1000 Beakers! Per Turn!

[generalwar]

I've been playing around with suggestions here and am suddenly a MUCH stronger player.

It doesn't have much cost to drop settlers on lux resources for trades. As long as you don't trade yourself into bad , which you probably won't if you go coli first in each new city, the lux resource ROI is absolutely incredible even if you DON'T BS the AI via self-pillaged tiles every 3 turns (I avoid doing this expecting it to be patched).

You can build military units/gold in one city, science buildings in another, and everything else is just stock small cities that are really more like resource outposts that eventually generate wealth (significantly more than they cost) - the ability to spam bankrolling RAs just completely overwhelms everything else in the game right now. Even with like 200 bpt I dug into the modern era around 1600 AD or so and was throwing around mechinf and air not long after. I don't micro optimize because I'm lazy, good players on larger maps (this one was tiny; only 3 RAs at once available) could get MUCH deeper into the tree sooner due to more RA. They're just that good, whether or not you "steer" them.

So right now, this game is EXTREMELY resource driven, with a little bit of requirements in tactics and macro specialization (a big science capitol to clear more minor techs is a nice plus).

I have won 2 games these days, 1 on prince and 1 on king without any problems thanks to advices of players who understood the game earlier.
Btw, how did you get to modern era in 1600s? I got in it in 1800s. I built libraries in half of my cities, 3 or 4 universities, 2 public schools and NC in the capital at the begining (that building is great) and it didn't go above 300. I had around 15 cities. Afterwards I conquered 20 cities and science improved more, but still, I would like to know how do you get that much beakers. It could help me to go to higher levels.

 

[Oerdin]

I was over 1000 beakers per turn in my first Inca game by the late game. It's not hard and all you have to do is expand aggressively, kill off one or two civs, capture a few city states, then make sure you build the science buildings in your cities. This expansionist policy is also good because it insures you have all the raw materials and luxuries you need right to the very end of the game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I have won 2 games these days, 1 on prince and 1 on king without any problems thanks to advices of players who understood the game earlier.
Btw, how did you get to modern era in 1600s? I got in it in 1800s. I built libraries in half of my cities, 3 or 4 universities, 2 public schools and NC in the capital at the begining (that building is great) and it didn't go above 300. I had around 15 cities. Afterwards I conquered 20 cities and science improved more, but still, I would like to know how do you get that much beakers. It could help me to go to higher levels.

Spam research agreements. No amount of reasonable bpt can touch what having 5 or so RA active at all times can do for you.

 

[generalwar]

Spam research agreements. No amount of reasonable bpt can touch what having 5 or so RA active at all times can do for you.

Yeah, I forgot totally about that, thanks. In these rounds I didn't have even 1 RA. I wanted to have them, but I would always rip off AIs for gold in change for my resources so they never got money for RA.

 

[grandad1982]

^^

I'm guessing RAs work better at higher levels were the AI have more cash to burn. On King (were I play) one war and the AI seem to run out of cash (well in the mid game not so much later on).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^^

I'm guessing RAs work better at higher levels were the AI have more cash to burn. On King (were I play) one war and the AI seem to run out of cash (well in the mid game not so much later on).

Loan them money if need be (gpt for cash) just to buy the RA. Even if it isn't a favorable deal to you, you're talking about potentially 500+ or late game 1000's of beakers for much less gold than that. Distribute cash to get as many as possible.

 

[avl8]

Well, that are my 2 cents to the great thread.

First, planned settling is more important than ever!
Natural wonders, jungles and mountains are damn good to settle at asap.
Its worth putting a city next to natural wonder asap if it provides you an early beaker boost. With mid-game multipliers itll be worth settling even w/o luxuries around.
Same goes to mountain tiles. Observatories is a must postpatch since it provide decent boost to gs points.
Same goes to jungle tiles. With univercities and Free thought policy, jungle tradeposts are awesome!

And since using RAs postpatch is damn strong, Arabia is my favourite now. UA is nice, but UB is imbalanced!

Bazaar provides more fuel for your trading income than any other building in the game. And thats for a 120 hammers! Its even worth to rushbuy it since its ROI is awesome. This is why I love peacekeeping/all-trading games! You get every client satisfied and your bank account full of gold during the game.

And that leads to a bazaar spam build order. And... of course you want National Treasury on top of this golden empire! Mints too if you have some gold/silver, so does banks!

Good cook and a good digestion included!

PS. In my recent game I hit +108 gpt by turn 99, thats without National Treasury/banks/natural wonders around.
Ah, thats with only 4 cities!

I wont be surprised if we ll see nice heavy-commerce strategies soon with all-powerful RAs and rushbought science buildings! Welcome back, poor Commerce policies.

 

[Bibor]

the lux resource ROI is absolutely incredible

Maybe true for your level. Lets check out this "King" screenshot I just take.

- No lux trades going on (I have 4 surplus silver)
- No RAs active (either by me or AIs)

Suddenly settling on luxuries is a bad idea (they provide extra 2 or more GPT throughout the whole game after all).

 

[fjordan]

@Bibor: So a nuance to your remark: luxuries are not as important on lower levels where the AI has less cash around. Still, they are good in itself. Also, I would beeline astronomy if I had such poor neigbours even if it would delay conquering those same poor neighbours. I don't think all AI's will be that poor. Or is the difference that big for King level? If I read your comments you should be able to compete at a higher level too but then you may have to adjust your view on this

 

[Bibor]

I completely agree that resoures are essential when (almost) every AI has 300+ gold at all times. Every happiness resource on higher levels is thus worth around 13 per turn (more for silver/gold/gems) and even more .

 

[Seek]

Maybe true for your level. Lets check out this "King" screenshot I just take.

- No lux trades going on (I have 4 surplus silver)
- No RAs active (either by me or AIs)

Suddenly settling on luxuries is a bad idea (they provide extra 2 or more GPT throughout the whole game after all).

Each of those AIs have enough gpt for a trade - you won't get more than 10gpt for a luxury in my experience, so why not? Better than sitting on excess luxuries! Even if they say a trade isn't possible, you *can* get them to trade with some tweaking.

 

[Rittmeyer]

Each of those AIs have enough gpt for a trade - you won't get more than 10gpt for a luxury in my experience, so why not? Better than sitting on excess luxuries! Even if they say a trade isn't possible, you *can* get them to trade with some tweaking.

I think he means they don't have enough money for both buying your resources AND signing RA's (which seens to be the mais point in this debate).

 

[Monthar]

However, he could get 10 gpt from all 3 of them and when the 30 turns are over that's 900 gold accumulated, plus whatever he earns on his own. He could then loan enough to at least 1 if not 2 of the AIs to start 1-2 RA's. If the loan is cash for GPT and he finds additional civs during those 30 turns, he should be able to sell the resources to the newly found civs for either lump sums or gpt and repeat the process with even more RA's on the next cycle.

Sure, this isn't as fast as Immortal or Deity luxury sells to get RA's, but it will work. Plus, the AI on the lower difficulty levels do research slower, so fewer RA's would be needed to keep up or stay ahead of them.

There's also the fact that you have greater happiness on the lower difficulty level, thus can have either more cities or more citizens in each city. This means more beakers and cash generated. That extra cash generation can be used to loan or give money to the AI to get another RA.

 

[Rittmeyer]

I never see the point in discussing such deep strategy for lower levels. Really, almost anything will win below emperor. The player just have to learn any efficient playstyle and he can win, he doesn't need the optimal plays all game long.

Maybe it has a puporse for people who like to finish games as early as possible, score stuff and all. I don't care for that, so I can't help much.

Apart from that, optimal strategy discussion should be limited to IMM+. Tips and guidance for lower levels are obviously necessary to help people make the jump. But that's another thing completely. Also, if someone is aiming for 1000 beakers, they should just move up a level. I play and beat IMM and I never get to a 1000. Haven't played Deity post-patch, so I can't talk about that level.

 

[Monthar]

I never see the point in discussing such deep strategy for lower levels. Really, almost anything will win below emperor. The player just have to learn any efficient playstyle and he can win, he doesn't need the optimal plays all game long.

Maybe it has a puporse for people who like to finish games as early as possible, score stuff and all. I don't care for that, so I can't help much.

Apart from that, optimal strategy discussion should be limited to IMM+. Tips and guidance for lower levels are obviously necessary to help people make the jump. But that's another thing completely. Also, if someone is aiming for 1000 beakers, they should just move up a level. I play and beat IMM and I never get to a 1000. Haven't played Deity post-patch, so I can't talk about that level.

Ever consider that some people have personal goals they want to achieve as an indication that they feel they are good enough to advance to the next difficulty level?

Also, this forum is for strategy and tips for all difficulty levels, not just the top two. So when someone asks how they can accomplish this on the lower difficulty levels where the AI doesn't have all the bonuses, they deserve to be helped just as much as the next person.

Yes, those lower difficulty levels are more forgiving, but they are still as much of a challenge for some people as immortal and deity are to you.

 

[biohazard72]

I never see the point in discussing such deep strategy for lower levels. Really, almost anything will win below emperor. The player just have to learn any efficient playstyle and he can win, he doesn't need the optimal plays all game long.

Maybe it has a puporse for people who like to finish games as early as possible, score stuff and all. I don't care for that, so I can't help much.

Apart from that, optimal strategy discussion should be limited to IMM+. Tips and guidance for lower levels are obviously necessary to help people make the jump. But that's another thing completely. Also, if someone is aiming for 1000 beakers, they should just move up a level. I play and beat IMM and I never get to a 1000. Haven't played Deity post-patch, so I can't talk about that level.

Oh my god, I love you for posting this. I agree completely - you don't need flawless or optimized strategy to win on lower levels, so it seems redundant to me to discuss strategies tailored to them (beyond offering advice to those having difficulty with those levels).

If you can beat those difficulties reliably and are posting your strategies on how, why aren't you moving up in difficulty? Once you hit Immortal and Deity, you get to join the community of extremely intelligent posters we have on the Strategy and Tips forum. It's fun discussing the different viable strategies on the hardest difficulties.

Summation: lower level players should look for tips to move up to higher levels, then they can contribute to the thriving discussions on how to beat the highest of difficulties. The best players should give the best tips possible to these players in addition to furthering the discussion of higher difficulties. That way everyone gets better at Civ5, which is what we all want, right?

P.S. I finished a game with Mongolia on Deity where I ended up with around 950 beakers per turn, finishing by spaceship on turn 251. But they are such exceptional warmongers that the optimal strategies for them are probably very different than other civs.

 

[Rittmeyer]

Yes, those lower difficulty levels are more forgiving, but they are still as much of a challenge for some people as immortal and deity are to you.

This is my point. I like to help people in this challenge, because I only moved up to IMM due to others here helping me do it. But I believe that discussing something like "how to not only beat King, but also do so making 99.9% the right decisions for the whole game" or "not only beat King but do so with 1000 beakers while your main rival only ever got to 100" will not help this guys, not they way they need it.

On the other hand, I'm not telling anyone to shut up. I understand that people may want to make perfect King games for scoring purposes or some other kind of competition. But, it has nothing to do with "beating King consistently", which in my opinion is the only pre requisite to move up a level (considering when you move up you are planning to win games without hitting your head in the monitor due do frustration).

 

[lilnev]

Back on topic, I hit 100 bpt around 500 AD in my last game (Emperor, Darius). It could have been significantly faster, maybe 1 AD, but I detoured for Steel (I started in the middle of Rome, Japan, Songhai), and hadn't saved enough cash to rush-buy Universities when I hit Education.

That game had a few disadvantages -- the neighbors, and few luxuries. But a few advantages too -- random climate settings started me in a huge patch of jungle.

I'm pretty sure extensive jungles will give the fastest baseline bpt levels. With just a library and university, each pop can bring in 5.25, or 7 for the NC city. I hit my 100 bpt with just two science cities (plus a production city making a small contribution), but it's scalable. You could easily spam a bunch of size 6 or 8 jungle cities, building Coliseum, Library, University, maybe Theaters if needed. Add Free Speech for the extra trading post beaker, prioritize mountains for Observatories, and Public schools: 11 beakers per jungle tile, or 13.25 for the NC city.

(In fact in my game, I went war-mongering with longswords and trebs, and I took the Commerce line + Big Ben for cheap rush-buys, rather than Rationalism. But that might not be a bad approach if you're looking to put up significant infrastructure in a bunch of hammer-poor cities that are working jungle trade-posts anyway).

 

[biohazard72]

Today I started a new Mongolia game. I ended up on a 5 civ continent with a Wine monopoly, so I signed 4 RAs and used them to grab Civil Service, Education, Compass, and Astronomy (which I got at turn 90). I also managed to REX well enough to push the second policy to the Renaissance - this is very tricky with the NC start and is impossible with cultural ruins. Your RA timing also has to be really good.

Starting with on the 5 civ continent feels stronger than games with a 4/4 split because of the extra early RAs and luxury trades, but we'll see - later on, when on-continent RAs aren't feasible, I may change my view.

I'll probably play this game to completion, so expect a longish post on Mongolia Deity strategy upcoming. I'm starting to become pretty convinced that they're on the same level as Siam post-patch (although different - they tech by warmongering and capturing strong cities, then rushing Courthouses)

 

[alpaca]

I've been playing around with suggestions here and am suddenly a MUCH stronger player.

It doesn't have much cost to drop settlers on lux resources for trades. As long as you don't trade yourself into bad , which you probably won't if you go coli first in each new city, the lux resource ROI is absolutely incredible even if you DON'T BS the AI via self-pillaged tiles every 3 turns (I avoid doing this expecting it to be patched).

You can build military units/gold in one city, science buildings in another, and everything else is just stock small cities that are really more like resource outposts that eventually generate wealth (significantly more than they cost) - the ability to spam bankrolling RAs just completely overwhelms everything else in the game right now. Even with like 200 bpt I dug into the modern era around 1600 AD or so and was throwing around mechinf and air not long after. I don't micro optimize because I'm lazy, good players on larger maps (this one was tiny; only 3 RAs at once available) could get MUCH deeper into the tree sooner due to more RA. They're just that good, whether or not you "steer" them.

So right now, this game is EXTREMELY resource driven, with a little bit of requirements in tactics and macro specialization (a big science capitol to clear more minor techs is a nice plus).

Seems like we pretty much share the same conclusions. There is one significant difference between microing RA and refraining from it: If you micro them, you can go deep research incredibly fast. If you don't, you'll likely want to go for a broader scope to maximise RA beaker yield. The second is a lot more interesting for me because the profits of a deep beeline are often very good, so this creates decisions (maximise bpt or get the deep research benefit).

Funnily enough, even though the game is very resource-trading dependent (are you selling strategics by the way? each is worth 45 gold) the Bazaar isn't that awesome in most games because the game places the resources often in clusters, so you'll have 3 or 4 of a single resource anyways.