Beelining in the Industrial Age

[Nakar Gabab]

Just a quick question, what do people tend to shoot for first in the Industrial Age? Steam Power for Railroads and Industrialization for Factories? Replaceable Parts for Infantry and 2x worker speed? And is Sanitation's pop-limit-lifting important enough to justify researching it first if no one else has it?

Or do you just click "motorized transportation" and check back when tanks come around?

[Thoth]

I generally run:

Steam Power: Reveals Coal, allows significant production boost from railroads and is on the short path to Replaceable Parts.

Then Electricity (Irrigate anywhere) and Replacable Parts (Double worker speed, artillery, Rubber and Infantry).

With those techs in the bag, I usually run for Industrialisation, followed by Medicine/Scientific Method (for Darwin).

I've taken to avoiding Sanitation until quite late in the Industrial era. The pollution generated by huge cities is far too much of an annoyance to deal with until I'm close to Mass Transits.

[Provost Harrison]

I am generally inclined to go for steam engine and replaceable parts. Then sanitation. You can cope with the pollution then with double speed workers if you field a large number of them. Electronics is fairly important for the Hoover Dam, once you have factories from industrialisation. Obviously latter ones like flight and motorised transportation are very nice for the units they provide.

[Ineffablebob]

Kinda depends on what game you're playing. In a small map game, or if you're running OCC, then Sanitation is important since you have a small number of cities. If you have a ton of cities, then you might as well research other stuff.

I agree that Steam Power should be done quickly, if for no other reason that being able to see the coal.

[MisterMuppet]

Steam Power. You need to know where the coal is ASAP. Also the benefits of Railroads are too important to ignore.

[Cookie Monster]

Lately I've been researching steam power first, then industrialization (to try to beat the AI getting the suffrage wonder and to get factories in place) then electricity then replaceable parts. Then I go for medicine or sanitation.


I won't get into any debates about the importance of getting the suffrage wonder. Many here on the boards tend to not think that most of the wonders in this game have been toned down from previous versions of civ that they don't matter anymore. Actually, if you want the other civs in the game to respect your own civ more than the more wonders you can build, hence the greater the culture value of your civ, the more likely you will be able to absorb enemy cities without having to fire a shot. I tend to build wonders as close to the borders as possible so that the local cultural influence of my cities can bring a neighboring enemy city into the fold.

The decision to then pursue replaceable parts on the tech tree is based soley on the particular game situation. If I'm at war than my main concern is getting artillery and infantry to conduct a better defense. I'm not too worried about the boost in worker production at this point if I'm at war.

If there is peace in the world then I go for sanitation to get my cities pops up there by reducing the support costs for my units. (I tend to use despotism, monarchy, and communism for govts. and nothing else. Just my game style.)

Keep in mind that pollution becomes a problem with factories and high pop levels. This is also easily solved by employing worker battalions whose primary purpose is to clean the orange goo in between building roads/railroads.

I've found that if you don't resort to extreme measures than keeping up with the AI is difficult. This could just be my playing style and you may have your own preferences but I've found this method very helpful in my games.

Best of luck to you all and keep on gaming!

[David Weldon]

A point on Universal Suffrage... You can beat the AI to it without even having the tech. Just start building any other wonder (including a Palace) and then switch when you finally do get the tech. What matters is when you start on your proxy wonder, not when you research the tech.

I have also noted that the increase in production from factories is more imporant than the increase in production from extra population/hospitals.

My Line:

Steam Power
Electricity
Replaceable Parts
Industrialization
Corporation
Refining
Medicine
Sanitation
blah blah blah...

Notably, I press for refining fairly early so that I can find and take some oil if I need to. I never get Nationalism or any of the techs that follow it because I can wage war very effectively under Democracy, and I'll get the techs through a peace treaty anyway once my Infantry/artillery assault wipes out the poor Oil-holder.

[Arrian]

My research in Ind. Era

Starting assumption is that I'm a scientific civ - if so, I ALWAYS get nationalism as the "free" tech.

1) Steam Power
2) Industrialization
3) Medicine
4) Scientific Method (Theory of Ev.)
5) Electicity
6) Replaceable Parts
7) Atomic Theory
8) Electronics (Hoover, baby)
9) Corporation
10) Refining
11) the rest

-Arrian

[Cookie Monster]

Hi,


Mr. Weldon I noticed that you made a statement about waging successful war under democracy. I was wondering if you could share with us some of your tactics for doing so as I have a hard time waging war under democracy. That is why I always tend to stay in either monarchy or communism.

Anyway any help would be appreciated.

[absimiliard]

While I'm not David Weldon I also will state that I wage war as a Democracy.

For me the key is in my tax rates. Crank your entertainment budget up to 20-30% and your cities will do okay. Granted it hurts, but 6 turns lost to Anarchy to move to a war-time government and then another 6 to move back are simply unacceptable costs. To beat that problem I'll even sack 50% of my gold into luxuries if I can't arrange peace.

Beyond that . . .. . . well, I'm kind of fanatical about culture, and most of my culture comes from the masses of religious buildings I construct. I'm a big believer in Temples, Cathedrals, and Colloseums.

I also believe in heavy luxury trading combined with Marketplaces.

[Arrian]

War in democracy

I've never had all that much trouble. They keys:

Sistine Chapel
Bach's Cathedral
Universal Sufferage
Luxury resources + marketplaces
Police Stations
Luxury spending, if necessary.

Usually, I can sustain a war for quite some time with 4-5 lux resources, the above wonders, and 10-20% luxury spending (start at 0 or 10% and end up 20%... if it really drags, I do sometimes end up at 40% luxuries). This is on Monarch.

-Arrian

[David Weldon]

There goes absimiliard agreeing with me again...

The happiness of your citizens is obviously important because it allows you to withstand war-weariness once it sets in. This seems to happen about 15-20 turns after war is declared. The key to my success, however, has nothing to do with this.

I think there are three things that I do that I think help:

1) Keep the wars short. Grab (actually I raze 'n rebuild) 4-5 cities in as many turns and then declare peace. Remember that all you need is a slight advantage to ensure victory. I will also sometimes raze 2-3 core cities of an opponent and not make any attempt to occupy the territory they leave open. This just devastates any civ.

I don't generally try to take over the world, I just dominate and control it (much like America...).

2) Don't take casualties. Use lots of artillery and fast units.

3) Keep most of your units in your own territory. This means taking a new city in the same turn (or at most the next turn) as you move next to it.

I'm also a "perfectionist" player with regards to my core cities, they always produce all possible city improvements before turning to military production. As a result I normally have a very small but highly mobile and technically advanced military.

I haven't played with the patch, but I hear it makes the AI less willing to declare peace. I don't believe various anecdotal reports about "the AI won't every receive my envoy even after I levelled all but one of his cities!". If that kind of thing really happens, there must be mitigating circumstances like a history of going back on previous deals or something.

[Cookie Monster]

Thank you gentlemen for all your input. I'll try some your tactics for myself. Maybe now I can play a game as the Americans without using communism as their form of government!

[jgflg]

Originally posted by David Weldon
There goes absimiliard agreeing with me again...

The happiness of your citizens is obviously important because it allows you to withstand war-weariness once it sets in. This seems to happen about 15-20 turns after war is declared. The key to my success, however, has nothing to do with this.

I think there are three things that I do that I think help:

1) Keep the wars short. Grab (actually I raze 'n rebuild) 4-5 cities in as many turns and then declare peace. Remember that all you need is a slight advantage to ensure victory. I will also sometimes raze 2-3 core cities of an opponent and not make any attempt to occupy the territory they leave open. This just devastates any civ.

I don't generally try to take over the world, I just dominate and control it (much like America...).

2) Don't take casualties. Use lots of artillery and fast units.

3) Keep most of your units in your own territory. This means taking a new city in the same turn (or at most the next turn) as you move next to it.

I'm also a "perfectionist" player with regards to my core cities, they always produce all possible city improvements before turning to military production. As a result I normally have a very small but highly mobile and technically advanced military.

I haven't played with the patch, but I hear it makes the AI less willing to declare peace. I don't believe various anecdotal reports about "the AI won't every receive my envoy even after I levelled all but one of his cities!". If that kind of thing really happens, there must be mitigating circumstances like a history of going back on previous deals or something.

I'd just like to add that, although it's probably obvious, getting the other guy to declare war on you first is key as well. If you declare war unprovoked in a democracy, you'll probably have a lot of trouble. At least I do.

As for declaring peace, I think you're right about it being historical, rather than just a simple extension. What I've noticed is that sometimes a civ can hate me so much that it'd rather be destroyed than negotiate with me. There must be some sort of thermometer that monitors the AI's blood pressure.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by jgflg
As for declaring peace, I think you're right about it being historical, rather than just a simple extension. What I've noticed is that sometimes a civ can hate me so much that it'd rather be destroyed than negotiate with me. There must be some sort of thermometer that monitors the AI's blood pressure.

Isnt that the truth. In my previous game, the Babs declared war on me, some centuries after i took their capital and other major city. With their 2 remaining cities, i guess they just pumped out bowmen for their revenge attack.

My riflemen couldnt stop laughing