[NFP] Pre- and around crossbows hints and must-do's for different VCs

[qhash]

I know that there was a lot of questions like this one, but even though I have read lots of posts, I still can get the game going right at the certain point which is a think the beggining of the mid game. It is the moment just around the time you can get crossbows. I guess many mistakes/mismanagement happens even earlier. Maybe if I write this in sections that each can be addressed seperately and then form overall guide, I guess it can be helpful to me and other mid tier players like me .
I play on Emporor/Immortal.
I know how to open , how to settle, how to deal with the AI, with its early aggression, how to shuffle civic cards properly, but one thing I am not sure is very long term planning, so this is section 1.
Section 1 - long term planning in the beggning. Having in my mind a specific Victory Condition (VC) and that different civs play different:

1A - do you guys immeadately plan in first 1-3 cities spots for must have wonders? What are those wonders for specific VC?

1B - what techs do you beline in general and for specific VC?

1C - I know that at the beggining culture is the key and one thing I can't get good is beline to PolitcalPhiliosophy and mass expand with Government Plaza/Magnus? I think I do it always too late. I only can get it right if I am lucky with a good natural wonder. How to secure that with higher reliability? People claim that you can do that in a turn I cant even dream about and at the same time they have Piramids built and military big enough not to be attacked

1D - if you have a great spot for Petra or Mausoleum of Halicarnass, do you rush for it?

1E - if you see a good land, a natural wonder or a strategic resource you do not have do you attack the AI? (Domination Victory (DV) excluded and of course, intentional no warfare game handicap). Is the war worth it?

Section 2 - empire developement having in mind specific VC. How do you develop your cities. I know this will differ from civ to civ and from map to map, but some approx number would help me a lot:

2A - do you prioretize Harbours no matter what VC is pursued? I like to do that for good income and to maximazie profit from otherwise less workable tiles.However, along with land expansion, I find it slow and usually I have big problems with Eurekas and can't beat the AI with finding all the CS for envoys or fleet strenght.

2B - for Religious victory (RV). I my self find this the easiest one as I think one need to generate as much faith as possible as early as possible to get lots of cities converter and do a 2nd expand phase with monumentality golden age. With Civs like Etiophia (I think number one religious civ, at least the one that can secure 2nd/3rd place in science without building many campuses and just 2 or 3 theater squares) this is super easy, but what with some other, less buffed civs? What do you do? How many Holy Sites (HS) per lets say 12 cities? Do you build Industrial Zones (IZ) ? Are they needed? Other districts? Governors? I often find Bishop not needed at all - maybe I am doing something wrong?

2C - for Science victory (SV). As I write this I realize that maybe this is even easier than RV as you really must build IZs and campuses, so this is pretty straightforward - general developement. Am I wright? Any specific hints, that can get me to super fast research times? What is a must do and must not do here?

2D - DV. How to maintain warfare and core cities developement? What are the must have districts? IZ, Campus and of course Encampement. But how many? What is must have? What great people? When are the best times to go war.

2E - for Cultural Victory. Walls are needed, religion if some combo with faith purchasing is in play, natural parks must be planned. What are the best approaches here? What districts to build and how many of them? How to play with no religion?

2F - I have never ever pursued that VC yet. I find voting frustrating, but maybe because I cant get other things right. Any hints appreciated as for the other VCs.

2G - chopping/infrastructure - what do you use workers for most?

2H - I am almost never able to build a Colloseum. Do you plan for it? Is it the must have wonder?

Section 3 - after crossbow.

3B-3F in analogy to Section 2.

The important information for that analysis is that with religion ( especially with a buffed civ) is way easier. Is that true or this is just my lack of knowledge and experience in other areas?

What to build? - I often find myself in a situation that I am nor sure what Governor promotion should I take or that when I need to start a new constructino and there is not a clear need, like military or trader or district, what to build in that situation?

I suspect that I am developing and playing too universal and that this is my mistake. Example of that I can think of is that I tend to build too many other districts when pursuing the RV, which also is a result of the previous problem/question (what to build)

Bonus: what changes to the strategy should be applied to the abovementioned key problems when playing on archipelago map?

 

[monikernemo]

1A -
If I have the sufficient information from scouting, I would proceed to plan for the early game stuff, govt plazas, campuses, holy sites, theatre squares.
Early VC specific wonders:
Pyramids very good for all victory types, maybe except religious.
Oracle very science/culture vics.
Temple of Artemis is very good in general, but I don't really rush to build it.
I dont plan for mid-late game wonders.

1B - what techs do you beline in general and for specific VC?

Scenario dependent I guess. If your opponents have large standing army obviously, get Crossbows for defense power spike.
But of course try to plan for as many tech boosts as possible.
Otherwise in ideal scenario for SV:
Beeline education, followed by Printing, then rush to get research labs and solar panels to power research labs.
Then, lower half of the tech tree. For civics, try to alternate my research to get as many civic boosts as possible since the end goal is Scott - Admundsen/ Globalisation.
For CV, usually Flight, Radio followed by either Steel or Computers.

1C - I know that at the beggining culture is the key and one thing I can't get good is beline to PolitcalPhiliosophy and mass expand with Government Plaza/Magnus? I think I do it always too late. I only can get it right if I am lucky with a good natural wonder. How to secure that with higher reliability? People claim that you can do that in a turn I cant even dream about and at the same time they have Piramids built and military big enough not to be attacked

Swap out civics research to get boosts early on i.e. dont hard research . Try to get monuments in one or two cities. Sell your luxes so you can afford a builder/monuments.
Try to complete cultural CS quests.

1D - if you have a great spot for Petra or Mausoleum of Halicarnass, do you rush for it?
Never, because the AI never prioritises either wonder. I would avoid petra unless I have no choice but to settle desert.

1E - if you see a good land, a natural wonder or a strategic resource you do not have do you attack the AI? (Domination Victory (DV) excluded and of course, intentional no warfare game handicap). Is the war worth it?
Depends. I think if you know the AI is sufficiently weak, then I don't see why not.

2A - do you prioritize Harbours no matter what VC is pursued? I like to do that for good income and to maximazie profit from otherwise less workable tiles.However, along with land expansion, I find it slow and usually I have big problems with Eurekas and can't beat the AI with finding all the CS for envoys or fleet strength.

No I don't. If I build harbour it is because the city is a coastal city and harbour can help the city to grow further. There are other ways to earn gold early on so CH and Harbours are not very useful, unless maybe you are playing as Mali or Phonecia or England.


2C - for Science victory (SV). As I write this I realize that maybe this is even easier than RV as you really must build IZs and campuses, so this is pretty straightforward - general developement. Am I right? Any specific hints, that can get me to super fast research times? What is a must do and must not do here?

The main bottle neck for SV is science and lesser extent, culture and not production. Key game play relies on Rationalism card, hitting 10 pop in all your cities with at least +3 adj campuses, and the main wonder one should get is Kilwa to get very high science. Generally fast SVs rely on Spaceport purchasing using Mohksha/Reyna and chopping projects and laser stations.

2G - chopping/infrastructure - what do you use workers for most?
Chops, placing farms, harvest before placing districts, improvements etc.

2H - I am almost never able to build a Colloseum. Do you plan for it? Is it the must have wonder?

The opportunity cost for Colosseum is high. It requires arena and entertainment complex which is one of the weakest district one can build early on.
I think it is good early on, but the effect wanes off as the game progresses. The AI doesn't seem to prioritse it as much as before.
It is something nice to have if you can chop out the wonder very early on.

 

[TheFinalChiTown]

1A - do you guys immediately plan in first 1-3 cities spots for must have wonders? What are those wonders for specific VC?

Hope you don't mind if I just focus on this question. There are no must-have wonders. However, some do make it much easier/faster to win a certain VC. For example, a science VC goes well with Pyramids, Oracle, Kilwa, and Big Ben.

For me, planning for wonders usually revolves around which city has enough chops to complete the wonder. This is often not (but can be) cities 1-3 because my early cities' chops are spent are usually spent on districts, settlers, and military. I'll usually build oracle in my cap though.

When I plan my first 3 cities, I usually focus on which locations are best overall for city sites. And, if I'm going to be building campuses or holy sites, I want cities with potential +3 adjacencies.

 

[qhash]

thanks a lot, I see some points where I was wrong.

 

[MrCynical]

1A - I'll echo the point that there's no such thing as a must have wonder. Some wonders are nice to have. Extra policy card slots (Forbidden City etc) are good for culture and science victories. So is the Oracle. Mahabodhi temple is good for a religious victory (Stonehenge is fairly useless on the higher difficulties, even if you can build it).

1D - The Mausoleum is generally high on my list of wonders, but it's more for the extra great engineer charges than the tile yields, so I'm not too fussy about where to build it. The AI seems to neglect this one, so it's usually still available on Immortal. Petra - well, if I've got desert and the AI doesn't build it I'll pick it up eventually, but I'm not going to found a city just as "a Petra location".

1E - I tend to avoid attacking the AI unless I'm going domination, or I've really cramped for space. This is more by choice than because of strategy though - the AI struggles too much with warfare, and it feels a bit cheap a lot of the time.

2A - Harbours are good no matter what VC you're going for. Given the choice they are flat out better than commercial hubs most of the time. It's easy to get at least a +3 adjacency on them, the policy to double that is quite early, and the shipyard building allows you to turn it into production as well, which really speeds up getting your later cities going. Even otherwise awful sites can be productive provided they have a coast and a half decent harbour. Oh, and spies can't siphon funds from them either, which is nice.

2C - Well, if you're going for a religious victory, the more holy sites the better. Try to stay in a golden age to get Exodus of the Evangelists. Don't worry too much about tech or culture - you can easily be wrapping things up around the Industrial age anyway, and practically everything beneficial to a religious victory is in the first four ages. The Bishop governor has a remarkably useless set of promotions for a religious victory - I wouldn't even bother to appoint him.

2F - From context I'm guessing diplo victory? The trick is to remember that you get one diplo point for each world congress vote where you're on the winning side. So don't worry too much about the actual effects of the votes, think of it as a quiz where your goal is to predict which way the AIs will vote, and vote along with the winner. For example, if it's a vote to boost the strength of a religion's units, don't vote for your own. Look at which religious AI has the most favour, and vote for their religion. The disaster relief missions are basically two free diplo points as long as your gold production is decent (it's probably the most useful resource for a diplo victory, more so than large amounts of diplo favour). Bear in mind that once you get to about 15 victory points the AI will vote for you to lose two points at each world congress. Due to the way diplo favour works it is very unlikely you'll be able to outvote all the AIs, so you're actually best off voting for yourself to lose 2 diplo points. That way you still get the +1 point for being on the winning side of the vote, so you're only down one point instead of two.

2H - I never build the Colosseum because I never build entertainment districts that early. They're by far the weakest district type in the game, and even later on I'd only consider them in cities where water parks are unavailable.

 

[TheFinalChiTown]

thanks a lot, I see some points where I was wrong.

No right or wrong way to play this game.

 

[Bibor]

No right or wrong way to play this game.

That is true. Winning, though, and fast, that’s entirely something else

I know that there was a lot of questions like this one, but even though I have read lots of posts, I still can get the game going right at the certain point which is a think the beggining of the mid game.

So do exactly that. Play a map you like a few (dozen) times to T100 and see what’s the absolute best you can squeeze out. Then compare your situation and win condition yields with your other attempts, as well as other maps, say gotm or youtube videos.
Once you get there, do the same from T100 to T150 etc.

 

[walkerjks]

1A - do you guys immeadately plan in first 1-3 cities spots for must have wonders? What are those wonders for specific VC?

1B - what techs do you beline in general and for specific VC?

1C - I know that at the beggining culture is the key and one thing I can't get good is beline to PolitcalPhiliosophy and mass expand with Government Plaza/Magnus? I think I do it always too late. I only can get it right if I am lucky with a good natural wonder. How to secure that with higher reliability? People claim that you can do that in a turn I cant even dream about and at the same time they have Piramids built and military big enough not to be attacked

1E - if you see a good land, a natural wonder or a strategic resource you do not have do you attack the AI? (Domination Victory (DV) excluded and of course, intentional no warfare game handicap). Is the war worth it?

2A - do you prioretize Harbours no matter what VC is pursued? I like to do that for good income and to maximazie profit from otherwise less workable tiles.However, along with land expansion, I find it slow and usually I have big problems with Eurekas and can't beat the AI with finding all the CS for envoys or fleet strenght.

2E - for Cultural Victory. Walls are needed, religion if some combo with faith purchasing is in play, natural parks must be planned. What are the best approaches here? What districts to build and how many of them? How to play with no religion?

2G - chopping/infrastructure - what do you use workers for most?

2H - I am almost never able to build a Colloseum. Do you plan for it? Is it the must have wonder?

Going to answer this for cultural victories only.

1A - I don't build wonders. They are unneeded. They can be really useful, but they are both uncertain (particularly at higher difficulty levels) and have trade-offs in that you could be using those hammers for something else. Most CV games I build 0 wonders, therefore city planning doesn't have to account for them.

1B - Generally, flight is most important. But along the way, you probably want lumber mills (hammers are good), crossbows (to help fight off more advanced barbarians), and printing (doubled tourism from great books isn't trivial) and the combination doesn't delay a straight beeline to flight by much, so why not grab them? The rest of the bottom of the tech tree isn't important if you have managed neighbor relationships well (in my experience with current rules, it's fairly easy to keep everyone in a friendship status - perhaps a little more difficult with secret societies).

1C - Early Pingala will work pretty consistently. Ignoring secret societies, Pingala + connoisseur can be first 2 governor slots and then use the 2 from government plaza and ancestral hall for magnus + provision. You can pretty much get turn 50 PP with any civ if you pay things right, even if you don't have any bonus culture from cultural city-states or one of the rare cultural wonders. You might have to mix in a monument or two in early builds.

With secret societies, you are virtually guaranteed 2 (or 3 or 4) extra governors early and you will want to use 1 for the secret society. You also have even more incentive to take voidsingers and build a very early obelisk (earlier pantheon). So turn 40 PP becomes much more likely with secret societies.

Work on first 50 turns. Focus on generating culture. Figure out how to get turn 50 (or turn 40) PP consistently even with a civ not built for it (Trajan or Gorgo are cheating a bit). It's not that hard.

1E - Assuming you want to be mostly peaceful, my rule of thumb is 1) I want room for 8 cities and 2) I don't want to be too close to a neighbor. If I share an small island with an AI or their capitol is within 15 tiles of me, go ahead and conquer them. Even though it makes the tourism equations a bit harder, I tend to fully conquer them if done early. If they are close and I can conquer them before turn 60 or so, it's probably worth it.

2A - Not at all. I've won CVs where I ended the game with 1 trade route. I've gotten the eureka for celestial navigation at turn 170 (so obviously no harbors). I do like harbors over commercial districts as they are water-based, but neither one is a priority (except playing Mansa). There are 2 times I build harbors (and I question whether this is better than a theater district project) - between building an ampitheater and arch musem when I haven't researched humanism yet and after finishing an arch museum and anthropologist and haven't researched radio yet. So windows where I have the hammers, but not the tech to build more straight culture/tourism stuff.

Trade routes are useful (I dont want discount the tourism bonus entirely, but +25% isn't huge and +75% doesn't come until very late and perhaps never if you win early) - they just aren't necessary and can't come at the expense of theater square stuff.

2E - No. No. No. Walls - 1 tourism/turn for a low hammer cost is nice, but isn't needed. I do tend to have ancient walls everywhere eventually, just because they are cheap and make more sense than alternatives in the late game. Religion - not needed (or wanted) unless you are playing someone with great holy site adjacency bonuses that can be doubled with scripture and turned into hammers with work ethic. Faith is wonderful. Religion, less so (opportunity costs with hammers when producing the holy sites). You don't need national parks (or rock bands), though they are nice. You don't need golden age monumentality (though it can be very nice). You can play Menelik or Mansa to get a feel for what a religion-less culture game where you still have a lot of faith feels like. Or play Pericles or Kristina without religion to get a feel for what a religion-less, faith-less culture game feels like. It all works. Voidsingers makes it all a bit easier as you will still have quite a bit of faith from obelisks. Anyways, other than theaters, no other district is critical. I do often (but not always), build 1-3 campuses early. I always build a government center as soon as available. Diplomatic quarter comes mid-game. Commercial/harbor districts and entertainment/water parks might come late, though, as mentioned, I'm starting to question if those hammers are better spent on theater square projects.
2G - I build workers late (mostly post-Feudalism). I'm not sure this is optimal (maybe early builders + chopping is better), but there is always something else to build. I do love the ancestral hall free builders, however. I don't chop early (maybe I should be Magnus first and chop for settlers). Chopping with the free builders to jump-start production and growth in mid-game cities makes a lot of sense, however. Builder chop chains (chop woods or jungle in cities producing other builders) in order to spam Moai (Rapa Nui) or Colossal Heads (La Venta) makes a lot of sense. Absent that, chopping to speed up arch museums and archeologists makes a lot of sense. There's no reason to end the game with any jungle or forest, unless the forest adds bonuses to colossal heads or to add appeal to tiles, but second-growth forest works for that as well, so chop everything eventually.

2H - It's a great wonder. One of the best for CV. I never build it. I suppose I ought to revisit this, or play another Qin game, but it's completely unnecessary.

My general suggestion for CV is strip away all that isn't truly needed - all districts except theaters (and maybe a few campii), all wonders, most trade routes, and religion. Figure that out. And then start messing with variations. The variations are fun (Mansa commercial-first, Peter Holy Site first, Kupe just being Kupe, Bull Moose Teddy or Canada national parks, Cyrus or Cleopatra seaside resorts). But CVs have almost no "must dos" and the fewer addons you throw in, the faster you tend to win.