Civilization V Tips

[Dog Pants]

I'm starting this as much to get some tips off you guys as anything else. I've found a few things to be handy though;

Science Victory:
This one's pretty simple - research like hell and be the first one to launch a colony ship. I've found it to be the easiest way to win because you'll be researching anyway. Currently I'm experimenting with blitzing the tech tree - progressing as far as I can into one branch then catching up quick-time with the old techs. This way you can hit key techs and enter new eras faster, and even use other civs in research treaties to catch up with the other lines.

Conquest Victory:
This is achieved by being the last civ in possession of your original capital. You don't have to be the one who took all the others' cities, only to be the last man standing. Obviously you need a decent military for this, and a good navy is invaluable too for bombarding cities. Worth bearing in mind that beating City-States isn't necessary and in fact might lead to them ganging up on you. While I've never seen one that got aggressive, they could be more useful as suppliers of resources - strategic to keep your armies growing and luxury to stop your people getting war-weary. There's probably more knowledgeable people than me about Conquest in 5punkland though, so I'll say no more.

Culture Victory
Complete five Policy trees then build the Utopia wonder. Since the amount of Culture required to earn new Policies increases by 30% with each city you have, smaller empires with populous cities work best. Obviously Culture generating buildings are essential, but some Policies increase your Culture proportionally to your Happiness, so Happiness generating buildings are good too (and also generate Golden Ages as a bonus). It's not difficult in theory, but you need to keep the pressure on all game in order to generate enough Culture and being sidetracked by a war could lead to you falling short.

Diplomatic Victory
I'm finding this one tricky. You have to build the UN, call a vote, and win by majority. The trick is to get the City-States on side, because the other Civilisations will vote for themselves. Completing their little quests is going to be the easiest way to do this, and obviously if you build the UN you get to control when the vote is initiated so you can bribe the shit out of them beforehand. Be prepared to have an effective military, as you'll be acting as Team America: World Police. Liberating a city-state from another Civ will earn you a vote regardless of how much they like you, as will liberating another Civ's capital city. Getting City-States on-side will often involve eliminating their competitors or helping them against other Civs.

[shot2bits]

one problem i seem to be having is figuring out at the start of the game which cities are civilization and which are city states

it just doesnt seem to give you much indication as to who owns anything rather than a coloured outline and a flag, but with no key to tell me who's they are

[Dog Pants]

If they have a black dashed outline and you contact a city state they're city states. If they have a two-coloured solid outline and you contact a civ they civs.

[shot2bits]

yeah id just figured out the black dashes meant it.

and id kept clicking through not paying attention to who i was running into and when so forgetting which came up with a civ screen and which ones came up with city screens and didnt think clicking through every city i could see to figure out who's they where seemed much fun

[FatherJack]

Building a city in the ice was a mistake, you can't build anything except forts, so without farms they quickly starved.

I'm generally not very good at identifying which squares (I know) contain good resources and what you can build on them. Is there some way to tell in advance, rather than my method of building a city there, producing workers, moving them to the square and seeing what it will let me build?

[Roman Totale]

If you hover over a tile it will usually identify some of the following:

Apple
Hammer
Gold

Apple is food, Hammer production, and gold is, well, gold. Sometimes it contains all three, sometimes just one. If it shows 2 apples, build a farm; 2 hammers, build a quarry or lumber mill depending upon what is already there.

Sometimes it will give you a recommendation of what to build. I've noticed early in the game it tends to recommend Trading Outposts - but I disagree. Build farms to increase the growth of your cities early on - especially if they are coastal or located along rivers.

Another tip I have picked up from the game I'm currently playing: don't go overboard creating workers and roads.

Firstly, it doesn't matter if you have an unimproved tile for several turns. Unless you're starving or going bankrupt, then there's not actually a massive rush to get it done. Focus on improving luxury tiles first, then move on to farms. You can have a farmless city for several turns before it starts to starve.

Secondly, it's a massive drain on resources. Connect cities (for trade routes) and luxury tiles by road, then leave the rest. The gold upkeep for maintaining roads is high, and you really suffer if you have a big civ. There is a policy that reduces maintenance, but it's probably not worth it by then.

Also, don't set workers to auto-improve things - they just fuck stuff up. They seem obsessed with turning farms into trading outposts, and by the time you realise what they've done, half your cities are starving.

[spoodie]

Also, don't set workers to auto-improve things - they just fuck stuff up. They seem obsessed with turning farms into trading outposts, and by the time you realise what they've done, half your cities are starving.

I found the auto workers fairly useful and I left them to it. But they do have an obsession with building trading posts. Also they kept demolishing a keep/fort I was trying to maintain on my boarder.

[shot2bits]

having a healthy supply of trading posts does seem to be a requirement if your going to go the military route as it would appear units have a gold upkeep that it doesnt mention anywhere obvious when your training the units

the problem ive found is the border expansion limit on towns is a bit small, near end game it almost horses you to create more cities just so you can get extra income as one city doesnt seem to have enough tiles for a moderate amound of food, production or gold, but more like enough for 2/3

so you can have a city with plenty of food so it grows fast and production that will churn out buildings and units really quickly, but you wont be able to keep paying all the upkeep costs for those buildings and units

or you can have a city with loads of food and gold so that you can grow and afford your army and building upkeep but then your gonna be waiting some 30+ turns for simple things to build

or you can have lots of gold and production so you can afford everything and make it fast, but everyone will starve

you would be able to balance this out with having 3 or more cities minimum and paying very close attention to what buildings you construct in each one but for someone like me who likes to try and keep it to two cities in most games it means in the last 30 years its a mad rush to any of the victory conditions while slowly watching your empire sink into poverty

this would be fine without any military units at all but i think the new AI would turn round and bum you as soon as it meets you and realises you have no army whatsoever

[Dog Pants]

Connect cities (for trade routes) and luxury tiles by road, then leave the rest.

Do you have to connect luxuries? I thought they did away with that for this version.

Also, don't set workers to auto-improve things - they just fuck stuff up. They seem obsessed with turning farms into trading outposts, and by the time you realise what they've done, half your cities are starving.

Similarly, if you're avoiding auto-improve you'll end up with loads of idle workers cluttering up the place. I tend to only have three or four who potter about building as the city expands. In late game when they're pretty much useless I either set them to auto (and have a similar problem with them converting everything to markets), or send them to sleep.

the problem ive found is the border expansion limit on towns is a bit small, near end game it almost horses you to create more cities just so you can get extra income as one city doesnt seem to have enough tiles for a moderate amound of food, production or gold, but more like enough for 2/3

I've never had that problem. I usually build pretty much everything in all my cities and have no problems. I don't generally have a huge military though.

[Roman Totale]

Tips for WAR!

If you're doing well in a fight, don't accept the enemy's first offer of surrender (unless your aim is to wipe them out completely, obviously). If you hold out for a bit longer they will make a vastly improved offer - often involving luxuries or even other cities for you to rule.

Edit: notes re Annexing and Puppeting

Puppeting a city is good. The population is less angry and it doesn't fuck up your Culture output. Word of warning though: as you cannot directly control what is being built, you may find a lot of your resources being wasted. Puppeted cities love to build factories - this means that it uses up 1 resource of coal per factory (see also Hydro Dams and aluminium). Might not seem like a great loss, but a lot of these resources are needed to build fancy units.

[Dog Pants]

You mean puppeting? They give you units every now and then too.

[Roman Totale]

You mean puppeting? They give you units every now and then too.

Good point! Fixed.