The Virtues of being Industrious....

[Txurce]

No question you could do it on Emperor, with a good start and a break on GL generation... pretty much what you had here. The AI edge effectively disappears in the middle ages. Once you hit 1000 BC, about the only difference between monarch and emperor is the aftermath of a narrow strategy (due to those first 3000 years not researching), and that research goes faster... which is the main reason I've won games sooner at the higher level than at the lower.

[Arrian]

Sir Ralph,

That makes a certain amount of sense, but I do not build my cities close together. I build them with minimal overlap, and they get big. Thus, cathedrals are a must, and 2x cathedrals is worth building the wonder for. But of course my goal is to have both the Sistine and Bach, along with every other M.A. wonder besides Shakespeares (which strikes me as particularly useless in CivIII).

Txurce,

One would need a bit more luck to do it on Emperor. The main reason is the tech speed. My ancient attack force is extremely potent right up until feudalism. At that point, my horsemen become useless. I have to wait for chivalry before undertaking further offensive operations.

On Monarch, with a good start, I can usually waste 3 civs before that happens. By #4, I often run into pikemen. It's really nice when #4 doesn't have iron. Otherwise, it's Samurai time. On Emperor, I would has less time to kill more AI units.

The rate of tech advancement is one reason I don't really have much desire to play Emperor yet. I don't like the idea of hitting the middle ages in 300BC, or whatever.

-Arrian

[alexman]

Originally posted by Arrian
The rate of tech advancement is one reason I don't really have much desire to play Emperor yet. I don't like the idea of hitting the middle ages in 300BC, or whatever.

This is getting off the thread topic, but I couldn't agree more. It's too bad there isn't a tech rate per diffuculty level, like there is one per map size.

[Velociryx]

You could sorta fake one, Alex....the main reason, IMO, that research is so fast in the higher level games, is cos of the AI's built in advantages (advantages that give them boosts in both production and research). If you wanted, you could go in and double or triple the cost of techs, which should undo most, if not all and then some, of the AI's bonus. They'd still have the production bonus and freebie units, but tech would be slowed down across the board.

Might be kinna coolio, tho my impression would be that the game would essentially become one of resource denial. Ironworking and Horseback riding would become more important than they already are (given the extension of the ancient era), and essentially, those two resource types would decide the game.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Hmm, just thinking about it, what I'd probably do is abandon my "early golden ages suck" mindset and use the Iroquois. Mounted Warriors are to Pikeman as Horsemen are to Spearmen. My early gains will be easier. The downside, of course, is the lack of militaristic, which will cut into leader generation. Hmm... tough call, actually.

Also, play an expansionist civ means you run the risk of popping horseback riding from a hut. Man, would that suck!

-Arrian

[Txurce]

Good points: on Emperor I can carve out enough land to win in the ancient era, but at best knock off no more than two civs off the continent... and usually don't quite do that. And then you are indeed forced by others' advances to abandon your warring ways and catch up technologically. I don't mind being forced to shift gears, but hitting the industrial era before 1000 AD is obviously out of whack. In a way there is a tech rate per difficulty level, which is the AI's production (read research) advantage; unfortunately, this method of handicapping screws up verisimilitude.

[alexman]

It just occured to me. It's really simple to balance the tech rates for all difficulties.

All Firaxis needs to do is to multiply all tech costs by the ratio of the Regent-to-CurrentLevel AI cost factors.

Right now, the cost factor for Emperor is 8 (For Regent it's 10). So if you multiply all the tech costs by 1.25 (10/8) it should make the Emperor timeline about the same as for Regent.

This is not 100% correct, because at higher difficulties the AI trades more aggressively, but it should account for most of the tech acceleration.

[King of Rasslin]

The Iroquios are religious, so the early golden age isn't a problem. Aim to get religious as early as possible, and switch immediately. Ditto.

As for unhappiness, wars usually don't last too long when you have mounted warriors

[Arrian]

You mean republic, I assume.

Yeah, that's a possibility if you have enough luxuries hooked up. Otherwise, shoot for Monarchy. Better sometimes, because of military police... especially on Emperor.

-Arrian

[King of Rasslin]

I'm not getting enough sleep

Monarchy is good. But how do you keep up in the tech race without being in republic? On emperor? You are just hoping that your war will win you a few techs. The tech advancement is too fast for higher difficulties...

Hopefully the early war will get you a leader to rush the Great Library.

[Inverse Icarus]

one of my favorite things with industrial is when you plop 2 workers down to do a job it's always done in 1 turn. you can road/mine/irrigate an entire city radius in 40 turns max.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
I'm not getting enough sleep

Monarchy is good. But how do you keep up in the tech race without being in republic? On emperor?

You don't have to stay in Monarchy forever. You can usually switch to it earlier than you can to Republic and if you are a religious civ it only costs one turn of anarchy. Then you can build faster make use of mines get more money and then switch over to Republic when you get the happiness improvements you need to no longer need the military police.

Yes it works on Emperor even as a builder. You do have to time things carefully as a builder though. Have to build enough units to keep the other civs from extorting you so much you don't have any money. Monarchy helps with that.

[Txurce]

Once you can afford republic, the only reason to be in monarchy is because you intend to be constantly at war. Keeping up with advances isn't so difficult in this case, as you are likely beelining for cavalry; a combination of high research rate, trading, and buying of techs should get you there ahead of the other civs, since they almost never go straight for it.

That said, the more luxuries you gain as a result of conquest, the more you can stick with republic as your wartime government. Keep in mind that the bigger you get, the more corruption slows you down while in monarchy. Republic allows you to keep pumping out units and maintain a high research rate, without devoting too much of your income to keeping your people happy... as long as you've corralled enough luxury resources.

[Ijuin]

One advantage of the double-speed Workers that everyone seems to have been overlooking is that, if you only need to build half as many workers, you only pay half the MAINTAINENCE on them. This means that having, say, fifty Workers instead of one hundred means you save:

50 pop points (which can then be devoted to Settlers, pop rushing, or working land)

500 shields

and 50 gold per turn!

Note that if the 50 pop points saved are used for pop rushing, then the value you save is equal to 1500 shields! And if you have the 50 Workers built soon enough, then you can save over 10,000 gold on the maintenence! Compare the shields and gold saved here to the shields and gold saved from the cheaper buildings under Militaristic, Scientific, or Religious civs!

[punkbass2000]

50 * 20 = 1000