I tried a search for this, but it's such a common term it's used a lot (and REX itself is too short a word to search).

I try to expand very rapidly, but if I do it too fast, I go broke very quickly. I can sometimes get a good axe rush in to slow the AI down, but if I don't have access to copper or there is a lot of land between us, I can't settle it fast enough without killing the economy.

What's the secret of REXing? I currently play on Prince, but am looking to move up in difficulty.

Well, I'm no expert. But, from what I have read you will be going broke during REX. The idea is to claim all the best land first, then recover your economy afterwards (trades for gold, great merchants, cottage spamming). Don't neglect your military either or you won't be able to survive long enough to recover.

Cottages!!

So take the initial hit to the tech slider and go for a booming recovery later?

I spam cottages like crazy, but it takes a long time for the cities to grow and the cottages to mature. It's during this time my economy tanks and research suffers. If this is normal to fall behind technologically and then recover later, then I guess I am doing it right?

Try to get pottery and writing, then you turn research to 0% while building libraries.
When done, you can assign scientists to generate some beakers and alternate between 0% and 100% slider while teching to currency and/or COL and growing your cottages

Falling behind in Tech in the earlier game and then recovering to surge ahead is the right idea. Even better if you never fall behind. BUT, if you're ahead in techs early on and then sputter and fail later, that's a problem.

The idea of REX is that you're research slider suffers big time until grabbing Currency and CoL. Growth is most important in new cities so you can whip infrastructure and then allow it to grow onto the cottage tiles. So work your food sources first. I tend to pull my citizens off of production and hamlet / cottage tiles in library cities to work scientist specialists during the final stages of the REX. It allows the remaining village/town tiles to provide the gold to sustain my REX while not falling WAAAAY behind in techs.

Mind you, I'm still new to Prince, so I'm still adjusting to the new maintenance costs and faster AI teching.

You can build libraries in high-food cities and run scientists while waiting for cottages to grow.

Interesting. I tend to be a technology snob, I love have the tech edge. So it always irked me leaving my tech slider less than 50-60 at any time. But if setting to 0 works, heck Im all for it.

REXing involves maximum number of cities until either you go broke or run out land (or rivals!).

Some things to remember

1) Keep military up!

2) Target Pottery (cottages), writing (libraries), and sailing ( efficient sea tiles and trade routes) BEFORE your treasury runs dry. IT sucks to be at 10% slider while teching Pottery and wrinitng sill.

3) Aim for Code of Laws and Currency to build wealth, trade routes, courthouses, Caste system, and markets.

4) If you got a Holy City, make sure you add a priest specialist to possibly pop one for a shrine.

Several on my RPCs dealt with REXing, notably the 2 Catherine ones and the Roosevelt one.

I spam cottages like crazy, but it takes a long time for the cities to grow and the cottages to mature. It's during this time my economy tanks and research suffers. If this is normal to fall behind technologically and then recover later, then I guess I am doing it right?

Non-financial cottages aren't the best way to keep your economy afloat after heavy REXing or rushing.

The typical unit pump city works a food resource and mines. At some point you'll have enough units and settlers, and your cities become a liability. Adding some 1-commerce cottages can't solve the problem. Library scientists (6 beakers) can't either, although their GPP could when you're in position to bulb an expensive tech and trade it to all the AIs.

The fastest way to transition from unit pumping to research is to actually build research/wealth, while waiting for cottages and GPP to pick up.

The fastest way to transition from unit pumping to research is to actually build research/wealth, while waiting for cottages and GPP to pick up.

That's very true. Having your hammer heavy city build research can provide a lot more :science: than running 2 non-Representation scientists (6:science:). But ONLY do so if your power rating is close enough to your immediate neighbors. We don't want them to start salivating over all that land and no soldiers ;)

Normally, (playing at emperor), you can expand 4-6 cities without going below 60% in Tech if you work your tiles right. I usually try to make one of the new cities I found produce quite a lot of money, usually by founding it next to grassland rivers/floodplains and cottage them as quickly as possible. If you do that, that sole city can support a REX good enough to "block" in terrain behind you so the AI can't get to it. Then you hit CoL, whip courthouses as quickly as possible in all towns which basically allows you to found another 3-6 cities in the terrain you blocked off.

Either way, you won't fall behind too much in technology if you pick your technologies and trade wisely when you can and hopefully you can soon have a good economy going.

That's very true. Having your hammer heavy city build research can provide a lot more :science: than running 2 non-Representation scientists (6:science:). But ONLY do so if your power rating is close enough to your immediate neighbors. We don't want them to start salivating over all that land and no soldiers ;)

You just need enough units to defend yourself. On difficulties where expansion costs actually matter, there's no way you're going to get enough power to deter a declaration outright.

The non-secret is to plant all early cities next to special food tiles. If a city can't work a corn/fish/cow/pig etc. Do NOT build it until you are past currency and code of laws... (unless it's the only source of early metal of course).

The long term secret is to specialize your cities but that means you have to get past the empire growth techs, so to speak.

Madscientist has the tech path down. You need those techs to keep tech rate up when the slider is down.

If you are a slider hog, remember that the slider doesn't count all your research. It only shows how your commerce :commerce: is split up. It doesn't count any of the output from your specialists, or hammers :hammers: used to build science or gold. 0% slider just means all your commerce is going to :gold:, :culture: or :espionage:, not :science:.

You could be building :science: with the science slider at 0% or building :gold: with the slider at 100%... and theoretically getting the same result, if conditions were exacly right.

You just need enough units to defend yourself. On difficulties where expansion costs actually matter, there's no way you're going to get enough power to deter a declaration outright.

So should I plan on being attacked? I'm playing Prince. Mathematically, I know it's no where near as bad as Emperor, but I'm feeling the maintenance/distance from palace costs big time.

I started a game last night. Random leader - Mao Zedong. I spawned in an area that was pretty resource and production poor. It wasn't really all that great for food sources either. To be honest, the capital was the only BFC that was anything but disappointing for a long track of space. So I was settling way out there to grab worthwhile land and to stop van Oranje's REX. The maintenance was killing me, but I was still popping units left and right trying to remain at least close in power to deter a DoW.

Should I just build enough units to defend my border cities well and then build :science: or :gold: after that?

Should I just build enough units to defend my border cities well and then build or after that?

Usually. For prince I'd check the leader reference chart. Some AIs need to be a bit stronger than you to DOW, others you'd need 150% of their power to deter war. Diplomacy is almost always the superior method of avoiding war, though (at least early). And, as you may have noticed, building wealth or research can help you out a ton (and it's pretty easy to get access to building research). Overbuilding military or buildings can slow research a lot, and it's hard to notice that you're doing it and the extent of the impact at first.

If you can get above their dow power threshold easily. go ahead and do it. For guys who don't declare at pleased, just get them to pleased then you can neglect military a long time.

With super warmongers like the shaka/monty/alex/genghis types, IMO if they border you alone you'll want to rush them or prepare for war on defense. If they border multiple civs and you can get them to pleased, bribe them elsewhere before they decide you should be the target.

Thanks a lot, TMIT. I've pretty much given up on my current Mao Zedong game discussed above. I've been able to keep up okay tech and military wise up to this point. But as I saved my game last night before closing shop I noticed that 4 of the AI on the 7 leader standard map are ahead of me in tech. Willem van Oranje is very far ahead (first to Lib which I don't have, Astronomy which I don't have, largest army, and sizeable landmass).

I did okay in the diplo category, but it has become apparent to me that I don't even have a viable victory condition. The land I have is just too crappy. I'll post a screenie when I get home if I have time. Tons of grassland only tiles, barely any food resources, only 2 lux resources, 1 iron resource, no copper, and barely any hills. I needed to be in slavery b/c of the lack of production tiles therefore I can't lay workshops down on the grassland tiles for anything better than 2:hammers: 1:food: which is totally unacceptable without food resources.


If I had been able to build the AP, I might have been able to pull a diplo victory since everyone on the map (including Shaka who is a different religion!) is Pleased or Friendly. Even with my borders colliding with Justinian AND he's a different religion, we're Pleased. I'm proud that I was able to keep up (up this point aro 1300AD) with the crappy land that I have.

I'm pretty much looking at a loss. I'll probably DoW on Justinian to try and wrestle his resource heavy land away from him. If I lose, oh well. I'll start a new game. :D

Some AIs need to be a bit stronger than you to DOW, others you'd need 150% of their power to deter war.

That's very interesting. Which of the AI leader statistics are you talking about? "Aggression level" maybe? How are the "high", "very high" ratings linked to power ratio percentages? Is there a place where this info is condensed in a strategy guide?

I had a game the other day that went much like your Mao game, but I didn't get to unit massing. I had maybe three units in a border city when Fredrick declared, and they held off the first wave (pre-construction). I was a little unprepared, but I immediately whipped some garrison units in the city and a few close cities to send to the border one. They all arrived in time and held off the second wave. I continued to produce a mix of units and ship them to the border. Eventually Fredrick lost enough units and I had enough built up to counter attack and take a couple of his close cities, then sue for peace. Peace for me usually means secure what you took, build up for the 10 turns, and launch the next offensive until the AI that DoW you is eliminated.

Early game a good unit mix in a garrison city can hold off huge stacks while re-reinforcements are built and arrive. Keep tabs on enemy tech as siege drastically affects your ability to defend. Once the enemy starts bringing siege you better be able to counter with something (more siege, mounted units, diplomacy, etc).

Worry about your power when you are ready for war so you will actually make use of your units. You need some units to defend, but don't need a SoD that keeps up with the enemy's power. If you do that you sink a lot of hammers into units that may never see battle. Diplomacy is easier and more efficient to manage the chance of war.

That's very interesting. Which of the AI leader statistics are you talking about? "Aggression level" maybe? How are the "high", "very high" ratings linked to power ratio percentages? Is there a place where this info is condensed in a strategy guide?

It's defined in the XMLs. Ori and DanF both have references in excel that show who needs what power rating to DoW too. Look for the "maxwarpower" and limited war etc etc stuff.

I think there's a guide in creation/customization that explains the XML values too.

I had a game the other day that went much like your Mao game, but I didn't get to unit massing. I had maybe three units in a border city when Fredrick declared, and they held off the first wave (pre-construction). I was a little unprepared, but I immediately whipped some garrison units in the city and a few close cities to send to the border one. They all arrived in time and held off the second wave. I continued to produce a mix of units and ship them to the border. Eventually Fredrick lost enough units and I had enough built up to counter attack and take a couple of his close cities, then sue for peace. Peace for me usually means secure what you took, build up for the 10 turns, and launch the next offensive until the AI that DoW you is eliminated.

Early game a good unit mix in a garrison city can hold off huge stacks while re-reinforcements are built and arrive. Keep tabs on enemy tech as siege drastically affects your ability to defend. Once the enemy starts bringing siege you better be able to counter with something (more siege, mounted units, diplomacy, etc).

Worry about your power when you are ready for war so you will actually make use of your units. You need some units to defend, but don't need a SoD that keeps up with the enemy's power. If you do that you sink a lot of hammers into units that may never see battle. Diplomacy is easier and more efficient to manage the chance of war.

Thnx for the tips. This was definitely part of my problem. I've just recently made the move to prince. On noble, I would generally establish a unit pump early on (1st or 2nd settler) and do nothing but pump units out. This was (generally speaking) because I would be warring with a neighbor soon.

I also waited too long for REX. I thought I did a good job with it, but when my settler finally reached what would have been the outer borders of my civ, I saw that Willem van Oranje with his CRE trait had already settled. I plopped down on the best plot of land I could find just outside his borders and sent my other 2 settlers to seal the rest of the landmass in. It was too late, though. All the good land was taken.

Next game, I'll remember this stuff. It's funny. I remember having similar issues with the map when I first made the move to Noble. I kept getting these crappy food-poor, hammer-poor, resource-poor maps. At the end of my Noble run, I was crushing the AI on random everything. Now, I'm back to crappy maps! I guess once I learn to deal with crappy land, I'll start getting better starts! LoL

You can build libraries in high-food cities and run scientists while waiting for cottages to grow.

Cottages don't grow if you don't work them unless you're talking about working them in one city and running scientists in another.

I think he's perhaps saying to use any low food/production tiles for your scientists until you can re-adjust your science slider. But keep working the hamlets/villages/towns

Step 1: Build Cottages
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit!

...in all seriousness, though, you will need to raze at least some of the cities that you capture even if they're good cities just because you won't be able to afford them until Code of Laws or Currency (or both).

That assumes you're getting cities through conquest. If you're building Settlers fast enough to crash your economy, then you need to just build more Cottages since you will have a very hard time building Settlers fast enough to crash your economy while still building enough workers to keep up with the new cities and enough military units to keep your cities from becoming AI cities.

Obtaining a holy city with a Shrine also helps a great deal, but my opinion is that founding your own religion is rarely worthwhile. Take your neighbor's religion instead. Take it with fire and axe and sword. :)

If you're building Settlers fast enough to crash your economy, then you need to just build more Cottages since you will have a very hard time building Settlers fast enough to crash your economy while still building enough workers to keep up with the new cities and enough military units to keep your cities from becoming AI cities.

Not true. If you are chop/whipping settlers you can get them out there very fast. Which is especially necessary if you have an IMP, ORG, or CRE leader to compete with for land grabs. Second or capital city should be some sort of unit pump (whip or production based) to defend your outer cities. Remember, you don't need to have hefty defenses in your interior cities.

Also assuming they aren't close enough initially for a rush (or perhaps you have too little production tiles). I've been able to completely tank my economy before Judaism was founded in a Noble game. I was pumping workers/settlers out of a couple food heavy/granary cities with HerRule and had settled far away to peacefully claim a lot of land before my very distant neighbor was able to settle in.

DaveMcW is right here. Cottages to pay the maintenance, scientists off libraries for the beakers. As the cottages mature, you can crank up your slider.

You need to make money to offset the maintenance cost of your empire.

If you found an early religion and build the shrine, this will make some money to afford expansion.

Settle in areas where their are gems, gold or silver, those make decent money to afford some expansion (maybe enough to afford 1-2 early cities without dipping slider).

Settle an early commerce city and just cottage it up. Watch as the cottages grow, time your expansion so that you don't find your research slider going down to pay for your empire (this is a kinda slow approach).

Go for a specialist economy so that the science slider is less or completely irrelevant.

Research alphabet so you can build research, making the science slider less or completely irrelevant.

In the long run, falling behind in science, but settling more land, will give you the edge. You will lose the short term edge as your research falls behind, but as cities grow and mature you will have more total production. Some cities could be building research, making up for the lost research in maintenance costs.

protective, stone wall chops lol.

I really believe the only answer is cottages. It's the only universal. Some traits will give an advantage to libs and some will give an advantage to scientists, but the common tool availabel to all is cottages. Its too costly to spend turns making a lib early on. If you want to grab all the land, build workers, settlers, and units (pref axes, but use chariots or archers if need be). Have plenty of workers out there to make cottages.

Pottery> Alphabet> Currency is the way to go. CoL is for later, killing your own men to build a building doesnt do anything for you interms of getting out another settler or worker faster. True, it may lower your maintenance costs, but it will also lower your power.

[QUOTE=budweiser;7884896]I really believe the only answer is cottages.QUOTE]

Just out of curiousity, what about those heavy specialist economy players who don't rely on cottages: they would prove your theory wrong or would have said otherwise, wouldn't they?

Look for the "maxwarpower" and limited war etc etc stuff.

Ah, thanks. I don't think those values are in my reference booklet, unless they are called differently in there... Hence the confusion.

[QUOTE=budweiser;7884896]I really believe the only answer is cottages.QUOTE]

Just out of curiousity, what about those heavy specialist economy players who don't rely on cottages: they would prove your theory wrong or would have said otherwise, wouldn't they?

Not really. If you're building your empire on specialists, you can't REX very well because you can't assign very many specialists in the beginning of the game - you just don't have too many/any specialist slots even if you had infinite population to assign to them. Specialist economies are only possible once you have either Caste System or enough buildings to create lots of specialists in your cities.

Cottages can start to work as soon as you have pottery, so the only techs you really need to REX with cottages are Pottery, Agriculture and Mining/Bronze Working.

Specialist/Farm economies tend to hit their biggest expansion period when they start consuming the territory of their neighbors with a bulb-earned short term economic advantage - and by that time, most people wouldn't call that REXing anymore.

[QUOTE=budweiser;7884896]I really believe the only answer is cottages.QUOTE]

Just out of curiousity, what about those heavy specialist economy players who don't rely on cottages: they would prove your theory wrong or would have said otherwise, wouldn't they?

A SE economy is for later. If you are REXing, then you are going to get 3 beakers per unit of pop, after you have a library in place, which will cost you build turns. It's better to work the cottage unless you have some sort of trait advantage. I dont see the advantage of a scientist here unless you want the GP points. GP points arent helping the rex.

Specs w/o rep are a terrible choice.

UNLESS YOU FACTOR IN GPP. Then they can be the strongest, or at least a critical contributor. For cities outside an academy capitol, factoring in the pop cost in food:

Grassland:

Cottage: 1 commerce (gold or research)
Hamlet: 2 commerce (gold or research)
Village (I'll stop here for early game): 3 commerce (gold or research)

Scientist: -2f 3 beakers
Merchant: -2f 3 gold
Artist: You're not going to use this to pay for expansion or help early research.

Grass mine: -1f 3 beakers (science) or gold (wealth)
Plains mine: -2f 4 beakers or gold
Caste workshop/plains forest: -1f 2 beakers or gold

In terms of raw yield, hammers win over specialists w/o rep unless you're getting great people! Grass mines truly own the crap out of a scientist in raw yield here, as you can work TWO grass mines/2 farms, rather than 1 scientist! Even a plains mine is better (before rep/gpp)

Cottages are way more pop efficient. They don't cost food at all on grassland, so you can run more cottages than specialists given a low happy cap.

Specialists are more tile efficient. If going this route pack cities closer together, because you need less total tiles to make cities strong and it helps keep caps more reasonable.

Very frequently you can get quite far on passive commerce during expansion no matter what you do.

Cottages! On Rivers! Early!

There's no need to find a city site that grabs three gold hills (that you won't be able to feed until it reaches pop 6+ anyway) if you lay down a few cottages on a river (often accompanies your spawn location). Tech pottery VERY early and they will be mature that much sooner.

For me running scientists is last ditch, by the time you have libraries you should have cottages producing 3 coins already.

For the mid level player a good exercise is expanding until you are on the verge of strike, and go city to city to find where you can eke out one more commerce coin to stay solvent.

Yeah early. Pottery should be your second or third tech, even ahead of BW unless you are surrounded by trees.

[QUOTE=itsnotme;7884971]

Not really. If you're building your empire on specialists, you can't REX very well because you can't assign very many specialists in the beginning of the game - you just don't have too many/any specialist slots even if you had infinite population to assign to them. Specialist economies are only possible once you have either Caste System or enough buildings to create lots of specialists in your cities.

Cottages can start to work as soon as you have pottery, so the only techs you really need to REX with cottages are Pottery, Agriculture and Mining/Bronze Working.

Specialist/Farm economies tend to hit their biggest expansion period when they start consuming the territory of their neighbors with a bulb-earned short term economic advantage - and by that time, most people wouldn't call that REXing anymore.

So using the term REX'ing in a SE game is irrelevant?

For me running scientists is last ditch, by the time you have libraries you should have cottages producing 3 coins already.

You definitely want the great people points. Early.

Pay attention to the slider bar. Normally keep it as close to 100% research as you can, but start to end REXing when your civ starts losing money with research at 60%. Or at least slow down REXing at this point in favor of workers to build up infrastructure, and buildings and research techs that improve your cash flow.

And one cottage per city helps keep costs down.

You could also go Organized, avoid organized religion, UB courthouse (Ziggarauts are nice), focus on REXing for large river locations (chop those river forests generally for +1 commerce) & early luxuries (more happy = more worked tiles, which can equal more money). Early Currency (+1 trade routes) helps a lot as well as having at least one good trading partner for trade routes; Coastal cities + GL wonder helps also.

To clear the air and make my view clear. REXing is getting as many cities as possible and then paying for them in the future. Early on this can be done a number of ways until Currency and CoL at which point all game plans work

1) Military expansion relying on acquired gold.

2) Massive shrine income.

3) Cottage abuse.

4) ALOT of scientists for the needed beakers.

5) Trade route abusing the GLH and coastal starts.

I have used all 5 approaches and combos of them for REXing, and all work well enough. Alot depends on tratis and starting techs. Creative and Philosophical leaders tend to favor the Library approach. Financial the cottage. Ind on teh coast, the GLH. Agressive, the sword. Spir with an early religion, the shrine. Imperialistic helps get faster workers, while EXP helps pumping out workers and graneries.

So REXing is a CE/SE/TE/RE thing (apologies to DaveM who is an "_E" phobe).

Unconquered Sun, Dave, and Future said it best - of course, that's not very surprising now is it =D. Imo the best tech path is something that eventually gets you to Pottery and Writing at which point you switch the slider to 0% :science: and accumulate :gold:

You should fund your early empire by luxury resources and/or cottaging your Capital - just don't work the cottages until you have built enough settlers, escorts, workers, and built a Library - at which point every tile you work is a cottage.

New cities focus on Farms and Luxury resources followed by 4-2 Whipping. Settler at 4, build workers at 2, then 4-2 (chop) or 5-2 Library whips and assign scientist. Do this in all cities until you research techs like Alphabet and Currency then decide what kind of economy you wanna run. The #1 priority is get your economy back on track. The #2 priority is addressing happiness. This means Asthetics and Drama or Monarchy come after Currency.

Unless your ORG (2 pop whips for CH) COL won't be much help early because if your running a SE/FE you won't have the necessary happiness to run enough specialist and for everyone else, you won't have enough happiness or population (or production) to give you 4 pop whips needed for CH's.

So although some people tend to think a SE/FE makes a REX slow, it's the other way around. The more Farms and production tiles you have the more you can whip. The more you can whip the more settlers, workers, and escorts you can build. More cottages mean workers turns put into making a cottage instead of a Farm or a production tile which both do a better job at creating production than a cottage A LOT better. I guess it all depends on what people even think a REX is. When I REX the slider is at 0% and I'll be breaking even or losing a few gpt until I can build research and wealth. I aim for 6-8 cities by 800 BC and 10-15 cities by 1 AD. If you aren't aggressively settling then you aren't REXing imo - which is why the ORG trait wins. If you prefer a higher slider % with a slower expansion rate then everything I just wrote will have bad results, or at least, it wont work as well.

For prince I'd check the leader reference chart.

where is this chart?

it's not in the refernece area of civfanatics.

You can get to 10-15 cities by 1 AD just by working special tiles, you don't need non-resource farms. FE/SE isn't going to look different at all during expo phase other than city spacing possibly, and they'll be working similar tiles too (best available). Using cottages does not preclude early specialists or building wealth/research, and the food difference for whips should be relatively trivial since the vast majority of the production for horizontal expansion so early is from either food specials or in some cases good converter tiles like grass hills.

The first time I really REX'd was a current game as Louis. I was on a peninsula and blocked in by Charlemagne and Joao II, so I whipped/chopped two settlers. The cities were settled just in time to block off my peninsula, which could hold 4 cities, and a small island with Horses that could hold one. After teching to Iron Working, I built up a Swordsman/Axeman stack and took all the Portuguese cities, except one that was razed by barbarians. At that moment, I had a gold deficit at 0% research. Thankfully, I had built the Great Wall, so I settled my Great Spy in Aachen, then proceeded to tech to Alphabet (slowly....). I killed a few units and forced the cities to focus on commerce, instead of production. My power rating remained relatively high due to the prewar buildup, and the continent was a happy HolyRoman Buddhist bloc, so I stayed out of war. After grabbing Alphabet, I ran an EE, grabbing Code of Laws (and chopping Courthouses everywhere), and Currency. I also built the GLH, with raised my GPT by 20!

My notes:
1) Diplomacy! The crash will likely force you to make choices about units, so instead focus on careful diplomacy. Make friends with big guys and techers, and the guys next to you.
2) Commerce. Cottages, cottages, cottages....see: DaveMCW for more advice.
3) Diplomacy!!!!
4) Workers. Spam 'em. Cost less in upkeep IIRC and will transform your empire into a rich land waiting for the end of the recession.

Madscientist covered just about everything, plus plenty that I didnt already know.

To me, it seems like you are picking the wrong civ and map type. Speaking from being able to comfortably settle 12 cities by 1 AD on monarch, and 9-12 based on how many commerce resources I have on Immortal, the key to succesfully playing a REX strategy is by using one of the following leaders, in my prefered order from strongest to weakest:

Darius - FIN / ORG is the best combination for cutting down expansion costs early on, plus a great early rush UU and +2 UB which basically means you have the main EXP trait bonus as well. Also consider playing as Darius of Holy Rome for the Rathaus. Darius is ideal for non coastal maps.

Willem van Orange - FIN / CRE allows for great early REXing with cottages, cheap libraries, and free border pops allow you to settle any good city site with resources two tiles away. UB is very good for Archipelago maps, and also build the GLH and keep all your cities coastal. No need unrestricted leaders unless you are not playing an Archipelago map and want to use FIN / CRE.

Hannibal - FIN / CHM another archipelago map civ like Willem, you want to use GLH rexing here too. You dont get cheaper buildings or free culture, but you do get extra :) which means larger cities and more tiles worked - start your cities producing Granaries as usual, and then whip monuments for 2 pop if possible for lots of spillover, or build it for one turn then whip for one pop. Your cities will be able to work 2 extra tiles. All this and we havnt even looked at the UB which adds yet another trade route to your cities! You want to pick up compass ASAP and you can use it to trade for Alphabet / Mathematics / Calender / CoL and currency while rescuing your economy with Cothons. This is a very powerful tactic, with GLH and currency you will have 5 trade routes per city. Unrestricted option with hannibal is not worth it, only use him on archipelago maps.

Pacal II - FIN / EXP as the civilopedia says, wealthy, healthy and happy make Pacal a great choice. You get bonus :) with ball courts, get your workers out faster, extra health per city, and faster Granaries and Harbors making him ideal for just about any map type. For unrestricted options try Pacal II of Inca or Carthage to greatly boost the advantage of EXP - Pick Inca for inland games for border popping with Granaries, or Carthage for Archipelago maps with GLH and cothons.

Elizabeth - FIN / PHI makes a great choice for inland maps and specialist economy. Try to set up a Great Merchant farm possibly using the GLH, or even just caste + merchants, and settle as many great merchants inside your best :commerce: city as possible to power up your economy. The bonus of doing this is combining Philo with the Stock Exchange - lots of settled merchants plus an extra 15% Gold can create a very powerful mid game economy. You can also try playing as Korea to take advantage of PHI + Seowon, but the Stock Exchange is better.

Other ones I havnt tried yet are Hauyna Caupac of Mali, and Victoria for FIN / IMP because Elizabeth is a lot lot better anyway.

Wonder spam is not used in REXing, except for the GLH and if you marble you can try for Parthenon, Great Library, Mausoleum and Taj, but you cant be wasting your time on other ancient wonders. Collosus can be added to your GLH city for more Great Merchant points, but I never manage to build it on Immortal, but up to monarch it is very possible and gives you more Great Merchants to settle. The more GMs you settle the better, and the more cities you can afford to build.

Using cottages does not preclude early specialists or building wealth/research, and the food difference for whips should be relatively trivial since the vast majority of the production for horizontal expansion so early is from either food specials or in some cases good

I disagree. :) While your building a cottage the SE/FE is building a Farm (this includes luxury) or a Mine. When your working the cottage the SE/FE is growing quicker or getting more production - both lead to better whipping or more production. In the early phase, while you are working that cottage and going through the slider, the SE/FE has an instant 6 beakers. Scientist get you to your target tech faster, at which point you can decide SE/FE/CE/EE/Quit!?, or whatever floats your boat.

Meinteam- I watched your utube video so the following sentence is for you ^^. Very Nice work on the video btw.

When you combine uber micro management every single turn you can really surge your REX a long. I like cottages too - just not outside the capital during the REX phase because it slows the process down. After I already have Farms (this includes Luxury resources, not just some random Farm) and mines and while teching towards Currency, after the Settler pump is done - if I decide the map is suited for cottages - then I start making cottages in the appropriate places and transition from scientist to cottages. Doing it too early is counterproductive to a REX. Yes, cottages are better the earlier you work them but I don't mind delaying the process if I am able to gain a lot more land quicker - Which you will when the focus is on production.

@ bhavv

I like:

Asoka
Ethiopia
Darius
Julius
Mehemmed

Basically anyone ORG which is Easily the best trait for a REX imo.

anyone know anything about that leader reference chart?

I forgot to add Mehmed. I did try him, but got off to a really poor start without FIN, I find that it is harder without FIN to keep your economy alive. I havnt tried asoka, I like the fast worker but the mausoleum is rubbish, and also I am never relying on religion when REXing so SPI seems like a waste. Im not too keen on IMP either because I find other traits more usefull, mainly FIN / ORG / CRE / EXP / CHA / PHI are all better for REXing.

Ethiopia looks like it could work, but Im a FIN plus economy boosting building noob, and a +25% culture monument is useless for REXing compared to Rathaus, Cothon, Ball Court, Apothecary or Stock Exchange, so it would have to be Zara Yaquob of something else, most likely Holy Rome.

anyone know anything about that leader reference chart?

I assume he means the one in here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236346). Its a general reference sheet which has quite a bit on the leaders.

Bhavv-

Sorry Mehemmed didnt work for you. For a pure Horizontal crash I think ORG is not just better, but game imbalancing better than any other trait out there.

Unconquered Sun and Iranon have some great advice on the overall value of food and production, both whom are elite players. If you get some free time I would suggest doing a search on them and do some reading :)

So take the initial hit to the tech slider and go for a booming recovery later?

More or less. Use scientist specialists when your economy crashes and to cover the gap till your cottages grow.
Code of laws, currency, and monarchy are the techs that should be prioritized to recover quickly. Your tech path should depend on your happiness recources. If you've got +3/4 from charismatic, religion, and luxury recources feel free to take the slow path and tech math -> currency -> code of laws. On the other hand, if your happiness sucks, it's beneficial to get writing, then go priesthood -> monarchy immediately.

The trick is to use just enough scientists to keep a decent tech rate. More scientists than that is unnessary and should be growing cottages or building axemen. Less than that and you'll fall too far behind.

I'd stick with fixing the economy first, then happiness. Use scientist to fuel quicker research through Currency. Once your economy is fixed continue REXing while fixing happiness issues with Monarchy or Asthetics/Drama and Then decide on a long term Economic Plan, I.E. CE, SE, HE, HE, EE, WE.

Cottages!! What he said, plain and simple as that, also reach alpha and currency quickly for production convertion. Never shy away from taking even more cities, if you can't get alpha/currency immed but you can reach writing just run scientists as crusher1 proposes in the post above.

I find that the best way to REX is by force... Let AIs work on the cottages, clear the jungles and work cottages while you spam troops.

Basically, build 3-4 cities, all focused on production with somewhat limited cottages. Build Oracle (to get CoL) and ToA in capital. Use CoL to trade for Alphabet. The GM and GP can be used to get shrines and run trade missions (or even bulb Currency if really desperate). The conquered cities should be focused on generating wealth. After CoL and Currency, grab Calender either through trading or peace deals. Sell extra resources for gold.

The difficulty is that with such kind a REX, I essentially have to forego siege (catapults). Deciding on when to add siege to your SoD seems to be the key. Hard rexxing is without siege is somewhat difficult unless you are AGG or CHA or have horses or have an uber UU like Romans.

The difficulty is that with such kind a REX, I essentially have to forego siege (catapults). Deciding on when to add siege to your SoD seems to be the key. Hard rexxing is without siege is somewhat difficult unless you are AGG or CHA or have horses or have an uber UU like Romans.

REXing by force will work if your neighbors have pansy traits and no early land combat UU. The flip side of the sword is if you fail to conquest (AI gets longbows, hill city placement with tons of archers, has a good UU, has better resources than you that you can't steal) you've wasted tons of time, plus have lots of unit maintenance to pay. And I agree about cats---hard to get to them unless you luck out with cottage-floodplains or other quick cash, which means your REXing will end sooner.

But REXing by force is probably the only option if you overload the map with civs.

In all-around standard games, I have to go with REXing by expansive workers, chop-chop.

My screenshots of a successful Rex if anyone is interested :)



http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/8986/civ4screenshot0117.jpg

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/7761/civ4screenshot0118.jpg

This one was on noble though, I were able to support the expansion with my Great Merchant farm (GLH + Collosus + Glib capital), plus with simply placing markets in my main cities on top of the usual Courthouse + Cothon. The sciene rate quickly picks up once you have courthouses and harbors in every city, and of course it is that little extra better if you have either Rathaus or Cothon UB's.

I made a mistake of not having enough workers again, I need to work on that and have more workers ready for the rex.

Lots of great advice in here, thanks a lot guys.

My only other questions is this: Do you set your research slider to 0% immediately and save the money for deficit spending later, or do you gradually bring it down as you can't afford a high slider? I can see three things happening:

A. Set to 0% Research out of the gate and stockpile cash
B. As you go from +gold per turn to -gold per turn, manually adjust rate to +gold
C. Let the slider go down on it's own as you hit 0 gold with -gold per turn.

I don't think C is the correct answer, but if I knew for sure I wouldn't be here :)

Lots of great advice in here, thanks a lot guys.

My only other questions is this: Do you set your research slider to 0% immediately and save the money for deficit spending later, or do you gradually bring it down as you can't afford a high slider? I can see three things happening:

A. Set to 0% Research out of the gate and stockpile cash
B. As you go from +gold per turn to -gold per turn, manually adjust rate to +gold
C. Let the slider go down on it's own as you hit 0 gold with -gold per turn.

I don't think C is the correct answer, but if I knew for sure I wouldn't be here :)


The faster you get a tech, the faster you get the benefits. I almost always play from a gold deficet unless the slider drops to 20% science. Then I will build a treasury at 0% if I have libraries to avoid rounding off (a tip I got only recently in a posted game).

Cottages are a good way for Financial civs to finance REX and it gives a rapid payoff with 3 commerce for a riverside cottage and a non-riverside hamlet but other civs find that a slower method. Commerce is relatively difficult to get in the early game (which is why a gold mine is so valuable) while hammers are more available through hills, chopping and whipping using high food tiles.

A useful alternative is to part build some wonders and use the failure cash to finance deficit research. That is especially useful if they have the appropriate resource and can be supplimented by a chop or two (turning wood to gold) or hammer overflow from a whip (turning pop to gold). Then if the gold is spent when cities have libraries this gives an effective rate of 2.25 beakers for 1 hammer. Not only is this a better rate than building Wealth or Science but it can be done before Alphabet or Currency and help getting to those two techs. I always try to put a few hammers into a wonder or two (Pyramids is usually a good dummy wonder) and pick up 200 gold or so to help get to the critical techs that salvage the economy.

(C) is not correct unless you play with events disabled -- you generally want a bit cash on hand to pay for forest fires, granary restocking, wedding gifts, etc. If I know I'm going to be REXing hard, I'll do (A) after Pottery-Writing. Having some gold stockpiled also allows me to quickly pick up techs like Masonry or Hunting that I may not know whether I'll want them before I actually get the cities settled to use those resources.

Lots of great advice in here, thanks a lot guys.

My only other questions is this: Do you set your research slider to 0% immediately and save the money for deficit spending later, or do you gradually bring it down as you can't afford a high slider? I can see three things happening:

A. Set to 0% Research out of the gate and stockpile cash
B. As you go from +gold per turn to -gold per turn, manually adjust rate to +gold
C. Let the slider go down on it's own as you hit 0 gold with -gold per turn.

I don't think C is the correct answer, but if I knew for sure I wouldn't be here :)Dropping slider to 0% after writing is often best, accumulate gold, raise slider to 100% after some libs are up or even better an academy is installed.

Here is my current game I am playing today, Carthage, Archipelago map, standard size, low sea levels, 7 civs, Monarch difficulty with locked modified assets and no reloads done at all so far (Playing with HOF rules, I'm still not good enough for Immortal because I make too many mistakes though I spent the last few weeks playing on Immortal learning how to do this) - 60 BC and 14 cities placed, plus my economy is good enough with the GLH to maintain a 40% science rate and I still dont have CoL. I could have had 16 cities easilly if I had trained an extra couple of settlers in my first two cities, but generally, 12 cities by 1 AD is the target to aim for, 16 by 500 AD, and 20+ by 1000 AD:

This is the map overview showing my cities and resources:


http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2836/civ4screenshot0134.jpg

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5842/civ4screenshot0135.jpg

This is my capital with GLH, Glib, and nearly finished with the Collosus (I have copper, marble and stone on this map :)):

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/4468/civ4screenshot0136.jpg

And this is my second city which is the first fully developed Rex city with a Granary, Lighthouse, Monument (for CHA leader only, otherwise dont bother with monuments), Forge, Library and Cothon:

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/7431/civ4screenshot0137.jpg

They are very easy to set up, and bring in lots of :gold:. Then the next buildings you add are Courthouse, University, Observatory and Customs House and that is it - only build :gold: buildings in your Great Merchant farming capital, and in other cities if you need a boost, but Couthouse / Harbor / Customs house should be all that is required to make every city profitable. My capital spawned a Great Engineer first though, which is a first time for me, I were like OMG where is my Merchant? I want an extra 10% science :(. But I'll get a free wonder now, either the Mausoleum or Taj Mahal (I already have the Parthenon 33% built, and changed production to a cothon in Hippo, so I'm not wasting it on that).

I also just got the Warships quest which will give my cothons +2 :commerce: each so yay :).

I think I want to conquer the nearby Germans to steal that 5 sugar site. I have my mapfinder set to start me near 4 sugars minimum because they often come in huge clusters for a mega city like on this map, but the AI got them this time :(.

My tech path was Agricuture > Animal Husbandry > Wheel > Pottery > Sailing > Masonry > Bronze Working > Writing > Iron Working > Metal Casting > Compass > Aesthetics > Literature > Alphabet > Music (settled GA for +3 GPT) *Trade Alphabet to backfill Ancient techs and Mathematics > Currency > CoL and Beurocracy next.

Very easy on Monarch difficulty, plus I have the GLH, Glib and Collosus capital easilly set up, which will then get Oxford and Wall Street.


40 BC, and Collosus plus two more Cothons are up:

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8686/civ4screenshot0139.jpg

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6067/civ4screenshot0140.jpg

The collosus gave me +14 GPT, wealth in my capital gives +11 GPT, and the two cothons built the turn before and after gave me +6 and +10 GPT each, allowing me to increase my science rate up to 50%.

But I'm not building wealth in my two main cities, they are producing more settlers for the southern island, so my GPT is temporarilly in the red.

Ack! Sorry ALL. The forum was lagging and I have double posted =/.

How do you REX without going broke? You don't :). Go broke on purpose then pull yourself out of the hole. Here is a Continent land based game which frequently occurs. Settings are Emperor, Fredrick, Large Map, Normal Speed, Continents.



Keep in mind that REX = Rapid Expansion. My tech order went AH, BW, Archery, Myst, Agriculture, Writing, Alphabet, Currency, and Asthetics. The map had a lot of gold but I have a screen shot of me not mining any gold until past 800 BC, and even then, only 1. Trying to show that one way to succeed with a REX is to bypass cottages and focus on production and scientist to push you to Currency, at which point the player can then decide what kind of economy they wanna run. If I mined that gold/s early in a typical game I would have accelerated my tech pace quite a bit. When I do a REX I prefer ORG leaders.


http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/REX/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/REX/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/REX/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/REX/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/REX/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/REX/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/REX/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/REX/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg


Seeing how their is River everywhere if I were to continue with this game I would use a CE.

^^ LIbraries + Research and Wealth.

I havnt rexed on a continent yet, I still need to figure out how to do that properly.

I think that is why I get stuck with non FIN leader, I dont know how to properly use research and wealth like that.

nice crusher!

however, wouldn't you have been better off working all those gold pits asap?!

Also there is an argument for building markets in some cities particularly if they will have cottages or have gold mines. The fur tiles give + 1 happiness with a market and they will be built eventually in those cities, the sooner they're in place the bigger the return.

future-

Yes! I wanted to show you can REX without them though! If I didnt have gold I could only afford 8 cities, which I had by 875 BC. Taking so much land early usually does give you nice luxuries though. Using metal early would have made that REX scary!

Bhavv-

Yep ^^. Work tiles that enhance settlers, workers, and escorts first (luxury, farms, mines, chopping) - then get to your recovery tech asap, then choose an economy that will work best.

Hi Guys. I just wanted to thank everyone for all their advice. I started a game last night as Mansa Musa and utilizing all these tips, I am just wrecking prince level now. Before I would be competitive in points and fight close wars, now I am crazy ahead in points. I look forward to moving up in difficulty again soon after a few more Prince games!

Congrats! :)

future-

Yes! I wanted to show you can REX without them though! If I didnt have gold I could only afford 8 cities, which I had by 875 BC. Taking so much land early usually does give you nice luxuries though. Using metal early would have made that REX scary!

Bhavv-

Yep ^^. Work tiles that enhance settlers, workers, and escorts first (luxury, farms, mines, chopping) - then get to your recovery tech asap, then choose an economy that will work best.

I would of still posted a game without the gold. As realistically other resources would have been where the gold was in a normal map.

This thread made me laugh...

I just got done making the highly n00b mistake of REXing into jungle to cut off a rival from settling there. Note that I did so before researching ironworking. I also found out that I was completely lacking any happiness resources, besides wine and gems, which required techs I didn't have (monarchy for wine and ironworking to clear the jungle off the gems).

So, at one point it was predicting something like 135 turns to ironworking. I had to build research in just about every city to whittle it down to something more reasonable like 50 turns. Finally I became solvent once the jungles were cleared, but I was still lagging in techs.

I developed what I thought was a reasonable stack of cats, LBs, Cho-kos, and horse archers to go and punish Saladin (my only continental neighbor) for not trading ANYthing with me for ANY price. I figured I'd force something out of him by threatening Mecca, which was a wonder-filled Buhddist shrine... Too bad I forgot Sally was protective. And, turns out he already had his camels online. It didn't go well :blush:

My most powerful rex to date on Monarch, it has Locked modified assets so no I didnt cheat :p. Hammy declared on me in the previous game and took my cities, so I started again with a full list of peaceful Philo leaders.

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6275/civ4screenshot0145.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/585/civ4screenshot0146.jpg

Great map with a ton of commerce resources. Once I get Calendar and start working all those dyes and silks I will have a huge economy boom. Even stranger is that I havnt built a single Cothon or Corthouse yet, I just have GLH + Colosus in my Capital plus one settled Great Merchant, and working water tiles in my cities, allowing me to somehow keep my tech rate at 40% and I'm not even broke thanks to tech trades for :gold:. I have only built one library too in my capital to work on the Great Library, I found a marble on the next Island and dont have it conected. Oh yea, I chopped Stonehenge in my capital too ... I forgot I did that, there were loads of forests outside my capitals radius, so I sent my workers to srart chopping and got the Stonehenge, GLH and Collosus up really fast, now I need to chop the adjacent forests to cottages for the Glib.

Heres Carthage in the current game:

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/2446/civ4screenshot0147.jpg

I think thats why I got my settlers out faster, having no need to whip monuments helps an awful lot.


I have 3 more settlers in production, but cant get them out before 0 BC :(.

I have a filler spot on the grassland tip 3E 1N of Carthage which has lots of overlap, but a Fish and Wine resource so it doesnt matter, then there is still an untouched Island NE of Baria where I can see a Plains hill plus clam resource so need to settle it ASAP.

The more sea food you get the better, then you run Sids Sushi Co. But I have no Rice, my Jungle section is just full of dyes.



This thread made me laugh...

I just got done making the highly n00b mistake of REXing into jungle to cut off a rival from settling there. Note that I did so before researching ironworking. I also found out that I was completely lacking any happiness resources, besides wine and gems, which required techs I didn't have (monarchy for wine and ironworking to clear the jungle off the gems).



Oh I've done that lots of time. I used to rely on getting Iron Working by trading Alphabet or Aesthetics, and my jungle cities would just suffer and cost too much maintenece without being able to cottage them. What you need to do is if you need to settle a jungle site early, simply research Iron Working before Alphabet - you cant rely on getting it from an AI if you need to chop jungles down to get your cities growing, the sooner your cities are growing and working improved tiles, the better.

525 AD, 21 cities, and 4 more settlers being shipped, 2 on the galley, 2 next to Sabratha waiting for another galley to return.


http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4436/civ4screenshot0148.jpg

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/122/civ4screenshot0149.jpg

50% :science: rate, a little bit negative, but Cothons and Courthouses are now being built in every city and whipped as soon as I can. As it has been said by others, GLH cities literally pay for themselves and make profit with just a harbor + courthouse, plus the Collosus gives you a nice boost as well.

If it was on Immortal difficulty though, the whole world would have been settled by the AI by now. I have vassal states turned off to help slow down AI spread in my Archipelago games, with Vassal states on it becomes a nighmare, the AI REX's like mad, colonises every island and makes plenty of Vassal States.

I havnt even spread my state religion yet, not even to my capital lol - I'll spread it to my capital soon and use Pacifism. Actually, I'll also change to Budhism because Sitting Bull is next to me and I cant afford to have him declare on me, so I will change to his religion.


1000 AD update, expansion stopped at 26 cities as everywhere is colonised now:

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3373/civ4screenshot0151.jpg

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/1028/civ4screenshot0152.jpg

Easy win now, and just about everyone is Budhist and my Diplo has gone well with most AI at pleased no one on annoyed, so I should be safe from attacks, but will rush some military soon just to be safe. I didnt need to update my ships, so am holding off on teching Astromomy to keep Stonehenge and Collosus working for a little while longer, and am going for the Statue of Lib in my capital, and then the Eifell Tower.

Cottages fund, scientists research. Stay out of STRIKE and you're golden.

I think thats why I got my settlers out faster, having no need to whip monuments helps an awful lot.

But it just feels so natural and historically sound to whip out some of the ancient wonders like the GWall and whatnot :p

But it just feels so natural and historically sound to whip out some of the ancient wonders like the GWall and whatnot :p

IIRC, The Great Wall isn't an Ancient Wonder even though it is presented as such in CIV

@ bhavv: That's a mighty fine effort there, but I couldn't help but laugh at your 525AD screenie :lol:. You have like 1 archer for every 5 cities :eek:. Just goes to highlight that if you can neglect your military a bit (archipelago maps can be a bit extreme like this), that you can REx it up even more.

Yeah, having a good map location helps with pesky things like defense! Still, if you can survive...

prioritize your settles by which will offer the quickest profitability in a city. Floodplains, gold, silver, sugar, or city sites wityh lots of food resources allow you to cottage more quickly and offset those maintenance costs allowing you to keep pumping the workers and settlers. Also remember that dyes are great, as are gems, but it they're buried within jungle, until iron working and calendar and you've got loads of workers to cut them down you might as well be settling in desert.