I got a little bored so I decided to read the entire Civ 5 PDF manual and break down most of the information of serious value. In some areas I simply copied and pasted very important parts of the Civ Manual that people should keep in mind for now

Enjoy



1) Most units will be forced to defend in flat land and there is a -33% strength modifier while defending in most land. There is also a +33% bonus modifier social policy (Oligarchy) that players can easily get, early on, and this social policy gives an attack bonus within cultural borders. Units receive a “flanking” attack bonus of +15% for each unit adjacent to the target unit. A scout loophole can be manipulated by surrounding an enemy unit with cheap scouts and then attacking the unit with ranged units. This turns basic 25 hammer scouts into deadly damage modifiers. In regards to defense, an instant 25% fortification bonus is given to units that fortify for a single turn. This enables a strategic loophole allowing defenders to create defensive walls of units. Fortify for 2 turns and you get a 50% defensive bonus lol. Defensive Bonus of the Fort is also 50%. Cities defend themselves at full combat strength so it will become very difficult for weakened units to take a city with a large population, thus supporting defensive strategies. Great general bonuses like citadel / 25% bonus by standing next to units. To sum it up… There are insanely huge bonuses for defenders in this game. This means that if you create a wall of archers/scouts/chariot archers while defending you can get 100%-300% attack bonus on all attacking units.

2) City Growth in Civ V is slow because the max food that a tile can have is 3-4 food. All food resources for example only give a bonus +1 food when improved.

3) In a City: A unit heals 3 HPs per turn.
In Friendly Territory: 2 HPs per turn.
In Neutral or Enemy Territory: 1 HP per turn.
Naval units cannot heal unless in Friendly territory, where they heal 2 HPs per turn.

4) A damaged unit is less effective when attacking than a fully-healed unit. The more damaged the unit, the less its attack – melee or ranged – will damage an opponent. The actual formula is more complex than this, but as a general rule a unit’s damage output is reduced by half the percentage of HPs that it has lost. In other words, a unit that has lost 5 HPs (50%) has the amount of damage it does reduced by 25%, and the damage a unit that has lost 9HPs (90%) inflicts, is reduced by 45%.

5) A unit gains XPs for surviving a round of combat.
An Attacking Ranged Unit: 2 XPs
Being Attacked by a Ranged Unit: 2 XPs
(Barracks and Armories each provide 15 XPs.)
This means that a normal ancient/medieval unit will have to survive a lot of archer ranged attacks to get the first promotion for an insta heal, but with modifiers most units will never research the insta heal promotion before dying. Based on practical figures from a worst case scenario of archer versus Rifleman - (6 v 25) After the modifiers are factored in the battle ends up becoming - (15 v 18) (((on average))) for the first attacking archer... If the attacking archer can lower the health of the Rifleman to 7-8hp then the next round with the next archer it will be roughly (15 v 13). It will take on Average 3 Archers to kill each rifleman. And this is assuming there are no promotions on either the archers or rifleman.

6) If a city is working on an archer and has 4 turns left and you purchase an archer, you’ll get the purchased archer immediately, and the one that’s under construction 4 turns later – unless of course you change production after purchasing the first archer.

7) You cannot destroy another civ’s capital city.

8 ) A city’s National Wonders are destroyed when the city is captured. The city’s culture and military buildings (temples, barracks, etc.) are always destroyed when the city is taken. All other buildings have a 66% chance of being captured intact.

9) If a city goes into “We Love the King Day” (see “Resources” on page 36) its surplus food input increases by 25%. (If no surplus, no benefit.)

10) If your civilization is unhappy, then the city will produce less food. The city will produce enough food to feed its citizens, but the amount of excess food it produces is decreased by 67% ----- Unhappiness is not as serious as first thought since it does not affect all food, just the surplus above what your citizens need. In a worst case scenario cities will stop growing, but you can still ward off populations from shrinking which is all that would matter for some strategies.

11) Each turn you get a base number of beakers equal to the combined population of all of your cities. The larger your cities, the more beakers you generate. ROFL. If you build an insanely huge army and run cash flow negative…. Don’t worry, it just comes out of your beakers so you can essentially just turn on the war machine and pay for your military with beakers rofl. This game is so dumbed down its scary.

12) It takes a very long time for workers to build improvements in this game so it forces certain social policies to be the first choice in order to get out more workers.
It takes a worker 3 turns to construct a road in any tile
Farm Improvement - 6 Turns
Mine Improvement - 6 Turns
Pasture - 7 Turns
Trading Post - 8 Turns
Remove Forest: 3 Turns
Remove Jungle: 6 Turns
Drain Marsh: 5 Turns
A worker may repair a pillaged road or improvement. It takes a worker 3 turns to repair any road or improvement.
They are slowing down all games, and in the process making it more difficult to get out units…. The problem with this is that players who lose early units will receive huge disadvantages. Sure it will be impossible to take cities, making each game, by default, much longer, but the loss of a combat unit early in the game can equal the pillaging of all improvements and workers.

13) New social policy build order based on what I have read:
Oligarchy / Citizenship / Representation / Warrior Code / Military Tradition / Discipline / Military Caste / Meritocracy / Professional Army / Mandate of Heaven / Free Religion / Trade Unions / Mercantilism.

14) Great Artists, Engineers, Merchants and Scientists are created in cities by specialists and Wonders which generate “Great People” (GP) points. A city may generate no Great People points, or it may generate a single kind of GP points or it may generate multiple kinds of GP points. Each city’s GP points are kept track of separately. (For example, Kyoto might generate 1 Artist and 2 Engineer GP points each turn. After 3 turns it would have 3 Artist points and 6 Engineer GP points. The two types of points are not pooled.) When a city has enough of a specific type of GP points, the points are expended to generate a Great Person of that type. Once a Great Person is generated, the amount required for the next Great Person increases in all of that player’s cities. For instance, let’s say that a player needs to acquire 10 GP points to get a Great Person. From the previous example, in five turns Kyoto would have enough Engineer GP points to create a Great Engineer. After the Great Engineer was created, Kyoto would have 0 Great Engineer points and 5 Great Artist points left, and the amount required for the next Great Person would increase to say 15 points. Eight turns later Kyoto would have 13 Great Artist points and 16 Great Engineer points, and it would generate another Great Engineer. Note that a Garden building increases the rate at which you generate Great People.

15) Happiness Bucket: If your civilization is generating more happiness than is required to keep your population content, the excess happiness is collected in a “happiness bucket.” When that bucket acquires enough happiness, a Golden Age is triggered. (If your civilization is unhappy, happiness is drained from the bucket.) A happiness bucket-based Golden Age is 10 turns. A Great Person-based Golden Age is
shorter. Great Person-based Golden Ages decrease in length each time you expend a Great Person to create one, however, they never fall below 3 turns each.

16) If you are the last player in possession of your own original capital you win. So if you capture all other civs’ capitals and hang onto your own, you’ve achieved victory. However, this can be tricky. Suppose you’re in a five-player game and you capture three of your opponents’ original capitals, but the fifth player sneaks in and captures your capital while you’re not paying attention – then he would win immediately. In other words, it doesn’t matter who captures what: it’s the last player holding onto his original capital who gets the victory. LoL

17) Important figures:

Archer - Strength: 4 - Ranged: 6 - Range: 2 - Movement: 2 - Cost: 70
Settler - Movement: 2 - Cost: 89
Worker - Movement: 2 - Cost: 70
Scout -Strength: 4 - Movement: 2 -Cost: 25
Chariot Archer – Strength: 3 - Ranged: 6 - Range: 2 - Movement: 4 - Cost: 60
Chariot archers are ridiculously imbalanced. Having horse is very powerful and players without horse will have a huge strategic disadvantage lol. Those 2-6 chariot archers on the field will be vital towards finishing off the enemy units retreating from your archers.

18 ) Stonehenge - Cost: 120 - Cultural Output: 8 – Stonehenge appears to be very very powerful and heavenly PE ratio.

19) Build in all cities where possible:
Water Mill - Cost: 120 - Maintenance: 2 - Effects: +2 Food, River to construct.
Granary - Tech Requirement: Pottery - Cost: 100 – 1 gold - +2 food
Monument – Cost: 60 - Maintenance: 1 - Effects: +2 Culture
Temple - +2 culture

Build in most/all cities
* If you can build this in normal cities - Courthouse - Tech Requirement: Mathematics - Cost: 200 - Eliminates Unhappiness from an Occupied City. – 5 gold maintenance a turn a turn and takes care of unhappiness early on. You are going to want to rush Mathematics so that you can build a courthouse in your biggest cities to take away enough of your unhappiness.
* If you can't build courthouses in normal cities than you will need to build (Circus/Colosseum) and factor in the social policy (Meritocracy/Military Caste).


Build in cities you have amazing production/ will purchase units
Stable/barracks – Build this in the city you will buy your chariot archers in

20) France gets their first policy 1-2 turns before almost every other civilization. And their second policy 2-5 turns before every other civilization. This can exponentially increase. The problem with this is that France essentially ends up getting far more bonus traits than every other civilization in the early game which ultimately gives France a huge strategic advantage in almost every scenario. They also get more cultural squares for their empire.

21) New best Civs in my opinion:

Amazing
France
Egypt - (No cap restriction for war chariot and war chariots have 5 movements and 6 range attack). This is the best UU in the game by far.

Above Average
Aztec
Japan
Rome
Russia
India

Average
Arabia
China
Greece
Iroquois
Persia
Songhai

Below Average
America
England

Bad
Germany
Ottoman Empire

22) Initial tec path (I will great expand on this gradually, but don't have enough time right now).

Close proximity start

Cost
20 - Agriculture
35 - Animal Husbandry
55 - The Wheel
55 - Trapping
35 - Archery
100 - Mathematics
35 - Mining
55 - Bronze Working
55 - Masonry


Separated start

20 - Agriculture
35 - Animal Husbandry
55 - Trapping
35 - Pottery
70 - Calendar (Get Hendge)
55 - The Wheel
35 - Archery
100 - Mathematics
35 - Mining
55 - Bronze Working
55 - Masonry