Trouble at low difficulty levels

[Blaupanzer]

Given the size of the armies/navies one must maintain to deal with the AI even at Prince, I tend to run Vassalage which saves me more money than Bureacracy adds. As wodan11 notes, if the capitol is very productive, and I don't have state property yet, then I'll run Bureaucracy for the hammers. Once State Property is installed, then back to vassalage as it is conquer time!

[Theben]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
1) I still have no idea how many units to build. I generally try to get 3 per city in early (some mix of spearmen, axemen, and swordsmen), then develop a small response force of maybe half-a-dozen horsemen (if I have horses, which I didn't in at least one game I won). After that, I tend to wait until I need an army before I build catapults, more horsemen, etc. It's a pretty passive strategy; it works if I don't have psycho neighbors, but leaves me vulnerable to stacks of doom when I do. Anyway, what's your general rule of thumb and method for building troops?

1st of all, get BtS with 3.17 patch.

What I haven't seen posted is most important IMO: intel on your enemies. A little boost to the espionage slider, some missionaries to spread your religion, courthouses for ESP points, open borders with scouts moving from "enemy" border city to border city... all are good methods of keeping tabs on potential flashpoints. Once other civ cities start "lighting up", you'll have an easy time monitoring troop movements. When you see them starting to build on your borders, it's time to build your defenses and units (noting the makeup of their army and building counter units), and position them strategically.

Aside from that, I tend to have minimal defenses early but build strong cities in such a way that if attacked I'll be able to whip/chop a decent army in a short time. In any assault I've never lost more than 1 city to the AI (and rarely lose that) and usually get it back plus some extra. After the intial buildup the AI never sends another force large enough to challenge me.

2) In the last game I played, I was for the first time very stingy with allowing Open Borders. I started saying no as a way of isolating the Arabs to a small peninsula by building a city at a chokepoint; this worked like a charm, so I decided to say know to other civs, too. I know this cost me a +1 with each civ, but it otherwise seemed a fine plan. What's your strategy on trading Open Borders?

The only time I say no is if it's early and the land rush is still on, or if I'm very weak and letting AI units in my territory would inform them how defenseless I am.

3) I've got no Specialist/GP game, even when I play philosophical civs. For one thing, I can never seem to generate enough food in a city to pull more than one citizen out for specialist duty, which means GP take forever. It's making me rethink building wonders; in my last game, I built the Pyramids (early representation with an organized civ was pretty great; since the civ was also financial, it meant I could switch to universal suffrage as soon as I had a decent surplus, which also rocked). Having the Pyramids meant I got a bunch of GE's, which was pretty sweet. I've read most of what I can find on this board about GP's, but I just can't seem to make it work in my game. Any other tips?

What Solomwi said, plus what I said above wrt wonders in your GP farm city. Pretty much all your GP city should have are farms and mines. The only time I'd cottage in a GP city is if you're low on luxuries and have flood plains + other food specials. Since you'll max out early on happy people, you could cottage the flood plains and still get just enough growth.

Later after Machinery and Replaceable Parts, you can replace the mines with Windmills.

EDIT: Also certain wonders are a priority if you want a strong GP farm early: Temple of Artemis and Great Library add free specialists to the city that generate GP points. In addition, the Parthenon and National Epic increase the % GPP growth (by 50% in all cities and by 100% in that city respectively). Golden Ages and Pacifism civic also x2 GPP growth. And, of course, Philosophy.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Sailing and metalworking are "hidden" money techs. Your $ accumulation seems to jump with each of them. Of course with sailing it's coastal commerce. Not as clear about the mechanism with metalworking (besides the Colossus), but the effect is real enough. Currency, economics, and corporation all add trade routes (as do castles, a strange little bonus). With the two buildings that boost trade in coastal cities, those trade routes can be made to pay big time.

But beware, Corporation makes the Great Lighthouse obsolete, so it can reduce your number of trade routes.

RJM

[Rufus T. Firefly]

All great info, guys; thanks!

[Theben]

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers

But beware, Corporation makes the Great Lighthouse obsolete, so it can reduce your number of trade routes.

GL gets you +2 trade routes in your coastal cities. Corporation adds +1 trade route in ALL your cities. So if you have a lot of landlocked cities, you'll want Corp asap.

And I normally put Wall Street in a city with a well-funded shrine.

[BrotherBiff]

this is nice info im posting something so i can go to my threads and read later

[BrotherBiff]

Originally posted by wodan11
This is for a CE (cottage economy) which is what you're running. There are other ways to play but they will probably just confuse you with too much information right now.

i know about cottage spamming but what are the other ways?

[Blaupanzer]

Specialist economy is the alternative to CE. Within CE and SE are multiple substrategies as well.

For example most CE economies will have at least one GP mill. a city that emphasizes food, so that the city has a max of specialists and will therefore generate great people. Some production cities will also emphasize food to enable the citizens to work a maximum number of mines, workshops and so on. The idea is to have at least one GP city with sufficient production for Wonders, a couple of unit-producing cities who have only a granary, a theater, and a courthouse at MOST plus production/military buildings. All else is units, one right after the other all game non-stop. The better producer should also have Heroic Epic and West Point as well as a military academy and as many military instructors as you can generate. All the above assumes a cottage economy. All other cities go either science building set or currency building set with a maximum of cottages varying only to accomodate production for that city. In these cities, most of us vary units with buildings and settlers/workers. I give almost all of them a barracks and later will give some an airport or drydock. But mostly these should emphasize science or money. I have rambled a bit here, but variations on these themes, the number of cities in each category, generalizing some cities, build order in new cities and newly captured cities all make up the CE substrategies we all develop. (And in all honesty, sometimes we just wing it for awhile.)

[wodan11]

Blaupanzer replied with good info but didn't really tell you about a SE. Here's just one type of SE (there are several others).

Prioritize getting Library tech. Build NO cottages (except perhaps in your capitol). Build Libraries in all cities that have at least 3 extra food (which should be most if not all of your cities for this strategy).

In those cities, as soon as you get the Library built, go in and force a scientist (two if there's enough food).

That's it. Easy, right?

Oh, and it helps if you can build the Pyramids and run Representation. Helps, but not critical.

You'll get a lot of Great Scientists. Choose either to settle them in one city (where you will eventually put an Academy and the Oxford University), or use them to lightbulb techs such as Philosophy, Education, etc.

[BrotherBiff]

thanks for info wodan11, blaupanzer, and others

[LordBiff]

Just posting to get this thread in list so I can come back and read all this.

[wodan11]

More general tips on SE.

Prioritizing Philosophy is generally a good idea, as well as Civil Service. Run Caste System and Pacifism.

Settling all the great scientists you get in one city is often a good idea. This city becomes your GP Farm.

(A GP Farm is when you have one city that runs a lot of specialists or builds a lot of wonders, so that it generates a lot of Great People Points / GPP. The way GPP works is that each city produces GPP in parallel. Since each successive GP costs more GPP to produce, this means that whatever city makes more GPP is going to outstrip all other cities. Which means that if you can focus most of your GPP in that city, you'll have less wasted GPP and produce GP faster overall. Generally a GP Farm is not effective until the midgame, but you should plan on it and set it up from the early game. Pick your city with the most food, so you can run a LOT of specialists, usually scientists or merchants, or your city with a lot of production so you can churn out wonders, possibly your capitol running bureaucracy, if you don't cottage your capitol.)

In a SE you can run scientists in your GP Farm. This generates even more great scientists, supplementing the ones that you got early game. Since you ran 2 scientists per city in many cities across your empire, each of those cities will generate a great scientist before your GP Farm really "kicks in". You can settle all those GS's in the city you have picked to eventually be your GP Farm. Build Oxford there, and the National Epic.

(My last SE game my GP Farm was producing over 1000 beakers / turn by 1500 AD. It was running a lot of normal scientists plus had a bunch of settled great scientists.)

[BrotherBiff]

Originally posted by wodan11
More general tips on SE.

Prioritizing Philosophy is generally a good idea, as well as Civil Service. Run Caste System and Pacifism.

run pacifism if you want to loose a buck per unit is just insane why would anybody want that

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by BrotherBiff

run pacifism if you want to loose a buck per unit is just insane why would anybody want that

Because they're running a specialist economy with a barebones army, perhaps? Pacifism basically lets you buy GPP for gold/hammers/XP/diplomatic points, and the ratio varies depending on (a) the configuration of your cities, (b) the size of your army, and (c) choice of religious civic if not for Pacifism. If (a) includes enough specialists and wonders and the costs associated with (b) and (c) are small enough, it can be a good trade.

[Blaupanzer]

Pacifism plus vassalage works a lot better than you might think IF you are running an SE economy. You can use specialist merchants to generate funds and double Great Merchant points. Then send the Great Merchants to prosperous cities on other continents OR settle them in a city that's low on food but can produce wonders to create true prosperity. A conquering military will eventually outrun your ability to afford pacifism but early great people can really change your civ's fortunes.