I saw a post on here a while ago where someone asked if it is possible to get all civics and policies in a game on the route to victory (obviously disabling cultural victory). I was able to just barely get this done in 2019 AD, two turns before diplo victory (I had to be a little cheeky here and dow my own city states the turn before the last world leader vote so I didn't have enough delegates). Attached is Warsaw at the end. I did this on Prince, but I'm pretty sure it would be impossible on higher difficulties as you have to get almost all of the wonders (I missed great lighthouse, statue of zeus, mausoleum, terracotta army, and ankor wat) and also be going full culture.

For anyone curious, the strategy is to never use a single writer (take liberty finisher and pisa as additional great writers) until you have golden age (from artist/liberty policy) and world's fair going on, then pop all of them at once 8 turns after. Also you have to turn on policy saving and as soon as you have maxed out tradition + a single point in the rest for the wonders + aesthetics up to the +33% culture, stop taking policies until you finish Christo Redentor for the 10% discount.

Religion: Take the +2 faith for world wonder and prioritize gathering faith (I have 6 holy sites here), then faith buy a ton of great writers when you start popping them.

World Congress: +3 culture for world wonders is amazing but you have to ally with every single city state first or people will out vote you.

I reset until I got a god tier start (salt + coast + desert + river + mountain) and managed to sneak by in wars without making a single military unit other than a scout the whole game (would strongly recommend line of forts, when I got DoWed they helped my small army stand up to a huge Egyptian one).

Also the stockpile of great writers + necessary inquisitor will cap your military at 7 ish units allowed before you hit the too many units production debuff, so be strategic about deleting non-defensive units (knights/etc).

I’m pretty bad with mods and never know which ones are good. I was wondering what mod is the best for a TSL earth game. I play vanilla mostly no Vox pop. Anyone got any recommendations?

I’m certain that declaring war on leaders while having a declaration of friendship is the worst diplomatic modifier to get. Since it is considered as a severe form of backstabbing, you’ll be hated by every leader in the game, even if you haven’t met them. Denouncing while having friendship is not even close to severe diplomatic penalties as declaring war. The difference between both is that you’ll have permanently poisoned relations with the one leader you denounced while declaring war when friendship is permanently poisoning relations with every leader.

It's a tricky one isn't it!

R5: Just a terrible start contrasting the many wheat/salt combos

Hello, tried Vox Populi 5.2.7. as someone suggested it handles happiness completely differently

Setup

Rome (15% building bonues if it exists in capital, conquered citystates treated as allies)

Continents

Standard size

Marathon (want to see my units in action)

Contenders in order of meeting:

Same continent:

    China (early contender)

    Zulu (early contender)

    Germany (best friend for a long time)

Other continent:

    Portugal (never met)

    Russia (only briefly)

    Siam (mayor contender due city state alliances, gold income, only found it out halfway)

    Babylon (usually ahead in tech before Siam took over)

Difficulty:

Warlord (someone suggested lowering your normal difficulty)

Option:

Raging Barbarians (underestimated this, is really overkill)

Events (all kinds)

Won: Cultural victory at turn 1352

Policies: tradition, authority (to recover some culture during war), statecraft, imperialism, rationalism, autocracy

Good:

A lot more to do

    More active AI (20+ armies)

    AI will use large armies

    AI will creep up everywhere

    AI pretty times it wars to keep you busy. Make peace with one, get dow'ed by another

    AI tries to spawn rebels

AI gave me good money because I had the larged military?

Siam had the citystates and used the World Congress to slow me down. Germany used the opportunity to gain Spheres of Influence

Bad happiness leads to revolts

Appreciating worker to create roads for wartime manoeuvres

Bad:

Raging barbarians spawn immediately after destrunction and stay a pita till you can guard the camps.

Happiness is strangely managed and can fluctuate heavily. Need tu use Avoid Growth

The events are sometimes too much, mostly the same hurricanes, floods, vulcano's. There are also some fun one's like the sport events organized in your stadium.

Story:

Had to try 9 times to get a good start without getting pummeled early by China, Zulu or Germany.

Start location: jungle area with access to sea (crabs & whales)

Pathfinder / Warrior could find some ruins to the South before the barbarians came knocking



Due a previous playthrough, I knew I had to found the second city Antium North right next to Old Faitfull for science

to stop China snowballing in tech.



My pathfinder survived long enough this time to find Marble and sugar.

Placed a city Cumae guarded by hills and a mountainrange

Nonetheless the Zulu's would mounted some serious assaults, leading to a loss on a previous playthrough

Zulu's went for the nearby Zanzibar. Halted them with a row of "friendly" units.



China and the Zulu kept attacking alternately.

Somehow managed to found a religion



Got some iron so I could build legions, but the most work was done by archers

Once the Zulu's and China somewhat stabilized the South was open to place some new cities to gain a lead in population

Turn 721 Siam invades my continent

Dared to place a City on a pretty good spot at the outskirts of the empire

Turn 729

Fed up China declaring war and conquered the most important cities.

Got a vassalage for the remaining 2 cities so they couldn't do a lot of harm

Turn 768

Zulu's got a safe place guarded with mountain ranges

Finally found a way around with ships. 

Turn 774

Got bold and razed the lone Siam city next to my empire

Got lucky enough to get a beachhead on the other continent and found the remains of Portugal

Siam mopped up Russia

Had to make peace as my war train was running out of units.

Turn 828

Siam got another city near my empire in pretty the same spot

Siam started warring with Babylon, a good time to try to expand the beachhead

Turn 929

Conquered 2 more cities on the other continent. Lisbon had cacao

Wars in that age was terrible, the Siam had friendly territory bonus, anti-warmonger and their unique units:

    Siam has an unique unit the Mop with indirect fire guarded with lancers. My field guns got shredded as they couldn't fire back.

    Order: dig in with fusiliers and try to thin the enemy out with cavalry, till artillery arrives

Made peace

As soon Siam made peace Babylon saw it chance.

Made peace with Babylon, Siam started attacking Babylon and wiped them out

Turn 939

My vassal Zulu's found a free spot near my empire and founded 2 cities. Left them alone as they are way behind in technology

Turn 990

The artillery arrived, time to get those Siam wonders and luxery resources

Turn 1020

Can't make peace yet with Siam as it still controls the city-states

Time to integrate Babylon, Russia so only Germany remains independant

Turn 1038

The bugger Germany snuck in a spot to found a city interrupting a city connection, leading to the citadel wars to reclaim land

Turn 1070

Basically won, turned on growth -> big mistake. From happy to nearly revolting

Germany decided it was a good time to lauchn rebels at my capital to run amock the trade caravans

Turn 1100 till finish; gaining diplomacy favors of the remaining city states

If it's not, it's up there among my best.

This was Korea, Earth, Standard size, Prince difficulty, Quick, victory year 2050.

I began in India, focused on Science, of course. I only made one additional Korea city near, then when I got to the Hwach'a (upgrade to Trebuchet) I used them and infantry to capture every nearby city state: 2 to the west and 3 to the east.

I then focused on settling them with Courthouses, plus building and researching and road-building from there.

This put me into very early lead - already double anyone else's score - and not long later, all nearby civilizations declared war on me for the threat and the city-state takeovers. I had enough tech and troop and defense edge when they did to not only defeat all of them, but to take a nearby city or two from each, and then another city from each before I would accept peace.

I don't usually build roads early, because of expense, but with the east-west stretch I had I did, and that turned out to be key to defending against multiple attackers.

By that end of conflict, it was just build and grow to final victory.

My usual strategy is to declare war on catching spies, then take another city or two plus one more before I accept peace.

I did note right before the end that I held 38 wonders, and the next player had 5. Sheesh. I think the score had a lot to do with that, as well as crazy distributed population spanning most of the globe.

R5:
Emporer, Pangea, Marathon, huge map.
Started with America 2 turns away from this spot and now I am thinking about playing it save for religion or just go bonkers with food.
Give me your 2 cents to it

I’ll say that if you have coal in your cities or have enough faith per turn, Order is the best for achieving science victories. However, if you have a lot of gold or academies then Freedom is the best for science victories. Does this opinion vibe with anyone?

I want to know about this because I’m playing as Songhai right now on Immortal difficulty and have coal in my cities as well as a lot of faith per turn so I went Order. The issue with this is that William, who was hoarding wonders the entire game went Freedom so I’m hit with dissidents, putting me at -3 happiness right now. Bismarck, who was my long time friend, also went Freedom instead of Order for some reason, making my game slightly more difficult. Should I wait until end of declaration of friendship to kill William? I’m afraid that I might be damned to diplomatic hell if I do so.

First time I'm seeing this. Antwerp was allied with Alexander, Kuala Lumpur with me. Alexander declared war on me, i gave units to Kuala Lumpur and looks like Kuala Lumpur conquered Antwerp and made it its puppet. When you click on Antwerp it opens Kuala Lumpur pop up.

For context, playing as the Zulus right now on Immortal difficulty at Marathon speed in huge map. I got spawned extremely close to Russia, which is kind of unfortunate because I really need to get a 4-city tradition gameplay and complete the national college as soon as possible to get into the Medieval era and spam Impis. So, how do I kill Russia here? Russia is one of the civs that must be wiped out as soon as possible on Immortal and Deity or they'll get a massive runaway by mid-game.

I've been wondering since CS often give quest asking for road between city, can you form a city connection with CS then connect it to your other cities? (If the CS is in the way)

In a lot of my games, the world ends up half empty because of a lack of ambition by other civs.

I’d like by the mid to end game to have the whole world settled.

Are there any settings or mods that help this?

(The settings for this game were Deity, great plains, small, standard speed)

pretty fun strategy where you skip all early science for production and gold to create undefendable carpets of impis.

besides the bajillion other bonuses impis have, the 25% bonus against gun powder units means even riflemen cant defend against a swarm of cheap impis.

The strategy...

- early game: steal as many workers as possible. I stole 3-4 here. I skipped shrine too
- build: scout -> scout -> granary -> monument
- liberty for early production and quick settlers
- honor secondary later
- temple of artemis for growth and production of comp bows
- 4-6 cities depending on space, i had 4 here
- construction for coliseums as needed
- stables -> markets to maximize production then gold. markets, stables on in cities where they really help. we are minimizing our build order so we can build more spearmen.
- ikanda -> spearman spearman spearman... till civil service
- plus like 6 comp bows
- work merchant slot
- selling every extra lux, horse iron for gold. if you have friendships, keep siphoning their gold.
- ideally time a golden age and merchant before liberty finisher, (I missed both here)
- liberty finisher for great merchant
- upgrade impis at civil service
- move impis in swarms with roads, keep swapping hurt impis with full health ones at the back of the pack, clear shooting positions for your comp bows as quickly as possible
- always maximize flank bonus
- if a city is like 30 or lower combat strength, you can even start smashing your impis into it
- take ranged defense promotions on comp bows. this is much better than trying to go for logistics and range
- now we tech machinery, and spam comp bows in the mean while.
- by now, we should have a merchant + gold from capturing cities to upgrade a disgusting amount of crossbows with promotions. this speeds up taking the next cities a lot
- just hitting impi and crossbow in every city at this point unit i am at unit limit
- building roads to the last civs while fighting others
- plant a city next to the most annoying one to general in twice to get my crossbows in place for the final kill

definitely an easier play on great plains, which is a terrifying map for zulu. but in a way, something like is the ultimate way to use this civ. forgo all science to invest harder in production for their OP af unit.

I upgraded like 14ish spearman to impis at civil service and left overs later. stayed at around the max unit limit the whole game which you increase by taking cities

I captured Munich from Germany. But my spy says that Persian army sailing to attack "German" city of Munich, even though Munich is Russian

Why?

observatory vs. garden vs. trade routes

r5: For the first time, I saw a city-state take over a city.

Was going around scouting for resources and landed on a random spot in Australia and the next turn later i got swarmed with this.

Question: I watch this sub and am wondering how to become a more serious player, like work my way up to diety level. I have worked my way up to normal difficulty and game win fairly easily.

Typical game:
Standard map
Quick pace
Civ: Darius/Persia
Policy route: liberty, traditional, rationalism, pick two more at random based on game
Victory type: Typically science or cultural
Other: I really never build up a military, i ally with city-states who will gift military units.
I like to have 3 cities normally by turn 50 and one of the first religions

Any general tips on how to get better? Should i play as other Civs? Should I pick one and try to progress through difficulty? Any tips for a casual player who is trying to be less casual?

Trying to figure out whats generally best route on immortal/deity for cvs (on continents, ive won a cv on pangea immortall). Should you try to frigate rush someone right after education or, go to printing press and then acoustics for the wonders. And if you go printing/acoustics when do you try to get out astronomy for the congress

Althou I know Mausoleum is a bad wonder I couldn't help myself with start like that...

Well, I didn't see my expands yet but I see it is a best possible start even for Incas. You don't really want much terrace hills in your capital because you want to push the tempo as ealier as you can, terrace farms work better in other cities. Also I decided to move one turn more to set Cusco on the river near the mountain.