Things you only just now realized

[Aaron90495]

Retroactive free monument with Legalism? No thanks. Rather have free amphitheater.

If you have a monument already and want a free monument from Legalism, you might try selling your existing monument right before taking Legalism -- get some gold on sale and then a free monument. Haven't done this, but suspect it would work.

I suppose you could also do this if you already built a library and then built the GL, although I can't say I've ever built both a regular library and the GL.

Building a regular library and GL is actually an excellent strategy as Korea (which I've down multiple times), but it's only do-able on Immortal and below, as GL is obviously impossible on Deity.

 

[Browd]

Good point. Never hard-built both a library and the GL as Korea, since building both would push out the finish time for the GL, so the risk of losing it seemed too high to risk it. In one Korea game, I did rush-buy a library on the turn before the GL finished, but the science boost was pretty modest (tech costs were low, but beakers also were low at the time)--it seemed like an expensive way to get a small science boost, so I haven't done it since (but only played Korea a few times since). Buying a library for the science boost and then scrapping the library for a bit of "refund" gold before the GL finishes is an interesting idea--might change the cost-benefit analysis enough to make it worth revisiting.

 

[Halcyan2]

Retroactive free monument with Legalism? No thanks. Rather have free amphitheater.

If you have a monument already and want a free monument from Legalism, you might try selling your existing monument right before taking Legalism -- get some gold on sale and then a free monument. Haven't done this, but suspect it would work.

Normally I hard build a Monument in my capital, and get a free Amphitheater through Legalism. (My other cities usually end up with free Monuments).

Although free Opera Houses would be nice, it's often inconvenient to time things right. You have to put off Legalism (and thus the rest of the Tradition tree) until you've researched Drama & Poetry and built amphitheaters. In the rare games with Policy Saving On, or where I make a major detour through Liberty, this might make sense but most of the time I don't have the time to wait for free Opera Houses.

On rare occasions, when my capital is primed for Petra (which offers a free Amphitheater), I will likely forego the early Monument and get a free one through Legalism. It is even rarer than I can delay Legalism long enough to have built Petra first.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Normally I hard build a Monument in my capital, and get a free Amphitheater through Legalism. (My other cities usually end up with free Monuments).

Although free Opera Houses would be nice, it's often inconvenient to time things right. You have to put off Legalism (and thus the rest of the Tradition tree) until you've researched Drama & Poetry and built amphitheaters. In the rare games with Policy Saving On, or where I make a major detour through Liberty, this might make sense but most of the time I don't have the time to wait for free Opera Houses.

On rare occasions, when my capital is primed for Petra (which offers a free Amphitheater), I will likely forego the early Monument and get a free one through Legalism. It is even rarer than I can delay Legalism long enough to have built Petra first.

ive tried this idea a few times: open traditions then go full liberty. i will hard build the monu/amph in the 4 best cities (if ive settled/annexed any others) and rather than dipping into Patronage i'll take legalism right after liberty finisher then get into Rationalism. the 4 free OH's can help get thru Rat a lil quicker but that's only if i stuck to 4 cities. it's certainly not optimal but it is fun to play with.

 

[dopingman]

Me...I would rather wait and get free Opera Houses actually BUT if you get a game where you built that Monument out of the gate and have to go that policy branch in full...why not get that cash early on?

Because a free amph theatre saves a sh*t load of gold in the long run? And those 12g that a sold monument gives you is not so much in the early game.

 

[Sabrina]

Normally I hard build a Monument in my capital, and get a free Amphitheater through Legalism. (My other cities usually end up with free Monuments).

Although free Opera Houses would be nice, it's often inconvenient to time things right. You have to put off Legalism (and thus the rest of the Tradition tree) until you've researched Drama & Poetry and built amphitheaters. In the rare games with Policy Saving On, or where I make a major detour through Liberty, this might make sense but most of the time I don't have the time to wait for free Opera Houses.

On rare occasions, when my capital is primed for Petra (which offers a free Amphitheater), I will likely forego the early Monument and get a free one through Legalism. It is even rarer than I can delay Legalism long enough to have built Petra first.

You don't have to time off in this case. If one of your first 4 cities already has the monument and the Petra (granting you the free amphitheater), legalism will give you a free opera house as soon as you get the tech for it. Unless you are saying you would go directly for the Petra, skipping the monument if the city is ready for it. It is a very costly wonder, I always start it only after some border expansion, due to the monument and at least some production improvements. Unless I have a GE to burn in the process.

 

[azzaman333]

ive tried this idea a few times: open traditions then go full liberty. i will hard build the monu/amph in the 4 best cities (if ive settled/annexed any others) and rather than dipping into Patronage i'll take legalism right after liberty finisher then get into Rationalism. the 4 free OH's can help get thru Rat a lil quicker but that's only if i stuck to 4 cities. it's certainly not optimal but it is fun to play with.

Haven't tested it, but I'd say don't open Tradition first if you're going to do that. Fill out Liberty first, then open Tradition and take Legalism. Getting Collective Rule as the 3rd policy instead of 4th is a huge difference.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Haven't tested it, but I'd say don't open Tradition first if you're going to do that. Fill out Liberty first, then open Tradition and take Legalism. Getting Collective Rule as the 3rd policy instead of 4th is a huge difference.

i do it for the tile acquisition. it speeds up getting the better tiles to work without resorting to buying them. and CR is usually my 5th or 6th policy. I dont rely too much on it in these games. Lib opener - free worker then CR. Ive even done it as the closer in the early/mid 100s and not even wanted the free settler or only used it for a resource i want like oil/coal/horses.

btw this definitely isnt my deity strat but i can make use of it on immortal.

 

[azzaman333]

i do it for the tile acquisition. it speeds up getting the better tiles to work without resorting to buying them. and CR is usually my 5th or 6th policy. I dont rely too much on it in these games. Lib opener - free worker then CR. Ive even done it as the closer in the early/mid 100s and not even wanted the free settler or only used it for a resource i want like oil/coal/horses.

btw this definitely isnt my deity strat but i can make use of it on immortal.

You're wasting an enormous boost to your early game, and the main reason to take Liberty, by leaving CR that late.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i disagree. CR isnt the best reason to take Liberty, imo. Free worker, Representation, and finisher are the most valuable to me. The rest are just gravy. When I go straight Liberty I still end up taking CR 4th or 5th unless I'm explicitly trying a wide campaign. I rarely make that decision off the cuff based on map dynamics, although if i was a better player I should learn to.

Also, at deity when surrounding area gets gobbled up quickly I will take it 3rd. The 500g i would have spent on a settler instead goes to 2 archers for early defense.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yes...and when you build the Great Library...your built Library does become free. Add this to the Nitpicky things I want to see changed. Free monument (if built) in capital please with Legalism!

Except it's not a free Monument, it's a free cultural building. The whole point is you can use it to get a better cultural building if you already have the lesser one. This is different from a free library that says "library."

BTW, I should know the answer to this. If you build a monument, then get legalism but don't have Drama and Poetry, then research the tech, what happens? Specifically, what happens upon researching the policy and what then happens upon researching the tech.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

when you take the policy, if you dont have the tech researched you will get the free culture building when the tech is researched. this also applies to things like the Wat, non-culture building replacements that give you culture. Siam is a nice one to delay it with so you can have instant Wats. I am not sure if this will supersede the library requirement though. Ive always had libraries up by then anyway.

 

[Fastrada]

They removed culture bomb border expansion ): I figured this out while doing the one city challenge.

well, there's always the citadel...

 

[azzaman333]

i disagree. CR isnt the best reason to take Liberty, imo. Free worker, Representation, and finisher are the most valuable to me. The rest are just gravy. When I go straight Liberty I still end up taking CR 4th or 5th unless I'm explicitly trying a wide campaign. I rarely make that decision off the cuff based on map dynamics, although if i was a better player I should learn to.

Also, at deity when surrounding area gets gobbled up quickly I will take it 3rd. The 500g i would have spent on a settler instead goes to 2 archers for early defense.

The vast majority of the time, I'd rather get the settler from CR and buy a worker for 300g. Or get the settler from CR and buy another one for 500g. You can catch up on workers much easier than catching up on claiming land.

 

[Dr. D]

A few weeks ago I was in the city screen and went to click on a tile to assign a citizen to work it but clicked on the tile of a nearby city instead, and it went straight to that city's screen. Not particularly useful, but it's something.

 

[Biologist]

When the city site advisor tooltip recommends that you build a city on a certain tile, but won't say why, chances are there's an undiscovered strategic resource there.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Sorry to bump this

I just realised that the reason why I only get 67 per converted city is because it scales with the speed I use -.- (Quick)

 

[sav]

I just realised the follower belief is 'Guruship' - all this time I've been reading it as 'Gunship' and thinking to myself, "that's a strange belief... oh well"...

 

[shaglio]

Sorry to necro this thread, but I just thought of a couple things that I now just take for granted. But it occurred to me that others might not know about them, so this is a good chance for me to enlighten people and change their lives forever (or some kind of self-important BS like that).

1) You can still use the Restart function even if you've taken several turns in a game. Just reload the game's "Initial Save" file and the Restart option becomes available again.

2) If you right-click on an arrow in the WC screen, all your remaining votes will be added. This is very handy when you are going for a Diplo Victory and have 40+ votes. You only need to right click once on the up arrow and choose yourself rather than left clicking 40+ times.

These may be obvious to most players, but hopefully I made somebody's day with a new revelation.

 

[LeTigidou]

That i could click a tech that's still far away and the game would beeline to it. Instead of trying to do it manually.

And that was after approximately 1400 hours of civ 5. I'm serious.