Still Having Problems with REX

[xane]

I started a game as French on Regent level and pushed myself for a vigorous REX strategy, most cities not reaching beyond size 3 for very long before producing a Settler.

I had only got a few thousand years into the game and about eight or so cities when I met up against the Indians on the same continant, then the Zulus started landing on my shores too, picking up the little tundra holes in my empire.

The speed at which the Indians grabbed land was astonishing, and not only that they were building Wonders everywhere and had become a Republic about 1000 years before I even got the tech for it. Even the Zulus were managing to out-expand and out-tech me and built Wonders too.

Fortunately I had amassed a serious wad of cash as I found I couldn't break the 40 turn tech limit and decided to optimize. I managed to buy enough techs to keep up and get my own Republic.

How do the Indians expand at that rate ? I find that keeping cities small through REX severely hampers your tech, but this didn't seem to apply to the Indians, or indeed the Zulus.

Any advice ?

[Big Dave]

What is REX?

I've just gotten Civ3 and I'm playing my first game. REX is not ICS, but it sounds like it has alot in common?

Big Dave

[Skanky Burns]

REX = Rapid Early eXpansion

Im still having trouble keeping up with the AI in REXing. I get almost as many cities as they have, but then things go downhill for a while unless i grab a couple of cities from them. I guess i need more practice to see what works and what doesnt.

[DaveV]

In the early game, you should mine and road every grassland square you're working. There's no point in irrigating grassland under despotism, unless it contains a cattle or wheat special. The extra production from mining is significant, and will help you produce settlers faster. Make sure you improve the squares you're using first (or move your city workers onto the squares you're improving). Build your cities on poor terrain (hills, tundra, forest, jungle, normal grassland), and save the shield grassland squares to provide the food and shields you need to crank out settlers. Crank out warriors while you're waiting for your city to grow large enough to build another settler, and use them to stake out prime city sites. If you're lucky enough to have a bottleneck between you an AI, park a couple warriors there to seal them off. Once the border between you and the AIs is obvious, build temples in cities along that border; otherwise, don't waste shields on improvements - just keep building settlers in your interior cities. First, stake your claim to a good-sized chunk of land, then fill it with cities. After you've built your cities, you can gear up for building or conquering.

[Be'lial]

I don;t know if this strategy works on higher difficulty levels, but on Monarch difficulty I always manage to out pace the A.I. at Empire size & no. of cities by the following :

a) Use 1 or 2 high growth cities with bonus wheat or cattle squares to constantly churn out settlers, rather than have every city building settlers.

b) Build roads leading to new territory with your workers - as well as two cities making settlers, have another making workers all the time.

c) Rush build Temples as soon as possible in your colonies, and then if feasable build settlers.


The main difference from Civ 2 etc. seems to be that having 2 fast growing cities with granaries producing settlers and lots of roads is a lot more productive than every single city building settlers slowly.

Plus, explore fast - by using your advanced road network, you can place cities to hamper the AI's growth substantially, blocking off large areas that you can back fill later.

Of course, I'm always well behind on Tech until the Medieval ages, but after that the games plain sailing... :-)