The Definitive Civ Revolutions Strategy Guide - How to beat Deity AIs every time

The Definitive Civ Revolutions Strategy Guide - How to beat Deity AIs every time.

Follows these rules to win:

1. Don't just build where your settler starts! Save @ 4000BC, have a look around, then load. The difference between a good and a great city is often the presence of a couple of special squares, especially fish or whales. Marble and game are also favorites for me. Generally, I try and get a least 2 and hopefully 3 or 4 specialty square within reach of my capital.

Secondly, you may find either an exploration cash square or a 'happy village' very close to where you start. In the best-case scenario you may have 50+ gold already by 3900-3800 BC.

Believe it or not, it's a great strategy to build directly next to barbarian villages. Not only is there a useful 'specialty' square underneath, but you also start with a militia that you can use to explore. It also means you can immediately hit the barbarian villages when your first warrior pops.

2. Always rush. If you start with cash (Aztec, Americans) then spend it on warriors. If the AI starts very close, you may be able to walk into an undefended capital between 3400 and 3000 BC. Perhaps you may even consider moving your initial settler closer to an AI to 'arrange' this to happen. Also, you want 60% or more of the Barbarian villages (another reason why Aztecs rule).

3. City placement is essential. Don't just dump your cities anywhere. Put them somewhere with lots of food and trade, and just a few hammers. Plenty of Ocean is good, as a harbor + East India will make sea very productive. Remember that it's much easier to produce 500 gold than 100 hammers.

4. Focus your investment on a few cities. It's much more useful to have 1 or 2 very powerful cities than 10 weak cities. That's not to say that you shouldn't have ten, just only put your money into 1 or 2.

Think of it like this. If you have one city producing 100 beakers then you build one university will give you 100 beakers. If you have three cities producing 30 beakers, you need three universities to get 90 beakers.

5. Maximize population growth however you can. Work to stack a granary with an aqueduct with a great humanitarian. 99% of the time the player winning the game is the player with the highest population in their capital. Focus on trade buildings second, then production third.

6. It's much easier to take enemy settlers than it is to take enemy cities. Around 2000BC - 500BC the AI will come trundling out of their capital with a settler guarded by often only a single archer (and later an army). Having two horsemen (or a horseman army and a warrior) on a hill nearby is a great way to score a free settler.

7. Search hard for artifacts. Finding artifacts early in the game is the difference between winning and losing. You want to get at least 3 of 5, and especially Atlantis. After 3-5 warriors, go for boats.

8. Using spies is often more effective than using armies. In particular, make sure you steal the AIs great people. Don't let them keep any. Get writing first so you get a free one and steal the first one to crop up on the map. My person favorite is stealing a culture great person from an AI - then using him/her to convert the city you just kidnapped them from.

9. Don't wait too long to become a democracy. +50% gold/beakers is a huge bonus. If you need to fight the AI then just 'change governments' for a turn. Also, if an AI is weaker than you try and stay at war with them. That means they will attack you with a continuous stream of weak units rather than lots all at once later. It also means that AI will build units rather than building, which give you an advantage.

10. Focus on economic/trade based techs. +2 production in every city, or a great person, or 1+ population in every city is way more useful than a 'free canon' miles from where you're fighting.

11. Don't waste your time building armies where you don't need them. I can't count the games I've won where it's 1800 AD and I still only have a single warrior in my capital. However make sure you have at least one unit in each of your cities. The AI will attack the closest easiest target.

12. DEFENDING: If you want to defend, just stack bonuses on one single powerful defensive army. A single veteran archer (9D) army on a hill (12D) behind walls (15D) will beat an infinite number of legion/horsemen or even knight armies.

13. Taking enemy cities by culture is easier than building armies. Plus you get whatever army(y ies) were in there.

14. ATTACKING: The most effective attach strategy is to attack early (3000-1000BC). If you're going to attack late it's all about stacking attack bonuses. Be ahead in tech. Only build one barracks, then combine the two ordinary units with the veteran to create a veteran army. Always attack from a hill if available. Use spies to unfortify the main defender and destroy walls first. Naval support is often the difference between winning and losing. Fleets give naval support at their full attack value.

15. Control the seas. The sea is your friend - as trade is more useful than hammers. Consequently, all the best city locations will be found on islands (two whales and two dyes? Yes please). Don't be afraid to build on tiny islands but make sure you have at least one production square.

It's also hard to attack cities on islands, and the AI will often ignore an island city for the whole game. You can also defend island cities with ships rather than armies, which are cheaper. Oh look, an enemy ship with two armies on it? Glug, glug, glug, glug.

16. Focus on the science race. Because you still get the bonuses from culture/gold, even if you're not first. If you're second to get irrigation or mass media then you're fuc…just don't be second.

17. Your first (or best) 2-3 cities should make science, then in every subsequent city makes gold. Also make sure your capital is a science city. Use the gold from your additional cities to buy buildings in your science cities. Try to stack library + university + great scientist + colossus together then get maximum effect. If you have more than 3 great scientists then use them to get the techs.

18. A lot of techs are worth skipping, a lot are extremely powerful. I get techs in this order 1. Gives access to resource I have 2. Gives beaker/gold/production bonus 3. Gives military unit. A lot of military units are worth skipping. (Cannons, Riflemen, legions…don't ever build legions, build horsemen).

19. Don't build too many cities and make sure your cities don't overlap. Otherwise you're spreading yourself to thin. Typically I will build 2-6 settlers in any given game - it's best to buy settlers in your smallest cities while being a Republic. Build cities as early as possible. I like to become a Republic (then back to democracy) for a single turn and build settlers all in one go. You can win the game with 3 really well placed cities. 7-10 is ideal. More than 15 is total overkill.

20. Use units rather than cities as blockers - they're just as effective and way cheaper. Don’t waste early settlers on 'choke point' cities. In fact, don't build them at all - build cities in locations that maximise food/trade.

21. Build your roads from your capital outwards. It's more effective. And use caravans to explore, then cash them in later! Got all that?

Powerful Civilizations.

It's my view that the most powerful civilization are:
1. Aztecs (for warrior out at 4000BC, unit heal and 50% gold).

2. Americans (great abilities, best special units, starting with explorer of humanitarian is a huge bonus).

Also notable civs are Indians (early access to resources), the Zulus (fast warriors for rush) and the Spanish, who can be powerful it they start near whales and can grab Atlantis early. After that take your pick.

Wonders I always work hard for are:

6. Leonardo's Workshop. Ohh, look, your Blitz lighting warrior army from 2000BC just became a Blitz, Lighting tank army. Time for a Domination victory.

5. The colossus - can give a huge gold/science boost early.

4. The Magna Carta - nice for getting great people and pushing back cities.

3. The Internet (it's worth saving a great builder for this one) - wow massive gold.

2. The East India Company - Gives giant gold/beakers boost in every city.

1. The Hanging Gardens. Yes, I love this one. It's hard to stop the AI getting it early but if you can build it in a city with between 10 and 18 population - it's beautiful.


My record so far is a domination victory in 500AD. Can anyone beat that?

 

Hykon wrote:

My record so far is a domination victory in 500AD. Can anyone beat that?

Uh, yes. Everyone can beat that. My record of somewhere between 2000bc and 1000bc and I am the weakest (now second weakest!) player who posts here. A few points:

1. The super fast players move their settler withing 2 spaces of an enemy cap so as to walk in while it is undefended.

2. Typically, you want to rush horses, not warriors.

3. yep

4. Don't waste time building a lot of buildings. Just build more cities instead.

5. Population is good. Never waste time building granaries and aqueducts. Both are given as bonuses for reaching economic milestones.

6. Yep. The other advantage is that the Ai tends to drop its cities in stupid places. Grab the settler and select your own city site.

7. There are not always 3-5 arties to be had. Don't waste resources looking for them. Focus on enemy caps and barb villages. The barbs will often show you the arties. Then you can go right to them. Hopefully, a barb will give you a boat at some point.

8. Yep. harder later in the game when the AIs have massive culture around their capitals. Since early GPs appear in capitals, you typically cannot steal them and then flip the city. Caps cannot be flipped.

9. Only need democracy for science or economic victory. Monarchy for culture wins. Otherwise, despo>republic>fundy is the way to go.

10. True enough. If you are going for conquest beyond the BC years, you are basically racing to Feudalism.

11. Yep.

12. True, but you can get unlucky. Also, unless you are blessed with a Great Leader, your units will not start out better than vetran. The AI does tend to help your defenders get upgrades by attacking with underpowered units.

13. No, it's not.

14. Basically right, but something like this: 4000-3000bc- Attack with warrior may work (empty city or single warrior) 3500bc-2000bc "the horse years" by 2000bc, many AIs will have archer armies, at which point horses will not win unless they have multiple bonuses, and even then it is sketchy. The next window to attack comes whenever you get Feudalism and ends when the AI starts to build riflemen, unless they have pikemen v. non-elite knights, in which case you are screwed until tanks (or cannons if you can stand the boredom).

15. Fair enough. If you have enough food, lack of production does not matter.

16. Irrigation and Mass media have the nice +1 pop bonus, but not getting that is no biggy. Irrigation usually means that Egypt is in the game and they do not get the bonus.

17. If you do not waste time building buildings, then you can flip your cities from science to gold and back again. Race ahead in science and when you get a critical tech, flip back to gold to build the relevant units (i.e. after getting into Republic, go all gold until you have rushed your settlers.

18. Generally, you want to go HBR first to get that horse rush working. Then go for code of laws for non-city crippling settler builds.

19. Build many, many cities and don't worry if they overlap. You see, you non-assigned workers produce 1 hammer up to size 6, then one hammer and one trade to size 12 then two hammers and one trade and so on. So it does not matter if you have some non-assigned workers, they are actually better than most land squares once the city is big enough. The only thing to watch is food. Cities cannot share food and food can only be produced by working land tiles.

20. Yep

21. If you can manage it, build one long road at the beginning. Helps your units move across the board faster.

Bets civs: Zulu, Americans, Chinese

Wonders: Unless I am playing a culture game, I only build wonders with Great Builders. East India Co and Samurai castle are good. Hanging Gardens is good when you can get it. The internet is nice, but too late in the game. I cannot remember the last time it actually became available before I won.

 

Most of your advice is pretty good for a forum newcomer (welcome, btw). Terrapin already offered the conventional wisdom viewpoints around here. I just wanted to hit a specific point.

This is true, but where this argument really falls apart is that settlers are just so darn cheap in this game. Settlers are 20 hammers. A library is 40. A university is 160. See where I'm going? For the cost of one library + university, you could instead have 10 new cities. Well, 11 cities are just going to do more tech than one city with a *4 multiplier. Also smaller cities grow faster than larger ones so with many small cities you're adding population at a much faster rate than you will with few large ones.

In Civ IV you couldn't just expand like mad because your economy would bust. In Civ V you can't because of happiness. CivRev doesn't have any mechanic like that to stop you from laying down 30, 40, 50 cities if you want to. It's not ever necessary to build that many, but doing 15-20 fast is pretty easy to do and will always lead to an easy win. For an example of how far this can go, check this guy out:

part 1/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_pkNWQLPmY
part 2/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQOblLoWCVk
part 3/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoNSmdC-Neo
part 4/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDmpvkB-Nnk

 

Interesting.. I must try to remember to spam cities out more in mid to late game.

I klike the calculation about cost of a new city vs library/university cost too.

Finally, I still dont really think the notion of a 1000BC domination victory is very helpful.

 

What do you mean by not helpful?

 

Well, I just dont think it is a reasonable target for most games, surely.

Maybe its because I am not a min/maxer. Sure, I play to win, but, I dont count out every step of the way to make sure I wring out everything possible. Its hard to express, but, yes, I am sure it is possibel to get a domination win, but, most of the time, most starts just don't go that well. You dont always get friendly villages or indeed resources anywhere near your start point. You dont always beat the barbarians on first attack, often 2nd or 3rd. You dont always find a forest or river for gold. Sure, these things happen sometimes, but often geography and luck just conspire against you.

 

Well, some of the players here claim to be able to win that early or earlier pretty much every time. I do not. I have one or two very early wins which I consider legitimate. I have a few more where I was playing with the expansion pack which has the "Court of Camelot" artifact (turns horses into knights). I tend to agree with you that many of the maps I play on, it would be impossible to win in 30 turns. Generally, the enemy caps are too far away for that. Also, if you get unlucky with the English or Greeks on your map, it can be very hard to win early because those civs start with superior defensive units.

One thing which is quite clear to me is that the early winners "scout the map" then restart their games. That saves them from "missteps" as in starting their first moves away from rather than toward something useful. Even on the game of the week, it is possible to start play, look around, quit the game and start again.

 

Yeah by the end of the week the guy with the best GotW score (lately that's been "o777o" on xbox) is going to have made several run-throughs. Honestly, that guy is amazing. He normally posts his secrets over at 2kforums, but good luck following in his footsteps.

I'm mostly playing online against other players so the map-scouting you describe isn't possible, though sometimes I recognize the map (they aren't truly randomly generated but rather randomly selected from pre-generated maps - sometimes some stuff gets switched around, sometimes it's exactly the same). Like I said before, there's a knack to moving your settler and getting a real early jump on the game. Usually it works out. Sometimes it blows up in my face (then trying to salvage the game is part of the fun).

If you're playing single player with the artifact packs, Camelot is totally busted. Halt all other activities and just produce horsemen until you have like 3-5 armies, then make them all knights. Do this before 1000 BC and the whole map will fall before you. Greeks? English? Doesn't matter. They will all die.

My personal best on a blind playthrough with no saves is a 2000 BC victory screen. In that game I was the Aztecs and started right in the middle of the map very close to the Arabs. I took them out and got Fundamentalism and all the other civs were close. A lot of the time it's not possible to win that quickly, but on this particular map, conditions were just right. Of course with saves and min/maxing it can be done even faster, but that stuff bores me right out of my skull.

 

One of the funny things about the save/load players is that they will also tell you that the Oracle is useless. Well, yeah, if you just save/load on every battle, I guess it is. If you do not intend to save/load it can be darn useful. Nice to be able to not attack when it is not going to work!

And yes, Camelot is completely unbalancing. I have never bothered to download it. Really, your prescription is overkill. I have won with Camelot with just one army. Kind of helped that it was Ninja/Medic w/ a great General....

 

Thanks all you guys, for your help

 

Last week I won in 2900BC (and 100bc econ). But yes that takes a lot of play-throughs.
Pretty much every battle was in my favor but to win 5 or so 9-8 in a row is not particularly likely so 2000BC is pretty good for a single play though. But I could regularly beat 500AD.

 

7. LcOA is the worst of the artifacts in many cases. 7cog is generally the best followed by AW and SoC. Of course if you get a builder from SoC that's a good bonus but two artists are not so good.

8. steal builders first if you can get them. or scientists.

best civs -
aztec are probably 4th after terapins 3

 

I really like Hykons advice. The only real flaw i can find is 19.
Why should I not make to many cities? Usually I try to get 6-8 cities before year 0. When I start my second phase of expansion, I let every new city produce a new settler first, and just keep the expansion rolling, as long as there is space on the map.
Usually that means that the two worst of my first 6-8 cities makes a settler each and form two new and better cities, that makes another two cities, that makes another two cities...

Terrapins advice are also good, but much more dull. I have realized that going for conquest-victory is the fastest way to win, but since it is very boring not to build a fantastic empire, I just do not care much for Terrapins advice.

I would use Hykons advice to get fun and interesting games when playing any civ from any starting point, trying to achieve whatever or all win-conditions.
I would use Terrapins advice to quickly beat up the opponents and get a conquest victory.

 

Yeah this advice has never worked for me. I mean a lot of it is fine, but these wins before 0 AD and taking cities in 2000 BC is BS.
Having a horrible time moving my first settler and wasting valuable years looking for nothing, and then wasting valuable warriors trying to run into cities that are never undefended in my experience. This game was fun until I started trying to do the things I read here. I guess if you cheat and save and replay the game that strategy “works” how you define it.

1. The AI are NEVER close enough to take a city early
2. The opening spot your first settler gets is ALWAYS a good spot (2 of everything x 8 squares) vs the spots around it which are ALWAYS worse
3. How is 25 gold to start any kind of advantage for the Aztecs that’s sucky to me that’s 1 friendly village big deal they are the worst civ how is 25 gold comparable to +1 from hills or +1 from sea or access to ALL resources or democracy or literally any of the other advantages.
4. You all explain doing all these moves and then winning in BC but all those moves literally take time
5. How on earth are more cities better than stacking buildings in one city? Settlers are not cheap. 20 hammers is not the cost of the city, it’s 20 hammers plus 2 citizens and whatever they would have produced on those turn(s) so it could be much more than 20 hammers
6. Without save/load, I don’t see any way this early victory is even possible and I’m not even playing deity I’m playing Emperor and it’s still impossible.