Teach me and you. Give me a gem.

[UnforcedError]

229. If you're not creative do not settle cities in the early game with their food resource in the second ring.

230. Always move vulnerable units (workers, settlers, GP, missionaries) turn by turn even within your own cultural borders. If you order them to perform a move that takes multiple turns, they will end up next to your barb visitors even if your whole empire can see that they are there.

231. Remember to check your GP producing cities regularly for unwanted spy specialists.

 

[Steamwerks]

It is not always good to do that. First, one must take care of diplomacy if one is not going right now for a chain capitulation until victory. Not only vassals ruin your diplo, but a weak vassal not only makes future vassals more resistant to vassalizing ( "We're fine on our own!" ).

Well of course it's not always good to take the capitulation, but within your religious bloc, vassals actually strengthen your diplo. This is because the AIs usually have crazy modifiers with other civs of shared religion; I've had vassals bump me up to friendly on many occasions. Really the only time you should be concerned about the diplo hit is if you're conquering a pariah civ, in which case I should think it would obvious enough not to vassalize them. As for cautioning against weak vassals hampering the vassalage cascade effect, well that was the whole point of my post!! I'm advocating leaving your vassals strong by letting them have any cities that aren't going to be immediately useful to you, as the Deity AIs can get great mileage out of almost any terrain.

 

[damerell]

214. When attacking a city, use a cavarly to destroy route to slow down enemy's reinforcement.

... generally good advice, but consider the point where one has Airships/Fighters but no Carriers, and intends to raze captured cities. If the enemy has one city very near my territory (so my damaged units can easily retreat and heal up, ideally onto a hill fort) which is itself easy to attack (not on a hill), I'll let the reinforcements flow into that city, perhaps even leaving it untaken for a few turns; every unit I kill easily because of aerial bombardment is one I don't have to kill later.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Yeah with defences bombarded down it can be easy against the AI to just let them suicide their army defending a city.

 

[Terrance888]

Spear/Axe or Pike/Cross is a superior defense to lbow/lbow/lbow/lbow. Remember generally, lbows are for spamming your military score. Counters are for defending. Sword/Mace/Cat/Trebs for attacking.

Best defense is good offense. Have Catapults and smack up their attacking army with collateral when your defenses are bombed very low.

Better Yet, smack them in open fields far from your city. They heal, take 1 step, SMACK. Heal, take 1 step, SMACK. Plenty of time to prepare the ultimate counter attack.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

That depends on whether you're interested in active or passive defence.
If passive, focus on LB, if active (IMO) focus on catapults/knights.
Knights because they can move fast between strategic locations.
Besides, once they've been collateral'd enough, one unit is pretty much the same as any other.

 

[reddishrecue]

During the late eras, make many workers and make workshops out of most tiles that you have. Adopt a caste system with happiness from culture, keep a state property for economy and start creating military units to dominate the map.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Spear/Axe or Pike/Cross is a superior defense to lbow/lbow/lbow/lbow. Remember generally, lbows are for spamming your military score. Counters are for defending. Sword/Mace/Cat/Trebs for attacking.

Best defense is good offense. Have Catapults and smack up their attacking army with collateral when your defenses are bombed very low.

Better Yet, smack them in open fields far from your city. They heal, take 1 step, SMACK. Heal, take 1 step, SMACK. Plenty of time to prepare the ultimate counter attack.

I have to disagree with the bolded portion: while it's strictly speaking true, boosting your military score is not an end onto itself. You may already be aware of this, but it has been proven through code-diving that the AI does not highly value military score when it prioritizes its next war target. Building a defensive force should take a back seat to maintaining diplomatic connections.

 

[Terrance888]

I mean that in two ways. One is for actual spamming of military score to intimidate people and to get peace vassals, and the other is for general spamming purposes. lbows is the cheepest defensive unit of the time, and works best alone. If they broke through your defenses with a well mixed army and you have 5 turns to raise an army to defend your cap, bring out the whip and churn out the lbows. If you can prepare, go with lbow sprinkles.

 

[calibur]

Also there's the whole consideration of comparative power score, Monty won't go to war if your power score is 2.2x his or something. Correct?

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Also there's the whole consideration of comparative power score, Monty won't go to war if your power score is 2.2x his or something. Correct?

Exactly, which is why any effort to achieve this is impossible on high difficulties.

 

[damerell]

Exactly, which is why any effort to achieve this is impossible on high difficulties.

... and besides, the number is so high that if you have achieved such a power disparity, you probably ought to be attacking someone.

 

[shulec]

This one is too good not to pass on, courtesy of LowtherCastle.

232. There is an easy way to know if and when an AI resource that is not currently visible has been improved. Just hover your mouse over the tile such as horses and if the pasture is not complete, the message includes: Requires Pasture. When the pasture is complete, the requirement vanishes.

EDIT: This does not work if the AI has not yet acquired the technology to improve the plot. e.g., if the doesn't have AH, it will not work.

 

[Patricko]

What a great thread - learned a lot!

233. Try playing without building ANY wonders. Decide at the start that you won't build a wonder. Makes you realise that wonders are no big deal and in some ways are just a distraction.

 

[RD-BH]

Fifty fifty hammers nifty.


50%
50%

 

[AutomatedTeller]

234. During war, if the enemy doesn't have 2 move units, try leaving newly captured cities empty. The AI will often send units to recapture them, and it's usually easier to kill units in the open than in a city.
235. Early in the game, when all you have is 3 xp catapults, keep a couple back and have them attack at high odds late in the combat round. Do that twice per cat, and you get 2 xp for accuracy!!

oops - didn't check to see how old this was... sorry for the necro...

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

oops - didn't check to see how old this was... sorry for the necro...

Can't speak for the rest of Civ4 GD, but in my mind, this is one of threads that deserves a good bump now 'n' again...

UNRELATED EDIT: Woohoo! Santa smilie time!!!

 

[shulec]

236:

Great pic Kaitzilla!

 

[duckstab]

Is there some config option to give the greater precision on the power ratios? I never see anything after the first decimal place.

 

[shulec]

Is there some config option to give the greater precision on the power ratios? I never see anything after the first decimal place.

It's an options Ctrl-Alt-O in buffy and probably in the bug mod too. It seems trivial, but I love it!