Rate of Expansion

[Space05us]

How fast do you guys normally expand? I've just recently been increasing the difficulty level of my games and haven't quite got a good idea yet. Right now I'm playing on Warlord and am soon going to hop up to Noble. My biggest problem right now though is that the computer dwarfs me in size by the middle ages. It also manages to found every religion and build every wonder, I gave up on even trying to build those myself, now I just take the one I want after they build it.


I guess another question would be do I want to build large, well placed cities or just dot the terrain with little towns like the computer seems to enjoy doing?

I'm not a very aggressive player and usually win by score at the end of the game. That is slowly changing though, stupid flip-flopping Ghandi et al are pissing me off.

[ZEE]

you shouldn't play drunk

[Unimatrix11]

I expand as fast as i can afford financially. That means it goes pretty much like this: Workboats aside and until the discovery of writing, my cap builds worker, military unit (archer or warrior), settler, worker, unit, settler... roughly... Maybe somtimes even leaving a worker out, if i am hard pressed for getting the land, before another civ does. And the new cities build either granaries, or miliary units as well (well not much of a choice, that early in the game anyways), which means, i can skip a military unit in the cap from time to time as well. This goes on, until my research goes down to like, say, 30%. Then its time to start growing vertically and catch up on workers and military. Wonders are not a priority for me early in the game. Consider for each building if it is really worth building in that particular city - usually its not early in the game.

[rjmatsleepers]

I agree with Unimatrix11 that a rapid expansion will help maximise your score. I think you can keep expanding until the science rate drops to 10%. You can maintain technology progress by building libraries and then using scientists, which means a higher priority to researching writing. I wouldn't build quite as many workers as Unimatrix11. I would concentrate my workers on exploiting resources and worry about hooking them up later. All this is subject to the need to defend yourself. This probably means giving a higher priority to hooking up copper, iron or horses.

At monarch, all this produces a new city roughly every 20 turns. Around AD1, you will probably need to slow down - either because of a lack of land or a low science rate (or both).

My two bits worth.

RJM

[Unimatrix11]

Right, RJM. But the thing is, that building libraries and expanding are contrdictionary options to some extent. If You build libraries, You cant build anything else during that time. So i tend to not even research it too soon, since i then have a hard time not to be tempted to build them. (I generally tend to delay building-techs for that very reason - if they are on my build menu as an option, i often cannot resist building them - so i dont wanna have the option at all - i am a weak character...) Now if i did build a library in the cap, i wanna use specialists in them, in order to a) get the beakers and to b) get the academy up ASAP. But this means, that any settler and worker building will be delayed.

Okay, i guess i have to correct my last post. What i really do is this:

- build a worker
- build workboats if applicable
- build military until city nears cap
- build settlers/workers
- build library
- use scientists to stop city growth, while building something else than settlers/workers (otherwise, there would be no reason to stop city-growth) until GS pops up.

Timing is delicate here. If i research writing too early, i end up building the library and stoping expansion too soon, leaving me with some 3-5 cities or so, because the AI takes the land... Rather fall behind a bit in tech and then catch up on it later. (prince-epic-large hemispheres, 10 civs)

The how-many-workers-debate is very interesting btw. I tend to have one per city, if only for some kind organization, that makes managing them easier for me. Some people say more, some say less. The limit is detemined by tiles useable i´d say. If a city cannot use more than, say, 6 tiles, and the best 5 are improved and the city will not grow beyond that in the foreseeable future and is already provided with a worker, than building another one seems pointless. But OTOH every unimproved used tile, shows a lack of...well... civilization.

In stratgic command 2, you can build an engineer (or whatever its called) and it can build fortifications (for free). After a freind of mine used that extensively in one game, i came to realize, that it is quite a strong idea, since it is the only unit in that game, that generates value all the time. The civ-worker, tho not a military unit, is the pendant to it. One only has to watch out, that the value it generates can be put to use in a reasanable amount of time...

[Tattila the Hun]

Question is, Unimatrix11, does that work? ("This is my basic strategy... And I've not won a game in months!")

[rjmatsleepers]

My experience is that building libraries does not slow expansion down too much. As Unimatrix11, pointed out, the AI will be grabbing the land, so choice of city location becomes important. An ideal spot (or spots) will block the AI, while leaving space for your own cities. But that means a risk of these cities flipping, so culture buildings such as libraries, monasteries, etc become important. I'd like all my cities to contribute to the expansion whether by building settlers, workers, military units or libraries. Basically, I'm trying to get a quart of builds out of a pint pot build queue. As a result, I use slavery a lot. I find a library is useful destination for the hammers while the city is recovering from a pop rush. I'd rather build one less worker if that's what it takes to build an extra library.

RJM

[couerdelion]

The general rule to expand as finances permit is a good basic mantra. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need to maintain a high science rate. There are many ways to keep up in science and rapid expansion is the best.

Personally, I would be choosy in selecting where to place cities. First and foremost, I want cities that give me strategic resources (horses or copper). The second city should be a good food/production site to support worker/settler builds. After that, I tend to look for happiness resources to allow cities to grow a bit – lots of small cities will be expensive.

In terms of location, I’d be less worried about settling substandard sites at this stage. Get decent sites that will allow a city to develop towards its specific objective. Excluding large floodplain areas, almost all of my cities will have at least two resources in the early game.

Once you’ve started growing (say 4 cities) you’ll need to keep an eye on the key techs needed to support this expansion. In rough order of priority these would be

Pottery (for Cottages and perhaps granaries)
Writing (for Open Borders and Libraries)
Perhaps Sailing for trade routes
Currency (double trade routes and markets)
Code of Laws (courthouses)

All that lot will keep you reasonably happy supporting 10-12 cities. Beyond that you’ll then have to start working through the tech tree to Banking. I tend to like having around 6-8 cities by 0 AD.

You should always be on the look out for other things to support high costs. In no particular order these would include (shrines, gold from razing cities, demanding gold/techs from rivals, wonders such as Temple of Artemis, Colossus, Great Lighthouse). Other wonders like Great Library and Pyramids work more to improve the tech rate.

[Unimatrix11]

Of course, RJM, if you succeed in blocking the AI, so that you can secure a nice chunk of land for you to settle alone, then the whole picture changes - a lot...

Tattila: I am, indeed, a ´monster of habit´ - if something seemed to work fine once, i keep repeat doing it the same way. Thats why when a friend shows me a shortcut from A to B, when i have been driving a longer way for years, i will stick to my old habit, against all rationalism (and why i am a horrible lover ). Well, but that is actually worse IRL than in games...

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11 (and why i am a horrible lover )

TMI

[Blaupanzer]

Entirely TMI.

[Unimatrix11]

Of course i do know what TMI means... dont think i dont ! Thats so inappropriate of you to say ! Its a real bad insult... I´d probably prefer you to call my mom a *beeeping* *beep-beeep*. Just grossly ourraging ! But what really, really bothers me the most about it is: It´s an abbreveation that has never crossed my path before... hence it´s TRUE meaning is kinda, well, mysterious to me, not to say: totally unknown... So what does it mean, again ?

[Ming]

Way Too Much Information in this thread

[Unimatrix11]

What nobody asked me that ? Wait - where am I ? Oh, right... hehehe....

[Space05us]

Originally posted by AAHZ
you shouldn't play drunk

I was perfectly sober when I posted this thread. Now I'm not so much.

Thank you guys for the advice.