For every other game, which doesn't involve early slaughter/ICS - tradition is superior. With unlimited happiness from ideologies there is no constraint in BNW to use both trees to same effect, and, especially unique tradition bonuses synergize very well with growing your wide empire taller. Tradition = tall, liberty = wide is simply wrong nowadays.

Should be like this: Tradition = tall/wide. Liberty = early rush/wide/ICS.

Otherwise, great list!

 

[joncnunn]

#1 agreed
#2 agreed

#3 disagree with direct doing this against a city state as if uses up the "free DOW" you get. However if the AI has sent a settler too close to you; I would DOW to steal and enslave to a worker. (And also prevent them from founding a city one or two tiles away from where the city should be founded)

#4 Even 1 to 1 is often excessive in Civ V unless you have a lot of jungle after you have 3+ cities given the growth formula. 2 workers is normally fine for 3 cities; 3 workers is normally fine for 4 cities (sometimes only 2 workers needed.) Monitor cities to see how often you are working unimproved tiles.

#5 Gifting not worth it as AI will forget about the gift the very next turn.
Selling resources: Worth it if you aren't going to use it within 30 turns and you can get 45 golf (DOF) / 2 GPT for single copy (non DOF) ; not worth it at 1 GPT per copy
Selling luxaries: Normally worth if for another luxury / or if you can get 240 gold (DOF) / of you can get 7 gpt (non DOF). Not worth it at 6 gpt (remember that extra happiness causes the AI to get Golden Ages).

#6: Shoot for turn 70; you probably won't succeed, but you are much more likely reach it sooner if you shoot for 70 than if you shoot for 100.

#7: Yup. You didn't mention Piety (BNW); it's better than Honor but for most civs worse than Tradition & Liberty

#8 : Normally needed; not really a pain since you can set the tile and it will remember that tile so you only have to go back when the city grows.

#9 : AI doesn't really care about routes you establish with them (because it gets to auto pillage if war breaks out while its active). It instead cares about routes its established with you (again, you'd auto pillage if war broke out) Don't establish a route with an AI that's showing hostile or with whom you believe is pretending friendship with you.

#10: Agreed

#11: There's a diplomatic penalty for being the one to DOW. So don't DOW them if you think they are going to DOW you within a couple of turns. But you might want to try a defensive pact with a 3rd AI and/or complain about their units to force them to DOW in the middle of your turn if that would benefit you.

#12 agreed

#13 agreed

#14 don't bother with creating a site on purpose with the AI. Only go in to steal an artificat and only then if you don't care about relations with that AI

#15 Extremely unit specific. And several of anything tends to be excessive in Civ V when not playing for domination victory.

 

[Novalia]

Never ever ever "gift" the AI anything. Repairing relations.... pfft... Kick them in the head if they don't like you and declare war. I always look at a DOW like this "so you want me to take your capital? OK let me stop what I'm doing, make some more units, and I'll get right back to you. Meanwhile, enjoy my defense."

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I gift whole cities all the time. If I capture something and don't want the happiness deficit from puppeting or burning it I give it to they civ in last place.