Beelining in the Industrial Age

[Dis]

my last game I got steam power. Then I went for sanitation/sewer system

and then a beeline for Hoover dam (electronics)

[MarshalN]

Industrialization first is what I do.... because then i start on my factories and go for railroads. I am usually in democracy by then so my enemy civs are starting to lag behind in tech -- that's when i come out with a big tech lead. Then I beeline for the hoover dam and trade for sanitation through some means or another (or get the theory of evolution if you have shields/leader to spare).

I think the factories are the key... in democracy the extra production from sanitation population is huge, especially in your core, low corruption cities.

In terms of waging war as a democracy, I've been doing it more and more and I find it perfectly ok if you

1) raise your luxury rate to 30% or higher
2) have marketplaces in big cities to increase the effect of luxury goods

Then you're usually in good shape. Keep the wars short and swift, and in 10 turns you can get 5 extra cities, beat up the AI, and get some tribute along the way. The problem is you don't really want to break the 20 turn peace..... otherwise your people go crazy and really hate you.

[Cookie Monster]

Interesting thoughts on waging war in democracy. I guess there's no two ways around waging 100+ years of war under democracy. Short wars ok but nothing long.

I seem to enjoy prolonged conflicts as long as growth isn't stifled too much. I've found that keeping a weaker AI at war with you keeps them behind on the tech tree. This is great if they are weaker than you but you don't have the manpower yet to completely crush them. There is great joy in watching the AI beg for peace while you say no and continue to pummel him. This is probably why I don't play democracy so often.

But now that I've seen what other people are doing perhaps a little change in game style is in order for me. I'm intrigued by this democracy thing.

[Arrian]

Yeah, the whole key to playing as a democracy is to use its strengths, which essentially are: increased commerce, faster workers, less corruption. The first is clearly the reason people choose democracy. It's huge. If you're raking in money, you can afford to set your science rate up high, and maintain a large army. Accordingly, short wars are the way to go. Build up a LARGE, mostly mobile attack force, and hit hard & fast. Knock the AI back on its heels and never let up. It will all be over before the AI knew what hit it. Then settle back into peace.

If you enjoy long, protracted wars, yeah, democracy is just gonna cramp your style.

-Arrian

[rflagg]

re: Industrial age techs

As far as what techs to go for, it depends mainly on your play style I think. But, personally, I don't like playing a game where the other civs know where resources are before I do, so I always shoot for first Steam Engine. Up until Civ 3, I'd always rush rush rush to get to Darwins Voyage (now Theory of Evolution). Now, since you can't pick the two advancements you want, I tend to hold off on it, in exchange for Industrialization and Refining (Oil). Hospital (ie, sewer system in civ2) doesn't play quite the importance it used to, so Sanitation also falls off to the side as not as important.

The biggest problem I see now with Theory of Evolution is that you get two advancements furthest back on your tech tree. Kind of a reverse evolving if you ask me, but oh well.

So, I usually run for:

1) Steam Engine (Coal)
2) Indus. (Factories) (and build workers to deal with pollution / keep city sizes under/at 12)
3) Refining (Oil)
4) on from there...if you're warring, go for replaceable parts, etc, if not, Scientific Method maybe.

-Rflagg.

[HalfLotus]

I go for industrialization first, thinking that the infrastructure and wonders I'll be building will be sped along with factories. I can deal with the pollution, the production increase is a big priority.

The rest will depend on my game situation.

[MarshalN]

Actually, other than in some fringe cities, with a good enough luxury rate you can wage war that lasts 100 years.... I've done it before

It slows your tech research to a halt, but with enough luxury goods and a good luxury rate, you can do fine. The smaller/fringe cities will suffer because the trade is lost in corruption so the luxury rate isn't going to help much, but it certainly is possible to wage longer than 4 turn wars in democracy. Not that I recommend it, that is....

[Skanky Burns]

I always research steam power first, so i can speed movement, increase production, make the map ugly
Next is industrialisation to increase production again.
Scientific Method is a bit of a bonus, getting me some techs i normally just ignore or trade for later when they are much cheaper.

After this point, i normally beeline for electronics (Hoover Dam), again to increase production.
If im at war, replacable parts gets me good defence, otherwise helps my workers finish railroading/cleaning pollution.

Then its a beeline for tanks.

With my current method i completely skip sanitation until ive researched ecology, so i can avoid the massive amounts of pollution a large population creates. While reducing the pollution i do get (and the associated global warming), my science rate and production suffer due to the lack of large populations. Still experimenting with this.

[Dis]

i forgot to mention my last game on a higher level I researched industrialization before beelining to hoover dam. I had to keep my cities production up.

[punkbass2000]

In regards to becoming republics and democracy, I really think they are good ideas. When I first started playing civ (the original) I was pretty much a war monger. I went despot-monarchy-communism and took over the world, usually, but I couldn't cut it at the emperor level. I used a similar strategy for a while with civ2. Again, kicking ass up to the king level, and though I could survive well enough at emperor/deity due to enhanced diplomacy, I just couldn't win. Then, one day, I said to myself "Those republics and democracies must be there for SOME reason. I guess I'll give it a shot." And boy did it work. My first game was at Prince or something, and I won handily, much quicker than I usually would with my old strategy. So I tried it out at Emperor. Worked like a charm. Same with Deity. Space Race wins. Of course, there's more to it than just becoming a REpublic/Democracy, but it really can help when combined with many of the other great strategies that can be found on these forums.

[Ironikinit]

While building Theory of Evolution, I backfill on techs. I trade for ones the AI has, then go for whatever's left lowest on the tree. Usually that's espionage, communism, and the corporation. I can usually get those in 4 turns each, if I have to. I'm talking in the turns immediately prior to getting ToE. Then, when ToE comes, I'm after whatever's lowest on the tree and it'll yield the higher ones.

My first priority in the industrial period, like everybody else, is steam. Then I go for industrialization and get a couple of factories built for wonder purposes. I follow that with medicine and sanitation because hospitals are high priority for me.

On waging war as a democracy: It helps if you've had wars with the other civs before, because then they're considered ancestral enemies and war weariness is lower.

I hope I didn't just repeat what somebody else said because I only skimmed the thread.

[JohnE]

Originally posted by David Weldon
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.

Believe it, it happens. The only time the AI has fought me to the death though has been when I not only had broken deals with that civilization, but similarly abused other civilizations. You have to really work the AI over to get it to that point.

[Encomium]

Thus proving how STUPID and CRAZY the AI really is.

I have to almost exterminate a civ to get them to agree to even a reasonable peace deal.

[Dimension]

Dave: In the Industrial Ages, it happens to me all the time that I have to totally exterminate a civ to end a war. After you've fought with a civ and razed several cities a couple times (and gotten 50+ gold/turn + all their tech for peace), they're not as interested in negotiating peace. I guess that's just the way it goes when civ's are "furious" for almost the entire game.

Now, on techs... For those of you who say they get Industrialization early, I'd be interested in hearing how your typical game goes. I find building factories in the early Industrial Age to be quite useless. Around this time, all my cities are either very new (so they're rushing Temple/Cathedral/Courthouse), or else they have every pre-industrial improvement and are running Wealth. There's very little for my empire to produce before I hit Combustion/Mass Production/Motorized Transport. That's just the way things work. There are no units to build. Workers are slave labor. Each city has 3 Spearmen in Ancient Times. Each city has 2 Musketmen in the Middle Ages. Each city has 1 Infantry in the Industrial Ages. All units are upgraded, so there's nothing to build. My offensive units start to dwindle, as I upgrade from Horsemen to Knights to Cavalry, but I don't need nearly as many Cavalry as I had horsemen since I have a RR network and some Artillary backup (which were upgraded from Cannons which I built in the Middle Ages). There's just nothing to build.

So, the way I generally go is:

1) Steam Power - RR network ASAP.
2) Electricity - RR + irrigation helps your new cities.
3) Replaceable Parts

Replacable parts is a huge milestone for people using all stolen workers, because the double-speed bonus is applied before the half-speed stolen worker penalty (which is rounded down), which makes your workers actually three times faster.

Obviously Infantry is huge, and this lets you wage your final Cavalry wars with limited numbers (hopefully you're not still building Cavalry). Artillary is also where bombardment support becomes highly effective. This final war with your well-supported elite Cavalry should be able to produce a leader quickly to build the Theory of Evolution, which is pretty important, as winning the race to Tanks lets you wipe everybody out pretty easily.

4) Medicine
5) Scientific Method - Theory of Evolution
6) Sanitation

If you get a leader, you'll complete ToE while you're researching Sanitation, which should give you Nationalism + Industrialization. Now you can start factories in those idle size-12 cities (which should be getting their remaining tiles improved by your ultra-fast workers), and when you get Sanitation, you can either switch to Hospital and rush, or rush the Factory then switch to Hospital (depending on how much money and how many size 12's you have). Depending on how successful your war is, you can rush Sufferage with another leader. When the war's over, if you're getting techs every 4 turns, you can disband your remaining Cavalry to build things.

7) Atomic Theory
8) Electronics - Hoover Dam
9) The Corporation
10) Refining - make sure you've got oil (war should be over)
11) Steel
12) Combustion - start Transports, maybe Destroyer escorts
13) Mass Production
14) Motorized Transportation - TANKS!

This is where I mobilize for war and kill everybody. Just load up the transports with tanks & some drafted infantry.

15) Flight - make some Bombers & Airports for kicks
16) Radio - on to Modern Times

Then if there's another strong civ giving you problems, you can get Computers for Mech. Inf to upgrade your Infantry. You need 10 of the 17 Modern advances to build all the spaceship parts.

[Ironikinit]

"For those of you who say they get Industrialization early, I'd be interested in hearing how your typical game goes. I find building factories in the early Industrial Age to be quite useless. Around this time, all my cities are either very new (so they're rushing Temple/Cathedral/Courthouse), or else they have every pre-industrial improvement and are running Wealth. There's very little for my empire to produce before I hit Combustion/Mass Production/Motorized Transport."

I will have a core area and possibly an ForbPal area in place when I get industrialization. I will switch the core cities to factory. I may switch a small wonder producer to factory as well. If a city can make a factory in less that 20 turns, it should do so unless it need something vital, like an aquaduct. I call turns like this revolutions. In some of my early games I got to currency slowly and needed cash. When I scored currency, I changed most of my cities to marketplace production and rushed those that were making a lot of money and had some production already going. I also have an industrial revolution, often same deal with other techs, like MotorTrans. So, long story short, I change a lot of cities to make factories and rush a couple in high production areas.

I usually go for medicine and sanitation after industrialization and cities that are at 12 and won't build a factory soon are switched to hospital possibly rushing hospitals, too.

The factory rush cities are set to hospital or other improvements, if any. Ones in low food producing areas can be set to palace, small wonder, or UniSuff. I want all the wonders, of course. After putting in hospitals if no improvements are needed, I usually build defensive units or possibly bombard, with an eye to upgrading upon getting RepParts.

"If you get a leader, you'll complete ToE while you're researching Sanitation, which should give you Nationalism + Industrialization."

Without a leader I pulled atomic theory and electronics from the ToE, while I researched RepParts. This allowed a factory rushed city set to build palace to be switched and complete the Hoover 7 turns after gaining the tech in my current game.

Rubber is common enough that I felt comfortable delaying RepParts, and the workforce was sufficient (a bit slight, but RR was in place, and core areas developed). Further, it was peacetime.