So I'm playing a noble game as Japan, and my neighbor is my oh so favorite friend (when I'm playing him) Mansa Musa! We're both sharing a island together.

I immediately begin REX'ing, but I'm not very good at it. I got to five cities but my research slider dropped to 30%. I got it back up to 60% (and rising).

What do you guys do when REX'ing? How do you manage when you're popping a new city every four or five turns?

Send a worker along with every settler to cottage the new city.

Don't worry about the slider, run specialists for your research at that phase of the game.

Someone here once told me not to worry about the slider % so much as worrying about the # of beakers being produced. If that number is going up, you're all set :D.

REXing is not all that hard, but you must be sgreassive to somehow get beakers to stay somewhat competitve in tech. Once REXing has finished, your economy will overtake the AIs. Some idea's of mine (my two RPCs for Cathy show agressive REXing).

1) Do as Dave says, use a worker to cottage.
2) In matured cities plan to whip/build libraries ASAP and run sceintists.
3) Utilize resource commerce. Seafood, gold, gems, silver, dye, spices, silk. You should prioritize calender.
4) Be nice and open border to establish foreign trade routes. Limit wars until your economy has been established.
5) Currency is better than CoL. But get CoL soon after.
6) Do not ignore your military.
7) Wonders slow down REXing unless they are economical ones like ToA, Colossus, GLH.
8) Be more concerned about cutting AIs off from land rather than expanding geometrically.

Certain traits are better also

Financial: obvious reasons
creative: border pop but also fast libraries
Imperialistic: fast settlers
Expansive: fast graneries/harbors/workers.

Just my opinion.

I also love to REX, and the single best way I have found to do it is the Greater Lighthouse. I look for any excuse to build this wonder these days, and it translates pretty well up the difficultly ladder as well.

I also love to REX, and the single best way I have found to do it is the Greater Lighthouse. I look for any excuse to build this wonder these days, and it translates pretty well up the difficultly ladder as well.

Are you sure you're not troytheface in disguise? ;)

I also love to REX, and the single best way I have found to do it is the Greater Lighthouse. I look for any excuse to build this wonder these days, and it translates pretty well up the difficultly ladder as well.

Are you sure you're not troytheface in disguise? ;)


CivCorpse,

The GLH is an incredible wonder for establishing an economy early on. On a non Pangea map, typically half my cities will be coastal. If half my cities have three trade routes and half my cities have one, that's an average of two trade routes per city, or as many as I would have with currency.

ThyGuy,

The best way to REX efficiently is to understand where your gold comes from, and what it is spent on. Gold doesn't just come from tiles, it also comes from trade routes. Open Borders give you foreign trade routes, which increases the amount of commerce produced from trade routes, which means you get more gold and/or beakers per turn. Sustained peace increases foreign trade routes, too.

Learn which tiles give you lots of commerce (silver and gold) and where you can build to get a bonus (Ever irrigate on top of riverside spices? You don't need a plantation to get SOME extra commerce.) Also Ocean Fish may give you more food than Coastal Clams, but sometimes workboating the clams first may be worth it for the extra commerce (1 food vs 2 commerce if financial or if you have the colossus, 3 if both.)

Partially built wonders are fun as hell, too. Do you have a city that's already built everything you want it to, but don't want to stunt it's growth with a settler or a worker? Build a wonder you don't intend to complete in the mean time. I believe the payout is 2 gold per hammer (not sure on this, to be honest.) When someone else completes the wonder, you'll get a payout. This can be very useful for extra gold before you can "build gold" (pre currency) or "build science" (pre alphabet.)

When you finally do research currency, try trading off some of your unused resources to someone else. Even 1gpt can be a lot in the end! Please note that I said "unused" not "redundant." Are you not building any wonders at the moment? Sell off your marble or stone. What about healthiness? If you're constantly whipping, you probably won't be close to your healthiness cap; sell off your one clam and one rice. A few of these can add up to 4, 5, 6, ever 8 or 10 gold per turn if you manage yourself properly.

Gold comes from all over the place. Learn where and how to properly exploit it.

Chop and whip out settlers until you're at 10% slider, run specialists in every city and get to code of laws and currency asap

On a non Pangea map, typically half my cities will be coastal.
On Fractal, B&S or M&S, I have very little trouble making over 80% of my cities coastal. Even on continents, the smaller landmasses allow for a ring of coastal cities, and only a couple inland.

Once you commit to the GLH, you should automatically dotmap accordingly to maximize its advantage. That means settling those small island if they have a seafood resource or 2, and trying to make as many coastal cities as you can on your main landmass. Most of the time you can fit cities in nice little "crooks of land" that will be coastal, but only have a few coast tiles.

Don't underestimate monarchy. Hereditary rule means better trade routes and working more cottages. It's much cheaper to get than currency, and the path to monarchy also unlocks code of laws.

What I do is expand like crazy while teching alphabet, then build research to CoL.

Tokugawa is not exactly the kind of leader you want to be REXing with unless you build the great lighthouse. He doesn't have any economic benefits. I like to take one of two approaches with him.

1) Coastal start: Build GLH and rex coastal cities

2) Inland start, close neigbhour: Rush and research off spoils of war through currency/col

If you have an inland start and no close neighbour you really have to be careful about expansion especially prior to writing.

You really need to cottage a lot with Toku unless you are able to build the pyramids in which case you can run a SE.

Good traits for REXing imo are:

Creative
Organized
Financial
Imperialistic