Several Questions from a new player

[amphreded]

Hi all, I'm new to the game (about 120 hours in). I've played Civ II and Civ III in the past but not extensively. I am a mac user, have BNW + Korea + Spain & Hun (no G&K and other unlisted civs). Currently I'm playing on my second King difficulty and it's going smooth as Shoshone aiming for scientific victory. My first King game was as Zulus going for Honor/domination but I gave up halfway. The following questions are a mix of game mechanics that I do not fully understand yet and of what came up during my previous sessions.

Religions

1. Do faith-purchased buildings like pagoda or cathedrals loose effectiveness if the city gets converted? If not, is it beneficial to have other civs spread their religions to you so you can purchase their faith buildings, then convert back to your religion later?
2. If your holy city has been converted, which religion do your great prophets spread? Native or converted?
3. How do you use inquisitor to protect your city? Just by having them garrison in the city? Do they account for unit upkeep gold?
4. Religious purchase prices increase every era, but do their power increase as well? For example, would a missionary purchased from the renaissance has different spread religion strength from one that's purchased from another era?

Espionage

1. When I successfully steal a tech, sometimes the civ's leader will notice I have stolen their tech but sometimes I don't get a prompt from them at all. Does it mean that sometimes the civ doesn't even notice their tech has been stolen? If so, how can I be sure I can steal their tech while keeping them in the blind (to preserve diplomatic relationship)?
2. When a civ has no tech to steal from, is there a benefit to keep your spy there still or should you move your spy immediately to a new location?
3. How does rigging a city-state work? Do you gain influence over them or is this used only for reducing another civ's influence, or both? If you rig a city-state that is currently with another civ, will another civ hates you for it?

Workers

1. Regarding Route to Mode, will the worker start creating road from their current hex or will they smartly move to a pre-existing road then start from there?
2. Is there a way to control their automated behavior? Like do not remove forest/jungle, or stay within a designated city's parameters? Whenever I settle faraway (for example an island), some of these workers would cross the ocean though I don't want them to (i.e. I'm just a few turns away from earning enough gold to purchase a worker in the new city)
3. Is there an option to reforest/plant trees in Civ V?

Golden Era

1. What happens to extra happiness during Golden Age? Wasted?
2. If you're about to enter Golden Age, and you use Great Artist or complete Taj Mahal and force a Golden Age, when that Golden Age has ended, will your Golden Age meter drop back to zero or retain fully its previous value?
3. What should I focus on during Golden Age?

Domination Victory

1. How do you juggle between happiness, diplomatic relationships (so that everyone will not hate you?) and keeping up with the unit cost? Seems like when I played for domination, I always run into happiness/gold deficiency very often.
2. What to do with your military units after you've made peace with another civ? They are just standing there chipping away your gold.
3. I've buffed my army but not even one of the city-states is intimated by my military strength, thus I couldn't get their tributes. How much army do I need in order to intimidate them? Is this a wise choice to do? Given that you will anger city-states and potentially be denounced by other civs that you would want to retain good relationships with.

That's it for now! I do have more questions but that will be for later. Thank you in advance for your responses.

 

[sendos]

Hi all, I'm new to the game (about 120 hours in). I've played Civ II and Civ III in the past but not extensively. I am a mac user, have BNW + Korea + Spain & Hun (no G&K and other unlisted civs). Currently I'm playing on my second King difficulty and it's going smooth as Shoshone aiming for scientific victory. My first King game was as Zulus going for Honor/domination but I gave up halfway. The following questions are a mix of game mechanics that I do not fully understand yet and of what came up during my previous sessions.

Religions

1. Do faith-purchased buildings like pagoda or cathedrals loose effectiveness if the city gets converted? If not, is it beneficial to have other civs spread their religions to you so you can purchase their faith buildings, then convert back to your religion later?
2. If your holy city has been converted, which religion do your great prophets spread? Native or converted?
3. How do you use inquisitor to protect your city? Just by having them garrison in the city? Do they account for unit upkeep gold?
4. Religious purchase prices increase every era, but do their power increase as well? For example, would a missionary purchased from the renaissance has different spread religion strength from one that's purchased from another era?

Espionage

1. When I successfully steal a tech, sometimes the civ's leader will notice I have stolen their tech but sometimes I don't get a prompt from them at all. Does it mean that sometimes the civ doesn't even notice their tech has been stolen? If so, how can I be sure I can steal their tech while keeping them in the blind (to preserve diplomatic relationship)?
2. When a civ has no tech to steal from, is there a benefit to keep your spy there still or should you move your spy immediately to a new location?
3. How does rigging a city-state work? Do you gain influence over them or is this used only for reducing another civ's influence, or both? If you rig a city-state that is currently with another civ, will another civ hates you for it?

Workers

1. Regarding Route to Mode, will the worker start creating road from their current hex or will they smartly move to a pre-existing road then start from there?
2. Is there a way to control their automated behavior? Like do not remove forest/jungle, or stay within a designated city's parameters? Whenever I settle faraway (for example an island), some of these workers would cross the ocean though I don't want them to (i.e. I'm just a few turns away from earning enough gold to purchase a worker in the new city)
3. Is there an option to reforest/plant trees in Civ V?

Golden Era

1. What happens to extra happiness during Golden Age? Wasted?
2. If you're about to enter Golden Age, and you use Great Artist or complete Taj Mahal and force a Golden Age, when that Golden Age has ended, will your Golden Age meter drop back to zero or retain fully its previous value?
3. What should I focus on during Golden Age?

Domination Victory

1. How do you juggle between happiness, diplomatic relationships (so that everyone will not hate you?) and keeping up with the unit cost? Seems like when I played for domination, I always run into happiness/gold deficiency very often.
2. What to do with your military units after you've made peace with another civ? They are just standing there chipping away your gold.
3. I've buffed my army but not even one of the city-states is intimated by my military strength, thus I couldn't get their tributes. How much army do I need in order to intimidate them? Is this a wise choice to do? Given that you will anger city-states and potentially be denounced by other civs that you would want to retain good relationships with.

That's it for now! I do have more questions but that will be for later. Thank you in advance for your responses.

Religion
1. No. They remain.
2. Converted religion.
3. Garrisoning an inquisitor blocks enemy prophets and missionaries from converting your bases. Remember: if you buy an inquisitor from a city that has opposing religion, it will wipe out your own religion.
4. Not sure.

Espionage:
1. Completely dependent on chance.
2. Unless you are after intrigue, move it. In fact, if you are solely after intrigue, a diplomat is better.
3. Vote rigging in CS' is passive (elections are about every 15 turns on standard speed). They both increase your influence and decrease enemy influence by about 10-15 influence. Civs won't get angry by rigging but there is a "CS competition" diplo-hit if you are allied with a CS that a particular civ has good relations with.

Workers:
1. Not an expert on this, but I think it will move to pre-existing road.
2. Not sure, as I never automate my workers.
3. Nope, but there should be. Hopefully in patch maybe.

Golden Age:
1. I wouldn't say it's wasted if you have an ideology battle to resist.
2. Depends. If you manually start golden age before you are about to passively get one, like 1 turn off. The golden age points are saved. However if they start at the same time, I think you waste 1 golden age. Someone should test this.
3. Depends on civ. If Persia, launch a war. If Brazil, use it once you meet all civs, and use great artists to perpetuate the carnival. For any other civ, just enjoy the increased culture, production and gold.

Domination Victory:
1. Concerning happiness, dispose of non-significant cities, although keep an eye out for expansive civs that might move in after you raze certain cities. Establish good relations with nearby civs so you get some trade routes to sustain gpt. Get autocracy to reduce maintenance costs.
2. Highly dependent on context. If you've ended your only war, tradition > oligarchy is useful so you can garrison your troops and not lose gpt through maintenance. Other ideas involve preparing your forces against a civ that might be running away with the game, but plan it very carefully. If it means betraying a good friend, you'll have to, because in civ (any civ game) there is no such thing as 2nd place. The civilopedia specifically states that.
3. Check the overall points concerning bullying by going to ask for tribute. There should be some green and red points explaining the reasons why a CS is resistant to bullying. You need a force against 10-15 tiles from the city to intimidate them. Gunboat diplomacy is also very good too for this. Civs don't care if you bully CS' unless they promise to protect them. It is quite a significant diplo hit and it doubles if you tell the civ that you won't stop.

 

[amphreded]

Quick and straight to the point, thank you!

One minor question off-shooting from your response though:
For Espionage 1., if it's by chance does that mean that you could have your tech got stolen without realizing it? I.e. there would be times when you get prompted that another civ has stolen your tech and there would be times when your tech get stolen and you don't get any prompts?

 

[VisageTDI]

Religious purchase prices increase every era, but do their power increase as well? For example, would a missionary purchased from the renaissance has different spread religion strength from one that's purchased from another era?

The power remains the same.

Workers
1. Regarding Route to Mode, will the worker start creating road from their current hex or will they smartly move to a pre-existing road then start from there?
2. Is there a way to control their automated behavior? Like do not remove forest/jungle, or stay within a designated city's parameters? Whenever I settle faraway (for example an island), some of these workers would cross the ocean though I don't want them to (i.e. I'm just a few turns away from earning enough gold to purchase a worker in the new city)

1. It starts from your current tile. Move it first.

2. You can't control automated workers, you can only select that they don't remove existing improvements in options. But you shouldn't automate your workers anyway. They're creating wrong improvements in wrong order. Do it yourself and it will make you a better player in the same time.

For Espionage 1., if it's by chance does that mean that you could have your tech got stolen without realizing it? I.e. there would be times when you get prompted that another civ has stolen your tech and there would be times when your tech get stolen and you don't get any prompts?

It depends if you have a spy in your city or not. Same for AI.

If there's no defending spy in city, there are 3 possible outcomes:
1. No notification that tech has been stolen.
2. Notification that unknown civ has stolen that-and-that tech.
3. Notification that certain civ has stolen that-and-that tech. Diplo penalty.

If there's a defending spy in city, there are 3 possible outcomes:
1. Notification that unknown civ has stolen that-and-that tech.
2. Notification that certain civ has stolen that-and-that tech. Diplo penalty.
3. Defending spy captures and kills attacking spy. Diplo penalty.

Success of a spy stealing/defending depends on it's level. They level up when they successfully steal a tech or kill another spy.

 

[sendos]

Quick and straight to the point, thank you!

One minor question off-shooting from your response though:
For Espionage 1., if it's by chance does that mean that you could have your tech got stolen without realizing it? I.e. there would be times when you get prompted that another civ has stolen your tech and there would be times when your tech get stolen and you don't get any prompts?

You will always be informed of a tech being stolen from a particular city (usually the capital, if not the city with the highest science potential) but you won't be told who stole it (it'd be obvious of course if it's down to just 2 players, including yourself). That's the unknown option.

A great way of preventing spies from stealing techs from you is not only having a spy in the capital but by avoiding embassy sharing deals if you're doing really well in tech.

 

[Browd]

Religions

1. Do faith-purchased buildings like pagoda or cathedrals loose effectiveness if the city gets converted? If not, is it beneficial to have other civs spread their religions to you so you can purchase their faith buildings, then convert back to your religion later?
2. If your holy city has been converted, which religion do your great prophets spread? Native or converted?
3. How do you use inquisitor to protect your city? Just by having them garrison in the city? Do they account for unit upkeep gold?
4. Religious purchase prices increase every era, but do their power increase as well? For example, would a missionary purchased from the renaissance has different spread religion strength from one that's purchased from another era?

Religion
1. No. They remain.
2. Converted religion.
3. Garrisoning an inquisitor blocks enemy prophets and missionaries from converting your bases. Remember: if you buy an inquisitor from a city that has opposing religion, it will wipe out your own religion.
4. Not sure.

Just a few responses to Sendos' replies:

1. Agree that religious buildings' effectiveness is unaffected by conversion. It can be beneficial to allow a city to be converted to allow you to buy another civ's religious buildings, but reconverting your cities to your religion can be a pain, so I generally reserve that for times when I'm forcibly converted to another religion.

2. Sandos' response is correct only for missionaries and inquisitors (see his caution in response 3.). Your Great Prophets, however generated, will always spread your religion, not the religion of the city in which it is generated. This is particularly useful if your holy city gets forcibly converted before you can spread to other cities--spawn a GP and reconvert your holy city.

3. Inquisitors do have gold-per-turn maintenance costs (same as any other civilian unit). The inquisitor does not need to be inside the city center tile to be effective; it is sufficient if the inquisitor is camped in one of the 6 tiles immediately adjacent to the city center tile.

4. There is no change in the power of religious units or buildings purchased in later eras. It is most cost-effective to buy as many religious units and buildings as possible before you leave the Renaissance.

A great way of preventing spies from stealing techs from you is not only having a spy in the capital but by avoiding embassy sharing deals if you're doing really well in tech.

Note that the refuse-embassy gambit only provides an anti-spying benefit if the spying civ has not physically found your capital, in which case they can't spy in your capital. But they can spy in any city they have found, so it may just shift spying activity to a secondary city, where you will not have a counter-spy.

If you're about to enter Golden Age, and you use Great Artist or complete Taj Mahal and force a Golden Age, when that Golden Age has ended, will your Golden Age meter drop back to zero or retain fully its previous value?

Depends. If you manually start golden age before you are about to passively get one, like 1 turn off. The golden age points are saved. However if they start at the same time, I think you waste 1 golden age. Someone should test this.

Golden Age meter does not fall back to zero (your GA points are not lost), but the threshold for the next Golden Age will increment to the next threshold. Since Golden Ages will stack, you are better off letting the natural GA start and then bulbing the Great Artist or finishing Taj (if you have the luxury of delaying the finish of Taj).

 

[sendos]

Just a few responses to Sendos' replies:


Golden Age meter does not fall back to zero (your GA points are not lost), but the threshold for the next Golden Age will increment to the next threshold. Since Golden Ages will stack, you are better off letting the natural GA start and then bulbing the Great Artist or finishing Taj (if you have the luxury of delaying the finish of Taj).

Stack in terms of separate golden ages, but not stack as in 2nd golden age stacking the first golden age. It will simply reset to the maximum length of a golden age. So if you are in a golden age and it ends in 8 turns and your maximum golden age length is 12 turns, and you trigger another golden age with a great artist whilst already still in a golden age, it will increase it to 9 turns (by 1 more turn) but not add another 9 turns. A taj or SP golden age triggered during the said golden age will reset the existing golden age to 12 turns again. So instead of getting double the amount of turns, it just resets the golden age.

If I am wrong, then I'm yet to see someone buy tons of Great Artists with and get a golden age running for like 50 turns on standard speed by triggering the great artists all at once.

So by separate golden age stacks, I mean golden age finishes and then you use a great artist to prolong the golden age for a few more turns. Stacking the golden ages is great when you are Persia or Brazil.

 

[VisageTDI]

Pretty sure Golden Age durations add up when you use GA/Taj during Golden Age. There is no "max" Golden Age duration.

 

[Browd]

Agree. You get the full duration of Golden Ages when you trigger them and can stack multiple GAs (if you are so incllined you can get 50+ turns of continuing Golden Ages with artful timing of social policy GAs, Taj and GA bulbs).

All this assumes you aren't playing vanilla, of course, where the length of Great Person golden ages decreased with each bulb.

 

[MarshalN]

Agree. You get the full duration of Golden Ages when you trigger them and can stack multiple GAs (if you are so incllined you can get 50+ turns of continuing Golden Ages with artful timing of social policy GAs, Taj and GA bulbs).

All this assumes you aren't playing vanilla, of course, where the length of Great Person golden ages decreased with each bulb.

Oh, the good old days when as China you can almost have unlimited golden age with those generals

 

[fyar]

I think I would just add a few modifications to the answers provided by other posters:

Religion
4. No, missionary strength does not increase with era, as others have said. I would add that if anything its effective strength decreases with era, not because their actual strength changes, but because religions are usually more entrenched by then, so I find that a missionary's action has very little effect after the Renaissance. Early on a single missionary is very strong and can convert 2 size 7 cities, but late game I think Great Prophets are pretty much the only way to spread a religion. Especially when you want to convert a size 30 city with +60 pressure from its surrounding cities.

Espionage
2. Yes there's a benefit to keeping a spy there even if you can't steal a tech, but it's not always worth it. Some benefits are: (1) discovering intrigue, (2) knowing what the city has and what that city is building (especially if you're concerned about them snatching a wonder from you), and (3) having sight into that city (so your bombers can bomb it from far away, for example). All of those things a diplomat can do, but you can't send a diplomat if you're at war (which is obviously the case for benefit #3) or into a city that's not the capital. Usually those 3 benefits don't outweigh being able to steal a tech from someone else or protecting my own techs from being stolen or rigging city-state elections, but sometimes they do. I think the most important situation is if we're competing for the same wonder. Then I know if I shouldn't even bother trying to complete it, or how to set my production to finish completion 1 turn before they do. (I love doing this because it's happened to me so many times.)

 

[shaglio]

Espionage
2. Yes there's a benefit to keeping a spy there even if you can't steal a tech, but it's not always worth it. Some benefits are: (1) discovering intrigue, (2) knowing what the city has and what that city is building (especially if you're concerned about them snatching a wonder from you), and (3) having sight into that city (so your bombers can bomb it from far away, for example). All of those things a diplomat can do, but you can't send a diplomat if you're at war (which is obviously the case for benefit #3) or into a city that's not the capital. Usually those 3 benefits don't outweigh being able to steal a tech from someone else or protecting my own techs from being stolen or rigging city-state elections, but sometimes they do. I think the most important situation is if we're competing for the same wonder. Then I know if I shouldn't even bother trying to complete it, or how to set my production to finish completion 1 turn before they do. (I love doing this because it's happened to me so many times.)

One other (albeit minor) reason I can think of is future tech stealing. If the Civ is going along a different tech path than you, even if you can’t currently steal a tech from them, eventually they’ll research a new tech that you can steal. This allows you to continue along your own path and slowly backfill over time.