Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

Could somebody please give me a few tips for the use of the "gold per turn" trading option. I was just watching one of the YouTube games by an expert player. He uses it a lot. I have never tried to do much with it. My bad.:D
 
Era Question.

As you move through the eras the turns become more efficient, like 20 years per turn eventually is one year per turn.

Is there a strategy to bee-line into eras and then pick up older technologies faster in retrograde. Is it all the same? If I make it to the Classical Era and my opponent is in the bronze age, do his turns stay at his relative age?
 
Era Question.

As you move through the eras the turns become more efficient, like 20 years per turn eventually is one year per turn.

Is there a strategy to bee-line into eras and then pick up older technologies faster in retrograde. Is it all the same? If I make it to the Classical Era and my opponent is in the bronze age, do his turns stay at his relative age?

Era's don't matter in that way. A tech costs a "fixed" * amount of beakers. In later stages of the game, you can produce beakers faster.

*tech costs are not truly fixed... there is a fixed cost that recieves discount/adjustments for how many precursor technologies you know, and for how many other civilizations (that have been met) who already know the technology.
 
Could somebody please give me a few tips for the use of the "gold per turn" trading option. I was just watching one of the YouTube games by an expert player. He uses it a lot. I have never tried to do much with it. My bad.:D

GPT is very useful, especially if you need more income to keep your slider at a high science%. You should check often (using the "resources" tab in the diplomacy overview screen) to see who might be interested in your excess resources and has a useful resource or gpt to trade.

I usually prefer happiness or health resources in trade for my excess resources if my empire has unhappiness or health problems. Otherwise, I take gpt, starting offers to the AI with the most gpt available to trade. If I have more than one of any resource, I am always looking to trade it for something (its giving away nothing useful to me to get for something that is useful... and what benefits it gives the AI won't bother me - exception is strategic resources which I be careful with).

Note, if you are trading happy resources for +1, +2, +3 gpt... you should keep an eye out if their are players now who can afford more. Check the ongoing deals and see if you can improve the price you get for it. You can cancel any deal after 10t with no negative diplomatic impact, and renegotiate the same trade on the same turn, just for more gpt.
 
*tech costs are not truly fixed... there is a fixed cost that recieves discount/adjustments for how many precursor technologies you know, and for how many other civilizations (that have been met) who already know the technology.

Had no idea that the bolded statement came into play. Just want to make sure I'm understanding this. If I have discovered Paper, and 3 out of 8 other Civs know that same tech, your saying that the remaining Civs will actually discover Paper quicker?

I've never taken the time to disect the mechanics of it, always understood that I picked up techs quicker or cheaper if I picked up the pre-requisites but had no idea that others knowing it already made it cheaper. This could drastically change my tech trading strats. Is there a mechanics breakdown somewhere that describes this, maybe in the S&T Forums?

When to use "gold per turn" trading option?
Could somebody please give me a few tips for the use of the "gold per turn" trading option. I was just watching one of the YouTube games by an expert player. He uses it a lot. I have never tried to do much with it. My bad.

Look up Sisuitils Beginners Guide, and/or Intermediate Tactics guide in the S&T sub forum I believe, he has a great strategy breakdown about Trade Strategies in General, and GPT Trades specifically. If you have trouble finding it, look up a post by him and the links are in his Signature line.
 
Had no idea that the bolded statement came into play. Just want to make sure I'm understanding this. If I have discovered Paper, and 3 out of 8 other Civs know that same tech, your saying that the remaining Civs will actually discover Paper quicker?

I've never taken the time to disect the mechanics of it, always understood that I picked up techs quicker or cheaper if I picked up the pre-requisites but had no idea that others knowing it already made it cheaper. This could drastically change my tech trading strats. Is there a mechanics breakdown somewhere that describes this, maybe in the S&T Forums?



Look up Sisuitils Beginners Guide, and/or Intermediate Tactics guide in the S&T sub forum I believe, he has a great strategy breakdown about Trade Strategies in General, and GPT Trades specifically. If you have trouble finding it, look up a post by him and the links are in his Signature line.

Yes, I've seen it somewhere before, it shows why meeting other civs early is an advantage too. I'm sure many of you bee line to bronze working and then to alphabet to back trade, but the added benefit of meeting other civs is the tec discount on early discovered techs.
 
Yeah, so to emphasise it's civs you know who know the tech. You should perhaps be careful with trading certain technologies at times - even with no brokering you make the costs cheaper by trading it about.
Here's the article on research
 
Could somebody please give me a few tips for the use of the "gold per turn" trading option. I was just watching one of the YouTube games by an expert player. He uses it a lot. I have never tried to do much with it. My bad.:D

Once I can trade gold, I sell all duplicate resources to whoever has the most gold per turn available for trade and wants that resource. In the early game, I will even sell for 1 gpt, since the costs are low, although if I can get 2 or 3 that's what I aim for. Later in the game, I will renegotiate the deals for higher amounts or cancel them and sell to a different AI that has more gpt available. I will even trade an extra resource that I don't need for one that I have only one of and then sell the now duplicated resource to a third AI for gpt. The only exception is that I don't sell resources of strategic importance to AIs that might turn them against me. For example, no horses, copper or iron to neighbors early in the game, or no copper to anyone if I'm trying to build the Statue of Liberty. These sales of resources often finance my empire, enabling me to run the research slider a notch or two higher in the early game, when research is still cheap, or upgrade my military in the later game.
 
Once I can trade gold, I sell all duplicate resources to whoever has the most gold per turn available for trade and wants that resource. In the early game, I will even sell for 1 gpt, since the costs are low, although if I can get 2 or 3 that's what I aim for. Later in the game, I will renegotiate the deals for higher amounts or cancel them and sell to a different AI that has more gpt available. I will even trade an extra resource that I don't need for one that I have only one of and then sell the now duplicated resource to a third AI for gpt. The only exception is that I don't sell resources of strategic importance to AIs that might turn them against me. For example, no horses, copper or iron to neighbors early in the game, or no copper to anyone if I'm trying to build the Statue of Liberty. These sales of resources often finance my empire, enabling me to run the research slider a notch or two higher in the early game, when research is still cheap, or upgrade my military in the later game.

In the early game and, say your economy is in decent shape, you have two fish and your friendly neighbor and two corn. Would you usually just make a fish for corn trade, or sell him fish in exchange for gold per turn? If so, how much gold per turn would it take to make it worthwhile? This is the area of gpt trading that I don't understand. Thanks!:)
 
In the early game and, say your economy is in decent shape, you have two fish and your friendly neighbor and two corn. Would you usually just make a fish for corn trade, or sell him fish in exchange for gold per turn? If so, how much gold per turn would it take to make it worthwhile? This is the area of gpt trading that I don't understand. Thanks!:)
As with most things in Civ, it depends.

Ask yourself this question: what choice will gain me the greatest benefit while providing the least benefit to my rival?

All other things being equal, in the case described above, the gold-for-fish deal will usually be the best, even if it's only for 1 or 2 GPT. In the early game, that can still benefit you. It may not give you enough leeway to push the slider up (though combined with other GPT deals it might), but it will contribute more GPT to your surplus which will eventually allow you to research at a deficit for a turn or two, or upgrade a unit. Leaving the trade in place for several turns will also eventually accrue a +1 to +2 diplomatic bonus--you never know when that may come in handy. So I always contend that if you have surplus resource, a GPT deal is almost always worth it.

On the other hand, if you're running a specialist economy and your cities are hitting their health caps, the corn may eliminate the :yuck: (especially with the +2 :health: from a granary), allowing you to run more specialists and/or grow the city faster and whip more.
 
In the early game and, say your economy is in decent shape, you have two fish and your friendly neighbor and two corn. Would you usually just make a fish for corn trade, or sell him fish in exchange for gold per turn? If so, how much gold per turn would it take to make it worthwhile? This is the area of gpt trading that I don't understand. Thanks!:)

x-post

If your best research city is not growing due to unhealth :yuck: and growing it by 1 population would produce more than 1-2 gpt, you are probably better off trading for the health resource corn.

If, however, your cities are healthy and will remain so in the next 10 turns (after which you could cancel any deal), the corn would be worth nothing, and 1gpt is better than nothing.

Its a judgment call... one of those things that are very situational and keep the game interesting after many years.


btw... If you are using a corporation, only then would you gain something by hoarding more than one of any resource type. Otherwise, though you gain nothing, denying them to opponents might be worth something - especially regarding the strategic resources.

One really neat trick is to trade strategic resources to civs who can't even use them yet (uranium to guys who don't have fission, for example).:nuke:
 
One really neat trick is to trade strategic resources to civs who can't even use them yet (uranium to guys who don't have fission, for example).:nuke:
My favourite one of that type is to trade copper to a civ that has iron--provided I'm not building the Colossus or the Statue of Liberty, of course.
 
x-post

If your best research city is not growing due to unhealth :yuck: and growing it by 1 population would produce more than 1-2 gpt, you are probably better off trading for the health resource corn.

If, however, your cities are healthy and will remain so in the next 10 turns (after which you could cancel any deal), the corn would be worth nothing, and 1gpt is better than nothing.

Its a judgment call... one of those things that are very situational and keep the game interesting after many years.


btw... If you are using a corporation, only then would you gain something by hoarding more than one of any resource type. Otherwise, though you gain nothing, denying them to opponents might be worth something - especially regarding the strategic resources.

One really neat trick is to trade strategic resources to civs who can't even use them yet (uranium to guys who don't have fission, for example).:nuke:

Thank you. Next question: suppose I have 2 incense and friendly neighbor has 2 silk. Other things being equal, incense is +5 and silk is only +3, so that might not be a good trade. But when is it a good trade? If I have Great Lighthouse, doesn't that affect the decision? If the incense is in my great commerce city (with commerce multipliers like Wall Street), does that affect the decision? Doesn't the trade gold go to my capital city instead of my commerce city that owned the incense? I don't want it there. These are the kinds of issues I find confusing on resource trades. Thanks.:)
 
Thank you. Next question: suppose I have 2 incense and friendly neighbor has 2 silk. Other things being equal, incense is +5 and silk is only +3, so that might not be a good trade. But when is it a good trade? If I have Great Lighthouse, doesn't that affect the decision? If the incense is in my great commerce city (with commerce multipliers like Wall Street), does that affect the decision? Doesn't the trade gold go to my capital city instead of my commerce city that owned the incense? I don't want it there. These are the kinds of issues I find confusing on resource trades. Thanks.:)
You don't trade the commerce effects of the luxuries at all, only the strategic effects. In trade, incense is worth 1 happy + another with a cathedral while silk is 1 happy + another with a market.

That means that the silk is actually more valuable because a city is more likely to have a market than a cathedral. In practice, the difference is small but it is worth considering sometimes. The biggest difference, imo, is between grains and other health resources since grains gain an additional health from granaries, which pretty much every city has. Similarly, precious metals are generally the best happy resources, especially for an industrious civ.
 
You don't trade the commerce effects of the luxuries at all, only the strategic effects. In trade, incense is worth 1 happy + another with a cathedral while silk is 1 happy + another with a market.

That means that the silk is actually more valuable because a city is more likely to have a market than a cathedral. In practice, the difference is small but it is worth considering sometimes. The biggest difference, imo, is between grains and other health resources since grains gain an additional health from granaries, which pretty much every city has. Similarly, precious metals are generally the best happy resources, especially for an industrious civ.

Thanks. So, if I have Great Lighthouse, shouldn't I trade most of my commerce resources to get the multiplier effect? Even if I have only one of a resource, don't I gain by trading it for gold per turn because of the Lighthouse?
 
Thanks. So, if I have Great Lighthouse, shouldn't I trade most of my commerce resources to get the multiplier effect? Even if I have only one of a resource, don't I gain by trading it for gold per turn because of the Lighthouse?

The great lighthouse gives you +2 trade routes for coastal cities. So that's the commerce that you see on the top left of the city screen with city names next to. Nothing to do with trades with other civs :p
 
Can you change the civs and leaders present in scenarios and if yes, how?
also, how do you set the difficulty level in a scenario?

thx
 
Can you change the civs and leaders present in scenarios and if yes, how?
also, how do you set the difficulty level in a scenario?

thx

Welcome to the forums!:band:

First question depends on the scenario. For scenarios without preselected leaders (Earth18 and Earth 1000, for example) you can do a custom scenario. After selecting single player, select custom scenario. The custom screen will let you select leaders and civs. For scenarios with preselected leaders I'd have to defer to better people. Most of the maps (South America, Ice Age, etc.) scenarios let you select how many and which leaders. For some, like Rhye's and Fall, that'd be nearly impossible.

Second question - when you select a scenario you'll go to a screen to select the difficulty level. You can also select the difficulty level by doing a custom scenario.

Custom scenario and custom game are very useful. Some people turn off tech brokering (I do), some select raging barbs, a lot turn off random events.
 
Ok thanks

And when you do your own map, how do you do it so as to not force which civ wind up where?

Basically, what i'm trying to do is a map with 4 different starting points but without forcing a specific civ (I want to be able to choose that at start of game, not when i do the map)

thanks again
 
Ok thanks

And when you do your own map, how do you do it so as to not force which civ wind up where?

Basically, what i'm trying to do is a map with 4 different starting points but without forcing a specific civ (I want to be able to choose that at start of game, not when i do the map)

thanks again

Difficult. You could use Worldbuilder to delete the starting settler and warrior/scout for the Civ you chose and then put a new settler and warrior/scout in the specific point you want. Remember the AI will settle in place, even if moving one tile would give a much better position (AI is famous for "one off the coast").

Doing this you would have specific civs in the game when you set it up at the start and then move them around after you start. Hope that works. Admittedly, you will get to see the whole map when you use worldbuilder.
 
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