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As grey is the new black, this seasons best fashion tip is ERG.
Rapid Early Expansion (REX) is not dead, but I feel that its focus needs to changing somewhat, therefore I have disovered Early Resource Grab (ERG).
In Cvi3 REX came from several effects;
1. Lots of cities to get a high amount of bonuses such as free unit maintenance
2. 'land grab' tactics to cover as much territory with your boundary as possible.
3. Having small cities with few improvements (low building maintenance) to build units.
4. Having every tile in your territory being worked.
(I’m sure this description isn’t perfect , it is a long time since I played Civ3)
In Civ 4;
1. More cities equals more maintenance
2. Culture expands territory boundary a lot more, one city with a high culture can expand its boundaries to take up a very large amount of land.
3. There is no building maintenance so it doesn’t matter how many buildings you build.
4. You don’t need every single tile in your territory to be worked, creating ‘specialist’ cities for one job (such as unit creation, scientific output, or great people generating) is much more efficient. Even if you have a size 20 city you might not even have all the land being worked all the time depending on the specialism of the city (eg great person generator) because of specialist.
REX is not dead, you still need cities to produce gold, culture & units and want as much territory as your neighbours. However because we pay on a number of cities basis and less bonuses from having lots of small cities we don’t want to REX just to take up all the land. We just want to grab the ‘sweet spots’.
So I present Early Resource Grab
1. Scout – Find the best land, look for rivers or fresh water, good land including forested areas, and most importantly RESOURCES.
2. Use a strategy (several threads on the forums discussing it already) to get 1 or 2 (or depending on the size of map) early settlers out to ‘Grab’ the sweet spots.
3. Use the resources to grow these cities into specialist powerhouses.
In my first ever game I only had 3 proper cities which did all of my work, I only had to go to war because I didn’t have a coastal city. I was No1 in GNP, population and Manufactured goods for virtually the whole game with only 4 cities. (Noble, normal speed, standard map size, Russian - expansive and philosophical, single not multiplayer)
Who agrees, ERG is the new REX.
Rapid Early Expansion (REX) is not dead, but I feel that its focus needs to changing somewhat, therefore I have disovered Early Resource Grab (ERG).
In Cvi3 REX came from several effects;
1. Lots of cities to get a high amount of bonuses such as free unit maintenance
2. 'land grab' tactics to cover as much territory with your boundary as possible.
3. Having small cities with few improvements (low building maintenance) to build units.
4. Having every tile in your territory being worked.
(I’m sure this description isn’t perfect , it is a long time since I played Civ3)
In Civ 4;
1. More cities equals more maintenance
2. Culture expands territory boundary a lot more, one city with a high culture can expand its boundaries to take up a very large amount of land.
3. There is no building maintenance so it doesn’t matter how many buildings you build.
4. You don’t need every single tile in your territory to be worked, creating ‘specialist’ cities for one job (such as unit creation, scientific output, or great people generating) is much more efficient. Even if you have a size 20 city you might not even have all the land being worked all the time depending on the specialism of the city (eg great person generator) because of specialist.
REX is not dead, you still need cities to produce gold, culture & units and want as much territory as your neighbours. However because we pay on a number of cities basis and less bonuses from having lots of small cities we don’t want to REX just to take up all the land. We just want to grab the ‘sweet spots’.
So I present Early Resource Grab
1. Scout – Find the best land, look for rivers or fresh water, good land including forested areas, and most importantly RESOURCES.
2. Use a strategy (several threads on the forums discussing it already) to get 1 or 2 (or depending on the size of map) early settlers out to ‘Grab’ the sweet spots.
3. Use the resources to grow these cities into specialist powerhouses.
In my first ever game I only had 3 proper cities which did all of my work, I only had to go to war because I didn’t have a coastal city. I was No1 in GNP, population and Manufactured goods for virtually the whole game with only 4 cities. (Noble, normal speed, standard map size, Russian - expansive and philosophical, single not multiplayer)
Who agrees, ERG is the new REX.
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