How should I play England?

[Barth]

Hmm, I thought there was a nice article explaining RAs but I can't find it. Anyway, when an RA completes you get 50% of the beaker cost of the median of your currently researchable techs. This increases to 75% with either the PT or Rationalism opener and 100% with both.

As an example, let's say that you have 5 techs available to research that will take 4, 4, 8, 9, and 12 turns to research. Your median tech in this case is 8 turns, so an RA will give some percentage of 8 turns worth of teching, depending on whether or not you have the PT and Rationalism. If you don't have either one you get 50% * 8 = 4 turns worth of research, if you have 1 of those you get 75% * 8 = 6 turns of research, and if you have both you get 100% * 8 = 8 turns of research.

The part that trips most people up is figuring out what their median tech is. If you aren't sure how to do this I can go more in depth. Or if you'd rather watch a video, Wainy spends a good amount of time at the beginning of this video explaining how RAs work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip4YeME6wJI

 

[The Pilgrim]

1. Is being a tech era ahead good enough? From what I've heard around these forums Keshiks are game winning units, strong enough to remain relevant until tanks are introduced to the field of battle.

Of course it's good enough. Keshiks are the single best unit when used by humans, AI, like usual, cannot do much with them. If his horses hexes weren't so open and vulnerable I would have suggested to go for a lancer or two, but with longbows and easy pillaging opportunity it's not necessary. You'll be fine. Hopefully, he'll continue to attack Quebec without having single melee unit around.

IS HAVING THAT MUCH GOLD EVEN POSSIBLE? How should I get my hands on that much?

AI at its best. Sitting on huge amount of gold, dozens of thousands even, and doing absolutely nothing with it, is very typical for Civ5 AI. You can always sell AI useless cities and use it to your benefit. Genghis is offering 790 for Coventry already. For bigger cities adjacent to his borders you'll be offered more.

Is that really the best thing to do? I already have my merchant slots filled, and filling my scientist slots would mean having less laborers on the land, hampering my growth and gold output.

You have in total 1 merchant, 1 engineer and 1 scientist. With cities that big you really want to capitalize university bonuses. You currently have 132-133 per turn when you can get 164. Almost 25% increase.
If you're going for domination/science it is the best thing to do. Trivial for science as for domination, IMO, you need to clean the techs as soon as possible to unlock fast advanced units, since you don't have very much time left and still many opponents to deal with. For diplomacy you should start building a bankroll right away. +89 per turn won't be enough to buy 10 CS's. Especially having Greece and Siam in the game, both with Patronage policies and higher gpt than yours. You'll have to steal every single CS's from them when moments comes, thus you need lots and lots of money. Colonizing Mongolia and later conquering portions of your main continent with artillery and SotL's will bring the cash, I hope. But again, you need to get Dynamite asap. The earlier you start puppeting, the more cash you'll eventually gain.

Another important aspect is GS's. You only had 1 GP born, so if you fill the slots they'll come one after another providing even bigger technological lead and getting you closer to ultimate goal, whatever it's gonna be.

Is science really so important it justifies taking rationalism even without going for a science victory? I'm just curious.

Science is always important. In military games you usually don't take Rationalism, but Piety for happiness. You skipped Piety, so... Rationalism is very very strong tree for any type of victory. It's probably stronger than any other on bigger maps when potential number of RA's increases. But even on standard map when you go for late conquest rather than continuous warring from the beginning, it's usually the best option.

I'm not sure... I could do that after my colonial war, but does the porcelain tower, a single world wonder, justify taking a huge diplo hit with not only Hiawatha, but perhaps other world powers?

I'm not sure either. Scout his land first. He doesn't have lots of fans out there and he is a tech leader. Trimming him cannot damage you too much. Whether it's a game breaker? Certainly not.


Edit: partially ninja'd, but meh...

 

[Veneke]

Just a few more points about making gold. Basically it boils down to robbing the AI blind, they've more cash than they know what to do with anyway.

Make sure to rob any AI you declare war on before you declare war. So sell Genghis everything you can before you declare war. Declare war (voiding the peace treaty) and proceed to war normally. Don't destroy him (leave that city trapped behind the City State, can't remember the name offhand) and in the peace deal grab the remainder of his gold. You can repeat this on other Civs that you go to war with as well.

Prioritize economy techs, buildings and gold heavy terrain (puppet empires covered in Trade Posts are your friend here). Also, don't bother with the City States until the very end. There's no point dragging along a few City States when you only need them for a few turns at the very end of the game. Save your cash for the inevitable City-State competition.

IF you're going for Diplo don't go overboard with RAs, if indeed you sign any at all. At least not until you've got a substantial bankroll saved up and aren't going to touch it.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Make sure to rob any AI you declare war on before you declare war. So sell Genghis everything you can before you declare war. Declare war (voiding the peace treaty) and proceed to war normally. Don't destroy him (leave that city trapped behind the City State, can't remember the name offhand) and in the peace deal grab the remainder of his gold. You can repeat this on other Civs that you go to war with as well.

Cheese

 

[Veneke]

Heh, yep. If you really want to get cheesy though, have another Civ finish off Mongolia's last city and then liberate it. One more vote for your Diplo win.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Heh, yep. If you really want to get cheesy though, have another Civ finish off Mongolia's last city and then liberate it. One more vote for your Diplo win.

Does it really work this way? That would be epic. IIRC, Alex already got some of his cities. Just for the sake of proving how many things are still broken with this game, that's something is worth a shot. Not that it really needs additional proofs.

 

[Veneke]

I'm pretty sure it does, yeah. Haven't done it myself, but if you liberate a Civ then you get their vote in the UN irrespective of how they feel about you - so it should work out like that in theory.

To be honest with you, if the diplomacy aspect was fixed I'd be less inclined to take advantage of the AI. As it stands the AI has only a tenuous grip on diplomacy and so I only have a tenuous grip on fair play.

 

[Bamboocha]

I'm back again, perhaps for a last bit of advice, seeing how I'm almost in the industrial era and the game is probably as good as over by now.

A quick recap: the English empire has been expanding well overseas. I've only lost only one unit of musketmen to the Monghol hordes and thanks to some intentionally prolonged sieges my SotL's and longbowmen have been able to gain a few nice promotions. Now the era of swords and bows has ended and the rifle rules the battlefield. The peerless longbowmen have been promoted to fierce redcoats (all with the logistics promotion save for one, who's about to gain it) and some with the march promotion, making them a force to be reckoned with. The Monghols have only one free city left. My plan was to destroy it and move east to fight the greeks. They're one of the few civs with more military might than myself, but my heavily promoted units supported by my SotL's should be able to take Alexander down, and expand the colonial empire.

However, destiny had other plans. Britannia may rule the waves, but on land it has many rivals. I was always a bit wary of the ever expanding Ramky, but he remains friendly. It was Darius who declared war on me after I settled a new city near his borders, which is strange considering he's one of my weaker neighbours. Nevertheless he gathered a strong army near my weakened homeland. Since my veterans were overseas, I was forced to rushbuy some military buildings and units for my protection. The siege is still ongoing and now I realize that if Darius is really my weakest neighbour, I might be in trouble.

I'd like to know what to do: should I continue expanding in Alexanders direction or forget my overseas territories for now and focus on ripping everybody on my continent (and especially that traitor Darius) a new one? Some overall comments on my progress would be nice too.

I'm currently trying to go for some late game expansion (I've always wanted to try some late game wars with modern armor, stealth bombers, nukes etc.), but I'm still saving up some coin to bribe some city states for an eventual diplomatic victory (however, I've wasted roughly 1000 gold on my continental defense force against the Persians). I've also noticed I've fallen behind in technology despite having a university in every city and Oxford University.

Heh, yep. If you really want to get cheesy though, have another Civ finish off Mongolia's last city and then liberate it. One more vote for your Diplo win.

I was planning to do that, but the last Monghol city is on an isolated peninsula and I doubt any other civ is that good with naval invasions.

EDIT: I'd like to add that I've fallen in love with the longbowmen and their impressive range, but it's a darn shame that they don't last all that long.

 

[Veneke]

I wouldn't worry about the Persians in the slightest, they're coming at your Rifles with Pikes and Crossbows. I would advise you to grab Peace with Brussels, which can be easily done. Otherwise though, your military looks to be in great shape. I'd recommend holding Oxford so you can grab Replaceable Parts and Infantry 10ish turns earlier than you otherwise could.

On Mongolia, the city I was mentioning earlier (which the Greeks have already captured in the save) was Samarqand. You're right though, I doubt the AI will be able to take New Sarai. That said, you can still take New Sarai and then Liberate Samarqand.

Also, your scouting on land is still very poor. Not sure if that's intentional or what, but 1-2 scouts could've covered the landmass from the last save to this one.

I noticed you're building an Arsenal in one of your cities. I'd avoid that unless you're running the Honour social policy tree. Also, Nottingham should really be focused on food+specialists given the tiles it can work. It may be a bit late to rectify that though. London should be much larger than 19 if you want to make the most out of the Monarchy social policy.

Speaking of Social Policies, while I'm a fan of Commerce (even if it does need a buff), you should avoid Protectionism. It's comparatively weaker than your alternatives. Instead of Protectionism+Freedom you could have gone Rationalism and Secularism setting you up for one of the strongest SPs in the game... which I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's the one that gives you 2 free techs.

Longbows are great, although the thing I really miss when I play other Civs is the speed the English have over the water, especially before and around Astronomoy. I don't feel the loss as much after that anyway.

Overall though, it's not looking too bad at all. Personally, I'd suggest marching through to Perseopolis. That'll keep your options open for a domination victory. By the way, have you picked a victory condition yet?

 

[The Pilgrim]

By the way, have you picked a victory condition yet?

That's what I have to say. No point in talking strategy before you make up your mind.

From empire management point of view:

- Building seaport on 1 water resource is a waste
- Trade you spare luxes to get unique ones or ally Ragusa, it has 2 luxes now and sell your own
- Sell excessive strategics. 23 horses?
- Freedom with kinda random GP slots use doesn't make sense

 

[Bamboocha]

Oh Veneke, Pilgrim. You've given me so much advice it's like you're playing half of the game for me

I wouldn't worry about the Persians in the slightest, they're coming at your Rifles with Pikes and Crossbows. I would advise you to grab Peace with Brussels, which can be easily done. Otherwise though, your military looks to be in great shape. I'd recommend holding Oxford so you can grab Replaceable Parts and Infantry 10ish turns earlier than you otherwise could.

That.... is quite clever. I might just do that, to give my military that extra boost a few turns earlier.

On Mongolia, the city I was mentioning earlier (which the Greeks have already captured in the save) was Samarqand. You're right though, I doubt the AI will be able to take New Sarai. That said, you can still take New Sarai and then Liberate Samarqand.

Doesn't liberating only work when you conquer their capital from another civ? I've only liberated city states up to this point so I wouldn't know.

Also, your scouting on land is still very poor. Not sure if that's intentional or what, but 1-2 scouts could've covered the landmass from the last save to this one.

The last time you commented on my scouting is because I didn't discover the Iroquois. I don't want to sound arrogant, but now that I've discovered all existing civs, what is the use of scouting by land? It'll cost me some hammers, upkeep, money (I have to ask all other civs to open their borders to me) and leaves me with one or two units that are quite useless militarily speaking. All the ruins are gone, so there's not even a ghost of a chance that it can upgrade into an archer.

I noticed you're building an Arsenal in one of your cities. I'd avoid that unless you're running the Honour social policy tree. Also, Nottingham should really be focused on food+specialists given the tiles it can work. It may be a bit late to rectify that though. London should be much larger than 19 if you want to make the most out of the Monarchy social policy.

How do I make London even larger? It's the largest city I've had in any game I played, and almost all non-resource tiles in its surroundings are farms. I don't see what else I can do about it.

Speaking of Social Policies, while I'm a fan of Commerce (even if it does need a buff), you should avoid Protectionism. It's comparatively weaker than your alternatives. Instead of Protectionism+Freedom you could have gone Rationalism and Secularism setting you up for one of the strongest SPs in the game... which I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's the one that gives you 2 free techs.

It's too late to rectify it and I know that rationalism is pretty strong, but are you sure htat'd be better than finishing commerce? It gives me extra happiness (allowing more expansion) and gives me +1 gold per specialist of any kind. I'd say that's pretty good for somebody who wants to hoard gold.

Longbows are great, although the thing I really miss when I play other Civs is the speed the English have over the water, especially before and around Astronomoy. I don't feel the loss as much after that anyway.

Overall though, it's not looking too bad at all. Personally, I'd suggest marching through to Perseopolis. That'll keep your options open for a domination victory. By the way, have you picked a victory condition yet?

I'm primarily going for a diplo victory, but with some dominance elements. I want to start by taking out or crippling the civilizations that can threaten my advancement (by having a lot of CS allies, more gold etc.) but if the war goes well enough I won't be afraid to go for domination instead.

As for Persia, perhaps it'd be a good idea to take all of their cities except for Persepolis and bribe the iroquois to attack it, destroying the Persians and allowing me to liberate them. After that I can perhaps keep them on my good side by returning them their old cities. Once I've made sure they're no longer a threat, I can perhaps even liberate Rome, giving me two whole votes in the UN voting.

That's what I have to say. No point in talking strategy before you make up your mind.

From empire management point of view:

- Building seaport on 1 water resource is a waste
- Trade you spare luxes to get unique ones or ally Ragusa, it has 2 luxes now and sell your own
- Sell excessive strategics. 23 horses?
- Freedom with kinda random GP slots use doesn't make sense

1. I see. Should I sell it?
2. Perhaps I'll try allying Ragusa. It's a naval citystate so it'll boost my growth as well
3. Nobody wants my horses
4. Yeah, I'm actually planning to start focusing on great people from now on. It has some synergy with the commerce finisher because even a science specialist will give me +1 gold.

On another note, where should I deploy my two free great artists landmarks, or should I culture bomb/sacrifice them for a golden age instead?

 

[Barth]

Doesn't liberating only work when you conquer their capital from another civ? I've only liberated city states up to this point so I wouldn't know.

You can liberate from non-capital cities. I don't know if every city works, but as far as I know it does.

3. Nobody wants my horses

I don't want to come off mean here, but do you actually check your trades? Like the wine earlier, you can indeed sell every one of your horses. Between Rammy, Bismark, and Hiawatha you can sell all 23 horses for full price, and maybe other civs will too, I stopped checking.

On another note, where should I deploy my two free great artists landmarks, or should I culture bomb/sacrifice them for a golden age instead?

If you're going 100% gold focus you're way better off burning them on golden ages. Between the two of them you'll get around 1120 extra gold.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Oh Veneke, Pilgrim. You've given me so much advice it's like you're playing half of the game for me

Do we get a candy at the end?

The last time you commented on my scouting is because I didn't discover the Iroquois. I don't want to sound arrogant, but now that I've discovered all existing civs, what is the use of scouting by land? It'll cost me some hammers, upkeep, money (I have to ask all other civs to open their borders to me) and leaves me with one or two units that are quite useless militarily speaking. All the ruins are gone, so there's not even a ghost of a chance that it can upgrade into an archer.

If you go for domination you MUST know your enemy's lands. To know exactly where the capital is, where other cities to avoid being double shot by 2 cities and what kind of units as well how many of them he/she has. It's a suicide to attack not having this information. Besides, there are still undiscovered CS's.

How do I make London even larger? It's the largest city I've had in any game I played, and almost all non-resource tiles in its surroundings are farms. I don't see what else I can do about it.

Take random specialists away?

I'm primarily going for a diplo victory, but with some dominance elements. I want to start by taking out or crippling the civilizations that can threaten my advancement (by having a lot of CS allies, more gold etc.) but if the war goes well enough I won't be afraid to go for domination instead.

It's not 'if-then' kind of situation at this point. You have to decide, since two paths gonna split. If you don't make up your mind now you may and you will get stuck in long and painful stagnation.

With piles of gold Alex has he'll pick most of CS's by the time one of you grab the UN. You'll need massive gold to steal them. 20k probably. And you still have 20 techs to go and t256 already. You cannot afford massive warring, since units cost maintenance. Banks and Stock Exchanges everywhere, annex one of Mongolian cities (Beshbalik, I guess) and build a harbor to connect them to trade network. Or sell Mongolia for all Alex's gold. That will cover the CS's bribes. Sign RA's and pump science.

If you go military - scout everything, get Dynamite, sign RA's and start pushing. First take control over your continent, then two blitz wars against Greece and France.

As for Persia, perhaps it'd be a good idea to take all of their cities except for Persepolis and bribe the iroquois to attack it, destroying the Persians and allowing me to liberate them. After that I can perhaps keep them on my good side by returning them their old cities. Once I've made sure they're no longer a threat, I can perhaps even liberate Rome, giving me two whole votes in the UN voting.

You only need Pasargadae for coal and factories. All the rest is junk. Unfortunately Hiawatha doesn't have any worthy lump sum, but still nice gpt, so you can sell him everything but.

1. I see. Should I sell it?

You mean all 4 of them and the 5th you're still building?
Up to you. Doesn't really matter at this point. 62 will not make up for lost hammers and the maintenance is negated by multipliers. If you'll be short 200g by the end you can sell them then.

3. Nobody wants my horses

Yes, they do.

Even if nobody wanted your horses 20 turns ago it doesn't mean that's still the case when cavalry is available. You should always recheck horses in late Renaissance when Military Tradition arrives.

4. Yeah, I'm actually planning to start focusing on great people from now on. It has some synergy with the commerce finisher because even a science specialist will give me +1 gold.

Yet, instead of beelining Electricity for SE's you beeline Steam Power.

On another note, where should I deploy my two free great artists landmarks, or should I culture bomb/sacrifice them for a golden age instead?

Let them burn, let them burn!
If you manage to generate two GE's for UN, burn them after trade posting Mongolia, otherwise later while building UN.

 

[apocalypse105]

This is how I play england :


The positif thing about england is you can wage war without iron in the medieval against you're neighbour those longbowman can atack those cities from a distance use you're pikeman and knights as suport units... You can't conquer a lot of people with this methode certainly a weak neigbhour to secure some land and power througought the game

Later in the game rifleman or musketman , cannons and ship of the lines is a powerfull setup I conquered hole europe with it(in a huge earth map mod)...

Ship of the lines are more usefull to bombard units then cities... And because you have a lot of movements you can olmost hit any unit does the unit have a cannon behind the frontlines no problem just destroy it with you're ship... You can basicly hit everything you want...

This strategy only works if you're enemy is close by the coast So its perfect to secure a foothold on the enemies land. You will have a harder time with other civs(except songhai)


The extra movement is olso usefull for exploring you will find a lot of civilizations verry fast at a continents,archipelo earth map this is especially usefull for huge maps.. You can trade a lot of resources to get a lot of gold...

My strategy Is allways go straight to astronomy and sell all my luxury resources to the other civilization

I will have a lot of resources because I conquered my neigbhour with longbowman (Or alone on a island settle cities where I want).

As result I have a lot of gold I can use for research agreements and upgrading all my units to rifleman and cannons and ship of the lines and start the offencive on the other island,continent

Thats how I play england good luck


Its funny I actually played like england does in history wage war in the medieval to secure some defence against invaders and conquer land and in renaissance "go collonize" on the other island.

 

[Veneke]

I think you can liberate it... pretty sure anyway. It's not something I've actually done, so take that cheese with a pinch of salt.

Personally I scout out the lay of the land to keep an eye on things more than anything else... plus, it's helpful for Domination.

Switch London to food focus, that should reduce the time to the next pop there by half. Make sure the aqueduct, granary and other food buildings are there (can't remember if they are). Size 19 is pretty good considering but what struck me as odd was that it wasn't set to food focus and the amount of specialists being run. If there's a GP plan, fair enough. If there's not, grow the capital, the happy will look after itself with Monarchy.

Well, this could just be my view of things, but it doesn't seem exceptionally clear that you want to hoard gold and even if you did Rationalism/Free Techs would still be better than the Commerce finisher. The choice you're making is between 7 happy (aka 7 more pop), x gold/turn and GP birth +25%, against RA+50% and 2x beakers/turn where x = the number of specialists you're running. If you're running more than 7 specialists, which you are, you'll get more beakers than gold/turn going for Secularism. If you have a definite GP plan then the GP birth bonus might be better than the RAs, and I'll admit I haven't looked at that in the save, but otherwise the RA bonus is better. Also remember that unless you plan on having the AI build the UN, you need to tech to Globalization, which is a good bit down the tree.

"As for Persia, perhaps it'd be a good idea to take all of their cities except for Persepolis and bribe the iroquois to attack it, destroying the Persians and allowing me to liberate them."

^ That sounds like it could work, but it would probably be easier to just plump for a Domination victory at that point instead

On another note, where should I deploy my two free great artists landmarks, or should I culture bomb/sacrifice them for a golden age instead?

Definitely blow them on golden ages.

 

[Bamboocha]

I'm looking at the current situation and it seems I'm in a deadlock here. I lack the military focus to go for a domination victory, am too large for a cultural victory, and Alexander outdoes me for diplomacy. If I declare war on Alex, all of his city state friends will declare war on me, which will make my relationship with them suffer significantly and I can't migate this penalty with the patronage tree.

However, I have learned a valuable lesson: in the first 100 or so turns I should explore as much as I can of the continent I am on, and after taking that information into account I should choose a victory condition and focus all of my efforts on that one victory condition.

That said, would you guys think it is a good idea to start from scratch or is there still hope in my current game? Because I believe there is no more hope because my empire is just so unfocused.

 

[The Pilgrim]

The game is totally winnable. Plain and simple. Any VC except for Culture. Science will be the easiest, though. Diplo the toughest. But doable with quite high probability. If Alex DoW's, you can pick Aesthetics after signing peace and all CS's hate will be eliminated.
Just decide where you wanna go.
It's only a king and you're doing fine. If you don't care about the fastest finish date you don't have to decide from a get go what VC to pursue. Although at some point you need to. Now is the point.

 

[Barth]

You can certainly still win this game. You're not set up for a cultural game and domination on a huge map seems painful to me, but you're 3rd in tech and not far behind the leader. You can win a science victory without major hardship.

 

[Bamboocha]

Okay, let's say I'll completely forget about going for a diplomatic victory and dedicate myself to science, what should I do from here? What policies should I take? Is it worth taking out the two civs that are stronger in tech to increase my chances of winning? Is there something else I can do to speed my science up?

EDIT: What about specialists (I have the freedom opener) and RA's, what should I do with those?

 

[The Pilgrim]

Okay, let's say I'll completely forget about going for a diplomatic victory and dedicate myself to science, what should I do from here? What policies should I take? Is it worth taking out the two civs that are stronger in tech to increase my chances of winning? Is there something else I can do to speed my science up?

They are merely stronger, so you don't need to be worried about them at all. Sign RA's with everyone you can. Fill all scientists slots and remove everyone else. Take Rationalism opener next. Save all if your generated GS's to the end to bulb final modern and future techs and hold on with Oxford too. You'll be able to finish the left side of Rationalism pretty comfortably, thus you'll get another 2 free techs.
Research-wise go find some aluminum and conquer/ally/trade coal. Build factories in most productive cities and connect them with railroads to London. You'll see where you stand after RA resolve.