[R&F] Your Best Little Strategies

BTSeven7

Chieftain
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Jan 3, 2017
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I find a lot of great little tips and strategies peppered through out these forums, but Man do I have to dig through some long posts for some one line suggestions. There are some great macro strategies and ideas that require lengthy topics but I thought it would be cool to here some one or two line ideas that people go to in almost every game. Might be a simple use of a policy card at a given time, your early build order and specifically why, or anything you seem to do on a consistent basis that you feel pretty smart about!

I know we have the big ones like, steal settlers early, conquer your neighbor or at least a few cities, save some trees and chop wonders with Magnus, well until the patch, just always chop with Magnus.

Here are 5 quick ideas that I consider important to me, obviously some are situational to whatever victory type I am going for.

1. Always build a scout second and explore with purpose. The exploration eurekas and goody huts are too valuable. Emperor and below.

2. When going for science victory or insane production build lots of IZ within 6 tiles of your production city so in the late game Magnus gives the IZ bonus effects from all of them.

3. I love a close ally in the late game. Policy card for globalization +5 production and diplomacy +4 production with ally on trade routes make for crazy space project production.

4. On religious victory for King or Emperor I always go for religious combat modifiers in policy cards and promotions. Killing the other civs religious units is the best way to spread religion to a tough civ with strong religion.

5. Antananarivo is my favorite city state. The 2% per great person on emperor and below keeps my culture up when I am going for space victory and makes it crazy high when I am going for culture. I personally almost always consider it the most important CS when I see it in game and I am not going religious victory (Yerevan for RV).

Okay maybe more than two lines but hopefully you guys get the idea. There are so many useful little tips out there that would be great to add to my strategies.
 
I’m not sure no 2 is a good tip if it’s about speed and efficiency
Here is a random list about as useful.

12. Always consider flanking and support for every attack.
34. Looting with scouts is underrated
7. Settling on a luxury is better than settling on a hill
56. Pantheons are as good as religions are bad
25. An early horse is worth a kingdom
10. A close City state should be a good mate
14. Amani has nothing to do with luxury clothing.
1. Chopping is better than shopping.
32. Warmonger points are a measure of sanity.
17. The best time of day is knight time.
19. Going for gold is not always great.
48. GOTM turns mice into men
15. Causing a scandal is invaluable.
 
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I always try as hard as I can to make Friendships with my neighbors, so I can rest worry free for no chance at surprise wars.
 
Plan for eurekas you’ll need. That discounted encampment with barracks and armory building a military engineer might be worth it to save time.
 
Some of these are fairly straightforward. But as they say, the fundamentals are fundamental.

1) Early build order for my Immortal/Diety Games: Slinger -> Builder -> Settler. Slinger is for defense and archer tech eureka, builder is for eurekas and production, settler is 3rd because you will have the pop/production at that point to get settlers out reasonably fast.
2) Check your neighbors before you start an early war. Rome is a bad target to go after in the classical era. Legions are scary.
3) Terrain is also important in an early war. A city surrounded by hills and forests is a lot harder to take than one on open flatland.
4) Send a delegation & trade open borders as soon as you can for good relationships.
5) Great Works are worth an obscene amount of gold to the AI the turn they are created. Any turn afterwards they lose a lot of value.
6) The diplomatic visibility spy mission only increase DV while the mission is active. Once the mission completes your DV goes back down. This is different from how the other spy missions work.
7) Settling on plains hills gives your city center 2 food & 2 production. It's 2 food & 1 production on most other tiles.
8) Settling on a luxury grants you that luxury and gives your city a free tile which can be used to build wonders/districts.
9) When rushing to build a wonder or some other building that has a high production cost, send all trade routes from the city that is doing the building to another city that gives high production. You can shave a lot of turns off the time it takes to build it.
 
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12. Always consider flanking and support for every attack.
34. Looting with scouts is underrated
7. Settling on a luxury is better than settling on a hill
56. Pantheons are as good as religions are bad
25. An early horse is worth a kingdom
10. A close City state should be a good mate
14. Amani has nothing to do with luxury clothing.
1. Chopping is better than shopping.
32. Warmonger points are a measure of sanity.
17. The best time of day is knight time.
19. Going for gold is not always great.
48. GOTM turns mice into men
15. Causing a scandal is invaluable.

The best list ever!!!
 
5) Great Works are worth an obscene amount of gold to the AI the turn they are created. Any turn afterwards they lose a lot of value.

But isn’t that a bug/exploit? The AI giving all their lump gold and GPT for a book?

The list is btw great!
 
Things I would add:

1) use settler lens to find fresh water and other civs when exploring in the early game (red hexes are close to other cities, green are near water)

2) synergize builders/Liang/Magnus so that you: (a) put Liang in a city, (b) create a builder in that city (who will get an extra charge from Liang), (c) move Magnus to that city and use builder to chop everything in sight, (d) repeat for second city
 
When dealing with horse barbs, you want some warriors to help with slingers, especially on difficult terrain to tank their hits. Otherwise the slingers will get chewed up.

It's often a good idea to settle on a plantation luxury early game as long as it doesn't waste many turns or result in a overall worse city. Plantations suck anyways and require a out of way tech so settling on it gives immediate access to the resource.

Oh, and be flexible. Following a set build order can lead to trouble on some odder spawns. I usually open with builder first but would change if 2 barb scouts enter my town, and of course it'd be silly to build a builder if your capital is in the middle of rain forest.
 
pick a civ whose music you like, because you're going to be hearing that a painful amount before you hit the medieval era

on a serious note, this is a good thread and i appreciate it
 
Check the City States screen for available quests and go for those that are reasonable. Make sure you switch to the ”Extra envoy when earning your first” card before getting your first envoy with a CS.
 
1) Don't get discouraged when you are behind - persistence pays off
2) Early culture is far more valuable than I first realized - working those early culture tiles and purchasing or building monuments first can really pay off
3) Play aggressively - use joint wars before the AI does it and press the attack if someone is pulling away. Focus on the tech leaders if you can. Pillaging can make a big difference if you are lagging (use Raid). I especially like pillaging Sumerian Zigs for a bunch of science when beelining for an expensive tech. Pillage all zigs, take city, rinse and repeat.
4) Don't go out of your way to build marginal wonders (looking at you Petra) - this applies to Euraks/Inspriations too. Don't put off stuff you need right away because you forgot to plan for it.
5) Prebuild Quads or Frigates to 1 turn to completion in coastal cities with naval production card then switch to other things, research steel to 1 turn while building Venetian Arsenal. Switch back to boats after it's done and get 10+ ships instantly! Finish steel and upgrade them all to battleships. (Also works great with Magnus and chopping)
6) Always remember to build a battering ram
7) Great writer swarm + printing = easy culture victory (too easy I think after R&F)
 
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