Strategies (Civ5)

Back to Civilization V

This page is used to submit and view Civilization V strategies.

Basic Concepts

Dollar Diplomacy

Early on, try to find city-states (30 gold if you meet them first, and 15 gold if you don't) and sell your Embassies to the AI for 1 gold per turn. Starting to trade with civilizations early on makes them friendlier and more likely to give you a Declaration of Friendship. And early Declaration allows you to sell your luxuries for 240 gold, instead of just 6 gold per turn, which equals only 180 gold (differs on slower or faster speeds). Always start your game by building at least 2 Scouts on big continental maps and fewer on island maps to explore adequately.

Citizen Management

In the early game it's most important for your city to grow. Lock your tiles on food and set your city to Production. When a city grows the new citizen will automatically work the highest production tile and you will get the benefit on the very same turn, because food is consumed first, then the city grows and all the production and gold is used. If you left your city on Food production instead, the new worked tile would go to waste. Lock down your citizen on a food tile for following turns.

Optimal city placement and how to expand

The perfect city placement needs (in order of importance):

• river (extra  Foodon farms next to river with Civil Service and the ability to build Watermill and Garden)
• placed on a hill (1 extra Production at the start of the game and extra defensive stats)
• at least one luxury
• mountain (requirement for certain Wonders and Observatory)
• sea (if there are fish nearby, or your cities are all coastal for feeding them with Cargo Ships)

While producing a Settler your city cannot starve, which allows you to set every tile to production and gold generation. 3 Food Food counts for 1 Production Production in Settler production. It also cannot grow, which is why you shouldn't produce Settlers before level 4, because it will take too long to build a Settler, if it's only level 2 and you will be behind other players. 

Your expansion should be located next to luxuries you don't have or if they are an extremely good strategic position for further conquest. You should always aim at least for another luxury. Settle directly on a luxury to delay the need for a Worker early (the city automatically works it with the appropriate tech), especially when going for a multiple city expand. 

Religion

Religion is not a win condition, but helps you achieve cultural victory, because tourism has a greater effect with civilizations sharing your religion. If you want to have a strong religion game, you need to pick a civilization that has a religious thematic (such as Celts or Ethiopia) or have a city with a lot of workable desert tiles (oasis and hills) while rushing the pantheon Desert Folklore (each desert tiles produces 1 faith).

Great early game faith generation allows you to fund the first religion granting you access to all religious beliefs available. Generally, you want to fit the religious beliefs to your playstyle but the best are Tithe (for Gold generation), Pagodas (buildings purchasable with faith that grant happiness), Religious Texts (faster spread of your religion) and Jesuit Education (can purchase scholarly buildings with faith). If you can't pick those, get some that fit with your overall plan.

Basic tech order and bulbing

Every win condition requires you to have a good science game. More science gives you more advanced units, better cultural buildings, better chance at more advanced wonders, etc.

First thing you need to do is get to Writing so you can construct Libraries in your cities. Then you head towards Philosophy so you can complete the National College in the city that's best suited for science (usually your capital or an expansion that's next to a lot of jungle tiles and a mountain). After that you have to get to Education to build Universities. After that go to Acoustics to reach early Renaissance and rush Sistine Chapel. If you are more interested in Leaning Tower of Pisa head towards Printing Press first. But it will delay reaching Renaissance by quite a bit.

This of course isn't set in stone. Adjust your tech order to capture the luxuries in your cities' borders and get Archery to better deal with Barbarians. If there's a lot of jungle tiles around your cities, you will need to get Bronze Working after Writing. You'll want the sailing techs earlier, if you are playing a water map. 

Great Scientist Bulbing

After you complete Public Schools or maybe a bit sooner start saving Great Scientists. After you complete Research Laboratories in most cities increase your Science production to the max for 10 turns (employ all specialists, set cities to Science production). After those 8 turns are up, bulb all your available Scientists for free technology advancement. You get more science this way because bulbing Scientists adds an average science production of the last 8 turns (differs on different game speeds). 

Great Writers Bulbing

Bulbing Great Writers work the same as Scientists - you get the max return after 8 turns of cultural production. Ally all cultural City States, max out culture in all your cities, win at the World Fair and start a golden age with you Great Artist. After 8 turns start popping your Great Writers.

Opening Strategies

Early game is the most important part of Civilization, because if you fail early, you won't ever be able to win. The following are tested openers at least on Immortal difficulty (unless stated otherwise). Here is a civilizations tier list . They should all work on difficulties below that where they will be even more efficient. Click the expand button to open a strategy.

Strategy for duel maps with lots of AI players

More then a complete strategy, because as always there are more possible ways how to play and win a game in Civilization V, there are some very useful tips to play on very small maps. Best if you have a lot of AI enemies, like 7 or more (you have to add them in the advanced settings when creating a single player game).

1) Start with a good civilization/leader for small maps.

Good leaders: Pocatello (Shoshone), Washington (America), Gandhi (India), Ramesse (Egypt), Ahmad Al-Mansur (Morocco), Maria I (Portugal), Gustavus Adolphus (Sweden), Enrico Dandolo (Venice), Nebuchadnezzar II etc. Simply pick a leader, who is good to combine with tradition. Pocatello is absolutely great for this, because of his extremely quick land grabbing.

Bad leaders: anyone specialized a lot to play with city-states, like Alexander (Greece) or Ramkhamhaeng (Siam) or warriors like Genghis Khan (you will be a warmonger too soon on extremely small maps).

2) Trade caravans are great. And you have a lot of them soon. It is very important, because you need gold to not only buy buildings/units from time to time, but also to buy important land tiles with strategy/luxury resources.

3) you can trade luxury resources, but do not expect much. On small maps, only from time to time there is a chance to switch resources. So you must trade additional luxury resources for gold coins. On the other hand, even AI players with one city will gladly buy A LOT of iron, horses etc.

4) If possible, build cities on coastal tiles. Maps like donut or oval are great for this type of game.

5) The most important part - trade your ambassy to enemies, so you have a few coins from the start. Try to get technologies like writing and civil service quickly. Also, trade your borders for 50 gold. From 10 enemies, it is 500! Use them wisely.

6) Creating wonders is important. If you are able to get the best tiles, then you can build a lot of them. And to get the best tiles, building like monuments, ampiteaters and pagodas. Also, use gold from selling ambassy or open borders to buy workshop, windmill or other buildings that allows you to improve your production.

7) If you made a religion soon, try to build misionaries soon and spawn that religion. On small maps, if you convert two other cities, others will (relatively soon) follow as well.

Infinite city sprawl

Multiplayer religion ics

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501527

Dido

You have to play a map with a lot of water for lots of coastal city locations. Get the +2  from city connections pantheon, fill out Liberty and the first few policies in Exploration, only found coastal cities, go Order. Each city will start with 4 , 3 , and 1  which is huge in the mid-game. Each city only costs 2  to found, due to the immediate 1  from harbors and 1  from the city connection. Also, every city will immediately get the +25% boost from railroads as soon as you research the technology, which is really nice. ICS Carthage is one of the most fun playstyles in the game in my opinion.

Hanging Gardens + Petra on Immortal

Difficulty	Map
Immortal	Desert start bias

This strategy guarantees getting classical wonders Hanging Gardens and Petra on Immortal difficulty. You will be behind in Science a bit, but it should kickstart a great capital city. The free Caravan from Petra will help with extra beakers from more trade routes with more advanced Civilizations. The Great Engineer point from Petra combined with the free Garden guarantees an early Great Engineer, which you should implement into your plan after you finish this stuff.

Build order
			Granary
Archer

Since a desert bias is fantastic for the belief Desert Folklore, you want to start with the Shrine. You can skip Monument and use Legalism to get it for free. It will delay your policies a bit, if you don't find a culture Ancient Ruin, but it is not an issue. There will be small window of time where you can't produce anything in the build order, use that time to put a couple of turns of hammers into a Worker or Caravan.

Technology order

You have to beeline Currency, otherwise you risk an AI getting Petra. You have more time, if there are no other desert starting bias Civilizations in the game, but don't delay it too much. It's worth getting Masonry, if you have Marble, because its passive bonus speeds up production of classical Wonders. If you hit a science Ancient Ruin and you get a needed technology, squeeze in Writing for Libraries.

Social policy order
Tradition	Legalism	Aristocracy

Nothing too complicated here. Start Tradition, get Legalism for free monuments and then Aristocracy to speed up Wonder production. After that complete Tradition and transition into your mid game plan.

Religion

Desert Folklore is absolutely essential. You will have a lot of Faith generation early and you'll be able to secure a good Religion. Pick beliefs according to your overall game plan.

Babylon (rushing Great Library and Science Victory

Requirements for rushing a Great Library - 3 food tile from lvl 1 - hills, preferably uncovered

In any type of map, choosing Babylon as your civilization will give you an amazing head start. Build whatever buildings/units you want, but make sure to set research to Pottery, followed by Writing. Once Writing is obtained (in about 16 turns), you will gain a Great Scientist. Making an Academy with the Great Scientist will generate 8 more science per turn, more than doubling it from the 6 you should (already?) have at this point. This will effectively reduce the number of turns needed for each of the other starting technologies by more than half, yielding you a great advantage in the early stages of the game.

Tested on: quick, multiplayer. (turn 23 - t1 city) (turn 25 - t3 city)

Tech order: Pottery, Mining, Writing, Calendar, pick Philosophy as your free tech.

Build order: Worker, put work into the Granary while researching Library tech, Great Library into National College. 2 Archers. Settler, Caravan, Worker.

Build order in expansion: Library, Granary, University.

Policy management: Tradition, Aristocracy.

Citizen management: grow city until lvl 4, after that it's ok to stagnate and focus only on production. Set back to growth after you complete the Great Library.

Worker managment: park it on a hill until Mining is complete and build a mine. After the mine is complete, chop down forests around your city to speed up production. Tiles inside your territory give you more production.

Warrior managment: explore until you build a worker, then move back the warrior to protect it.

Shoshone sub 220 wins

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=506043

Poland UA (4 city superpower)

Difficulty	Map
Deity	Pangaea

This 4 city opener is taking advantage of the Polish unique ability Solidarity which gives a free Social Policy when you advance to the next technological era. It uses these free policies to expand faster and more efficiently giving you a headstart. It can be used with other Civilizations but it is not as effective. It works on every difficulty and maps with enough space for expansions that have 7 tiles between them.

After this opener aim for Hagia Sophia, Pyramids, Sistine Chapel, Chicen Itza (if not Deity) and Porcelain Tower, but judge wisely, if they are really obtainable. It supports all victory types. (Note: This requires the "Brave New World" DLC.)

Build order
3	Shrine	Monument		Granary
	2	Oracle	National College

Only get Shrine if you don't find an ancient ruin with Faith or meet two religious city-states which are enough for a free Pantheon. By the time you are producing Settlers, you should already have Collective Rule social policy active. When you get to constructing Oracle, Aristocracy should also kick in. Buy an additional Worker when you have 310 gold. You can also steal one from a city-state or an enemy civilization. They spawn around turn 30.

In your expansions first build Monument, Library (buy them if you have enough gold from selling Luxuries), Caravan, Worker, Granary.

Technology order

This is the most efficient technology order for quickly jumping ages and getting the free policies. You can add Archery, if you have issues with barbarians or neighbour an aggressive civilization. By ignoring the lower part of the research tree, your Caravans will provide a lot of extra Beakers, make sure to take advantage of that.

Social policy order
Tradition	Liberty	Republic	Collective rule
Citizenship	Aristocracy	Finish Tradition.	Representation

This social policy order takes advantage of Collective rule and Aristocracy when you are actually abusing them to their fullest potential. Wait to take Legalism until you complete Monuments in all your cities. You can pick Oligarchy before it and pick Legalism with the free policy from Oracle.

Religion

Religion isn't vital for this strategy. As your Pantheon, take Fertility Rites (+10% growth) and build Hagia Sophia for your Prophet, but don't prioritize it over Oracle or National College. As your beliefs you will want Feed the World (Shrines and Temples provide +1 food) or Swords into Plowshares (15% faster Growth rate for city, if not at war). If you can enhance your religion, take Religious Texts (religion spreads faster).

Multiplayer basics

Explain how it's different with Wonders, trading, gold, etc.