Rexercise: an expansion challenge

[VoiceOfUnreason]

If you did this with joao it would be a lot more cities.

Joao was never under consideration. The most likely candidate if I need to spin a second version of this is Saladin, although Monty deserves some consideration as well.

Reviewing the list just now, also maybe Alexander. I might need to play mix and match with the Civ, though.

 

[Mutineer]

I am not a great rexxer, but 9 cities + 1 more settler in position.

population = 29
Buildings

Totem poles - 6
Granaries - 7
Libraries -2
Light houses - 2
barracks - 1
Temples - 2
Forges - 1

GLH, Oracle


8 workers, complete texnology dominance. IN HR, Org religion, slavery.

Rex supported by GLH and Oracle. Colosys in a few turn will sort money problem for more rex if one want to.
Ohh I actually can immideatly rex more, Just need to make peace with hammy for opening trade routes.

 

[Mikehendi]

Number of cities: 11
Total population: 35?

Buildings constructed:
8 Totem poles
4 libraries
2 granaries
1 barracks
1 academy (Gscientist)

Units:
8 Workers
15 Dog soldiers
1 Warrior

Also produced:
2 Workboats
2 Great Scientists (academy + settled in capital)

Opening Techpath was
Min-BW while going WB-worker

AH for the sheep and cow (2nd city site)


South of the capital was a city spot with corn, fish, cow and copper (borrowed from the capital). I settled that city second, with 3 6-yield tiles and 1 5-yield tiles, it would be a perfect worker-settler pump.

This would free up the capital for working cottages very early in the game so:

Wheel-Pottery

next
myst for border pops
sailing for trade routes (first 3 cities on the coast)

and finally (Standard rex techpath, except self-researched monarchy after trading for the prereqs, because no happy/recourse in sight.)

writing-alphabet-monarchy-currency-researching col now, 2 turns left.


3rd city was about 8 tiles away, northwest, at the sheep-corn-iron site, it produced the 2 great scientists (totem pole-library)

4th city was southwest at the cow-horse+hills site, it produced totem pole-barracks-infinite dog soldiers

The rest of the cities all had at least 1 food recource, and if riverside tiles, got cottaged (totem pole-granary), if non-riverside it got library, grow to size 3, work 2 scientists.


at 100% science slider 1 get 136 bpt @ -70 gpt
at 100% gold slider I get 33 bpt @ +7 gpt
But:
6 of my cities are producing wealth for 18 GPT

City specialization:
- 1 Bureau-ready Capital, working 4 villages (towns in 8-16-23-23 turns) and 1 hamlet

- 1 unit production center (12 hammers, dog soldier every 3 turns)

- 1 worker/settler pump (8 hammers + 10 food = 18 production)

- 3 cities with library (no granary yet!) running 2 scientists each

- 2 cities working 2-3 cottages

- 3 (newish) cities doing an excellent job on draining the economy

After alphabet, I traded for small religious techs, hunting-archery and Iron working.
After currency, I sold those small techs to the ai's who didn't have them yet for 10-40 gold each. This helped a lot in keeping the science slider up.

Yes, I do only have 2 granaries at this point. A lot of cities are building wealth, when they reach size 4 I'll whip granaries in them. Also, they are not needed to support health.

Plan to win the game: Probably settle/convert a city to help producing archers or dog soldiers to raise the happy cap some more. After Col, whip/chop courthouses (after granaries) Worker/settler pump will produce about 5-8 workers before anything else, to keep up improving land while cities grow. Try to trade for mathematics, research civil service

settle some more cities (no rival borders in sight yet in the south.

win liberalism.

go peacefull spacerace with +/- 15 cities


I did make screenshots, if people are interested in them let me know, then I'll try to find out again how to upload them.

 

[Mikehendi]

O yeah, and thanks VoU, for coming up with these excercises! I have never manged to REX the way I just did, I always keep thinking I should do X first or build wonder Y, need more workers first, get tech Z first, or cities should grow first, I have a whole list of excuses not to REX, usually end up with 5-7 cities around 1AD.

Still, I am amazed at what a strong position I am in now, having 11 cities @ 0% slider, tech lead, strong capital, reasonably OK militairy.

PS I also very much enjoyed your 4 greene fields map. Thanks again for hosting and I'll be looking forward to the next map!

 

[ICNP]

Why is Philosophical and the military techs so important? Personally, I'd want a Cultural leader for this, Financial or Organized, and maybe Imperialistic (probably rather have Expansive though)

Spiritual and Aggressive would be at the bottom of my list, so I'm guessing that you just want people to not rely on the traits at all?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Spiritual and Aggressive would be at the bottom of my list, so I'm guessing that you just want people to not rely on the traits at all?

Almost. More specifically, I want people to address ALL of the problems of rapid expansion.

The theory being that Imp and Agg have the same problems with border pops (and likely the same solutions), Agg and Cre have the same problems finding hammers for settlers, they ALL have problems with maintenance that you don't see with Org, etc.

 

[JBossch]

I fear my entry is not in the spirit of the challenge's intended lesson, but I'm pretty sure I didn't break any rules.

17 cities
35 Pop

9 Totem poles
4 Granaries
plus some hammers into libraries here and there

As for demonstrating this is a winner - umm, that may be a little harder since I am bleeding money at -54 gpt. 7 of my cities were settled on the last turn (I had one more but I wasn't paying attention and let one get killed by a barb in 25BC ). Even the original ten were breaking the bank though. around 250BC I went into strike for a turn and started deleting units, switching to 1F2C coast tiles, etc.

Fun challenge though. I guess I'm in the lead since 11 was the previous leader.

 

[Kadazzle]

I'll give this a try tonight.

 

[Kadazzle]

START

Capital Queue/Pop Size:

Worker -> Settler -> Warrior (3) -> Warrior (4)
Animal Husbandry -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Mysticism -> Writing -> Aesthetics -> Polytheism -> Literature

1st Worker Moves/Turns:

Pastured Horse (4)
Farmed Grassland Rivers (5)
Farmed Grassland Riverside (5)
Roading Towards Second City site (6)

- Settled Second City Site -

- Settled Third City Site -

- Settled Fourth City Site -

- Settled Fifth City Site -

- Settled Sixth City Site -

- Settled Seventh city Site -

- Settled Eighth City Site -

- Settled Ninth City Site -

- Settled Tenth City Site -

Totals
Cities: 10
Population: 33
Libraries: 4
Totem Poles: 2
Granaries: 7
Chariots: 4
Warriors: 9
Workers: 8 (3 more Workers in 3 Turns)
Settlers: 3 (One Ready, 1 More in 1 turn, 1 in 3 turns)
Great Person: 4 Turns

I have a bunch more infrastructure going on, and I have a decent techrate for amount of early cities - which can easily be turned into a lot of yummy science with cottages. Overall I'm in a really easy position to win. I have cottages up, some of which are mature. I'm sharing a lot of food, but have libraries and a good amount of specialists. My workers generally just did things that would speed up my rex plus do good for the economy, so lots of roading to new sites, chopping, putting down cottages, improving resources, mines. I also converted to Judaism and got trade routes going with Hammy, which helped in the economical department. I need my cities to raise in population before my techrate get really good.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I fear my entry is not in the spirit of the challenge's intended lesson, but I'm pretty sure I didn't break any rules.

Sometimes it's fun to attempt to craft rules that won't be gamed. Not often.


Maybe recovering your game (without gifting cities) should be the next challenge....

 

[sakhmet]

Cities: 12 - 1 settler 1 turn away from next city...
Population: 29
Libraries: 0
Totem Poles: 7
Granarys: 2

Warriors: 10
Dog Solidiers: 6
Workers: 7

Went: wheel, pottery, AH - then mining/BW
Cottaged the capital asap and went on to build 2nd city east, with corn and fish. Left the cow for the 3rd city.
I got heavily barbarian trouble. Actually lost my 3rd city with 1 warrior defending at some point. Luckily a dog soldier took it back 1 turn later - it 40% attack. Was getting ready to quit the game and uninstall it!

My civ is very underdeveloped, but I do have a lot of cities. Got currency before I had to lower my science slider to below 20.

Fun game.

 

[Flayed One]

My new result:

11 cities
25 population

buildings:
4 totem poles
2 granaries
1 ligthhouse
1 greatlighthouse

units(after massive strike between 200BC - 1AD):
5 workers
7 warriors
3 dog soldiers

There is still lot's of room for improvement;/

 

[UncleJJ]

I tried this and I've never been a great Rexer. I seem to have very different results from other people. Only 9 cities at 1 AD but I did have 45 pop. However my economy is very strong, I have 179 gold and the slider is at 30% and +2 gold/turn.

I went the Calendar route rather than Monarchy and with silk, spices and dye have a general happiness of 7, which is great at 1 AD. Despite SB being a Philosophical leader I'm working 3 villages, 8 hamlets and 6 cottages, which togther with the resources are giving oodles of commerce. I'm waiting for Currency to come in (2 turns)and then will turn on deficit research which with all the commerce and libraries should be a step change in research (currently only 41 beakers/turn at 30%).

Buildings:
1 granary
7 totem poles
5 libraries
1 settled GS

Units built:
8 workers
5 warriors
8 dogs (lost 1)
7 chariots (lost 2)
2 workboat
1 galley (half way round the world)

This was a really weird game (for me) and I never play SB like this normally He's Philosophical and Protective and I only have 1 GS at this time and no archers despite having 7 totem poles In fact I only just traded for Archery. And I'm not in Slavery

It will be interesting to replay going for Monarchy instead of Calendar and using Slavery to boost / control happiness to see if that gives a better result. I'll try that later.

 

[sakhmet]

@uncleJJ

Yeah, your empire is far more developed than mine. But the task was to rex, and I just shut every other thing out. SETTLERS! WORKERS! DOGS-WARRIORS!
Worked cottages to be able to expand.

For the next rexercise, we should introduce: happiness and beakers aswell. I found my self being very simple-minded! - and only focusing on the next city. Not even proper placement.

 

[Mikehendi]

Continued up to 1000 AD:

Cities: 13 (about to settle one and capture a barb one for 15 cities)

Population: 64 (capital size 13)

Buildings:

12 Totem Poles
9 Granaries
9 Courthouses
6 Libraries
3 Barracks
1 Academy (capital)
1 Market (capital
1 Great Library (at the sheep+corn site nortwest of capital)
1 Heroic Epic (cow horse + hills site SW of capital)

Units:

11 Workers (lost 2 to barbs, 1 sacraficed to divert a barb to save a city, 1 auto-road-to-infrontofbarb)

21 Dog soldiers
10 Archers
7 Swordsman (to capture barb cities, dog soldiers suck at it)
1 Spearman (2-pop-whip overflow trick for Great Library)
1 Warrior
1 Settler

Also:

4 great scientists --> 1 academy + 3 settled in capital (nothing much to bulb and ai wouldn't trade their techs yet)
Forbidden palace is being built, I almost never build enough courthouses for it to unlock, so I'm curious to see how much GPT I'll save with it.

Income:

100% Gold --> +111 GPT, 042 BPT ( 102 gpt, 031 bpt from cap)
050% Gold --> -013 GPT, 195 BPT ( 051 gpt, 103 bpt from cap)
000% Gold --> -137 GPT, 347 BPT ( 000 gpt, 175 bpt from cap)

I even forgot to trade recources for gpt to the ai (or at all, actually)

Tech situation:
Most ai's have construction, 3 have metal casting, 2 have HBR, 1 has Philosophy, 1 has Theology, 1 has Feudalism.

No AI will trade any of their techs at the moment!

I have a monopoly on literature, civil service and paper.

Gameflow:

After I teched COL, i noticed no one had aestethics yet, so I detoured to literature for the Glibrary and some of the cheaper techs to trade away. (I actually sold aesthetics to all ai's for 60 to 140 gold each, netting me about 400 gold)

Next was mathematics (ai still wouldnt trade it) and civil service for Bureaucracy.

Philosophy was already discovered by an ai, so I went paper next, followed by education. I hope (but don't expect) to trade for philosophy after education (9 turns left till completion).

I was however able to trade for calendar, so my happy cap for all cities is finally rising (3 or 4 calendar happy recourses available).

So, doing ok militairy (Though I should watch diplo more, I still never give that much consideration. I don't have a state religion and I am trying to have Hammurabi and Monty pleased with me, I have no idea if they will declare at pleased or such, or what their favorite civics are).

Future plans: Very soon I'll have 15-17 cities, and then costs will stagnate, while cities begin to develop themselves, growing to their new happy caps (from 5-6 to 8-10), this will cause to increase my techrate, win liberalism and probably will be able to take something expensive with it. No need for war (I'm not very good at it), will win space by many miles (most cities can be transformed from commerce centers to production city's at the end, great flexibility with all this green terrain).

Still no screenshots, but if they are desired, let me know.

EDIT: I just traded away my excess recourses for banana's and 25 GPT (still 100AD), which brings research for education down from 9 to 7 turns.

 

[JBossch]

Sometimes it's fun to attempt to craft rules that won't be gamed. Not often.


Maybe recovering your game (without gifting cities) should be the next challenge....

Haha, not possible at all. My workers would all be disbanded in a few turns. If I had stuck with about 10-12 cities and actually played as though I intended to win (ie: work cottages instead of crap coast tiles) it wouldn't be a problem at all.

I still claim the record though.

 

[UncleJJ]

@uncleJJ

Yeah, your empire is far more developed than mine. But the task was to rex, and I just shut every other thing out. SETTLERS! WORKERS! DOGS-WARRIORS!
Worked cottages to be able to expand.

For the next rexercise, we should introduce: happiness and beakers aswell. I found my self being very simple-minded! - and only focusing on the next city. Not even proper placement.

I think it is debateable as to what the purpose of REX is. It is not normally to build as many cities as possible regardless of their "quality", rather it is usually to control a lot of land and gain an advantage from the extra resources and working more tiles (eventually). It might even be to deny land to the AI.

In my game I judge it is not neccessary for me to expand beyond the 9 cities I had at 1AD. They had everything I needed for that stage of the game. I controlled all the good resources (except sugar deep in the jungle) and had horse, copper and iron (any one of those is enough). What would be the purpose of expanding? It would hurt my economy and cost far more than delaying and waiting for courthouses and Civil Service for chain irrigation. Each new city really needs 2 workers initially to make it cost effective and I'm already paying quite a lot of maintenace on troops and workers. The AI is not contesting any of my border areas yet. Once my core cities are set up I can expand into any useful spaces left or just war and knock the AI's out of any cities I want. My game is a winning position already and the quickest way to win is to stop REXing and consolidate for a while and then expand again once my economy is stronger.

I admit I could have squandered my gold and built maybe 5 more settlers and plunked those down on 25 BC, but that is just exploiting the knowledge about the end date. It certainly would not have been a stronger economy or win the game quicker.

Anyway, it was an interesting exercise, I enjoyed playing this game and never expected to win against better players. The early part of the game has always been something I endure rather than enjoy and I come into my own later on with more developed empires.

 

[Mutineer]

I did it one more try..

Result is interesting, same 9 cities.

Ohh and I am neutral at 50% slider and have 0 cottages.

But reseach vise I am up to civil service and buildings wize.....


There are 2 differences outside my direct controll.. in my first try I was successful in stealing workers( I think I steal 6), but there was barbarian city spawn on coast, cutting me off AI trade routes.
Second time, I managed to steal only 1 worker and I had a lot of units die at 70% winiing odds, but there was no barbarian city on coast.

It is funny, that I was more successful in stealing workers when I had no idea where AI is

I think I will give it one more try with some different research path.

 

[Burning Stone]

Late to the party, but since I'm a Monarch player who struggles with rex, this is very interesting.

I have 10 cities, pop 40. 7 totem poles, 4 granaries, and a completely trashed economy.

 

[drlake]

I may try this later today or tomorrow, since I have trouble with good early expansion.