Post Short Single Player Tips Here

[Dragonlord]

Valid for Civ,PTW and Conquests, especially higher levels

A tip I haven't seen mentioned: Once you have Nationalism, draft Riflemen (later Infantry) in all your size 12 cities whenever they are maxed out (can't grow further). Use the draftees either as holding units/token defenders in interior cities, freeing up more valuable units, or for rushing buildings by disbanding them in your more corrupt cities.

This works especially well when you are going for domination and are conquering lots of enemy cities, which are then hopelessly corrupt. Build railroads to those cities and rush temples with those draftees! Do it right and you'll be disbanding them on the same turn you drafted them, so they won't cost you upkeep.

You get just as many shields for disbanding a conscript as for a regular/veteran unit, BTW. In effect, you are trading excess population in the maxed out cities for buildings in the corrupt cities!!

One thing, though: drafting causes unhappiness, so you'll need to watch the citizens happiness... this tactic thus works best when you have lots of luxuries - and don't forget to build marketplaces to get the most out of those!

 

[Dragonlord]

When you are developing tiles with your workers and slaves, use the slaves (captured workers) for building roads on the tiles before using workers to mine or irrigate them.

Why? Slaves work only half as fast as workers. The turn you use to move a slave or worker onto a virgin tile is wasted regarding the actual improvement - if you have to waste a turn, do it with the less productive unit.
The more productive workers will then be able to move onto the tile and start improving on the same turn!

 

[fernandomassuy]

Originally posted by Bluemofia
my brother discovered a "cheat": first you put your research to 100% even if you cant afford it. once your cash goes to zero, you still spend the "invisible cash" and basically free research. only works in Depotisim, communisim, and monarchy for Civ III and PTW.

You will start losing units and improvements will you have 0 cahs and -xx gold per turn.

 

[fernandomassuy]

Prior to Research Iron Working and writing on the first turns.

 

[Qpdaj]

In Modern Times, the research tree allows you to get Synthetic Fibers without researching Rocketry first. However, because Rocketry is needed to show Aluminum on the map, Synthetic Fibers is worthless without Rocketry.

Imagine my surprise when I thought I was going to be able to build Modern Armor, only to discover there was no aluminum anywhere on the map!!!

So research Rocketry before Synthetic Fibers. Save yourself some frustration.

 

[Matthevv]

In conquests, the specialists are much more useful than before, so if you have a city that is far away from your capital/FP and is completely useless because of corruption, you can get either gold or science out of it by irrigating everywhere possible so that you have a huge food surplus, making it grow as big as possible, and setting as many people as possible to specialists. I've been able to get up to 16 beakers of science from otherwise useless cities like this. As a side effect, because the specialists are never unhappy, these cities can easily be bigger than would otherwise be possible without having civil disorder, and can easily be in "we love the king" state, which is useful to reduce the risk of them defecting. At some point you can start using the policeman specialists to counter the corruption, but that is quite late in the game. I was able to reduce the time to research a tech from 26 to 11 turns, just by doing this in a load of cities that I had taken from another Civ.

 

[Dragonlord]

Originally posted by Matthevv
In conquests, the specialists are much more useful than before, so if you have a city that is far away from your capital/FP and is completely useless because of corruption, you can get either gold or science out of it by irrigating everywhere possible so that you have a huge food surplus, making it grow as big as possible, and setting as many people as possible to specialists. I've been able to get up to 16 beakers of science from otherwise useless cities like this. As a side effect, because the specialists are never unhappy, these cities can easily be bigger than would otherwise be possible without having civil disorder, and can easily be in "we love the king" state, which is useful to reduce the risk of them defecting. At some point you can start using the policeman specialists to counter the corruption, but that is quite late in the game. I was able to reduce the time to research a tech from 26 to 11 turns, just by doing this in a load of cities that I had taken from another Civ.

Very good tip - I've found the same!

Also, don't forget to use the Civil Engineers to build necessary improvements in those corrupt cities.

 

[ShiplordAtvar]

Stack movement commands are your friend.

I just discovered that you can move units onto waiting transports en masse. Saves a lot of tedious keypad/mouse usage.

I haven't tried using the stack movement command to assault a city. Should be fun though.

 

[lordbasl]

Originally posted by jm chen
If you want to attack an opponent in the early game, take their capital first. It's not usually that well-defended (generally two spearmen), and makes their other cities less likely to culture flip. I also find the AI very willing to give you everything else they have for peace once you've taken their capital.

I usually wait to establish an embassy until I have the troops to attack, so I know exactly what they've got there and can immediately act on it. If they're a couple shields from finishing a Wonder, I'll wait, but otherwise, I'll usually take them down immediately after I know that yes, they only have two spearmen.

This works for me on Chieftain up to Monarch.

As a confirmed warmonger, I like this tactic; I call it "Stiletto" -- strike hard and deep for the very heart of the enemy Civ, like a stiletto. Grab the capital first and if the civ has built any wonders, you get them right away since most AI civs build them in the capital.

This lets me get the cultural and game-effect benefits of a wonder without making the shield and time investment in building it.

The "build an embassy just before attacking" gambit is evil. For that reason I like it.

This also works in series: take the capital, the rival civ sues for peace, take whatever Danegeld (gold and techs) you can get from them, wait twenty turns to assimilate the new conquests via culture (libraries / temples) and to allow war-wearyness to disappate, repeat till extirpiation.

This seems to work well for me till my foes are the early Industrial age. Danmed riflemen and infantrymen are hard on Cavalry. I wait till I get motorized transport to resume the offensive.

 

[AcousticLicks]

Unless you dont need to trade with anyone else; NEVER sign a MPP,You can get screwed BIG TIME and they usually wont respond to your envoy for 5 or more turns!

Mounted Warriors rule the ancient age!

 

[lordbasl]

Originally posted by AcousticLicks
Unless you dont need to trade with anyone else; NEVER sign a MPP,You can get screwed BIG TIME and they usually wont respond to your envoy for 5 or more turns!


Mounted Warriors rule the ancient age!

I disagree strongly, AcousticLicks.
If you don't drive events, then, yes, screwage is in the cards. As you can be sucked into big wars by MPPs, you can also suck your AI allies into grinding wars


In other than speed, Persian Immortals are the better UU. Same price, +1 attack and +1 defense in exchange for -1 speed as compared to mounted warriors.

 

[AcousticLicks]

You make a good point about MPP's,but unforseen problems can be in the near future;an MPP with the someone like China,who is a raging warmonger,can have you involuntarily at war with the rest of the world.My main problem with MPP's is that they dont expire for TWENTY turns,which could send you to were for your "friend" multiple times,with the same culture!

Persian immortals are solid, and one of the only alternatives I've considered to my "galloping gangsters",but that +1 mobilization is crucial to razing and pillaging!(edited for content)

 

[Jawz II]

when buying techs try to not buy them from civs near u,in fact the farther away and the weaker civ the better

also weaker civ tend to sell their techs for less money,but even if theyre prices r alittle higher buy from them

if theres one civ that is taking over alot of other civs,buy from the civ they r in war with at the time

u dont wanna give a big chunk of money that is going to be used for funding the army that might attack u

 

[seanos08]

If the enemy has a vital strat resource like horses near your border send a settler with 3 good def and 4 good off units and build a city on top of it as soon as war is declared.

Then buy walls and a barracks and send in more troops.

The enemy will send every att unit the have at it and not into your land. Usually you can secure peace before they take it and you have the resource.

 

[Darkness]

Originally posted by lordbasl
In other than speed, Persian Immortals are the better UU. Same price, +1 attack and +1 defense in exchange for -1 speed as compared to mounted warriors.

MW can also retreat when losing a battle, and (and this is their main advantage) they upgrade to knights and later cavalry...

I'd take MW over Immortals anytime...

 

[DarkTimes]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but I always try to build my cities on as much varied terrain as possible to maximize the potential resources. In one of my early games (I've not been playing Civ for long), I chose to settle on a lush grassland, letting the AI take some useless desert. Imagine how much I kicked myself when both Saltpeter and Oil appeared on that desert over the course of the game. I suffered many humiliating defeats trying to capture that piece of land, and ultimately it lost me the game. I guess the best thing would have been to settle on both the grassland and the desert, but that's what a little experience (and a settler factory) can do for you.

 

[greek-anarchist]

I just discovered something and i gotta tell someone. I'm not sure about in concuests, but in civ3gold, i found how to get an extra guy in a transport. It cant really be controlled, but it's till kinda weird. If you attack a coastal city with marines from a transport, and there are multiple people left, so that your marine doesn't move into the city after atacking, and you get a leader out of the attack, then you now have 9 people in the transport. i hope you try to do this, because it looks really funny.

 

[Zandrew]

I've seen this too, but the GL isn't "in" the transport. He hovers there instead until moved to land or loaded into a transport. If you move the transport without loading him he stays there and looks like he's walking on water.

 

[greek-anarchist]

i bet that looks cool. I just put an extra guy on land untill i got a transport with captured units that was heading back home to pick up my leader. better safe then sorry

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Speaking of leaders, if you get one, use him up before you attack again whenever possible. IIRC, you can only have one a MGL at any time, but you can get more than one in a turn if you immediately rush a building or make an army before attacking with an elite.