Learn the Game: Changes from Civ4 to Civ5

[Possibility]

In civ4, a tile would produce coins, which were then converted to either money, science, or culture via the sliders.

In civ5 on the other hand, science, and money are produced directly, there are no sliders to adjust anymore. So how do you produce more science, money, or culture then.

Culture: produced mainly via buildings for individual cities which expand the borders of that city, its also applied to your government selection once enough is built up to choose a new goverment trait. Its also acquired via a culture city state for your empire goverment traits.

Science: primarily produced via your population. Each citizen of a city produces 1 science. A library and univeristy increase the amount. Other than buildings, there are no other ways to increase this for a city except via the Great Scienist terrain improvement which will produce 5 science in a tile. So, if you want to generate more science, you must increase your population. This is what farms are for. Farms = more science.
Maritime city states are also very good for science in this regard, in that they provice food for your cities to grow.

Money: Money is produced via coins from tiles. Improving luxary resource tiles produce more coins, as does the traiding post tile improvement. Trading posts are kind of like cottages in Civ4, except the coins are only for money. Each coin on a tile directly equals 1 dollar.

The trade off is deciding wether to make trading posts on a tile to produce more money, or to build a farm to increase your population to make more science.

Once the library or market are built, adding citizens to the library will produce an extra +3 science for each one (up to 2 citizens) in the library, and +2 gold per citizen in the market (up to only 1 citizen). This is really the only way to quickly increase/decrease science or money production later in the game.


A big difference from Civ4 is not having sliders iso that you cant instantly change your focus. In Civ4, when I got attacked I would change the sliders to all money to quickly make cash to upgrade my army. Or up the culture to increase happiness to compensate for a lost happiness resource. In Civ5, you can not make such changes, if you are attacked and have no money to upgrade your army, you are out of luck.

[pdxsean]

Once the library or market are built, adding citizens to the library will produce an extra +3 science for each one (up to 2 citizens) in the library, and +2 gold per citizen in the market (up to only 1 citizen). This is really the only way to quickly increase/decrease science or money production later in the game.

You can also select the rationalism tree of special policies to make more science. This is a big boost in the later stages of the game as one of the SPs provides 2 science for each trading post.

Universities provide science from jungle tiles. If you have a TP on a jungle tile, and a university, it's a very powerful tile (2 food, 2 gold, 2 science - 4 science with SP).

I'm still struggling to find the right balance between food and gold. It's a very fine line. Focus too much on gold in the early game, and your population will struggle in the late stages. Focus too much on food in the early game and your treasury will suffer in the middle stages. Tricky stuff.

[DriXnaK]

Wow thanks captain obvious. I'm glad you were able to figure out that there is no slider. What an incredibly complicated game! You really made it a lot easier for me.

[Snotty]

Looks like a good write up to me. I have been chopping jungles out of habit, Im sure there is a strategy for exploiting their science output somewhere

Just ignore drixnax, all he needs is a hug. I guess you dont get many living under a bridge

[Coeur]

As much as DriXnak shows his "wit" with his sarcastic comment, alot of people seem shocked about the loss of a slider, which is to me, ridiculous. The slider didn't even make sense, since how could you have something at 100% and still be making a profit?? That is statistically impossible...

Others feel that the game has been "dumbed down" by the removal of the slider, which is ironically, the opposite. The game was already dumbed down, when all you had to do to increase science was flick a slider up. Now you need to plan in advance, and make sure you have a good balance. An example would be in civ4, where you could get anywhere, by spamming cottages. Just gold-gold-gold-gold-gold.... You could always just "buy" techs... Now it makes more sense.

A technology isn't really something that can be traded lol. You can give a man in a 3rd world country a tank, and he might be able to use it... but he won't be able to build more. And yet the analogy was perfectly acceptable for people in civ4??

Not 100% sure on why jungle gives science though... Is there something special in those trees as opposed to our poor forest variety?

[John-SJ]

Intelligent monkeys?

And thanks to Possibility for the original writeup.

[Coeur]

I'm almost sure it's like a spelling error lol.... like they meant to put something else, but instead coded jungles....

"You know... walking through this jungle... with the heat, the humidity... the trees... the plants.... it makes me wonder... what would the effect of civil service be on our economy if we implemented it into our ruling structure, particularly with a look to improving the efficiency of our farms? .... Yes... I often have such thoughts in these jungles..."

Edit : Or perhaps it's like Isaac Newton... the apple helped him realise gravity (i know thats fake), maybe here... falling banannas help people realise how to split an atom!

[pdxsean]

Not 100% sure on why jungle gives science though... Is there something special in those trees as opposed to our poor forest variety?

I would suspect it has to do with the variety of plant and animal species within the jungle. IRL this has advanced biology and chemistry over the years. Not to mention botany and other more specific sciences that I don't know the names of. Much like the space race, a lot of modern innovations have their origins in nature either directly or through inspiration.

IMO this provides an argument that the swamps should provide the same science benefit.

[Snotty]

perhaps a produtiuon bonus for swamps due to peat as a fuel source

[Possibility]

Sorry to the dim witts that took offense to this thread, I wasnt saying wether or not Civ4 or Civ5 was better, I was just pointing out to people how they are different and how the generation of these 3 resources are different in the early game. I figured most people would figure out the late game stuff like jungles eventually. The manual itself pretty much sucked and didnt explain this stuff to much.

Possibility
P.S. If this forum stays hostile, people wont want to write up strategies or info guides.

[pdxsean]

P.S. If this forum stays hostile, people wont want to write up strategies or info guides.

I have to say, the hostility in the forums here isn't really all that bad compared to the rest of the internet. It doesn't take long to figure out who is here to talk strategy and who is here to stir the pot (and some do both). I do agree that too much hostility will drive away some of those who are here to be serious, but unfortunately that's just how the internet works.

[John-SJ]

I do agree that too much hostility will drive away some of those who are here to be serious, but unfortunately that's just how the internet works.

It really needn't though. This forum has an ignore feature. So there's no need to put up with those whose main purpose in being here is to draw attention to themselves.

[pdxsean]

It really needn't though. This forum has an ignore feature. So there's no need to put up with those whose main purpose in being here is to draw attention to themselves.

Oh, I had no idea! Well, that is good to know, thanks for the tip.

[Proteus_MST]

I would suspect it has to do with the variety of plant and animal species within the jungle. IRL this has advanced biology and chemistry over the years. Not to mention botany and other more specific sciences that I don't know the names of. Much like the space race, a lot of modern innovations have their origins in nature either directly or through inspiration.

IMO this provides an argument that the swamps should provide the same science benefit.

Yep, even today pharma companies are financing expeditions to jungle regions in order to find naturally occuring vaccines/cures, that they wouldn´t be able to find in the lab
Often in combination with studying, which plants get used as medicine by the native witch doctors of the indian tribes living there

[ColdPhoenix]

I've only had time to play one game through but my main problem was keeping my citizens happy and running out of money in the later parts of the game (I was awash with money in the early game). I was clearly leading in tech.

In the mid to late game I automated my workers as I'd done most of the improvements I wanted and as the empire was getting big I felt like removing some micro. When I researched railroad they started building them on different tiles than my roads. I immediately stopped this and built the railroads over my roads. My thinking was that I'd have to pay twice if they were on different tiles. Is this correct? Or do I lose the trade route bonus if I build railroads over the roads?

I've started my second game and am focusing more on culture as the social policies can really help and am building more trading posts.

Each coin on a tile directly equals 1 dollar.

Not in my empire, mate!