Post Short Single Player Tips Here

[davidcrazy]

Drakan, i think the price we pay for a certain item (tech, lux, treaty) is always fixed. there's a certain formula to calculate them. for tech i believe there're several articles discussing how they are priced.
so we always need to pay that much (of course we can pay in the form of gpt or lump sum as we like. and sometime we can also sell luxuries. but anyway everything has a value which is determined by some equations) i am not sure what kind of advantage we can gain by adjusting the slide bar. can you elaborate more on that?

 

[Drakan]

I can only elaborate empirically.

I am not familiar with the algorithms used.

Just try it out in a saved game or in a new one. Try striking a deal just normally but without actually closing the deal;now preadjust the slabs to decrease (sic) your income per turn. Try now the same deal and I am almost certain the AI will ask for less gpt than before.

Now, you cannot abuse by adjusting the slide bar at its max (earning zero gpt say) because obviously the AI is stupid, but not so much. There is a minimum, and that is what you are aiming for. You aim to optimize (minimize) the gold per trade. Just try it out ! I mean you are only going to save some gold, you are not going to save 50% of the price they are asking you, by no means, I never meant to say such a thing. The figures and numbers I gave in the article were just as an example.

No matter how small the difference, everything counts on the long run.

 

[Arathorn]

Or, you could just click on what the AI asks for and change it down until it's minimal. Much less time-consuming and 100% as effective.

Yeah, pennies count, but you don't need to spend hours getting the pennies -- you can get them in minutes.

Arathorn

 

[dze27]

I've got another trading tip. Didn't seem worth making a new thread for but it may be useful for beginners so I'll throw it out there.

Sometimes you get into a situation where you are ahead of another civ in tech, but only one tech appears on your list of techs to trade (because the remainder of your extra techs require that tech as a prerequisite). You can sometimes gift an AI civ the "blocking" tech, then trade 2 or more techs that were dependent on that initial tech at once, giving you a bigger lump of goods to trade.

I'll give an example, if that made no sense. In my last game, I was ahead of Carthage by several techs, he was still in the Middle Ages, working on Chemistry, but he had the optional Democracy tech. I was in the early Industrial Age, and wanted Democracy. I gifted Hannibal Chemistry. Then I was able to trade Physics and Metallurgy for Democracy (plus some gold, IIRC).

 

[Drakan]

I try not to repeat any threads with the same content, so If someone has already posted this, and I am sure someone has, I have not seen it (too many posts and threads to read !!!).

When researching a tech, and you only have ONE turn left to attain that tech, adjust the Research slab to decrease research in such a way as to continue discovering it in your next turn but you will find yourself spending less gold.

In the next turn, once that new tech is avaliable at your unis, readjust the slab to where you had it in the prior turn, so as not to cripple your research rate.

If you do this through out the game every time you only have one turn left to discover a tech you will end up saving a nice amount of gold in the long run.

You will find that "playing" around with the Luxuries and Research slabs is always useful.

 

[Michelangelo]

Yep, allways use that, on any level of play.

M

 

[dresdor]

I try not to repeat any threads with the same content, so If someone has already posted this, and I am sure someone has, I have not seen it (too many posts and threads to read !!!).

When researching a tech, and you only have ONE turn left to attain that tech, adjust the Research slab to decrease research in such a way as to continue discovering it in your next turn but you will find yourself spending less gold.

In the next turn, once that new tech is avaliable at your unis, readjust the slab to where you had it in the prior turn, so as not to cripple your research rate.

If you do this through out the game every time you only have one turn left to discover a tech you will end up saving a nice amount of gold in the long run.

You will find that "playing" around with the Luxuries and Research slabs is always useful.

Yep...good advice, although I've beendoing it for a while...

How about this advice:

If you're going to research techs that aren't neccesary for the next age, research the ones you do need first (unless you absolutely need something from the other tech). Then you can go back and research the old stuff, and at half the cost. (I think)

 

[Drakan]

The reason being why the AI charges you more money the more luxuries you already posses is precisely for the number of happy faces it produces. The AI knows this and prices it in the luxury it is selling you.
With the economies of scale produced by the improvement in a city "marketplace" which boosts the amount of citizens that are happy in the 7th and 8th luxury (I recall it's 4 workers each that are happy for the 7th and 8th, just check out any game in the city screen). The more luxs you have with a marketplace the happiness increases not geometrically but exponentially. See the instructions manual of C3C.
The more happy citizens within your empire the shield output is increased, your revenue is now greater because there are now more people willing to join the job market (working new tiles), so now you even get more cash from taxes, you can allocate more cash to research, the cities now grow at a faster pace because more tiles are being worked on, your score is now higher (look at the histograph and you will see it factors in the amount of happy and content citizens in your Empire). Plus such happiness triggers WLKD which in turn reduces that disgusting corruption in your cities thus increasing your income AND SO ON...The AI knows all this and that is precisely why it charges you all the more the more luxuries you have. The 7th and 8th luxury you acquire for your Empire are going to be the dearest financially.
Just play around with the luxuries and research slabs before and after trade dealings and you will see IT DOES make a difference, no matter how small it might be.
If you adjust the lux slab putting it higher up BEFORE the trade (buying a luxury) with AI, the AI will value it at less money BECAUSE the new luxury it is selling you does not produce you so much happy faces as the AI expected, thus pricing the luxury it is selling you at a lower price.
Once the deal is over you readjust the lux slab lowering it, because now with the new lux avilable in your marketplaces there is no need to spend as much money as before in lux.
Basically what you do is a "happiness engineering" in your slabs BEFORE the trading deal of the new luxury you are purchasing so the AI puts a lower value to it, you then readjust the slabs to the new situation, saving yourself euros.

Criticism and comments most welcome. It's only a game. Enjoy!

"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail"

 

[e_a_olson]

I just discovered that cruise missles can actually kill units, not just bombard! I'm now torn between artillery and cruise missles as my favorite units. The only bad thing about cruise missles is that they one use weapons, and so a mix of artillery and cruise missiles seems very effective.

 

[1337]

how do cruise missles kill units. I set it on bombard and it only did one damage to the enemy's life.

 

[JMK]

how do cruise missles kill units. I set it on bombard and it only did one damage to the enemy's life.

Cruise missile will generally take 1 or 2 hp off a unit. So suggest you first use Arti to redline the unit then use your Cruise missile to finish (kill) them.

Also suggest you use this thread for questions
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85635

 

[JMK]

For those who does not have all and every Strategic ressources, and have to buy them at huge price.

Owner of an island, and after having purchased Steam Power from a very educated Civilization, came the time to build Rails
That was really the perfect timing for keeping our mork force busy, but we could not find any coal anywhere on our ground .
So, we decided to import some coal from a far away civilization at a 'Non given price' and this deal was only valid for a period of time (20 turns).
Our workers have been doing their very best, but could not finish building rails all over our place during the deal period, only about 10 mountains will be left without rails!
This is not acceptable, of course we can re-new our present deal for Coal, but we do not want to throw away our Gold, as our President wants to invest in research.

The trick is to place a worker on each tile that needs rails and to begin working on rail before the end of the current deal. All started work will finish even if you need 18 turns to complete your task!

 

[dresdor]

For those who does not have all and every Strategic ressources, and have to buy them at huge price.

Owner of an island, and after having purchased Steam Power from a very educated Civilization, came the time to build Rails
That was really the perfect timing for keeping our mork force busy, but we could not find any coal anywhere on our ground .
So, we decided to import some coal from a far away civilization at a 'Non given price' and this deal was only valid for a period of time (20 turns).
Our workers have been doing their very best, but could not finish building rails all over our place during the deal period, only about 10 mountains will be left without rails!
This is not acceptable, of course we can re-new our present deal for Coal, but we do not want to throw away our Gold, as our President wants to invest in research.

The trick is to place a worker on each tile that needs rails and to begin working on rail before the end of the current deal. All started work will finish even if you need 18 turns to complete your task!

Good tip...but I guess you'll have to use Diesel-powered locomotives with no coal.

 

[Batho]

also build cities on resources rather than beside resources this way you spare building one road.

I am not 100% sure on this, but I believe that if you make a city on a resource, you don't receive the food/production/commerce benifits that it provides. I am not sure if it is just a despotism thing where I don't see an extra shield from building a city on furs, but I am pretty sure a city won't produce extra commerce for being located on gold, or extra shields for being located on iron.

If I am correct, I much rather spend the 3 to 6 (hills) turns to place a road over a resource and enjoy the rest of the game (400+ turns) of extra food/production/commerce.

Anyone know for sure if resources give extra food/prod/com to cities built on the same tile?

Batho

 

[1337]

What are you talking about?! I have a city on gold and it's making like 9 gold or somthing. Building a city on a resource it significantly increases what you get from it. Building on luxuries gives you the luxury. If it ever says "you have ever discovered an new source of (name of resource)" then that means it's inside the city. You can right click on a city and go to the tile info and it will tell you what you are making and what resources are there. I think your problem was that you said you were in a despotism.

 

[EMan]

You don't get the extra shields or food if you build the city on a resource....BUT, as 1337 said, you get the commerce bonus!

 

[eldar]

Always Pause At End Of Turn.

It's not a default setting, but it should be. How many people have accidentally finished their last unit's move without pursuing that vital trade, or checking the tech slider, or whatever other essential thing you were going to get around to but you 'just had to beat seven shades of hell out of <insert enemy-of-choice here>' first?

Neil.

 

[dresdor]

Always Pause At End Of Turn.

It's not a default setting, but it should be. How many people have accidentally finished their last unit's move without pursuing that vital trade, or checking the tech slider, or whatever other essential thing you were going to get around to but you 'just had to beat seven shades of hell out of <insert enemy-of-choice here>' first?

Neil.

Yep...good advice. Many a game has been lost because of that stupid default setting.

 

[Zandrew]

Always Pause At End Of Turn.

I do that too. It's been useful many times!

Regarding placing cities on resources: I don't think it has any effect on the standard bonuses you get from the resource. The downside is that you lose the ability to improve that tile.

 

[1337]

Personally i find it annoying. If you missed a turn then that's too bad for you. I learned to play without it and that's how i continue to play. I have on last question on the tile thing though. Does it help to irrigate or mine a square before you settle there? I've never tried but it sure would help some of my starving cities.