Handy tips

[pangu]

These are some of the things which I discovered in the game. I have not noticed them being mentioned in the forum and therefore set them out below hoping some may find it useful.


1/ Declaring war

Obviously if you demand / beg something from an AI successfully, or vice versa, there is a 10-turns peace treaty which neither side can declare war against the other. However, that situation does not apply to vassals. Therefore, e.g., I can ask an AI to spare me a tech but yet, after he gave it to me, declare war against his vassal on the same turn.


2/ AI cultural victory

It may not be apparent, but apart from capturing 1 of the cultural cities from an AI, there is actually another way to stop an AI from achieving cultural victory. If I incite riot on the city a turn, that city will not gain any culture in that turn. I find that this is most useful when I am aiming for a space victory. Just build 8-10 spies, direct sufficient spy points on that AI and incite riot on 1 of the cultural cities every turn.


3/ Building on TOP of iron / horse

On the rare occasion when I only have 1 iron (no copper) or 1 horse and I intend to spam swordsmen / HAs, I perfer building my city on top of that resource, just to avoid risking enemy spys sabotaging that sole military resource I have. It really halts a military campaign if the sole military resource gets sabotaged twice in a row that early in the game. Obviously, if I have, say, 2 military resources such as 2 iron, I can afford not to build my city on top of the resources.


4/ Gifting pottery

In an early war, if the target AI does not have pottery and tech trading is allowed, I always gift pottery to him before declaring war. That way, once I eliminate that AI, I will have partially matured cottages in his cities to work on. Further, automated workers which AIs use tend to chop a lot when it has nothing to do. I prefer the AI workers to build cottages rather than chop rush military units, and save up those forests for me to chop later.

 

[Mesix]

4/ Gifting pottery

In an early war, if the target AI does not have pottery and tech trading is allowed, I always gift pottery to him before declaring war. That way, once I eliminate that AI, I will have partially matured cottages in his cities to work on. Further, automated workers which AIs use tend to chop a lot when it has nothing to do. I prefer the AI workers to build cottages rather than chop rush military units, and save up those forests for me to chop later.

This is the best advice of the four. I never thought of it that way, but it makes perfect (devious) sense. The only criticism that I have is that if you are researching Alphabet and building an early military and the AI civs still do not have Pottery...you may want to try a higher difficulty level.

For me, Pottery is usually one of the first techs that I trade when I research Alphabet. Every AI that doesn't have Pottery will give me one of the early techs that I missed while bee lining Alphabet. If they don't have Pottery then they don't have Writing either. That is another trade than can be made on the following turn if they have any useful techs left. I generally try to get as many techs as possible by whoring out Pottery and Writing to AI players that have techs for me to acquire. I try to avoid giving them Alphabet so that I can enjoy the tech trading monopoly for a short time. The higher the difficulty level the harder it is to utilize an Alphabet rush as someone will beat you to the punch.

 

[zoiks]

Best tip I've picked up is along the lines of point 2.

If you're attacking a city, use a spy to cause a revolt in the turn when you will attack. Cultural defenses will be down, so you can use your siege to cause collateral damage rather than spending a few turns bombarding defenses.