After the usual early rush, the economy crashes. I've been ok with CE sometimes but more often than not, I have no clue how to recover without CE.

Figuring out what cities to specialize is another problem for me. I'm trying to do that in this game but feel I just don't get it! lol

If you'd be so kind, I request advice on economy, city placement and/or specialization on this game.

Feel free to point out any other stupid stuff that you see. :)


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When you own the continent, it's pretty simple.

1 military city
1 settler/worker/missionary city
Scientists in cities with multiple food resources
Cottages in cities with floodplains/grassland/jungle
Ignore plains until after Biology

Spam cottages -> win.

Okay, so that's a bit simplistic. But you have put yourself in a very strong position, with probably 40% of the world's land to yourself, a fantastic selection of resources, and way more cottageable land than you'll need to beat the AI.

Your economy is doing fine. In fact you should be settling a couple more cities right now. Don't worry if the science slider has to go down to 20% or less - by spamming cottages and building Rathouses you'll soon turn it around. Personally, I'd shoot for Civil Service next, then make a detour through to Optics to find the other continent and get into the tech-trade game. After that, it's straight to Liberalism.

I'd look at making Nubian (the barb city) your GP farm, and chain-irrigating Prague to use it as a troop and ship pump. Pretty much everywhere else can just have cottages. Bear in mind, though, that you'll need lots of workers to clear the jungle - give these priority over any buildings that aren't absolutely vital (a Granary and a Rathouse should be all you need in most cities, for the time being).

Edit: I forgot to ask. Is there some reason you're hoarding that gold, rather than pushing the slider up? Other than a small rainy-day fund to deal with random events and other unforseen problems (I tend to keep 20-30 under the mattress), you'd be better off investing it in a faster tech rate.

Even with rushing you only have 5 cities at 250 AD, some of them at size 7, and one with unhappy inhabitants: whip 'm good until your continent is filled, then cottage. There's no need for a SE.
You have 5 luxury and 9 health resources and a religion; with markets in place you can run some big cities here, but you need to settle them first. The zoom is a bit to far out to make a dotmap though, I can really distinguish hills now. The barbarian city as a GPfarm looks great though, fish, 4 sugar and a banana for 29 food and working only 6 tiles is awesome.

When you own the continent, it's pretty simple.

1 military city
1 settler/worker/missionary city
Scientists in cities with multiple food resources
Cottages in cities with floodplains/grassland/jungle
Ignore plains until after Biology

I thought you advocated cottaging everything! :)

Seriously, thanks, I'll try to set that up.

I was hoping that it was ok to run SE in the present Capital. It does seem weak before Representation though.

Spam cottages -> win. ...

Your economy is doing fine. In fact you should be settling a couple more cities right now. Don't worry if the science slider has to go down to 20% or less - by spamming cottages and building Rathouses you'll soon turn it around. ...

I'd look at making Nubian (the barb city) your GP farm, and chain-irrigating Prague to use it as a troop and ship pump. ...

Edit: I forgot to ask. Is there some reason you're hoarding that gold, rather than pushing the slider up?
But I'm trying to learn something besides spam cottages! :)

Nubian does indeed look like a great GP farm and the capital is decent too.
You're right about Prague too. It has the most food supported hammers that I can remember ever having.

The gold savings is mostly fear of missing opportunities. For instance, I once missed the chance to gain 2 health in all cities because I was broke. (I'm also a believer in the dictum that it costs little more to keep a car's tank always full as opposed to always empty.)

Even with rushing you only have 5 cities at 250 AD, some of them at size 7, and one with unhappy inhabitants: whip 'm good until your continent is filled, then cottage. There's no need for a SE.
You have 5 luxury and 9 health resources and a religion; with markets in place you can run some big cities here, but you need to settle them first. The zoom is a bit to far out to make a dotmap though, I can really distinguish hills now. The barbarian city as a GPfarm looks great though, fish, 4 sugar and a banana for 29 food and working only 6 tiles is awesome.
Lol, my rush kind of bogged down. I declared war before I was really ready. (I opted to prevent iron from being hooked up before I had any axes/swords myself. More whipping likely would have helped that too.)

I'll try to do some whipping as you suggest. I have a tough time convincing myself that whipping is worth it though I know the good players use it.

Hi Vox Dei,

Take a look at the current Emperor Cookbook... In the first round pretty much everyone rushed Shaka...

So the the second round is mostly dealing with a post rush situation, exactly what your are trying to work on. ;)

Cheers,

Raskolnikov

edit: on this particular game, everything seem to have been covered... but as Winston said...burn that gold on COL!

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Vox Dei

Sorry, I can't open up the saves because I haven't upgraded to .17 yet, but let me say this: Dear god man, why haven't you settled on the plains tile 3east of the stone? I don't care if you're wanting to spam Cottages or run Specialists, that's easily one of the best city location it this map.

First, it's right next to your capital, meaning the maintenance will be very low.

Second, high food cities are INCREDIBLE early on, you can do so much with them because chances are you'll be running slavery for a long time. Also once you're done whipping in that city (or even the empire) that type of city will permit your to spam Workers and/or Settlers from there.

Third, 7 Flood Plains, 1 Oasis, 3 riverside Grassland. Why haven't you settled that city yet?

Another thing, why are you building the Statue of Zeus? If your economy is in trouble, and it kinda is, you want to get it going quicker, you really should be focused on something that will help you "right now." Build gold instead of SoZ. Whip a Market instead of the SoZ. Something, anything but the SoZ.

The exception here is if you're doing the partial wonder economy trick, in that case you should be running at 100% Science more often. Because you're not runnning at 100% Science I'm going to assume you're not doing this trick.

Do you have The Great Lighthouse? Can it still be built? Probably not, due to the date, but if it can still be built, try to get it up ASAP. You have a lot of great coastal city spots. And if there is as little as one seafood resource off the coast of that little island square to the southwest, you can build your obligatory overseas city there for a nice bonus to your commerce.

How are you planning to win this game? Do you have a plan? You look a little behind in the tech, but with the right expanding you could easily manage a cultural win, or possible a space race as well. Domination and/or Conquest seem out of the question if you're as far behind in tech as I think you are, but I guess that depends on the difficulty and how your next 500 years go.

Good luck!

Had a quick look. For me imperialist leader = settler first build. You would of had your second city by 3150bc or so pending on game speed. Getting that second city up and running early is always a wise thing. 3000bc vs 2000bc for second city is a huge gap.

The fact is you had the Germans nearby and you let them grab the land close to you due to your slow expansion. For this reason you lost the second gold resource by your capital. You were then forced into building your third city 8 or so tiles from your capital. (Unless you intended to block the germans in?)

The stone resource north of your capital would of been useful to grab. Double production speed for wonders is good!! Although the Stone has a lot of desert nearby but 2 flood plains for food.

On a plus side you have conquered the Germans and have a holy city. Not sure I would of kept the Germans third city below your capital.

As for the science slider that will still be positive on 40%. You have 300 gold to burn on the science slider too. Theres no reason you cant expand more through settlers or conquest of the barb city. When court houses arrive you should populate the entire island.

Your not in that bad shape and you are using scientists in your cities which is good. Remember even if your science slider is 0% your specialists will still be funding your research. Add in multipliers with libraries, academies etc and your specialists start adding greater value. Count the beakers not the science slider rate. 50-100 beakers a turn by 1ad will be good enough to match or beat the AI on monarch level.

If you had built the Pyramids using the stone you would be powering past the other Ai in terms of techs. Representation + specialists is a game winner.

Spam cottages -> win.

Okay, so that's a bit simplistic. But you have put yourself in a very strong position, with probably 40% of the world's land to yourself, a fantastic selection of resources, and way more cottageable land than you'll need to beat the AI.

Your economy is doing fine. In fact you should be settling a couple more cities right now. Don't worry if the science slider has to go down to 20% or less - by spamming cottages and building Rathouses you'll soon turn it around. Personally, I'd shoot for Civil Service next, then make a detour through to Optics to find the other continent and get into the tech-trade game. After that, it's straight to Liberalism.

I'd look at making Nubian (the barb city) your GP farm, and chain-irrigating Prague to use it as a troop and ship pump. Pretty much everywhere else can just have cottages. Bear in mind, though, that you'll need lots of workers to clear the jungle - give these priority over any buildings that aren't absolutely vital (a Granary and a Rathouse should be all you need in most cities, for the time being).

Edit: I forgot to ask. Is there some reason you're hoarding that gold, rather than pushing the slider up? Other than a small rainy-day fund to deal with random events and other unforseen problems (I tend to keep 20-30 under the mattress), you'd be better off investing it in a faster tech rate.

If you don't have libraries and do have a lot of gold, it's often better to keep the slider low until you get them up, especially ones in high commerce cities. The gold to beaker conversion is considerably better then. With other AIs, it also gives a clearer picture which tech to head towards, while in isolation (well, now anyway) your total aggregate tech time will be better, assuming of course you don't wait TOO long to put up the libraries.

For some reason though, he's making axes. Hopefully those are the last for a while unless he lost all but 1-2 vs barbs. Workers, settlers, and select buildings should be the main priority now.

^ Very good advice about accumulating gold after necessary worker techs and writing.If it looks like you'll have the academy soon it's even better to wait for that, then raise the slider.

Spam cottages -> win. ...

Edit: I forgot to ask. Is there some reason you're hoarding that gold, rather than pushing the slider up?

OK Fine! I did it on replay :)

Vox Dei

Dear god man, why haven't you settled on the plains tile 3east of the stone?

Another thing, why are you building the Statue of Zeus? ...
The exception here is if you're doing the partial wonder economy trick, in that case you should be running at 100% Science more often. Because you're not runnning at 100% Science I'm going to assume you're not doing this trick.

Point taken on the FP city. I did choose to grab the stone though. Feel free to correct me!

Yes, SOZ was an attempt to get cash. I am not familiar with the 100% trick that you refer to?

Had a quick look. For me imperialist leader = settler first build. ...
(Unless you intended to block the germans in?)
The stone resource north of your capital would of been useful to grab. ...
If you had built the Pyramids using the stone you would be powering past the other Ai in terms of techs. Representation + specialists is a game winner.
I had never tried Settler first before the replay. With the second gold to grab, it worked great!
Yes, I was trying to block them.
I don't know if I could have or can this time pull off mids.

If you don't have libraries and do have a lot of gold, it's often better to keep the slider low until you get them up, especially ones in high commerce cities.

Thanks for that thought.

Hi Vox Dei,
So the the second round is mostly dealing with a post rush situation, exactly what your are trying to work on. ;)

Hi RRR
Hopefully attempt 2 will have less of that problem. :)

You have 5 luxury and 9 health resources and a religion; with markets in place you can run some big cities here, but you need to settle them first.

I will approach the replay with that in mind. It should have been obvious I know but I was trying to get a higher tech rate before further expansion.

I now see that was a bad plan.


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I think the game was winnable from your first post. If your island is 40% of the map thats a no brainer. The challenge comes when you play larger maps with more AI's. With 5 AI if you knock one over with an early rush it only leaves 3 to defeat.

If you do go the settler route first it will help to build your capital on plains/hills for the additional production. Also have a high value production tile nearby. Its one of the big pluses for the imperialist leader. It also gives you a good settler pump.

I think on your restart once you take out the Germans you should walk it tech wise. Just dont be too thin on the defence. Keep a watch on demographics to ensure your army size is comparable to the AI. A few pirate ships early on to keep the Ai at bay wont hurt. (chemistry and astronomy will be key for this.)

Point taken on the FP city. I did choose to grab the stone though. Feel free to correct me!

Yes, SOZ was an attempt to get cash. I am not familiar with the 100% trick that you refer to?

Vox Dei,

Think about it like this. Code of Laws will help your economy immensely! So you should be doing everything to get it as fast as possible. You have 344 gold in reserve. Why are you running at a net positive with so much gold AND building the SoZ for money? Kick your science slider up a knotch...or 4. Blow away that money to get Code of Laws faster!

Here is another attempt to follow your advice. I'm thinking 2 more settlers after the workers in the capital. One for the sugar city and one for fur & silver followed by military?

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Vox Dei,

Did you settle on top of a Flood Plain? Ahhhh! That's a net negative! It goes from a 3 food tile to a 2 food tile (with the city on it.) And if the city ever gets razed it's now just a worthless riverside desert tile.

You said you wanted the stone, fine, settle a city on top of the stone. It's coastal, it'll make itself back up. Or if you had the time to wait for the first city pop + the quary, then you had time to settle a city one south, one southwest, or one north of the stone depending on if there were any seafood off that coast. But why oh WHY did you settle on a flood plain? That city would have made an incredible great person city, and in an SE your GP city turns into your super science city!

Regardless, what I would do next is whip out a Settler, settle it near the Silver and Fur...and why isn't that area explored yet? Explore and find a decent city spot down south. It's close by so the maintenance will be low, and you'll gain +2 happiness which will easily void the unhappiness whipping penalty you just acquired from whipping out the Settler.

Are you going for Currency after Math? That'll probably be the best tech for you after that because Currency will grant you an extra trade route per city, that's a bonus 5 or 6 commerce just from having the technology. And the happiness bonuses from Markets in your larger cities will be gravy.

Can you still build TGL? After a few insane REXing games in the past that has become my favourite wonder. If so, build it, and build it quick!

Edit: After you get your 2nd fur camp you should have currency by then. Trade your excess fur for even as little as 1 gold per turn. It's not just 1 gold per turn for you, it's one gold per turn taken away from your rival.

It's so funny, he settled on the floodplain. Why do you ask for help if your not intrested to follow them?

I am a newer player here so pardon my question: An early rush means, attacking early and and getting rid of one civ?

I am just asking because this type of thread is good info for a newbie.

Settling on that floodplain is fine, the only alternative is the other floodplain or a desert tile, which would be bad. It makes the best use of all the tiles in that area and gives a strong city on a river, which means it will get freshwater and be able to build a levee.

Rushing means attacking early to get rid of an early civ. The essence of a rush is to connect to a military resource (generally horses or copper, if you wait for iron its a bit late to count as an early rush) as soon as possible and then build as many units as fast as possible, through chopping, whipping and/or using high production tiles and declaring as soon as you think you have enough units to destroy the other civilisation.

Rushing means attacking early to get rid of an early civ. The essence of a rush is to connect to a military resource (generally horses or copper, if you wait for iron its a bit late to count as an early rush) as soon as possible and then build as many units as fast as possible, through chopping, whipping and/or using high production tiles and declaring as soon as you think you have enough units to destroy the other civilisation.

A commerce resource or multiple seafood usually makes it so that swords won't come too late. Seafood starts slightly delay expansion anyway - it's a 3 city rush instead of 2 but its still ready or almost ready by 800 BC. Swords are MUCH better offensively against everything except axes so they can definitely be worth it.

Settling on that floodplain is fine, the only alternative is the other floodplain or a desert tile, which would be bad. It makes the best use of all the tiles in that area and gives a strong city on a river, which means it will get freshwater and be able to build a levee.

UncleJJ,

Not in this case. He could have Settled on a riverside Plain and had 7 Flood Plains, 1 Oasis, 3 riverside Grassland, and those are just the commerce tiles.

Again, if he needed the Stone, he had many other places he could have built another city, rather than destroying the Floodplain, and removing access to 2 others. That's 3 of the best tiles in the game removed.

No, this city should pick up the stone and does perfectly well as positioned getting the banana and 10 riverside tiles. Those other floodplains and riverside tiles can be picked up by a fill-in city. This part of the game is about grabbing resources and establishing boundaries to keep other civs out.

I am a newer player here so pardon my question: An early rush means, attacking early and and getting rid of one civ?
I am just asking because this type of thread is good info for a newbie.

Others have answered your question but I must apologize because I have restarted the game and have played it this time with no rush. Further, I have no intention of attacking anytime soon.

I am now trying to play the original start following the advice given.

I feel the last save and the following one show that these kind people have greatly improved on my original start.


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Right after a rush it is often a good thing to either...
1. disband the army (but keep one LVL3 promotion unit around)
or
2. send it on a suicide mission against a civ that you plan to attack much later (harassment rush); knock it back a bit so it won't put up as much of a fight once you get around to attacking again

You really shouldn't be having a rush-sized army sitting idly during the recovery period following the total vanquisment of an enemy civ. In fact, you shouldn't have an army sitting idly during any period of the game.

Right after a rush it is often a good thing to either...
1. disband the army (but keep one LVL3 promotion unit around)
or
2. send it on a suicide mission against a civ that you plan to attack much later (harassment rush); knock it back a bit so it won't put up as much of a fight once you get around to attacking again

You really shouldn't be having a rush-sized army sitting idly during the recovery period following the total vanquisment of an enemy civ. In fact, you shouldn't have an army sitting idly during any period of the game.

I don't know...you need to protect yourself so sometimes you need to keep some guys around - especially if you pissed someone off with the rush. Sometimes it's a tough call. It's good to point out that it is certainly possible to carry too many units though if one isn't using them.

Well it's all about balancing ultimately. Rush armies - even the part of them that's left after the rush - tend to be a bit large to serve exclusively as defensive garissons though. I definitely saw my results with regard to economic recovery improve a lot once I started taking a less fearful stance to disbanding/suiciding armies.

The best thing to do, of course, is to simply not build excess units on top of what you need to wipe a civ off the map in the first place.

Not always easy to determine though, even if you knew their exact army composition we have to account for the pwn RNG :lol:. This factor is at its largest in an early rush, where battles are of smaller scale/between fewer units.

Disbanding I'm familiar with, but is suiciding really a good tactic? It seem like that will do 2 things: get you a war you're likely to have to pay to get out of and a possible :backstab: from other AIs, which consider war opponent power their own when determining a target (actually, this could trip their threshold to DoW your target too, but you're still playing with fire).

My rush armies never exceed 10 units after the conquest, why disband any when you can just whip out some settlers and use them as garrisions? Even 20 units wouldn't be too bad if you REX enough. The hammers saved are surely worth more than the upkeep? It wil depend on what you can build as well, I usually beeline to currency/calendar after my rush, depending on the terrain.

Okay few comments on the new start.

1. pyramids and Great lighthouse. Powerful start!!! way to go getting both.

2. Great lighthouse = spamming coastal cities. They almost pay for themselves. Even if your taxes on slider go to 0% your scientists will leave you 90+ beakers per turn. Court houses and currency will help here.

3. pyramids with flood plains and food resources = irrigation if your going with representation. I would of irrigated some of the flood plains for the extra scientists. Your missing out on 5-6+ of them. Although 126 beakers by 520ad is good.

4. Military. You do still need an army to fend off Bismark or he will attack eventually. Your border cities looked rather weak. Dont loose the hard work over weak defences.

5. Pyramids. Did you make sure you grabbed the great engineer from this? You do seem to be somewhat lacking on great people. National epic will help.

Get spamming cities. Build some more border defences and you should walk this tech wise. Although Bismark still have 4-5 techs you need. Very interesting game.

Caste system will help with specialists. In terms of whipping you can always flip between.

Okay few comments on the new start.

3. pyramids with flood plains and food resources = irrigation if your going with representation. I would of irrigated some of the flood plains for the extra scientists. Your missing out on 5-6+ of them. Although 126 beakers by 520ad is good.

5. Pyramids. Did you make sure you grabbed the great engineer from this? You do seem to be somewhat lacking on great people. National epic will help.



I see your point about irrigating FP.

GE was used to build GL.


TY for your help


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Few points.

1. What victory are you going for? I dont see value in the Taoist cathedral building at present.

2. Whats wrong with a Great People farm? National Epic should of been built by now considering you went the Pyramids appraoch. Pyramids = specilaists. I think you could of had lot more Great People by now. Your capital with NE and pacfism would be on 60-70 Great people points per turns. Add in 6-7 specialists at 9 beakers a go and your science in capital would rocket.

3. I see no real value in keeping the Germans in the game now. I think 1-2 wars should win you the game. Tech for cannons or go trebs in numbers.

4. You have galleons so no reason why you cant build 4-6 of these. Privateers will be useful as your a imperialist leader. Privateers with a tech lead soon wipe out pesky caravels and old enemy ships.

5. Not sure you built the heroic epic either for military production. Again another powerful national wonder!!

I think on a larger map you could of expanded more. Still I dont see you losing from here on in. You do need to do something to win eventually.

When you own the continent, it's pretty simple.

1 military city
1 settler/worker/missionary city
Scientists in cities with multiple food resources
Cottages in cities with floodplains/grassland/jungle
Ignore plains until after Biology

Is it best to farm plains tiles when they can give 3F? I normally put a workshop or a cottage on them, but not until everything else (that is better) has been built on

Farms: need Biology for 3F.

Workshops: 0F before state property, need Biology to feed them.

Cottages: Food resource + specialist is more powerful than food resource + plains cottage. After Biology your main GP farm will be grabbing all the GPs, so the slower cities can convert to cottages.

AJJ, I agree with Keshi on placing the city 1E on the riverside plains. I would then move the sugarcity 1S to claim the bananas. It means settling on top of a sugar resource but that is not as bad as people think. Settling directly on sugar makes the city center 3:food: instead of 2:food: he is only losing 1:food:1:commerce: but gains the extra food from the bananas. With the fish/bananas and 3 sugar that is a nice GP farm. with bilogy i would farm the sugar for a 5:food: tile.
I would move the northern city 1S to claim the plains hills then drop a city 1NW of the northern cows to grab the fish/iron and cows. This leaves 12 ocean tiles for the Maeiou statues. The stone is cliamed by a city 2s 1W which can work the stone for buildings while using the fish for growth. It would have 11 water tiles for a nice fishing village.

My main question is, why does the German empire still exist? They should have been dealt with long ago. Then the americans. From the screenshot I can see FOUR happiness resources just on the coast.

Right after a rush it is often a good thing to either...
1. disband the army (but keep one LVL3 promotion unit around)
or
2. send it on a suicide mission against a civ that you plan to attack much later (harassment rush); knock it back a bit so it won't put up as much of a fight once you get around to attacking again

You really shouldn't be having a rush-sized army sitting idly during the recovery period following the total vanquisment of an enemy civ. In fact, you shouldn't have an army sitting idly during any period of the game.

A. It keeps your power rating higher while you dig out your economy and discourages DoW.
B. Monarchy is the cheapest way to rebuild your economy. More happiness means more cottages/specialists. The rush army becomes a happiness booster. Especially if you have a lot of whip anger from assembling the rush army.

Farms: need Biology for 3F.

Workshops: 0F before state property, need Biology to feed them.

Cottages: Food resource + specialist is more powerful than food resource + plains cottage. After Biology your main GP farm will be grabbing all the GPs, so the slower cities can convert to cottages.

My favorite sort of city is 1/2 floodplains 1/2 plains and a couple grass hills. At a low happy cap I farm one floodplain per plains cottage until size 12. At which point I am using the food from the city center to feed the mine workers. Four farmed floodplains feed four plains cottages with 4 excess :food; to run 2 scientists when in slavery. I run this setup until I have the needed infrastructure built (courthouse/library/market/forge/grocer). Once the happy cap is raised i farm the floodplains to grow to max size then cottage all the plains and floddplains. this leaves me food nuetral working the full BFC. I may windmill the hills or cottage them as my needs dictate.

Why not cottage the floodplains and farm the plains?

Or even better, cottage the floodplains and ignore the plains until biology.

Why not cottage the floodplains and farm the plains?

Or even better, cottage the floodplains and ignore the plains until biology.

A lot of it has to do with whipping. If I farm the floodplains I can grow back much faster after a big whip. The most common being the 5 pop whip for a university or marketplace. At that point I have the spare floodplains prefarmed. following a major whip. I put every available citizen on a farmed floodplain. From size 12 pop drops to size 7...7 farmed floodplains is 16 surplus food per turn with the city ceter added in. The 18 then 20 until i run our of flood plains. it is a difference of 7 food per turn immediately following the whip. Regrowth is pretty quick. If i cottage the floodplains first then growth after I raise the happy cap is much slower.
Also the plains may not always have freshwater access pre Civil service. And a prebiology plains farm is a waste of time. In the begining when you are hindered by the happy cap, floodplain cottages rule, But when planning longterm i have found this is the quickest way to get a full BFC of mature cottages. With fewer plains i would cottage half the floodplains and farm the rest then switch citizens as my needs dictate.
This strategy becomes more effective if I am in caste and need to build something. The plains cottages produce a hammer each. Not game breaking but better than nothing.

Your whipped university and marketplace would be a lot more profitable if you cottaged the floodplains from the beginning.

With more than half the BFC as floodplains i would cottage like a mad man. But as the ratio leans more towards plains than floodplains, I have found growth to be difficult. With 10 cottaged flood plains you are producing 32 :food: with the city center, but that grows smaller with each new citizen. At size 18 you are crawling along at 6:food: per turn. 10 farmed flood plains are 42:food: with the city center. That is 10 more per turn.
Also once you hit the happy cap, if you are in slavery then you are wasting a lot of food per turn once you have whipped what you need. And if you continue to whip, that is citizens not working towns.
Lastly, though not a common occurence, GA's with cottages on plains produce a lot more hammers.

Why not cottage the floodplains and farm the plains?

Or even better, cottage the floodplains and ignore the plains until biology.

How about cottaging both the flood plains and plains?

Every flood plains/plains pair averages to 2 food, which is the same as grassland. However, the advantage is that while recovering from whipping you can emphasize one over the other.

The only main concern is the health penalty from the flood plains...but since you have plains cottages, growth won't be very fast to make health a problem.

I'm never whipping in cities of size 18 with 10 cottaged floodplains. Maybe I'm wrong there. But whipping away pop at bigger sizes is less efficient, and whipping away 5 pop at a time when I'm working riverside towns seems less efficient that just working some high hammer tiles for a while and taking some turns more to build the improvement. I don't feel like doing the math on that though. Maybe someone else can look at the produced commerce/hammers/food required to regrow the pop.

I'm never whipping in cities of size 18 with 10 cottaged floodplains. Maybe I'm wrong there. But whipping away pop at bigger sizes is less efficient, and whipping away 5 pop at a time when I'm working riverside towns seems less efficient that just working some high hammer tiles for a while and taking some turns more to build the improvement. I don't feel like doing the math on that though. Maybe someone else can look at the produced commerce/hammers/food required to regrow the pop.

The situation in question is a city with almost all flood plains and plains. It is also a size 12 city in the example. The civic being run is slavery. Marketplaces/Forges/grocers/Uni's (the 5 pop whips discussed) usually come before chemistry. These means the best production tile will be a workshop for 2-3 hammers. That is a very very slow build. If you have more high production tiles then those are the ones that you stop working after the whip. By the time a city reaches pop 18 AND has matured cottages it should have both of those buildings already built.

Sorry to drive you crazy but I had to restart to try to better follow your advice. :)

Here is what I'm thinking for cities this time.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=193687&stc=1&d=1226110738


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=193688&stc=1&d=1226110738

I'm uncertain about the SE corner of the continent. Maybe 1S of horses? Since it seemed unlikely that the wheat would ever be shared, I razed Bizmark's city.

Would it be best to spam settlers in the capital and use the GE to build GL?

Reguarding the FP city, isn't it better to to cottage for 1/2 scientist per tile in addition to the coins rather than irrigate the FP for 1 scientist per FP?

Also, would it be better to put MS in the hammer city?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=193689&stc=1&d=1226110738

Move the far northern city to 1NW of the cows. Where you have it marked with an x puts 5 desert and 1 mountain in the BFC. You also lose the ability to borrow the fish from the wheat city to regrow quickly after a whip. With the grassland cows and city center you will stagnate at pop4 working the iron. The silver fur city should be 1SW. It will not be able to work as many furs but it will be coastal and benefit from the extra trade routes since you are almost done building the GLH.
On the former German Coast. Build a city 3E of berlin. It can work the clams and iron plus run a couple scientists. Then build a city on the tip of the penninsula. it will have the cows/workshop to build the Moao statues. Then it can work 18 watertiles, 12 of which will be coastal.
After the capital builds that settler, Build a lighthouse and library and run scientists. You are in Representation but not running specialists. Let Prague work on settlers. You have the entire continent to yourself so there is less of a rush to get them built. If you build them in the capital, then work the seafood rather than the plains forests. Even with Imperialistic bonus on settlers you will build them at the same speed but you also get 4 commerce.
You need to build some galleys to protect your seafood. Great wall does not keep out barb galleys. Use one galley to find a little crap island to put a city for overseas trade routes. Even if it is a one tile dot that can never build anthing, it will give your 4 best cities on the mainland a good trade route.
After asthetics beeline optics so you can meet the AI to trade techs.

Had a look at your save. Good to see you took out the Germans. On such a small island they were just getting in the way.

Did you restart this game from 4000bc? I think leaving bronze working till 2480 is a bit late.

Thing with pyramids and Great light house is they all require a certain map type.

For Pyramids: Apart from the barb city up north you will struggle to find a good GP farm on this map. Theres too much desert and plains and tundra. Pyramids adds value when you have lots of specialists. At present you have none. Pyramids can also be good for a great engineer.

Its a shame there is a mountain by the barb city as it blocking the most optimal city location for a GP farm. All those food resources and you wont be able to use most of them. You still need a late tech to use them. :o(

The great light house requires lots of coastal cities. Again due to the terrain this is not going to be great.

With your science at 70% you had room to expand more. My current game my science was at 0% but i was getting 100+ science beakers a turn near 1ad.

When you set up a city with a library and 2 scientists you soon pop a great scientist. Add an academy. Drop 2-3 GS in the city and your one city is producing 50+ science a turn. your main GP farm or capital coul be producing 400+ science beakers a turn late game if you do it right.

Although I've read several posts about the SE, this thread really showed me many of the things that I had no clue about! :)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=297927


Had a look at your save. Good to see you took out the Germans. On such a small island they were just getting in the way.

Did you restart this game from 4000bc? I think leaving bronze working till 2480 is a bit late.

Thing with pyramids and Great light house is they all require a certain map type.

For Pyramids: Apart from the barb city up north you will struggle to find a good GP farm on this map. Theres too much desert and plains and tundra. Pyramids adds value when you have lots of specialists. At present you have none. Pyramids can also be good for a great engineer.

Its a shame there is a mountain by the barb city as it blocking the most optimal city location for a GP farm. All those food resources and you wont be able to use most of them. You still need a late tech to use them. :o(

The great light house requires lots of coastal cities. Again due to the terrain this is not going to be great.

With your science at 70% you had room to expand more. My current game my science was at 0% but i was getting 100+ science beakers a turn near 1ad.

When you set up a city with a library and 2 scientists you soon pop a great scientist. Add an academy. Drop 2-3 GS in the city and your one city is producing 50+ science a turn. your main GP farm or capital coul be producing 400+ science beakers a turn late game if you do it right.

I go for BW ASAP. In this case, I felt AH, Wheel and Fishing were needed first. (And then Mining of course.) The worker did spend 5 turns putting down not immediately needed roads waiting to be able to chop.

Yes, I restarted @ 4000BC to try better city placement and to get rid of the Germans as suggested.

The science slider is at 70% because of the gold from captured cities. I tried really hard to stay broke this time! :D
Wow, you have 100 beakers and 0% science?!!! (That shows why I need to get to understand the SE thing.)

So is the Capital, the sugar city or the FP city going to be the main GP farm? Is using the GE coming in the Capital to build the GL in the main GP farm wise?

I also remember your advice to get NE & HE built soon. (But I need to decide on which city is to be the GP farm first.) GT is another national wonder that I don't seem to get built because I can't decide where it should go! :crazyeye:

Move the far northern city to 1NW of the cows. Where you have it marked with an x puts 5 desert and 1 mountain in the BFC. You also lose the ability to borrow the fish from the wheat city to regrow quickly after a whip. With the grassland cows and city center you will stagnate at pop4 working the iron. The silver fur city should be 1SW. It will not be able to work as many furs but it will be coastal and benefit from the extra trade routes since you are almost done building the GLH.
On the former German Coast. Build a city 3E of berlin. It can work the clams and iron plus run a couple scientists. Then build a city on the tip of the penninsula. it will have the cows/workshop to build the Moao statues. Then it can work 18 watertiles, 12 of which will be coastal.
After the capital builds that settler, Build a lighthouse and library and run scientists. You are in Representation but not running specialists. Let Prague work on settlers. You have the entire continent to yourself so there is less of a rush to get them built. If you build them in the capital, then work the seafood rather than the plains forests. Even with Imperialistic bonus on settlers you will build them at the same speed but you also get 4 commerce.
You need to build some galleys to protect your seafood. Great wall does not keep out barb galleys. Use one galley to find a little crap island to put a city for overseas trade routes. Even if it is a one tile dot that can never build anthing, it will give your 4 best cities on the mainland a good trade route.
After asthetics beeline optics so you can meet the AI to trade techs.


Thanks for the good advice on city placement. It should have been obvious to me that the fur city should be coastal!

Good point about working the sea tiles for the coins in the capital. I know I wasn't when building settlers.

Thanks for reminding me about getting some galleys built. I lost the capital's seafood more than once during my replays! :blush:

Is it worthwhile to build more than one city for over seas trade routes? Does the commerce gained offset the high maintenance costs?

Are Moao statues pretty much always built in cities with the most water tiles? (I was considering putting them in the hammer city.)

You suggest going for Optics before Lit?

RE: overseas trade routes. With the GLH the trade routes for that city pretty much make it a break even city. It is the trade routes with the mainland cities with the commerce multipliers that make them so lucrative.

RE: Moao statues. The more water tiles the more tiles you benefit from Moao. The hammer city needs atleast on national wonder spot saved for Ironworks. Also your best option for a hammer city is Berlin and it is not coastal. Speaking of Berlin, when you get Metal Casting workshop on of those jumbos then the second one once you claim the northern jumbos.

RE: Optics vs Lit. The longer you stay in isolation the longer the Ai on other landmasses are trading techs with each other. Just be sure to gist 10 gold to each civ as soon as you meet them to get a big trade relations diplo bonus. But since you are so close to aesthetics already and Lit is a cheap tech. I would definately raze the barb city and settle 1N of the peak on top of the sugar as planned. This gives you 3 sugar, bananas and fish. This should be your main GP farm. Use the GE to build the GL there. Settle this city next. The capital could be a nice GP farm but it has better potential as a production city. After Lit, i would research calender to get the bananas and sugar. The MC->machinery->optics. You're going to want trading partners for your bulbed techs.

You need to bite the bullet and get into Caste System As soon as you whip a granary/library in the new GP farm. The you can run a boatload of scientists there.

When are you going to post the starting save ???

I really dont value wheel/AH over BW in this situation. Unless I have sea resources I normally go for BW straight off. You will only need wheel to hook up copper and other resources. How can you hook up copper if you cant see it?

End of day you go for the early worker to either work land resources or chop forest. In my case i normally chop forest to get a second worker or faster settler. Unless you grow city and whip settler. In any case your playing an imperial leader so settler straight off is possibly best option in my opinion.

It wasnt a perfect start. I was missing sailing so three sea resources were -1 food outside delhi as i needed a lighthouse. I had happiness cap issues in Delhi.

I could of played around with scientists and merchants to get science beakers a turn up to 120/130ish. Delhi could happily provide 50 science beakers alone with the academy. With a great person soon to be popped this will add 9 beakers to Dehli.

Overall I was using 6-7+ specialists. look how I planned the GP production too. Three different cities will pop a great person. Small amount of micromanagement needed. ;)

@CivCorpse:

Thanks for the advice.

Also, thanks for reminding me to go to CS ASAP. I'm really bad about putting that off.

@Gumbolt:

Sorry, I started a new game and neglected to save 4000BC from this one.

While building worker first, I researched AH; when horses appeared, I figured I had to go Wheel to hook them up. I tried settler first a few times but couldn't convince myself that the first city being founded a bit faster instead of improving the pig to make all settlers faster was worth it.

Your screenshot will be my inspiration in finishing this game! Great job!

Your start save should be in the autosaves.

Had another look at my save. I was running about 10 specialists. Thats 1-2+ a city. For the settler first approach you do need plains hills and forest with 3 production. I have had second cities by 3300bc.

Do start a new post on the new game. Always good to follow a game.

On my current game the Romans are land powerful. he has 3 vassels. They all just declared war on me. Rome threw 9 units at my island. Knights/trebs. I sent in my infantry. I dont think Rome banks on me upgrading my sea units to destroyers.

Strange how all the Ai naval units have vanished. :)

Prolly another space victory. Diplomatic is out window as Rome's vassels are all voting for him. I will have tanks soon and these should take out any Roman defenders. Knights against tanks? Hmmm.

I once again request an answer to this question:

Reguarding the FP city, isn't it better to to cottage for 1/2 scientist per tile in addition to the coins rather than irrigate the FP for 1 scientist per FP?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=193944&stc=1&d=1226358932

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=193945&stc=1&d=1226358932

I'm weak, broke, and it's time to meet the neighbors.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194005&stc=1&d=1226412911


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194004&stc=1&d=1226412911

A lot on here say cottage flood plains. If i am going Specialists in a GP farm I would farm it. If I wanted a gold resource or growth i would farm it.

Flood plains on rivers do provide more commerce.

I wouldnt restart this game again. Play it to the death and leave it. Your island alone gives you 40% land. Tech for liberalism.

I took a look at the save and just a couple of notes.
Berling should be farmed on the floodplains and workshopped/mined. Then it can feed your wonde addiction. Aachen should be farmed and running max specialists as well. Berlin and Aachen should have forges built. Both for the happiness and the production boost.
You have a pile of workers near Ulm building more cottages than the city can work. Get those workers hooking up that marble. I would consider another farm or 2 in Ulm and moving the capital there. It can work a lot of cottages for the bureaucracy boost.
Augsburg should be working those cottages to maturity rather than specialists. But That is a coin flip of immediate beakers vs long term. As soon as aachen and the city building the SoZ are done have them build caravels to launch in either direction.
Strassburg should have the cows pastured and working those instead of a single cottage.
Quit building wonders. You need a city 1NW of the wheat and another 1NW of the cows. And one on that crappy island to the SW for intercontinental trade routes. NO MORE WONDERS. I reccommend Prague for settlers. It is building a temple when it is 4 below the happy cap.
Stop building cottages in Mainz...it should be your GP farm. You should have built the National Epic there. Aachen has too much production to waste on a GP farm. Did you use the GE for the Great Library?

A lot on here say cottage flood plains. If i am going Specialists in a GP farm I would farm it. If I wanted a gold resource or growth i would farm it.

Flood plains on rivers do provide more commerce.

I wouldnt restart this game again. Play it to the death and leave it. Your island alone gives you 40% land. Tech for liberalism.

I took a look at the save and just a couple of notes.
Berling should be farmed on the floodplains and workshopped/mined. Then it can feed your wonde addiction. Aachen should be farmed and running max specialists as well. Berlin and Aachen should have forges built. Both for the happiness and the production boost.
You have a pile of workers near Ulm building more cottages than the city can work. Get those workers hooking up that marble. I would consider another farm or 2 in Ulm and moving the capital there. It can work a lot of cottages for the bureaucracy boost.
Augsburg should be working those cottages to maturity rather than specialists. But That is a coin flip of immediate beakers vs long term. As soon as aachen and the city building the SoZ are done have them build caravels to launch in either direction.
Strassburg should have the cows pastured and working those instead of a single cottage.
Quit building wonders. You need a city 1NW of the wheat and another 1NW of the cows. And one on that crappy island to the SW for intercontinental trade routes. NO MORE WONDERS. I reccommend Prague for settlers. It is building a temple when it is 4 below the happy cap.
Stop building cottages in Mainz...it should be your GP farm. You should have built the National Epic there. Aachen has too much production to waste on a GP farm. Did you use the GE for the Great Library?



Thanks for the imput. I promise that I won't restart but I reserve the right to play from the save before your current advice! :)

I think we all agree that Kesshi's early city placement was best even if my play wasn't.

This is where I am now.:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194021&stc=1&d=1226441772


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194022&stc=1&d=1226441772


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194023&stc=1&d=1226441772

With that tech lead you can pick your victory at this point.
Just a point to consider. When running representation and all the AI are in Mercantilism, it is better to run Merc as well. the extra domestic trade route is worth 2 commerce. The extra specialist is worth much more.

Vox Dei,

Good job! Even though you had to play through it a few times, you got it. But the most important thing is: Did you learn anything? I'm willing to bet, yes! And even though you lost (or gave up) many times before you won, sometimes it's not a loss so long as you learn things. Some of my best learning games have been games where I set out with conditions where I expected to lose. I still played my heart out, but I knew that in the end the enemy forces would surround me, steal my women and have their way with my livestock. In fact, I jumped from Emperor up to Deity to help prepare myself for Immortal and lost a bunch of Deity games before ever trying an Immortal game.

Just a point to consider. When running representation and all the AI are in Mercantilism, it is better to run Merc as well. the extra domestic trade route is worth 2 commerce. The extra specialist is worth much more.

Hmm, I wouldn't have thought it'd be worthwhile when running specialists. I'll give it a try.

Vox Dei,
Good job! Even though you had to play through it a few times, you got it. But the most important thing is: Did you learn anything? I'm willing to bet, yes! And even though you lost (or gave up) many times before you won,

I did learn and am thankful for the help. I agree with CivCorpse that the game could have been won from any of the saves but by restarting I could see how implementing the advice given was an improvement on the earlier play.


Augsburg should be working those cottages to maturity rather than specialists.

Then it can feed your wonder addiction. ... Quit building wonders. ... NO MORE WONDERS.

Did you use the GE for the Great Library?

Do you mean Augsburg should work the cottages even if it goes over the happy cap?

Do I sense a pattern here reguarding wonders? :)

I got a GS first instead of a GE this time so I had to build GL the hard way.




In fact, I jumped from Emperor up to Deity to help prepare myself for Immortal and lost a bunch of Deity games before ever trying an Immortal game.

You must be a glutton for punishment. :)



A lot on here say cottage flood plains. If i am going Specialists in a GP farm I would farm it. If I wanted a gold resource or growth i would farm it.

Flood plains on rivers do provide more commerce.

Thanks for the guidelines.

You must be a glutton for punishment. :)

Vox Dei,

You would think, wouldn't you? But actually, I ended up winning a few Deity games while doing that. I don't think I've ever won an Immortal game, but I have won a few Deity games. Go figure. :p

Right after a rush it is often a good thing to either...
1. disband the army (but keep one LVL3 promotion unit around)
or
2. send it on a suicide mission against a civ that you plan to attack much later (harassment rush); knock it back a bit so it won't put up as much of a fight once you get around to attacking again

You really shouldn't be having a rush-sized army sitting idly during the recovery period following the total vanquisment of an enemy civ. In fact, you shouldn't have an army sitting idly during any period of the game.

Nothing urges you to disband units. At least not if you're running hereditary rule, which fits perfectly with cottages.

Here's the replay from 1040AD to 1730AD.

Way big improvement! (If I had recognized the situation better, I do think putting all the GS in the sugar city, along with Oxford would have been better as CivCorpse said. I guess I need to look way longer term than I do.

Thanks for your help!

Hopefully I can apply your advice in future games.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194098&stc=1&d=1226533658

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194099&stc=1&d=1226533658

Infantry/cannon and attack. If you have a tech advantage you should use it.

Build 4-5 galleons. Fill them with units and take out an Ai capital.

Just a note on defence. 1 chariot a city is risky. You should really walk this now.

Privateers are quite unfair really at times.

Infantry/cannon and attack. If you have a tech advantage you should use it.

Build 4-5 galleons. Fill them with units and take out an Ai capital.

Just a note on defence. 1 chariot a city is risky. You should really walk this now.

Privateers are quite unfair really at times.

I lingered a bit longer than your advice but eventually went after Mao after his DoW on me.

RE: 1 chariot: I had to build privateers! :) Indeed, I agree that they are unfair. The AI took forever to get frigates. It was a hoot!

I wimped out and did space race. :blush:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194185&stc=1&d=1226616207


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=194186&stc=1&d=1226616207

Your score is impressive compared to the AI. I think you would of had a conquest/domination win if you had gone one more war.

You may want to try a pangea map with 7 civs. Bit more of a challenge. I prefer huge maps to these as the Ai offers more of a challenge.

Your score is impressive compared to the AI. I think you would of had a conquest/domination win if you had gone one more war.

You may want to try a pangea map with 7 civs. Bit more of a challenge. I prefer huge maps to these as the Ai offers more of a challenge.



I had the infrastructure/production to do conquest/domination easily. (Admittedly, after replaying many times.) :)

I'm not much of a war monger. As CivCorpse pointed out, I like the wonders. lol