I have always steered clear of Joao. Poor UB, Poor UU, Poor traits. What's to like?

But then I thought a bit harder about him. He has cheap workers AND cheap settlers. What if I focused my strategy with him on REXing far and wide simply trying to keep my economy from completely crashing claiming LOTS of territory in the BC era from which I can pursue my goals once my economy climbs back from the depths?

The Result (1AD, monarch/standard/normal speed/hemispheres):

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r107/futurehermit/1ADPortugal0000.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r107/futurehermit/1ADPortugal20000.jpg

Of course, having some space to work with and reasonably peaceful neighbours helps.

I was able to keep my economy afloat by working commerce tiles, including cottages, to avoid striking, and running scientists off of libraries to tech through alpha-currency-col. I was shocked that I was able to do so in a timely manner due to the size of my empire!

I highly recommend this strategy with Joao.

p.s., My REXing boxed in HC and limited Bismarck's expansion as well. Cathy has a large, strong multi-gem empire and is teching fast. My plan is to beat her to liberalism, be first to rifling and then draft rifles out of my ~12 city empire to take her out. At that point any victory should really be open to me as I will be able to clear my continent quite easily.

If I hadn't read this forum, I would never have realized the power of teching through Scientists.

The game could be more forthcoming with the fact you can tech reasonably well even at 0% beakers. This fact is very counter-intuitive.

Perhaps the slider could present some figure telling you "you're currently teching at a rate that would correspond to 80% slider if you removed all Scientist specialists" or somesuch.

First off, I really like your threads FH. You write about strong leaders/strategys/etc. that aren't really obvious.

But here I just wonder... You're at -7 GPT @ 0% science. And you're still building another settler (I love that:p). But you only posted screenshots from your empire. No ss of a commerce city or a production city. No tech overview. From what I see here, it'll take you ages to start decent research.
However, it seems you haven't completed a single courthouse (you only make +4EP that come from the palace). That will surely help you but it means you'll have to whip them which means you can't work cottages. And you're only building 4 atm so maintenance will only go down very slowly.
Also I have no idea how your empire is defended. With so many cities, it is hard to have enought units, especially since many hammers have been invested in settlers.
To me it somehow looks like you'll be eaten by maces by cathy (you can be greatful that the other AIs are pretty peaceful). Once the AIs have no more space to expand, many start thinking about going to war. And it doesn't look like you've got anything to trade them. Seems you're not planning on bulbing philo and trading it around either.

I don't mean to be harsh but to me it doesn't look like you're in a very good shape. But you can easily convince me that it works with some more of your thoughts you had in mind when playing and some more screenshots :goodjob:

I agree to the guy above; 28 beakers at 1 ad, and that with running on -... I still think joao has only one advantage - that you won't get to see his face as one of the ais and annoy you with his stupid begging.

No, no...

You're right, Joao's strengths come early, but its not in REXing.

Its in Axe Rush!

He starts Mining and Fishing. So he doesn't need to research a Food tech, all he needs is Bronze Working, the first Worker starts chopping the first Settler, settle next to copper, build the mine and connect it and voila! Axe axe axe axe axe...

I remember my first game with Joao, my warrior explored south and found Boudaicca. Her three cities were great additions to my empire.

Cheers,

Dai

@kakitadairu:
there are way better axe-rushers. Hannibal for example, same starting techs. But he has higher happy caps, his army heals faster (more promotions) and he doesn't fall into an economic black hole (fin/char). The chinese start with agriculture and mining. So they're also good axerushers by your definition. As are the english (mining/fishing again) and the romans.
Joao is way better in rexing than in an axerush, as his traits support rexing more than axerushing. BW is very nice to chop settlers not axes. But soon you'll run into economic problems. As you say, you took 3 of boudicas cities and kept them. You can't afford the maintenance for so many cities on higher levels. And pumping 2-3 settlers to seal off enought land to backfill with 10 cities already costs enought. For that, you don't need Imperialistic.

I think in FH's game Imp was pretty nice as he couldn't seal off land easily. But that ugly english queen (vicktoria I think) would do way better, she wouldn't be in the red @ 0%.

I like Joao.

He can axe rush my nearest neighbour and then Rex a whole continent. Fast granaries are nice and fast GG emergence means your early rush should bag you at least one.

After the Rex your economy tends to stink until COL and until cottages grow, but that's normal for any non-Fin leader I find.

The UU is great on continent maps, you get to settle foreign lands way before anyone else. More rexing! :D

The UB is maybe a little weak, provides a nice little commerce bonus but not too much.

@kakitadairu:
there are way better axe-rushers. Hannibal for example, same starting techs. But he has higher happy caps, his army heals faster (more promotions) and he doesn't fall into an economic black hole (fin/char). The chinese start with agriculture and mining. So they're also good axerushers by your definition. As are the english (mining/fishing again) and the romans.
Joao is way better in rexing than in an axerush, as his traits support rexing more than axerushing. BW is very nice to chop settlers not axes. But soon you'll run into economic problems. As you say, you took 3 of boudicas cities and kept them. You can't afford the maintenance for so many cities on higher levels. And pumping 2-3 settlers to seal off enought land to backfill with 10 cities already costs enought. For that, you don't need Imperialistic.

I think in FH's game Imp was pretty nice as he couldn't seal off land easily. But that ugly english queen (vicktoria I think) would do way better, she wouldn't be in the red @ 0%.

Well, I completely agree, the Chinese (well, Mao anyway) are also great axerushers, although I would not say that about Hannibal (yes he can Axe rush, but then he can do almost everything great, I'd rather build the Great Lighthouse with him). Rome is a Praetor rush, not Axe rush.

I only play on Deity now... city maintenance is a problem but not the really big problems. The really big problem is diplomacy (You declared war on our friends!), in that game vs. Boudaicca I ended up being at war with practically everyone (I'm sure there was a lot of Comp. bribery going on).

Imperialistic is a great Axerush trait, because of the great generals. I ended up with about 9 great general led units that were untouchable as long as I was careful to avoid collateral damage, enough to bust any city with some support. With Joao and Imperialistic, you leverage it by WAR, not peace. Leadership >>> Charismatic in terms of military. Also Financial is a great war trait, but it doesn't kick in early, it kicks in late when you have a huge empire to cottage. With Joao, you keep your economy afloat by a) building lots of cottages (its ok if they don't get the financial bonus), b) having a lot of land = a lot of resources = gold from trading resources, c) having a large population by working on happiness (maybe building theaters/ colosseum and running the cultural slider).

Joao is the fastest axe rush because of the double discounts and those extra maybe 10-15 turns are huge.

Cheers,

Dai

futurehermit, could you REX as hard as you wanted or were you constrained by the state of your economy? I found that I usually preferred an economic trait to reduce the consequences of overexpansion.
I'm looking at other likely Imperialistic leaders, since that seems to be the more crucial trait to me (chopped settler goodness).

Caesar is close to the idea in cutting the hammer costs of REXing... not as quickly (courthouses get the cut instead of workers) but you would gain a cut to civic upkeep (which should matter a lot eventually) and the opportunity to beat someone upside the head with Praetorians.
FIN has a similar advantage to EXP of coming into play straight away, but PHI looks interesting if you depend a lot on bulbs + trades to keep up. IND limits the contribution of your capital to the expansion but I found Augustus an excellent leader to sustain expansion while staying ahead tech-wise.

The simple question after all that rambling: Is Joao truly better at this than other leaders, or do his true talents lie elsewhere (maps where his UU becomes overpowered rather than irrelevant, Rush for Lebensraum)?


***

Teching reasonaby at 0% isn't anything special as far as I can see, and I doubt it's even optimal... while a Cottage Economy doesn't function at 0% science it wouldn't be there in the first place. In fact, covering so much land with cottages early on could be very explosive.

I don't want to go too offtopic here but I do this very same thing with Justinian all the time.

The idea is that you start with 2 commerce and 2 production cities. After that you just grab whatever you can. Just make sure that you keep a healthy balance of production, commerce and GP cities and you should do just fine. Justinian is spiritual instead of expansive though so while you won't build granaries as fast, you can simply switch back and forth between religions and civics. That's a great tool in both whipping buildings and units, expanding borders with artists and running GP farms with caste system and is a great help in diplomacy. Switching to an AI's religion can easily get you that edge in diplomacy!

I love Justinian and once you get hippodromes and have horses, you can let your cities boom by putting the culture slider up to 20%. Add colloseums into the mix and you got an empire that's ready to rock the world.

Let it be noted that with Justinian I really prefer to use the Oracle to slingshot myself to Code of Laws. Sure you won't be building courthouses from the get go but this way you won't have to build culture buildings in every new city and can run merchants and scientists to keep your ever expanding empire afloat!

Hurray for Justinian and hurray for Joao!

futurehermit:

I see in the opening post that all of your cities are still pop 4/5.

I once did a similar experiment with Hatsheput; I got a start with a huge island all to myself, so I practiced ReXing it a few times to see how far I could go. Like your start, I had very few happiness resources. (I think I only hand a silver that was located at a bad spot)

What I found to be extremely helpful was aiming for Monarchy, not currency. Yes, the extra trade routes are 'free'... but limited in effect. Growing vertically does require some extra resources (hammers for units, worker turns for cottages), but is very efficient. In my practice games, that seemed to make a significant difference in supporting my expansion.

Another side advantage is that the path leading to monarchy / code of laws is a lot cheaper than mathematics / currency / code of laws.

futurehermit:

I see in the opening post that all of your cities are still pop 4/5.

I once did a similar experiment with Hatsheput; I got a start with a huge island all to myself, so I practiced ReXing it a few times to see how far I could go. Like your start, I had very few happiness resources. (I think I only hand a silver that was located at a bad spot)

What I found to be extremely helpful was aiming for Monarchy, not currency. Yes, the extra trade routes are 'free'... but limited in effect. Growing vertically does require some extra resources (hammers for units, worker turns for cottages), but is very efficient. In my practice games, that seemed to make a significant difference in supporting my expansion.

Another side advantage is that the path leading to monarchy / code of laws is a lot cheaper than mathematics / currency / code of laws.

I agree. With monarchy you can run more farms and thus run more specialists too. You have to claim the land first and only then make something out of it. That +1 or +2 commerce per city ain't gonna cut it when you could be spamming city garrison 1 archers (2 if you got a settled GG somewhere) all over the place and thus keeping your powerrating up high too.

But that's just what I like and prefer :)

11 city @ Mornach level and Standard map without courthouse and cottage ? gonna love the upkeep
lot of land for cottage if you can pull it off though , but the STRIKE coming soon :D

To me it somehow looks like you'll be eaten by maces by cathy (you can be greatful that the other AIs are pretty peaceful). Once the AIs have no more space to expand, many start thinking about going to war. And it doesn't look like you've got anything to trade them. Seems you're not planning on bulbing philo and trading it around either.

I don't mean to be harsh but to me it doesn't look like you're in a very good shape. But you can easily convince me that it works with some more of your thoughts you had in mind when playing and some more screenshots :goodjob:

Yeah that's what always happens to me when I try to expand too much without going to war. At least if I'm capturing cities instead of building them I can use the bonus gold to keep my economy going until I get code of laws. When I expand peacefully like FH did here I just get stuck.

How is Leiria making 6:science: and 0:gp:? Settled scientist?

Joao's a naval civ. He excels on an archipelago map. His UB makes him a financial civ with those Feitorias, and even better in some regards, getting 2 commerce from oceans instead of the 1 even financial civs get. His UU is great for transporting your armies before combustion, and being able to go through closed borders is a great timesaver that can shave many turns off your trips.

How is Leiria making 6:science: and 0:gp:? Settled scientist?

yep.

@ everybody: I know things look rough here, but I have a clear plan in mind with this game. I see each city as a barracks for rifle drafting. All I wanted to achieve was to REX hard to claim around a dozen cities. I did that. Now all I have to do is keep good diplo relations while I beat everyone to rifles. Assuming I can do that--I believe I can--then all I have to do is crank my economy enough to get to rifling first.

I know things look rough here, but I have already traded for monarchy and am planning on going hard on vertical growth now that horizontal growth is done. That will allow me to get commerce rolling which will allow me to turn the science slider up.

Once I am able to turn it up to 70% I should have the game well in hand. Once I hit rifling I think I would consider this game won.

I had a similar experience with Joao. Axe rush the Mayans, fill up my peninsula, run about 10% science. As long as you have Pottery and Writing, you can dig out of the REX hole, at least on Monarch.

This really looks like a strong position. 11 cities by 1AD is very good, and the tech speed apparently was ok so far. With the courthouses coming up, you'll be able to catch up with the AIs very fast. A few more workers would be useful, it looks like there are lots of unimproved tiles you should work. Running high food everywhere, whipping the necessary stuff should get this back on track in no time.
What are the settings in this game? Aggressive or normal AI? No/normal/raging barbarians?

Economically, this opening looks very powerful. The more interesting question is how it turns out if there's a military threat that requires keeping up with them in power to some extent. How is your military situation?

His economy is good. -2gpt @ 0% is nothing bad , that's how se's work. As long as you have some scientists running, cottages , courthouses , selling resources your economy will recover . Bulbing will give him good techs for trading to keep up in tech . Once his economy is back on track with the huge amount of land he has, the game is as good as won .

@Futurehermit: Rexing is usually not the problem as much as having enough space to do it. Creative might help more in aggressive rexing by blocking AI's . Cathy, Zara might be better for rex. With Zara also you can start drafting at gunpowder itself . Will give Joao a try.

Just a sidenote on Axe-rushing: Gilgamesh.

How do you make shiny dotmaps like this? :)

well, i'm playing a game with Joao and the rexing is fabulous:More than more cities, it means that you get functionnal cities sooner, leading to more beaker sooner, then you get a tech advantage, etc...

Of course, code of law is a key tech with that rexing.

The Ub is very good, having great effects even when other civs run mercantilism, especially with cities with lot of water.
The UU may be very good too: I settle an entire continent with caravel/carack before any other civ get to astronomy, only the last two cities where settled when i had astronomy

The key thing was how i boxed the english before eliminating them, so i was alone on my continent. then i went to the sea route to get carracks, visit the world, settle the empty continent and then i became the powerhouse. I'm currently eliminating montezuma, because he's just himself, a jerk...the game is won but i want it to appear on my hall of fame.

I'm glad another one has understood the power of Joao II, although imho, it is a bit obvious that this should be the approach (unless ofc you have neighboors like Monty or Shaka). Wouldn't have started a threat like this myself, but glad that you bring this to the attention of the Fanatics :) Might not be using Joao anymore as I nearly always play random... And i think he has been played in the LHC...

Anyway, when you feel like REXing, go take Joao II for a spin ;)

Are you still playing this game? It would be interesting to see how its turns out.

Very interesting game there with Joao and I agree thisis the best on how to leveragehis abilities. Also he has fast graneries whichcan be built fast and thus allow whipping libraries in all new cities.

HOWEVER!

Cultural expansion is an issue unless you can get Stonehenge early, which would defeat the purpose of this strategy. Religion is one, but figure those cities would have to whip/build a monument.

I think Cathy is far better at rapid expansion. She does not have the production bonus of workers, nor cheap graneries. However, she get's that free culture bonus which means she can press the AI borders plus the discount on Libraries(very easy to whip). If you go after Drama too, those cheap theaters are killer culture at the borders, and the earlier the better.

I have always steered clear of Joao. Poor UB, Poor UU, Poor traits. What's to like?


I hate to be the one to state the obvious (although I am good at that) but on this map I can see why you'd think the UB and UU are poor, especially as you only have 3 on your cities on the coast :mischief:

Joao and his UU and UB are obviously well suited to a map with lots of coastal cities, archipelago would be ideal. The strategy I would attempt with him would be based on using trade routes and the Colossus to boost commerce. A beeline to Optics lets the UU colonise unoccupied offshore lands. It also gets the circumnavigation bonus.

The UB is useful to replace Colossus as a major source of commerce if you can get to Economics first (maybe take it from Liberalism, needs Banking, if you want to do things differently ;)). The problem I normally have with making an economy based on Colossus is the loss of commerce when Astronomy obsoletes the wonder's effect. All my coastal cities seem to be in the wrong place. The feitoria is a way to mitigate that loss. If you can delay Astronomy then it's possible to have both Colossus and the UB in some cities for a massive commerce boost from trade routes and coast tiles. Holding off on Astronomy would normally be a bad idea on a coastal map but that's where the UU comes to the rescue as it acts like 2/3 of a galleon anyway and is good enough for colonising and early naval operations.

Once you do get Astronomy and Chemistry then as Joao is Imperialistic using privateers is an excellent way to boost income and get lots of exp for GGs to make better privateers :D He can really tie up the other civs in an economic war of attrition.

Concentrating on the lower half of the tech tree is advisable for Joao on an map with lots of sea. After Chemistry, Military Science and Steel make sense and give very potent troops (grenadiers and cannons) for conquest and the drydocks and military academies pump out ships galore even on hammer poor cities.

The late game is all about exploiting Sid's Sushi and trade and getting commerce from the UB.

------
I know this has nothing much to do with what futurehermit or anyone else has written here, but I was struck by the obviously wrong statement quoted at the top. Everything about Joao fits neatly together in the right circumstance and they are not what futurehermit has here. Joao is a good naval leader and may indeed be one of the best at using privateers since he's Imperialistic. If you like those sort of games, and I do, he's one of the best leaders available.

Although I have played Joao yet, his UU is built for intercontinental settlement which by definition means coastal cities. The more coastal cities, the more abuse of the UB.

The serious drawback of Joao is generally lower production as you want to leverage the UU/UB as much as possible but that generally results in lower production output which I think is FH's complaint (I recall he does not like Coastal capitals much).

There are really 4 major "Sea Faring" AI's in the game; Willem, Hannibal, Rgnar, and Joao. Hannibal and Ragnar are similar to Joao in that the UB is dependant on coastal cities, however both UUs work very well on land compared with joaos which is useless on land. Willem's UU/UB are very powerful, and the UB works on landlocked cities as a normal levee providing you settle on a river. But the killer is that Joaoa is the only Sea-Faring AI that is not financial and that is a tremendous drawback for him. The financial trait can let the big three's new cities pay for themselves while Joaoa is going to have a deficit.

Gilgamesh is also great for intercontinental claiming, especially on Archi maps. His Ziggurat allows you to create lots of cities on faraway islands (even multiple islands far away) without tanking your economy. Since you've no need to get Monuments (or Stongehenge), you can get expanding vertically right away, and then whip out Granaries and Ziggurats.

It was a bit strange when the RNGs gave me the combo of Archi map with Gilgamesh, but it turned out okay.

It is interesting to see the ppl reactions to leaders/civs that require a unconventional aproach.....

In fact most of the reactions to certain leaders ( João ( p.s Please stop butchering his name... C'mon, only 4 letters.... ;) J-o-a-o :p ) being the more noticeable , but most of the BtS new ones received that kind of halfhearted reactions ) that go out of the "normal" way of playing Civ were somehow shunned until someone pointed how to use them effectivelly : I remember of some reactions to the Quechua back in vanilla days: " WTF , a warrior UU? What am I going to do it such a weak unit that obsoletes fast ( 3 cheap tech and metal ) ?"... until someone noticed that the guys eat archers for lunch......

João has two sets of strengths: Rexing and sea power... Hermit showed one ( yes , I do agree that his empire is a little overstreched, but it is nothing that can't be resolved ) ,using settler/worker and unit pumps to put the maximum number of cities in place and then working around it ( btw I remember a thread in here where it was discussed how fast could you put 6 cities in map... IIRC with a Imp leader you could get something like 6 cities in 30ishs turns :eek: of course that would put your slider in the 0% and most likely before you could hire any specialists, but pop is power as well ... but it is a reminder of how fast you can go in that direction if you want ). This techique is somewhat dangerous if you have one of the wackos nearby, but if you can put 10 cites in place when the AI only has 5-6 , the game is in the bag with some good planning.... and you can even try ICS ( that is well and alive in Civ IV... just check this (http://http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=261986) SG )

Other option is the overseas expansion.... João coastal cities can be transformed in cash cows if you can get the water wonders and the UU fast ( a easy thing... just go by the southern tech route ) and his UB is cumulative with the collosus ( at least if you skip astro for a bit... this game is always about tradeoffs )....

The big problem is that you need to decide between this two options fast and you can go pretty wrong if you choose to go in the bad direction... But I think that the big issue is that João doesn't shine with any of the more conventional strats: both conventional SE and CE require other aproaches and as João doesn't have any of the banner traits of both ( that people like to call "economical traits" )... that makes that João SE and CE will look pretty bad in the picture until the investement start to pay off.... it that regard it reminds me Tokugawa: no "eco" traits, late UB and medieval UU... hard to leverage until the gunpowder times..... and not suprisingly ppl also like to say that Toku sucks ( at least until samurai and Gunpowder times ;) ): it doesn't fit the more "normal" strats and you have to use them in more " out of the box" ways to make them shine.

Madscientist posted a interesting issue: the fact that is hard to pull the 2nd ring in this strat cities ( unlike Cathy ). IMHO it is not a big issue: remember that you want to maximixe # of cities , and to say the truth, you'll not be able to work more than 8 tiles for a long time if you don't aim for HR or Rep and don't have a good supply of :) resources: that makes the 2nd ring a little less shiny ( of course that will require a different dotmapping, but it is doable )

P.S I'm glad that a good player like hermit agrees with me that this is a viable strat... I've been saying this for a long time ( even before BtS release..... )

The game could be more forthcoming with the fact you can tech reasonably well even at 0% beakers.

Like, how?

The Result (1AD, monarch/standard/normal speed/hemispheres):

Post the save. The streets won't wait!

Like, how?

Specialists, Specialists, Specialists...

And @theposterwhopointedoutGillysseafaring abilities, I'd say Charlemagne would be viable for the same reason...?

I don't like archipelago/seafaring maps so that represents some of my bias against Joao. Sure, if you're playing the Earth map then using the carracks to more quickly settle the new world would be great. But generally I play hemispheres where there are reasonably few offshore sites to settle and those sites won't contribute to whether or not I win the game. Archipelago, sure he is a good leader there and I admit that is my bias. I just think the AI underperforms already on those maps.

The UB though I just don't think is that good. +1 commerce on already pretty crappy water tiles at a point in the game where my economy has already stabilized? Sure, it's better than a kick in the pants, but it doesn't do much for me tbh.

Re: Border-popping. In this game I just chopped out monuments. Sure it costs you a forest and sure you have to wait for the border pop and sure Cathy is a great REXer (one of my favs to play); however, I didn't find it to be a HUGE inconvenience this game.

RE: Military situation. I have proceeded with this strat because I was confident that I could keep the peace through diplomacy. If I had Shaka/Monty/Other psychos nearby I of course would have gone about the game in a different way.

Rolo good point sabout the BFC versus the first 8

However!!!!

While you can only work certain tiles because of the happy cap, you have ALOT more option on which tiles to actually work once you pop the BFC.

Joao (Sorry, I can't figure out the squiggly line) has become one of the more intriguing leaders for me to play. Perhaps it's about time I try him out insteadof just ignoring him!

The foreordained hermit's approach is certainly novel and actually quite extreme and interesting. There's no need to do that to leverage Joao's traits. If you have the happy to do it (happy resources, shot at Oracle-Monarchy), it's quite alright to do chopping or hammering out multiple Settlers extra-early and then focusing on vertical expansion.

Essentially, you're doing the normal scheme of things except that you're doing it a couple turns earlier. If you get enough Goodie huts, it's a good way to leverage the gold. REX 4-6 sites super-fast, then Workers super-fast, then whip Monuments/Granaries and Farm everywhere to get the pop up.

Once you get up the pop up you can work a few on cottages or Gold or Spices or whatever to fund the city expansion and then essentially run on SE for a while.

Chopping out the Settlers and an early priority on hammers makes a palpable difference on the speed of Worker and Settler turnout, and the early prospect for war isn't so bad with a healthy population to whip units from and good GG points coming in.

It's more boring this way, of course.

Specialists, Specialists, Specialists...


I don't get it. What?


I'd also like kazapp's answer, if he'd care to give one.

The scientist specialists produces :science: out of the box, not :commerce: as tiles do. The sliders treat only :commerce:.
So a hamlet producing 3:commerce: would at 0% :science: slider be producing 3 :gold:, before modifiers, whereas a scientist would produce 3:science: before modifiers.

I assume no Representation, no :culture: or :espionage:, and riverside/financial/whatever makes a hamlet produce 3 :commerce:, in this example.

The scientist...

kazaap said, "The game could be more forthcoming with the fact you can tech reasonably well even at 0% beakers."

My question to kazaap was, "Like how could the game be more forthcoming with that"? By forthcoming I meant something like "characterized by openness, candidness, and forthrightness". I want to know what kind of documentation / hints / user interface / or whatever kazaap thinks the game could have, pertaining to this.

Diamondeye, I have no idea how what you're saying is an answer to my question.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171038&stc=1&d=1205169946

Sure I conquered a few cities here but that's only because that damn Cyrus was .. well .. he built cities where my cities should have been! :lol:

The whole idea is that with a big empire like that, you put the newer ones in service of the big ones. More production means being able to build more cheap units such as archers which means you can garrison your cities with grow potential and keep them happy without any problems. In return, the big ones can build the more expensive units so that you can beat the crap out of your opponents. A lot of populace means you get more bang for your bucks when you build things like a market and a forge :)

Bah, I just love big empires! Who doesn't. I wish I had written a report on this game though, it's great so far.

For curiosity, I don't know how the AIs will allow you to do that. After 3.13/Bhuric patch they expand very fast, may not be 11 cities by AD, but at least 7-9 cities. Unless you have cleaned up your neighbour by early rushing. You will face the "border too close" issue and those aggressive AIs will start knocking on your door. To avoid that you need to keep up the power. I've tried to REX like that before but just keeping a decent army is very draining, not to mention in your case you're playing non-organized leader without courthouses. There will be a good chance AIs like Ragnar will be one era of tech ahead of you and blitz you with concentrated elite force when you can't afford even 3 defenders per city. I just think there is a decent risk in this strategy.

I don't know. I had all three AI's on my continent declare war on me at the same time and managed to not lose a single city. A lot of cities means a lot of production and if you're using monarchy to keep your people happy, you're power rating will be good anyways. Assign two or three cities to just pump out units nonstop that you garrison in the cities bordering rivals civs and you should be safe :) at least until the gunpowder era .. but that's the era where you'll start drafting.

For curiosity, I don't know how the AIs will allow you to do that. After 3.13/Bhuric patch they expand very fast, may not be 11 cities by AD, but at least 7-9 cities. Unless you have cleaned up your neighbour by early rushing. You will face the "border too close" issue and those aggressive AIs will start knocking on your door. To avoid that you need to keep up the power. I've tried to REX like that before but just keeping a decent army is very draining, not to mention in your case you're playing non-organized leader without courthouses. There will be a good chance AIs like Ragnar will be one era of tech ahead of you and blitz you with concentrated elite force when you can't afford even 3 defenders per city. I just think there is a decent risk in this strategy.

I agree. That's why I asked my previous question. The plan to get rifling before the AIs do sounds great on paper, but I would be very surprised if it actually works out that way. I don't see how expanding like this and totally crashing your economy leads to a tech advantage, but I very well could be overlooking something. Maybe post another screenie from 1000 AD or 1500 AD? Does this strategy actually work?

Gilgamesh is definitely the best rexer. Cheap, early courthouses. Super quick border pops to block off even more land.

The ultimate rexer would be Zara Yaqob of Sumeria though. Borderline exploitative.

yep.

@ everybody: I know things look rough here, but I have a clear plan in mind with this game. I see each city as a barracks for rifle drafting. All I wanted to achieve was to REX hard to claim around a dozen cities. I did that. Now all I have to do is keep good diplo relations while I beat everyone to rifles. Assuming I can do that--I believe I can--then all I have to do is crank my economy enough to get to rifling first.

I know things look rough here, but I have already traded for monarchy and am planning on going hard on vertical growth now that horizontal growth is done. That will allow me to get commerce rolling which will allow me to turn the science slider up.

Once I am able to turn it up to 70% I should have the game well in hand. Once I hit rifling I think I would consider this game won.

I'm very skeptical that you'll be able to get rifling first here. It's 1AD, you're producing 28 beakers/turn and losing money at 0% science. And, at some point before rifiling you'll probably have to do something to defend yourself against your neighbors, who have no land to expand to, and probably have a military that is larger and more advanced than yours.

I have played Jao twice now. The second time I realy leveraged his REX Power.

First it has to be the right map. Joao is most effective if there is a second continent or islands to use his uu to be effective. Also some sapce to expand to is neccesary.

What I did ewas set every city coastal where there was any possibility and build the GL. I focus city placement on resource playement, any resource, even if it is excess to what i already have. I look for islands to settle as the overseas domestic sea routes make the city break even even at the start if you have the great lighthouse. I then broker my resources to the other civs to earn money or other resources, giving myself a nice pop cap without a religion. I stay without a state relgion so i can trade with as many people as possible. I beeline astonomy for overseas traderoutes which renders the UU not as usefull except that it can violate open boarders, which can alloow you to plant settlers behind unfriendy civ lines.
I actualy find him to be very powerfull civ if you are playing into the late game as his early expnasion snowballs with his later financial strength.

Shrug. I've played Joao about 3 or 4 times now. His early and powerful REXing snowballs into pretty much anything and everything. You just got to know what you're doing. Fast REXing with discounted settlers and workers can wreck your economy royally really fast. Got to know the tricks to offset the costs and go vertical quickly.

I have finally played Joan for the first time last night. Yes, his fast settler & worker is pretty amazing for fast REXing. However, I have some complains:

1) On high level, you can't REX too much without wrecking your econ. 1st of REXing is typically limited to 4 cities max before code of law. Since this is the case, other leaders can match Joan as well. The only exception being choke point on map like Achieo...
2) I still don't like his UU and UB. Oversea colony before astronomy kill your econ big time due to no sea trade yet. Since this is the case, why not wait till Astronomy for oversea REXing then?
3) Someone mentioned that Colossus combined with Joan's UB is a killer combination for water tile. Yeah, that is true, but with no sea trade before astronomy, I can't reap the benefit of sea trade, making astronomy a priority, which is again, conflicting with Colossus. Given that his UB (I can't pronounce the thingy) need education & banking, which is pretty late, I think further delay of astronomy to prolong Colossus lifespan isn't feasible.

In short, what I am trying to say is, it is very difficult to leaverage Joan's traits, UB & UU together and come out with a killer strategy, unlike Julies Caser's organized&imperialistic-driven prat rush, Gilga's zilga&espinoage-driven vulture rush, or Cyrus financial&organized-driven immortal rush, etc. Joan's UB & UU & traits basically called for different emphasis on tech pursuit.

Well, on Prince and Monarch, at least, it's plausible.

Trick is to get Pottery and Granaries in your new cities quickly and get them working on Commerce tiles ASAP. Grow them up superfast. You can't get those Granaries in there fast enough. There's never enough happy, never enough health. River tiles are great for this. Early Farms into early Cottages should allow you a second REX.

Main problem is the happy cap. You need that happy cap up.

For me, Jao is a good choice for continental, terra or archipelago maps.
A fast expansion with a fast tile improvement with a worker army will lead in a fast city growth with all the captured ressources. Also good for trade after currency research.
Having lots of coastel cities, its good to build the GL, the Colossus and the Tempel of Artemis in a food rich production city. This also means getting Great Merchants there.
After the econemy has recovered and the cities has grown large, its time to use the imperialistic trait for war and get more land.
With the UU Jao is the first to reach other continents, so an early domination victory on water maps is possible.

I like the ideas about combining this strategy with the Great Lighthouse. If most of your cities are costal, you can more or less REX peacefully until you run out of land. This could work beautifully if you start building it in the capital ASAP, use you second city to produce fog-busters and eventually both the second and third cities to make more settlers and workers.

I think I'll try this next time I play BtS. FfH2 is my addiction ATM.

I'm very skeptical that you'll be able to get rifling first here. It's 1AD, you're producing 28 beakers/turn and losing money at 0% science. And, at some point before rifiling you'll probably have to do something to defend yourself against your neighbors, who have no land to expand to, and probably have a military that is larger and more advanced than yours.

I'm not skeptical at all. I haven't played the game out, but when I left it I was first to liberalism and working on Taj for a golden age. I was ahead of the 3 AIs on my continent in tech, which is all I care about...