Beginner and gut questions

[Blake]

The best way to learn economic managment is by pushing the envelope...

A great map to learn the ins and outs of economy is Highlands, there is much room for expansion and there's a lot of food and a lot of hills, it's easy to pump out settlers, workers and units. But it's got little inante commerce - gold/gems etc are rare, there arent many calender resources. But there is plenty of grassland. You'll have no trouble driving your economy into the dirt but you'll grow very large and that territory can be easily leveraged into a massive amount of beakers, via both cottages and specialists (highlands tends to have a lot of pigs and corn and such allowing for some crazy specialist pumps).

[Arrian]

Plus, it's just fun! Highlands maps are cool.

-Arrian

[couerdelion]

Re: Re: Beginner and gut questions

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_


I would like to thank everyone. I can regularly beat monarch now, but it hasen't helped me one level up (2 games, 1 painfull death, 1 game where the AI builds the spaceshhip 3 frekkin turns before me.).

One of the best ways to improve is to learn how to fight effectively. Since the AI is getting important bonuses, you want to learn how to do things more efficiently.

So it's a question of optimising build plans, worker tasks, tech paths etc. As for the overall economy, there is one very cheap way of getting cities and that is by building troops - the right number, the right mix and at the right time. Get yourself a few decent cities from the nearest AI and it will be a lot cheaper than wasting all that food and production on those settler units.

For added bonus, capture a wonder, shrine, religion - although these are just a little harder than your run-of-the-mill AI cities.

[Thedrin]

If I may, I'd like to add a quetsion to the list:

How much food is required for each new unit of population? Is the list available somewhere?

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Thedrin
If I may, I'd like to add a quetsion to the list:

How much food is required for each new unit of population? Is the list available somewhere?

It differs by speed

Formula for standard speed is 20 + 2 x existing city size

Multiply by 150% for epic speed and 300% for marathon.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by Blake
The best way to learn economic managment is by pushing the envelope...

Any general rule of thumb? Although now you've insured that I'm going to have to try the Highlands map this weekend for the first time.

What would be your minimal qualifications for a city site to be worthy of expansion at the resulting lowering of research? How much commerce should any given city produce in order to be worthwhile?

[Diadem]

Blake is right: The best way of learning is by pushing the envelope.

Try out different strategies to see what works best. Sometimes they work, sometimes they fail miserably. But you'll learn from it. Try a game of aggressive expension and see what happens. Then modify your strategy to avoid the errors you made. Repeat ad infinitum.

One thing I absolutely recommend is playing a few One City Challenge (OCC) games. This is a really good way of learning how to optimize your city. It's amazing how far you can get with a single city.