Unusual tips!

[Hpuk]

Don't let barb camps spawn next to mt. Kilimanjaro, they can take advantage of altitude training.
If you see barbs with altitude training, you know to scout nearby for the NW.

 

[YourHarry]

@neo_one

5. A thing that many people seem to forget: if you haven't met civ X before invading civ Y, civ X will not be mad. It's best used for continents maps.

6. If you want to deny an enemy civ an artifact, you can always turn it to a monument. Monuments outside enemy city radius but inside of his borders are useless for him, but you've managed to deny him this artifact and it happened without diplo penalty.

7. Breaking promises is less costly than denying requests.

Many interesting tips. Some quite useful ones. A few questions:

Do you know if 5 is true for city states? I heard people complain that stealing workers from a city state that no other civs met incurred diplomatic penalty.

For 6, I haven't had a game where this would be that useful. Trading one archeologist to get rid of one dig site from enemy cultural borders doesn't seem efficient. But I guess it can have its use in some unusual circumstances.

7 is what's most interesting to me. How do you know this?

 

[vanjito]

7. Breaking promises is less costly than denying requests.

I'd say another way around, if you brake a promise you get big red hate (eg. promised to declare war but didn't)

 

[S.O.T MAHak]

I'm not quite sure about this one, but i seem to recall that pre-astronomy ships(disregard Polynesia) can enter ocean tiles if they are within your border!

I'm abroad right now, so would anyone mind starting up a game to confirm?

England, small continents, quick, settler, classical age start. That should do it!

 

[ravenmagus]

I'm not quite sure about this one, but i seem to recall that pre-astronomy ships(disregard Polynesia) can enter ocean tiles if they are within your border!

I'm abroad right now, so would anyone mind starting up a game to confirm?

England, small continents, quick, settler, classical age start. That should do it!

That is correct, they can indeed - probably to keep an early Frigate rush from being completely unstoppable. 'Course, if they have frigates and you don't, you're probably dead anyways, but at least you theoretically have a chance.

Interesting that the Korean Turtle Ship mentions this in their description, but no other ship does.

 

[S.O.T MAHak]

You can use this trick to access new continents before other civs, although having a continent separated by 1-2 tiles of oceans next to your capital, and having your capital expanding its border into oceans, only midway through the game seems rare.

An ocean tiles in your territory can act as a sanctuary for your units against pre-astronomy melee ships.

 

[George Abitbol]

Reminds me something: if you size a polynesian trireme/galleass in a neutral ocean with a privateer, you will not able to move them when captured!

 

[krc]

That is correct, they can indeed - probably to keep an early Frigate rush from being completely unstoppable. 'Course, if they have frigates and you don't, you're probably dead anyways, but at least you theoretically have a chance.

Interesting that the Korean Turtle Ship mentions this in their description, but no other ship does.

Here's a picture as proof - which I took because I was confused (since the civilopedia says that galeasses cannot enter oceans).

 

[milk steak]

Any ocean tiles within your borders can be entered by any naval units, even ones that specifically state "Cannot enter Ocean tiles".

 

[BlackWizard]

If you are close to completing Tradition stagnate or avoid growth in your first 4 cities. That way you will have 40% of food immediately instead of having to wait 5-15 turns for food to go up to 40%.
Same goes for single cities which are close to completing aqueduct.

 

[FinsT]

Didn't read the whole thread; sorry if it was already said.

Tip: you can usually have any, and possibly even all, religious buildings in at least some of your cities - WITHOUT having corresponding followers' belief.

How to:
1. manage your city to have majority religion being one of AI's religion which has a follower belief (or two) which allows to build religious buildings (you can check that in religion overview);
2. buy 'em buildings right away;
3. convert your city back to your own religion;
4. the buildings will stay. Profit!

To do p.1, either
- capture an AI's city which has majority religion being the one you need, then buy a missionary there (or few of 'em for future use). Note, ONLY missionaries will do; great prophets will always be of your own religion, no matter in what city you buy them. Then spread religion with those missionaries to your cities. Remember to move any inquisitors away for 3+ tiles, if you had any, otherwise you won't be able to spread. This works best for new cities which you just create. Note, even if you're peaceful type, - a small war and 1 small, possibly remote, AI's city captured - is not that much of a reputation hit; and, faith allowing, you can buy a few missionaties of his religion right away and then you can even gift the city back to its owner, if you'd want to; OR
- remove inqusitors from your cities - move them 3+ tiles away, and allow AIs to convert your cities to their religion. Works best if your neighbour is one with the religion which allows religious building(s); OR
- puppet/annex some cities with desired religion, get religious building(s), then convert 'em to your own religion. Works best if you're playing wide and warmongering.

To do p.3, either
- spread your own religion to your city using a great prophet or missionary of your own religion. Works best for small and new cities. If using missionary and it's a brand new city you create, then you may want to halt its growth at 1 until your missionary converts it back to your own religion; and you also might want to "weaken" the missionary you use in p.1 (foreign religion's one) by putting it into some foreign territory, 1st (to 750 religious strength). This will make your own missionary, being at full strength (1000), to make your city back to majority of your own religion in one use, saving the 2nd use for another time. OR,
- use your own religion's inquisitor to remove all religions but your own. This works best for larger and older cities which still have some followers of your own religion, but too few of them for a single missionary to convert the city back to your religion's majority. Single use destroys the inquisitor, but for large cities, the work he does may be worth more than many missionaries' efforts put together.

In my last game, i had Celts going Catholicism, taking followers' beliefs for Pagodas and Monasteries. Well guess what, 4 out of my 10 cities have both buildings, 3 of them were getting 'em when i built those cities - so from the start, these had massive boost to culture and faith AS WELL as 2 other follower beliefs being effective (my own ones), since i converted them back to my own religion very next turn after getting those buildings. Nice!

P.S. All the above, plus the fact that AI's _love_ getting beliefs which allow to build religions buildings, - are reasons why i usually avoid getting beliefs for religious buildings myself. If i would not be as lazy as i am, then i possibly could have majority of my cities having all religions buildings despite going without such beliefs, and without keeping my cities' majority religion being something different from my own religion (more than for 1 turn that is). ;·)

 

[erisiamk]

Don't bother buying production buildings such as Workshops, Factories, and Nuclear Plants in your puppet cities if you're playing as Venice, unless you really want the Engineers. You'll earn so much money throughout the game that you can properly outfit 3-4 puppets on cash flow alone, and in the case of Nuclear Plants, there's obviously better uses for the Uranium.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Don't bother buying production buildings such as Workshops, Factories, and Nuclear Plants in your puppet cities if you're playing as Venice, unless you really want the Engineers.

Well, actually, puppets tend to fill out specialist slots right away, and there are some policies which encourage having specialists. Also, factories help you get #1 at World Fair or International Games.

 

[YourHarry]

If you are close to completing Tradition stagnate or avoid growth in your first 4 cities. That way you will have 40% of food immediately instead of having to wait 5-15 turns for food to go up to 40%.
Same goes for single cities which are close to completing aqueduct.

The way aqueducts is actually a bit misleading. They save 40% of the food that the city acquired while having the aqueducts. In other words, if you purchase an aqueduct one turn before the city grows, it saves only the food saved up by the city in that single turn up to the amount required for growth.

I used to think that buying aqueducts (or medical labs) right before growth was the way to go, but this is incorrect. The optimum time to get it is when the city has saved up 60% of the food.

 

[YourHarry]

Don't bother buying production buildings such as Workshops, Factories, and Nuclear Plants in your puppet cities if you're playing as Venice, unless you really want the Engineers. You'll earn so much money throughout the game that you can properly outfit 3-4 puppets on cash flow alone, and in the case of Nuclear Plants, there's obviously better uses for the Uranium.

Even if you have the money to buy buildings in your puppets, I don't get why this must be the case. You won't have to buy as many buildings if your puppets production powers are higher, especially if there are many turns left in the game.

 

[ravenmagus]

If you start the game and click on Future Tech immediately, it doesn't fill in the tree in a simple left-right, top-bottom order; instead it sets you up for a series of important Science tech beelines: Writing -> Philosophy -> Education -> Scientific Theory -> Plastics -> Atomic Theory -> Future Tech. Pottery is the first thing you research, Writing is the second, and Sailing is #45.

 

[blockerdave]

5. A thing that many people seem to forget: if you haven't met civ X before invading civ Y, civ X will not be mad. It's best used for continents maps.

This is very important in a game for me.

I had Attila on my borders, early game he was all friendly but i made sure to keep some archers to defend when he (inevitably) got nasty. sure enough he did but luckily just as I was able to start getting composite bowmen and catapults. i absolutely annihilated his army in my borders and decided to push into his. initially i thought i'd just puppet his closest city as it was in a good bottle neck where a strategically placed citadel from the GW I got in defense would really stop anyone attacking me (small earth map, on the bit where Africa goes into Arabian peninsula).

But then I thought I really didn’t want an aggressive, now doubly annoyed neighbour on my borders, even if he was now obviously weakened. So I pushed on and puppeted his capital and then his last city too, knocking him out the game. Major Warmonger penalties and the other 3 civs i had met at that point hate me (denouncing etc.)

Luckily one of the Civs (Isabella) had been on North america which I could only reach from north pole and she wouldn’t sign open borders with me, even before the war, so the rest of her continent and South America was cut off. When I finally got ocean-going craft the final Civ I found on South Am. was Venice, and I have been doing loads of trade with him (selling my excess luxes for huge GPT in separate deals - another tip I got here) and because this was well after the fight with Atilla I’ve got no penalty with him at all. We’re friends and between us we have a Supermajority on the World Congress – 5 to 3 and so far I’m getting everything I want passed  (as well as being friendly our interests align in a lot of areas too.)

If I had known this before I would have waited to finish Atilla before I went exploring North America.

--------------

A tip I’d add, which links into the Barbarian farming tips, is you can strategically place units with a line of sight to direct fog of war nearer a CS – this makes likely a Barb Camp coming up near the CS. This gives you chance to milk the spawned Barbs for XP and influence when they’re in or next to the CS territory, plus the CS will give you a mission to get rid of it, boosting the influence even further.

 

[redwings1340]

If you're a warmonger, try your best to get a religion and become friends with civs that don't get a religion. If you can conquer civs that take a religion and give your religion to the civs that don't have it, you can offset a lot of negative diplo this way. Religion also helps warmongers get happiness and gold, something they often have in short supply.

 

[Memoryjar]

Not sure : when you build first a monument your first ruin will be a free tech.

 

[Dtekkar]

If you instruct a worker to build an improvement that the worker is already building and is 1 turn away from completion on, the improvement will finish immediately. This can allow you to immediately use the improvement on that turn, allowing you to trade the luxury/horse/iron/etc immediately or use the road immediately rather than having to wait until the following turn.

Marginal, but it adds up over the dozens of improvements per game.