WoundedKnight's CIV Strategy Guide

[azurefx]

If it is true, Washington (America, Organized/Financial) is an economic powerhouse.

You should try him. If you manage to get a strong religion going as well, it's like gold is coming out of his arse.

 

[WoundedKnight]

I tried a test loading the scenario World 1000 AD, playing as India, which is organized. There are 4 nations. The city maintenance includes a distance cost and a city number cost. It did not appear to be altered in any way by the organized trait. In contrast, the civic upkeep was 0. The civ was small (only 4 cities, sizes 5-8), so I don't know what the upkeep should have been. Some earlier builds of CIV listed free (100%) civic support with organized, or perhaps the civ is too small for the upkeep to be of any consequence.

So I stand by my statements that organized affects ONLY civic upkeep and has nothing whatever to do with city maintenance, unless someone can provide documentation to the contrary.

In my game I mentioned in a prior post, even with my ideal civics, civic upkeep was about 16-20/turn for my financial/industrious nation, compared to 100+ gold/turn I was raking in through financial. Whether organized gives 50% or 100% off civic upkeep is almost irrelevant: in either case, the amounts involved are trivial compared with the potential of the financial trait.

I must disagree with the poster about organized -- it is NOT a trait for a nation that wants to maintain a large empire or expand rapidly, as it seems to have no impact at all on city maintenance. It is only a trait for one who is in love with highly expensive civic choices, and even with those, financial is a far better way to go. I suspect that few players will find much use for organized, which ranks at the rock bottom of my civ traits list along with spiritual.

 

[JenniferKind]

Wow thanks for this, I"m going with that chinese dude from now on!

 

[Arkanin]

Thank you. Will have to check on this when I get home. If so, then the civilopedia descriptions of organized are completely wrong. A couple weeks ago on the forums I thought that organized reduced city expenses, but other posters stated that this was not true. But what you state would make more sense (and would certainly make organized a more valuable trait than I perceived it as).

Yeah, we need to get this straightened out. If what the Civ screen says about organized is correct, it's pretty awful. I think you're right, though, but then again, that would make it pretty lousy... :/

At any rate, you're definitely right about what the screen says about civics costs, and if this is true, organized is going to net you less income than financial in just about every situation.

BTW: Qin's financial / industrious traits are one of my favorite combos, as well.

 

[KAuss]

Not to mention the UU... They act as 3 units... Archer, catapult, axemen...

I literally ran the field with these guys accompanied by a few elephants and catapults for bombardment...

 

[MSTK]

I agree to your guide to a certain extent.

However I am against the standpoint that there are a certain couple "best" civs for the game. Every civ is balanced. We just haven't played the game long enough to see the pros and cons of each.

 

[WoundedKnight]

Well that is almost true, although other things being equal, there are some traits that come out clearly behind others for the vast majority of situations (i.e. organized and spiritual). Nonetheless leader traits are only one aspect of a complex game and it is possible for a good player to be successful even if disadvantaged in the traits department.

I don't mean to imply that financial/industrious is the end-all. There are many other combinations that are very powerful -- philosophical, expansive, financial, and industrious are all fabulous traits, and any combination thereof can do extremely well. Aggressive and creative are also pretty darn good.

 

[Dog of Justice]

Spiritual is "balanced" by the major advantage of starting with Mysticism. The only leader starting with Mysticism without the Spiritual trait is Huayna Capac (Aggressive/Financial); should Aggressive prove to hold its weight, I suspect he could become a popular multiplay choice as a result.

Organized, however, is far worse than the other 7 AFAICT.

 

[Khaim]

Doesn't Organized also give half-cost courthouses? Which, if I recall correctly, give -50% city upkeep.

 

[mrjepson]

I should check when I get home, I'm certain I saw -50%. Though as pointed out above it may have been due to a courthouse and I read it wrong. I have been playing as financial in my latest game and it is about the same benifit as organised would give me at this point. This will change though as my civics will become less expensive once I finally end my 1000 year war against those damn chinese archers, they hurt!

 

[Common Sensei]

I should check when I get home, I'm certain I saw -50%. Though as pointed out above it may have been due to a courthouse and I read it wrong. I have been playing as financial in my latest game and it is about the same benifit as organised would give me at this point. This will change though as my civics will become less expensive once I finally end my 1000 year war against those damn chinese archers, they hurt!

It would have to be from a Courthouse. Since bonuses are additive, if Organized had this bonus off the bat and then built a Courthouse, that would be a 100% reduction which would be overpowered.

However, I think that the cheap courthouses are an underestimated portion of the Organized trait. This allows you to reduce your city upkeep in half the time, and get access to the Forbidden Palace (once six of them have been built) that much more quickly.

 

[BAD MOJO]

I finished a game last night with Whashington (organized/Financial) and it just blew me away. Defenetly my favorite now.
It alow me to have a early settler rush of about six cities without draining finances (organized), when most other civ just had three.
Next thing I decided to do this time around was something i hadn't done in any other game, I said to hell with religion, if I get one of the later ones as research other things good, if not at least the AI won't hate me as much.
Turns out the the fishing and agriculture already puts me way far ahead to get to the alphabet which I thing gave me a bit of leavarage when trading the early tech.
By avoiding religion all together I was able to get way far ahead in milatary tech so that before my neighbor (Persia/second in power to me) would start to present a problem I rolled down to his capital with my state of the art cats and took it as well as another one of his closest cities to my borthers.
After that no one was able to even come close.
In the later stages the FINANCIAL trait started to kick in so nicely I had more money i knew what to do with it. So i decieded to have a couple of more wars with my closests neighbors just for kicks.
As for religion, never found one and I didn't wanted it eihter.

Hope this helps

 

[southafrica]

I finished a game last night with Whashington (organized/Financial) and it just blew me away. Defenetly my favorite now.
It alow me to have a early settler rush of about six cities without draining finances (organized), when most other civ just had three.
Next thing I decided to do this time around was something i hadn't done in any other game, I said to hell with religion, if I get one of the later ones as research other things good, if not at least the AI won't hate me as much.
Turns out the the fishing and agriculture already puts me way far ahead to get to the alphabet which I thing gave me a bit of leavarage when trading the early tech.
By avoiding religion all together I was able to get way far ahead in milatary tech so that before my neighbor (Persia/second in power to me) would start to present a problem I rolled down to his capital with my state of the art cats and took it as well as another one of his closest cities to my borthers.
After that no one was able to even come close.
In the later stages the FINANCIAL trait started to kick in so nicely I had more money i knew what to do with it. So i decieded to have a couple of more wars with my closests neighbors just for kicks.
As for religion, never found one and I didn't wanted it eihter.

Hope this helps

Washington is a fearsome leader... You'll never be broke with him

 

[BAD MOJO]

And one more thing, If you do have the Organized trait have your first wonder priority be the Piramids, It gives more strength to your trait as well as the advantage of pumping out great engeniers for the construction of more wonders.

 

[WoundedKnight]

A great thread is here by Alexfrog about how to utilize forests to quickly expand your civilization. I have also contributed to the thread and present a slightly modified version of the strategy, noting a current game where I jumped out to 21 cities with high research, economy, military, etc. by this method.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137292

 

[WoundedKnight]

CIV rewards the creation of specialized cities. I try to create at least 2 cities of each speciality because of the need to build infrastructure buildings in between building military or religious units, wonders, etc. Specialist cities make sense because you can't build every building in every city, and specialization helps you to leverage your city placement by putting buildings in the cities where they will do the most good.

The first step in deciding the division of labor between specialized cities is to evaluate the surrounding land. A city in an area with luxury resources could be a great trade/science city, while one in an area with many mines and high production would likely make a good military city for creating units, or for rapidly building wonders. A city with abundant food supply would make a good specialist city to increase great people generation.

MILITARY CITY
Build in: productive area with high hammer yield (mines, watermills, etc)
Buildings
Barracks
Forge
Factory
Power source (coal, hydro, nuclear)
Granary
Aqueduct

National wonders:
first city: Heroic Epic (+100% military production in city), West Point (+4 exp/military unit)
second city: Red Cross (free Medic I promotion), Ironworks (near iron or coal) -- consider designating this one a military city from the time iron appears on the map.

World Wonders
Pentagon (+2 experience for units trained in any city, can be built anywhere)

Discussion: You will need many military units during the game, so why build them from just anywhere when you can build them quickly in a specialized city and get free experience points to boot?

SCIENCE CITY
Where to build: area with abundant commerce
improvements: focus on cottages ->towns
Buildings
Academy (+50% research, requires great scientist)
Library (+25% research)
Observatory (+25% research)
University (+25% research)
Laboratory (+25% research)
Monastery (+10% research, but becomes obsolete - may skip this one)

National wonders:
Oxford University (+100% research)

World Wonders:
Great Library (+2 scientists, expires)

MERCHANT CITY
Where to build: area with abundant commerce
improvements: focus on cottages ->towns
Buildings:
Market (+25% gold)
Grocer (+25% gold)
Bank (+50% gold)
Airport (+1 trade route)

National Wonders:
Wall street (+100% gold)
GP focus: great merchant

CULTURE CITY
consider combining with science city as many science improvements also generate culture. I don't generally build a culture-only city for that reason, I go for culture/science. But here are the culture listings for those interested in culture victory, not including science improvements.

Buildings
Temple (+1 culture)
Monastery (+2 culture)
Cathedral or equivalent (+50% culture)
Theater (+3 culture)
Broadcast tower (+50% culture)

National Wonders:
Hermitage (+100% culture)
Globe theater (+6 culture)
GP focus: priests?

World Wonders:
Hollywood (+50% culture)
Rock n' Roll (+50% culture)
Broadway (+50% culture)
Sistine chapel (+2 culture per specialist in all cities)
(if going for a culture victory, consider balancing your national and world culture wonders between 3 cities to allow each to achieve legendary culture).

GREAT PEOPLE CITY
Obviously this one should be combined with another city of your choice, as the world and national wonders built in other cities contribute GP points. I like to make my GP city one that focuses on GP types that I find to be the most valuable (great engineers -- can rush wonders, or perhaps scientists -- can create academy, rather than prophets, artists, or merchants)

National wonder: National Epic (+100% GP birth rate in city)
World Wonders:
parthenon (+50% GP birth rate in all cities)
great library (+2 scientists in city, but expires)
Statue of Liberty (+1 specialist in all cities)
synergistic civic: pacifism (+100% GP rate, no upkeep)

Continued...

 

[LabMonster]

I assume you skipped out forge because its the most obvious choice? (goes without mentioning). it is dead necessary if you're a warmongerer. Infact its probably the most useful building in the game.

 

[Dairuka]

100% agreed with Lab Monster.

Cheap Forges are the sole reason I bothered to choose Industrious as my favorite trait. Wonders are nice, but Forges are crucial.

 

[WoundedKnight]

Some buildings I like to build everywhere, whereas others I build only in specialized cities, or in any city when there is a natural opening. Buildings I like to build as much as possible include:

first tier:
granary
lighthouse (for coastal cities)
aqueduct
library
forge

second tier:
harbor (if applicable)
temple
theater
market
grocer
factory

The build order of course varies depending on the needs of each city, but generally I get granaries and forges as early as possible everywhere, and theaters first in conquered cities (to prevent culture flipping), and others as the situation dictates.

 

[Dairuka]

I'd build a Library in every city; Immediately after building a defending unit or two.

You can wait if you want, but even a 1 beaker production boost over your neighbor means you're getting a technology before he does.