Using +2 naval movement on pangaea. yuris125 of England

[yuris125]

T5

I met Florence, and got my 30g



Florence is a cultured city state. That makes it a perfect target for Worker steal, there is no reason at all to befriend a cultured CS in early game. I guess this calls for an overview of city state mechanics. This is one of my weaker areas, but I'll do my best

This is Florence's territory



Quite unimpressive. Hope there is another, unclaimed source of incense nearby. Note the tundra hill, there is tundra in the south, for now there is no reason for me to explore there. The Warrior will double-back and head east, not forgetting to keep an eye on when Florence produces its first Worker

Also, as you can see, I finished research of Pottery. I'm not getting Workers just yet, so for now I chose Writing over Worker techs. I want the option to build TGLib as early as possible

Monument will be completed next turn. I will build a Scout next, then a Worker and a Warrior in some order

[yuris125]

As we started to talk about ranged combat, I read some info on its rules. Here is the abstract:

A ranged units is able to shoot at a tile if
* The tile is within range of the unit
* There is a unit which has visibility on the tile (not necessarily the ranged unit itself)
* The ranged unit has unobstructed line of sight on the tile

For the purposes of determining the line of sight, there are two terrain types:
* Rough terrain - hills, forests, jungles, peaks
* Flatland - everything else, including water tiles

If a ranged unit is not on a hill, any rough terrain obstructs its line of sight
If a ranged unit is on a hill, line of sight is only obstructed by peaks and forested hills

Finally, there is a 4th level promotion called Indirect fire, which removes the line of sight limitation. Late siege units (Artillery and Rocket Artillery) get this promotion out of the gate

[yuris125]

OK, I tried several times to write a post on buildings, but it's not coming together. So I'll be writing about various buildings as they come into play

For now, I wanted to talk more about researching Writing over Worker techs. Culture and border expansions will also be in the mix. Earlier I was rushing through the turn report, don't think I explained it properly

Every border pop in Civ5 adds only one tile to the city territory. If you check the city screenshot I posted earlier, you will notice that the stone tile in the NE has magenta outline. This is the tile the next pop will acquire. The game determines this tile based on its own calculations, player cannot influence the selection. Sometimes the game thinks there are several tiles which the game things are of equal priority, then all of them have magenta highlight, and the tile actually acquired is picked randomly. This is a really dumb mechanic, but we have to live with it. If there is a certain tile next to your border which you want to acquire quickly, you can spend gold to buy it. The price depends on the game's valuation of the tile. In one of Civ5 paradoxes, the higher a tile is valued, the lower its price is

So in this particular case, a stone tile is going to be added to Boeing's territory at the first border pop. To improve stone, I need to research Mining and Masonry. Masonry is not a high priority tech, stone is a really weak resource. As is normal for Civ5, a stone improvement, quarry, only adds 1h to tile yield, and there are no other benefits from connecting it. So I'm not going to get a Worker just to improve the stone

I'm pretty sure the next tiles to acquire will be the luxuries in the south, and those are the tiles I want to get and improve. But right now I don't have excess gold to buy them, and it will be a few turns before they're acquired normally. So I can delay researching Mining to get Writing earlier and be able to start GLib earlier

But I don't need a Worker before I have Mining. That's why I'm going to build a Scout (it's a necessary unit anyway, priceless for finding those ancient ruins and barb encampments), and only then decide if I want a Worker or another Warrior earlier. Note that building Workers in Civ5 doesn't slow down the growth, they're just like normal units. Only Settlers eat food when being built

As in Civ4, in Civ5 borders pop when a city produces a certain amount of culture. Thus, culture-producing buildings increase the rate of border pops, which is very nice when you have to do it tile by tile. However, in general in Civ5 culture is only produced by buildings which do nothing else. Science buildings (Libraries, Universities) do not produce culture. So unlike Civ4, where Monuments are often a waste of hammers, Civ5 Monuments are helpful and cheap buildings, which are usually built in every city

In general, Civ5 buildings are designed to give benefits in one and only one area (food, production, culture, science, gold, happiness). There are several tiers of buildings for each area; each tier comes into play with a later tech, and the building from the next tier requires the one from the previous tier to be built. Culture producing buildings are

Monument - 2 cpt, 1 gpt maintenance, available at Agriculture (the starting tech)
Temple - 3 cpt, 2 gpt maintenance, available at Philosophy (Classical era)
Opera House - 4 cpt, 2 gpt maintenance, available at Acoustics (Renaissance era)
Museum - 5 cpt, 3 gpt maintenance, available at Archeology (Renaissance era)
Broadcast Tower - 3 cpt, +33% cpt, 3 gpt maintenance, available at Radio (Industrial era)

There is also a building which doesn't cost maintenance, but requires certain resources inside city's range (inside cultural borders, within 3 tiles from the city, improved) to be built, so it can't be built everywhere. This is typical for Civ5, there are quite a few of such buildings

Monastery - 2 cpt, requires wine or incense, available at Theology (Medieval era)

As you can see, in terms of the amount of culture produced per gpt of maintenance, Monument is among the most efficient buildings. This is also typical for Civ5, first tier buildings are the cheapest and the most efficient. Because of this, it is common to build first tier buildings in every city, regardless of specialisation. Monument is usually the first building in every city, to help with city expansion, and to some degree negate the increase in the price of social policies (this price grows with every new city)

[yuris125]

T6

Boeing has grown to size 3 and finished the Monument, so I guess it's time to have another look at the city



I just realised that I have a food problem. I want to grow to 4, then stagnate the growth and work two hills while building TGLib. But I don't have the food to support two hills. Farming the cow would be a solution, but Civ5 only allows to build tile-specific improvements on special tiles (and a pasture gives +1h, not +1f). Another solution is to farm one of the hills; then working cow, stone, farmed hill and mined hill give 6f and 6h, same as 2 3/0/0 and 2 0/3/0 tiles. But then I'm missing out on the gold I could be getting from the hills with luxuries. So I guess I will have to buy a grassland tile and farm it

Anyway, it's a few turns away. As you can see, I'm building a Scout now. Scout is the cheapest unit of the game, just 16h on Quick, it ignores terrain movement costs, so it's invaluable for exploring ruins and finding barb encampments. Then I will finally build a Worker

I'm 7 culture away from a social policy, and will be able to adopt the first one in 3 turns. As I mentioned before, I'm going for the Liberty tree. What do I get from it?

Every social policy tree has 5 policies. Choosing a certain tree also counts as a policy, so you actually need 6 policies to complete the tree. There is a bonus for adopting a tree, a bonus for each adopted policy, and a bonus for adopting all policies in a tree. In case of Liberty, we have

* Opener - +1 culture in every city
* Collective Rule - a free Settler and +50% to Settler production in the capital
* Republic - +1 hpt in every city, +5% to building production. Requires Collective Rule
* Citizenship - a free Worker and +25% to construction speed of tile improvements
* Representation - new cities increase the cost of next social policies by 33% less, + a free golden age. Requires Citizenship
* Meritocracy - +1 happy for every city connected to the trade network, -5% unhappiness from citizens. Requires Citizenship
* Bonus for full tree - a free great person of player's choice

Liberty is considered the strongest tree because the first two policies (free Settler and free Worker) greatly speed up expansion, and the free great person (i.e. Great Scientist) is a huge boost for research. I think I already mentioned that sometimes taking a Great Engineer and using him to build a wonder which provides a Great Scientist is stronger; but ultimately whatever you do, you should end up with a free Great Scientist

I usually adopt the policies in the following order:
1. Collective Rule - if I know where my second city will go, otherwise Citizenship first. In this game I already have the second city planned, and will take Collective Rule first
2. Citizenship
3. Republic
4. Meritocracy. Usually I don't have a trade network by the time I take this policy, but I think it's better to take a free GA later
5. Representation

It's also worth noting that Civ5 golden ages are weaker than in Civ4. In Civ5, you get +1g on every gold-producing tile, and +20% to hammers in all cities. The 20% hammer bonus is weaker than +1h on hammer producing tiles, and there is no research bonus

[yuris125]

T7

Found another ruins (good) and another copy of silver (more or less useless)



The city of Boeing after border pop, with tile prices displayed



Yeah, I definitely can afford to buy a grassland tile

[yuris125]

T8

The ruins gave me 16 culture - more than the cost of the first social policy. This result is as good as it gets. At the beginning of the turn, I was at 11/15 culture towards the first policy. With the bonus, it's 27/15. Next turn I will open the Liberty tree, and will be at 15/20 towards the next policy. Just two more turns, and I will get the free Settler

[kalin]

Yeah, I definitely can afford to buy a grassland tile

But why would you?
Kalin

[Commodore]

So you can farm non-freshwater grass? Wut?

[yuris125]

You can farm anything except tiles with non-wheat resources

I guess this calls for a post about how food works in Civ5. As usual, food is used to support city population. Every citizen eats two food, excess food goes towards growth. However, the amount of food required for growth is very different from previous Civ versions

First of all, farms. Every farm gives +1f to a tile; riverside farms get another +1f at Civil Service (early Medieval tech), all other farms, as well as plantations and pastures, get +1f at Fertilizer (late Renaissance)

You need just 10 food to grow to size 2 (all numbers for Quick speed). Then it starts to increase very fast. For the next two sizes the amount of food for growth is increased by 6
* 16 for growth 2 -> 3
* 22 for growth 3 -> 4
Then the increase becomes even faster
* 29 for 4 -> 5
* 36 for 5 -> 6
* 44 for 6 -> 7
* 52 for 7 -> 8
etc.

So you can get by with food surplus of 2 to grow to size 4, but then you need ever increasing food surplus to keep growing reasonably fast. It's difficult to get it from tiles alone, and there are other ways of obtaining food

One way is well known and discussed at length, it's maritime city states. Every maritime city state you befriend provides +2f in the capital; if you become allies, it gives +3f in the capital and +1f in other cities. However, it's quite expensive to maintain relations with city states, and gold is much harder to get in MP than in SP. I don't think I will be getting food this way, but we'll see

There also are food-producing buildings

* Granary - +2f, +1f from wheat, banana and deer tiles (even if they're not improved). 1 gpt maintenance, available at Pottery
* Water Mill - +2f, +1h. City must be built on a river. 2 gpt maintenance, available at The Wheel
* Lighthouse - +2f from fish tiles, +1f from other ocean tiles. City must be built on a coast. 1 gpt maintenance, available at Optics
* Aqueduct - 40% of food is carried over after a new citizen is born. 1 gpt maintenance, available at Engineering
* Hospital - +5f. Requires Aqueduct. 2 gpt maintenance, available at Biology

In general, it's quite difficult to grow cities. I don't think I had a city larger than size 8 in my test games

[yuris125]

But why would you?
Kalin

Because I can't work two hills otherwise