Would some vets mind posting some build orders?

[Stayflo]

Post-patch, obviously. I know you've really got to decide which path you're taking early, but it seems like one or two AIs (king) keep rushing far past me tech-wise.

What's the secret to beating the AI to the techs necessary to destroy them?

(Roman civ, epic speed, large world. 14 CSes)

Thanks in advance.

 

[Poomermon]

Fast national college seems quite good post patch. Here is a thread that discusses that:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=403379

Basically you stay one city until national college finishes and then rex like a maniac. It gives you a really nice science bonus early on in exchange for not expanding early. Build order would be something like scout -> worker -> library -> national college

 

[jorissimo]

There are no build orders. It's not starcraft. There are basic strategies and rushes and stuff, but no real build orders. The game's just a little too complex for that.

 

[Surgeon]

There are no build orders. It's not starcraft. There are basic strategies and rushes and stuff, but no real build orders. The game's just a little too complex for that.

Cannot build more Quecha. You need to spawn more Overlords.

 

[bpheater]

I'm not really a Civ V vet, but I have been playing since Civ III, so here goes :

Build order depends on your victory goal and the locations of your cities. For me, I have pretty close to the same build order for each city. Generally, I like to expand rather than rush a National College in my capital.

I almost always start with a monument. I want the culture for the tile expansion and to help contribute to my culture requirements for policies (which increases based off of the number of cities).

Then I have some deciding to do... If I need the happiness then, or in the near future (due to wars or more expansion) I'll build a colosseum. If I don't need a colosseum then I'll move on.

Next up is going to be a library... I build a library in pretty much every city so that I can build a National College in my capital. Libraries have maintenance costs, but it's worth having due to the fact that research beakers scale with population and libraries are required for the National College.

Now for more decisions... I specialize most of my cities based off the surrounding tiles/resources and luxuries. When I have nothing left to build, I put gold producing improvements in every city, because they have no maintenance cost, and they improve gold output even if the output is small. If I have a decent amount of hills/forests in the city tiles, I'll focus on production improvements at this point.

That's basically it... From there I'll go for research improvements first, culture improvements second, production improvements if the city is going to be a production city third, and gold producing improvements last. If you need extra happiness, build those improvements when necessary! If happiness improvements aren't necessary, don't build them! If they are, they take top priority for me! Just keep in mind that happiness is now limited by population in a city.

If you feel like you need it, and you can afford extra maintenance, build walls and all that stuff.

I won't bother building production improvements if the city isn't going to produce many hammers due to crappy surrounding tiles.

I never build anything that gives experience points to combat units. The extra maintenance costs don't seem worth it to me.

 

[skallben]

I never build anything that gives experience points to combat units. The extra maintenance costs don't seem worth it to me.

Specialize, have at least one strong military city IMO, at least Barracks and Armory are quite cheap in a production heavy city. Even units bought there benefits.

 

[bpheater]

Specialize, have at least one strong military city IMO, at least Barracks and Armory are quite cheap in a production heavy city. Even units bought there benefits.

Hmmmm, never thought about purchasing units from a city with unit improvements. I'll give it a go!

Gracias amigo.

 

[RonMar]

Post patch, walls, castles, etc have no maintenance cost.

 

[bpheater]

Lol, well in that case I'll build walls and castles too .

 

[dojoboy]

What is a national college?

 

[bpheater]

It's a wonder that you get to build when you build libraries in all of your cities. It gives +50% research in whatever city you build it in I believe.

 

[ClarenceSeedorf]

It's a wonder that you get to build when you build libraries in all of your cities. It gives +50% research in whatever city you build it in I believe.

plus an additional 5

 

[Monthar]

Specialize, have at least one strong military city IMO, at least Barracks and Armory are quite cheap in a production heavy city. Even units bought there benefits.

Plus if you build a barracks in all cities, you can then build the heroic national wonder in your main military production city to have all the units built/bought there gain an additional +15% strength. Once this national wonder is built you can sell the barracks off in all the other cities. Then this one city will be giving you stronger and more experienced troops, from the heroic epic, barracks, armory, etc.

You can do the same thing for all the other national wonders that you don't really want to pay the maintenance on their prereqs. That is build the required regular building in every controlled city (puppets don't count), build the national wonder, then sell the required building. Then you only pay maintenance on those buildings long enough to get the national wonder.

 

[MykC]

Map: Contents, Pangaea, Great Plains, etc
Leader: Any
Speed: Standard
Size: Standard
Difficulty: Any

Capital: Warrior, Worker, Warrior, Warrior
Focus: Food

Try to settle on a luxury resource with your settler. This will allow you to have access to the resource without having to improve the tile.

Your first tech choice will be the one that unlock the luxury resource you settle on. Note, you don't need to research marble to get the bonus to wonder building though. Second tech will be writing.

Sell you luxury resource to a AI civ when possible, you should be able to get 300G from someone with any luck with your early scouting. Sell your open borders to those friendly AIs for 50G or 19 and 1G.

This is where things kinda open up, you can generally do two things, rush buy the library and then start working on the national college or rush buy a settler. You also have other options depend on your race like if your playing Aztec you might of went to the wheel first and rush their floating garden or maybe you wanted to rush the monument, etc.

Scout with your first two warriors around a bit, you'll want to bring them back at some point but you'll generally want two warriors to deal with a barbarian camp. Its important to get a some decent scouting in because you need to find as many natural wonders a possible early for their free happiness, you need to know where you neighbors are, you need to know where the next best place to settle is, you need to find city states (they also give you money), you need to find ancient ruins.

The important thing is that you have a decent early ground force. I don't normally warrior rush someone early or steal workers but its a good safe opening so you can deal with barbarians and have troops to upgrade into swordsmen.

After you get your luxury tech unlocked I would recommend going to iron working and your first settler or second settler be ready to move to a location with iron and settle on it or near it. You'll want to look for 6 iron preferably or get access to a total of 4 iron via the smaller yield tiles.

Tech Path:
Luxury Resource you settled on
Writing (library and open borders)
Iron Working (swords)
... other various tile improvement tech
Construction
Steel (Long Swords)
Civil Service (you can opt to get this before Iron Working if you want to delay your aggression until you get Long swords or Riflemen)
Education (University.. specialist slot)
Navigation (only if your capital is beside a mountain for observatory)
Rifling (Riflemen)
Dynamite (Artillery)
Currency (market)
Printing Press (Theater)
Scientific Thought (Public Schools)
Replaceable Parts (Infantry)
Railroads (... railroads)
Electronics (Mech Inf)
Plastics (Research Lab)
Rocketry (Rocket Artillery)

Policy Path:
Tradition
Aristocracy
The unhappiness reduction policy
Honor
Great General
Experience Boost
Discipline
...
Kinda open from here but
Freedom
Order
3 Points in piety for Theocracy, its really really good if you puppet a lot of captured cities or if you settle most of your own cities.

All new cities general follow to following queue.
Monument
Granary
Colosseum
Marketplace
Library
Walls
Bank
Stock Market
...
Whatever military unit is hot at the time

 

[Martin Alvito]

Basic game plans post-patch:

National College First

- Main line: Scout -> Worker -> Library -> National College. Tech order is either Pottery -> Writing OR luxury you settled -> Writing. Latter tech order will require a build between Worker and Library. First 250 goes to a Maritime. Second 250 goes to a Maritime. Maritime > Settlers in the early game, even if you aren't Siam, because the makes Settlers build much faster.

- Library rush variant: as above, but rush buy the Library with . I can't see why you'd forego in the capital given a choice, but sometimes there are no Maritimes.

- City state rush variant: Warrior -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Library -> National College, otherwise as above. Puppet the CS until you complete the NC, then annex the CS and use it as a Settler pump. CS's luxury offsets the Happiness hit. Make sure two of your four Warriors have between 5 and 9 XP from barbs/Worker theft so they can grab a heal promotion. (Attack from rough terrain. Next turn promo becomes available. Attack again, then heal.) Should not sustain losses if executed properly.

ICS

Main line: Scout -> Settler -> Settler -> Settler... Tech your luxuries, then Construction for Colosseums. Steal Workers with the Warrior and/or Scout.

2/1 tile variant: Warrior -> Settler -> Settler -> Settler... As above, but build a Warrior since it will finish as the city grows to size 2.

Worker gambit: Scout -> Scout -> Scout -> Settler -> Settler -> Settler... A brave Deity opening. Scouts are used for aggressive Worker theft. Yields up many improved tiles very early on, at the risk of getting overrun by multiple angry opponents.

Iron rush

Main line: Warrior -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Settler. Beeline Iron Working. Warriors explore and steal Workers. Settler is used to settle iron. Some is used to upgrade the Warriors to Swords. The remainder can be spent on a Maritime or multiple Research Agreements for quick Rifling. If you go the RA route, you need to build the National College to clear Classical. Two rounds of RAs should get Rifles if you "manage" them properly. (You can leverage AIs' research of Philosophy if you want on Deity, and never bother pushing past Writing.)

Babylon Iron rush: Same build order, but beeline Writing, build an Academy, tech your luxuries and then take Iron Working. Delays the acquisition of IW by only a few turns.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Fast national college makes sense.

Otherwise, workers, settlers, and defensive units early is as strong as it ever was in civ. Securing luxury resources, then staying on above-average improved tiles as priorities goes a long, long way.

The scout worker steal rush is pretty funny.

 

[jorissimo]

Cannot build more Quecha. You need to spawn more Overlords.

 

[skallben]

Hmmmm, never thought about purchasing units from a city with unit improvements. I'll give it a go!

Gracias amigo.

De nada! It is actually a great way for peaceful games where you got plenty of gold and you want to avoid upkeep. Just keep a gold reserve ready for when war hits, cities can also focus on building other stuff than military.

Plus if you build a barracks in all cities, you can then build the heroic national wonder in your main military production city to have all the units built/bought there gain an additional +15% strength. Once this national wonder is built you can sell the barracks off in all the other cities. Then this one city will be giving you stronger and more experienced troops, from the heroic epic, barracks, armory, etc.

Haha, I had actually forgot that you can sell buildings now. Thanks man.

@Martin Alvito:
Nice strategy walkthrough

 

[Stayflo]

Basic game plans post-patch:

National College First

...

This is exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks much.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

Plus if you build a barracks in all cities, you can then build the heroic national wonder in your main military production city to have all the units built/bought there gain an additional +15% strength. Once this national wonder is built you can sell the barracks off in all the other cities. Then this one city will be giving you stronger and more experienced troops, from the heroic epic, barracks, armory, etc.

You can do the same thing for all the other national wonders that you don't really want to pay the maintenance on their prereqs. That is build the required regular building in every controlled city (puppets don't count), build the national wonder, then sell the required building. Then you only pay maintenance on those buildings long enough to get the national wonder.

You might want to double check this before trying it. I don't know about post patch, but I know prepatch when I built barracks in all cities then built the military national wonder the wonder got destroyed when I sold one of my barracks. In a later game I built it again, but the wonder also got destroyed when I founded a new city. So unless the patch changed something you should hold off on building national wonders until after you Rex.