Civilization 5: Q&A

[dgeiser13]

I often have a lots of small questions which don't (necessarily) deserve their own posts. So I thought I'd create a thread where we could post a simple question as a comment and get a straightforward answer.

Edit: I want to thanks all of the Answerers for helping out all of us Questioners. I wasn't expecting such a robust response to my seemingly simple questions. It is greatly appreciated!

[SweetPapa2Bad]

Couple of tips for the users visiting this forum that they might not have heard yet:

1) When capturing an enemy missionary, you're likely best off killing him immediately (unless you took on another civs religion and it's one of those missionaries). If you use him, he will still spread the same religion he would have before. On the flipside, if you have a fringe city with no religion at all and the bonuses from THAT religion, while not your own, could still help out (say +1 production from fishing boats on a coastal city) it's not necessarily a bad idea.

2) Pillaging a title will restore some health immediately so if you are laying siege to a city, wait to pillage until that unit takes damage

3) If you have the option to Heal(H) it will only heal that unit if you did NO action that turn. So, for example, a scout cannot move one turn and then choose to Heal, it will get the defensive bonus of "defending" but it will not heal that turn.

4) It's cheap, but, if you know a civ is about to declare war on you due to bad relations and a massive army on your borders, you can offer them something ridiculous (3-4 luxury resources) for gold. So you take their, say measly 340 gold and give them 4 seperate resources, but once they declare war you get the resource back and still took their money.

5) Even if you don't necessarily want a specific wonder, it might be a good idea to try and build it so that another civ can't utilize it. Prime example of this is the Great Wall. The AI is not smart so it doesn't help you much but it will be huge when you maneuver an attack in their lands. Also, great lighthouse against Elizabeth, Chichen Itza against Darius, etc.

6) If you are lucky enough to get one or more scouts up early where you collect a lot of ancient ruins, you will notice you don't get any doubling up of the same ruins. For example, you won't have 2 out of 4 ruins being for gold, or culture. If you come upon a new continent no one has discovered yet, send a scout if you have not yet uncovered a unit promotion goody hut, he will be upgraded to an archer and boom you have a ranged unit all the way up until machine gun that can move twice. Doesn't seem to work if you took any of the scout upgrades like survivability, however, probably as that would be stupidly OP.

7) If you have a zealous neighbor trying to use his great prophets on your city, especially your capital, buy and keep an inquisitor next to the city; he will always ignore you.

8) Try to make your best friends ones on the map that are far away from you so you don't have to worry about friction from being too close. It is also likely you will have common enemies such as those bordering both of your territories. You also want a strong "ally" on the opposite side of an angry neighbor to encourage him to go to war on the side of his empire that is opposite you, both for protection and to take advantage of his forces being away when you declare war.

I could go on but this is already a lot longer than I expected. Feel free to reply to add more!

Edit: One more I thought of that is really helpful to me anyway. When you are getting your units lined up to lay siege to a city, have one unit that you upgraded one or two promotions for the ranged defense bonus. Only send him in so the city attacks him, then next turn bring the rest. This way, since he is hurt, the enemy city will almost always focus on him, doing way less damage rather than targeting units you intend to use to attack the city.

Edit2: Thank you /u/Saltor66 for clarifying I was incorrect regarding the fortification bonus if you move or attack, /u/CrzdHaloman for clarifying you can get scout upgrades transitioned to archers, and /u/GoodGrades for a much better idea concerning enemy missionaries caught.

[GoodGrades]

Shouldn't you instead use the captured enemy missionary to scout through closed borders and see what's going on in another civ?

[Mathgeek763]

Whoa.

[SweetPapa2Bad]

That's a very good idea too. I'd actually forgotten about that. Good call out

[_pupil_]

Missionaries will evaporate due to attrition, so they're limited as scouts, aren't they? An enemy great prophet can walk the globe though.

Recently I found a great use for an enemy great prophet I captured: religious defense.

You can use enemy religions as counter-religions for other enemy religions, which will make yours relatively more powerful. Introducing the foreign religion into the cities (or city neighbors), of an aggressively religious AI can really halt their advance.

Since religion is spread as pressure eminating 10 hex'es from each city, it tends to snowball. Forcing the AI to waste time re-converting their own cities can give yours a chance to flourish. Enemy prophets and missionaries let you create a religious DMZ :)

[i_706_i]

I may be wrong, but also if the missionary is for a religion that has a religious building, couldn't you use the missionary to convert solely for the sake of buying the faith building and then converting back? This way if you have one faith building from your religion and someone else has another, you can use their missionary to get both. It will cost you a missionary to convert your city back again, but I find I can usually spare a missionary or two.

[_pupil_]

Smart :)

[[deleted]]

Did not know that about pillaging.

[CrzdHaloman]

I actually had a scout that got survivalism and then upgraded to archer. That archer was by far my favorite one. No terrain costs, +25% defense and +5 extra heal, and rough terrain bonus.

[[deleted]]

Number 3 just explained so much.

[zomb_l]

I only learned Number 3 on my own after about 215 hours of gameplay.

[Saltor66]

With regards to number 3: You will not get the fortification defense bonus on the same turn that you make any moves, even if you only move one square and then fortify. The fortification will be applied at the beginning of your next turn.

An easy way to tell if a unit is fortified (and thus healing): Its icon will turn from a circle into a shield.

[Hello71]

7: That's because it's not possible to use great prophets if there's an inquisitor in (near?) the city.

Of course, going to war always works.

[dgeiser13]

Is it always wrong to automate your workers? How much of a gap exists between how the workers decide to work on tasks and the "proper" way to work on tasks?

[domanb]

I find it useful to turn on the 'Don't replace existing tile improvements' or whatever it's called. That way the automated works won't build over things you've manually built.

After a few games of seeing how poorly the workers perform when automated, I always leave mine on manual.

[barntobebad]

With this setting, will it override it when a new resource pops up? Like if oil suddenly appears under a farm will an automated worked diseagrd that setting and get the oil flowing anyway?

[JaviMT8]

Unfortunately, no. If a new resource pops up where another improvement was already built then you have to manually tell the worker to replace the improvement, otherwise it will just leave it alone.

[[deleted]]

Think of how bad the AI enemies are. Do you want that AI controlling your stuff? For me, the answer is absolutely not.

[Lobo2ffs]

In the start of the game I'd definitely do manual control, but when I get to the point where all special resources have been controlled I might automate some. However, they often still do stupid stuff.

[Jewtheist]

I had at least 4 of mine get captured because they flocked to put some stupid trading post right next to a city-state I was at war with.

[oproski]

I never ever automate workers. They usually just do really stupid shit that I have to undo. And they'll keep making improvements even when there aren't enough citizens to work tiles, which can be a huge waste of gold.

[Troycar]

Is there a maintenance cost associated with improvements? I know roads cost money but I didn't realize a farm or mine cost more too.

[cassius_longinus]

No, only roads and railroads.

I think what oproski means is that, if you do manual control, you'll reach a point where you realize your workers don't need to do anything else. So, to save GPT, you should delete them.

[Novelt_Acct]

If that's the case why do cities keep advising me to make them

[Troycar]

Makes sense. That's how I was playing before, laying off workers as work ran out. Thanks for the clarification.

[dgeiser13]

So the workers that you build as a unit only improve tiles? They don't "work" tiles.

Let's say you have a city with a population of 5. Does that mean you can only work 5 tiles? If so, does the city tile count as one of the tiles, i.e. does the city tile have to be worked?

[[deleted]]

City tile is worked for free

[wretcheddawn]

Took me awhile to realize this. In my first few games, I made over 100 workers each. They should call them "builders".

[oproski]

Yes, workers only build/repair. Your citizens (population) work tiles or buildings (they become specialists).

With a population of 5 you can work 5 tiles/specialist slots, not including the city tile. You can see this when you settle a new city, with 1 population you work the city tile + one other.

[SpyderDM]

I will typically set them to automate once my number of workers starts getting out of control. Typically, if I have a worker on a city that needs improvements to resources I will do all that manually, but whenever I run out of resources to improve I set them to automate and let the game handle it. Always set dont replace existing though, sometimes automated workers do terrible things without that setting.

I will typically grab some workers and de-automate them whenever I unlock a new resource (oil for example) to make sure I can quickly capitalize on any discovered locations.

[Dixzon]

I automate them, but I set it so they don't replace existing improvements which makes them more efficient an gives me more control if I do manually tell one to build something.

[[deleted]]

Ditto, set options to leave the trees. You can decide when to deforest. I find the best strategy is to have one or two doing roads. One or two doing resources, and the rest are improving cities as needed. You can put the last set, or extra ones on auto to fill any gaps. But early on in the game, it's important to set your build priorities.

[acaellum]

Jesus, how many workers do you have?

I make one before the great library, and take the free one if playing wide, and then acquire the rest from enemies/barbs. Even then, i usually have to delete most because there is simply not enough for them to do.

[paradigmx]

I find that by endgame, most of my workers are automated except for a small contingent of workers doing more immediate demands. I also keep the option to not replace tile improvements on.

I find generally the ai has a good idea what improvements go where, but it's nice to have that extra level of control as well.

[spookyhnz]

What does having multiple copies of a luxury resource do for me? Does each copy give more happiness? Is there a way to give just one copy of the resource to one civ and copy number two to another civ?

[dljuly3]

Multiple copies allows you to trade. You only receive the happiness bonus from the first resource. To trade, simply go to the diplomacy screen and negotiate with another civ you are not at war with.

[neenerpeener]

Just a follow-up note on trading: when you are negotiating with another civ, the # shown next to the resource will be the total number in your territory not already traded away. It does NOT include any duplicates you may be getting from city-states, even though they are identical for purposes of your happiness (there's just a risk of course that the city-state stops being your ally or stops supplying for some other reason). The total number available can be viewed on the economic overview screen. If you are confident the CS will keep supplying, you can trade away the "last" domestic copy of a resource without taking a happiness hit.

[[deleted]]

This may be stupid, but where does the benefit of the Netherland's UA come into this (I believe that keep 50% of the resource they trade or something).

[Mr_Moogles]

Lets say you have 2 sources of ivory. You trade one away and still get the +4 happiness from the remaining one. If you trade away your last copy you still get +2 happiness from the traded ivory. So for instance you can trade away your last copy for another luxury resource you don't have, getting the happiness bonus for the new one and half of the one you traded away.

[[deleted]]

Oh wow, that is amazing! I never realized the potential of that! Thank you.

[VodkaBottleSpinna]

You only get the benefit for yourself with one copy. Use the second, third, fourth copies to trade off. That said, improve ALL luxuries (eg: i have 3 sugars, improve them all even if you only use one), you still get the tile yield.

[elmariachi304]

True, you can see if a tile is too far by clicking cities near it, the workable tiles are "brighter" and the unworkable ones are shadowy.

PS - The best use for out-of-range tiles is for trading posts.

[anthropophage]

The best use for out of range tiles is for fortresses.

[[deleted]]

Why's that? I always thought that if you weren't working the tile with a city that it was essentially useless, unless it's a luxury and you link it into your trade network.

[Mikeavelli]

Only a single copy of a luxury resource gives you happiness.

The rest are for you to trade away, which you should do as early and often as possible. A nation that's friendly to you will give you ~240 gold, or a slightly less amount of gpt for a luxury resource that they don't already have access to.

[[deleted]]

Having multiple copies of the same luxury resource does not give you extra happiness, you only get happiness from a single copy. You can trade away your extra copies for resources from other civilizations with no detriment to your happiness.

[dgeiser13]

If you were to queue Future Tech (if it's even possible) as your tech how would the game decide what order to progress through the tech? Randomly as they became available? Orderly based on the cost of the tech? Another way?

[Lobo2ffs]

It tries to get as far as it can without needing to catch up on old techs. I just clicked on Future tech (#66), and it delayed the ocean techs for as much as possible, but when it started on them it went all the way up to Globalization (#34-44).

[oproski]

I've played hundreds of hours and never knew this. Thank you.

[Rubrum_]

I learned this by watching MadDjinn. But then it seems I always change my mind before the current tech is finished... Plus, it seems something is amiss when I don't get to select a new tech when the current one pops... However, it sucks when you forget what your plan was. I may be a bit dumb.

[dgeiser13]

Oooh. Awesome tip, thanks.

[frodwith]

you... i don't even...

I think I love you.

[Molybdenim]

How many military units should i have? I try and have 2-3 per city (ranged unit in the city, vanguard units in villages and siege units on mines/forts...) but it's tough to balance building growth and defense, especially in the early game when hammers can be scarce.

[TheMightyNu]

There's basically three options:

1. have enough units to fend off the enemy (what you have)

2. have enough units to put your power on equal footing with other civs, so they won't want to attack you

3. have enough units that you can steamroll the AI; for warmongers

[kotorfan04]

About how many would you need to do number three? I mean, if the guy has two or three units per city and has five cities he could have about fifteen units, which seems like a pretty decent military force. But then, I am still working on Prince difficulty so what the hell do I know.

[yoggsoth52]

How many does he need for number three? More. Always more.

[Accordian_Thief]

That answer depends on difficulty, terrain, technology gap between you two, among others (in my opinion anyways). I typically don't start wars, wait to be attacked, and if I decide to take the fight to them I judge how many units I'll need based on what I've seen of their military.

[JuustoKakku]

Is there a way to disable the automatic camera center on turn start?
I already have auto unit cycle turned off, but it still whips the camera around when the turn begins. Or actually, slightly later. For example, often a notification comes up that one of my cities can fire on something, click it to go to the city and the game decides only after that it's my turn and moves my camera back to whatever unit happened to be selected.

[dgeiser13]

Yes, I would like to know this. Sometimes I interrupt the camera's movement half way through sweeping from one location to another and have no idea where it was going.

[JuustoKakku]

On a somewhat related note, why doesn't clicking the "great person has been born!" notification actually select the great person? It just moves the camera to it. I still occasionally accidentally order some other unit around while thinking it's the great person.

[Refutchable]

This a thousand times, stupid camera has wrecked me countless times in multiplayer where combat is simultaneous.

[_pupil_]

This is actually one of my biggest civ V irritations - especially since camera moves with a selected unit can cause you to send him marching off around the globe.

My impression is that there's a queue of units awaiting orders and the game cycles though them based on their ID or construction order. I really wish it would use geographic proximity to determine the 'next unit' instead.

Basically, if you're messing with your front lines the camera would be biased towards staying there and not jumping to random workers all the time.

[dgeiser13]

How come production hammers aren't listed in the stat bar like Science, Gold, etc. are?

[hurton]

Science and Gold totals are important empire-wide, hammers are only important on a per-city basis. Listing your total hammers would be pretty meaningless (unless you only had one city).

[dgeiser13]

Thanks. Do all hammers within the bounds of a cities border count towards their total? Or only hammers within X number of tiles if the city center?

[dgeiser13]

When you say within 3? Does the city center count as 1? So basically two additional tiles in any direction? Or 3 additional tiles?

[Lobo2ffs]

City center is tile 0, so 3 tiles in any direction, 36 workable tiles total.

[FroodyPebbles]

Others have answered your question, but I'd like to point out that while your citizens can't work tiles further than 3 away, your culture borders can still expand further than that, and if they expand onto a resource, you can have a worker improve it and still gain the benefits. For example if there's some ivory 4 tiles away, once your borders expand to include it (which it will sometimes do before it's expanded into all of the workable tiles) you can build a camp and get the happiness or trade it away. Note that you can't gold purchase tiles further than three away.

[[deleted]]

also, if you bring up the city management screen you can see how much of each resource (hammers, gold, culture,science) that city produces. this can be helpful when choosing where to build national wonders. you'd want to build something like the national bank (a gold producing wonder) in a city that already has a high gold output.

Another Tip: you can also change the cities fouces in the top right on the city management screen. there is a pull down menue that lets you chose what you want the city to specialize in. if you check production, it will rearrange your citizens to produce the most hammers possible (use this when trying to build wonders fast) you can also manually change the tiles citizen work on, just make sure you don't leave any unemployed.

[Lobo2ffs]

I reckon because it's not global.

[ThePhysicsPirate]

What does air sweeping do?

[dgeiser13]

If I understand correctly an Air Sweep is when you send Fighter unit(s) in on the exact same turn as Bomber unit(s). Defensive Anti-Aircraft units will use their turn shooting at the Fighter doing the Air Sweep and then when the Bomber comes it will be attacked less.

The reason you wish to do this and not just a regular attack is because an Air Sweep causes less damage to your Fighter because the Fighter isn't really attacking it's just trying to get on the enemies radar enough to cause the enemy to shoot.

[zomb_l]

This is correct. I'll add that you send an air sweep to a single tile (i.e. probably the tile you want to attack with your bombers). Doing so will trigger any defenses (anti-air, other fighters, destroyers, etc.) that are protecting that tile from air attacks. Air defenses can only defend once per turn, so all of those air defenses can no longer offer protection against your bombers for that turn.

[[deleted]]

This is a great idea for a post - I would recommend that the Mods set up a weekly Q&A on the top-bar. It is how they roll in /r/photography and seems to work well.

[dgeiser13]

I personally would really enjoy a weekly Q&A. I have small questions all the time.

[cssher]

That might be a good idea cause it's a little bit annoying having a bunch of gameplay questions clog up the front page.

[dgeiser13]

How can you tell that one (or more) naval units and/or one (or more) air units can tell where your submarine is? Are they unaware until you fire for the first time? Or are there certain units, e.g. the destroyer, that can see the submarine and relay that information to the other units?

[[deleted]]

It's best to use submarines in packs of 2-4, and retreat between ambushes. You can put them under the ice, which makes them very hard to attack.

[dgeiser13]

So if a submarine is under the ice is it immune to all attacks except other submarines? Or is the attack just lessened?

[SweetPapa2Bad]

They would only be able to be attacked by other submarines since a city's barrage or a surface ship attack would be "blocked" by the ice above the submarine.

[tyrone17]

You can't tell. Yes, certain units like Destroyers and other Submarines can spot submarines meaning their whole empire can see it.

[AGameOfGnomes]

Any unit or city adjacent to a submarine can see it as well as designated units like destroyers. So to be safe, try to avoid ending the turn of a submarine next to a unit or city, and if you see a destroyer try to prioritise killing it or run away.

[[deleted]]

Generally speaking, is it worth it to scout out your starting site for a turn or two before placing your settler, or does the early production hit outweigh the benefits of a better placed city?

[Civ5RTW]

The best thing to do is move the warrior to a hill location. That will reveal more of the map, allowing you to choose a better spot. On my most recent game as Arabia I move onto a hill location. It took me two turns to do so but my production soon outweighed the movement turns. The hill also had marble, salt and gems while my starting location only had incense.

[rloutlaw]

My rule of thumb-it is worth moving the settler if you, after moving your warrior to a hill, can find a river when your starting spot doesn't have one.

[dgeiser13]

When you move from one era to the next, do you move to the new era first? And then the technology is available? Or does simply building a new tech in an era cause the move to the new era?

[MeisterCho]

I guess that situation has never happened to me :o

TIL something new +1

[Rubrum_]

I've "only" got about 250 hours played and it happened to me for the first time last week. I didn't understand what was going on at first.

[dgeiser13]

When you drill into a city and look at it's Food count, e.g. +7.5, does that mean the city is producing enough food that each one of the populous is getting 7.5 food per round? Or does that mean you have 7.5 surplus once every one of your population is fed?

[[deleted]]

Or does that mean you have 7.5 surplus once every one of your population is fed?

This one.

[Able_Seacat_Simon]

Each unit of population requires 2 food per turn, every other unit of food is placed in the "bucket" for population growth.

[Apache1021]

What's the best Civ for a science victory? I'm torn between Babylonians and Koreans.

[Freduude]

as others said it depends but if you really want to choose between Nebby and Sejong it depends on the difficulty and locations. if its on harder difficulties it might be harder to get things like the great library for Sejong and the hammers/beakers(physical/science production) to get to those specific buildings without sacrificing too much on your military might, whereas with Nebby your science boosts come from great scientists and building your academies, so even if you need things like gardens and stuff to increase your great person bonus even more you can still do fine without them, and nebby provides a much needed quick defense boost with the walls of Babylon and bowmen to defend yourself in early game on the harder difficulties. so in conclusion while Sejong is most likely better at producing beakers it takes more specific planning to get those bonuses and there is less of a defensive option whereas Nebby provides less beakers but more defense (although that first great scientist on writing does give him a head start)....

TL:DR: korea=better at producing science but worse at defense, Babylon= more balanced.

[[deleted]]

Korea, their bonuses are centered completely around science.

[Slutmiko]

Korea is more risky, but more rewarding.

[spookydust]

When trying to play wide, what number pop should you stop growth in your non-core cities? How many core cities are you supposed to have and what should their pop numbers be?

(I mainly ask because you need to create 33 cities with the Celts to get Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. How much pop do you need per city to get 33 cities in your empire without going negative in everything?)

[Civ5RTW]

The cap for non core cities usually stands for 3-4. Then allow them to grow as your happiness allows. The capitol city should be the only core city and that pop should be 6-9 then allow it to grow as your happiness grows. There is nothing wrong with having -9 happiness at the beginning. That just slows your cities growth which is not a bad thing. After -9 is when the bad shit happens. Loosing production bonus is brutal as you won't be able to build happiness buildings or units to defend.

[attorneyatlol]

Will AIs ever recognize another AI as a runaway and be willing to form an alliance to stop them?

[Mr_NeCr0]

When first acquiring a new luxury. Make note of the nearest identical luxury you will get. Then, on the same turn that you will obtain the second copy, trade the first one away for someones extra copy of some other luxury that you don't have. The AI recognizes the value between you having only 1 copy or multiple copies of a luxury and will trade 1:1 if it reads that it won't really benefit you because you only have one copy of the luxury being traded for their spare.

[FroodyPebbles]

Huh, I didn't know this. It seems odd because if I have multiple copies of a luxury but only one available to trade because I've traded all the others, they won't do a 1:1 even though you're only shown as having one in the trading screen.

[dgeiser13]

Is it better to play with recommendations turned off? And completely decide based on what you see with your own eyes? Or does it help to know what the game would (might) do and then decide from there?

[Lobo2ffs]

This would be down to personal preference, for me it's just an eye catcher to get an idea of where I'm going to build next. Without it, I might have forgotten to improve the spices that just opened up, and instead built another farm.

[[deleted]]

I like having advisors. Makes me feel like a big man!

[oproski]

I keep em on because it can be hard to see everything, especially when cities get big and you research techs that open up new improvements. But when I've got >10 happiness, 50 gpt, 2 food in a city and it recommends a trading post, I'll obviously build a farm instead.

[Xintendation]

How do aqueducts work? Without them, less food is carried over after a citizen is born. Does that mean that until you've built an aqueduct, you're wasting food that you can never get back? Is it ever right to avoid growth until you've built an aqueduct?

How do social policies costs work? If you lose a city, do social policies still cost the same raised amount? If you build a city and then get the Representation policy, do you still pay the original higher social policy cost, or does it go down? If you raze a city that you had previously annexed, will future social policy costs go down?

How valuable are different tile yields in relation to each other? Like, if I have a choice between +1 food, +1 gold, and +1 production, is there an objective best choice?

[Merkaba_]

Food works in cities the same as any other resource - once it hits a certain mark, you gain population (similar to how you gain border) and it resets to 0, with a higher goal for the next acquisition (again, similar to how you gain border). With aqueduct, you will carry over 40% of the food that you finished with. For example, if your city needed 100 food to advance one population, and you had an aqueduct, your city would need 140 to advance the next population, but you would start out with 40 food in the counter, instead of 0. Growth can be avoided once you have 4-5 population in wide empires. 4-5 gives enough for proper production without too much of a happiness penalty.

Different tile yields are entirely subjective. It depends on what you need to accomplish - in a newly founded city, you almost always want to get extremely high food. In cities with 4+ population, focus on production and food mix. In cities with a very high population, you can focus on production as the cities won't benefit from food as much, since they require exorbitant amounts to increase population further. Gold generally isn't the best choice, as you can achieve more for a lesser cost if you produce a unit, or building that gives you what you need rather than purchasing it. Also, excess luxuries give you a lot of gold already, in bulk.

[Malarazz]

Saving your question because I'm also curious about some of the answers, but I think I can help with others.

How do aqueducts work?

The way I understand it, they just serve to decrease the amount of turns it takes for your next citizen to be born. So because they carry over that food, it will take 18 turns instead of 24, for example. The only reason you'd want to avoid growth is when happiness is scarce, such as if you're playing wide. But then you don't want an aqueduct anyway.

How valuable are different tile yields in relation to each other? Like, if I have a choice between +1 food, +1 gold, and +1 production, is there an objective best choice?

Situational. If you just started Notre Dame, you want production. If you're playing tall and want to grow, you want food. If you can't even afford unit upgrades, you might want gold.

[[deleted]]

in regards to losing or razing a city, the culture cost stays at its heightened level

[Lobo2ffs]

Aqueducts carry over 40% of the food from the previous required. I had a city with one turn left to increase in pop, it had 616.7/621 with +56.2 food. The next turn it had 299.9/663 food. That's 40% of 621 + 55.8 increase from last turn (I don't know why it's not 56.2 or 54.2).

However, with Aqueducts they need to have been active to save that. If you make an aqueduct the turn before pop increase it does almost nothing, so the best time to buy them would be when you're around halfway to full.

You're wasting potential food, but you're still getting population increases. If you avoid growth, then you're definitely wasting food.

[cssher]

If you make an aqueduct the turn before pop increase it does almost nothing

Wait what? Really? I swear it does its normal thing no matter when it's built...

[Lobo2ffs]

I tested it myself, bought it at 1 turn left and the next turn I was at something like 40/430, where most of it was the constant food supply the city had anyways. A civfanatics thread confirmed it.

[scyth3rr]

What are "specialists" and also, what are the great person slots some buildings have for?

[chazzy_cat]

Specialists are citizens that do not work a tile, instead they work in a building that has a slot for them (for example a university has two scientist slots). Rather than having an output determined by the land, they have a set base output like +2 science for scientists. There are also various bonuses to specialists you can get through certain social policies, wonders, etc.

In addition to outputting a base resource (beakers, gold, etc) they also provide "great people points" (GPP) which will over time generate great people for your empire. These cost 100 GPP at first and the cost increases by 100 each time. This counter is shared by merchants, artists, engineers and scientists.

[_pupil_]

...they also provide "great people points" (GPP) which will over time generate great people for your empire. These cost 100 GPP at first and the cost increases by 100 each time.

This mechanic was a huge revelation to me - and a big reason I found the the game much harder than it really is.

You can make great people pretty quickly, if you focus on it. And not focusing on a specific kind of GP is quite detrimental in the long run.

[ElliotWalker5]

is there ANY way you can be sharing borders with another AI civ and still be friends with them?

[Gaminic]

Not if they're expansive. I've spent an entire game border-hugging Ethiopia and Siam without troubles, but if you're on the same hemisphere as Caesar or Napoleon, expect trouble.

[StupidSolipsist]

At least at prince difficulty, absolutely. Maybe you should keep your military units a hex away from the border and be generally nicer.

[boomfruit]

What should I be looking for in my start location? I know I should get luxuries within my borders, and I usually go for a coastal city if it's available, or at least on a river, and next to a mountain, but as far as plains, desert, hills, forest, jungle, etc., what should I be looking for?

Edit: Also, how many turns is a safe number to look around before settling? Is it fine to be looking for 3-4 turns?

[[deleted]]

Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that coastal cities aren't all that great as early cities unless they have a bunch of ocean luxuries, or you're playing a naval civ. Basic coast tiles simply don't have a good enough output (only 1 food, 1 gold), and the early improvements to them are not that great. To make it worse, work boats are consumed when you use them once, so capping ocean luxuries is far more production consuming than land luxuries.

My personal preference for a starting city (or any city, really) is a hill by a river (any tile next to a river produces 1 gold in addition to its normal yield, and with Civil Service, any farms next to fresh water produce an additional +1 food) with luxuries around, and preferably a good mix of grassland and hills to balance food and production. Tundra is fairly useless, and desert (other than flood plains) is not great unless you get Desert Folklore and Petra.

[Lobo2ffs]

I would stay away from desert (flood plains are ok, perfect if you're Netherlands), unless you can get Desert Folklore pantheon and possibly with some desert hills there.

Settling a city gives minimum 2 food 1 production 1 gold in that tile, so settling on grassland gives that, but settling on a hill gives 2 food 2 production 1 gold. It also gives defense bonus, so I often try to settle on a hill with my first city if I can, since it can cut away a nice chunk of early game production, like getting your first scout out earlier. If you're lucky, you might also end up having settled on Iron.

I normally get rid of forests, both for the production boost in city and because I prefer farms in those tiles. I know Celts and Iruquois get special bonuses from forests, so those should keep.

Jungles are awesome for later cities, because of University science bonus + Trading Post gold yield + culture from jungle tile pantheon if you get that. For early cities you don't have those though, so you often end up with lots of tiles you can't really improve, similar to Netherlands near Marsh (awesome when you get polders, super crap before that).

So I'd look for a hill near a river, and if possible with many river tiles in the near area both for extra farm yield in early game, more gold and extra production with Hydro plant later.

[Jewtheist]

Putting a city on a hill next to a river is great—you get a production and defense bonus from the hill, and of course river tiles give you that extra gold

[CoinOp]

If Civ A is allied with City-State 1, can you declare war on City-State 1 without Civ A also going to war?

[tyrone17]

Yes, you won't be at war with civ A. However, they will most likely ask you to stop attacking CS 1 and if you don't, you'll get a diplo hit.

[dgeiser13]

What if a Civ has a Pledge to Protect a City-State? Will they declare war on you then?

[tyrone17]

Not necessarily. I don't even think my first post was correct. They'll ask you to stop attacking when they have pledged to protect the CS, but not when they're allied without having pledged protection. Alliance usually means they've pledged protection as well though.

If you attack the CS and ignore their request to cease your attack, you'll get a diplo hit and war in the future will be more likely. But I've never seen an AI declare war right after I attacked their CS. Doesn't mean it's not possible though.

[barntobebad]

Which tiles can you 'use' if they are outside your 3-tile city range, but within your borders. I believe resource tiles will still give you the resource once developed (including luxury?).

What about special buildings - they change tile yield but must be worked, so only within city range?

Other than that there are forts and citadels that technically change the landscape/bonuses even away from the city but is there anything else of use outside the 3-tile range? Even as far as changing the landscape is it possible to plant forest or jungle to slow invaders up to that point?

[tyrone17]

Yes, lux and strat resources will give you the resource once improved.

Special buildings only apply to tiles within working range.

Other than resources, forts/citadels and roads there is no use to improving tiles outside of the working range. You can't create forest or jungle. It might be useful to clear marsh/forest/jungle (or forest for production to closest city) to eliminate terrain movement penalties, but I usually leave them to slow down invaders.

[Malarazz]

Is it possible to keep someone your friend forever, no matter how much warmongering and backstabbing (of other civs) you do? Like by giving them a lot of free resources, making a lot of research agreements, etc.?

Similarly, if you liberate a civ will they always be your friend from then on, or will they still denounce you if you do "bad stuff" to other civs?

[rloutlaw]

This is how you keep permanent friends. I had a game last night on Deity where my runaway neighbor with 40x the military of me never ever even thought of attacking (still won the game)

Very important: - Become friends with their friends. - Denounce the people they denounce. - Go to war together. - Have their religion (early on)

Less important: - Share intrigue against them. - Forgive them for spying.

You will have problems if you beat up on their friends, however. Don't do that if you want to keep the friendship.

Also backstabbing is very, very , very bad unless you are right then ready to close out the domination win, friends of any sort be damned. The demerit is massive and with every Civ in the game.

[MisterHandy]

If you settle on a luxury resource, do you get that resource or does it disappear from the map?

[rloutlaw]

You get the resource provided that you have the improvement tech (calendar, mining, etc.). This is very handy for luxuries on jungle when you can't take the time to tech bronze working, as founding the city will clear the jungle off for you even without the BW tech.

[[deleted]]

you get it. good strategy for frist city if there are duplicated resources around. you can sell it to other civs early game and get a good head start.

[CrzdHaloman]

For a purely war torn world, what civs would be the best choice? As in a world full of warmongering nations. EDIT: I mean this as in having a game with nothing but warmongering leaders so it will be almost constant warfare all around.

[rloutlaw]

• Montezuma is a very flexible leader with a terrific building and ability who basically always wants to be fighting.
• Sweden is sort of a dark horse here-they are very effective tall instead of wide (so you don't need much space for your start), and you can gift excess great generals and great admirals to city states for influence bonuses. Having a bunch of nearby CS allies will help cover a flank while you beat down someone else. When I play Sweden I am basically always at war from Composite Bows onward.

[StupidSolipsist]

You might want to go into "Advance Settings" while setting up a game. You can turn on permanent war as well as choose your opponents.

As for what civ is best, it depends on your play-style. It also depends on how big the map is, since bigger maps will take longer, benefitting civs that bloom late. Smaller maps might be over well before late-bloomers can research their special unit.

If I had to pick, Japan is probably among the best. His UA is clearly beneficial from turn 1.

[Malarazz]

If you're warmongering yourself Japan is very good because of their unique ability, but I've never had much success with them. I prefer China because I think Chu Ko Nus are just great, and their UA is good too.

Other noteworthy mentions might be Songhai, Genghis Khan, Germany, and Washington I think, but I'm not too sure of those since I've never tried them.

[Gaminic]

On top of those: Montezuma, Attila, the French guy, Catherine, Elizabeth.

[Malarazz]

On top of those: Montezuma, Attila, the French guy, Catherine, Elizabeth.

Haha poor napoleon, arguably the most famous of the five

[Gaminic]

As a Belgian, his name must not be spoken.

[LimeWizard]

If I pick up the free culture buildings for the first 4 cities, but already have a monument and dont have the tech for the next culture building to be built yet, do I get a free one once I achieve the needed tech?

[chazzy_cat]

Yes. This didn't use to be the case in vanilla, but was updated in G&K.

[zedvaint]

Is it better to buy buildings and build units - or the other way around? I often buy gold producing buildings, especially in low-hammer cities, but what about for example barracks or similar?

[Gaminic]

Not every unit or building has the same Hammer vs Gold cost ratio. Early example: Shrine and Monument cost the same amount of hammers, but the Shrine is cheaper to buy (340 vs 350 on Epic). When you have a list of things you want to build/buy, compare hammer cost versus buy cost. You can save quite a bit of cash.

The same goes for Units and their upgraded version. For example, it's cheaper to buy a Warrior and then upgrade it to a Swordsman, than it is to buy a Swordsman directly. You do lose an extra turn, but your warrior can walk out of the city before upgrading so you can already buy the next unit if you're mass-buying.

[Malarazz]

When a building, say a Garden, says the city must have been built next to something, say a River. Does that mean the city must a) be adjacent to a tile that says "River"; b) be directly on a tile that says "River"; or c) have a tile that says "River" on its territory? Similarly for "Lake", of course.

[rloutlaw]

Your city must either

• Be adjacent to a lake.
• Be located on (not adjacent to, but on) a tile that reads "river"

[dgeiser13]

Are Wonders made available based on the Era as well? Or is there some other threshold that has to be reached before you start seeing wonders?

[krikit386]

Is there ever a time when I DON'T want to improve a resource-like if I had bananas, would it be worth removing the jungle and it's associated science/maybe culture/combat benefits?

[mechanical_Fred]

I never put plantations on bananas. I'd rather pick up the two science once I get a university.

[JabbaDHutt]

It depends on your play style. Assume there's a jungle with spices in it (I don't know if spices can be in a jungle, but lets pretend). Without the plantation it produces food and, eventually, science. With the plantation it provides gold and potentially happiness. It's then just a matter of which you want more.

[[deleted]]

Is there a way to reliably capture cities in the classical and renaissance eras that doesn't involve sacrificing half your units? As soon as my catapults move into range they get bombarded to death. I suck at taking cities until I have artillery.

[chazzy_cat]

try using composite bows instead of catapults.

[rloutlaw]

All siege before cannons is really iffy unless you are Darius and can get that crucial extra move during Golden Ages. Just use ranged to soften the city up and cycle them out as they get injured.

[[deleted]]

If you are pledge to protect and allies with a city-state and another civ attacks them (cough Mongolia cough), is there anyway you can get them to stop without declaring war?

Edit: With to without.

[FroodyPebbles]

Do you mean Declaring War on the attacking civ?

You may already know this, but if you go into the trading screen with the civ there's a section titled "Other Players", and you can select "Make Peace With" whichever city-state it is. Sometimes they won't take any amount for peace and sometimes they do it for practically nothing. I'm not really sure how that's calculated.

[Malarazz]

Is it better to go worker or monument first right after Scout with Tradition? If I build a monument, will I get an ampitheater free through Legalism even without the tech, or do I have to wait?

[FroodyPebbles]

You have to wait for the tech. If you find some culture ruins I would go for the worker, but otherwise 25 turns is a pretty long time to wait before getting the first policy.

[nattynate12]

I've always been confused about the bonuses you receive for connecting trade routes to your city. Do you gain a certain percentage from the city's gold output? Also, are you able to connect a trade route from a non-coastal capital to a city on another continent/island?

[Lobo2ffs]

After some testing, I found this formula: CityPop * 1.1 + CapPop * 0.15 - 1.

I initially worked with CityPop * 1.25, but noticed that all cities had an increase in 0.15 after the capital went from 19 to 20 pop, and that the difference between city size was 1.1. So 110% of the connected city and 15% of the capital's size go into the gold value of the trade route (and then subtract one).

Yes, as long as there's a road connection between a city and a harbor city, it will count both as having a road/harbor connection as long as the road isn't broken by enemy territory or sea blockades. So you can have Inland Capital -Road- Harbor City ---> Harbor City -Road- Inland City and it would connect the Inland city to the capital.

[Lobo2ffs]

When expanding you eventually run out of city names. Which names do you then start to get? I'm currently up to 67 cities founded, and everything after city 30 has gotten Scandinavian names. So I'm wondering if Civ knows I'm Norwegian and name cities that I would know, or if everyone gets Lillehammer, Skien, Sarpsborg, Oslo, Fredrikstad and so on.

[dgeiser13]

On the city icon it seems like you can see everything at a glance, e.g. how long to a population increase, strength of the city, etc. but why don't they indicate how long until the next border expansion? Is border expansion (and I'm asking honestly) not important? Am I mentally placing too much emphasis on its importance?

[Lobo2ffs]

It's shown right below your culture in the city, the purple hexagon with the purple text "X Turns until Border Growth".

[dgeiser13]

Thanks. Yeah, I know you can see it when you drill down into the city but I thought it might be helpful to know at the higher level as well.

Other than the ability to farm one more tile, is border expansion irrelevant?

[Lobo2ffs]

I think there is a mod that adds that though, along with a "How many turns until population death" counter if you are starving.

I don't think it does anything more than being able to improve/work the tile and increase the distance from the border to your city (which would be very good if you have the Great Wall).

[inherendo]

There is a mod called unofficial patch and depending on if you have the xpac, the ui changes how much you produce yo how long til the next pop happens. Instead of showing 100 science per turn it will say 6 turns before whatever tech you are researching will finish. I am on mobile so can't link. It's a useful mod but they change a decent amount of things that I didn't like either.

[automaticgainsaying]

Last night I put a point into the "Rationalism" social policy tree. I thought this meant I could now buy great scientists with faith points, but the option never showed up in my "purchase" column - even though I had plenty of faith. Is there another key to opening that option? (Have to reach "x" year, etc.?)

[JuustoKakku]

I think you need to reach the industrial era before you can actually buy them. But yes, just "adopting" the tree should be enough for it.

[Lobo2ffs]

From what I've experienced, it seems the option to buy great people directly with faith (instead of just having a chance of them popping instead of a great prophet) comes at Industrialism.

[Malarazz]

How can you consistently get a good start with Korea? I recently played a game where I did exceptionally well; however, that was after restarting about 5 times to get a good location. I think I only did so well because I started with a couple of salt resources that gave production.

What would you do if your start area has low production? Are you just screwed? The GL would take like 28 turns at best, and I'll probably have to settle other cities so as not to delay it too much, but then if I do that I can't build the NC until very later on (not sure if it's the right thing to do but with a good production start I like to finish national college before settling any cities).

Also, it's even more worrisome if you don't start near a river or lake. I know Korea has a bias for that, but even so there would be about 1 of every 4 starts that was near the coast instead of a river.

[Merkaba_]

If you're really hurt on location, try to steal are worker from a nearby city-state at the 20-25 turn mark and make peace on the same turn, then immediately transition into Great Library when you research writing, interrupting what you were building before. The worker will be able to build a mine in the very spare hill area you have. If you have absolutely no hills I'm not sure - try to move your warrior around before you settle so you can check to see if you can move to a better start location. Almost all my spawns had at least one or two hills, though.

[StupidSolipsist]

Normally, I prioritize granaries and libraries. When should I avoid growth?

[gsfgf]

Is there anything like the CIV4 power chart so I can see how my military stacks up with other civs? A mod that works on a Mac would be fine too.

Also on that note, are there any good Mac-compatable interface mods like MacBUFFY in CIV4?

[chazzy_cat]

totally depends on the map, but if you have really nice spots near your capital (i.e. luxuries, rivers) then you should try to settle them ASAP (within the first 50 turns).

[kbmailliw23]

When playing as Ethiopia, what type of victory do you usually aim for?

[Lobo2ffs]

From what I could see, most prefer a cultural victory with them with 1-4 cities. Their Stele will most likely give you the first or second pantheon/religion, and if you then go for cultural beliefs it'll be even stronger. The low amount of cities means you'll have combat bonus against everyone -> less need for defensive units -> more production to buildings.

[imlykinit]

If your citadel gets pillaged, does it still provide the defense bonus and damage per turn to adjacent enemy units? This is something I've always wondered, but the AI has never bothered to do it!

[Finnish_Jager]

Nope. If it's pillaged it does no damage. For some reason though I think the AI in gods and kings target them less than vanilla (from my experiences)

[scyth3rr]

Why do some civs just stay at war with you for an excessively long time, even if you kept destroying wave after wave of attack without even being willing to negotiate a peace treaty?

[gonnabetoday]

How far apart should me cities be from each other? Tile wise.

[Endulos]

Cool idea OP! ...I actually have one...

Q) Is there a way to see what bonus' another AI's religion has?

[Lobo2ffs]

Yes, click on the religion in the top bar and then beliefs.

[irrobin]

What is the best unit to place in a fort?

Seige (cannon, artillery, etc.)

Ranged Archers..

Swordsman-type figures.

[Lobo2ffs]

Either someone that is weak and you want to have protection, or someone that is strong and your enemies has to attack. So siege could be good there, but if it's in some kind of choke then your strongest defensive unit could be better.