Thread: Tactics

Only just noticed this topic. Here are a few basic pointers of my own, which I posted at Civfanatics recently.

- Build a Worker early on. It should be either your first or second build. (You might want a Warrior/Scout first if you want to explore faster, or a Work Boat first if you're on the coast and your civilization starts with Fishing.)
- Research first the technologies that let your Workers do the things you need them to do (Animal Husbandry for pastures, Pottery for cottages, Bronze Working for chopping forests, etc). Later move on to techs that improve your economy and military (and perhaps allow some new wonders, religions, or civics too).
- Don't try to go for the early religions unless your civilization starts with Mysticism.
- Don't build wonders unless you have the time for them, and then don't go after too many at once. They're useful, but they're not necessary... especially if they come at the cost of your expansion!
- Found cities so that they will have at least one food resource, and preferably several different resources available. The more the better!
- A good rule of thumb is to make sure you have 1-2 workers per city (more if there is a lot of jungle or forest to clear, or if the city is growing quickly).
- Don't expand too quickly. A good general rule is if you notice that building a new city makes you drop below 60% on the research slider, stop expanding until you can increase the slider to 60% again without a deficit.
- Build plenty of cottages, especially along rivers.
- Don't be afraid to build good relations and trade with the AI. Switching to a religion that several AI also have helps a lot in improving relations with them.
- Go to war only when you're confident that you're stronger than your opponent and can take some cities easily. Keep wars as short as possible: lots of troops pushing hard into one area all at once, rather than a slow weak stream getting pummelled by the opposition. Build lots of siege units (Catapults and the like) as well as melee (and more advanced) units.

Hope that helps.

I highly recommend going to Civfanatics and starting a thread with a couple of savegames from a game you've played at certain intervals - say 1000 BC, 1 AD and 1000 AD. Then people will be able to look specifically at your game and tell you exactly what you need to do to improve from where you are.

Originally Posted by Uchiha Obito

I'm not sure how well known this tactic is, but I find it useful for gaining stonehenge and the pyramids within the first 30 turns. [...]

I find it hard to believe that you'd manage to get both Stonehenge and the Pyramids within 30 turns. Even if you settled on Stone with an industrious civ that'd be difficult.

But anyway, as for the strategy itself, it can sometimes be okay in single player. Certainly the happiness benefit that you get from the Representation civic that the Pyramids opens up is often worth the building cost of the wonder. Stonehenge is pretty nice for non-Creative civs, as well as having an additional benefit for early religion founders (usually you'll get an early Great Prophet for your shrine).

In multiplayer though, you'd want to think very carefully before even building Stonehenge that early. If you're building some nice wonders without any defences in place first, your next door neighbour is going to think to himself, "ooh, free wonders for me!". In multiplayer, I would advise only going for Stonehenge early if you're Industrious or have Stone. Otherwise, wait until you've founded at least a second city. As for the Pyramids, you should NEVER go for them unless you have Stone in multiplayer. It's too much of an investment otherwise, and you'll leave yourself open to attack.

Originally Posted by gavwarhurst

Is it best to just get as many cities out as possible early on?

No, because that will kill your economy. As I recommended above:

- Don't expand too quickly. A good general rule is if you notice that building a new city makes you drop below 60% on the research slider, stop expanding until you can increase the slider to 60% again without a deficit.

Originally Posted by QuantumDelta

In IV the optimal number of cities for the sake of your actual individual cities, is 5, after that you begin to incur penalties as you acquire more, these penalties are exponential so just because you do not incur any penalties AT 5 cities does not mean this is the best number you can have.

I don't know where you came up with this universal figure of 5 for "optimal individual cities". At the very least, the number of cities you can build without draining a lot on your economy is a function of the map size and the distance between cities. On a duel size map, you're going to find it very hard to build any more than 2-3 cities early on without severely hurting your economy. On a huge map, you could comfortably build many more than 5 cities early on, provided the distance between them isn't too great.

Besides, the stage of the game that you are at influences things hugely as well. You may only be able to build 4-5 cities early on without hurting your economy a lot, but as you get into the later game, it pretty much becomes the rule that "more cities is always better". In the later game, a larger empire will tech faster and support a much larger military, which will in turn lead to you being able to conquer more nations easily. It's a bit of a steamroller effect.

Originally Posted by QuantumDelta

Personally I find the easiest way to beat the AI is to out culture and out tech them, for some reason I've always been extremely good at teching and maintaining my armies/nations/whatever in TBSs' and typically I am at space race level by the early 1900s on the fifth-sixth difficulty levels...
Not an easy game though, not an easy game.

When you get into the highest difficulty levels, you'll find that you won't really be able to out-tech the AI. In those situations you need to start playing the diplomacy game, and making a few buddies to trade with so you don't get left in the dust.

Originally Posted by Major.Hangover

I follow the same tactic all the way from Civ2 (yeh quite a way back)

Kill anyone on your continent so your on your own. Build as many settlers and cities as possible within the first turns.. then build up your economy when u finished with cities, by caravans, trade, etc. Finally being wealthy you can move onto the military and start to attack.

Ofcourse there was a problem if osmeone attacks whilst doing this tactic, therefore its always best to have some security in cities which will not be very costly.

This can sometimes be a good strategy, but it depends on geography a bit, as well as just how big your continent is! For instance, if there's a heap of AI on the same continent, it can sometimes be beneficial to keep several around so that you can tech trade.

But yes, in general the larger your empire the better, as long as you can support it.