dylanmeditates
Warlord
- Joined
- May 14, 2012
- Messages
- 260
There are many guides for specific strategies out there that are invaluable learning tools, but n3wbs such as myself are always looking for an answer to that eternal question: So... um... What should i do? How do i win? This collaborative guide seeks to begin to answer that question.
Look at the land, look where your opponents are, look at the resources available, and focus everything on the best strategy at the time with just a little leeway for sitting back on plan 2. We will compile a list of all possible specific strategies for winning or at least grabbing large swaths of land in order to win easily later on, or even just simple little tricks for gaining an upper hand, and indicate what kind of situation is conducive to those strategies. This is for emperor+, normal type maps because that's what i like to play
I want this guide to be helpful for learning highest-level play but accessible even for the beginningest of the beginning! That is my quest. To my n3wb friends: These strategies will beat prince 95% of the time.
Note that I am not the expert, I intend to edit this repeatedly as more experienced players offer their ideas. I'm sure that some responses will be scathing because that's how the internet is, heh. That's just life, the mountains would not be beautiful but for their dangerous heights and sharp crags, the oceans would not be breathtaking without their skull-crushing waves and drowning depths.
Let's get started. Note that the details of each victory strategy are best left for the guides specifically written for those strategies, which you can probably find on this site. For that very reason I'll try not to be too wordy but brevity is not my strong suit...
1. Elepult (elephants and catapults) rush
If you see:
How to do it:
Balance two things: 1. Keeping research up beelining to construction 2. Expanding into a tasty production base.
You can do it with two cities! You can do it with 6 cities! If you are getting boxed in, be happy with two excellent high-food cities, I hope with some gold mines or non-jungle gems or financial cottages or something sexy like that to speed you to construction. If you have plenty of time and space for expansion, don't be tempted to expand too fast and wreck your economy which will slow your construction date. An early great scientist can make an academy, probably in your capital but just do yo thang grrl, maybe you could put it in a city with some gold mines or lots of cottages, wherever you have most beakers at the time I suppose.
Build:
1. Workers, fog-busting warriors 2. Granaries all around for tasty whipping/library in capital 3. Maybe monuments for border pops 4. Barracks 5. Defenders to not get backstabbed by Montezuma 6. Hopefully you are up to construction by now... Go catapults until you finish Horseback Riding. 7. Build a stable or two in your best production cities (perhaps highest food cities because of whipping) 8. Elephants. Throw an axe and a spear in your stack if you're up to it. Chariots are fun as well so you can pillage as you go.
Research:
1. Worker techs 2. Math>construction 3. Horseback riding
Note regarding oracle: This strategy can work well with oracle. I'd pick up Code of Laws because then you can put up courthouses in all your new real estate, and this works as your trading chip for alpha/backfilling everything for a while/bribing AIs in on each other.
Now... do the rush. Do it on a close neighbor who doesn't like you. Do it on an easy target to grab some quick land and get out of war fast. Do it on a big behemoth target who is apt to get unbeatable sometime in the near future. Do it on someone who you insulted your mother. Whatevs.
2. Bulb Liberalism (for a military tech, for nationalism, economics, I dunno)
If you see:
How to do it
Get libraries up and bulb scientists. First scientist is for an academy. You can put one in the capital or you can put it in the city that will be running all its population on scientists until biology. You are going to want caste system most likely. All other scientists are for bulbing. You easily beat AI to liberalism by bulbing philo>paper>education>liberalism, though you don't need to use 6 scientists (you need 2 for education and lib) because you can self-research the rest of those beakers. But hey, maybe you have many extra scientists so you can afford to just tech all of liberalism line w/ no gold whatsoever. That's chillin. Use other extra scientists for printing press.
Building 'Great Library' is pretty cool for this... be warned it takes hella hammers. That's lots of hammers. Sometimes I think I could have just bulbed liberalism faster if I had been just focusing population on scientists from the beginning instead of putting them into mines to build the damn great library. I definitely don't even try without marble or industrious trait.
Tech:
1. worker techs 2. aesthetics. 3. Now it gets tricky. Are you going to build the super-duper library? Go literature. Maybe you have to trade aesthetics for alpha, then pick up polytheism somehow, or maybe you can afford to self-tech polytheism. Sometimes if I'm pretty comfortable with my oracle outlook, I go mysticism> polytheism> priesthood for this reason. 4. drama so you can bulb philosophy, unless you oracled Code of Laws 5. Currency/code of laws (or if you are comfy and want to get music first for the great artist, go for it) 6. Civil Service. 7. Start bulbing to lib. 8. Probably turn research off and try to pick up feudalism from AIs, guilds wouldn't hurt too... make sure you are going to be comfortably getting to liberalism first before you start trading paper and education away...
Enjoy your cuirassier rush/cannons+muskets rush/free great merchant from economics/easy taj mahal from early nationhood/tons of trading beakers from astronomy (though you won't be happy to turn off Great Library sooner once you get to Scientific method)
3. Oracle
If you see:
By the way, here is a Strategy and Tips forum thread regarding oracle strategy, the construction gambit on deity, and other fun ideas about oracle http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=492226
build: (something like this)
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler/worker 4. warrior or settler(if you haven't built first one yet) 5. workers and fog-busting warriors. 6. maybe a granary or starting a library before you build the... 7. oracle. build it in capital if you have big time better production there, or build it in second city if it's a pretty good production city and the culture would be a big help in that city.
worker actions:
I think this is important to mention because this is very early game and it all happens so fast. get trade routes up fast to not drain commerce to much. then you can tech your way up to priesthood more easily. You don't need marble hooked up if you have a group of 3+ workers chopping trees. But, you can also get to priesthood faster if you skip Bronze working. go for bronze working if you have lots of trees around, go for hooking up marble if you have less trees and more commerce for masonry and/or an early oracle construction beginning date, some thought process like that i guess...
tech:
1. food tech/s for your land. note that plains sheep and plains cows do not impress many higher-level players as far as food is concerned so animal husbandry may not be advisable, then again you could take advantage of its double use as putting you towards writing so that you can oracle code of laws... 2. wheel to get trade routes up 3. mining 4. masonry or bronze working (see above regarding worker actions) 5. tech writing while you build oracle to get code of laws immediately after, unless you don't have bronze working yet and want to get metal casting
Now you got oracle... Code of Laws is nice for courthouses and caste system. Also the free missionary can be used to get AIs pissed at each other (send it to the capital of an AI without a religion and watch the tension begin). Metal casting is good for forges and is also worth more beakers, plus you're closer to crossbows which can be fun. Use your new tech lead to bribe AIs in on each other or get them to stop trading with one another.
4. Cultural Victory
If you see:
build
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler or worker 4. warrior 5. settler (if this is your first) or worker 6. in second city, build warrior>worker 7. build pyramids 8. put up libraries and granaries 9. you are going to need those temples. more about this later... you may end up buying those hammers in the later cities...
tech:
1. worker techs. get that quarry up. 2. aesthetics (for a trading chip) 3. get yourself to liberalism for free speech and then turn off that research and turn on 100% culture (unless you don't have pyramids... then you are definitely going to want democracy for universal suffrage... then you can turn research off)
basic how-to (but you should just read the aforementioned guide and watch the video):
Turn on caste system and use your 'great person farm' (A high food city that only works 2-4 food tiles and uses the rest of its population for running specialists to birth great people) to get lots of artists. You can get a dozen or so by the time you're ready to pull the trigger, maybe more. that's 48,000 culture right there. Hold onto them until the bitter end so you know exactly where to put them. Figure out where your three culture cities are going to be and start building cultural buildings there. At least one other city focuses on unit production because you don't want to get backstabbed. Be very friendly to AIs. Just don't get attacked. Try to keep open borders with people because you really want those missionaries. Now, you need at least 6 cities to build the cathedrals for each religion. What I do is build at least 6, then when I'm ready, I build 3 more crap cities in the margins (there will be plenty of margins because your cultural borders will be nice and plump) and just rush-buy more temples there so I can build more cathedrals. Build good artist wonders, always beelining to the required techs, in your three culture cities (sistine chapel, taj mahal etc.) but note that I have done this victory without any of these. Get all religions in all your cities and build temples in all of them, get those cathedrals up. At the end, most cities will be building wealth to support 100% culture while the culture cities just build culture. Until you are ready to go all out with this, don't worry about building a little culture here and there, because you will just be getting heaps of it now. Keep building units somewhere so you don't get attacked and just wait. It's coming. When you're ready, just plop down all your artists for the rest few-dozen thousand culture you need and there you have it.
5. chariot rush
if you see:
build:
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler or worker 4. warrior 5. settler (if this is your first) or worker 6. put up barracks. you will be building a lot of damn chariots 7. build 3 chariots per archer you want to take out in a city with little culture, or 4 chariots per archer you want to take out in a city that already has high culture. know your enemy 8. more chariots because you will need many to take all their archer-ridden cities. it is a bloody mess for those chariots.
After all your worker techs, go for aesthetics so you can trade for alpha or just backfill everything you need. This can be harder than it sounds because you are apt to start attacking before you finish aesthetics and you will put a massive drain on your economy (on higher levels) when you take all those troops outside your borders. For that reason, build a big freakin stack and THEN attack with it.
You are going to want to get your economy online quick so you can do something a little better than chariots now. You can hold onto aesthetics to make sure you can trade for currency, or use your city capture gold to research it. Code of Laws wouldn't hurt either for courthouses.
6. Horse Archer rush
If you see:
build:
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler or worker 4. warrior 5. settler (if this is your first) or worker 6. granaries, libraries (to push towards horseback riding), barracks, horse archers
Usually after I tech horseback riding I just turn research off and sit with it for a while. yes, other AIs will get it but you will eventually be able to get it for alpha or use it to backfill stuff. or you can use city capture gold to tech aesthetics. whatevs.
7. axe rush
do this if you see:
build: (in only 2 cities)
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler or worker 4. warrior 5. settler (if this is your first) or worker 6. fog-busting warriors and worker 7. barracks, granary if time 8. 3 axemen per archer in low-culture city, 3.5 per archer in a high culture city (wherever your first target city is. It's not a bad idea to take the capital first thing)
workers should have build roads out to the edge of your territory towards your target, if not all the way to the target itself by now. WHIP lots of axemen. you must get axes out fast, fast fast to make this work. read up on whipping. it's worth the time. now, go and take what's yours. maybe you'll pick up the pyramids, or perhaps a holy city. don't expect a shrine to be there though, it's a bit early for that.
your economy will plummet once you send your army out the door so i usually turn off research after i get aesthetics, if I even get there. i may need to use city capture gold to finish it.
8. space race
do this if you see:
9. Diplomatic
do this if you:
10. in general, build a lot of cities, get a solid military tech advantage, build hella units with good promotions and kick ass to grab a bunch of land, then decide which victory you'd most like to post on your 'hall of fame' list
do this if you:
know your enemy. scout territory, take out resources, take out production cities, take out roads. bring in other AI on your target to distract your enemy (but be careful you don't miss out on taking over all the cities you want). read the war academy stuff on this site.
11. xbow rush
I've never done this but I've heard it works. Anyone want to write a little section to add?
12. what other winning strategies?
Look at the land, look where your opponents are, look at the resources available, and focus everything on the best strategy at the time with just a little leeway for sitting back on plan 2. We will compile a list of all possible specific strategies for winning or at least grabbing large swaths of land in order to win easily later on, or even just simple little tricks for gaining an upper hand, and indicate what kind of situation is conducive to those strategies. This is for emperor+, normal type maps because that's what i like to play
I want this guide to be helpful for learning highest-level play but accessible even for the beginningest of the beginning! That is my quest. To my n3wb friends: These strategies will beat prince 95% of the time.Note that I am not the expert, I intend to edit this repeatedly as more experienced players offer their ideas. I'm sure that some responses will be scathing because that's how the internet is, heh. That's just life, the mountains would not be beautiful but for their dangerous heights and sharp crags, the oceans would not be breathtaking without their skull-crushing waves and drowning depths.
Let's get started. Note that the details of each victory strategy are best left for the guides specifically written for those strategies, which you can probably find on this site. For that very reason I'll try not to be too wordy but brevity is not my strong suit...
1. Elepult (elephants and catapults) rush
If you see:
- high commerce to zip right along to construction
- elephants nearby
How to do it:
Balance two things: 1. Keeping research up beelining to construction 2. Expanding into a tasty production base.
You can do it with two cities! You can do it with 6 cities! If you are getting boxed in, be happy with two excellent high-food cities, I hope with some gold mines or non-jungle gems or financial cottages or something sexy like that to speed you to construction. If you have plenty of time and space for expansion, don't be tempted to expand too fast and wreck your economy which will slow your construction date. An early great scientist can make an academy, probably in your capital but just do yo thang grrl, maybe you could put it in a city with some gold mines or lots of cottages, wherever you have most beakers at the time I suppose
. Build:
1. Workers, fog-busting warriors 2. Granaries all around for tasty whipping/library in capital 3. Maybe monuments for border pops 4. Barracks 5. Defenders to not get backstabbed by Montezuma
6. Hopefully you are up to construction by now... Go catapults until you finish Horseback Riding. 7. Build a stable or two in your best production cities (perhaps highest food cities because of whipping) 8. Elephants. Throw an axe and a spear in your stack if you're up to it. Chariots are fun as well so you can pillage as you go.Research:
1. Worker techs 2. Math>construction 3. Horseback riding
Note regarding oracle: This strategy can work well with oracle. I'd pick up Code of Laws because then you can put up courthouses in all your new real estate, and this works as your trading chip for alpha/backfilling everything for a while/bribing AIs in on each other.
Now... do the rush. Do it on a close neighbor who doesn't like you. Do it on an easy target to grab some quick land and get out of war fast. Do it on a big behemoth target who is apt to get unbeatable sometime in the near future. Do it on someone who you insulted your mother. Whatevs.
2. Bulb Liberalism (for a military tech, for nationalism, economics, I dunno)
If you see:
- High food city for bulbing scientists
- marble for great library would be hot and tasty
- no way to do an elephant rush or horse archer rush
How to do it
Get libraries up and bulb scientists. First scientist is for an academy. You can put one in the capital or you can put it in the city that will be running all its population on scientists until biology. You are going to want caste system most likely. All other scientists are for bulbing. You easily beat AI to liberalism by bulbing philo>paper>education>liberalism, though you don't need to use 6 scientists (you need 2 for education and lib) because you can self-research the rest of those beakers. But hey, maybe you have many extra scientists so you can afford to just tech all of liberalism line w/ no gold whatsoever. That's chillin. Use other extra scientists for printing press.
Building 'Great Library' is pretty cool for this... be warned it takes hella hammers. That's lots of hammers. Sometimes I think I could have just bulbed liberalism faster if I had been just focusing population on scientists from the beginning instead of putting them into mines to build the damn great library. I definitely don't even try without marble or industrious trait.
Tech:
1. worker techs 2. aesthetics. 3. Now it gets tricky. Are you going to build the super-duper library? Go literature. Maybe you have to trade aesthetics for alpha, then pick up polytheism somehow, or maybe you can afford to self-tech polytheism. Sometimes if I'm pretty comfortable with my oracle outlook, I go mysticism> polytheism> priesthood for this reason. 4. drama so you can bulb philosophy, unless you oracled Code of Laws
5. Currency/code of laws (or if you are comfy and want to get music first for the great artist, go for it) 6. Civil Service. 7. Start bulbing to lib. 8. Probably turn research off and try to pick up feudalism from AIs, guilds wouldn't hurt too... make sure you are going to be comfortably getting to liberalism first before you start trading paper and education away...Enjoy your cuirassier rush/cannons+muskets rush/free great merchant from economics/easy taj mahal from early nationhood/tons of trading beakers from astronomy (though you won't be happy to turn off Great Library sooner once you get to Scientific method)
3. Oracle
If you see:
- some players do it most games...
- high commerce helps to push towards priesthood
- high food helps to get workers faster
- marble helps to build oracle faster (but this deserves further discussion... see below)
- pretty much any 'good' (lots of food, decent production, maybe some good moneymaking potential) start can get you oracle for that juicy free tech... and oh, how juicy it is. who said there's no such thing as a free lunch? 'Um, yes, I'll have one Code of Laws, please. Can you supersize that for me?'
By the way, here is a Strategy and Tips forum thread regarding oracle strategy, the construction gambit on deity, and other fun ideas about oracle http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=492226
build: (something like this)
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler/worker 4. warrior or settler(if you haven't built first one yet) 5. workers and fog-busting warriors. 6. maybe a granary or starting a library before you build the... 7. oracle. build it in capital if you have big time better production there, or build it in second city if it's a pretty good production city and the culture would be a big help in that city.
worker actions:
I think this is important to mention because this is very early game and it all happens so fast. get trade routes up fast to not drain commerce to much. then you can tech your way up to priesthood more easily. You don't need marble hooked up if you have a group of 3+ workers chopping trees. But, you can also get to priesthood faster if you skip Bronze working. go for bronze working if you have lots of trees around, go for hooking up marble if you have less trees and more commerce for masonry and/or an early oracle construction beginning date, some thought process like that i guess...
tech:
1. food tech/s for your land. note that plains sheep and plains cows do not impress many higher-level players as far as food is concerned so animal husbandry may not be advisable, then again you could take advantage of its double use as putting you towards writing so that you can oracle code of laws... 2. wheel to get trade routes up 3. mining 4. masonry or bronze working (see above regarding worker actions) 5. tech writing while you build oracle to get code of laws immediately after, unless you don't have bronze working yet and want to get metal casting
Now you got oracle... Code of Laws is nice for courthouses and caste system. Also the free missionary can be used to get AIs pissed at each other (send it to the capital of an AI without a religion and watch the tension begin). Metal casting is good for forges and is also worth more beakers, plus you're closer to crossbows which can be fun. Use your new tech lead to bribe AIs in on each other or get them to stop trading with one another.
4. Cultural Victory
If you see:
- stone for pyramids
- space for at the VERY LEAST 6 cities (unless you can war your way to more?)
- I hope soon you start seeing lots of religions pop up in your cities or else it's time to move on to plan 2...
build
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler or worker 4. warrior 5. settler (if this is your first) or worker 6. in second city, build warrior>worker 7. build pyramids 8. put up libraries and granaries 9. you are going to need those temples. more about this later... you may end up buying those hammers in the later cities...
tech:
1. worker techs. get that quarry up. 2. aesthetics (for a trading chip) 3. get yourself to liberalism for free speech and then turn off that research and turn on 100% culture (unless you don't have pyramids... then you are definitely going to want democracy for universal suffrage... then you can turn research off)
basic how-to (but you should just read the aforementioned guide and watch the video):
Turn on caste system and use your 'great person farm' (A high food city that only works 2-4 food tiles and uses the rest of its population for running specialists to birth great people) to get lots of artists. You can get a dozen or so by the time you're ready to pull the trigger, maybe more. that's 48,000 culture right there. Hold onto them until the bitter end so you know exactly where to put them. Figure out where your three culture cities are going to be and start building cultural buildings there. At least one other city focuses on unit production because you don't want to get backstabbed. Be very friendly to AIs. Just don't get attacked. Try to keep open borders with people because you really want those missionaries. Now, you need at least 6 cities to build the cathedrals for each religion. What I do is build at least 6, then when I'm ready, I build 3 more crap cities in the margins (there will be plenty of margins because your cultural borders will be nice and plump) and just rush-buy more temples there so I can build more cathedrals. Build good artist wonders, always beelining to the required techs, in your three culture cities (sistine chapel, taj mahal etc.) but note that I have done this victory without any of these. Get all religions in all your cities and build temples in all of them, get those cathedrals up. At the end, most cities will be building wealth to support 100% culture while the culture cities just build culture. Until you are ready to go all out with this, don't worry about building a little culture here and there, because you will just be getting heaps of it now. Keep building units somewhere so you don't get attacked and just wait. It's coming. When you're ready, just plop down all your artists for the rest few-dozen thousand culture you need and there you have it.
5. chariot rush
if you see:
- horses
- enemy too close for comfort
- plenty of early production
- lots of trees for-a-choppin doesn't hurt
- an enemy without metal!
build:
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler or worker 4. warrior 5. settler (if this is your first) or worker 6. put up barracks. you will be building a lot of damn chariots 7. build 3 chariots per archer you want to take out in a city with little culture, or 4 chariots per archer you want to take out in a city that already has high culture. know your enemy 8. more chariots because you will need many to take all their archer-ridden cities. it is a bloody mess for those chariots.
After all your worker techs, go for aesthetics so you can trade for alpha or just backfill everything you need. This can be harder than it sounds because you are apt to start attacking before you finish aesthetics and you will put a massive drain on your economy (on higher levels) when you take all those troops outside your borders. For that reason, build a big freakin stack and THEN attack with it.
You are going to want to get your economy online quick so you can do something a little better than chariots now. You can hold onto aesthetics to make sure you can trade for currency, or use your city capture gold to research it. Code of Laws wouldn't hurt either for courthouses.
6. Horse Archer rush
If you see:
- horses
- lots of trees for chopping
- decent commerce potential/food for running scientists (got to push, push towards horseback riding)
build:
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler or worker 4. warrior 5. settler (if this is your first) or worker 6. granaries, libraries (to push towards horseback riding), barracks, horse archers
Usually after I tech horseback riding I just turn research off and sit with it for a while. yes, other AIs will get it but you will eventually be able to get it for alpha or use it to backfill stuff. or you can use city capture gold to tech aesthetics. whatevs.
7. axe rush
do this if you see:
- copper
- a close neighor
- you NEED to prevent getting boxed in
build: (in only 2 cities)
1. worker 2. warrior 3. settler or worker 4. warrior 5. settler (if this is your first) or worker 6. fog-busting warriors and worker 7. barracks, granary if time 8. 3 axemen per archer in low-culture city, 3.5 per archer in a high culture city (wherever your first target city is. It's not a bad idea to take the capital first thing)
workers should have build roads out to the edge of your territory towards your target, if not all the way to the target itself by now. WHIP lots of axemen. you must get axes out fast, fast fast to make this work. read up on whipping. it's worth the time. now, go and take what's yours. maybe you'll pick up the pyramids, or perhaps a holy city. don't expect a shrine to be there though, it's a bit early for that.
your economy will plummet once you send your army out the door so i usually turn off research after i get aesthetics, if I even get there. i may need to use city capture gold to finish it.
8. space race
do this if you see:
- well, from the beginning it may be hard to tell. if you have a 'good start for space race', chances are you have a good start for whatever the heck you want...
- if you can only expand to 8 cities or so but they are damn good cities, you can do space race
- aluminum is pretty important
9. Diplomatic
do this if you:
- have tons of population (50% or more of the world population)
- have lots of very friendly friends
10. in general, build a lot of cities, get a solid military tech advantage, build hella units with good promotions and kick ass to grab a bunch of land, then decide which victory you'd most like to post on your 'hall of fame' list
do this if you:
- well, this is a pretty damn good strategy in general, i suppose. the game kind of rewards military domination strategies
- if there is no other way to win. i give credit to going for builder (peaceful) wins for maintaining tighter risk-management. but you often only afford that comfort once you've taken over lots of land... you can only settle so many cities on higher difficulties before you're boxed in or your economy is ruined.
know your enemy. scout territory, take out resources, take out production cities, take out roads. bring in other AI on your target to distract your enemy (but be careful you don't miss out on taking over all the cities you want). read the war academy stuff on this site.
11. xbow rush
I've never done this but I've heard it works. Anyone want to write a little section to add?
12. what other winning strategies?
but perhaps i should put a section about that up as well. 
cities out of your 6.
to run artists.
win and then hit end turn an oh-so-exciting 50-75 times until you win.
