British Expand and Tax Strategy

[HalfLotus]

This build attempts to take advantage of the higher British commerce cap and taxation by delaying your commerce teching and expanding aggressively in the early game.

Start with Sci/Civics, and make a farm with your first citizen out; food is the limiting factor. Also try to have your ruins give Food. After building your second city, make two farms (maxes your food at +87) and research Civics 2 asap. Send a citizen to build your third city. Build a wood camp as soon as you can afford it, and build a temple in the city closest to your opponent.

You have sacrificed a lot of wealth potential by not having a market, so what do you do? Research taxation(!), which is available with Civics 2. Three cities worth of real estate and double British taxation will instantly generate around +30 wealth (less if there are lakes). Get your timber production capped and get Commerce 1…or Military 1 to set up some defense, closely followed by Commerce 1. I like to then go Science 2 and then Classical, but there's plenty of options.

Concentrate on your economy and get all three cities developed. You have neglected your timber production so focus on that. Science 2 and 3 are key for Granary and Mill bonuses. Also take advantage of as many rare resources as possible. You want to build as few farms and lumberjacks as possible when aiming for the higher British commerce cap. It takes some time for all three cities to get going so a Gunpowder or later attack is best.

You can also adopt a border push strategy, which is fun with the +2 range of British towers and forts, especially if you have Obsidian.

This is most effective on land maps, and with a starting lumber camp of 4 or more. Also on smaller maps, and ones where it is key to control the middle for forests, mountains, rares. Coming soon: the British Raze and Run strategy!

[HeymlicH]

I think +30 welth isn't worth it. It is less than what you get with 2 cities + market + caravan, and more expensive.

If you are planning to expand agressively as you described, try russians. The extra territory also increases taxation and has the same effect as british double taxation.

[HalfLotus]

Yeah its probly not stronger than typical sci, civ, comm buts that boring...so is russian border push. I'm gonna test it vs a standard build wealth-wise. Trying to be creative mostly.

[manutebol666]

Re: British Expand and Tax Strategy

Originally posted by HalfLotus
This build attempts to take advantage... by ... expanding aggressively in the early game.

...Also try to have your ruins give Food.

1. It doesn't matter what nation I'm using I always use border-push tactics. I imagine every gamer that has seen any success at all does this as well. When the Brits hit the wealth cap do you stop border pushing, since your objective is accomplished? That's a good way to lose.

Border push is good to
a. create distant trade centers for +caravan income.
b. box in opponents- leaving them minimal real estate to build fully developed cities in.
c. force opponents into mounting attacks against your least sensitive positions (far from capital)
d. gain control of rare resources.

The less map they control the less resources they can generate. The less resources they generate the less military threat they pose. The less military threat they pose the sooner you will win.
It is the most elementary strategy within the game.

2. As far as I can tell ruins are random in what resource they give a bonus of.

[HalfLotus]

When I do an all out "border push" I'll get every border tech...Religion and Civics techs, build temples in every city, and get forts and fort research.

In most games I would prefer to spend at least some of that money on my economy. I get more resources by building a granary or mill (or science tech) than by researching religion or building a temple to generate slightly more tax. Also civic techs lose alot of value in the late game because you arent founding many new cities. If you place your cities and forts well you wont need to get every border tech tech in order to get the right resources. Pushing borders is good but theres a point where your resources would better spent elsewhere.

Ruins give you the resource you have the least of.

[HeymlicH]

... and what I usually do when I find a ruin is:
- queue as many workers in the capital as possible.
- get the ruin bonus (will be food)
- release all the workers in the queue

of cause, the same thing works with timber/farms or gold/scholars, but most of the time I want food.

[HalfLotus]

Yep, exactly. The worst is getting a wealth ruin in the first 3 minutes or so. This is pretty easy to avoid with romans since your wealth is going up steadily from the start.

Also taxation is allowed with Civic 1, not Civic 2 as I said earlier. Civic two allows Religion which is a pretty good defensive tech if you want to avoid building temples in all 3 cities.

This build does pretty well wealthwise, but your food and timber production is slowed quite a bit. I wouldnt advise this in competitive situations until I can improve on it. Also I'm now thinking it is best on very large maps since you would need to pure boom for the first several minutes to have your economy stay competitive. On smaller maps any kind of rush would kill you.

[HalfLotus]

update: Religion techs only upgrade cities that already have temples, so you're not going to save on building them.

edit: in addition to the increased tax income, fast three cities works well with british because:

a) their commerce cap is higher, delaying commerce 1 doesnt hurt as much

and

b) they can defend raids pretty well with infantry since they get free archer upgrade, and they have great towers....delaying classical doesnt mean death against heavy raiding.

Sadly, British are still very weak in 1v1. =(

[Hendrik]

I would not call myself a competitive player by any means (1760 rated) but I am a fan of the British. I will have to try this strat. I have had the most success with them on water maps, where the 33% faster ship construction and increased commerce cap help a lot. With commerce 1 you cap out at 125 resources, allowing you to sink as much as you want to into a boom. By the Gunpowder age the increased tax income should make up for the heavy investments you have had to make to fill out that huge commerce cap, at this point you can buy your way out of most economic problems.

The Incans are the kings of early game gold with their mining bonus, but since smelters do not effect their gold income from mines this bonus fades away in the late game. If you sustain a boom all the way to the enlightenment the larger base economic investment in peons starts to pay off since the granary/mill/smelter upgrades cost the same.

The early taxation research also pays off more on fishing maps because it increases gold from fishermen and/or merchants. If you have 6 fishermen at this point in the game you will get an extra +12 gold on top of the tax income.

[HalfLotus]

Well I did some testing and it turns out Britain early econ isn't so bad after all. I'll have to try them out in serious 1v1. The results are posted in the RoNH thread.