newbiew idiocy - buy improvements?

[mtagliaf]

finished my first game - time ran out but I won on Histogram. I'm new to ANY civ series game.

Have been reading the forums to check out strategy - noticed in the "Culture Rush" strat a mention of buying improvements. Huh? I guess I missed that in the (pathetically organized) manual. Can I buy a temple instead of building it? If so, how?

thanks,
matt tag

 

[Ohwell]

go into a city, and right next to the production box there should be a button that if you click it asks you if you want to rush. This is very helpful for rushing units, and culture buildings. If you need more help look in the manual.

 

[Yeti]

Aye - as the above poster mentioned, there is a button there to rush build.

You can't rush build under anarchy or civil unrest or when a city is in unresistance.

Under monarchy, republic, and democracy you rush build by spending gold.

Under despotism and communism you rush build with your citizens lives (you get out the whip).

It is very wasteful to rush build when you have zero shields towards an improvement. If the improvement requires 100 shields and you try to rush it (with gold) when you have 0 into it, it would cost 800 gold (8 gold per shield). If you wait one turn and only a single shield goes into it (still need 99), it will cost only 396 gold (4 gold per shield). When rushing with the whip, the cut off is at 40. 40 to 79 shields would cost 2 citizens, but 1 to 39 costs 1. So you want to rush things just under 40 (or 80, 120, etc...).