Post short tips here!

[atpil]

cool tips with the "dont give away golds per turn" but the problem with this is;

1. if u bought a knowledge with golds per turn, it will be advantageous if ever the civ youve been trading with suddenly declared a war due to mpp.
2. the same as if ur trading ur golds per turn for a luxury, the other civ will just recieve the golds due for the duration of time if ever the other civ went in a war with u.

though its more expensive to trade with golds p turn, i think its better if everybody is hostile towards you.

 

[Old Fox]

Here's one for those arm chair generals...

When you capture an enemy city, they usually come with resisters.

Starve them out, repopulate with workers or settlers so that all but one of the people are yours and then starve again, then repopulate again.

You will have NO enemy populace in the city to worry about reverting. The city rebuilds very quickly, and if you have lots of improvements in it, you have no worry with mood.

 

[Old Fox]

I have not read all the way to the end of this thread yet, but have seen several postings regarding the possibility of more than one golden age. So this is in answer to ApolloE, and Ionhead, and others I haven't read yet.

I can assure you that it is not only possible, but probable. I had 3 (three) golden ages one game. Unfortunately for me, the last one was squandered by a war weary economy.

Yes, you must build the appropriate advances for your culture. Remember that each one has 2 attributes. I was playing Persians at the time, so my attributes were industrious and scientific. I got one for the industrious, and one for the scientific.

I didn't realize at the time why I got the other one, but later on I realized what it was, when it happened again in another game.
Each culture also has its special unit. Mine were Immortals of course. Any time your special unit wins in combat (think elite unit here), it can trigger a golden age. That is what happened.

So, everytime you play, go for 3 golden ages. Who knows, maybe you'll get 4?

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Its May, not April. Your april fool is a bit late. 1 Golden age per civ per game, thats all.

 

[BumboJumbo]

Ok two questions... One, how do you do good in the game and be advanced in technology and actualy get technologies that they didnt have at the year you are at? For example everytime i finish the game im usualy JUST getting past the induestrial age by year 2047! I should have done that way back in the 1800's !!! I mean im still farther then the AI computers but still learning how to fly in 1997? Come on... The worst about it is im playing chieftan and my score is 300....Help.

Second, does anyone have any favorite people? American, British, Roman, ect...

....Sorry if i sound real bad at the game, well maybe i am so far but i am somewhat newer to the game than you guys... But i have had this game since christmas...

 

[punkbass2000]

The problem is that you're playing at Chieftain. On Chieftain the AI researches so slowly that you have to do it all yourself, so it takes a long time. If you play Deity, you'll find yourself at the end of the tech tree by 1000AD or so, because the AI has such huge bonuses at that level and it trades like mad.

 

[God]

@BumboJumbo: If you play warlord or a very action packed regent game, then you can get the eras in the game to almost align themselves up with the real life eras.

That means Industrial age in the game starts in 1800s, Modern Era in 1920's etc.

 

[BumboJumbo]

Thanx alot guys. I guess ill start whole a new game over, have you guys noticed how long it takes to start at 400 BC and get to 2050 AD? takes me days... O well this time ill kick better butt though, hey whats a really good civilazation to be? Im usualy the Americans or the British. Should i be russian or persian cause they have better scientific advancements?

AND whats better, to worry at the begining of the game: about technology, building as much cities as possible, or building a primative yet bigger army?

 

[BumboJumbo]

Is it a good idea to make your workers on auto so that they do thinngs on there own? Or should i control what every single worker does? Becasue im not sure if the choices they make are wise...

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by BumboJumbo
Is it a good idea to make your workers on auto so that they do thinngs on there own? Or should i control what every single worker does? Becasue im not sure if the choices they make are wise...

Generally speaking you want to control your workers. The AI does a decent job of selecting things for them to do but it's far from optimal. The automated workers will also not gang up on a project. For example, say you have 12 workers and it takes 12 turns to make a railroad. The AI would accomplish this by sending each worker out to work on a separate tile. In 12 turns you would have 12 railroads. A human player would pile all 12 workers into a work gang and complete a railroad tile each turn for immediate benefits.

That said, I'll generally automate with Shift-A when my rail network is complete and all of my in use tiles are developed. I don't see a need to micromanage busy work.

 

[BumboJumbo]

Ok, ididnt know you could gang workers up into one task... Kewl! But i have un mas pregunta. (ONE MORE QUESTION) i heard somewhere that if a tile has a lot of food benifits that you should build a mine there and if theres a lot of production shields there than irrigate it. Is this true or is it the other way around?

Hey is the best kind of warfare, early on with knights and pikeman or with aircraftcairriers and battleships and tanks... Becasue when you have tanks and such its cool but the opponet has them too. Aircraft carriers and battleships ARE awsome though.

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by BumboJumbo
Ok, ididnt know you could gang workers up into one task... Kewl! But i have un mas pregunta. (ONE MORE QUESTION) i heard somewhere that if a tile has a lot of food benifits that you should build a mine there and if theres a lot of production shields there than irrigate it. Is this true or is it the other way around?

Hey is the best kind of warfare, early on with knights and pikeman or with aircraftcairriers and battleships and tanks... Becasue when you have tanks and such its cool but the opponet has them too. Aircraft carriers and battleships ARE awsome though.

While in despotism you can't get more than two food or shields from grassland or plains so it's best to irrigate the plains and mine the grasslands. Once you are in a higher government form there are no penalties so you can develop terrain to maximize its natural benefits.

Early on with knights, pikemen and catapults is much better (IMHO).

 

[Bobby Dread]

Originally posted by Shaitan

Generally speaking you want to control your workers. The AI does a decent job of selecting things for them to do but it's far from optimal. The automated workers will also not gang up on a project. For example, say you have 12 workers and it takes 12 turns to make a railroad. The AI would accomplish this by sending each worker out to work on a separate tile. In 12 turns you would have 12 railroads. A human player would pile all 12 workers into a work gang and complete a railroad tile each turn for immediate benefits.

That said, I'll generally automate with Shift-A when my rail network is complete and all of my in use tiles are developed. I don't see a need to micromanage busy work.

I have found a few "problems" with automated workers. The most frustrating is, they tend to waber off through other peoples territory yo get at cities you have on the other side. This can destroy your rep, tho slowly, if the other civs are always yelling at you to remove your workers. They will also road and railroad ALL tiles in your territory, tho the unused ones will be done after the ones used by cities. This can be a waste of work.

An automated worker will often do a tile here, run accross the map, do a tile there, then back again. This isn;t too bad once you have railroads, but before then, they tend to spend too much time in transit.

When you conquer a city near your others one, the automated works will rush in to improve it if your other cities are done and the captured city is in need of improvement. This can be dangerous if there are still enemy units in the area, the workers are bound to be captured, or you must 'waste' units protecting them.

Another nagging problem is when you have lots of workers on automation, and there is nothing for them to do. The inactive workers go to "sleep" in a city. EACH turn, each worker will "search" for soemthing to do, usual all during the "auto-move" section of the turn. If you have a large territory, and 100+ workers, this can take quite some time. They will be "marked" then as having been moved, so if you want to move them, you have to wait a turn. There is no quick and easy way to "un-automate" a large number of workers.

 

[robinm]

My nasty tactic for playing catchup in tech.

Lets say you are 6 techs behind the leading AI player......

1. Choose an AI _not_ directly bordering you ( you are about to piss them off big time - you will be at war, and they will hate you for the rest of the game. It also helps if you are not in the age of flight or nukes). I generally end up doing this tactitc in early middle ages.

2. Get to the end of your turn.

3. Switch science to 0 % , luxuries to 0% , tax to 100 %

4. Go to each city. Put all your citizens on the maximum gold tiles - even if this means you will starve the city. If the city has no market place and some corruption (or has a marketplace but lots of corruption) then its better to remove the citizens who only produce 1 gold from their tile and set them as taxmen. If the city is totally corrupt set all the citizens as taxmen. You can check on your progress by hitting "F1" and checking the +gold per turn number. The aim is to max this out as much as you can.

5. If you do have anything worth selling other civs, sell it. Luxuries, resources, world map, workers ... ( probably not tech as you are way behind in the first place ). Aim to get gold per turn, even if the deal isn't as good as lump sum. Do not trade with your chosen target AI civ from point 1) at this stage.

6. Now you have the biggest +gold per turn imgainable, but its totally unsustainable - no problem.

7. Go to your chosen AI civ, bargain for as much tech as you can get for all your gold per turn. Best to offer "what would you offer for XXX gold per turn", and see what he comes up with. Tweak the trade and try to get the most tech you can for gold per turn only. Try not to give away a lump sum unless its a small anount to secure 1 extra tech. Giving away luxuries or resouces is ok. If you have excess gold per turn on tap then you might snatch a few workers, a contact with another civ or a decent world map as well. Get everything you can as you'll probably never trade with this civ again.

8. Close the deal.

9. Declare war. You have the tech, they never get a single turns payments.

10. Go round all your cities, reset the citizens to sensible working arrangements. Reset your tax rate to whatever your current plan dicates. Tell your science advisor what to research now. Check your citys' build orders, make sure they are still relevant - you may now be building cannon / musketmen / knights instead of ancient units and have several new wonders to aim at.
Build some decent military as the AI civ you just ripped off is going to come knocking. Reassess your long term plan in the light of your recent tech explosion.

11. Side effects : They will hate you for a long time !! Expect Galleys of angry debt collectors to be landing on your shores. Other Civs will also distrust you much more, you may have to do most of the rest of your trading for the game using lump sums (unless of course you do this trick early before you have met all the others civs. Only people who knew you when you did the deed seem to get the bad opinion of you ). As a result you probably only get to use this trick once per game, but it can turn a virtually lost tech situation into a competative game again. Don't plan on winning a diplomatic victory after this.

Robin

 

[robinm]

If you have built the Military Academy in a decent construction city you can use the army as a sleeper build job instead of the palace to build a head start on you next wonder.

Normally people use the palace as its an expensive job to complete , and when they get the tech required for a new wonder, they switch construction. This is a good tactic to use.

3 possible problems :
1. Only one city can be building the palace.
2. If you forget about the sleeper job, they you can actually build the palace and move your capital in an unplanned way. This wastes all the shieds you have been saving and may make your empire more corrupt if the new palace location is less central.
3. If you get beaten to the wonder you end up with 800 shields and nothing better to spend them on than a police station or a colluseum !

Using the 400 shield army solves all of these : You can have 2 cities preparing a wonder sleep when the tech tree is likely to throw up multiple wonder oppertunities, if you forget about the sleeper you still get an army, and if you are beaten to the wonder you can alwayd just carry on and build the army. The only drawback is that the army only costs 400, and the palace generally costs more thant that, so the sleeper can't get as big before the wonder tech arrives.

 

[louiethelesbo]

I knew a rabbi once that worked for short tips.

My secret to success is my strategic use of hookers. I spot the enemy troops that look like Hugh Grant and I flood the battlefield with hookers to distract them. Works like a charm..everytime!!

 

[unscratchedfoot]

I found an easy way to prevent settler diarhea (not sure on the spelling of diarhea as its the first time in my life to type/write this word). Just build 10 or so extra warriors and place them on your border. When the computer pukes settlers out and sends them over your border, with no regard whatsoever for borders as usual use the warriors to block all squares except those leading back to the ai's territory. This also works for settlers which successfully enter your territory but haven't yet reached the "uncultured" areas within - just don't let them! They eventually go and "pollute" some other hapless ai's territory.

One caution: never tell them to leave your territory because they will <automove> exactly into the uncultured space in your territory (or start a war).

 

[Crunchy]

Bear in mind that each population face requires 2 food, a surplus is then needed for growth. The center square is worked for "free" and then each population face can be set to work squares within the city's radius. That means that if on average you have 2 food per square the city will grow until it's limit (6 or 12 or num city squares+1).

Early on I mine grass squares which gives 2 food and a shield (2 shields if bonus grassland), if none are available I irrigate any plains which also gives 2 food and a shield. Later on I will mine hills (1 food, 3 shield) and mountains (3 shields) and then balance out the lack of food by irrigating some grassland. ie you mine a hill and then irrigate some grassland, this gives 1 food, 3 shield and 3 food, no shield which keeps the average 2 food per square. For a mountain you need to irrigate 2 grassland to compensate.

As soon as you get Steampower you should build railways everywhere. This adds a shield to any mined square and one food for any irrigated square, you can then probably turn some irrigated land to mines which maintains the average 2 food and maximises production.

If you ask the City Govenor to control City happiness he will control which squares are worked. He does a pretty good job of balancing food / production so I often use him to avoid unrest. Another advantage is that the Govenor will update for new mines/irrigation and when pollution has just been cleared.

 

[Ronald]

Originally posted by BumboJumbo
Is it a good idea to make your workers on auto so that they do thinngs on there own? Or should i control what every single worker does? Becasue im not sure if the choices they make are wise...

If you have more time than enough, controlling every worker yourself gets things done more efficent, but for me it is too tedious. The automated worker still do a pretty good job.

Make sure you use shift-A, so they don't change existing improvements.

 

[antisocialgeek]

How can you possibly keep up with all the tips? Anyway, I have not read all the tips (and don't intend to do so). I think you should sell your Wall once you pass population size 7. Afterall, it is completely useless by then and when you arial view your city that broken down wall looks very ugly.