King Level

[Ecthy]

yeah, if they approach a smallcity of size 5, they say things like "give us all your money (Gold 50,000,000) or we will rape all children under age 12 in that city"... if they get to one of your really big things, they just take it without asking

[EOL]

Re: King Level

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
To put it simple, i find prince very easy, but King very hard- i can just about keep up with science rate, but i never seem to be able to build Leo's or MC's. And without those, you are virtually screwwed (her comes my enemies howitzer verses my lil phalanx)

You can help yourself by slowing down the AI research of key techs by giving them any useless techs you have picked up too. They will also love you for it. .

[Ecthy]

hmm... I think that only works for a few of the enemy civs... as soon as there are generally smaller differences between the civs' amounts of researched technologies, the research time decreases, globally. so giving too many civs too many techs is definitely helpful for you, but it might also be helpful for them

[EOL]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
hmm... I think that only works for a few of the enemy civs... as soon as there are generally smaller differences between the civs' amounts of researched technologies, the research time decreases, globally. so giving too many civs too many techs is definitely helpful for you, but it might also be helpful for them

If they've just started researching Invention and you give them a host of other techs the number of beakers that they require for invention will increase since they have already then 'researched' a larger number of techs. If you can push them over the 20 tech barrier you can give yourself as many as 5 or 6 extra turns space due to their poor research rates. If they don't have republic, and you give them that, their research and production can sometimes shut down completely. This is because if they change to republic they can't keep their towns happy (so don't produce science or shields) and they have to support all the excessive military they seem to produce, completely nullifying any effect of the doubled arrows - despite all their cheats.

[Ecthy]

I... see...

[EOL]

In general, the more techs a civ has the more the next will cost. There is a large jump after you have acquired 20 techs. Give them extra techs and the beaker cost of whatever they are researching will increase, perhaps dramatically.

[Ecthy]

yeah, I knew that before, and it seems that now it all makes sense... giving them tech, aha, yeah... but ... no... or? well, I'm sure you know what you're talking about, so I'll "take you by the word" (if that makes sense in english )

[Edward]

i am the kind of person that likes a perfectionist republic/demorcrocy latly. and base my game on happy people more then military.

on prince though, this means people sighning anti agression pacts, and on king it means discovering literacy whilst someone is completeing Leo's.

Even without a strong military there are (at least) two very different approaches.

A) "peaceful expansionist"
Here you try to become great by way of having a lot of cities. You're going to expand (by settling) to fill all available space with your cities. One could consider ISC a form of this, but I'm thinking of avoiding war as much as possible, allowing cities enough space to grow in the late game, and having a SSC.

If you go this route, an early Republic will kill your expansion because settlers suddenly eat 2 food. (Communism is good for expansion but comes much later in the game.) You'll definitely want civ-wide happiness wonders because you'll have small cities (until the late game when you build them up) with no improvements (so you can concentrate your resources on building settler after settler). Settlers become a form of happiness control because anywhere there's an entertainer (and enough food) - you build a settler (instead of a temple or martial law unit) and your city's happy again with a lower pop. You should consider delaying terrain improvement (except roads between cities which are very important) in favor of founding new cities.

B) "perfectionist"
Here you try to become powerful by way of having large cities. You'll intentionally stop yourself at 8 or so cities to avoid the riot factor and to grow them earlier. Depending on your map size, 20 or so cities might be "perfectionistic."

If you go this route, Republic is your best friend since it 1) gives you more arrows and a higher potential science rate; and 2) it lets you grow your cities quickly via "We Love" days. You'll need to predict your happiness and aqueduct improvement needs to time "We Love" correctly. Your increased city size means city improvements are much more effective than in strategy A. It also means caravans pull in a lot more money & science per delivery. It think you'll find that with an early Republic and strong trade, you won't be left in the dust science-wise. In fact a similar strategy is used by early AC landers for whom rapid research is very important. You will need well placed fortresses for protection from your large neighbors. You'll also want plenty of terrain improvements to keep up with your large neighbors' production.

[cpemma]

...republic ...research and production can sometimes shut down completely.

I just hit that problem, an early switch to republic, shields way down and everything slowed. Let the AI get ahead so I lost the race for Mike and Newton.

So is there an optimum figure for shields, supported units, etc. when a switch (from Monarchy to Republic) is beneficial? Or should I wait & go straight to Democracy?

btw, I'm a "peaceful expansionist" (till I get an Howitzer)

[reds4ever]

whether to skip republic and go staight to democracy is an interesting question IMHO if you are playing 2x2x or 2x1x you should always go to republic as the double production offsets the unit support costs, but on 1x1x when your cities are small and theres still plenty of real estate up for grabs i don't usually bother but i'm sure others will have different opions

[Jay Bee]

The unit support cost is what refrains me from getting into Republic too early. This is one strategy aspect I still have to polish a bit. I do not seem to be able to crank up settlers quick enough under Republic.

I feel so comfortable with being a Monarchic Despot that I rarely switch to Republic before getting into Democracy.

Comments, suggestions?

[fittstim]

I agree.

Avoid Repub at all costs and wait for Dem. Only in rare cases where my tech rate is so lame do I feel the need to switch to this "intermediate" government.

[EOL]

You might consider getting to Monotheism quickly, building Mike's Chapel and then switching to Republic/Demo. If you already have a couple foreign trade routes (per city) or a marketplace you will probably be able to grow your cities straight up to size 8 or further with 30-40% lux. No more production problems. Your SSC can balloon in size with a couple of other improvements. Even without an SSC you can get low research times with 20 size 8 cities. Especially putting libraries in a couple of the better trade producers.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by fittstim
I agree.

Avoid Repub at all costs and wait for Dem. Only in rare cases where my tech rate is so lame do I feel the need to switch to this "intermediate" government.

that's crap... you'd have to wait for democracy way too long... go for republic early and hope the barbs won't get too annoying... of course, you have to bother with building enough roads and Mike's before changing to republic... HG can be helpful for going into republic early.

[The Andy-Man]

go into repub asap, the production thing isnt a problem after a few 'we love the babe days'

problem with the nicve hilly terrein thing is that after to many we love the babe days, evry where begins to starve at size 24