Starting a Wonder with only 2 cities

[realpolitic]

In civ2&3 there probably isn't ever a good time to do this, but in ctp, slaves can build up your cities so fast that a single city can spawn settlers much faster. With only 2 cities, some of your slaves must go to your non wonder city.

ICS versus slaves

In civ2, a strategy was developed called Infinite City Sleeze. Put your city anywhere because settlers cost 1 population, and new cities produce from 2 tiles, the center and the one you're working so setting up cities gave you one extra tile to work. In civ3, this was rectified by charging 2 population per settler. The two cities usually produce slightly more food than one, so the game became more balanced.

In ctp2, this was rectified by severly limiting the number of cities available and creating slavers that could also get free population.

Here's a comparsion of the two choices:

Slavers:
requires less resources to produce
each can produce many slaves
requires 1 hoplite for each 3 slaves to garrison
limited by gold reserves
slaves are speed growth because they reqire less food than a citizen

Settlers
cost more resources
can produce one city
cost at least one hoplite to garrison
limited by government type

The payoff is much faster, and especially on maps where there is a fair amount of space between civs. I like slave raids so much usually prefer to go for slave labor before ballistics. It certainly makes reaching the governement city limit less problematical, and usually makes farms a better tile improvement than trding posts in tyrany.

[Maquiladora]

If I can i usually do both, ICS as much as i can and slave AI's and barbarians. Also let the barbarians capture one of your small cities (not your capital) then keep slaving it everytime it grows over size 1, a slave farm.

[realpolitic]

In the games I've played I haven't reached the maximum number of cities under tyrany, which gives me more flexiblity in going to Monarchy( A long war where I can go from 6 to 20 cities). Although it wasn't fully intentional, it does have its advantages. I love that slave factory idea, it's the kind of perverse Machiavellian strategy that makes these forums so much fun.

[realpolitic]

Oooooops!

I have discovered the error of my ways. The wonders are so watered down, there is much more to be gained by:

1) Conquest, with a slaver included with the attackers,
2) Slave collections,

and when neigther of those are possible,
3) Rexing

Only when a player approaches the maximum # of cities are wonders worthwhile and only these:

Ramayana
Chichen Itza
Lyserium

[Maquiladora]

Only when a player approaches the maximum # of cities are wonders worthwhile and only these:

Its worth building a wonder than not building 1 or 2 cities a bit quicker.

If youre only talking about ancient wonders Great Wall is a good wonder too, but last on that list.

[realpolitic]

Nothing beats early conquest. The 3 hoplites I might sacrifice are still cheaper than a settler, and I'll get bout a size 3 city and a couple of slaves for my effort. With that kind of return, I'll get to monarchy faster. As I approach my limit under tyrany, granaries become better in my now large cities. God won't strike me dead when I raise the slider for a FEW turns, my fat citioes take to get to monarchy. I love hoplite/archer attacks, so I build plenty of hoplites while I approach fascism. There seem to be plenty of good warmongering builds in the early game.


The Wall never pays for itself , I'll probably mod it soon. 25% of even 16% production for maintance is only 4%, or the equivalent of adding one average citizen to an empire of 25. Actually it's worse than that, because it gives 0% benefit while it's being built. I can hardly imagine a strategy that won't produce 4% extra production in the time it takes to build the wall.

[Maquiladora]

Well thats the thing, if youre at war upto Knights (because its obsolete at Cavalry) with 500 prod. unit support (with Knights) then the Great Wall saves 125 prod., it also means you produce more units or buildings after that faster, or more PW while supporting that large army, so it pays in every area to squeeze all the production you can. If youre on an island alone its only worth building if only to keep from your competitors or for scoring.

Nothing beats early conquest.

As youre talking about really early conquest, it depends how long you expect the war to go on for, if it goes on say past switching to Republic, then a better strategy mightve been peaceful REXing, instead of struggling to quickly make good your captured AI cities that may overlap soon because the AI spaces cities horribly, or may grow into a ring of swamp, not to mention theyre further from your capital which means increased unhappiness.

Also with peaceful REXing you can build Shrine, Theatre, Granary, Academy, Arena, Courthouse in all your cities, but if youre mostly building military you maybe get one or two of those buildings. You also cant raise your public works as high and so grow your original cities as quick, plus your units are taking a hefty portion of your production from other builds, especially if you dont have Great Wall.

So in the end what you gain in conquest with ready built/grown cities, you may lose lots of "building time" in city improvements and PW around your original cities.

I always slave, but I prefer to build my first 20 or so cities myself, then I can build more cities towards an AI I want to absorb in Fascism.

[realpolitic]

Maq, how often in the early game do you go beyond 16% upkeep? 6 hoplite/warriors, 5 archers and 1 slaver what I attack with early, they do a fine job. With most surplus production, I hire specialists.

Before Classical Ed, I use farmers for the excess, then scientists. That will get me to the 35 city limit of Fascism faster, and when I get to Industrial Revolution, I can make up for lost production (from using scientists) with laborers. It doesn't seem worthwhile to switch to Republic.

The 4% savings doesn't justify taking a city out of play when you only have a few. I don't mind having 14 cities when I reach Monarchy, because first my commerce slider goes down then my food slider, but that usually only drops for a few turns. Having one more city compensates for increasing the food slider, because I'm already having overcrowding problems in some cities with lots of slaves.

I don't think it pays to switch to Republic, as Fascism is right around the corner.

I only build Granary, City Walls and Food Silos before I get enough military for 35 cities, I just garrison troops, and I'm not shy about raising the commerce bar, I sometimes get Ramayana and always get Gutenburg, and normally use scientists to limit production pollution. Then I increase my PW for mostly commerce tiles, then if I'm not close to Corporate Republic I'll add science improvements, else military units to boost my cities to 45 then happiness improvements in cities that are lagging behind.

The exception is sometimes I'll improve a city and its tiles to build wonders.


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Something that enhances the slaving option that isn't totally obvious is using the retreat button after you've killed one enemy troop, then repeat each turn til you get the city.

That may be part of the reason the Wall is less appealing to me, my population is so high, that units are a small percentage of production.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by realpolitic
Maq, how often in the early game do you go beyond 16% upkeep? 6 hoplite/warriors, 5 archers and 1 slaver what I attack with early, they do a fine job. With most surplus production, I hire specialists.

If I want to attack early in the game I dont usually attack with Hoplites and Archers, I wait for Knights and a couple of M. Archers, sometimes Catapults in SAP2, so it can often go above 20 or 25%. You can lower the readiness setting and still have Knights at full health too.

Before Classical Ed, I use farmers for the excess, then scientists. That will get me to the 35 city limit of Fascism faster, and when I get to Industrial Revolution, I can make up for lost production (from using scientists) with laborers. It doesn't seem worthwhile to switch to Republic.

You collect 15% more food, 15% more production and 25% more science in Republic than in Monarchy, so to get the biggest advantage use lowest wages.

If you have a lot of production and youre running out of useful things to build youre better having no farmers and generating PW, that way you get farms or mines and no reduction in science/gold from using farmer specialists.

I only build Granary, City Walls and Food Silos before I get enough military for 35 cities, I just garrison troops, and I'm not shy about raising the commerce bar, I sometimes get Ramayana and always get Gutenburg, and normally use scientists to limit production pollution.

Dont forget that higher happiness lowers crime, so having Shrine, Theatre and Arena will always give you a lot of resources back as well as happiness.

Food Silos it depends how big the cities are, if theyre close to maximum needing Arcologies then youll get hardly any extra food from Silos because of high overcrowding anyway.

That may be part of the reason the Wall is less appealing to me, my population is so high, that units are a small percentage of production.

Well its definitely a pointless building if no one is slaving you and sometimes its not even worth the effort to build walls in 20+ cities to stop slavers, better to just counter-slave.

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by Maquiladora






You collect 15% more food, 15% more production and 25% more science in Republic than in Monarchy, so to get the biggest advantage use lowest wages.

Thanks, I didn't go thru the governments file too carefully, I hadn't realized the difference was so great.

If you have a lot of production and youre running out of useful things to build youre better having no farmers and generating PW, that way you get farms or mines and no reduction in science/gold from using farmer specialists.

Yes, I do put some effort into PW, but since I consider 2 hoplites generally better than a samarai, sometimes there is still some left over as all cities don't produce exactly the same.

Dont forget that higher happiness lowers crime, so having Shrine, Theatre and Arena will always give you a lot of resources back as well as happiness.

Happiness doesn't produce as much as imperialism. Its about 1% less crime for a 2 point increase in happiness. I've always gotten Chichen Itza & Zero Crime Bill so it doesn't amount to much.

Food Silos it depends how big the cities are, if theyre close to maximum needing Arcologies then youll get hardly any extra food from Silos because of high overcrowding anyway.

I agree here, but pre Arcology cities grow well to about 29, so this is occasionally important.


[/QUOTE]