I am diving hella into the deep end, as I found the History rewritten mod and fell head over heels in love with it, though I may go back to vanilla for some easier learning for a while.
I am a bit confused by many things, like how stacks should be organized, the intricacies of specialist economies, GP farms, and how hammer overflow works. I tried reading several guides on the war academy, but the guides either didn't teach me anything useful, or they went way over my head. Most of the contradict each other HARD. Anybody have good pointers to keep in mind for different levels of play? ESSENTIAL guides to read, or reccomendations on different paths to learn the game? Like should I even care about specialist economies? Ive heard they are better than CE, so why even learn CE if it is inferior? What about hybrid ETC
EDIT: Am playing tutorial, he says growth is halted while settlers are produced but not workers? I thought both workers and settlers halt growth?
Also how EXACTLY does combat work? Does each unit actually attack at once when I tell the stack to attack.... the way combat happens is super abstract and Im not sure about how I should compose my men
That's a decent guide but sadly a lot of it is outdated...what I'd recommend is a shadow game instead, where more experienced players guide OP on a turn-by-turn basis.
While comparing the two, let me first state that (commerce) is raw income generated by tiles and trade routes. It can transition into (wealth) or (research/science/beakers) at a ratio of 1:1 or higher! It can be higher through multipliers generated from buildings such as the Library (+25%) or Banks (+50%). All citizens of a city eat -2 per turn, so you need to generate more than they eat in order to grow (important overall, but especially when planning your specialist economy).
Cottage Economy is much better than Specialist Economy in the mid-late game. Cottages take 70 turns (Normal speed, without Emancipation civic) to become a town and begin reeeally developing your into and . You of course want them built on grass tiles so they have +2 and won't hinder growth of the city working them, and if they can be made on river tiles, all the better (Flood plains would be fantastic for that +3 and river tile). Cottage Economy involves building cottages in many early cities so that almost every grass tile (that doesn't have a resource on it) is a cottage. This makes it so your income rises quickly and little planning is necessary (hence why it's easy and recommended for beginners and lower difficulties)
in this economy is good for growth while the grass cottages stack up. Having as little as +2 in a city can be enough to keep it somewhat relevant. Also, because cities work tiles in their "Big Fat Cross" (BFC) you can make a city 3 - 4 tiles away from another one so that their BFCs overlap. Only one city may work those tiles at a time, but the other city may "take control of" one of those tiles if you enter the city management screen and click on the shaded tile. This is useful for when one city was working a Hamlet, but just whipped or needs to work something else. If the Hamlet was in the overlapped tiles, the 2nd city can work it so you still gain the + and the Hamlet continues to grow towards a Village.
Outside of Cottage Economy, cottages are still used for your main capital in many games. It makes sense because the capital is around the longest and can work the cottages earlier, and because once you unlock the Civil Service tech you can switch to the Bureaucracy civic, giving +50% to your capital! This is a very universally powerful civic and it should be used 99% of the time unless you exceed 15+ cities (so your tech and production is more about your empire as a whole, rather than 1 great city) or are preparing for war (Nationhood > Vassalage). Once you unlock Free Speech through Liberalism, if you're in Cottage Economy or going for a culture win, you can switch to Free Speech.
Specialist Economy is a tricky one and requires a good amount of micromanagement to properly leverage city growth and specialists. Its strength lies in the bulbs you receive from the Great Persons and any specialties of theirs. These bulbs can rocket you ahead ~3 techs in the early game. Basically: build a library in your capital ASAP, then work 2 scientists in the capital immediately. You'll generate a Great Scientist in 17 turns (Normal speed; 9 if you're Philosophical) of this (assuming you don't have any wonders) and can use the 1st to create an Academy in your capital for +50%. Now your scientists in this city are no longer -2 / +3.75 / +3 but instead -2 / +5.25 / +3 (decimals are removed after ALL calculations have been applied. Note: +25% (Library) and +50% (Academy) are cumulative, not stacked. So the final modifier is +75% instead of 1.25*1.5=1.875 : +87.5%)
After this, you'd like to use most Great Persons to bulb a tech or for their specialties, such as a Great Merchant performing the Trade mission at a large foreign city to generate large amounts of . The amount of is determined: = 500 + 200*Trade_value*X; where Trade_value = the value the city would receive from a trade route with your capital. This means the bigger your Capital is, the further the two cities are from each other, and bonuses applied to THAT city are the factors. So a Harbor, Temple of Artemis, Customs House, 50+ Turns of sustained peace with that civ, and the city being on an island/other continent are the big modifiers.
X = game speed modifier (X=.67(quick)/1.0(normal)/1.5(Epic)/3.0(marathon))
SpoilerTrick to check the exact value :
You can (while the GM is in any city) press and hold the Shift key then right click on a target city. Hover over the Trade Mission icon to see the trade value from that city. Repeat for any other cities. Not sure if Harbor, etc., bonuses are applied if you haven't had vision of the city since it was built. Be sure to use backspace to cancel any moves made this way before releasing the Shift key.
The Great Engineer can help towards finishing a world wonder with a 500+ boost (does not overflow). Great Prophets can be used to create a holy temple in a holy city (founding city of a religion) so that the temple generates +1 per turn for every city in the world with its religion, it also helps automatically spread the religion. This is great if you have a holy city or are about to capture one. Otherwise Great Prophets, Great Artists, and Great Spies should all be used towards Golden Ages. (Great Spies are good for Spy Economy, but that's a difficult economy based on catching up rather than getting ahead).
In Specialist Economy is much more necessary than normal. You may need farms instead of cottages on grass river tiles just so the city can have a +6 to +10 for growth, this way after specialists (citizens which don't work city tiles, so they are effectively -2 each) are accounted for, you still maintain growth in the city. If unable to maintain growth, it's ok to starve for a while, just so long as the city doesn't lose a citizen because of it.
Great Persons are generated by the +3 points from specialists and +n from wonders. They have an "x"% chance of being a particular Great Person, where "x" is the number of total points applied towards that type of Great Person divided by the total applied. Once the total applied reaches the Great Person's birth threshold, the Great Person is born. The threshold is defined:
So each Great Person takes +100 more than the last one, and +200 each after the 10th one. This means generating more and more Great Persons becomes more difficult as the game progresses, thus why it falls off in the late game, especially compared to a large number of towns you could have had.
You may use the Caste System civic to help add more scientists to cities and may go for wonders for + or a wonder like the Great Library which adds 2 free scientists to a city. Representation (+3 per specialist, +3 in largest cities) is HUGE for this economy and is why doing what you can to build/steal the Pyramids will nearly double the effectiveness of this economy. (Probably shouldn't build them if you don't have access to stone, it's a large early investment)
So when you compare the -2 / +5.25 / +3 or -2 / +3.75 / +3 in cities other than your Academy Capital to a Grass River Town's +0 / +8.75 or +0 / +6.25 (Assuming you don't have Printing Press/Free Speech, which raise it even higher) it looks like Towns outshine it heavily, but remember it takes 70 turns for them to fully develop. Plus with Representation, scientists generate +7.5 or +10.5 each! The -2 still may not be worth it, but the generating a Great Scientist to bulb makes it worth much more!
So, clearly Great Scientists are preferred for their 50% high bulbs. Population size means the population of your entire empire.
So if we use the 1st GS on an academy, the next 5 require: 200; 300; 400; 500; 600
Let's pretend your population is 50, this means the next 5 GS are worth: 8.25/; 5.5/; 4.125/: 3.3/; 2.75/
So a scientist in your capital is worth: -2 / +30; -2 / +21.75; -2 / +17.6; -2 / +15.15; -2 / +13.5
We can see it depreciating heavily, but clearly able to keep up with a Grass River Town, if not far exceeding it for the first several GS. This is without Representation bonus, without Philosophical trait's +50%, without a Golden Age's +100%, without National Epic's +100%, and any extra (Parthenon, Forum) +% being factored in.
Hybrid economy involves using the best of both worlds: Have 1-3 cottage cities at river-heavy locations, 1 GP farm (city with many available food tiles so that it can solely work to generate Great Persons), and utilize other good aspects of other economy styles when able. An example would be Wonder Bread economy abusing whips/chops overflow into wonders for fail gold. The +50%/100%/+150% production bonus applied for being Industrious and/or having access to the wonder's "Double Production bonus" resource is essentially applied towards your Wealth once someone finishes the wonder (other than from the city that finishes it). Info on Wonder Bread Economy here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threa...-10-year-veteran.574724/page-12#post-14463743
Another useful economy is the Trade Economy, abusing +Trade routes from the Great Light House (and possibly the Temple of Artemis, though you shouldn't be able to build both in the same game beyond Prince difficulty). Every city will generate good commerce, especially as you meet new civs and establish trade routes between cities (by roads or revealing coastal tiles between them). Foreign trade routes generate +150% commerce and islands/other continents generate +100% commerce per trade route. There's a lot of specifics to it, but basically you can spam coastal cities and generate plenty of commerce per city, making a large, unbeatable empire quickly. This can be used in Hybrid, too, of course.
In the end, some form of Hybrid is considered the best, map dependent. Cottage Economy is easy, good for cities with low - average excess with river tiles, and great for learning the game because you can focus on many other aspects while you know you'll have a decent early game and a strong mid-late game. Specialist Economy boosts you quickly, and is great for cities with lots of excess , but depreciates over time. Although with Representation it can be great to run many specialists in many cities, you should attempt to have only 1 city actually generating Great Persons.
As for your other questions:
Spoiler:
Yes, Settlers and Workers both halt production. More specifically, excess food is applied towards the Worker/Settler's production progress.
Combat is done by single units at a time. Most players disable the "Stack Attack" option in the menu. Your unit with the highest final win% is chosen first (unless chosen manually). If you have two units in a stack, a 10 Knight and an 8 Maceman and the enemy has a 6 Longbowman and a 6 Pikeman, obviously you want your Maceman to fight the PIkeman, where the Maceman's bonus makes it act as a 12 vs 6, but instead it will only be able to fight the Longbowman first, because the AI would rather fight the 6 vs 8. So if you think "I'd rather send in the Knight first for a 10 vs the 6 Longbowman!", it will pit the Pikeman first for its bonus to make it a 12 vs your 10 knight. So in stack fighting, the Maceman would go first against the Longbowman, because it's the best option for the both of you, and then the Knight would have to face the Pikeman (if you choose to proceed), regardless of who won the first fight.
If we pretend you have a 5 Axeman, too, and send it in first, the Axe will fight the Longbowman, likely losing. Let's say it damages the Longbowman down to 3.0. Now when your Maceman wants to fight, the game will notice that the 8 vs a 3.0 Longbowman is worse for the defender than a boosted 12 vs the 6 Pikeman, so you get to fight the Pikeman. Now your Knight gets an easy cleanup of 10 vs 3.0 Longbowman.
Compose your men of some Catapults/Trebuchets/Cannons/Artillery so you can deal collateral damage to large stacks and eliminate city defenses, then a single spear/pike/rifleman to help deflect mounted units (because if they attack your stack, your spear/pike will defend you first) and a handful of axe/macemen to defend against melee attackers. The rest can be whatever is your strongest unit is at the time. Maybe some Warriors/Archers as cheap units to defend the cities after capture. Also: Mounted units are fantastic overall. Their 2 make taking several cities - even without eliminating the city's defenses first - a breeze. The AI has difficulties properly defending against 2 units because of how a stack of them can target multiple places at once, then hit the least defended target.
How calculations are done can be found more in depth at: https://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/game-mechanics/combat-explained/
To me, the main point is that your winning odds are defined by the ratio of your final strength after bonuses compared to theirs:
>1.8 99%+
1.58-1.79 95%-98%
1.39-1.57 87%-90%
1.25-1.38 75%-80%
1.01-1.25 62%-75%
1.0 50%
0.80-0.99 25%-38%
0.73-0.79 20%-25%
0.64-0.72 10%-13%
0.56-0.63 2%-5%
<0.56 <1%
Even if you have a 2%-10% chance of winning a fight, if your stack is ~2-3x larger than theirs you can expect to beat them because of your first wave damaging their wave, reducing their overall strength. Following waves will have much better odds.
@Undefeatable - Hmmm that sounds like a good idea. How would I set up a shadow game?
@InovA - HOLY GOD that is a fantastic reply, I can see the effort into it.
I do have a couple of questions though.
1. I am not sure how trade routes work? I can just read more on this, though i haven't seen much of an explanation
2. I'd figure any river city would have the HIGHEST excess food, as floodplains make excess food, but you said that would be best for cottages?
3. So an ideal hybrid, which seems smartest, would be to have first city focus on cottage, second be a production, and third/fourth focus on great people through specialists/ cottages respectively, then a fifth also focus on production, etc from there?
4. Production cities use specialists, or regular tile working?
5. What is the different between catapults bombarding and attacking? Bombard destroy walls, while attacking hits the unit stack with collateral?
6. I do enjoy Longer length speeds such as epic, where I attack early and hard with more conquest oriented civs, as it feels the most engaging. What city layouts would you reccomend for that opposed to a more peaceful game setup that your post seems to me to prefer?
Lol I enjoy going through the math! It actually taught me a good amount of the specifics of a specialist economy and just how valuable the first ~4 GS are! I'm mainly focused on whipping out more settlers for rapid expansion up to ~10+ cities if I have the room, but looking up the specifics showed me why I should often focus on specialists in the capital a bit earlier.
Commerce Generated = [Base * Modifiers]
Base = MIN(0.1*Popother,[xD]) : with a minimum of Base = 1
Modifiers = SUM of bonuses (such as harbor +50%, customs house +100%, etc.)
Anything within square brackets [ ] are rounded down to the nearest integer. Popother is the population of the city the trade route is being established with. So the base value will always = 1 until the other city's population has reached 11+ and is at least 5 distance away (Standard map). x = the map size modifier:
SpoilerMap Size Modifier :
Duel = 0.4
Tiny = 0.35
Small = 0.3
Standard = 0.25
Large = 0.2
Huge = 0.15
SpoilerD = distance, which is calculated by: :
Distance = MAX([X + (Y / 2)],[(X / 2) + Y])
For example:
If a city being traded with was 11 South and 24 East of the receiving city, then
Distance = MAX([24 + (11 / 2)],[(24 / 2) + 11])
Distance = MAX([24 + 5.5],[12 + 11])
Distance = MAX([29.5],[23])
Distance = 29
SpoilerModifiers :
+5% for population of the Receiving city over 10
+25% if the receiving city has a connection to the Capital
+3% per turn since your last war with the civ (if it is a foreign trade route) [max 150%]
+50% if you have a Harbor
+100% for the Temple of Artemis
+100% if the other city is on another continent
+100% if it is another civ on another continent AND you have a Customs House
Trade routes can be established with each available foreign city only ONCE among your empire, which city will receive it is based on your largest cities. Just because your capital is trading with London, Paris, and Medina does not mean those cities are trading with your capital. Trade routes simply give your city +, the other cities receive nothing based on your trade routes, their + is calculated separately.
Domestic cities can be traded with an infinite amount of times! So let's pretend you are isolated on a small continent and have just founded a city on a small island nearby. Before settling it, all your trade routes would likely be +1 with other cities of yours. But your new city is on an island/other continent, so it gains the +100% bonus for this. It will have +2 for any of its trade routes, AND all of your cities will immediately begin trading with it (as long as they have a coastal connection or a road connected to a coastal city) and have a +2 trade route with it. This means islands can effectively double your trade route income if you don't have enough foreign cities to trade with.
How a trade route is set up is tricky. You will need to have open borders with the civ for foreign trade routes to be established. First, the easy way, if you have a road established that connects to a road of the other city, trade routes can begin. Sailing enables on rivers, so rivers could also act as a road in this case. The second way is by coastal/oceanic trade, provided you have enabled coastal/oceanic by teching Sailing/Astronomy, respectively. For foreign trade routes, you will need to have open borders with the civ in order to establish a trade route with their cities. You need to reveal tiles along the coast/ocean all the way up to the edge of their cultural border. As long as you can see a direct route from one of your cities to the edge of their border, a trade route can be established.
SpoilerNot good enough: :
SpoilerGood enough: :
The "good enough" is assuming the vision goes all the way back to a city of yours. If there is ice in the way, a trade route can't be established by that direction. Also, the tiles between your cities and their border can't be controlled by a hostile player. If you're at war with a civ between you and another civ and the warring civ owns the coastal tiles, you cannot establish coastal or road trade routes through them to the 3rd civ beyond them. You're considered always at war with barbarians, so a barbarian city can disrupt your trade routes.
Ways to get extra trade routes:
All cities start with 1 available.
Build The Great Lighthouse for +2 in all coastal cities.
Research Currency for +1 in all cities.
Build a Castle for +1 for that city. (Not recommended unless you have access to stone and/or have the Protective trait)
Activate the Free Market civic for +1 in all cities. Note: This requires researching Economics, which would obsolete the Castle's +1 bonus)
Research Corporations for +1 in all cities. Note: This obsoletes The Great Lighthouse, removing its +2 bonus.
The United Nations has the Single Currency election which would add +1 to all global cities.
Build an airport for +1 .
Build a Cothon for 1. (The unique building (harbor) for Carthage)
It depends on the city. If the city already has enough food from resources to be around +8 or more, you can make it a GP farm and add farms to nearby tiles making it +12 or more. If it has only a 1 - 2 nearby average food resources and flood plains, it may be better to make it a cottage-heavy city. It will rise in population quickly and be able to work many cottages in no time. Flood plains cottages are great for increasing the speed of this. Flood plains farms are very nice for GP farms, but if there are many of them, you'd prefer it to be a giant cottage-heavy city that focuses on +% buildings like the Library, Observatory, University + Oxford University, etc. Maybe Monasteries, too, depending on how early in the game it is. (They become obsolete with the Scientific Method)
Basically the excess food you're looking for for a GP farm should be from 2+ high resources (Fish, Irrigated Corn, flat grass Pigs are 6 tiles, the best; Dry Corn, Irrigated Rice, Clams, Crabs, Bananas, grass hill Pigs, Grass Sheep are 5 tiles, still good) or 3+ average food resources (4 resources), then add farms nearby afterwards. Farms only give +1 overall (because of the -2 from the citizen) while these other mentioned resources can give +4 on their own. A city already (basically) starts with +2, so it can easily reach a high +10 or more for a quick GP farm and begin working ~5 citizens as specialists.
If you built a city with Plains cow (+3 / +3) and several river farms around it (all +3) you'd have a 10 population city with +30 - 20 = 10, so it would appear to be equal to a GP farm city mentioned, but once you start working 3 of those citizens as specialists it becomes: +21 - 20= +1.
If a GP farm had an irrigated Corn (+6) and 2 Clams (+5/+1 or more ) it would already have excess +12 while at 3 population (assuming you have a lighthouse for the +1 on water tiles). Even if you don't add farms nearby, it will start working 2 water tiles and grow quickly. Once at 10 pop it has: +32 - 20 = +12, say it begins working 3 specialists: +26 - 20 = +6 because only +2 tiles are being removed, instead of +3 farms. And of course if you can add more farms to this city, it'll do even better!
3. So an ideal hybrid, which seems smartest, would be to have first city focus on cottage, second be a production, and third/fourth focus on great people through specialists/ cottages respectively, then a fifth also focus on production, etc from there?
This is waaay too map dependent. The city's tiles determine what it should be. If it has the excess , make it a GP farm even if it's your 1st city. (For the early game it would be focused on pumping out settlers/workers and would share food tiles with nearby cities, but later on become a real strong GP farm)
You would like it if your 1st city were a cottage farm with Gold, River Corn, and many flood plains. Along with the +50% from Bureaucracy it would become a real powerhouse early on. Whether your next cities are production/cottage/GP farm cities depends on what tiles are close by. I don't think it matters too much what order they're made in. If you think you might be making a GP farm city too early, you still want the food from it for the early game, just share it with another city so they both grow and use the city to build workers/settlers if it would grow too rapidly and become .
Regular tiles. If you have Representation because of building/capturing the Pyramids, they can work some specialists like an engineer or scientist.
Otherwise its build path should like like: Granary, Lighthouse (if available and have a water resource), Forge, Factory (if available), Wonder buildings (don't always need to finish them, Fail Gold is great, too), (possible Barracks if war soon), (possible Courthouse if far from capital/getting to be a large, 15+ city empire), Settlers/Workers as necessary, Wealth. Farms and Mines are best for a city like this. If you have a Trade Economy going, you can add in a Harbor, Customs House, etc. here.
Even if you had 6 grass river tiles to think of making cottages, it wouldn't sync with this city very well, it wants to help rapidly expand the empire and translate to and won't build +% buildings which take advantage of any .
Catapults bombarding remove city defenses (-8%/turn) while catapults attacking deals damage to one unit as if it fought normally, but another 5-8 units take 50% damage from one round of fighting. So yes, you have it right.
6. I do enjoy Longer length speeds such as epic, where I attack early and hard with more conquest oriented civs, as it feels the most engaging. What city layouts would you reccomend for that opposed to a more peaceful game setup that your post seems to me to prefer?
I never play peaceful! I may open peacefully and strategically so that I can tech faster than my opponents, but I eventually translate my and/or lead into a large army advantage so I can conquer a civ or two and repeat the cycle. So I still recommend the same style I've been talking about. Just go about what would be considered "standard play" by building a Granary and Forge in every city. Then add a Library in cottage/GP farm cities. Then add barracks in every city other than your GP farm right before you get the military tech you've been waiting for. Then whip/draft your strongest units like crazy for ~15-20 turns (Normal speed, so 20-25 on Epic speed) in every city of yours. Then you should be ready to destroy a neighbor of yours.
I assume in your guide reading they've mentioned how " is king" and how whipping is the most powerful mechanic in the game, especially in the early to mid game. Be sure to whip as much as possible, but never when a city has just begun production of something that same turn (because the whips won't be worth as much ) and not always on a wonder, directly (also receives penalty). Overflow is done so that any hammers are applied to the current build are applied to the next build. Whipping translates 1 population into 30 (45 on Epic) and adds +10 turns to the city's slavery anger (+15 turns for Epic). For every 10 turns (15, Epic), rounded up, the city will have +1. So if I've whipped so much that I have +31 turns until all slavery anger is over, my city will have +4. But in 1 turn it will be +30 remaining, so only +3.
The important note to abuse slavery is that the action of whipping causes the +10 turns, notthe number of population whipped. So if you have 10 population and whip 5 of them into +150 (225, Epic) the city will still only gain +10 (+15, Epic) turns.
Let's pretend I have a 6-pop city that produces 5 per turn and it begins production of a Spy (40). I could wait 2 turns so that 10 are applied and then only need to use a 1-pop whip (30) to finish the production. Then overflow would be 5 because I still had 5 being applied from the city's base production. If I wait only 1 turn, only 5 have been applied and I still need 35. Even though I'm applying 5/turn, because more than 30 are needed, I must whip 2-pop (60) to finish the production. This would result in 30 of overflow, but still only the +10!
A fun tactic (and vital part of the Wonder Bread Economy) is to do something similar to this while building a wonder. Fail Gold works so that every applied translates to at a 1:1 ratio in the end. So it's just like Wealth building, but you can apply whips/chops/Industrious trait's +50% Wonder building/a resource's (marble/stone/etc.) +100% wonder building modifier towards it. So let's say you have access to Marble and you're building the Parthenon, but don't actually want to finish it. You can begin production on it with this same 5/turn city and after 10 turns have 100 applied because of the +100% from marble. You gain 100 when it's built in another city (including if it were finished in a different city you own).
If instead, you chop (+20, +30 with Mathematics / +30 Epic, +45 Epic Math) two forests with math for +60 and do the whip overflow trick by making 2 spies, (Start 1 spy, next turn 2-pop whip, let overflow apply towards Parthenon for 1 turn, start 2nd spy on following turn, 2-pop whip it again, overflow to Parthenon) you'll apply +120 raw hammers over 6 turns, then factor in the Marble bonus for +240, and if you're an Industrious leader, another +50% (cumulative with marble bonus, not stacked) so +300 which would become 300 once it finishes elsewhere. So 2 forests, ~8 total worker turns for chops, and 4 population just became 240-300 for you. Incredibly worth it.
Hmmm I think I get it. Im not sure anything about espionoge or spies, and Im not sure what the best production city would be outside hammers, but I think I got most of it. I appreciate the help my dude
Lol I enjoy going through the math! It actually taught me a good amount of the specifics of a specialist economy and just how valuable the first ~4 GS are! I'm mainly focused on whipping out more settlers for rapid expansion up to ~10+ cities if I have the room, but looking up the specifics showed me why I should often focus on specialists in the capital a bit earlier.
SpoilerTrade Route info :
Trade commerce is generated by:
Commerce Generated = [Base * Modifiers]
Base = MIN(0.1*Popother,[xD]) : with a minimum of Base = 1
Modifiers = SUM of bonuses (such as harbor +50%, customs house +100%, etc.)
Anything within square brackets [ ] are rounded down to the nearest integer. Popother is the population of the city the trade route is being established with. So the base value will always = 1 until the other city's population has reached 11+ and is at least 5 distance away (Standard map). x = the map size modifier:
SpoilerMap Size Modifier :
Duel = 0.4
Tiny = 0.35
Small = 0.3
Standard = 0.25
Large = 0.2
Huge = 0.15
SpoilerD = distance, which is calculated by: :
Distance = MAX([X + (Y / 2)],[(X / 2) + Y])
For example:
If a city being traded with was 11 South and 24 East of the receiving city, then
Distance = MAX([24 + (11 / 2)],[(24 / 2) + 11])
Distance = MAX([24 + 5.5],[12 + 11])
Distance = MAX([29.5],[23])
Distance = 29
SpoilerModifiers :
+5% for population of the Receiving city over 10
+25% if the receiving city has a connection to the Capital
+3% per turn since your last war with the civ (if it is a foreign trade route) [max 150%]
+50% if you have a Harbor
+100% for the Temple of Artemis
+100% if the other city is on another continent
+100% if it is another civ on another continent AND you have a Customs House
Trade routes can be established with each available foreign city only ONCE among your empire, which city will receive it is based on your largest cities. Just because your capital is trading with London, Paris, and Medina does not mean those cities are trading with your capital. Trade routes simply give your city +, the other cities receive nothing based on your trade routes, their + is calculated separately.
Domestic cities can be traded with an infinite amount of times! So let's pretend you are isolated on a small continent and have just founded a city on a small island nearby. Before settling it, all your trade routes would likely be +1 with other cities of yours. But your new city is on an island/other continent, so it gains the +100% bonus for this. It will have +2 for any of its trade routes, AND all of your cities will immediately begin trading with it (as long as they have a coastal connection or a road connected to a coastal city) and have a +2 trade route with it. This means islands can effectively double your trade route income if you don't have enough foreign cities to trade with.
How a trade route is set up is tricky. You will need to have open borders with the civ for foreign trade routes to be established. First, the easy way, if you have a road established that connects to a road of the other city, trade routes can begin. Sailing enables on rivers, so rivers could also act as a road in this case. The second way is by coastal/oceanic trade, provided you have enabled coastal/oceanic by teching Sailing/Astronomy, respectively. For foreign trade routes, you will need to have open borders with the civ in order to establish a trade route with their cities. You need to reveal tiles along the coast/ocean all the way up to the edge of their cultural border. As long as you can see a direct route from one of your cities to the edge of their border, a trade route can be established.
SpoilerNot good enough: :
SpoilerGood enough: :
The "good enough" is assuming the vision goes all the way back to a city of yours. If there is ice in the way, a trade route can't be established by that direction. Also, the tiles between your cities and their border can't be controlled by a hostile player. If you're at war with a civ between you and another civ and the warring civ owns the coastal tiles, you cannot establish coastal or road trade routes through them to the 3rd civ beyond them. You're considered always at war with barbarians, so a barbarian city can disrupt your trade routes.
Ways to get extra trade routes:
All cities start with 1 available.
Build The Great Lighthouse for +2 in all coastal cities.
Research Currency for +1 in all cities.
Build a Castle for +1 for that city. (Not recommended unless you have access to stone and/or have the Protective trait)
Activate the Free Market civic for +1 in all cities. Note: This requires researching Economics, which would obsolete the Castle's +1 bonus)
Research Corporations for +1 in all cities. Note: This obsoletes The Great Lighthouse, removing its +2 bonus.
The United Nations has the Single Currency election which would add +1 to all global cities.
Build an airport for +1 .
Build a Cothon for 1. (The unique building (harbor) for Carthage)
It depends on the city. If the city already has enough food from resources to be around +8 or more, you can make it a GP farm and add farms to nearby tiles making it +12 or more. If it has only a 1 - 2 nearby average food resources and flood plains, it may be better to make it a cottage-heavy city. It will rise in population quickly and be able to work many cottages in no time. Flood plains cottages are great for increasing the speed of this. Flood plains farms are very nice for GP farms, but if there are many of them, you'd prefer it to be a giant cottage-heavy city that focuses on +% buildings like the Library, Observatory, University + Oxford University, etc. Maybe Monasteries, too, depending on how early in the game it is. (They become obsolete with the Scientific Method)
Basically the excess food you're looking for for a GP farm should be from 2+ high resources (Fish, Irrigated Corn, flat grass Pigs are 6 tiles, the best; Dry Corn, Irrigated Rice, Clams, Crabs, Bananas, grass hill Pigs, Grass Sheep are 5 tiles, still good) or 3+ average food resources (4 resources), then add farms nearby afterwards. Farms only give +1 overall (because of the -2 from the citizen) while these other mentioned resources can give +4 on their own. A city already (basically) starts with +2, so it can easily reach a high +10 or more for a quick GP farm and begin working ~5 citizens as specialists.
If you built a city with Plains cow (+3 / +3) and several river farms around it (all +3) you'd have a 10 population city with +30 - 20 = 10, so it would appear to be equal to a GP farm city mentioned, but once you start working 3 of those citizens as specialists it becomes: +21 - 20= +1.
If a GP farm had an irrigated Corn (+6) and 2 Clams (+5/+1 or more ) it would already have excess +12 while at 3 population (assuming you have a lighthouse for the +1 on water tiles). Even if you don't add farms nearby, it will start working 2 water tiles and grow quickly. Once at 10 pop it has: +32 - 20 = +12, say it begins working 3 specialists: +26 - 20 = +6 because only +2 tiles are being removed, instead of +3 farms. And of course if you can add more farms to this city, it'll do even better!
This is waaay too map dependent. The city's tiles determine what it should be. If it has the excess , make it a GP farm even if it's your 1st city. (For the early game it would be focused on pumping out settlers/workers and would share food tiles with nearby cities, but later on become a real strong GP farm)
You would like it if your 1st city were a cottage farm with Gold, River Corn, and many flood plains. Along with the +50% from Bureaucracy it would become a real powerhouse early on. Whether your next cities are production/cottage/GP farm cities depends on what tiles are close by. I don't think it matters too much what order they're made in. If you think you might be making a GP farm city too early, you still want the food from it for the early game, just share it with another city so they both grow and use the city to build workers/settlers if it would grow too rapidly and become .
Regular tiles. If you have Representation because of building/capturing the Pyramids, they can work some specialists like an engineer or scientist.
Otherwise its build path should like like: Granary, Lighthouse (if available and have a water resource), Forge, Factory (if available), Wonder buildings (don't always need to finish them, Fail Gold is great, too), (possible Barracks if war soon), (possible Courthouse if far from capital/getting to be a large, 15+ city empire), Settlers/Workers as necessary, Wealth. Farms and Mines are best for a city like this. If you have a Trade Economy going, you can add in a Harbor, Customs House, etc. here.
Even if you had 6 grass river tiles to think of making cottages, it wouldn't sync with this city very well, it wants to help rapidly expand the empire and translate to and won't build +% buildings which take advantage of any .
Catapults bombarding remove city defenses (-8%/turn) while catapults attacking deals damage to one unit as if it fought normally, but another 5-8 units take 50% damage from one round of fighting. So yes, you have it right.
I never play peaceful! I may open peacefully and strategically so that I can tech faster than my opponents, but I eventually translate my and/or lead into a large army advantage so I can conquer a civ or two and repeat the cycle. So I still recommend the same style I've been talking about. Just go about what would be considered "standard play" by building a Granary and Forge in every city. Then add a Library in cottage/GP farm cities. Then add barracks in every city other than your GP farm right before you get the military tech you've been waiting for. Then whip/draft your strongest units like crazy for ~15-20 turns (Normal speed, so 20-25 on Epic speed) in every city of yours. Then you should be ready to destroy a neighbor of yours.
I assume in your guide reading they've mentioned how " is king" and how whipping is the most powerful mechanic in the game, especially in the early to mid game. Be sure to whip as much as possible, but never when a city has just begun production of something that same turn (because the whips won't be worth as much ) and not always on a wonder, directly (also receives penalty). Overflow is done so that any hammers are applied to the current build are applied to the next build. Whipping translates 1 population into 30 (45 on Epic) and adds +10 turns to the city's slavery anger (+15 turns for Epic). For every 10 turns (15, Epic), rounded up, the city will have +1. So if I've whipped so much that I have +31 turns until all slavery anger is over, my city will have +4. But in 1 turn it will be +30 remaining, so only +3.
The important note to abuse slavery is that the action of whipping causes the +10 turns, notthe number of population whipped. So if you have 10 population and whip 5 of them into +150 (225, Epic) the city will still only gain +10 (+15, Epic) turns.
Let's pretend I have a 6-pop city that produces 5 per turn and it begins production of a Spy (40). I could wait 2 turns so that 10 are applied and then only need to use a 1-pop whip (30) to finish the production. Then overflow would be 5 because I still had 5 being applied from the city's base production. If I wait only 1 turn, only 5 have been applied and I still need 35. Even though I'm applying 5/turn, because more than 30 are needed, I must whip 2-pop (60) to finish the production. This would result in 30 of overflow, but still only the +10!
A fun tactic (and vital part of the Wonder Bread Economy) is to do something similar to this while building a wonder. Fail Gold works so that every applied translates to at a 1:1 ratio in the end. So it's just like Wealth building, but you can apply whips/chops/Industrious trait's +50% Wonder building/a resource's (marble/stone/etc.) +100% wonder building modifier towards it. So let's say you have access to Marble and you're building the Parthenon, but don't actually want to finish it. You can begin production on it with this same 5/turn city and after 10 turns have 100 applied because of the +100% from marble. You gain 100 when it's built in another city (including if it were finished in a different city you own).
If instead, you chop (+20, +30 with Mathematics / +30 Epic, +45 Epic Math) two forests with math for +60 and do the whip overflow trick by making 2 spies, (Start 1 spy, next turn 2-pop whip, let overflow apply towards Parthenon for 1 turn, start 2nd spy on following turn, 2-pop whip it again, overflow to Parthenon) you'll apply +120 raw hammers over 6 turns, then factor in the Marble bonus for +240, and if you're an Industrious leader, another +50% (cumulative with marble bonus, not stacked) so +300 which would become 300 once it finishes elsewhere. So 2 forests, ~8 total worker turns for chops, and 4 population just became 240-300 for you. Incredibly worth it.
@Rynian in games or at the ideas behind the economies? Because I didn't explain how you should play, just the ideas and game mechanics behind the economies. Since you're as new as you are, many mechanics probably haven't come up. What difficulty are you playing on?
If you want a crash course on the game:
At the start of the game: Build: Worker -> Warrior(s) until 3 population -> Settler -> Warrior(s) until 4 population -> Settler
Tech: Food techs (to improve tiles within your 1st city) -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing -> Alphabet -> Currency
(Get any other necessary food techs for cities you're placing)
(The tech path varies heavily based on tiles available, but this is a solid path that I'm sure I could still beat my games on Immortal with this path.)
Settling: Try to settle a city close to your capital (within 6 tiles) that has access to a food resource within its 1st ring (so it can work it immediately. If you're a Creative Trait leader, then within the BFC is fine). Any city, no matter where it is built, will provide a city tile worth at least +2 / +1 / +1. If the tile you place it on has more or more than this (other than a Flood Plains, and after the forest/jungle/any improvement is cleared) it will retain those excess or . So a plains hill is a great choice for a city location if available next to food, basically earning the city a free hammer. A grass banana/sugar tile won't be workable until you have Calendar anyways, so the extra +1 is great for growth and worker/settler production.
Ideas:
Ignore World Wonders completely, unless using them for fail gold. You'd like some of them sometimes, but do not need them. Many of them are a large investment for not nearly enough gain. Most of the time, the only ones worth considering are The Oracle, The Great Lighthouse, Pyramids, The Great Library, Colossus, Mausoleum of Maussollos, Taj Mahal. But literally, no world/national wonders are needed. They can become large distractions for newer players. If you really want one, pick just one to build throughout the whole game.
Ignore religion 100%. It's useful with a religion's holy temple to generate , when planned with the civics, giving +1 to new cities so their border can pop, and for diplomacy, but it's something so tertiary that you should ignore it until you have a feel for everything else.
Trade for techs as often as you can and sell techs/maps as often as you can, as long as you're getting maybe 1/5th to 1/8th of their cost in . Tech trading may not always be equal trades, but pretend there are 6 AI in your game. You trade with one a 500 tech for a 330 tech. Now you just gained 330 and the AI's position slightly improved, but the other 5 AI gained nothing. Your overall position has improved greatly from the trade. Also the AI you traded with is happy about the unfair trade in their favor, so you gain +1 to +4 diplomacy with them!
If an AI "demands" a tech, give it to them. The diplomacy bonus from it is good, the negative from denying can lead to war and keep them from trading with you in the future.
After teching Currency, you can sell techs and resources. Sell excess/unused resources as often as you can! Even for 1 per turn, it's doing you more good than your 2nd, 3rd, or 4th corn resource. You only gain + and + bonuses from any resource once, so your 2nd, 3rd, 4th gold tile doesn't give the empire-wide bonus after your 1st gold does. AI are willing to often pay very high per turn, even for a simple pig resource. So if all your cities have good , feel free to sell any food resource even if it's the 1st. resources are too valuable, only sell excess ones. If you're not building wonders (for fail gold or otherwise) sell your Marble/Stone resources. If you have access to Iron, sell Copper. Also try to trade for + resources if you can.
Try to hit these benchmarks:
By 1000 BC have 4 cities
By 1 AD have 9+ cities
Tech to Liberalism quickly, use it to unlock Nationalism/Military Tradition
Tech to Military Tradition + Gunpowder + Horseback riding as soon as you can. This (along with Iron resource) unlocks the Cuirassier unit, a 12 2 unit that is immune to archers 1st strikes. It is the most reliable unit for sweeping a continent and translating a tech lead into a large, military advantage, then into a large lead in city count and stronger empire as a whole. Feel free to be peaceful all the way up until Cuirassiers, then sweep the world.
When planning to go to war, 90+% of your cities should be producing units. Whipping/Drafting helps a ton.
Don't ever take a vassal. It's way more worth it to capture all the cities if able.
Always build 1 unit to keep in each city (after 3 or 4 pop they start to fear for their safety and want military presence or else stay ). You don't need to build other military units unless a few to fight barbs or if you suspect an enemy might attack you soon.
Every city should have this build setup in mind: Granary, Lighthouse (if available and have a water resource), Forge, Settlers/Workers as necessary (when population is at least 3), Wealth. GP Farm and Cottage city may add +% buildings. If a city would really benefit from a border pop (to access a resource) it can build a monument ASAP.
Switch to the Slavery and Hereditary Rule civics ASAP and try to whip as much as possible, as long as the city will stay at 2 or higher population.
Don't automate workers until at least 1000 AD. (ideally you never should, but I get lazy around 1200-1400 AD)
Download BUG/BUFFY mod, they help greatly without changing the game. For example, they make it easier to tell when an enemy is planning war by showing a red fist next to their name. This is something already available in the game, but you'd have to check with each leader and hover over the "Declare war on 'x'" if it says "We already have enough on our hands right now..." then they are plotting to go to war. It'd be tedious to check with every leader every turn. The mods also show when/where the next Great Person will be born, the rate your city growth, city production, and tech will tick each turn. Many other little helpful things in these mods.
If you want further help and don't have a specific question, you should give 10-15 turn updates on a game you're playing, discussing what you're doing, why you're doing it, with screen shots and attached saves.
@Rynian in games or at the ideas behind the economies? Because I didn't explain how you should play, just the ideas and game mechanics behind the economies. Since you're as new as you are, many mechanics probably haven't come up. What difficulty are you playing on?
If you want a crash course on the game:
At the start of the game: Build: Worker -> Warrior(s) until 3 population -> Settler -> Warrior(s) until 4 population -> Settler
Tech: Food techs (to improve tiles within your 1st city) -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing -> Alphabet -> Currency
(Get any other necessary food techs for cities you're placing)
(The tech path varies heavily based on tiles available, but this is a solid path that I'm sure I could still beat my games on Immortal with this path.)
Settling: Try to settle a city close to your capital (within 6 tiles) that has access to a food resource within its 1st ring (so it can work it immediately. If you're a Creative Trait leader, then within the BFC is fine). Any city, no matter where it is built, will provide a city tile worth at least +2 / +1 / +1. If the tile you place it on has more or more than this (other than a Flood Plains, and after the forest/jungle/any improvement is cleared) it will retain those excess or . So a plains hill is a great choice for a city location if available next to food, basically earning the city a free hammer. A grass banana/sugar tile won't be workable until you have Calendar anyways, so the extra +1 is great for growth and worker/settler production.
Ideas:
Ignore World Wonders completely, unless using them for fail gold. You'd like some of them sometimes, but do not need them. Many of them are a large investment for not nearly enough gain. Most of the time, the only ones worth considering are The Oracle, The Great Lighthouse, Pyramids, The Great Library, Colossus, Mausoleum of Maussollos, Taj Mahal. But literally, no world/national wonders are needed. They can become large distractions for newer players. If you really want one, pick just one to build throughout the whole game.
Ignore religion 100%. It's useful with a religion's holy temple to generate , when planned with the civics, giving +1 to new cities so their border can pop, and for diplomacy, but it's something so tertiary that you should ignore it until you have a feel for everything else.
Trade for techs as often as you can and sell techs/maps as often as you can, as long as you're getting maybe 1/5th to 1/8th of their cost in . Tech trading may not always be equal trades, but pretend there are 6 AI in your game. You trade with one a 500 tech for a 330 tech. Now you just gained 330 and the AI's position slightly improved, but the other 5 AI gained nothing. Your overall position has improved greatly from the trade. Also the AI you traded with is happy about the unfair trade in their favor, so you gain +1 to +4 diplomacy with them!
If an AI "demands" a tech, give it to them. The diplomacy bonus from it is good, the negative from denying can lead to war and keep them from trading with you in the future.
After teching Currency, you can sell techs and resources. Sell excess/unused resources as often as you can! Even for 1 per turn, it's doing you more good than your 2nd, 3rd, or 4th corn resource. You only gain + and + bonuses from any resource once, so your 2nd, 3rd, 4th gold tile doesn't give the empire-wide bonus after your 1st gold does. AI are willing to often pay very high per turn, even for a simple pig resource. So if all your cities have good , feel free to sell any food resource even if it's the 1st. resources are too valuable, only sell excess ones. If you're not building wonders (for fail gold or otherwise) sell your Marble/Stone resources. If you have access to Iron, sell Copper. Also try to trade for + resources if you can.
Try to hit these benchmarks:
By 1000 BC have 4 cities
By 1 AD have 9+ cities
Tech to Liberalism quickly, use it to unlock Nationalism/Military Tradition
Tech to Military Tradition + Gunpowder + Horseback riding as soon as you can. This (along with Iron resource) unlocks the Cuirassier unit, a 12 2 unit that is immune to archers 1st strikes. It is the most reliable unit for sweeping a continent and translating a tech lead into a large, military advantage, then into a large lead in city count and stronger empire as a whole. Feel free to be peaceful all the way up until Cuirassiers, then sweep the world.
When planning to go to war, 90+% of your cities should be producing units. Whipping/Drafting helps a ton.
Don't ever take a vassal. It's way more worth it to capture all the cities if able.
Always build 1 unit to keep in each city (after 3 or 4 pop they start to fear for their safety and want military presence or else stay ). You don't need to build other military units unless a few to fight barbs or if you suspect an enemy might attack you soon.
Every city should have this build setup in mind: Granary, Lighthouse (if available and have a water resource), Forge, Settlers/Workers as necessary (when population is at least 3), Wealth. GP Farm and Cottage city may add +% buildings. If a city would really benefit from a border pop (to access a resource) it can build a monument ASAP.
Switch to the Slavery and Hereditary Rule civics ASAP and try to whip as much as possible, as long as the city will stay at 2 or higher population.
Don't automate workers until at least 1000 AD. (ideally you never should, but I get lazy around 1200-1400 AD)
Download BUG/BUFFY mod, they help greatly without changing the game. For example, they make it easier to tell when an enemy is planning war by showing a red fist next to their name. This is something already available in the game, but you'd have to check with each leader and hover over the "Declare war on 'x'" if it says "We already have enough on our hands right now..." then they are plotting to go to war. It'd be tedious to check with every leader every turn. The mods also show when/where the next Great Person will be born, the rate your city growth, city production, and tech will tick each turn. Many other little helpful things in these mods.
If you want further help and don't have a specific question, you should give 10-15 turn updates on a game you're playing, discussing what you're doing, why you're doing it, with screen shots and attached saves.
I am playing a modded version of the game using History rewritten whwich drastically changes a ton, and I am playing on much slower speeds. I cant use bug on my mac.
I did try vanilla on normal but the game is much improved by the mod, religeon is fantastic, and the tech tree is filed. I did recently try a vanilla game on "normal" speed and it felt like it was flying by so quickly.. just a few turns in and me and france both had swordsmen!
EDIT: Im wondering if you've tried early agression, that is how i tend to perfer civ games, it is more interesting that way IMO, though I can understand why it isn't for everyone. I recently read some interesting early war strats, and they can seem to do wonders if the circumstance is right
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(commerce) is raw income generated by tiles and trade routes. It can transition into 
(wealth) or 
(research/science/beakers) at a ratio of 1:1 or higher! It can be higher through multipliers generated from buildings such as the Library (+25%
per turn, so you need to generate more 
but instead 
boost (does not overflow). Great Prophets can be used to create a holy temple in a holy city (founding city of a religion) so that the temple generates +1
Knight and an 8
make taking several cities - even without eliminating the city's defenses first - a breeze. The AI has difficulties properly defending against 2
I enjoy going through the math! It actually taught me a good amount of the specifics of a specialist economy and just how valuable the first ~4 GS are! I'm mainly focused on whipping out more settlers for rapid expansion up to ~10+ cities if I have the room, but looking up the specifics showed me why I should often focus on specialists in the capital a bit earlier.
on rivers, so rivers could also act as a road in this case. The second way is by coastal/oceanic trade, provided you have enabled coastal/oceanic 
.
to new cities so their border can pop, and for diplomacy, but it's something so tertiary that you should ignore it until you have a feel for everything else.
and +
