Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Sisiutil]

Essentially, yes. However, if there are sufficient potential farm sites, I always consider building a couple of extra farms, even if it is a production or commerce city, in order to be able to hire a couple of specialists to help out.

I am not convinced that's optimal.

For a production city, you only get 2 from a engineering specialist, whereas you'll get 3 or more from a mine--plus a chance, however, small, that working the mine will discover a resource.

For a commerce city, you'll get more commerce from a merchant specialist initially, but you'll be better off in the long run if you assign that specialist to work a cottage instead.

 

[MaxWar]

Regarding improvements, everyone may have his own personal variant strategy, but the basic universal truth is that the land somehow tells you what to build.

Besides, never underestimate cottages, they friggin own! Cottages all over the place Ftw!!
But when in doubt, i build a farms, they can always be replaced. Then if you have starvation problems after replacing a farm : JUST WHIP TEH HELL OUT OF EM BEFORE THEY DIE OF HUNGER!!! You guys are using slavery right? (^‿^)

 

[GGracchus]

Cottages are not always best(non-financial, low food to work them), and in this case you either go mass farms+bio+rep for tons of specs or go SP and get some workshops.

 

[ajsciri4]

Warring is the only thing I'm actually decent at, but is there a way to tech and fight wars at the same time? Every time I go to war and it gets bloody, my research slider will drop from 70 and settle around a stagnant 10 due to my units being created and their supply in enemy lands.
My last game resulted in me using macemen and trebs against a bunch of riflemen, using superior numbers to win a domination victory, but I still feel kinda stupid sending a bunch of macemen at CGII riflemen.

 

[MaxWar]

Warring is the only thing I'm actually decent at, but is there a way to tech and fight wars at the same time? Every time I go to war and it gets bloody, my research slider will drop from 70 and settle around a stagnant 10 due to my units being created and their supply in enemy lands.
My last game resulted in me using macemen and trebs against a bunch of riflemen, using superior numbers to win a domination victory, but I still feel kinda stupid sending a bunch of macemen at CGII riflemen.

What difficulty level are you playing at?

 

[ajsciri4]

I vary between Noble and Prince depending on how bored I am.

 

[MaxWar]

I vary between Noble and Prince depending on how bored I am.

Ok, my trick about playing as a warmonger is to not be even remotely half hearted about it. You need to be decisive and start to utterly crush your enemy quickly, usually right at the beginning of the game. This way you will usually be able to compensate the economic penalty of warring with the spoil of war. In early game, dont hesitate to pillage improvement, raze cities instead of keeping them, so you can keep on destroying the enemy instead of fighting an unhappy conquered populace. Drive your enemy to the edge, then have them pay you tribute in money and techs in exchange of temporary peace. Then go attack another neighbor, repeat cycle, utterly crush everything, burn, loot, pillage, demand tribute. If you are aggressive enough, the wars will pay themselves.

But you also need to have some buddies, use religions to your advantage, your military strength plays in your advantage too. Use your buddies to trade techs and sell resources as much as you can. This will allow you to keep up in tech, until the point where conquest have netted you such a big empire that you will become more advanced and unstoppable, then you can utterly crush them all Playing this way definitely works at Monarch. So it should do as well at prince.

 

[ajsciri4]

Ok, my trick about playing as a warmonger is to not be even remotely half hearted about it. You need to be decisive and start to utterly crush your enemy quickly, usually right at the beginning of the game. This way you will usually be able to compensate the economic penalty of warring with the spoil of war. In early game, dont hesitate to pillage improvement, raze cities instead of keeping them, so you can keep on destroying the enemy instead of fighting an unhappy conquered populace. Drive your enemy to the edge, then have them pay you tribute in money and techs in exchange of temporary peace. Then go attack another neighbor, repeat cycle, utterly crush everything, burn, loot, pillage, demand tribute. If you are aggressive enough, the wars will pay themselves.

But you also need to have some buddies, use religions to your advantage, your military strength plays in your advantage too. Use your buddies to trade techs and sell resources as much as you can. This will allow you to keep up in tech, until the point where conquest have netted you such a big empire that you will become more advanced and unstoppable, then you can utterly crush them all Playing this way definitely works at Monarch. So it should do as well at prince.

Thanks, this helps a lot. May I ask how you can use others to advantage? Also, I've tried to start world wars, but no one will ever attack anyone else for me..

 

[MaxWar]

The idea is to choose your allies carefully. I usually try to scout early in the game so i know what the map looks like and which leaders are in there, what are their relations with each other etc... As a warmonger i will usually wait a bit late to pick a religion so i can see what religion to chose in order to strengthen my chosen alliances
There are many factors really and every game is different, especially if you play Random scenarios. Experimentation is the key.
In some case you may realize that playing a warmonger is not even a good idea for X or X reason and would be wise to change strategy. Also, some leaders are rather unreliable as allies while some are, (Ex: Never trust Montezuma ) . When you have a couple good allies, use them for trades and and if your relations are very good, they can even come to help you sometimes. But full scale world war do not seem to happen usually. At least not in the regular game or Vanilla/BTS. Sometimes what happens is half the world will pack up against someone and tear him up.

In any case, bold, put the difficulty higher if you want, maybe you'll lose but you learn faster this way

 

[Sisiutil]

I rarely entice other civs into fighting one another. The AI is rather inept at warfare, so they're unlikely to do each other serious damage; instead, it might just result in both of them (at least one of which may be a potential enemy) building more units. No, I'd rather have them lulled into a sense of false security.

One way to use religion to your advantage is if you share borders with two different civs, adopt the religion of the one you do not plan to attack immediately. Ideally your religious buddy will not join your chosen enemy in warring against you.

 

[MaxWar]

Sisiutil is right the AI sucks at warfare in most circumstances, its usually not worth the bother to get them to war with each other. However in some occasion i feel you can benefit into enticing a buddy to declare on a common enemy.

The most obvious example i can think of is such as this: (fictionnal)

-Im Persia
-Im at war with Saladin
-Catherine of Russia Declares on me
-I fear she will backstab me while im busy with saladin.
-I happen to be good buddy with Frederick of Germany, who shares a border with Catherine . ( or alternatively he is not necessarily my best bud, but he really Hates Catherine. )
- I Get Fred to declare on Cathy
-Cathy will strengthen her front with Frederick and will allocated less resources into attacking me.
-Chance of Cathy doing me catastrophic back stab damage decreases
-I am happy and keep on attacking Saladin

 

[Sisiutil]

Sisiutil is right the AI sucks at warfare in most circumstances, its usually not worth the bother to get them to war with each other. However in some occasion i feel you can benefit into enticing a buddy to declare on a common enemy.

The most obvious example i can think of is such as this: (fictionnal)

-Im Persia
-Im at war with Saladin
-Catherine of Russia Declares on me
-I fear she will backstab me while im busy with saladin.
-I happen to be good buddy with Frederick of Germany, who shares a border with Catherine . ( or alternatively he is not necessarily my best bud, but he really Hates Catherine. )
- I Get Fred to declare on Cathy
-Cathy will strengthen her front with Frederick and will allocated less resources into attacking me.
-Chance of Cathy doing me catastrophic back stab damage decreases
-I am happy and keep on attacking Saladin

An excellent point. I had that happen in the Hetshapsut ALC--Napoleon was sending a fleet over to invade my continent (which I had just finished conquering). I was lagging behind him in tech; my troops were obsolete compared to his and too spread out. Fortunately, I was able to bribe Montezuma into declaring war on him, so Napoleon's fleet turned around and sailed home.

Yes, Montezuma saved my a**. Say what you will about that befeathered psycho, he has his uses.

 

[MaxWar]

Yes, Montezuma saved my a**. Say what you will about that befeathered psycho, he has his uses.

Actually I love Monty if all truth be told, at worst I love to hate him
From my experience there is one thing that you can reliably trust Monty with; you can trust him to make your games more interesting.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

How can I add cities with World builder?

 

[s.bernbaum]

I am not convinced that's optimal.

For a production city, you only get 2 from a engineering specialist, whereas you'll get 3 or more from a mine--plus a chance, however, small, that working the mine will discover a resource.

For a commerce city, you'll get more commerce from a merchant specialist initially, but you'll be better off in the long run if you assign that specialist to work a cottage instead.

I didn't say that I do it. All I said was that I always consider doing it. It depends on the city, the near neighbors, and what my goals are. Sometimes it is optimal. Mostly it isn't but I always consider it.

 

[GGracchus]

How can I add cities with World builder?

Go to whichever person you want the city go to in player mode, click on buildings, and the very first option is "City"

Warring is the only thing I'm actually decent at, but is there a way to tech and fight wars at the same time? Every time I go to war and it gets bloody, my research slider will drop from 70 and settle around a stagnant 10 due to my units being created and their supply in enemy lands.
My last game resulted in me using macemen and trebs against a bunch of riflemen, using superior numbers to win a domination victory, but I still feel kinda stupid sending a bunch of macemen at CGII riflemen.

You have to be offensive and target his main cities/stack as soon as you declare. You want to take him out as soon as possible, whether you capitulate him or conquer him or make peace with cities for tech. This helps if you have tech parity or a tech lead on your opponent. If you get done with a war fast enough you can prevent too much economic loss.

 

[GGracchus]

Oops, double post.

 

[ajsciri4]

What's the best energy plant?

 

[Jwitti]

hydro, of course. No pollution or chance of meltdown, or need of resources, but needs a river. I recommend building the Three Gorges dam to give power to all cities on the continent

 

[Sisiutil]

What's the best energy plant?

I rank them in this order:

1. Hydro Plant - No extra pollution, no chance of meltdown, but the city needs to be next to a river tile.
2. Coal Plant - Extra pollution, but no chance of meltdown, and no requirement for a riverside tile to be next door. Requires coal (duh).
3. Nuclear Plant - Probably the worst one--no tile requirements, but you run a ridiculously high risk of a meltdown. Requires uranium.