Pyramids & Universal Suffrage start

[Xuenay]

A lot of talk has been made about the benefits of an early Pyramids - Representation combo, but today I decided to try something different. After building Pyramids, I converted to Universal Suffrage instead of Representation, and then I started spamming cottages everywhere. And that's everywhere - I placed mines on hills and pastures/farms/quarries/whatever on the appropriate resources, and a bunch of forests were saved for health / chopping purposes. Everything else, however, got cottages.

The point with this strategy, of course, is the fact that under Universal Suffrage, towns produce an extra hammer. Thus spamming every possible square not only gives me an insane income, but a pretty good production as well. The obvious weakness is that the cottages take a while to grow into towns, handicapping my initial production and making me fall behind the empires building more production improvements. On the other hand, my research rate is insanely high (especially combined with a Financial civ ), much higher than any of the acceleration I ever got from the Representation bonus. By around midgame, my mild production handicap is considerably offset by the way how I discover all the technologies a good amount of turns before the competition.

I've only tried this on Noble, and I haven't yet finished the game I'm playing, but so far this technique would seem to be very strong - I'm at the point where I've just invented Scientific Method, and all the technologies I can research are developed in 1-5 turns (with an average around three, though this is on a Quick game). I've got most of the wonders built, and on all accounts this seems one of the strongest games I've played yet.

I'm imagining that on higher difficulties, the largest problem with this one would be the intial production handicap - but that can probably be overcome with a hybrid strategy. First build a couple of production boosters and let your cottages mature into towns to increase your hammers, then gradually replace all the improvements with cottages. This needs some experimenting with.

[Sauron07]

Why can't you use representation right after you get pyramids for the research and happiness bump, still spam cottages everywhere, and then switch to unifversal suffrage once they've developed into towns? I think this would make for a stronger middle game, especially on higher levels where the happiness bonus from representation is important to allow your cities grow in pop so they can work all those cottages while still maintiaining at least minimal production capacity to build your infrastructure.

And the hammer from towns isnt even the best bonus from suffrage, that is clearly the ability to convert cash into hammers via rush buying. This becomes extremely powerful when combined with a financial civ, cottage spam and the Kremlin (1/2 price rush buys).

[Xuenay]

Originally posted by Sauron07
Why can't you use representation right after you get pyramids for the research and happiness bump, still spam cottages everywhere, and then switch to unifversal suffrage once they've developed into towns?

True, that's probably a somewhat stronger approach. It depends a bit on your beginning play, though- if you've started your cottage-planting early enough, by the time you get to the pyramids the first cottages should already be pretty close to towns.

I'm also a bit leery about relying too much on the Representation happiness bonus - sure, it might help your cities grow a bit bigger. But when the time comes to switch civics you'll have cities with three unhappy inhabitants from losing the bonus.

And the hammer from towns isnt even the best bonus from suffrage, that is clearly the ability to convert cash into hammers via rush buying. This becomes extremely powerful when combined with a financial civ, cottage spam and the Kremlin (1/2 price rush buys).

Mmm, perhaps when you have the Kremlin. For most of the time, though, I find that the rush buy costs are just too expensive to be used much. Though that might have something to do with my tendency to keep the tech right as high as possible without losing money.

[MadDjinn]

I used to use Pyramid-U Suff a fair amount, but you tend not to have the cash to rush buy things much right away, so the Rep. early start then shift to U Suff. once you start installing Banks (also the cottages should be well developed towns at this point) will give you the money to make it worth it.

And I *always* get the Kremlin, no matter the strategy. everything 1/2 price

as per cost for purchase... I haven't looked at the exact numbers, but it used to be that rushing anything right away was much more expensive than waiting 1 turn before doing it. paying a premium etc.

as per the unhappy people, give them a Col, or something else to make them happy. or nab a wonder or 2 that gives happy boni.

[joncnunn]

Representation will almost always be the better choice in the early game than Universal Suffrage.

Universal Suffrage doesn't really come on until you have several towns and it does nothing to increase the growth of cottages into towns.

OTOH, Representation's happiness effects are most on in the earlier stages of the game where you only have around 5 cities.
The beakers effect though does take time, but there's a few fairly early wonders that provide free specalists to the city building it.

[Xuenay]

I tried building the Kremlin in my last game and oo, you folks were right - the costs were much lower than what I'd remembered, would have been even without it.

And yes, it is probably better to use Representation at start - still, I would say that by midgame a switch to Universal Suffrage would be for the best, and that it's a quite underrated technique. That assumption's made even stronger by the realization of money-rushing's power... I have a feeling that when that's taken into account, a Universal Suffrage cottagespam gets productionwise on par with the other strategies. Superior research AND good production...

[jerry247]

There is a seven page discussion here on civfanatics. Its an awesome strategy, puts you far ahead if done right. I had a giant army of bombers and marines in 1890!