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Speculating that a few subtle hints dropped here and there might result in a gift of the Warlords expansion for Christmas, I've taken a break from playing Civ4 and returned to playing a few older games including the original Civilization. In two weeks, I will have played that game for exactly fourteen years and I must say that it has aged extremely well.
There was no internet for me during the years when Civilization was my "main game", so I learned it by reading the manual over and over and by experimenting extensively. An aspect that I didn't give too much attention at the time was the tax/science/luxury setting. Instinctively, I always pushed science to the maximum, taxing only enough to cover maintenance and using luxuries only to trigger celebrations or balance war fatigue under representative governments. Needless to say, there was never much money around, although some came in from tribal gifts and caravans.
The question of how to use large funds only came up with Civilization II which prevented maximum science rates and with Alpha Centauri which discouraged them as a standard strategy. That's when I became aware of the huge effect of early rush-buying. In Civilization III and Civilization IV rush-buying was made dependent on specific forms of government and effectively removed from the early game when it would have been most powerful. With the exception of a few attempts a zero-science-strategies in Civ3, I've been back to maximum science since as far as the early game is concerned.
Revisiting the original Civilization now, I wonder about the best generic approach to the trade rates. There is still a lot to be said for maximum science. The most important point from the game mechanics is that science costs double after 1 AD, so research done during the first 4000 years is simply cheaper. On the other hand, I've seen the magic of rushed infrastructure and there's nothing in the Civ1 mechanics to stop it from working. If anything, the strict support rules beyond Despotism let smaller cities really feel the support costs, so putting up the infrastructure that allows them to grow quickly without additional support costs (mainly granaries and temples) is even more attractive.
As always, a lot depends on specific game situations and in games where the plan is go conquering right away and to stay in Despotism indefinitely, rushing infrastructure is not nearly as important. Assuming a more or less generic "peaceful expansion" opening, it should be possible to discuss the approach to trade rates in general terms, so please feel free to comment.
Verrucosus
There was no internet for me during the years when Civilization was my "main game", so I learned it by reading the manual over and over and by experimenting extensively. An aspect that I didn't give too much attention at the time was the tax/science/luxury setting. Instinctively, I always pushed science to the maximum, taxing only enough to cover maintenance and using luxuries only to trigger celebrations or balance war fatigue under representative governments. Needless to say, there was never much money around, although some came in from tribal gifts and caravans.
The question of how to use large funds only came up with Civilization II which prevented maximum science rates and with Alpha Centauri which discouraged them as a standard strategy. That's when I became aware of the huge effect of early rush-buying. In Civilization III and Civilization IV rush-buying was made dependent on specific forms of government and effectively removed from the early game when it would have been most powerful. With the exception of a few attempts a zero-science-strategies in Civ3, I've been back to maximum science since as far as the early game is concerned.
Revisiting the original Civilization now, I wonder about the best generic approach to the trade rates. There is still a lot to be said for maximum science. The most important point from the game mechanics is that science costs double after 1 AD, so research done during the first 4000 years is simply cheaper. On the other hand, I've seen the magic of rushed infrastructure and there's nothing in the Civ1 mechanics to stop it from working. If anything, the strict support rules beyond Despotism let smaller cities really feel the support costs, so putting up the infrastructure that allows them to grow quickly without additional support costs (mainly granaries and temples) is even more attractive.
As always, a lot depends on specific game situations and in games where the plan is go conquering right away and to stay in Despotism indefinitely, rushing infrastructure is not nearly as important. Assuming a more or less generic "peaceful expansion" opening, it should be possible to discuss the approach to trade rates in general terms, so please feel free to comment.
Verrucosus