Tweet
Hello folks,
Many players believe (rightly, IMO) that most games are "won" or at least decided long before the third Age. But there are still those few games where this is not true: maybe you started in a really bad spot and spent most of your early-game catching up; or maybe you're playing a MP game where no one dared attack before Cavalry; and maybe you just set the difficulty to Deity and could not make any ground due to the fast tech rate and production bonuses. Whatever the reason, the Industrial Age is the perfect place to get ahead.
Yet, as far as I can tell, many players do not play the Industrial Age as well as they could. I'm guessing this is for one or more of the following reasons: 1) things get pretty complex later on in the game, with all those cities, Workers and military units to take care of, 2) there are so many goodies in the Industrial Age (Railroads, Mutual Protection Pacts, Theory of Evolution, oh my!) that it's easy to just say "everything is good" and not look for the best strategy, 3) extensive Cavalry campaigns are more interesting than all that tech and production stuff back home, and 4) the tendency to copy what the AI does (more on this later). There are surely other reasons.
My hope in this thread is to discuss what I believe to be "good plays" in the Industrial Age, focusing specifically on tech advancement. Like no other Age, the Industrial one offers the most "stuff", yet is pretty linear in terms of what is best to grab first.
Without further ado: the Industrial Age, tech by tech (well...almost).
First Tech
Let's say you're not playing a Scientific civ: which tech do you tend to research first in the Industrial Age? The answer should be easy: Steam Power. Always always go for Steam Power first.
Let's first consider the alternatives.
There's Nationalism, which admittedly gives a bunch of useful stuff. Yet how much of it is really critical to a strong game? The answer is: almost everything for the AI, almost nothing for the human player. The AI loves Nationalism, and with good reason: it relies heavily on the Draft ability to defend itself; it's poor defensive tactics make Riflemen a necessity (the human player would just use heavily fortified Musketmen and Cavalry for defense at this stage of the game); it needs to get to Communism to fight more "efficiently", and Nationalism is a prerequisite; it signs Mutual Protection Pacts to create a coalition against a strong human player. As alluded to, the human player need not employ any of these strategies, and typically does not because they're not really all that optimal. Most of what comes with Nationalism helps the AI in what the AI has been coded to do; human players have a bit more flexibility (a lot more, actually). The only important addition in Nationalism for the human player is MPPs, and these can usually wait until the AI researches Nationalism, which can be obtained through a trade. Mobilization is an interesting ability, but is only really useful for continuing a Cavalry campaign; if much of the game is still to be played, Mobilization does not provide the tools to generate a long-term advantage.
And then there's Medicine. This tech is a gateway tech, and therefore must be judged on the merits of what it allows access to. Obviously the AI loves Sanitation, simply because it uses a rather loose city-spacing when it can. Before Hospitals, large AI empires will be full of tiles which are completely unused. Human players need not let this happen, and can use a tighter-spacing to ensure that all tiles are used before Hospitals, which severely discounts the usefulness of Sanitation. If you think Sanitation is a great tech, you're probably not spacing you cities as tightly as you should. And even if you plan on disbanding some cities to grow others to great sizes, you'll probably want to get Railroads first, to help in your pop boom. Medicine also leads to Scientific Method and the oh-so-awesome Theory of Evolution. Therefore Medicine definitely needs to be obtained eventually. But since the AI makes a point of researching it, you're better off just trading for it after you've reached Electricity.
This leaves us with, you guessed it, Steam Power. What a great tech. Railroads...what a great tile improvement. If you think about it, Railroads provide an increase in your economy comparable to the switch out of Despotism, and that's huge!. Sure, you need to put some Worker-turns into getting the bonus everywhere, but then again you need not suffer a government transition, and the bonus applies to every non-water tile (as opposed to the switch out of Despotism, which only helps a few selected Bonus tiles if you've been terraforming correctly). In most cases you can expect +10 or so Shields per turn in every city due to Railroads. Nationalism and Medicine do not even compare to this. And there's more! As if the production bonus was not enough, Railroads also provide that nifty "teleport" ability to all your units within your adjacent borders. Who needs Riflemen for defense when you can have all your Cavalry and any Musketmen you think you'll need at any spot in your empire instantaneously? Even offensives are that much simpler because your reinforcements can get close to the front a lot faster. What's more, even your Workers benefit, as they'll fly across the map, finishing up any jobs you need done.
Railroads are so important that I think a few moments can be taken to discuss some strategy concerning how to build and use them most efffectively. First of all, near the end of the Medieval Age, you should be thinking of getting your Worker-force up to 1.5 to 2 times it's current strength. Sure, you lose pop in your beautiful cities. But just think of what you're getting: Railroads set up that much quicker, which basically means you can get your pop up quicker too if you Railroad over Irrigation. A neat trick is to build many Workers, then Irrigate over Mines so as to get some crazy Food production once your Railroads appear. With +10 Food surplus, your cities will regain any pop lost to Workers in a hurry. And, when all your Railroads are down, you can always just get extra Workers to Join your cities (this works best if you do have Sanitation, as your cities can grow to arbitrary sizes). I highly recommend setting up a Railroad network that reaches the highest number of tiles before anything else, like connecting all cities or putting Railroads around your big Wonder city. The reason is that you want every tile in your empire to be within two tiles of a Railroad (a one tile separation), since with this setup a Worker can reach any tile in your empire in one turn and still have movement left over to begin working immediately. Most of the time such a network will coincide with the network that unites all cities, so there's not much thinking to do. But always just try to aks yourself: how many Road tiles is my new Railroad tile going to be adjacent to? The answer should only be "not many" if you're near the end of your "Railroad phase". Another suggestion that is probably obvious is that you should always get your Workers to "team up" to build Railroads, preferably in one turn. You can then get other Workers to move along that tile for free. This is not wasteful, as moving many Workers onto a Road tile does not waste any Worker-turns (as it would in the Ancient Age with un-roaded tiles).
Also, if you're fighting a war, try not to forget to spare a few Workers to bring along with your offensive. You should have enough Workers that you can build up a Railroad all the way to your forward positions, and even have some left over to rush a Fortress in a single turn. If your enemy is on the same continent and not behind a neighbor's borders, remember that you can bring any Worker from your own territory to "the front" instantaneously along Railroads (gotta love 'em!).
Recap: Steam Power is one of the best techs in the game; you should almost always get it before Nationalism or Medicine.
Second Tech
Well, you now have Steam Power, and your Workers are busily laying down rails everywhere. What next? You could go back for Nationalism or Medicine, or push forward for either Industrialization or Electricity. Well, I can safely say that you should push on, but which of the two next techs you choose is actually a tough call.
Electricity. Here, you get two abilites: your Workers complete jobs faster, and you can Irrigate tiles without fresh water. Depending on the game, the second ability could be very good, but most of the time it's irrelevant. The question is therefore: do I need my Workers to work faster? Given my comments on Steam Power, the answer I think is a resounding "yes". Getting the Railroad network down simply makes everything easier (even tech research, although indirectly). But there's another thing to consider here: Electricity leads to Replaceable Parts! I'll get into this awesome tech later, but for now let's just say that Replaceable Parts is a good enough incentive to make Electricity much more attractive that it's abilities alone.
Industrialization. I'm a big fan of Factories. If you're winning or losing, Factories are a must-have in all your reasonably-productive cities. Assuming my military is sufficient to hold my position, I'll typically drop everything in my core cities to build Factories. I'll even rush a few in my biggest cities. Coal Plants are a different issue. When considering whether or not to build these, it is important to think about what your city is going to be building afterwards. Is it going to be Cavalry, Infantry, Ironclads, Artillery? Answer this question, and check out how much those things cost compared to how much Production your city can generate. You'll then know if it's useful or not to build that Coal Plant. For instance, let's say you want to continue building Cavalry (80 Shields) in a city with a Shield output of 40 Shields (with a Factory). Then building the Coal plant yields an output if ~47 Shields, but those 7 extra Shields go to waste when building Cavalry, which you can already finish in two turns. It is therefore better to wait for Hoover Dam to boost Factory output in that particular city. Notice, however, that if you were to build Infantry (90 Shields) in that city, the 7 extra Shields would be worth it, because you would reduce your time-to-completion of Infantry from 3 turns to 2. Doing this analysis for all your core cities should tell your where you need Coal Plants.
That was a big tangent. What else does Industrialization give you? Universal Suffrage, a good but not fantastic Wonder. Industrialization leads to Espionage (whatever) and The Corporation, which can give an edge in a close tech battle via Stock Exchanges.
So which one is better, Industrialization or Electricity? One of the major things you should be thinking about is building the Theory of Evolution as quickly as possible. If you're in a tech race, this Wonder will do more for you than Stock Exchanges. Therefore, Industrialization should be considered on the merits of Factories and Coal Plants alone. Since these can always be pre-built, I suggest researching Electricity first. This way, while you're pre-building your expensive Factories, your super-Workers are ensuring that your tiles are providing the most they possibly can. Then, Industrialization comes just at the right time to switch over to Factories, and when these are done you get a good idea of the full production capacity of your empire. What should you prebuild Factories with? Good question. I mostly use Wonders, the Palace and Coliseums, but if you've been a toal warmonger you could even have Universities available (yes, Factories come before Universities for me).
Another reason why Electricity is to be preferred is that the AI rarely gets it before you do, assuming you reach the Industrial Age at more or less the same time. While the AI is busy with Communism and Sanitation, you grab Electricity (a good tech), then trade it for a killing.
Recap: Your second tech is a tough decision between Industrialization and Electricity. Everything else being equal, you want to get Electricity first, to boost your Railroad efforts, while pre-building for Factories.
Then What?
So far we have (more or less):
Steam Power
Electricity
Industrialization
You've probably also picked up a few techs through trades by now (like Nationalism and Medicine). Let's say this is not the case; what do you go for (either in trades or research) next? I see four avenues depending on the game:
1. Peaceful Scientist. Here you want to get to The Corporation for Stock Exchanges. Building five of these allows Wall Street, and all this should peak your research capacity until the Modern Age (Commercial Docks aside). The only problem is if you're planning on having big (size 14+) metropolises. Then you'll want to build your Hospitals first, then your Stock Exchanges. Population typically comes before anything else, because pop translates into more of everything. Therefore, if you want big cities, Medicine should be first.
2. Peaceful Builder. Here you want to get your cities as big as your land will allow, ideally having each city working all tiles within its radius (no overlap). This is tough to pull off without disbanding some cities, unless you've been using loose spacing all along, which you should not do (did I mention that already?). You'll get big cities and your upkeep costs will be low, setting yourself up for a nice end-game. Medicine is therefore the tech to get, as a lead-in to Sanitation.
3. Warmonger. Now we're talking! Here the tech to beeline for is Replaceable Parts. Cavalry are great, but Infantry and Artillery are a guarantee. You'll always get your Shields-worth out of those two units. If you're ahead or behind, nothing punches through well-defended Infantry stacks and nothing resists Artillery bombardment. As you can see, those two units are among my favorites in the game, making Replaceable Parts very very attractive for me. If you're doing any amount of fighting, getting this tight before or after your enemy is essential.
4. Theory of Evolution beeline. As I've mentioned before, in the Industrial Age what you should be thinking about is securing this Wonder. The great part is, this is relatively easy against the AI, because the AI wastes so much time on other techs; I laugh pretty hard when I construct the ToE, and see that the AI has just researched Espionage (sometimes I cry...). What is interesting is that because the AI is so "bad" at securing the ToE, you actually have some leeway in what techs you want to grab before Scientific Method. If you're confident the AI will not beat you to it (or to the ToE...breaking the Wonder cascade is a sure-fire way to get the ToE, just watch our for Universal Suffrage) there is no problem with researching, say, Replaceable Parts first. However, if you're behind in tech, the Scientific Method beeline is very important. You cannot even afford to get Industrialization first. This is somewhat counter-intuitive, since Factories speed up Wonder production immensely. You should instead start a Palace pre-build way back in the Medieval Age, and hope this trick gets the ToE build before the AI does.
Recap: Depending on your position in the game, you have many choices after Industrializaiton. But you must remember that the most important thing is securing the Theory of Evolution. If you're reasonably certain that another civ will not beat you to it, it's okay to get other techs before Medicine and Scientific Method, such as Replaceable Parts (highly recommended).
Evolution
The best-case scenario concerning the ToE is that you have a pre-build big enough to complete this Wonder the turn you obtain Scientific Method. You would then set Science to 0% for one turn, so as not to waste any Commerce. If you are researching a tech, building the ToE will waste all the Beakers you've accumulated already, since it gives you that tech for free. Sometimes research is a necessary evil while building the ToE, especially when you're not sure if you're going to secure it or not (you'll not want to have been idle research-wise if you do lose the ToE!).
Ok, you finally build the Theory of Evolution. The Wonder picture pops up, and you think for a minute about the plight of man and animal on this planet....back to the game! Then what?
The best thing to do, IMO, is grab Atomic Theory and Electronics for free. This catapults you very far along the bottom branch of the tree, that much closer to Motorized Transportation. You also just make it to Hoover Dam, which is essentially yours because no opponent is ever going to research the necessary techs and build it before you do. You can then sell the techs you got for free, preferably whoring them around among multiple civs. To continue this strategy, you would then research Radio next, selling that for a bunch, including large parts of the upper branch (Refining, Steel, Combustion, etc.). Really, once you get the Theory of Evolution, you're not only guaranteed two free techs, but the trading power to keep you in the game until the end of the game. That's a lot for one little Wonder.
I suppose you could also grab Steel and Refining with the ToE, hoping to get to more modern boats and planes. To me, that's not incentive enough, especially when you consider that AIs research the top branch quite well because it splits, while the bottom branch is linear and therefore all yours to whore if you're first along it.
Recap: Try not to have begun any research projets when you finish the Theory of Evolution. Once you secure this Wonder, the best techs to grab for free are Atomic Theory and Electronics.
Happy, Shining Future
You're doing good now! You've got a tech lead, and your economy is top-notch. Where to? After the Theory of Evolution, you'll have all you need in terms of trading power to grab all those techs you avoided on the way to the top; time to take a break and treat yourself to all those minor techs the AI is so fond of (Communism, Espionage, Sanitation, Steel). But you still want to do research, right?
Above I suggested Radio, but that's just a trick to get even more trading power. What you're really aiming for now is Motorized Transportation. It's no coincidence that it's the most difficult tech to reach in the Industrial Age (you need to complete both bottom and top branches to get to it): with Tanks, the game changes drastically, and so it's unbalancing if any one civ gets there with too much of a lead. Most probably it will be the last tech to research in the Age (assuming you proceeded to Radio after the ToE), and you'll be thrust into the Modern times.
The later optional Industrial Age techs are (unfortunately) irrelevant (come to think of it, almost all the optional Industrial age techs are sub-par); do not waste your time researching or even trading for Amphibious Warfare or Advanced Flight.
Recap: Your goal to finish off the Industrial Age is Motorized Transportation, but this is difficult to beeline for since it has almost every other required tech as a prerequisite. Just get it as fast as you can.
Please see the next post for the conclusion...
Many players believe (rightly, IMO) that most games are "won" or at least decided long before the third Age. But there are still those few games where this is not true: maybe you started in a really bad spot and spent most of your early-game catching up; or maybe you're playing a MP game where no one dared attack before Cavalry; and maybe you just set the difficulty to Deity and could not make any ground due to the fast tech rate and production bonuses. Whatever the reason, the Industrial Age is the perfect place to get ahead.
Yet, as far as I can tell, many players do not play the Industrial Age as well as they could. I'm guessing this is for one or more of the following reasons: 1) things get pretty complex later on in the game, with all those cities, Workers and military units to take care of, 2) there are so many goodies in the Industrial Age (Railroads, Mutual Protection Pacts, Theory of Evolution, oh my!) that it's easy to just say "everything is good" and not look for the best strategy, 3) extensive Cavalry campaigns are more interesting than all that tech and production stuff back home, and 4) the tendency to copy what the AI does (more on this later). There are surely other reasons.
My hope in this thread is to discuss what I believe to be "good plays" in the Industrial Age, focusing specifically on tech advancement. Like no other Age, the Industrial one offers the most "stuff", yet is pretty linear in terms of what is best to grab first.
Without further ado: the Industrial Age, tech by tech (well...almost).
First Tech
Let's say you're not playing a Scientific civ: which tech do you tend to research first in the Industrial Age? The answer should be easy: Steam Power. Always always go for Steam Power first.
Let's first consider the alternatives.
There's Nationalism, which admittedly gives a bunch of useful stuff. Yet how much of it is really critical to a strong game? The answer is: almost everything for the AI, almost nothing for the human player. The AI loves Nationalism, and with good reason: it relies heavily on the Draft ability to defend itself; it's poor defensive tactics make Riflemen a necessity (the human player would just use heavily fortified Musketmen and Cavalry for defense at this stage of the game); it needs to get to Communism to fight more "efficiently", and Nationalism is a prerequisite; it signs Mutual Protection Pacts to create a coalition against a strong human player. As alluded to, the human player need not employ any of these strategies, and typically does not because they're not really all that optimal. Most of what comes with Nationalism helps the AI in what the AI has been coded to do; human players have a bit more flexibility (a lot more, actually). The only important addition in Nationalism for the human player is MPPs, and these can usually wait until the AI researches Nationalism, which can be obtained through a trade. Mobilization is an interesting ability, but is only really useful for continuing a Cavalry campaign; if much of the game is still to be played, Mobilization does not provide the tools to generate a long-term advantage.
And then there's Medicine. This tech is a gateway tech, and therefore must be judged on the merits of what it allows access to. Obviously the AI loves Sanitation, simply because it uses a rather loose city-spacing when it can. Before Hospitals, large AI empires will be full of tiles which are completely unused. Human players need not let this happen, and can use a tighter-spacing to ensure that all tiles are used before Hospitals, which severely discounts the usefulness of Sanitation. If you think Sanitation is a great tech, you're probably not spacing you cities as tightly as you should. And even if you plan on disbanding some cities to grow others to great sizes, you'll probably want to get Railroads first, to help in your pop boom. Medicine also leads to Scientific Method and the oh-so-awesome Theory of Evolution. Therefore Medicine definitely needs to be obtained eventually. But since the AI makes a point of researching it, you're better off just trading for it after you've reached Electricity.
This leaves us with, you guessed it, Steam Power. What a great tech. Railroads...what a great tile improvement. If you think about it, Railroads provide an increase in your economy comparable to the switch out of Despotism, and that's huge!. Sure, you need to put some Worker-turns into getting the bonus everywhere, but then again you need not suffer a government transition, and the bonus applies to every non-water tile (as opposed to the switch out of Despotism, which only helps a few selected Bonus tiles if you've been terraforming correctly). In most cases you can expect +10 or so Shields per turn in every city due to Railroads. Nationalism and Medicine do not even compare to this. And there's more! As if the production bonus was not enough, Railroads also provide that nifty "teleport" ability to all your units within your adjacent borders. Who needs Riflemen for defense when you can have all your Cavalry and any Musketmen you think you'll need at any spot in your empire instantaneously? Even offensives are that much simpler because your reinforcements can get close to the front a lot faster. What's more, even your Workers benefit, as they'll fly across the map, finishing up any jobs you need done.
Railroads are so important that I think a few moments can be taken to discuss some strategy concerning how to build and use them most efffectively. First of all, near the end of the Medieval Age, you should be thinking of getting your Worker-force up to 1.5 to 2 times it's current strength. Sure, you lose pop in your beautiful cities. But just think of what you're getting: Railroads set up that much quicker, which basically means you can get your pop up quicker too if you Railroad over Irrigation. A neat trick is to build many Workers, then Irrigate over Mines so as to get some crazy Food production once your Railroads appear. With +10 Food surplus, your cities will regain any pop lost to Workers in a hurry. And, when all your Railroads are down, you can always just get extra Workers to Join your cities (this works best if you do have Sanitation, as your cities can grow to arbitrary sizes). I highly recommend setting up a Railroad network that reaches the highest number of tiles before anything else, like connecting all cities or putting Railroads around your big Wonder city. The reason is that you want every tile in your empire to be within two tiles of a Railroad (a one tile separation), since with this setup a Worker can reach any tile in your empire in one turn and still have movement left over to begin working immediately. Most of the time such a network will coincide with the network that unites all cities, so there's not much thinking to do. But always just try to aks yourself: how many Road tiles is my new Railroad tile going to be adjacent to? The answer should only be "not many" if you're near the end of your "Railroad phase". Another suggestion that is probably obvious is that you should always get your Workers to "team up" to build Railroads, preferably in one turn. You can then get other Workers to move along that tile for free. This is not wasteful, as moving many Workers onto a Road tile does not waste any Worker-turns (as it would in the Ancient Age with un-roaded tiles).
Also, if you're fighting a war, try not to forget to spare a few Workers to bring along with your offensive. You should have enough Workers that you can build up a Railroad all the way to your forward positions, and even have some left over to rush a Fortress in a single turn. If your enemy is on the same continent and not behind a neighbor's borders, remember that you can bring any Worker from your own territory to "the front" instantaneously along Railroads (gotta love 'em!).
Recap: Steam Power is one of the best techs in the game; you should almost always get it before Nationalism or Medicine.
Second Tech
Well, you now have Steam Power, and your Workers are busily laying down rails everywhere. What next? You could go back for Nationalism or Medicine, or push forward for either Industrialization or Electricity. Well, I can safely say that you should push on, but which of the two next techs you choose is actually a tough call.
Electricity. Here, you get two abilites: your Workers complete jobs faster, and you can Irrigate tiles without fresh water. Depending on the game, the second ability could be very good, but most of the time it's irrelevant. The question is therefore: do I need my Workers to work faster? Given my comments on Steam Power, the answer I think is a resounding "yes". Getting the Railroad network down simply makes everything easier (even tech research, although indirectly). But there's another thing to consider here: Electricity leads to Replaceable Parts! I'll get into this awesome tech later, but for now let's just say that Replaceable Parts is a good enough incentive to make Electricity much more attractive that it's abilities alone.
Industrialization. I'm a big fan of Factories. If you're winning or losing, Factories are a must-have in all your reasonably-productive cities. Assuming my military is sufficient to hold my position, I'll typically drop everything in my core cities to build Factories. I'll even rush a few in my biggest cities. Coal Plants are a different issue. When considering whether or not to build these, it is important to think about what your city is going to be building afterwards. Is it going to be Cavalry, Infantry, Ironclads, Artillery? Answer this question, and check out how much those things cost compared to how much Production your city can generate. You'll then know if it's useful or not to build that Coal Plant. For instance, let's say you want to continue building Cavalry (80 Shields) in a city with a Shield output of 40 Shields (with a Factory). Then building the Coal plant yields an output if ~47 Shields, but those 7 extra Shields go to waste when building Cavalry, which you can already finish in two turns. It is therefore better to wait for Hoover Dam to boost Factory output in that particular city. Notice, however, that if you were to build Infantry (90 Shields) in that city, the 7 extra Shields would be worth it, because you would reduce your time-to-completion of Infantry from 3 turns to 2. Doing this analysis for all your core cities should tell your where you need Coal Plants.
That was a big tangent. What else does Industrialization give you? Universal Suffrage, a good but not fantastic Wonder. Industrialization leads to Espionage (whatever) and The Corporation, which can give an edge in a close tech battle via Stock Exchanges.
So which one is better, Industrialization or Electricity? One of the major things you should be thinking about is building the Theory of Evolution as quickly as possible. If you're in a tech race, this Wonder will do more for you than Stock Exchanges. Therefore, Industrialization should be considered on the merits of Factories and Coal Plants alone. Since these can always be pre-built, I suggest researching Electricity first. This way, while you're pre-building your expensive Factories, your super-Workers are ensuring that your tiles are providing the most they possibly can. Then, Industrialization comes just at the right time to switch over to Factories, and when these are done you get a good idea of the full production capacity of your empire. What should you prebuild Factories with? Good question. I mostly use Wonders, the Palace and Coliseums, but if you've been a toal warmonger you could even have Universities available (yes, Factories come before Universities for me).
Another reason why Electricity is to be preferred is that the AI rarely gets it before you do, assuming you reach the Industrial Age at more or less the same time. While the AI is busy with Communism and Sanitation, you grab Electricity (a good tech), then trade it for a killing.
Recap: Your second tech is a tough decision between Industrialization and Electricity. Everything else being equal, you want to get Electricity first, to boost your Railroad efforts, while pre-building for Factories.
Then What?
So far we have (more or less):
Steam Power
Electricity
Industrialization
You've probably also picked up a few techs through trades by now (like Nationalism and Medicine). Let's say this is not the case; what do you go for (either in trades or research) next? I see four avenues depending on the game:
1. Peaceful Scientist. Here you want to get to The Corporation for Stock Exchanges. Building five of these allows Wall Street, and all this should peak your research capacity until the Modern Age (Commercial Docks aside). The only problem is if you're planning on having big (size 14+) metropolises. Then you'll want to build your Hospitals first, then your Stock Exchanges. Population typically comes before anything else, because pop translates into more of everything. Therefore, if you want big cities, Medicine should be first.
2. Peaceful Builder. Here you want to get your cities as big as your land will allow, ideally having each city working all tiles within its radius (no overlap). This is tough to pull off without disbanding some cities, unless you've been using loose spacing all along, which you should not do (did I mention that already?). You'll get big cities and your upkeep costs will be low, setting yourself up for a nice end-game. Medicine is therefore the tech to get, as a lead-in to Sanitation.
3. Warmonger. Now we're talking! Here the tech to beeline for is Replaceable Parts. Cavalry are great, but Infantry and Artillery are a guarantee. You'll always get your Shields-worth out of those two units. If you're ahead or behind, nothing punches through well-defended Infantry stacks and nothing resists Artillery bombardment. As you can see, those two units are among my favorites in the game, making Replaceable Parts very very attractive for me. If you're doing any amount of fighting, getting this tight before or after your enemy is essential.
4. Theory of Evolution beeline. As I've mentioned before, in the Industrial Age what you should be thinking about is securing this Wonder. The great part is, this is relatively easy against the AI, because the AI wastes so much time on other techs; I laugh pretty hard when I construct the ToE, and see that the AI has just researched Espionage (sometimes I cry...). What is interesting is that because the AI is so "bad" at securing the ToE, you actually have some leeway in what techs you want to grab before Scientific Method. If you're confident the AI will not beat you to it (or to the ToE...breaking the Wonder cascade is a sure-fire way to get the ToE, just watch our for Universal Suffrage) there is no problem with researching, say, Replaceable Parts first. However, if you're behind in tech, the Scientific Method beeline is very important. You cannot even afford to get Industrialization first. This is somewhat counter-intuitive, since Factories speed up Wonder production immensely. You should instead start a Palace pre-build way back in the Medieval Age, and hope this trick gets the ToE build before the AI does.
Recap: Depending on your position in the game, you have many choices after Industrializaiton. But you must remember that the most important thing is securing the Theory of Evolution. If you're reasonably certain that another civ will not beat you to it, it's okay to get other techs before Medicine and Scientific Method, such as Replaceable Parts (highly recommended).
Evolution
The best-case scenario concerning the ToE is that you have a pre-build big enough to complete this Wonder the turn you obtain Scientific Method. You would then set Science to 0% for one turn, so as not to waste any Commerce. If you are researching a tech, building the ToE will waste all the Beakers you've accumulated already, since it gives you that tech for free. Sometimes research is a necessary evil while building the ToE, especially when you're not sure if you're going to secure it or not (you'll not want to have been idle research-wise if you do lose the ToE!).
Ok, you finally build the Theory of Evolution. The Wonder picture pops up, and you think for a minute about the plight of man and animal on this planet....back to the game! Then what?
The best thing to do, IMO, is grab Atomic Theory and Electronics for free. This catapults you very far along the bottom branch of the tree, that much closer to Motorized Transportation. You also just make it to Hoover Dam, which is essentially yours because no opponent is ever going to research the necessary techs and build it before you do. You can then sell the techs you got for free, preferably whoring them around among multiple civs. To continue this strategy, you would then research Radio next, selling that for a bunch, including large parts of the upper branch (Refining, Steel, Combustion, etc.). Really, once you get the Theory of Evolution, you're not only guaranteed two free techs, but the trading power to keep you in the game until the end of the game. That's a lot for one little Wonder.
I suppose you could also grab Steel and Refining with the ToE, hoping to get to more modern boats and planes. To me, that's not incentive enough, especially when you consider that AIs research the top branch quite well because it splits, while the bottom branch is linear and therefore all yours to whore if you're first along it.
Recap: Try not to have begun any research projets when you finish the Theory of Evolution. Once you secure this Wonder, the best techs to grab for free are Atomic Theory and Electronics.
Happy, Shining Future
You're doing good now! You've got a tech lead, and your economy is top-notch. Where to? After the Theory of Evolution, you'll have all you need in terms of trading power to grab all those techs you avoided on the way to the top; time to take a break and treat yourself to all those minor techs the AI is so fond of (Communism, Espionage, Sanitation, Steel). But you still want to do research, right?
Above I suggested Radio, but that's just a trick to get even more trading power. What you're really aiming for now is Motorized Transportation. It's no coincidence that it's the most difficult tech to reach in the Industrial Age (you need to complete both bottom and top branches to get to it): with Tanks, the game changes drastically, and so it's unbalancing if any one civ gets there with too much of a lead. Most probably it will be the last tech to research in the Age (assuming you proceeded to Radio after the ToE), and you'll be thrust into the Modern times.
The later optional Industrial Age techs are (unfortunately) irrelevant (come to think of it, almost all the optional Industrial age techs are sub-par); do not waste your time researching or even trading for Amphibious Warfare or Advanced Flight.
Recap: Your goal to finish off the Industrial Age is Motorized Transportation, but this is difficult to beeline for since it has almost every other required tech as a prerequisite. Just get it as fast as you can.
Please see the next post for the conclusion...
Comment