Help a CIV numpty

[JesusOnEez]

Although I never got into the CiV bashing that plagued the boards at release (and thereafter for 6 months) I was initially disappointed with CiV, and stopped trying to like it around March. Now this latest patch has turned up, I find myself enjoying it. More seems to happen, the click to reward ratio seems higher and I find myself thinking about it at work now which never happened before. Good stuff, this is what I hoped would happen.

Problem is, I'm coming at it pretty fresh and although I "get" the tech tree and social policies, I'm struggling with knowing what improvements my workers should build other than the obvious ones on resources.

For example, I have a city, it's not bad, many tiles are plain river tiles. In CIV I probably would have water milled a lot of them if I had the food spare and made a production city out of it, but I find myself wondering whether I should farm for maximum growth (despite have enormous food coming in from city states) or just spam trading posts all over them. I understand the number of improvements you can build are less than in CIV which in theory should make it a simpler choice. I find it's the opposite.

I'm guess I'm asking for advice on what's best to build on what tile and while I'm at it, is it still feasible to specialise cities much like CIV? Specialists don't seem to come along as often either, and seem a lot of work for not much gain. Are they worth it (clearly science specialists are)?

Since I'm exploring the concepts and strategies more than aiming for the win, I'm just exploring the game on Settler at the moment while I get the hang of it as I'm still in CIV mode. Hopefully any replies to this will go some way to help.

Here's to finally enjoying this game!

 

[Becomedeath]

Simple tip that helped me loads when I was getting to grips is have the tile yield display up, that way you know what your improvements are going to give you when you mouseover them and you can always see what tiles are generating what for you, just make sure you keep manual control of your workers until you get your head around what does what.

(tile options are next to the minimap just in case you haven't already found them)

 

[JesusOnEez]

I'm a micromanager at heart so I always manually control my workers even into the late game (I like the epic long grind games). I have the tile yields on already. It's not a case of I don't know what I'm getting. I just need to learn to get the "feel" for what's best in a given situation knowing that what's right in CIV is likely not right in CiV!

 

[chazzycat]

Riverside plains should be farmed most of the time. Once you hit economics and trading posts go up to +2 gold, they are more worthy of consideration. Extra population is generally more profitable than +1 gold if you can afford the happiness. The reason for that is you get an extra citizen working a tile, plus +1 gold in trade route value. Riverside plains cities are absolute beasts (post civil service).

 

[spider1]

For me at least, I build a lot less trading posts and more farms in Civ V. And after the last patch, I plant a lot more GPs in their buildings after completing the Freedom tree as well.

 

[Misterboy]

You're obviously a veteran player and I think experience will serve you best. Maybe I can give you some really broad general rules:

1. When in doubt, farm a tile early on. Early growth is important and later on it can be turned into a trading post. Happiness is the empire limiting factor, so you'll know when you need to slow growth when you're consistently bumping up against happiness limits.

2. I think most people don't use a lot of Trading Posts until mid game when they get to +2 gold. But a LOT of trading posts is very common in the end. Trading Post spam is a major phenomenon. I tend to start using them when I run into money problems mid game. I generally play on Emperor/Immortal/Diety.

3. Puppeted cities need to be converted to trading posts. Remove all farms for the most part. You have no control over them and generally don't want them to grow and eat away at your happiness.

4. I think hill/rivers are always a safe bet to farm. More benefit then just doing a mine for +1 production. In general you'll be mining hills though. Forest hills need a lumber mill, not a mine, unless early game you really need that 20 production from cutting the forest down.

5. I rarely cut down forests and never remove jungles. Jungles give you +2 science after you have a university. Forests can be cut if you need that extra 20 production, but almost all forests get lumber mills in my games.

5a. Most high level players *don't* improve bananas. Better to just leave them be.

6. Farm river tiles, even if they start out as forests, unless you have a lot of them and want to keep that forest for more production.

6a. In general, cities are stronger near rivers. Plenty of food using minimal tiles and you get access to the watermill etc.

7. Some of my rules are contradicting themselves, but hopefully you get where I'm going

8. Tile management is not as intricate as Civ 4. Less options on the whole. You probably won't need to put as much thought into it as you're used to

I hope some of that helps. Each item is, of course, totally dependent on the situation and your city strategy, but I think they hold true, more or less.

Have fun!

 

[Facaltas]

5a. Most high level players *don't* improve bananas. Better to just leave them be.

How come? Does improving it remove the jungle I take it, with the +2 science being more beneficial than the improvement bonus? Also are bananas counted as a luxury or food resource? Sorry, I've only really been playing since the last patch.

 

[snarzberry]

Yeah, unfortunately (or maybe not?) you have to adjust your approach to city specialization in Civ 5 when you compare it to gameplay in Civ 4. It's still there, but to a much lesser degree.

In Civ 5 you're not going to go 'okay, this is my military city where I will build the heroic epic and pump out units all game' 'this is my great person farm which will produce the majority of my GP all game.''this is now my drafting city' etc... It's not like that. To be honest I kinda miss that

Now it's more like you have some core cities where you will work mainly farms and grow the population high to focus on hammers and beakers. Gold often comes from puppets and trades. All of your cities will be involved in the areas that matter, but some will lean in one direction more than others.

If I have control of a city then rare is the time I will build a trading post in it, but I will build pretty much exclusively tps in puppets. I usually aim for all of my core cities to have universities and to be running scientists. You can make a game plan out of having an early wonder that generates GE points and dedicating that city to work an early workshop specialist to generate an engineer mid game for a crucial wonder. That's specialization of a sort, but it's not very Civ 4-esque.

 

[LostInTime]

I don't really do trade posts anymore outside of puppets.

Farm everything including hills when possible. Mine the rest. Lumbermills if you are that far into the game and still have forests left. (I usually end up chopping all my forests in my core cities to get stuff out quickly enough)

Gold is rarely a problem when the AI sits on gigantic stacks of it. Sell resources to them, preferable close neighbors, so when they declare you can sell it again

How come? Does improving it remove the jungle I take it, with the +2 science being more beneficial than the improvement bonus? Also are bananas counted as a luxury or food resource? Sorry, I've only really been playing since the last patch.

The jungle removal+plantation construction is a major PITA to do early on. You've got better stuff to do with your workers than make them. It's only 1 more food or production from it, so it doesn't really pay of that much for all the turns wasted. (a 4 food tile with just a granary is pretty good anyway early on) Later on the science can be nice of course, so it's still a tossup whether to do it or not. Depends how much you value that extra food. And no, it is just a regular resource, like sheep, wheat, stone etc.

 

[JesusOnEez]

Thanks all, this has been really useful. The game I'm paying is the first one where I haven't got bored by the Middle Ages and am about to discover Gunpowder after handing Caesar his own arse on a plate using a combo of 1 Catapult and LOTS of Companion Cavalry (Alexander). Yes it's only Settler and I'm getting used to things, but it was FUN, and that's what was missing for me before.

Seems ironic to me that many of you are advocating Farms early, then perhaps Trading Posts later, when the opposite was generally true in CIV. Cottages first, them farm spam after Biology.

 

[Misterboy]

Seems ironic to me that many of you are advocating Farms early, then perhaps Trading Posts later, when the opposite was generally true in CIV. Cottages first, them farm spam after Biology.

Yes, that's a pretty major change. Cottages and the way they "developed" over time was really an interesting dynamic and made you think hard about where your city was going long term. Civ 5 sadly doesn't have that. I kinda miss cottages.

So it tends to be best to go food focus to build up a population and then move over to other things if needs be, later on.