Post Short Single Player Tips Here

[VoxDei]

Having seen it mentioned that the AI price for buying luxuries depends on how many happy faces you'll get, and given that the number of happy faces per luxury depends on how many luxuries you have (assuming you're all marketplaced-up), then presumably if you had enough workers you could get a better deal on buying luxuries from the AI by pillaging all your own luxuries before you buy it, making the trade at the now-dirt-cheap price (since you don't have any luxuries now) and then reconnecting all your homeland luxuries and re-irrigating/mining/railroading the affected tiles in the same turn. No lost happiness, less money spent, and it gives you something to do with that huge worker stack that's hanging around waiting for pollution to pop up.

 

[Jlewis]

I have recently had some luck using the following tactic in Emperor games.

Upon overrunning an enemy civ whose cities are too far away to be productive (i.e. are 100% corrupted), convert all their citizens to specialists (taxmen or scientists), sell all their buildings, and cart all slaves back to your homeland. After all cities have dwindled to 1 population you really don't even need to worry about defending/keeping them... just raid and consume. Pillage the enemy nation and cart off the loot.

This would probably go under the heading of ruthless/barbaric tactics, to which I would also add the RoP-rape as meantioned in an earlier thread. As for the RoP-rape, since you can only do it once (civs will not give you RoP after you have done it), you should ideally wait until near the end of the game to do it, i.e. when you are in a position to make your final attack on the AI and wish to quickly take down a moderately-powerful rival. I do consider these tactics underhanded, however, what is even MORE underhanded is building units and developing techs at 50% of their cost!!

-JLewis

 

[EMan]

@Jlewis: Notwithstanding the wrath of the ANTI-ROP-Rapists, I wanted to mention that you can ROP-rape in the early game AND still get ROP Agreements later with other AI civs.

You might have to "pay" them xx gpt!........BUT only until your units are in place...then Whammo.......AND away goes the Gpt agreement!

If an AI civ has not made contact with the AI you ROP-raped, they will probably be happy to give you ROP for FREE, especially if your "territory" is larger than theirs!

 

[iceman120679]

hey everybody... ok, I don't know much about computers so I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do this message board stuff, so if I'm posting something where it's not supposed to be, I am very sorry. OK, I've played other games that I thought were like this one (i.e. Command and Conquer, Age of Empires)... but apparently, this game is much much deeper. WHICH I LOVE! However, the complexity is driving me insane. I've read through some of the other posts and still have no help as to my questions... I understand the basics (I think) on research, wonders, and creating settlers/workers... but my questions would be something like: 1. What is the ideal size of the city when I start out? Seems like when I just let it grow, it gets too big to where when I create something or make a specialist unit, I lose production or have a shortage. So do I want to keep my town at a certain size until the city area reaches a certain size? 2. When should I start making specialists (i.e. scientists, tax collectors, entertainers)? 3. When my city only supports a certain number of units, should I focus on workers or military? I've been focusing on workers until my lands are the way I want them, and then I focus on military... is this wrong? 4. When I create a new city, I try to keep it close enough that I can connect it within a decent amount of time but not far enough away that I lose a worker for 20-30 turns trying to reach the thing. I guess basically, I'm looking for a kind of "walk through", which I was unable to get from the booklet or anywhere on the web. However, I was elated when I found this site because that seems like what you guys are here for. Again, I thank you for your time and any help you could offer me.
ICEMAN - Houston, TX

 

[EMan]

@iceman120679: Well, as someone who lived in Houston for almost 30 years, I want to be the first person to welcome you to the BEST Civ site in the World....CivFanatics!

One reason you don't have any answers yet is that you've asked some very good and very tough questions to provide simple answers to!

The Quick Answers Forum is also a good place to ask [the same] questions:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=100914&page=8&pp=20

Well here's a "quick and dirty" response to your questions in perhaps an overly-simplistic form:

1. 7 or less population
2. NO, there is absolutely no need to do this! (Unless your city MUST have an entertainer/specialist to avoid it rioting OR you need, say, one scientist to research a Science Tech in 40 turns. [50 for Conquests])
3. I think the way you answered your own question is a very good answer.....there is no simple answer to that one!
4. Generally, I leave 2-3 squares between cities and try to get the early cities adjacent to a river or a lake, so that the city can grow beyond size 6 without building an aqueduct........which is gonna be hundreds or thousands of years away, anyways!

A person who has, IMHO, a brilliant natural "feel" for this game is SirPleb....it is possible to read ALL the posts of a particular individual (I can't quite recall how I did this though!?)....I would recommend reading his War Academy articles AND descriptions of games he has played in the Hall Of Fame (HOF) and the Game Of The Month (GOTM).

 

[iceman120679]

I really appreciate the help and yes, this is a good site. I plan on continuing correspondence here.

 

[Pook]

sorry for the double post

 

[Pook]

When you need an alliance to gang up on the #1 civ but the price for alliances is way beyond your budget, sign MPPs with as many civs as you can. The MPP is considerably cheaper than an alliance. Then make ridiculous demands of the #1 civ- demand tribute every single turn until they declare war on you. Voila! You have your alliance!

 

[punkbass2000]

Wait, so you're not already at war with them? That's probably why you're finding MAs to be so expensive, the AI will never sign a MA against a civ you're not already at war with.

 

[Pook]

Are you sure about the word "never"? I can't find a reference either way. I seem to remember asking for an alliance against the #1 civ with a small civ and they demanded a tech, two resources, all my gold, plus 40 gpt. I asked for a MPP and they would do it for just over half my gold.

 

[punkbass2000]

I certainly can't prove 'never', but I generally get 'they would never accept such deal' from my advisor, much like asking for more than gpt than they have, and not just 'they would be insulted by this deal'. In any case, I'm sure it will be much cheaper once you're already at war.

 

[Pook]

In any case, I'm sure it will be much cheaper once you're already at war.

100% agreed. I just don't like the idea of going to war against the #1 civ and then finding out that no one is willing to help me. That's why I use the backdoor alliance method of signing MPPs and then taunting/insulting the top civ to attack me.

 

[Ringo Kid]

Vanilla Civ: You should stack your bombard capable ships like Frigates or Ironclads together, so that they protect each other. When attacked, the weaker ship will bombard, then the stronger defends against the actual attack. So two destroyers defending a transport or group of transports is more than twice as safe.
Also good when attacking to bombard the target with one ship and then sink it with a second.

A group of submarines near the enemy port, where they can pick off weakened ships on the way back from battle can be a good tactic. Remember that only other subs can see them , before Aegis Cruisers. So if you see one of those, than back away out of bombardment range, because if you can see an enemy sub, they can also see you.

Its best to concentrate the fleet and control one area of the ocean, than to have your ships scattered about randomly. So if you navy is small, pick one area that is small enough for you to maintain control over. Like if you have a luxury near the coast that the AI will try to bombard, you can put your fleet there , and the AI will likely continually send small numbers of ships for you to pick off one by one.

 

[Graaf Floris]

As a republic I started a war being the Dutch against the Egyptians. Soon I had conquered 2 cities and pilaged their horses and iron, so after a while they only came with archers and spearmen. However my knights where produced at a very slow rate so the number of knights stayed equal because they were produced at about the same rate they were destroyed by an overwhelming number of archers, which stayed about the same too. At the same time I noticed the war-weariness started to diminish my cities because of starvation and an avarage city took 15 turns to produce 1 knight. So I changed to monarchy and guess what: Now a knight was produced every 3-5 turns and I quickly gained the upper hand.

Tip: If you're a republic and you know you're going to fight a long and difficult war, then switch to monarchy . The loss in commerce is more than undone by a shorter war because of more unit-production.

 

[Graaf Floris]

Especially in the earlier era's when you start a war, never split your forces in the first phase of that war unless their numbers are very large. I often find that even when I'm confident in the ability to capture 2 cities I get none or the one I get is quickly recaptured because of lack of a reserve. So focus your attacks on one city and only after the main enemy force is crumbled begin to consider attacking multiple cities at once.

 

[tomasjj]

Moved to the right tread...
JJ

 

[Noctorum]

Don't think this one has been posted yet.

Say your in the middle of a world war, and have managed to stay out of it so far, using the "Lets you and him fight" idea. You receive a message from someone, asking you to sign a trade embargo against someone. Either way you agree you'll likely get war declared on you.

Instead of agreeing or denying, go to the renegotiate page, and exit it.

~Alex

 

[frostbite]

Never quit a game...even if things are not going your way, you can learn alot form defeat

 

[ping]

Ths is like Noctorum's post except you can do it on anything it isn't just milatary alliances.

If another civilization wants you to give them something you don't want to give or is threatning you if you don't give them what they want. Click I have a counter proposal and then just click never mind and they won't get mad at you like they would if you said not a chance.

ping

 

[Arvedui]

There is something that I discovered by accident which I wish to share with other players, in case they don't know it. When you are talking with an opponent, sometimes you want to know some info from your advisors before making a diplomatic decision. Well, you can access any of your advisors while talking to some other civ. Just click on your foreign advisor's head, which as you know is located at the top right corner of your screen. This will bring up the F4 screen, which enables you to access any other advisor screen. To go back to the conversation with your opponent, just exit the F screen.