Tips, tricks and Civ!

[lasombra1984]

Spiritual is great for diplomatic "adopt our favorite civic" or "convert our state religion".
You simply can wait several turns with wrong civic or religion and you do not lose those turns in anarchy

EDIT: I have read post just above me after posting this one =)))

 

[Uranus Reamerz]

Whats done early amplifies whats done late (the butterfly effect)
1-My Capital is usually is my unit production, will build great wall and, unit enhancers. Which is great when Bureaucracy comes along jus in time for those Middle age wars.
2- Next city location will be my great engineer producer... place on river so when the time comes you can build 3 gorges.
3- Third ... a seaport ... to be great merchant
4- at some point a city located near the front .. to be Great artist producer to push culture on your neighbors.
Hold back the necessary GP's to make your requisite Corps
places you want to be first:
Oracle ... extra tech possible casting or Monarchy
Liberalism extra tech .. possible Economics for GM
Plastics - Build 3 Gorges

 

[Metzi]

Ty all for the replys

1) If aiming for a conquest game, make a metal note of who is the biggest threat, and make an army big/strong enough to obliterate. This may not always be true, as nieghboors like Montyzuma and Catherine need to be killed (or capitiulated) sooner rather than later.

2) Make a production city, and just pump out military units! The AI WILL attack you if you are weak. (found this out numerous times )

3) make a friend! Befriending a tech whore/military freak is very beneficial to you! Again try to aviod AI such as Montezuma and Catherine, as they are backstabbers.

 

[lasombra1984]

Ty all for the replys
Again try to aviod AI such as Montezuma and Catherine, as they are backstabbers.

And Alexander)

 

[W|M]

Hitler's Rule: Never underestimate an enemy that looks weak. Genghis Khan's addendum: Unless you have a ****load of units.

 

[ForGreatJustice]

Fogbust when you have a lot of land. Fogbust when you don't have a lot of land. Also use close neighbors as free fogbusting.

 

[Manco Capac]

10) When aiming Liberalism and being one turn before tech completion, look who is able to tech right away liberalism. If most civs still don't have Education, suspend liberalism and try getting Economics for free Great Merchant. Pretty useful for Sid's Sushi Co. . Be careful of Kankan Musa, he likes to tech Economics since his favorite civic is unlocked with it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention a petty trick against AI to delay their research pace in extreme moments. When you fear losing liberalism or Economics to a rivals and you have lots of cash, under Friendly attitude only (sometimes Pleased for some civs), try to change some of their civics. It works well on Marathon. Of course, the civ in question mustn't be Spiritual.

 

[Uranus Reamerz]

Ty all for the replys
2) Make a production city, and just pump out military units! The AI WILL attack you if you are weak. (found this out numerous times
.

"1-My Capital is usually is my unit production, will build great wall and, unit enhancers. Which is great when Bureaucracy comes along jus in time for those Middle age wars."

I jus think its natural at least thru the end of Bureaucracy to use your Capital as your production pumper. The game usually gives up a pretty good production orient position at start ... Hills forest, water, resources

 

[Manco Capac]

11) When launching a small raid against a civ early in the game (e.g. you first warrior for stealing a worker) without enough power to wipe them out, NEVER fortify next to the city. Fearing the threat, the AI will stack archer indefinitely and the city capture will way harder later. However, there's an exception: if a strategic ressource is within cultural border, try to disperse the workers regularly without fortifying next to the city (It works well when the AI is limited to Archers). In the case of a strategic ressource next to cultural border, you can fortify next to ressource as long you're not in the cultural zone. Enfin, be sure to defend the soldier so as to have >50% victory (As an example, A woodman I promoted warrior in a forest). AI almost never attack when unfavorable probability.

 

[Manco Capac]

12) If you're going to get early great wonders for GP points, try to build them in this order (under condition to have Stone and Marble near Capital):

Stonehenge (~2400-2000 BC )
Great Wall (~2000-1200BC)
Oracle (~1600-1100 BC)
Great Lighthouse (~1500 BC, it depends lot of map type )
Temple of Artemis (~1400-900 BC)
Pyramids (~1000-200 BC, earlier if Augustus is here and has Stone)

According to what I experience on marathon emperor level,
this is often that order that is privileged.

 

[mariogreymist]

10) When aiming Liberalism and being one turn before tech completion, look who is able to tech right away liberalism. If most civs still don't have Education, suspend liberalism and try getting Economics for free Great Merchant. Pretty useful for Sid's Sushi Co. . Be careful of Kankan Musa, he likes to tech Economics since his favorite civic is unlocked with it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention a petty trick against AI to delay their research pace in extreme moments. When you fear losing liberalism or Economics to a rivals and you have lots of cash, under Friendly attitude only (sometimes Pleased for some civs), try to change some of their civics. It works well on Marathon. Of course, the civ in question mustn't be Spiritual.

A better trick is to beeline liberalism early, then when you are one turn from it, trade paper, philo and education around to the AIs to get guilds, nationalism gunpowder, engineering, banking, and every other tech you haven't bothered with. Then research chemistry, and finish off liberalism for steel. Then, as the AIs are building universities and observatories and researching up the democracy line, you build/draft cannons and muskets. Anyone wondering how to pull off an early industrial domination win: this is how it is done. (at least one easy way to do it)

 

[Manco Capac]

A better trick is to beeline liberalism early, then when you are one turn from it, trade paper, philo and education around to the AIs to get guilds, nationalism gunpowder, engineering, banking, and every other tech you haven't bothered with. Then research chemistry, and finish off liberalism for steel. Then, as the AIs are building universities and observatories and researching up the democracy line, you build/draft cannons and muskets. Anyone wondering how to pull off an early industrial domination win: this is how it is done. (at least one easy way to do it)

True, it is the conventionnal strategy. Nevertheless, since I tend to go warring during middles ages, I need war tech. Anyways, those "petty" tricks I spoke of are kinda last defense for winning lib race.

 

[Manco Capac]

True, it is the conventionnal strategy. Nevertheless, since I tend to go warring during middles ages, I need war tech. Anyways, those "petty" tricks I spoke of are kinda last defense for winning lib race.

I want to point out that my tricks aren't strategic revolutions: I tend to put casual trick that people didn't notice (perhaps, my tricks are nothing new ).

 

[mariogreymist]

True, it is the conventionnal strategy. Nevertheless, since I tend to go warring during middles ages, I need war tech. Anyways, those "petty" tricks I spoke of are kinda last defense for winning lib race.

I don't know how "conventional" trading major technological gateways like education is. I've been told it was a bad idea on several occasions on these boards. It's always paid off for me though, so I keep doing it. (I have seen it help a rival get a big tech lead on me, but land>tech once you get within reach of artillery)

 

[Tristan_C]

13) Explore the map.

• I open saves downloaded from other players where they have brought their starting unit home and not bothered to map out the rest of their continent (or even worse, Pangaea). This is evidence of two possibilities: either you just don't realize how important it is to know the location of all resources, land, rivals, prospective city locations, and strategic points of interest, or you're cheating to obtain that information through WB.
  
• Explorers have their uses in Terra and other such maps. Even if they cannot pop guarded huts, that's no reason not to drop off explorers pre-astro so they can determine where the huts are, and so you can prepare a continent invasion/settlement early.
  
• Straight economics- Auto exploring units will not uncover land as fast as micro-managed units. But I understand micro is tedious, and if you prefer to auto it, just build additional exploring units to compensate.

 

[LegioCorvus]

Not all traits are good. Protective is useless, because even if you do spam castles, walls and archery units (Which are poor attackers), your enemy will still just pillage you back to the dark ages.

Unless you're playing a One City Challenge, in which case you're going to be attacked at some point, and you'll often be the underdog.

Or you're playing as Tokugawa, and you use the +1 trade routes per Castle to keep your economy afloat while you take on your only neighbor, Gilgamesh.

Or you're playing as Churchill, where Drill I & Charismatic gives you super powerful Redcoats who can easily get Drill III in no time, creating a massive army of the most powerful unit of the era with a 40% protection from collateral damage.

Protective is probably one of the two least useful traits to have on its own, along with Aggressive, but it has it's uses.

 

[flashog]

If you are a warmonger like me and play charismatic and/or imperialistic leaders: Get the Great Wall and try to lure the enemy SoD into your territory where you can decimate it for obscene amounts of GG points. I like to settle 1 (sometimes 2) GG in my capital as it is usually a strong production city, but otherwise focus them in your HE city which should preferably be a high food/hammer city. Only produce soldiers and military buildings in that city (maybe with the occasional building)

 

[Silu]

Explorers have their uses in Terra and other such maps. Even if they cannot pop guarded huts, that's no reason not to drop off explorers pre-astro so they can determine where the huts are, and so you can prepare a continent invasion/settlement early.

That's no reason to use spies instead. Slower movement is offset many times over by the fact that you can actually pop the huts - since Astro is a hutpoppable tech.

 

[lasombra1984]

That's no reason to use spies instead. Slower movement is offset many times over by the fact that you can actually pop the huts - since Astro is a hutpoppable tech.

I think that running Forester 2 maceman or musketman through warriors & swordsman has it's own good sides

 

[Silu]

And a really big downside, it requires Astro...