Myths and Tips

[Nunya]

Thanks for the great posts. I learned quite a few things.

 

[Indibil]

Another tip: This time one that'll save you some precious time.

You can disable obtrusive Ruins explored and Tech Discovered by ticking the first option in the options User Interface (One that says something to the effect of 'Unobtrusive announcements' or something like that). I'll check for the exact wording when I get home.

Unfortunately, City States Obtrusive pop-up still happens when you tick that option, but two out of three time eating obtrusive screens gone ain't bad at all.

 

[yanner39]

You always want to trade route for the most part. I seem to place my cities about 4 tiles apart, so three roads per route. A size 3 city (which takes potentially only a handful of turns to get, depending on your CityState situation) will already be making .75 gold on that, as it grows, so does that value, while the road cost remains constant.

Oh yes I agree. I guess my point was to make sure you establish the trade WHEN it does pay for itself. Don't road to you capital at size 2 when you are 6 tiles away (unless your worker is idle and you know you are going to grow quickly in the future).

 

[HiroProtagonist]

Myth 3, Settle Next to food resources.

Well, this isn't exactly a myth, but I felt I should point out that you want to settle ON food resources, especially wheat and cows. Each will give your city square +1 food. This is amazingly important for your capital, since it will allow you to work more productive tiles in the early game, when you so desperately need it.

Myth 4, Granaries/watermills aren't worth the cost.

Unless you are already set up with a maritime growth strategy, these structures will cause you to grow at huge speeds. Consider a size 4 city, working it's base tile (2 food) and 4 other tiles (+3 food each). It's going to have 14 food per turn, and eat 8. +6 growth rate. That's for a city that is pretty much maxed out its growth possibilities in the early game. +2 food per turn increases growth rate by 33%, something you normally get from a social policy.

This percentage increase gets a lot better the less good food resources you have. It also lets you 'trade' production for food in the early game. If you work a 1 food 2 production tile for a while, instead of a 3 food production (-2 food per turn) the lost food will actually be made up in the exact same amount of time it took to build that 120 hammer granary, which isn't that long at all.

Zechnophobe, nice write up, but I'm a bit confused on two of the myths.

In myth 3 if I understand what you are saying, is that settling your city on a wheat or cow tile is a good option because it gives that city +1 food. In the game I'm just starting my settler is on a plains river tile (1f, 1p, 1g), if I settle that tile my city is producing (2f, 2p, 1g). One hex to the east of the original start position is a wheat, plains, river hex (2f, 1p, 1g). If I settle that hex instead of the original start tile my city is still producing (2f, 2p, 1g) and not (3f, 2p, 1g) as I would have thought after reading your post. Is the fact that these are both river tiles skewing the results, or am I simply misunderstanding the point you were making. There is another non river wheat hex to the north, I'll try settling that instead and see if the results change any.

In the second paragraph of myth 4 you state If you work a 1 food 2 production tile for a while, instead of a 3 food production (-2 food per turn) the lost food will actually be made up in the exact same amount of time it took to build that 120 hammer granary. Could you clarify what you mean with 3 food production? Is this 3f 3p, 3f 0p, or 3f, 2p?

I'm not following the meaning of the lost food will actually be made up in the exact same amount of time it took to build that 120 hammer granary either. If both options result in the same amount of food is the choice a wash or is there still one reason to choose one over the other.

 

[Lyoncet]

Myth 2, Happiness structures cost too much to maintain, so don't build them.

I believe the MOST expensive one is 6 to maintain, and gives 4 happiness. But remember that each point of happiness basically equals one more tile worked. 4 happiness = 4 tiles. If you can't get 6 gold from 4 tiles, you are likely doing 'it wrong'. Also consider the value of trade routes. Each trade route is valued at (IIRC) 1.25 gold per population of the city. Therefore a city growing 4 times = 5 gold from trade routes. So you really only need 1 more gold from those 4 population points.

This is the only one that doesn't quite square in my experience. You're right that the cost in coins is nothing next to the benefits of the extra happiness, but their hammer cost can be pretty prohibitive. Colosseums and Circus aren't too bad (150), but the latter can be tough to build depending on your resources and theatres cost a ton compared to other buildings of that era and tier - 300 for a second-tier building, whereas other second-tier Medieval buildings take in the low 200 ranges aside from military academy and museum. So yeah, I agree that the coin cost is a pittance for the benefit, but since you'll probably need to set up just about every new city with happiness buildings to expand quickly, those little cities are going to be chugging along on those buildings for a very, very long time (and god help you if you have any good but low-hammer sites).

Also, wasn't "each unhappiness = one citizen that won't work" Civ IV? I'm pretty sure nothing of that sort happens in V. And IIRC there's no penalty of unhappiness, other than not getting as many golden ages.

 

[Bibor]

Also, wasn't "each unhappiness = one citizen that won't work" Civ IV? I'm pretty sure nothing of that sort happens in V. And IIRC there's no penalty of unhappiness, other than not getting as many golden ages.

If you drop below zero your cities grow at 25% speed, if you drop below -9 your cities don't grow at production is halved and units get a 33% penalty in combat. So yes, very dangerous penalties.

 

[Guardian_PL]

If you drop below zero your cities grow at 25% speed, if you drop below -9 your cities don't grow at production is halved and units get a 33% penalty in combat. So yes, very dangerous penalties.

They are not "dangerous" whatsoever. Have you seen that thread "ignore happiness"? You still get science, you're still getting money to rushbuy whatever buildings/units you need, and that laughable combat penalty is nothing if you'll put a Great General in vicinity. It's actually hilarious when playing China since their GG's are giving +45% bonus.

 

[CornPlanter]

Myth 1, more cities are harder to keep happy.

You get more unhappy faces with every new city. Or in other words unhappiness is directly related to the number of cities you have. So yes the more cities you have the harder is to keep happy. This is not a myth, this is a fact, case closed.

Myth 6, Social Policies take longer to research for larger empires.

Well, technically this is true, especially early on.

Exactly. Case closed

What I want to say, these are hard cold facts, not myths at all. You are trying to find ways to mitigate the loses, but it doesn't change the fact the more cities means harder to get policies and more unhappiness. So you need to do something about that, like building more culture buildings or adopting policies from silly trees like Liberty.

Nice writeup tho, I agree with most of it.

 

[Guardian_PL]

You get more unhappy faces with every new city. Or in other words unhappiness is directly related to the number of cities you have. So yes the more cities you have the harder is to keep happy. This is not a myth, this is a fact, case closed.

Stop nitpicking and read his whole post, ok? True, every city gives you three unhappiness plus population penalty, but there's plethora of buildings to build (Colloseum etc) or Social Policies to use that affect whole empire (like -20% from population in every city or +1 for every city) which more than makes up for that, and that was his point.

 

[CornPlanter]

So basically you are saying that more cities give more unhappiness so you must build more happiness buildings and adopt appropriate policies to fight the increased unhappiness? Thats what I am saying too. More cities = more unhappiness, fact, not a myth.

 

[Lyoncet]

If you drop below zero your cities grow at 25% speed, if you drop below -9 your cities don't grow at production is halved and units get a 33% penalty in combat. So yes, very dangerous penalties.

Yes, I know. What I asked was where he got the "each unhappy = 1 tile you can't work" from, and went on to speculate that maybe, since he was talking about losing money from having unhappiness, he had misunderstood the effects of unhappiness and thought that there was a penalty to it. I never said the penalties weren't 1) present or 2) noticeable.

 

[Guardian_PL]

So basically you are saying that more cities give more unhappiness so you must build more happiness buildings and adopt appropriate policies to fight the increased unhappiness? Thats what I am saying too. More cities = more unhappiness, fact, not a myth.

No.
It seems that you are missing the OP's point. A word "myth" is just a figure of speech, it just represents common approach to said issue here. People generally go "oh noes, more cities are harder to keep happy, so I should stop expanding!". But despite the fact that each city creates more faces, the more cities you have, the more buildings you can build, and in the end you're reaching the opposite effect to that fact you cling to - in the end the more cities you have, the more you get, not to mention science, culture etc. And that's a fact too. "Case closed" xPPP

What Zechnophobe is saying is to not to be afraid of expanding, obviously it is not recommended from the start, when you simply don't have the technology, policies or simply enough luxuries to tame your population/city amount penalty. But steadily increasing your empire is the way to go, if you'll limit yourself then on higher difficulties later on you'll meet the monster from another continent that has like 10k of loose change, earns 700/turn and is building spaceship parts while you're getting to steam power

 

[aimlessgun]

Zechnophobe, nice write up, but I'm a bit confused on two of the myths.

In myth 3 if I understand what you are saying, is that settling your city on a wheat or cow tile is a good option because it gives that city +1 food. In the game I'm just starting my settler is on a plains river tile (1f, 1p, 1g), if I settle that tile my city is producing (2f, 2p, 1g). One hex to the east of the original start position is a wheat, plains, river hex (2f, 1p, 1g). If I settle that hex instead of the original start tile my city is still producing (2f, 2p, 1g) and not (3f, 2p, 1g) as I would have thought after reading your post. Is the fact that these are both river tiles skewing the results, or am I simply misunderstanding the point you were making. There is another non river wheat hex to the north, I'll try settling that instead and see if the results change any.

Confirm that settling on a 'food resource' has no effect on the city tile yield. Tested with sheep.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Confirm that settling on a 'food resource' has no effect on the city tile yield. Tested with sheep.

Settling on cows and wheat does indeed create 3food city centre tile, not sure about other resources.

EDIT
Settling on luxury resource gives +1
To have a city square giving 3food you have to settle on a tile that has 3food without improvements - so no sheep or plains wheat, only grassland/floodplains wheat/cows. Tried to find grassland bananas to check but couldn't find it, only plains banana and that's not good enough.

 

[aimlessgun]

Settling on cows and wheat does indeed create 3food city centre tile, not sure about other resources.

EDIT
Settling on luxury resource gives +1
To have a city square giving 3food you have to settle on a tile that has 3food without improvements - so no sheep or plains wheat, only grassland/floodplains wheat/cows. Tried to find grassland bananas to check but couldn't find it, only plains banana and that's not good enough.

Ahh I see. Makes sense. Definitely better to settle on those in that case, +1 food on a tile you work by default is pretty swell.

 

[es4]

So basically you are saying that more cities give more unhappiness so you must build more happiness buildings and adopt appropriate policies to fight the increased unhappiness? Thats what I am saying too. More cities = more unhappiness, fact, not a myth.

Well, at the start of the game, yes. You forget that you get the city center for free though, so you basically pay 2 happiness for a 2-2-1 tile (the 3rd happiness is the first citizen) and the right to build extra copies of the most efficient buildings. Any one of many per-city bonuses (+1 happy for a trade route policy, Forbidden Palace, maritime city states, +5 production per city policy, etc.) adjusts the balance such that the benefit from additional cities is greater than the unhappiness hit initially. Once you get two or three of them (which is easy), it's a significant benefit for each extra city.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

I have'nt seen wheat on grassland yet either. But initially settling on a cow provide's a welcome boost from the start. Would be interesting if someone number-crunched to reveal just how much boost to your early game this tactic can provide, and how long are these effect's are magnified before they provide no more meaningful bonus. I usually pasture cow hex'es for the production bonus (unless they are riverside), but will try this starting strat to test the difference. My only gripe is that it could be a slightly situational gambit....

 

[aimlessgun]

Well, if you had the otherwise equal choice between a cow and a normal ol' grassland, you're trading 1 food for 1 production early on. But then later, when that grassland can get a +2 food farm, its 2 food vs 1 production.

In Civ4 food was king, but I think even in Civ5 that 1 food will be better or at least just as good, since you're not exactly buying up maritime states that early.

 

[Xger]

Settling a city: The base yield is 2f2h1g. If the tile unimproved yields higher in any of those 3, the city center gets the higher value.

So a cow on grassland is 3f base, so the city would be 3f2h1g. Wheat on plains is 2f1h base, so city is normal. Luxuries can make gold 3 or 4, and thus the city center would be that.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I have'nt seen wheat on grassland yet either. But initially settling on a cow provide's a welcome boost from the start. Would be interesting if someone number-crunched to reveal just how much boost to your early game this tactic can provide, and how long are these effect's are magnified before they provide no more meaningful bonus. I usually pasture cow hex'es for the production bonus (unless they are riverside), but will try this starting strat to test the difference. My only gripe is that it could be a slightly situational gambit....

It is situational, since you don't always get that floodplains wheat/grassland cows, also one has to factor in possible loss of time to get to that tile, also I sometimes that grassland cows are one tile away from the river which is bad news - water mill is a very good building ^^

But despite all that it is still an interesting aspect of the game that's worth knowing. More food like that allows to grow more quickly (so slightly more initial science, therefore teching to that Calendar or Writing faster), and also being able to work a mine or two (a gold mine or two perhaps?) while still slowly growing.

Right now because of the loong, long build times I'm a sucker for bonus food - initially I thought that Granary was meh and omgitcostmaintenance But to have more food like that allows you to focus on production, not working those farms while your gold mine is just sitting there sadly.

Lastly, one small benefit is that you're saving yourself 6-8 worker turns that can be used elsewhere.