Starting Early Expansion Strategy? (Emp+)

Howdy folks, I seem to have lost some vital skills in the game during the bothersome two semesters that got in the way of grinding out more emperor wins. Near the end of summer, last year, I was regularly pulling off an emperor win (maybe 1/2 the time), tried my hand at Immortal throughout the the college semester, realized I didn't hate myself enough to play on Immortal, and went back to nice relaxing Emperor-level. Now I've apparently forgotten some vital understanding of REXing that allowed me to actually REX fairly early, effectively, without destroying my econ and without focusing everyting on wiping out a nearby neighbor early on, and still end up even or ahead in points.

Yet for some reason, now I've lost whatever it was that let me do that, and I cannot seem to make it past 1AD without being behind in points by a staggering 200-400 amount, or the few times I do, I am suddenly and rapidly outstripped by another nation.

I'm trying my best to remember my strategy, it went something like this:

• 1st Turn: Research BW (or mining). Build Worker (or fishing boat, depending on food supply). Scout in a semi-circle around my starting city.
  
• Turn B: After BW is researched and worker is built, chop-rush first new settler. Research Mysticism, or food source for second-city. Start moving my warrior/scout into receiving position for nearest priority-settlement spot spaced so that there are no more than 2 shared tiles or 2 "useless" tiles (like mountains, deep sea squares, deserts).
  
• Turn C: Second City gets planted, in it, build either monument if fat cross is needed before city is usable, or worker if it isn't. First City now grows while building a warrior. Next research will either be Wheel, Sailing, or Pottery, depending on my particular financial strategy. Worker on 1st City improves food source (if no fish) or mines (if fish).
  
• Turn D: Once First City finishes growth, chop-rush next settler, while the 2nd Warrior/Scout that it just finished building moves into receiving/escort position. If no source of copper is available to settle on, research iron. Else, research Writing.
  
• Turn E: Second City should finish monument (or worker) roughly about the time the settler from Turn D finishes building. Set Second City to build worker (or monument, whichever didn't get built first). Move Settler from First City to next settlement. Focus research on Archery/Masonry to get defenses up before barbs and wars get out of hand. Build another military unit in First City while city grows.
  
• Turn F: Once First City is up to Pop 3, start next settler. Third City follows Second City in early-actions. Second City will soon start defenses (walls or archers or both) while worker develops food and hammers.
  
• Wash, rinse, repeat. Every population growth of my First City means another settler gets produced. Once cities are militarily secure, I begin improving the econ.

Somehow, this fails to net me a good place in the stats. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Any help from Emp+ players would be appreciated. No offense to players on lower levels intended whatsoever, it's just that the game dynamic changes considerably once you hit Emperor (and even more so at Immortal and Deity). I have a feeling I'm still playing with a Monarch mindset.

thelibra said:

[*] 1st Turn: Research BW (or mining). Build Worker (or fishing boat, depending on food supply). Scout in a semi-circle around my starting city.

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Are you insane? Bronze working is insanely pricey, so unless your choking in forests, don't tech it first. That's a Warlords expansion strategy

[*] Turn B: After BW is researched and worker is built, chop-rush first new settler. Research Mysticism, or food source for second-city. Start moving my warrior/scout into receiving position for nearest priority-settlement spot spaced so that there are no more than 2 shared tiles or 2 "useless" tiles (like mountains, deep sea squares, deserts).

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Why aren't you growing the city by building warriors for escorts and spawnbusting. Mysticism is a bad tech to research unless you have stone or are under culture pressure.

[*] Turn D: Once First City finishes growth, chop-rush next settler, while the 2nd Warrior/Scout that it just finished building moves into receiving/escort position. If no source of copper is available to settle on, research iron. Else, research Writing.

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Research IW? That is way way to pricey. Try AH instead if you can't find something.

[*] Turn E: Second City should finish monument (or worker) roughly about the time the settler from Turn D finishes building. Set Second City to build worker (or monument, whichever didn't get built first). Move Settler from First City to next settlement. Focus research on Archery/Masonry to get defenses up before barbs and wars get out of hand. Build another military unit in First City while city grows.

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Masonry why? the great wall is usually out of reach if you waited that late.

[*] Turn F: Once First City is up to Pop 3, start next settler. Third City follows Second City in early-actions. Second City will soon start defenses (walls or archers or both) while worker develops food and hammers.

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walls suck. and it seems like you don't have a lot of workers

Somehow, this fails to net me a good place in the stats. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Any help from Emp+ players would be appreciated. No offense to players on lower levels intended whatsoever, it's just that the game dynamic changes considerably once you hit Emperor (and even more so at Immortal and Deity). I have a feeling I'm still playing with a Monarch mindset.

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How would this strategy work on monarch? I just don't see it.

Bronzeworking first always is going to cripple you much of the time. There are times depending on your starting civ where it is great, but it is certainly situational. Getting your resources hooked up is generally going to pay off over the chopping. If they both can be done great, but that is dependant on your starting techs and resources available.

As for chop rushing your first settler this seems like another mistake. You are essentially delaying the growth of your capital (by not developing your food resource with your worker) for a city that will be working unimproved tiles.

Anytime you are planning on rexing you need to have an economic out in mind. If you crash your economy before you have pottery/writing you are going to end up in the dumps. Workers are your friend, I'd highly recommend getting your second worker out before your 1st settler if you are going to be chopping that first settler out. This is because you are less developed in terms of resources if your sole worker is chopping. Add another settler/city to the mix and now you have 2 under developed cities and 1 workers.

Also, if you are expanding quickly workers become even more important for roads. Having roads connected your cities (and even taking the time to pre road to city locations) can do wonders for your early economy.

I'm going to assume its BTS your playing.
For a general start, this works at Immortal regularly;

Research path;
Techs needed to improve your resources, food has priority -> BW -> Maybe Mysticism -> Economy stuff. At the start resource tiles and hills are going to provide all your production and commerce, food is flexible as it can be used to feed mines, convertede to with slavery and feed specialists when you get the necesarry techs

Capital build order;
Worker -> warriors till you can work all resource tiles -> Settler -> Workers, Settlers and garrisons as necessary. Basic idea is grow to become a production base, first settler is marginally later but next ones all come quite a lot faster.

For second city placement, most of the time you want a food resource in the inner ring, slavery will let you get some out to build a Monument if you need it and a Granary, then you want to make it productive by having it work mines, cottages or specialists.
The best kind of second site to settle is a nearby gem/gold/silver region for the excellent output, and useable , but as these aren't often available I like my second city to be strong in (food and hills), unless my capital is rich of course.
For my third city I like one with enough food to run 2 scientists, and the production needed to get a Library up quick, the value of an early GS is huge.
These are just orders of personal preference, I am willing to settle out of order if the map tells me to, I may even use a food city as a producer with slavery.

Be sure to start getting GPP early, Great Scientists are very good at keeping an economy propped up so get Writing early on. Another very useful thing for keeping your economy ticking over is to build Research or Wealth directly, which you can do with Alphabet and Currency respectively.
Don't forget you also need an early source of for growth, Monarchy or Drama are very good if you don't have many resources and your game plan agrees, Calender or MC are good if you do have the relevant resources.
Once you reach Currency you should no longer have any major trouble with your economy without the outbreak of war.

Start moving my warrior/scout into receiving position for nearest priority-settlement spot spaced so that there are no more than 2 shared tiles or 2 "useless" tiles (like mountains, deep sea squares, deserts).

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Your city will spend most of the game unable to work all the tiles in your BFC so don't worry about some useless tiles or overlap, in fact if it runs a lot of specialists it'll probably never work all the tiles in that BFC. Overlap isn't bad, I tend to overlap quite a lot. It has numerous advantages including; saving worker turns roading, sharing improved tiles to get cities (or cottages) up and running earlier, and costing less maintenance.

Turn C: Second City gets planted, in it, build either monument if fat cross is needed before city is usable, or worker if it isn't. First City now grows while building a warrior. Next research will either be Wheel, Sailing, or Pottery, depending on my particular financial strategy. Worker on 1st City improves food source (if no fish) or mines (if fish).

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First worker should have already improved a lot of the capital and can help work at the second hopefully as soon as its placed, building workers at size 1-2 cities that aren't the first one in the capital isn't a very good move outside exceptional circumstance. You'd be better off building a granary or warriors if you don't need a monument as you need growth before the city will be productive.

* Turn D: Once First City finishes growth, chop-rush next settler, while the 2nd Warrior/Scout that it just finished building moves into receiving/escort position. If no source of copper is available to settle on, research iron. Else, research Writing.

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Iron working is extremely expensive early, and easily traded for Alphabet or Aesthetics. The only time you should self research it on Emperor plus is if you absolutely have to settle in lots of jungle.
Writing is a key tech, Open Borders helps diplo and and Libraries are one of the most important economic buildings.

* Turn E: Second City should finish monument (or worker) roughly about the time the settler from Turn D finishes building. Set Second City to build worker (or monument, whichever didn't get built first). Move Settler from First City to next settlement. Focus research on Archery/Masonry to get defenses up before barbs and wars get out of hand. Build another military unit in First City while city grows.

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Walls are not often useful whatsoever, and a total waste against barbs, Great Wall is ok but spawnbusting is far better when you don't have a load of unoccupied land. Archery I much prefer avoiding, if I get Copper, Horses or can spawnbust enough or get the GWall its completely unnecesary for defending against barbs. as a side note if I find I don't need Hunting either then Warriors will provide very cheap under Hereditary Rule.
When you do defend against barbs with military make sure you aren't sitting in your cities, this is the last thing you want to do as they will just pillage your improvements. Instead get your units on hills, in forests or in the case of chariots, in reach of open areas you want defended.

* Wash, rinse, repeat. Every population growth of my First City means another settler gets produced. Once cities are militarily secure, I begin improving the econ.

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Why would you grow after each Settler? Doing it all before you start gets more cities out faster and leads to less waste of worker turns later.

Somehow, this fails to net me a good place in the stats. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Any help from Emp+ players would be appreciated. No offense to players on lower levels intended whatsoever, it's just that the game dynamic changes considerably once you hit Emperor (and even more so at Immortal and Deity). I have a feeling I'm still playing with a Monarch mindset.

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Don't worry too much about stats, in particular keeping up in power is pretty much impossible early on, especially as AIs start with free Archers. The bonuses let them get off to a quicker start, but AI incompetence lets you catch up in time. Also if your worried about score, the wonders AIs build will often inflate their score without actually giving them any real advantage.

Thanks, y'all. Great advice! I'll give it another go and post the results here afterward.

Here's the tech and build path you should be going.

Ag or AH if you started with Ag -> Mining if you don't have it -> TW -> BW -> Mysticism -> Pottery -> Writing -> Alpha -> Currency and then you are set.

Build order: Worker -> Warrior -> Worker if you need another or another Warrior -> Settler -> Warrior -> Settler -> Worker and so on.
Second cities should almost always lead with worker unless you really need the border pop.

Alrighty, after just a couple of hours I can see the enormous difference this change in strategy makes. Here's the saved game for your perusal. Unfortunately I need to get off to bed now, early day at work tomorrow, but I'll be back on in the morning once I'm at work, to discuss if anyone cares to. Thank all of you very much for your help.

Saved game is attached.

Okayish start but there is no reason why you should already have stopped expanding, on emperor REXES like 10 cities by 1Ad are still affordable, and you can definitely afford more than 5, especially with currency coming up. Now the north is a bit food poor but i can definitely see 8 cities here at least.
You are also short on workers. If you had more, you would cottage probably at least the capital by now (and then use other cities for expansion), especially since it could still run 2 scientists at its happy limit. You don't need a lighthouse in the capital, you probably won't be using it much. The galley is also not needed because no barb galleys can ever reach your clams (they are too deep in the cultural borders), and exploring is cheaper with a workboat. So, get another 3 workers asap, may even build more since you are expansive and they are cheap, and there is jungle to be settled. And then a couple settlers and iron working for gems/copper cities. Maybe you can even still get the barb cities once you get copper. After that, more workers again! Then there's the corn/clam spot on the southern part of the island, since you are creative you might have been able to steal wheat from Suleiman settling a bit late, but now it would probably take a while (also, i suck diplowise so i don't really know if this is advisable or not to get more negative point for close borders with him).
Your spare garrisons should probably be somewhere in the northern wilderness, preempting barb spawns and checking if there's seafood with the gems (if not, settle east of the mountain range) one chariot should explore the rest of the continent.

Lastly, what did you do with your great scientist, bulb alphabet? If so, i don't think that was necessary in this game, (should almost never be) since your tech rate was high enough, and when it's not necessary it's kind of a waste. Cottage the capital and build an academy.

Hey, thanks FreeLunch! I wasn't sure if anyone would care enough to actually open the game and check, so I am genuinely grateful for your assistance.

tinstaafl said:

Okayish start but there is no reason why you should already have stopped expanding, on emperor REXES like 10 cities by 1Ad are still affordable, and you can definitely afford more than 5, especially with currency coming up.

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You have just touched upon my greatest weakness in the game: understanding how to REX more than about 6 cities by 1AD, and 6 affordable cities only happens when I've really brought my A-Game. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about 5 cities by 250BC. But if you're looking at this and seeing that it should have been almost 10 cities by now, I'm obviously in need of more schooling.

That said, how do I balance the call to growth versus the economic poverty this would throw me into? Do I just cottage the ever-loving snot out of every inch of land? Also, regarding cottages, I'm always torn between using river tiles or not when I'm not a financial civ. The one extra C is nice, but in areas where food is questionable, I'm loathe to build a cottage I might later have to tear down to build a farm. What are your thoughts on balancing this? Is there a formula you use, a mental rule? I'd love to know.

tinstaafl said:

Now the north is a bit food poor but i can definitely see 8 cities here at least.

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Agreed. I can see them, I'm just not sure how I could afford them, but as I read on, I'm starting to grasp the concept more and more.

tinstaafl said:

You are also short on workers. If you had more, you would cottage probably at least the capital by now (and then use other cities for expansion), especially since it could still run 2 scientists at its happy limit.

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Not enough workers? Really? What is a good rule of thumb for the number of workers per city? Up until last night, I've been very stingy with my workers... and I think, if memory serves, it wasn't until I stopped being stingy with them that I last beat Emperor on a regular basis, but I think that was by accident rather than purposs, so it looks like I previously only stumbled on what is actually a pretty fundamental concept to higher gameplay.

tinstaafl said:

You don't need a lighthouse in the capital, you probably won't be using it much. The galley is also not needed because no barb galleys can ever reach your clams (they are too deep in the cultural borders), and exploring is cheaper with a workboat.

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My G-d. I think I just had an strategy epiphany. I was building the lighthouse "just 'cuz." Same with the galley. I had to build something, I didn't have anything the cities really needed, so I made a lighthouse in anticipation of a harbor later on, and a galley, like you said, to defend my clams against the barb galleys that will likely never appear. What I -should- have done is build workers!

That said, there's a chance I built them just so I'd have something building while my city grew in pop. So what should I have built instead? More warriors to spawnbust with?

tinstaafl said:

So, get another 3 workers asap, may even build more since you are expansive and they are cheap, and there is jungle to be settled. And then a couple settlers and iron working for gems/copper cities. Maybe you can even still get the barb cities once you get copper.

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So would you just take over their cities or destroy them and reposition with a settler?

tinstaafl said:

After that, more workers again! Then there's the corn/clam spot on the southern part of the island, since you are creative you might have been able to steal wheat from Suleiman settling a bit late, but now it would probably take a while (also, i suck diplowise so i don't really know if this is advisable or not to get more negative point for close borders with him).

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That was actually where my first Settler was going to go, but he beat me to the punch by 2 measley turns, so I settled on that lake instead. My only other option would have been to take a subpar position southwest of his, because of the 2-tile rule.

tinstaafl said:

Your spare garrisons should probably be somewhere in the northern wilderness, preempting barb spawns and checking if there's seafood with the gems (if not, settle east of the mountain range) one chariot should explore the rest of the continent.

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Sounds like a very solid plan.

tinstaafl said:

Lastly, what did you do with your great scientist, bulb alphabet? If so, i don't think that was necessary in this game, (should almost never be) since your tech rate was high enough, and when it's not necessary it's kind of a waste. Cottage the capital and build an academy.

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That's exactly what I did, I bulb'd Alpha, which in retrospect was a stupid idea since I only have contact with one civ. I was under the mistaken impression that I could trade some techs with Suli to get the minor ones I needed but didn't want to waste time researching, like masonry to get my stone on.


It's the busy part of the work-morning for me, but I brought my laptop and it's the Friday before a 3-day weekend. It'll be dead up here later and I'll play then. I'm just now torn between continuing the existing game or starting over with my newfound understanding.

That's exactly what I did, I bulb'd Alpha, which in retrospect was a stupid idea since I only have contact with one civ. I was under the mistaken impression that I could trade some techs with Suli to get the minor ones I needed but didn't want to waste time researching, like masonry to get my stone on.

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Even when you can trade, bulbing Alpha is best avoided. The bulb is massive overkill for Alpha wasting a lot of , an Academy or settling will probably beat it quite quickly.

Not enough workers? Really? What is a good rule of thumb for the number of workers per city? Up until last night, I've been very stingy with my workers... and I think, if memory serves, it wasn't until I stopped being stingy with them that I last beat Emperor on a regular basis, but I think that was by accident rather than purposs, so it looks like I previously only stumbled on what is actually a pretty fundamental concept to higher gameplay.

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Rule of thumb for workers is 3 workers for every 2 cities. The true rule of higher level play is to avoid using unimproved tiles (this includes cities without trade routes). The number of workers you really need can really vary quite a lot dependning on the map and your style, closer settling will need a lot fewer roads for example, wheras clearing jungle is very worker intensive. 3 workers for every 2 cities is fine for emperor however.

You have just touched upon my greatest weakness in the game: understanding how to REX more than about 6 cities by 1AD, and 6 affordable cities only happens when I've really brought my A-Game. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about 5 cities by 250BC. But if you're looking at this and seeing that it should have been almost 10 cities by now, I'm obviously in need of more schooling.

That said, how do I balance the call to growth versus the economic poverty this would throw me into? Do I just cottage the ever-loving snot out of every inch of land? Also, regarding cottages, I'm always torn between using river tiles or not when I'm not a financial civ. The one extra C is nice, but in areas where food is questionable, I'm loathe to build a cottage I might later have to tear down to build a farm. What are your thoughts on balancing this? Is there a formula you use, a mental rule? I'd love to know.

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• Don't worry about slider position, its not too important, output is what counts.
• You can build Research with once you do get Alphabet and Wealth after Currency. Research is great to get you to Currency, Wealth allows you to raise your slider back up to benefit from multipliers.
• Be sure to get your Great People (usually scientists) out early as this is when they are strongest, a settled GS can make a big difference to your empires output by itself, an Academy in a strong capital can be amazing.
• Avoid cottaging plains tiles, in fact avoid using flat plains for anything early on if possible. Especially don't work a plains cottage over the floodplains in your capital
• Don't get caught chasing wonders pointlessly, in your game without Marble it will take too long to get the MoM. Instead that city could provide 10 by building research, nearly a 25% boost for your whole empire at the moment, unless you wanted to use it to create escorts, workers or settlers instead.
• Assuming no food, if you get a good river site with floodplains you may aswell cottage the floodplains and work them while growing, if its grass then farm 3 or 4, work them first and grow to work cottages, replace the farms with cottages later.
• Your going to want a way to raise your cap a lot during the early game too, Monarchy is one very good method if you don't have a lot of resources.
• Don't be too quick to build a granary in your capital, this city should be concentrating on building workers and settlers so it won't see much benefit at thge start.
• That being said on a standard sized map you can get away with 6 cities, as thats all you need for important national wonders like Oxford.

With out happy or special commerce resources one can not support more then 9 cities at 1 Ad.
Well, that is my experience, attempt to go faster cause economy to crush. But if you have more happiness and commerce, form gold/gems/silver then you can do more.

Check out the thread below for Rapid Expansion. In the thread I was doing Monarch. Beat that one with ease. Culture Victory but only 8 turns from a Space Race too.

With such good luck I moved up to Emp. Used the same strat and am on par with AI tech wise. Also i am the third largest with 9 cities (standard map).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=365786

I do not discuss tech's in that post though. I usually go for Pottery pretty quick as well as mining, Agriculture and AH. Basically go for the techs that allows your workers to improve the tiles. Then work on getting currency as fast as possible. You can use to to trade for the other techs that you have neglected.

Once you get like 4-5 cities have some other ones beside the cap build settlers and let the cap start building improvements.

Good Luckl.

thelibra said:

I was building the lighthouse "just 'cuz." Same with the galley. I had to build something, I didn't have anything the cities really needed, so I made a lighthouse in anticipation of a harbor later on, and a galley, like you said, to defend my clams against the barb galleys that will likely never appear. What I -should- have done is build workers!

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Workers would be nice. Some alternatives if you still want to grow the city:
1) Research or wealth (if possible).
2) An unwanted wonder, with the aim of cashing in for failure gold when the AI completes it. Especially if you are IND or if you have the bonus resource, this is money in the bank that will let you hit 100% science slider at some point later on and give you a big boost. Never underestimate the value of failure!
3) Cheap units, esp. warriors if they are still available. Will be useful now for spawnbusting, or later for happiness under HR. Disadvantage is paying maintenance for them.

Another question these last few responses made me think of. I'd never considered the prospect of "Total Beakers" rather than "Percentage Beakers". I'd always used 70% as a guideline. It sounds like instead I should be using tens or hundreds of beakers compared to a timeline as my guideline. Since that is the case, I have to address an entirely new system of thinking about it, something like:

By 3000 BC you should have 5 beakers.
By 2000 BC you should have 10 beakers.
By 1000 BC you should have 20 beakers.
By 1 AD you should have 50 beakers....etc...

Instead of a "try to keep around 70% science slider."

Has someone already worked a guideline chart like that out, and if so, would you be willing to share it with me?

thelibra said:

Hey, thanks FreeLunch!

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I would like to establish it that there is no such thing

That said, how do I balance the call to growth versus the economic poverty this would throw me into? Do I just cottage the ever-loving snot out of every inch of land? Also, regarding cottages, I'm always torn between using river tiles or not when I'm not a financial civ. The one extra C is nice, but in areas where food is questionable, I'm loathe to build a cottage I might later have to tear down to build a farm. What are your thoughts on balancing this? Is there a formula you use, a mental rule? I'd love to know.

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As a general rule, i don't like farming flood plains much, the start you had kinda screamed cottages at me. Ankh Moorpork (extra 'o', no?) and origin have enough food without the farms, for Port Lakeside i see the point and farming those is better. Building farms over cottages hurts, because if you ain't gonna keep them because it's a production city then why go through the expensive growing phase. That said, i sometimes build cottages in production cities to be replaced by farms later if i expand too much before getting currency to build wealth and need commerce NOW.
One interesting thing you could have done with Fort Lakeside is to place it 1 south west and work cottages on those flood plains that it would then share with the capital. This way you could have used the capital to build settlers and even to whip using the cows, mine and maybe 2 flood plain farms and later switched the cottages over to the capital, at which point Port Lakende would work the farms that it works now. You would lose the fresh water lake but since you can't build a lighthouse it's not great anyways. Also there's gonna be another city north of the lake.

My G-d. I think I just had an strategy epiphany. I was building the lighthouse "just 'cuz." Same with the galley. I had to build something, I didn't have anything the cities really needed, so I made a lighthouse in anticipation of a harbor later on, and a galley, like you said, to defend my clams against the barb galleys that will likely never appear. What I -should- have done is build workers!
That said, there's a chance I built them just so I'd have something building while my city grew in pop. So what should I have built instead? More warriors to spawnbust with?

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A good thing is to get alphabet fast so that you can build science, and get currency soon after, because building wealth is usually even better. Still don't waste a scientist on it Or you could get monarchy (could have been good in this situation as you also had stone and a religion so masonry and monotheism for organized religion would help too) and use the hamemr sto build garrisons for hereditary rule happiness.
As for trading for thos ereligious techs and masonry with Suleiman, the problem here as i understand some comments on the forums i read is that you are semi-isolated, meaning you are alone with one other civ. In that scenario, the leader doesn't like to trade those techs because to their mind they have a monopoly on techs that have wonders attached. Not sure if i have this right...

So would you just take over their cities or destroy them and reposition with a settler?

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I would definitely keep those as is. i just noticed they are both on hills, so maybe there is probably actually no big rush to get there.

That was actually where my first Settler was going to go, but he beat me to the punch by 2 measley turns, so I settled on that lake instead. My only other option would have been to take a subpar position southwest of his, because of the 2-tile rule.

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Humm. I don't know that either would have been a good choice for a second city. The first is maybe a bit far off and the alternative you settled on has only 3 tiles with 4 combined hammers/food withouth masonry, neither does it have alot of commerce.
Ankh Morpork and Port Pearlsteed liek like more likely 2nd and 3rd cities to me because they have better foood yields. In most situaltions, that's more important than grabbing ressources near your neighbour (at least if it's not a real block).

By 3000 BC you should have 5 beakers.
By 2000 BC you should have 10 beakers.
By 1000 BC you should have 20 beakers.

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I confess i don't really pay that much attention before 1AD though it's in fact critical, cause things like getting to currency fast enough depend on this and the really good players can probably tell very early when they are going to get it. I can only tell that i need it fast

1AD 100 beakers is good, but it depends on the opening strategy, even if you expanded far, you should probably not be below 40 and can often get 75 or more building wealth/science
A less variable checkpoint for me has been 1000AD. I want to have 200 beakers by then, if i have 250 i'm good. However, that number isn't worth as much as it was to me anymore since my strategies have expanded lately. Sometimes with the GLH, you can go well beyond that and get all of printing press, liberalism and astronomy by then and then you will be closer to 400.
If you have successfully horse archer rushed several civs you also be further along at that point, to the point where you have already won. Sometimes you may only bring in 130 in 1000AD because you had a crappy start where you had to choke someone you couldn't outright take out, and you started on a jungle peninsula. May still be winnable if the AIs went to war a lot you may even STILL be to rifling first. Meaning, often what's more relevant is the situation compared to the AIs, but i find 75 in 1BC and 200 in 1000AD are more typical than other scenarios.

Note deity players apparently have numbers like 600 beakers in 1000AD - I have no idea how to do that ^^. Guess they get printing press/liberalism and so on much earlier (I had just short of 400 in a game with Pericles with the great libary, the great lighthouse, and, incidentally only 7 cities by 1AD (and 3 for the GLHcolonies on a nearby island shortly after but those didn't even matter because i was part of a 5way buddhist lovefest - on a standard size map so i had all the trade routes i needed).
I think however Ghpstages main point was simply just that the slider in itself means nothing (as long as you are not running a deficit at 100% money and your coffers are empty), only beakers per turn are relevant.

I'd also like to note that i only progressed to emperor maybe 20 games ago, and have been playing monarch for years before that because i didn't like to be challenged and learn to do anything but just "cottage everything" so i'm not really an expert here, more like just a little bit ahead. It was TMITs youtube videos that convinced me to go and learn the intricacies of the game and i'm not very far on that road yet (but i won most of the emperor games) Just thought i'd try and chip in for once.

thelibra said:

I have to address an entirely new system of thinking about it, something like:

By 3000 BC you should have 5 beakers.
By 2000 BC you should have 10 beakers.
By 1000 BC you should have 20 beakers.
By 1 AD you should have 50 beakers....etc...

Instead of a "try to keep around 70% science slider."

Has someone already worked a guideline chart like that out, and if so, would you be willing to share it with me?

Click to expand...

I have a fairly good tech game going in Emp right now. I am staying on par with AI. I will try and go back to some old saves and document the beaker count. It may not be exactly at these nice break points but I will do my best.

As an afterthought, the fact that you are semi-isolated and can't trade all that much could mean that you actually don't want to expand too fast here because you will have to selftech not only one but most of the important techs to get you started (currency monarchy, iron working in this case) so NOT expanding beyond 6-7 cities and getting as cottages up as soon as possible is probably the way to go.

Any players more experienced with the situation want to correct/confirm?

thelibra said:

Another question these last few responses made me think of. I'd never considered the prospect of "Total Beakers" rather than "Percentage Beakers". I'd always used 70% as a guideline. It sounds like instead I should be using tens or hundreds of beakers compared to a timeline as my guideline. Since that is the case, I have to address an entirely new system of thinking about it, something like:

By 3000 BC you should have 5 beakers.
By 2000 BC you should have 10 beakers.
By 1000 BC you should have 20 beakers.
By 1 AD you should have 50 beakers....etc...

Instead of a "try to keep around 70% science slider."

Has someone already worked a guideline chart like that out, and if so, would you be willing to share it with me?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately theres no way to quantify anything like this, in a meaningful way. The /turn you see doesn't even take into account htings like bulbs or trades, which could make up quite a bit more than half of your total output between Aesthetics and Liberalism. Looking at the rate the slider says you can sustain isn't particularly helpful either, a lot of you income may be from selling techs, begging or razing cities. This is before we even consider the variations in map, the effects of wonders or the neighbours

As a very rough figure I set myself a ballpark minimum of 50 at 1AD that my own empire can sustain. Thats not to say quit if you fail to reach this, after all there are sometimes very good reasons to not reach this amount

**EDIT Year added, not sure how I missed it

@OP
You sound like you understand the critical points made, and the consequences should be that you will begin to feel comfortable at most emperor starts.

What you really need to pay attention to is to adapt to the given map. You should try to get a better feeling for when to expand faster, when to go for certain wonders or when to deviate from the standard tech path. And of course, how many workers you need, and when you need them.
Always try to make sure everything you do is something that contributes to your immediate goals, especially in the early game.
IIRC, that was the key points I focused on that led me to become comfortable at random emperor starts.

All in all, you seem to be well on the way to a level of understanding that will eventually make you want to tackle immortal again.

Once you do that, you will need to seriously plan ahead - learn to anticipate when you will need certain things, to avoid 'uhh, I ran out of good things to build', or 'damn, I should have thought of that 30 turns ago'. Learn to micromanage accordingly. No need to cycle through every city all the time or anything, but you can pick up turns a lot of times early game by shifting worked tiles to time builds/growth with new tech or whip cycles for instance.
The other very important skill when wanting to progress at this point is to use every opportunity to maximize research. That means, for instance, to stockpile gold when waiting for beaker-multipliers, and to abuse the tech trading system by knowing the tech tree and AI research tendencies.

I'd encourage you try your hand at the game of the month series, which I think is most rewarding for players at your level.

Good luck!

As an afterthought, the fact that you are semi-isolated and can't trade all that much could mean that you actually don't want to expand too fast here because you will have to selftech not only one but most of the important techs to get you started (currency monarchy, iron working in this case) so NOT expanding beyond 6-7 cities and getting as cottages up as soon as possible is probably the way to go.

Any players more experienced with the situation want to correct/confirm?

Click to expand...

Generally, the priority is to secure the land. If mediocre land is blocked off, so the AI will not settle it, then it is often best to not settle it until you have your basic economy techs in place.
Semi-isolation is also a special case where you should really consider two options: Early war(something+catapults usually), to get a bunch of land to be settled at an optimal pace - OR, getting the AI to friendly early to enable tech trades.
If you don't do either, then it will resemble an isolation game, only you have an AI competing for the land.

Awesome advice all around and thank you! Work was unfortunately too busy for me to get to play any today. If the wife let's me have some time tonight, I'll start a new game and implement the advice y'all have given. A couple more questions:

1. Is it worth (on Emp+) bothering to research my own religion. For instance, if I start with Myst and have a 2+ gold tile I can immediately access, should I try for Bud or Poly? Or is it just too much of a pain and a slowdown in early growth? From what I've read, it makes more sense to just try and capture a holy city later on, but it seems this would incur the wrath of a lot of people, especially if the AP has been built for that religion.

2. Ghost, 50 beakers at what year?

3. I start a new game and end up with Pearls and Corn, but do not have either Ag or Fishing as techs. Do I build a worker and research Ag, or do I research Fishing and build a warrior while growing then build boats?

4. At home city, what population should I be at before I build my first settler. Max pop? 1 less than max pop? The longer I wait, the more land advantage it feels like I'm losing.

5. Gnomes?