I guess everybody knows early expansion is essential in higher difficulties. Actually, it is a simple matter in Deity (non-Romans) -- we would be lucky if we axe somebody down before running out of forests.

How much expansion is optimal, in Immortal and Emperor, and perhaps Monarch? (Personally I don't think any military action is necessary in Monarch if one knows what to do.)

Sure an early expansion kills your research bar. Do you stop at your research hitting 70%? 50%? 30%? Is there a point where you cannot recover? Is there an optimal point to stop?

I have been trying to dig a deeper hole, and the hole never seems to be too deep. In one of my recent Immortal games, I had a total of 6 cities while researching alphabat. My research bar dropped to 0% right after its completion. I thought this was really bad. I thought the AI will outtech me like crazy. But it turned out that in this very game I achieved my highest score (180k+) and one of the fastest conquest win (before 1200 AD, my infantry + cavalry ran over the continent).

I would propose that the optimal early expansion limit is actually 0% research bar. We expand until we cannot expand, literally. That 0% better comes after the completion of Alphabat, because there will be a "lag phase" of our Civ before it takes flight. During that lag phase we could make use of some basic tech tradings, so our workers can still do nice improvements, and our cities can still build lighthouses and granaries.

And after that things will be much easier than you think... :)

As long as you don't hit 0% before the alphabet comes, which is what happened when I over-extended myself with Persia on Monarch. I conquered another civ with my huge army of immortals, but couldn't sue for techs without alphabet!

Playing with no tech trading on, you can actually go down to 0% without alphabet and still catch up by cottage spamming all your cities.

Whether i play no tech trading or not, i always try to expand as much as possible, and that always means going down to 0%. Anything else just means you haven't expanded enough yet!

I personally don't like to go below 30%. But maybe I'm just a big chicken.

I personally don't like to go below 30%. But maybe I'm just a big chicken.

Then I'm an even bigger chicken :) - I don't like to go below 50%. :blush:

Playing with no tech trading on, you can actually go down to 0% without alphabet and still catch up by cottage spamming all your cities.

Whether i play no tech trading or not, i always try to expand as much as possible, and that always means going down to 0%. Anything else just means you haven't expanded enough yet!

Wow! I never expanded below 50%! If only I had enough time, I'd try this immediately ... maybe I will anyway ;-)

Ok here are a few questions for you lot:

Does the cottage spamming strat after 0% only work for financial leaders?

You're going to have a weak spot, timewise, a phase where you don't tech at all. Do you often get attacked in that phase? How do you defend?

How much gold income do you still have, as a reserve? It'd be tragic to run at 0% research/+2 Gold, have a city grow (eg. accidentially over the happiness limit) and suddenly have all your workers disbanded due to striking?

Do you research all of the basic improvement techs first? In the weak phase, there isn't any time for that, right? It'd want to have the basic techs so at least my workers had something to do?

Do you offset 0% research with specialists?

In that weak phase, do you beeline for - how's it named? - the tech that gives courthouses?

Regards.

Wow! I never expanded below 50%! If only I had enough time, I'd try this immediately ... maybe I will anyway ;-)

Ok here are a few questions for you lot:

Does the cottage spamming strat after 0% only work for financial leaders?

You're going to have a weak spot, timewise, a phase where you don't tech at all. Do you often get attacked in that phase? How do you defend?

How much gold income do you still have, as a reserve? It'd be tragic to run at 0% research/+2 Gold, have a city grow (eg. accidentially over the happiness limit) and suddenly have all your workers disbanded due to striking?

Do you research all of the basic improvement techs first? In the weak phase, there isn't any time for that, right? It'd want to have the basic techs so at least my workers had something to do?

Do you offset 0% research with specialists?

In that weak phase, do you beeline for - how's it named? - the tech that gives courthouses?

Regards.

You've got to have the worker techs, and, of course, pottery, bronzeworking and the prereqs for alphabet first. This could possibly work for an organized as well as a financial civ because the reduced city costs would make it easier to recover. After alphabet, what tech you would go for would depend a lot on what you could get by trading. If you don't get it, I would next head for Currency.

You would have to be strong enough beforehand to deter your enemies from attacking you because you would not be able to build too many units, since they add to costs. (Note: If you were careful, you *could* use an already built army to pillage your enemies if you were already at war.) You could use the money that you get to slowly build your army at that point and/or replace the units that you had lost.

Tom

Does the cottage spamming strat after 0% only work for financial leaders?


Financial trait only makes 1 coin of difference each... I don't imagine it being very essential. However, if you are not financial, thinking of being organized. City maintenance are SO-- expensive in high difficulties.


You're going to have a weak spot, timewise, a phase where you don't tech at all. Do you often get attacked in that phase? How do you defend?


The lag phase is actually quite short. You still have your axeman (or whatever) you rushed with... and they should be enough to deal with swordsman.


How much gold income do you still have, as a reserve? It'd be tragic to run at 0% research/+2 Gold, have a city grow (eg. accidentially over the happiness limit) and suddenly have all your workers disbanded due to striking?


The additional pop. is likely to bring you some extra income as well. It is a good idea to run a very little positive income at 0% than a little negative income at 10%. Your income will soon increase, so the wait isn't too long.


Do you research all of the basic improvement techs first? In the weak phase, there isn't any time for that, right? It'd want to have the basic techs so at least my workers had something to do?


That's why you want Alphabet before the lag phase. You can trade it to get some basic techs that you missed.


Do you offset 0% research with specialists?
In that weak phase, do you beeline for - how's it named? - the tech that gives courthouses?


I would prefer to grow my cities to its max size, then specialists come as extra. That lag phase is seriously a lag phase. You have no research progress at all. You may see 300 turns needed to complete Drama. But it is ok. That number will thin down very quickly.

You need Code of Laws for courthouses. By the time you can research it, your lag phase is over. :) The entire lag phase happens on the tech of your pick after alphabat.

Does the cottage spamming strat after 0% only work for financial leaders?

I wouldn't know, i almost always play financial civs, though i've been trying all kinds of different financial leaders.

You're going to have a weak spot, timewise, a phase where you don't tech at all. Do you often get attacked in that phase? How do you defend?

In my experience, that's not a problem at all. With all your cities, they see you as way too powerful to attack you. You also have all those highly promoted units from your conquest wars. Plus all those cities put together can pump out new units pretty fast just by switching them to using mines. Even if they do attack me, i'm glad. This just means more promotions for me, plus more pillaging money and possibly more cities if i think i can handle it.

How much gold income do you still have, as a reserve? It'd be tragic to run at 0% research/+2 Gold, have a city grow (eg. accidentially over the happiness limit) and suddenly have all your workers disbanded due to striking?

As low as possible. Ideally, you want to be at 0 gold and +0/turn when you start rebuilding. Just be careful about micromanaging your cities properly. If you fall down to 0 and -1/turn or something like that, just temporarily switch a tile or two to coast or something while a cottage grows somewhere else.

Do you research all of the basic improvement techs first? In the weak phase, there isn't any time for that, right? It'd want to have the basic techs so at least my workers had something to do?

As long as i can cut down forests and build cottages, i'm happy. Anything more is a bonus.

Do you offset 0% research with specialists?

Usually no. I believe in the power of cottages over specialists! I'm not in a hurry to catch up. I know that waiting will pay off in the long run.

In that weak phase, do you beeline for - how's it named? - the tech that gives courthouses?

It helps if you already have it. Otherwise yes, you'll want Code of Laws as soon as possible. But i've been in situations where 4 or 5 other techs were still more useful for me than that one and went for those first.

Are the AI's aggressive earlier on the higher difficulty levels? Only played Noble and Price and early game is all out expansion. Don't think I have ever seen the AI attack me or other AIs real early (before Alphabet). A couple of archers/axes in each city always seems enough to avoid early invasion on Noble/Price, is that not the case in the higher difficulties?

I have seen a few "ultra aggressive" AIs, namely Monty and Alex, who attack before alphabat, on Immortal and Deity. It would be nice if you can bribe them to go after somebody else as early as possible.

BTW it is useless to make them happy. I've had Monty with a +6/-0 to go after me once... and he is not even close to me.

I go up to 0% and after that cotage spamming. Up to that point I have the basic techs I need to expand fast and populate my cities. I can get the AI techs sooner or later when my cities are enough big so I don't hesitate very much about tech in starting. The point is that you need more cities than AI in hard difficulties otherwise you are gone.

Now *this* is a thought-provoking thread.

I assume you raze cities that are poorly placed and that aren't holy cities or wonder cities. Do you tend to raze otherwise well placed cities just so that you can capture a few more before hitting the no income at 0% science cost point? You'd have to come in later with settlers to fill them in, but are at risk of AI or barb city formation before you get around to that.

Does the cottage spamming strat after 0% only work for financial leaders?
This worries me -- I would think that spamming after 0% would be too late. Shouldn't you start cottage spamming before you reach that mark?

Is there a point where you cannot recover?
I think this whole discussion is very much tied to the game speed you're playing on, and this question will pinpoint it. If you answer no, then you're not playing Marathon, I know that much.

Anyone here bottoming out their research on Marathon early game?

I tried a lot and went back to Epic where the game was balanced. In my experience, early war is a failing route to expand on Marathon. You have to wait until at least Code of Laws.

I play Marathon Monarch games and I frequently bottom out my research. As long as I can get CoL before my units go on strike, I'm fine. Generaly as soon as I discover/trade for CoL I'll switch every city to courthouses, wait one turn, then pop rush as many of them as I can. I'm often back up to 60% within 4-5 turns.

Something I like to do is go down to 0% a few turns ahead of my expansion so that I can build up a small stockpile of cash with which to use in case I over stretch and go into the negative. Its a matter of timing but a few turns of +10 gold has kept my finances above 0 (on epic) while my empire grows

I actually go down to 0% a few turns ahead of when its likely to come in, just in case I over stretch and go into the red irrespective of what leader I am playing. Assuming no decent goody huts to give gold, it is sometimes necessary to have a small cushion of gold to work with and I find that once I've got Code of Laws my empire is as good as safe and its time to go to war

0% is good. pls use it. go all the way until you are hovering at positive income, using workers to build $$$ improvements. this lets you land grab more than you can. research can be done a little later...

Now *this* is a thought-provoking thread.

I assume you raze cities that are poorly placed and that aren't holy cities or wonder cities. Do you tend to raze otherwise well placed cities just so that you can capture a few more before hitting the no income at 0% science cost point? You'd have to come in later with settlers to fill them in, but are at risk of AI or barb city formation before you get around to that.

I keep all cities unless really poorly situated. The whole point is the expand as much as possible, and you can't do that unless you actually take the cities.

I suppose on Marathon the negative income really kills. I mostly play on Epic, and find 0% beaker still acceptable.

Little expansion until Code of law seems to be a little too late on high difficulties. By the time the AIs would have completed walls and have a very large stack of army.

In my current Deity game (Standard map Pangea) I am just about to get code of Laws. I have 11 cities, running a 30-40% research rate. But I am about the same tech level as the leading AIs. This means although I am running 30-40% research, my actual research rate is about the same as an average Deity AI (which has about 6 cities). So there isn't too much to worry without code of laws, although I agree it makes a huge difference.

Anybody overexpand to the point that their military kept getting sold off to pay the debt? I did that one game on noble. I expanded so rapidly that I was at 0% science and was still running a deficit. Realizing my error too late, I tried to attack my neighbors to ransack their cities for gold, but my units kept getting sold right before I could capture a city and eventually I had no army and was still in a deficit. Needless to say, I retired from that game :)

You really should try to reach Currency and Code Of Laws before your pillage cash is gone though....having Currency at least secures you getting more cash out of the cities you already own.

I expanded so rapidly that I was at 0% science and was still running a deficit.

There has been a large demand for a feature in the next patch -- the ability to burn your own city to ashes (and even better, get some cash from it). With this feature one never has to worry about overexpansion.

I would also love to move a city around. Sometimes AI found a city one tile away from a really nice location. It would take too long to raze and re-found the city there, if I could just move it by one tile... :)

I expanded through rapid military conquest in a Multiplayer game with 2 human and 5 AI opponents (standard map). At one point my science got to 0% and was losing money. This was even moderately late in the game where I was using cannons. I ended up dominating the game and could have won through space or military but we ended up quitting because it was so one-sided.

The point is that there is no solid answer as to a minimum percentage.

There has been a large demand for a feature in the next patch -- the ability to burn your own city to ashes (and even better, get some cash from it). With this feature one never has to worry about overexpansion.

I would also love to move a city around. Sometimes AI found a city one tile away from a really nice location. It would take too long to raze and re-found the city there, if I could just move it by one tile... :)

Don't hold your breath on any of those. I don't think you'll ever see them in Civ 4.

I'm pretty sure the reason you can't burn your own cities to the ground is realism, so it isn't likely to change anytime soon, no matter how many people ask for it. Personally, i like it better this way. I just wish you could investigate a conquered city before deciding whether or not to keep it.

I would also love to move a city around. Sometimes AI found a city one tile away from a really nice location. It would take too long to raze and re-found the city there, if I could just move it by one tile...

intriguing, but there'd have to be a penalty, say 25 or 50% of the population, or else i'd be creeping outward as my culture expanded.

I'm pretty sure the reason you can't burn your own cities to the ground is realism,

you don't have to burn it, plenty of cities have been abandoned once their need or usefulness expired

you don't have to burn it, plenty of cities have been abandoned once their need or usefulness expired

I liked the idea of outposts in Civ 3 that allowed you to access resources outside your boundaries without having to commit to placing a city there. It would be exceedingly useful for grabbing silver, furs, incense and a handful of other resources that tend to pop up in fairly inhospitable areas.

In civ 4, if I settle a city in the middle of tundra in order to benefit from nearby silver and furs, but then 100 turns later my cultural borders from my other cities grow to encompass those resources, I'm still stuck with the sub-optimal city that could potentially be a drag on my economy. I'd prefer if there were the option to disband the city, as it's usefullness has lapsed.

I'm pretty sure the reason you can't burn your own cities to the ground is realism

Actually I know quite a few cases in history that cities are burnt to ashes by the rulers themselves...

For example, the capital of China (Han Dynasty), Luo Yang, was burnt to ahses by a notorious "prime minister" around 190AD. Recovery took a long, long time -- almost like refounding a city.

The game can implement penalties to burning down your own city, such as :mad: faces in all cities for 10 turns.

Moving cities around would be a little too much to ask. Like a previous poster suggested, losing a certain population would be a reasonable penalty.

One of the strategic themes of Civ4 is balancing early needs against long-term potential. It would go against the entire spirit of the game if you could plant your cities to maximize their utility early on, and then rearrange them to maximize their utility in the late game. :p