[BNW] Some help for an "intermediate" player

[stripeyfox]

Hi. I've been playing Civ on and off for many years and understand the basic mechanics of the game. I usually enjoy building my little empire and generally am fairly pacifist unless attacked.

In my current game, as England I have a nice empire of 5 cities churning out gold and science and everything is going pretty well (this is on one of the easier settings). I'm sort of aiming for a Science victory but I sort of prefer to roll play the game and see where history takes me.

Uranium and oil have recently been revealed and it turns out I have very little oil and no uranium within my borders. So if I want these things, is my only option to attack the city state that has them? I could easily do so, but is there a peaceful way of getting my hands on it?

The other countries have uranium but I can't see it to trade (I assume because they don't have the tech yet)?

 

[beetle]

No need to attack the CS to get their strategics! Just ally them and pay them 200 gold to improve a resource. You might have to wait for them to catch up in tech. OTOH, taking cities from an AI to get their land is perfectly kosher. If you bump up the difficulty level a notch, this kind of thing will be less of problem.

 

[stripeyfox]

Thanks @beetle. I did become their ally and paid them and got the uranium. But then another Civ seems to have usurped me and replaced me as their ally so I'm back to square one! But at least I understand how the mechanic works now, cheers

 

[aafritz17]

Sometimes there might be some (of any resource actually) just outside your 5th ring, or maybe it's on your border but already within a C/S or another Civ's city. That's an AWESOME place for a Great General! Drop a Citadel, grab the resources plus maybe a couple of other meaningful tiles. And, while it is a diplo-hit, it doesn't officially start a war.

And there's nothing better than the sputtering rage on Caesar's face "You trying to start a war!!!" "Who, me? Why, NO, of course not!"