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Originally posted by more_cowbell
What you do, however, to make up for this, is be sure and make several workers and get your cottages built ASAP on river tiles (preferably flood plains.)
Just a comment here...while in the longer game, cottages are clearly better then farms in most cases, when I start with agraculture I usually build at least a few farms right away; I especally like to build farms as a placeholder on a square where I'll later want to build a plantation or a winery, but even without that it's worth the effort to build some farms early, even if you might want to replace them with cottages at some point after you get pottery. A few early farms dramatically speeds up your third and fourth population unit in your city, which speeds up early production and technology, and also dramatically speeds up settler/worker production in the early game.
I have emperically discovered that a ratio of 1/2 farms to 1/2 cottages seems to work the best on river tiles long term. The farms allow you to support mines or specialists. You wouldn't want all farms because you miss out on a huge amount of gold in the later game that you need to fuel your research. You also want to farm river tiles that are nearby plains squares so that you can later irrigate the plain squares (after bureaucracy) to make them viable.
I've played this strat a couple more times and it definately has a problem when you are next to an aggressive civ (alexander.... sigh...) I'm not sure the best way to deal with aggresive nearby civs. I'm thinking that the best defense is a good offense, but I'm not sure what units to use. Axemen/spearmen + catapults seem to be the best choice (based on thier cheap cost), but the size of army you would need to even take 2 cities would put a serious crimp in your research and infrastructure (which would not be made up for by the revenue from taking the 2 border cities which would likely be smaller but defended by every unit the AI has to throw at you.)
Crossbowman and macemen would be available to you with this strat before you typically get attacked, but they are both hella expensive (60 or so hammers compared with the 25 hammers for an axeman.) I suppose that you could just make yourself a smaller army of crosbowmen and macemen and simply pilliage his territory and draw his army into a war of attrition that would be of net benifit to you. You would still seem to fall behind, though, relative to civs on other continents that are not involved in a war.
Curious how you all handle aggresive AI when trying to execute a "builder" strategy?
Just a comment here...while in the longer game, cottages are clearly better then farms in most cases, when I start with agraculture I usually build at least a few farms right away; I especally like to build farms as a placeholder on a square where I'll later want to build a plantation or a winery, but even without that it's worth the effort to build some farms early, even if you might want to replace them with cottages at some point after you get pottery. A few early farms dramatically speeds up your third and fourth population unit in your city, which speeds up early production and technology, and also dramatically speeds up settler/worker production in the early game.
My general rule in a heavy floodplains situation is to farm the first square or two to pump up the city size, then cottage. Obviously, farming your Calendar-driven resource squares is a good idea if you have sufficient workers getting around. Doing these two things, as you noted, gets those extra citizens up and running a bit faster. It also permits the use of the whip in order to get some hammer production in your food factory.
Originally posted by more_cowbell
Curious how you all handle aggresive AI when trying to execute a "builder" strategy?
Typical plan is to stall for time until around 400 BC when the early game 'builder' sequence is done, then poprush/chop some Axemen/Swordsmen/Praetorians and preempt the aggressor, fighting the war on his turf rather than mine.
Having tried pure turtle as well as conquest, there's no question in my mind that going on the offensive (at least against the AI) is the strongest return on investment available for your hammers. A 'builder' game to me just dictates how long it is before I go attempt to bash my nearest/most threatening neighbor's head in with the best weaponry available.
I'll consider being peaceful after I'm the regional hegemon, if I want to play a quick game and I know I have it in hand. Shuffling units about is dull, and a typical midgame or lategame war of conquest involves shuffling fifty to a hundred units around every turn...even with automation, not my idea of a good time.
Originally posted by more_cowbell
Curious how you all handle aggresive AI when trying to execute a "builder" strategy?
(shrug) If you end up next to somone like Montezuma, you will have to kill him eventually, builder strat or not. It is sometimes possible to hold your ground, defend with a slighly smaller army then he has, and build up in the early game, and then crush him a little later by getting to some key millitary tech (like macemen) before he does. Use your judgment, though; if you've got Montezuma on one side, and another unpleasent agressive civ on your other side, you probably can't play a pure builder strat and will have to try an early war to try to take out or cripple on of them early and quickly.
One simple thing that I was doing wrong in my games was to detour my research to hunting and archery AFTER researching bronze working. Now that I look back on it, that was a 4+ stupid thing to do. I need to either chop rush axemen out of my capital or my 1st city that I put down if my capital does not have access to copper.
If there is no ready access to copper and you are next to an aggressive civ, the better part of valor is prolly to hit the 'ol escape key and return to main menu.
By simply making axemen instead of archers, I not only can easily fend off any barbarian units, I have a ready made assault force for any nearby aggressive civs I find on the continent. I would think the best time to hit the AI is when they have just 2-3 cites at about the 2-3 pop level. I suspect that they would have 3 archers defending each city, which should fall nicely under an assault of around 6-8 axemen.
The more I think about it, the axeman really throws off the balance of combat in the early game, seeing as how you must research bronze working anyways for chop, and given the fact that nothing else counters the axeman early on (except, ... more axemen I guess...)
I'm sure thats not news to anyone, but given the care that the designers put into other aspects of the game, I'm kind of surpirsed that bronze working has not been better balanced (It needs probably another pre-requisite tech to be researched.) Archery should be thrown in with hunting to make archers available earlier. This would give archers a reasonable "shelf life." and perhaps forestall the beeline to bronze working in every situation.
It's the double edged economic sword, and there's not much better than that. On high levels (Emperor+), you start out able to run 100% science (something you cannot do WITHOUT ORG on Emperor and above), and Financial is the cash cow.
You've got, with GW, the ability to *generate* hordes of early cash (read: fast research), and the ability to expand without blunting that research.
And of course, once your new cities are on a "paying basis," that means still MORE money and MORE expansion....
UU's are cool, but if you focus on the fundamentals (something Washington excels at), then your UU is a bonus, and not a requirement for the win.
Starting tech position is weak, true, but FIN can help you overcome almost any start, no matter how wretched.
If coastal w/ seafood specials, of course, you're off and running, so play to that "side" of your abilities.
If non-coastal, look to Ag, and build on it (prolly with early husbandary).
Only downside (as has already been mentioned), is that you'll be delayed in getting to Bronze, which cramps MY style in the very early goings, but then, no everybody plays that way, so for some, that's a non-issue. Still, more civs START with mining than any other tech, meaning that you'll get the "already discovered" discount on mining, making it relatively cheaper to research anyways.
In all, the starting tech position ain't great, but it could be worse (even non-coastal, Ag's a solid, seminal tech), and you have absolute MASTERY over your economic destiny.
That's good stuff.
-=Vel=-
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Maybe he's got poorer starting techs, and a UU that's late in the game because organized and financial are so strong together. He seems to do well overall as an AI civ, mainly as a builder and research leader, but often with big armies. But I agree, not having mining to start is a big set back. OTOH, fishing allows working water squares for some fast early gold to fuel research, and agriculture for farming.
Is it true that tech research requirements are less if researched by other civs? I know that's the way it was in civ3, but is it still that way?
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