Tweet
Since our first thread was getting a bit full, I figured it was time to start a new one, and carry over some of the more enduring points from the first thread for our continued discussion. Distilled notes below:
<b>The Factions – A closer analysis (Part One) </b>
Before we can begin picking apart the factions (and that’s in the works as I type this….it’s just that the article wound up taking far longer to type than I had originally anticipated, and I wanted to get something out today), it would be insightful to take a close look at one of the key aspects that define Civs. Their tendencies, and the advantages of those tendencies. With that in mind, here’s a quick survey of the strengths and weaknesses of the various tendencies that define Civs:
<b>Expansionist: </b>
Starting Tech = Pottery (Granary)
Free Scout at game Start (2 Move/ 0 Attack Exploration Unit)
Goody Huts = More good stuff & no barbarians; can easily dominate the diplomatic scene via controlling early contacts
The usefulness of this trait is directly tied to world size and the amount of water you have selected for your planet. Small worlds, or worlds without much land will GREATLY disadvantage this trait’s strongest points. Conversely, the larger the planet/more land to be had, the stronger this trait becomes.
Keep in mind too, that this is an almost entirely early game trait. It’s only useful as long as there are huts to be “popped,” and land to be explored. After that, it becomes largely useless (save for the fact that you start with the tech for granaries, which essentially allows you to double your growth rates in cities, thus expand even faster!). The lesson here: Expansionist Civs live and die by their early game! A strong opener will set you up for an even stronger mid-game. Falter once during the Ancient era though, and you’ll spend the bulk of your time playing catch-up.
<b>Militaristic: </b>
Starting Tech = Warrior Code
Military units gain morale faster, higher chance of generating a leader, barracks are half price.
A good trait, but not a great one. Even with a militaristic civ, it’s frustratingly hard to generate leaders, and with even moderately active barbarians milling about, most civs will not have any great difficulty in training elite warriors of various stripes, thus limiting the impact of two of the strongest selling points of this trait.
Armies too, are a good bit weaker than they should be, further limiting the power of the Militaristic trait.
Still, it does have its advantages. Long-term, you WILL gain more Great Leaders than your non-militaristic rivals, which is essentially a free pass at wonder-building (and don’t bother to build a small wonder with a GL….save them for major wonder-building to steal a juicy wonder out from under a Civ that has been hard at work on it for half a century or more!). And Armies, while not the powerhouses we initially envisioned them to be, are still useful in certain situations, and the creation of your first army (actually, the army’s first victory) leads to minor wonders that cannot be created otherwise.
To a lesser degree than Expansionist Civs, Militarism’s usefulness is tied to world size in reverse. Cheaper barracks means faster barracks, and on Tiny maps, the several turns faster barracks construction can make or break your game. As world size increases, and with it, the distances between Civs, this ability begins to diminish in impact, though not nearly to the extent that Expansionistic Civs suffer under tiny maps.
In all, the Militaristic trait is a collection of decent abilities, none of which truly stand out, but when combined, make a sturdy-enough Civ Trait.
<b>Commercial: </b>
Starting Tech: Alphabet
Less Corruption in cities
1 Extra Gold in each 7+ City
A powerful trait by any definition, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, with Corruption such a killer to city productivity, ANY means of combating it is a good thing, and Civs with this trait come with a built-in advantage. Thus, you can expect to see Commercial Civs with larger, more productive empires on the whole. Larger Empires = More production centers. More production centers = more territory controlled, more access to resources, and more places that units can be built in a reasonable amount of time.
As you might expect then, the Commercial trait doesn’t really come into its own until the mid-game.
After all, when you’ve only got two or three cities, and they’re all pretty close together, corruption isn’t an issue at all! But, as your Empire matures and grows….as you expand and begin to flex your muscles a bit, you’ll find this trait moves from “helpful,” to “invaluable” in its overall value.
As an added benefit, the Commercial Civ starts with a VERY attractive tech, along the path toward Republic and the Great Library!! This fact simply cannot be overstated, and is hugely important in planning your Civ’s future!
<b>Scientific: </b>
Starting Tech: Bronze Working
Free Tech advance as you enter each new age, lab-enhancing infrastructure is half price.
By itself, the free tech is a NICE boon for this ability to have, but when added to the fact that everything that enhances your science (libraries, universities, research centers, etc) is half price for you, and you’ve got yourself an EXTREMELY attractive Civ trait! (mostly because there are actually quite a number of science-enhancing facilities!).
No matter how you look at it, “Scientific” is a tough act to follow, but they have yet one more ability that the casual player may not have thought of, and it relates to their starting tech.
No…the ability to build Spearmen from the get-go isn’t it! LOL…true, that’s a nice boon, but even MORE important is the fact that the Scientific Civs are exactly one tech out from Iron Working.
He who discovers where the iron deposits are first can play a resource denial type of game with regards to city placement and find himself in an absolutely unbeatable ancient-era position very quickly! (How hard do you suppose it would be to defeat your opponent KNOWING that you had a monopoly on your continent’s iron supply, or at the very least knowing that your opponent had no iron at all for the foreseeable future?).
The proximity to Iron Working is what makes the Scientific trait a true gem….the free tech and cheaper facilities are just a wonderful bonus!
<b>Industrious: </b>
Starting Tech: Masonry
Double-speed Workers
Extra production shields in large cities (1 in ea. 7+ City)
The production bonus is minor, and though it’s impact will be felt for the better part of the game, it is not this trait’s strongest selling point by any means.
First and foremost is the double-speed worker ability. This simply cannot be overstated! And the first time you have to clear out jungle tiles, you’ll be eternally grateful for your industrious workers! In the early game, those workers can really be a godsend, allowing for lighting quick road construction to speed your settlers on their way, and bulking up your shield counts at selected towns faster than you’d ever have believed possible! Worker speed alone would be reason enough to favor this Civ trait, but that’s not all you get!
Have a look at your starting tech, and the GREAT early game wonder that comes with it! (and with rapid expansion, your Civ can be working on this project well before the others even THINK about starting it!) No matter how you look at it, Industrious is
one of the strongest traits in the game!
*Note that the double speed worker effect also applies to <i>captured</i> workers....think about the implications of that for a moment....
<b>Religious: </b>
Starting Tech: Ceremonial Burial
Happiness-producing builds are half price, anarchy only lasts one turn.
This trait is all about control of your citizens. You get a LOT of city improvements for half off, and they ALL help keep the masses content. When you want to switch from one form of government to another, forget decades of turmoil. One measly turn, and you’re back in charge and churning along like nobody’s business.
Considering that most Civ’s will make 3-4 government switches during the course of a game, and that a city totally shuts down when unhappy citizens riot, and the advantages of this trait become clear.
It’s all about turn advantage here. Your cities will be among the happiest in the world, and switching government types is a piece of cake, enabling you to take advantage of mid-game political situations, declare war (switching to communism and using population to rush….well, anything you want), then switching back when your objectives have been reached, and reaping the benefits of instant Democracy!
And, considering how many happiness-enhancing buildings there are, you can all but guarantee that you’ll be one of the leading contenders in the Culture war!
Your starting tech is on a direct path to Monarchy, which is good….the more government types you have to choose from when you go to make a switch, the better for you, and playing to your natural strength in starting tech, you’re fairly well-suited to go ahead and beeline for Monarchy in any case.
The next installment of this piece will take a look at the various factions in the game, in terms of their Civ-Traits and Special Units, and offer up specific in-game strats for getting the most out of each.
<b>Early Game Expansion – Keeping Pace with the AI</b>
The AI expands brutally and relentlessly (REX-style, per Lawrence of Arabia!). If you don’t, you’ll find yourself rapidly falling behind in every meaningful category. To that end, the human player must become the T-REX of the REXers, meeting that fast expansion point for point, racing to choke points with settlers or warriors to limit the AI’s opportunities and stake out a largish tract of land for yourself.
And, as recently pointed out elsewhere on this thread, do not simply limit yourself to traditional “good city spots!” Late game resources can be found in rugged hills, jungles, and deserts, so if you want your fair share of late game resources, don’t be at all shy about founding cities in what would be almost universally regarded as lousy terrain. Consider them long-term investments.
So….if you’re looking to establish yourself as an Empire, how best to go about it? Obviously, founding cities in food rich tiles MUST be given top priority in the very early game (to fuel your further expansion into those “long-term investment” cites.
What follows then, are the current “best practices” to get yourself up and running in record time:
<b>The Needs of the Empire</b>
If you’re going to <I>build</I> an Empire, then you have to have at least the basics of a plan in order to proceed. What is it you want to accomplish? Survival, obviously, but then what? Are you going to play the conqueror’s game early? If so, then thinking in terms of where you want a barracks (troop training center) will be of relatively high importance to you. Got your eye on an Ancient-Era Wonder or two? Then you’d better start thinking now about where to found a city that can be set aside to begin work on it, and the sooner the better!
So….let us start by making a list of things your Empire will need to get in order to start really flourishing.
1) Settler Farms: You need two high food production cities if you want to keep pace with the AI’s expansion, and these should be founded with all speed, before anything else is given consideration. These are, after all, the cities that will drive the expansion of the rest of your Empire.
2) Worker Farm: In the early game, you can get by with just one of these….should also have good food production, but with a granary installed, pretty much any city can do this effectively. This city’s overriding goal is to crank out a minimum of one worker per city (more if you can afford it, by all means!), and start mapping out extensive road networks, irrigating tiles that will net you a Despotism food bonus for doing so, building mines and so on. This is absolutely essential to your long-term growth, and should probably be the third city on your list. Very high priority here!
3) Barracks/Wonder City: If you have the conqueror’s eye, then once you get four cities established, you’ll probably find yourself with sufficient mass to begin churning out troops everywhere and simply rush your nearest opponent, but if you’re looking at a more Hybrid stance, then one ancient era barracks town is probably sufficient. Such a town need not have stellar food production, but should get a granary in case pop-rushing troops becomes necessary, and the town should have access to numerous hill/mountain tiles for good early game shield production. In the case of a city you have earmarked for production of an Ancient Wonder, keep the granary and skip the barracks. In both cases, the city in question should get a temple, both for culture and population control, and if time permits, each city should produce a worker of its own, to be specifically assigned to improve terrain around that city. Garrisons are optional for the Wonder City, as they can, no doubt, be provided by some other town nearby, and of course, if the town in question is a troop center, then the garrison will be arriving shortly.
4) Luxury item(s)/Ancient Era Strategic Resources: Once you get the basics up and running, it’s time to start thinking about your mid-range future, and in the ancient era, that means Iron and Horses. Savvy trading and attention to the appropriate areas of the tech tree (The Wheel/Iron Working) will reveal the location of these ancient era resources to you, and these should get your immediate attention! The same goes for luxury items….any that are close by (especially if there’s a “patch” of 3+ tiles!) should be raced for! Not only are the luxuries themselves tradable to other Civs later in the game, but the individual tiles net you extra coins when worked, making them excellent indeed!
5) Long-term investments: See that patch of desert over yonder you’ve been sending settlers across to get to juicy city sites? Or that wide swath of hill country to the north? The jungle along your southern border? Once you get yourself established as outlined above, now it’s time to start thinking in terms of long-term investments. Cities founded in any of the places mentioned above won’t grow much during the early game. They won’t be paragons of productivity by any stretch of the imagination, but….they WILL increase your chances of securing those rare and valuable mid and late game strategic resources, and for that reason alone, they’re worth founding.
<b>Pulling Double Duty</b>
Of course, it goes without saying that if one of your early settler farms/worker farms/wonder-building towns also happens to be sitting astride luxuries or strategic resources, then so much the better for you! Anytime it is possible to do so, found your cities so that they can achieve multiple goals and serve multiple purposes for you! Doing so will bring a kind of efficiency to your Empire that you’ll be hard pressed to top.
Run your expansion along those lines, and on Monarch-level difficulty and below, you’ll find yourself keeping pace with the AI, if not surpassing him.
<center>OoO</center>
<b>Resource Depletion and Strategic Reserves</b>
If it indeed proves to be the case that a resource with a road running through it has a % chance of running out, then, if you find yourself with more than one source of a given resource, it would behoove you to NOT road that tile until and unless your initial source ran out….thus, prolonging your total supply of that resource….strategic reserves….
<center>OoO</center>
<b>Blc’s Scouting Notes</b>
During the early exploration stage of the game, stay on the mountains and hills with warriors (if you're not playing expansionist).
This makes your initial search for resources and huts much more efficent. I usually will try to send one warrior on every mountain I see, then send one after him in order to pick up the goodies.
<center>OoO</center>
<b>GaH’s Worker Notes – Use ‘em in gangs!</b>
i want to talk about workers. i think it's a better idea to have them move in stacks and do one improvement at a time. for example, 2 workers building together a mine and then a road will complete both tasks at the same time as one building building a mine while another is building a road. however in the first case you will be able to use the mine a couple of turns earlier than in the later case. that can make a noticable difference in a really tight situation. i go the same way when clearing jungles or forest, cause then you can see your work actually having an effect much sooner!
<center>OoO</center>
<b>Vulture Culture</b>
(Being a good Despot)
The basic premise here is that under Despotism, sacrificing one or more population points in order to strategically speed build critical early game infrastructure can put you light years ahead of the pack, either in terms of culture (hence the name), or in terms of building a massive early game army via the Despotic Whip. In either case, if your opponents are using the strategy and you are not, you will fall hopelessly behind. It’s one of those things that’s simply too powerful to ignore.
Specifically, each point of population can be sacrificed for 20 shields of production (40, the first time you do it), so bear that in mind when you decide what to rush and when. Also, keep in mind your civ’s native strengths when pop-rushing (the Babylonians, for example, have a HUGE advantage in this regard, being able to rush in most all cultural-enhancing stuff for half the normal price). In other words, in the early Middle Ages (if you are still expanding and have not yet dropped out of Despotism), it may be wiser to rush a Cathedral first—more expensive, but you get 40 shields for the first pop-sacrifice-- at a newly founded city, and then follow that up with a rush of a Library and Temple). In any case, no matter how you go about it, the fact is, it’s a powerful tool to put in your “Empire-Growing-Toolkit!”
<center>OoO</center>
<b>The Culture Bomb/Palace Bouncing</b>
Related to the above, if you’re looking to wage a “Cultural War” on a neighboring Civ, then the faster you can get your culture enhancing goodies installed in border towns, the better for you. With that in mind, when you target one or more towns you’d like to absorb, you NEED to immediately start thinking in terms of rushing in as many cultural improvements to towns that surround it, and you need to do it as quickly as possible. If possible (and especially if there are a number of rival Civ towns nearby, all fairly distant from that Civ’s capitol), begin thinking in terms of re-locating your capitol closer to the border, even if only for the short term. Proximity to the capitol is a big factor in deciding if/when a city joins the fold, and the loss you may take in higher corruption rates in your empire while the capitol is “out of position” are well worth it if it enables you to scarf up half a dozen rival cities without hurting your reputation or firing a shot. What’s more, if your culture is significantly higher than your neighbor’s, you can always re-locate the capitol once the cities are yours, and they’ll stay in your fold.
To speed this process, another thing that has been found to be helpful is to have any excess workers (or settlers produced from nearby towns) join the cities you’ve established along the borders. It seems that size matters after all….
<b>Cultural Kudzu</b>
The concept of the “Culture Bomb” applied Civ-Wide, causing the steady, outward crawl of your borders, and, if your capitol in anywhere in the vicinity, causing rival civ cities to simply melt into yours when borders begin to touch.
<b>The Factions – A closer analysis (Part One) </b>
Before we can begin picking apart the factions (and that’s in the works as I type this….it’s just that the article wound up taking far longer to type than I had originally anticipated, and I wanted to get something out today), it would be insightful to take a close look at one of the key aspects that define Civs. Their tendencies, and the advantages of those tendencies. With that in mind, here’s a quick survey of the strengths and weaknesses of the various tendencies that define Civs:
<b>Expansionist: </b>
Starting Tech = Pottery (Granary)
Free Scout at game Start (2 Move/ 0 Attack Exploration Unit)
Goody Huts = More good stuff & no barbarians; can easily dominate the diplomatic scene via controlling early contacts
The usefulness of this trait is directly tied to world size and the amount of water you have selected for your planet. Small worlds, or worlds without much land will GREATLY disadvantage this trait’s strongest points. Conversely, the larger the planet/more land to be had, the stronger this trait becomes.
Keep in mind too, that this is an almost entirely early game trait. It’s only useful as long as there are huts to be “popped,” and land to be explored. After that, it becomes largely useless (save for the fact that you start with the tech for granaries, which essentially allows you to double your growth rates in cities, thus expand even faster!). The lesson here: Expansionist Civs live and die by their early game! A strong opener will set you up for an even stronger mid-game. Falter once during the Ancient era though, and you’ll spend the bulk of your time playing catch-up.
<b>Militaristic: </b>
Starting Tech = Warrior Code
Military units gain morale faster, higher chance of generating a leader, barracks are half price.
A good trait, but not a great one. Even with a militaristic civ, it’s frustratingly hard to generate leaders, and with even moderately active barbarians milling about, most civs will not have any great difficulty in training elite warriors of various stripes, thus limiting the impact of two of the strongest selling points of this trait.
Armies too, are a good bit weaker than they should be, further limiting the power of the Militaristic trait.
Still, it does have its advantages. Long-term, you WILL gain more Great Leaders than your non-militaristic rivals, which is essentially a free pass at wonder-building (and don’t bother to build a small wonder with a GL….save them for major wonder-building to steal a juicy wonder out from under a Civ that has been hard at work on it for half a century or more!). And Armies, while not the powerhouses we initially envisioned them to be, are still useful in certain situations, and the creation of your first army (actually, the army’s first victory) leads to minor wonders that cannot be created otherwise.
To a lesser degree than Expansionist Civs, Militarism’s usefulness is tied to world size in reverse. Cheaper barracks means faster barracks, and on Tiny maps, the several turns faster barracks construction can make or break your game. As world size increases, and with it, the distances between Civs, this ability begins to diminish in impact, though not nearly to the extent that Expansionistic Civs suffer under tiny maps.
In all, the Militaristic trait is a collection of decent abilities, none of which truly stand out, but when combined, make a sturdy-enough Civ Trait.
<b>Commercial: </b>
Starting Tech: Alphabet
Less Corruption in cities
1 Extra Gold in each 7+ City
A powerful trait by any definition, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, with Corruption such a killer to city productivity, ANY means of combating it is a good thing, and Civs with this trait come with a built-in advantage. Thus, you can expect to see Commercial Civs with larger, more productive empires on the whole. Larger Empires = More production centers. More production centers = more territory controlled, more access to resources, and more places that units can be built in a reasonable amount of time.
As you might expect then, the Commercial trait doesn’t really come into its own until the mid-game.
After all, when you’ve only got two or three cities, and they’re all pretty close together, corruption isn’t an issue at all! But, as your Empire matures and grows….as you expand and begin to flex your muscles a bit, you’ll find this trait moves from “helpful,” to “invaluable” in its overall value.
As an added benefit, the Commercial Civ starts with a VERY attractive tech, along the path toward Republic and the Great Library!! This fact simply cannot be overstated, and is hugely important in planning your Civ’s future!
<b>Scientific: </b>
Starting Tech: Bronze Working
Free Tech advance as you enter each new age, lab-enhancing infrastructure is half price.
By itself, the free tech is a NICE boon for this ability to have, but when added to the fact that everything that enhances your science (libraries, universities, research centers, etc) is half price for you, and you’ve got yourself an EXTREMELY attractive Civ trait! (mostly because there are actually quite a number of science-enhancing facilities!).
No matter how you look at it, “Scientific” is a tough act to follow, but they have yet one more ability that the casual player may not have thought of, and it relates to their starting tech.
No…the ability to build Spearmen from the get-go isn’t it! LOL…true, that’s a nice boon, but even MORE important is the fact that the Scientific Civs are exactly one tech out from Iron Working.
He who discovers where the iron deposits are first can play a resource denial type of game with regards to city placement and find himself in an absolutely unbeatable ancient-era position very quickly! (How hard do you suppose it would be to defeat your opponent KNOWING that you had a monopoly on your continent’s iron supply, or at the very least knowing that your opponent had no iron at all for the foreseeable future?).
The proximity to Iron Working is what makes the Scientific trait a true gem….the free tech and cheaper facilities are just a wonderful bonus!
<b>Industrious: </b>
Starting Tech: Masonry
Double-speed Workers
Extra production shields in large cities (1 in ea. 7+ City)
The production bonus is minor, and though it’s impact will be felt for the better part of the game, it is not this trait’s strongest selling point by any means.
First and foremost is the double-speed worker ability. This simply cannot be overstated! And the first time you have to clear out jungle tiles, you’ll be eternally grateful for your industrious workers! In the early game, those workers can really be a godsend, allowing for lighting quick road construction to speed your settlers on their way, and bulking up your shield counts at selected towns faster than you’d ever have believed possible! Worker speed alone would be reason enough to favor this Civ trait, but that’s not all you get!
Have a look at your starting tech, and the GREAT early game wonder that comes with it! (and with rapid expansion, your Civ can be working on this project well before the others even THINK about starting it!) No matter how you look at it, Industrious is
one of the strongest traits in the game!
*Note that the double speed worker effect also applies to <i>captured</i> workers....think about the implications of that for a moment....
<b>Religious: </b>
Starting Tech: Ceremonial Burial
Happiness-producing builds are half price, anarchy only lasts one turn.
This trait is all about control of your citizens. You get a LOT of city improvements for half off, and they ALL help keep the masses content. When you want to switch from one form of government to another, forget decades of turmoil. One measly turn, and you’re back in charge and churning along like nobody’s business.
Considering that most Civ’s will make 3-4 government switches during the course of a game, and that a city totally shuts down when unhappy citizens riot, and the advantages of this trait become clear.
It’s all about turn advantage here. Your cities will be among the happiest in the world, and switching government types is a piece of cake, enabling you to take advantage of mid-game political situations, declare war (switching to communism and using population to rush….well, anything you want), then switching back when your objectives have been reached, and reaping the benefits of instant Democracy!
And, considering how many happiness-enhancing buildings there are, you can all but guarantee that you’ll be one of the leading contenders in the Culture war!
Your starting tech is on a direct path to Monarchy, which is good….the more government types you have to choose from when you go to make a switch, the better for you, and playing to your natural strength in starting tech, you’re fairly well-suited to go ahead and beeline for Monarchy in any case.
The next installment of this piece will take a look at the various factions in the game, in terms of their Civ-Traits and Special Units, and offer up specific in-game strats for getting the most out of each.
<b>Early Game Expansion – Keeping Pace with the AI</b>
The AI expands brutally and relentlessly (REX-style, per Lawrence of Arabia!). If you don’t, you’ll find yourself rapidly falling behind in every meaningful category. To that end, the human player must become the T-REX of the REXers, meeting that fast expansion point for point, racing to choke points with settlers or warriors to limit the AI’s opportunities and stake out a largish tract of land for yourself.
And, as recently pointed out elsewhere on this thread, do not simply limit yourself to traditional “good city spots!” Late game resources can be found in rugged hills, jungles, and deserts, so if you want your fair share of late game resources, don’t be at all shy about founding cities in what would be almost universally regarded as lousy terrain. Consider them long-term investments.
So….if you’re looking to establish yourself as an Empire, how best to go about it? Obviously, founding cities in food rich tiles MUST be given top priority in the very early game (to fuel your further expansion into those “long-term investment” cites.
What follows then, are the current “best practices” to get yourself up and running in record time:
<b>The Needs of the Empire</b>
If you’re going to <I>build</I> an Empire, then you have to have at least the basics of a plan in order to proceed. What is it you want to accomplish? Survival, obviously, but then what? Are you going to play the conqueror’s game early? If so, then thinking in terms of where you want a barracks (troop training center) will be of relatively high importance to you. Got your eye on an Ancient-Era Wonder or two? Then you’d better start thinking now about where to found a city that can be set aside to begin work on it, and the sooner the better!
So….let us start by making a list of things your Empire will need to get in order to start really flourishing.
1) Settler Farms: You need two high food production cities if you want to keep pace with the AI’s expansion, and these should be founded with all speed, before anything else is given consideration. These are, after all, the cities that will drive the expansion of the rest of your Empire.
2) Worker Farm: In the early game, you can get by with just one of these….should also have good food production, but with a granary installed, pretty much any city can do this effectively. This city’s overriding goal is to crank out a minimum of one worker per city (more if you can afford it, by all means!), and start mapping out extensive road networks, irrigating tiles that will net you a Despotism food bonus for doing so, building mines and so on. This is absolutely essential to your long-term growth, and should probably be the third city on your list. Very high priority here!
3) Barracks/Wonder City: If you have the conqueror’s eye, then once you get four cities established, you’ll probably find yourself with sufficient mass to begin churning out troops everywhere and simply rush your nearest opponent, but if you’re looking at a more Hybrid stance, then one ancient era barracks town is probably sufficient. Such a town need not have stellar food production, but should get a granary in case pop-rushing troops becomes necessary, and the town should have access to numerous hill/mountain tiles for good early game shield production. In the case of a city you have earmarked for production of an Ancient Wonder, keep the granary and skip the barracks. In both cases, the city in question should get a temple, both for culture and population control, and if time permits, each city should produce a worker of its own, to be specifically assigned to improve terrain around that city. Garrisons are optional for the Wonder City, as they can, no doubt, be provided by some other town nearby, and of course, if the town in question is a troop center, then the garrison will be arriving shortly.
4) Luxury item(s)/Ancient Era Strategic Resources: Once you get the basics up and running, it’s time to start thinking about your mid-range future, and in the ancient era, that means Iron and Horses. Savvy trading and attention to the appropriate areas of the tech tree (The Wheel/Iron Working) will reveal the location of these ancient era resources to you, and these should get your immediate attention! The same goes for luxury items….any that are close by (especially if there’s a “patch” of 3+ tiles!) should be raced for! Not only are the luxuries themselves tradable to other Civs later in the game, but the individual tiles net you extra coins when worked, making them excellent indeed!
5) Long-term investments: See that patch of desert over yonder you’ve been sending settlers across to get to juicy city sites? Or that wide swath of hill country to the north? The jungle along your southern border? Once you get yourself established as outlined above, now it’s time to start thinking in terms of long-term investments. Cities founded in any of the places mentioned above won’t grow much during the early game. They won’t be paragons of productivity by any stretch of the imagination, but….they WILL increase your chances of securing those rare and valuable mid and late game strategic resources, and for that reason alone, they’re worth founding.
<b>Pulling Double Duty</b>
Of course, it goes without saying that if one of your early settler farms/worker farms/wonder-building towns also happens to be sitting astride luxuries or strategic resources, then so much the better for you! Anytime it is possible to do so, found your cities so that they can achieve multiple goals and serve multiple purposes for you! Doing so will bring a kind of efficiency to your Empire that you’ll be hard pressed to top.
Run your expansion along those lines, and on Monarch-level difficulty and below, you’ll find yourself keeping pace with the AI, if not surpassing him.
<center>OoO</center>
<b>Resource Depletion and Strategic Reserves</b>
If it indeed proves to be the case that a resource with a road running through it has a % chance of running out, then, if you find yourself with more than one source of a given resource, it would behoove you to NOT road that tile until and unless your initial source ran out….thus, prolonging your total supply of that resource….strategic reserves….
<center>OoO</center>
<b>Blc’s Scouting Notes</b>
During the early exploration stage of the game, stay on the mountains and hills with warriors (if you're not playing expansionist).
This makes your initial search for resources and huts much more efficent. I usually will try to send one warrior on every mountain I see, then send one after him in order to pick up the goodies.
<center>OoO</center>
<b>GaH’s Worker Notes – Use ‘em in gangs!</b>
i want to talk about workers. i think it's a better idea to have them move in stacks and do one improvement at a time. for example, 2 workers building together a mine and then a road will complete both tasks at the same time as one building building a mine while another is building a road. however in the first case you will be able to use the mine a couple of turns earlier than in the later case. that can make a noticable difference in a really tight situation. i go the same way when clearing jungles or forest, cause then you can see your work actually having an effect much sooner!
<center>OoO</center>
<b>Vulture Culture</b>
(Being a good Despot)
The basic premise here is that under Despotism, sacrificing one or more population points in order to strategically speed build critical early game infrastructure can put you light years ahead of the pack, either in terms of culture (hence the name), or in terms of building a massive early game army via the Despotic Whip. In either case, if your opponents are using the strategy and you are not, you will fall hopelessly behind. It’s one of those things that’s simply too powerful to ignore.
Specifically, each point of population can be sacrificed for 20 shields of production (40, the first time you do it), so bear that in mind when you decide what to rush and when. Also, keep in mind your civ’s native strengths when pop-rushing (the Babylonians, for example, have a HUGE advantage in this regard, being able to rush in most all cultural-enhancing stuff for half the normal price). In other words, in the early Middle Ages (if you are still expanding and have not yet dropped out of Despotism), it may be wiser to rush a Cathedral first—more expensive, but you get 40 shields for the first pop-sacrifice-- at a newly founded city, and then follow that up with a rush of a Library and Temple). In any case, no matter how you go about it, the fact is, it’s a powerful tool to put in your “Empire-Growing-Toolkit!”
<center>OoO</center>
<b>The Culture Bomb/Palace Bouncing</b>
Related to the above, if you’re looking to wage a “Cultural War” on a neighboring Civ, then the faster you can get your culture enhancing goodies installed in border towns, the better for you. With that in mind, when you target one or more towns you’d like to absorb, you NEED to immediately start thinking in terms of rushing in as many cultural improvements to towns that surround it, and you need to do it as quickly as possible. If possible (and especially if there are a number of rival Civ towns nearby, all fairly distant from that Civ’s capitol), begin thinking in terms of re-locating your capitol closer to the border, even if only for the short term. Proximity to the capitol is a big factor in deciding if/when a city joins the fold, and the loss you may take in higher corruption rates in your empire while the capitol is “out of position” are well worth it if it enables you to scarf up half a dozen rival cities without hurting your reputation or firing a shot. What’s more, if your culture is significantly higher than your neighbor’s, you can always re-locate the capitol once the cities are yours, and they’ll stay in your fold.
To speed this process, another thing that has been found to be helpful is to have any excess workers (or settlers produced from nearby towns) join the cities you’ve established along the borders. It seems that size matters after all….
<b>Cultural Kudzu</b>
The concept of the “Culture Bomb” applied Civ-Wide, causing the steady, outward crawl of your borders, and, if your capitol in anywhere in the vicinity, causing rival civ cities to simply melt into yours when borders begin to touch.
Comment