The 'enlightened despot' strategy

[La Fayette]

The enlightened despot is the one who makes use of those highly corrupt cities producing almost nothing, that many people keep whining about.

Let us take 2 cities, A and B:
City A is a 'size 6' city (such as described in my 'size 6' strategy), with a granary, an aquaduct and a productive capacity of 10 shields/turn. City A produces 1 worker/turn.
City B (size 1) is highly corrupt and produces 1 shield (+ 1 commerce)/turn.

How does it work?
Let us build 1 knight (value = 70 shields).
City B starts building. After 1 turn, you have 1 shield in the box. You send 2 workers, built by city A in 2 turns, and join them to city B. City B grows from size 1 to size 3. Then you use your whip twice in a row, first to level 40 (longbowman for example), then to level 70: Knight.

Main result:
With a productive capacity of 11 shields/turn (cityA = 10, city B = 1), you build a knight (70 shields) in 2 turns.

Interesting remark:
City B remains size 1, so you can whip and whip again and avoid any civil disorder (if you don't, you just switch to city C, any other highly corrupt tiny city available).


(La Fayette, winking to all enlightened despots)

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Actually, the knight takes longer than 2 turns, as your worker must travel there first... Maybe one can create a ship chain of workers flowing to city B...

I thought of this when I found myself in monarchy and needing to quickly whip up a few units - but my treasury was nearly empty! "Ah, to still be in despotism," I thought.

Another fine idea from the CivLab, La Fayette!

[Aeson]

Given the steady production of the workers (1 a turn is pretty steady), the delay in getting there will be a one time thing if set up properly. The first Knight would take a few extra turns, but then the rate would be just as La Fayette describes thereafter.

This type of set up was discussed a bit in Vel's strategy threads. It is sometimes hard to find individual strats there though, as most everything is discussed in there. The difference was that temporary "military camps" and "worker factories" were set up next to each other, in areas that were productive, yet not used because of population limits (before hospitals). After these cities had fulfilled their purpose, they were disbanded to allow for the main cities to fully use their land.

This is also a GREAT use for captured workers during conquest. Move them to the nearest city, add them to the population, and pop rush them into a military unit. After a few enemy cities have been captured to build military in, the rest can be razed for more workers. A relatively small invasion force sent into enemy territory can finish the conquest as a massive army this way.

[La Fayette]

I have just finished the first game where I tried to be an 'enlightened despot'. I played as the Indians on Emperor level and wished to have a try at launching a SS.
I launched in 1862, at least 50 years later than what might be achieved if I had a second try, but this is not important. It was just like always when being a rookie.
What is important is that my period as enlightened despot was very very painful for my foes, the Chinese and the Persians.
Poor Indians, they have got a desperate UU, the War Elephant, some kind of Knight-equivalent (the civilopedia gives the same ADM values, namely 4,3,2, and my first battle was a veteran War Elephant fortified on a hill killed by a regular Chinese knight).
The problem is the same as with any UU: you cannot uppgrade to them, so it's just like having to pay full price for a UU that is no better than the knight.
(there is in fact an advantage, since you can build war elephants without resources, but I had the resources so I couldn't care less in this game)
This is where the 'enlightened despot' demonstrated its power: I had to disband and send to the refuse box an army of 16 horsemen and build at least 10 War elephants in a hurry, in order to fight the hordes of Chinese knights speeding towards me.
2 'size6' cities + 2 highly corrupt cities did that for me in 5 turns, then I went on taking all Chinese and Persian cities on my island (all in all 12 cities) within a few more turns.
I stopped there and built my civ peacefully, but I am fairly sure that if I had chosen domination, I would have finished that game quite soon.
Conclusion: enlightened despots can be really powerful warmongers.

[Darth Sidious]

i find it just a little too lame, that size 6 thing.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Darth Sidious
i find it just a little too lame, that size 6 thing.

Lame?
What do you mean?
'size 6' is not a bug. It is the game, such as it was designed by Sid, Dan, Soren and the others.
Of course you are perfectly free not to use it. All challenges are welcome (OCC, FCC,...'no workers' if you feel like it). I wish you the best of luck, from the bottom of my heart.
But 'lame', what do you mean?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Msr. La Fayette,

A nice find. If I might, I thought I might add a slight twist to this. But perhaps first a little background.

My style of play is one that I like to forgo the conventional wisdom of these boards meaning I try to use civs that are NOT religious. (My preference is militaristic and/or industrious/scientific). That being said the 4-8 turn anarchy during govermental switches is a killer. So what I 've taken to doing is a mass conversion of all population points to taxmen during this time in order to get some measure of benefit.

An illustration, in my last game I had a total of 15 cities total population of about 80 and switched from despotism to republic with an anarchy period of 6 years. In those 6 years I was able to harvest ~480 gold from my otherwise unproductive citizens but unfortunately lost 8 pop points. A fair trade if you ask me.

Now if I prebuild a few extra workers using the size six cities, I come out of the anarchy period and apply them to the starved cities thus allowing me a net even in terms of population. (whats more is I'll shed myself some maintenance cost of workers)

During despotism and/or communism for the highly corrupt cities, I assume perhaps incorrectly so that you are making the one and only pop point a taxman and/or scientist. In doing so the base square supports the pop point and you are guaranteed 1 coin or 1 beaker you otherwise would have lost to corruption. Extra workers added to the base are immediately converted to shields via rush build. Correct?

Regards

Og

[La Fayette]

OG
2 nice ideas, it seems.
I confess I have mostly tried to minimize specialists up to now, since they give so little. But your proposal looks very reasonable.

[La Fayette]

it works

Yes my friends, it works even better than I expected.
Those of you who have had a try at Apolyton tournament #4 will understand immediately what I mean (since Mark had chosen a map that really made it much more difficult than the average game at Monarch level).
I played it as 'enlightened despot' ASAP (which means about 1400AD, since there was so much to be done before that) and it allowed me to get rid of both the Persians and the English without major problems.
So I said 'why not?' and remained a despot until victory (which wasn't easy , I confess, since the Americans fought my cavalry and my ironclads with tanks, bombers and battleships).
Now you know it: an enlightened despot can win the game without switching from despotism.

(La Fayette, getting sunburnt on vacation after victorious war against the mighty Americans)

[DrSpike]

I have been meaning to test for ages whether or not you get a return on specialists in anarchy. Guess I wont need to now

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I have been meaning to test for ages whether or not you get a return on specialists in anarchy. Guess I wont need to now

I hope you will test, Dr, because much remains to be tested in civ3 (and I don't intend to play despot the rest of my life).

[DrSpike]

Of course I will test Just not whether specialists yield any return in anarchy. Because Ogie just said he tried it and they did.

[Skanky Burns]

Well, during my anarchy i was still doing research...