4-City Tradition Start in BNW

C

calgary

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 2, 2013
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4
Hi all,

Long time lurker but first time poster on this forum. After recently purchasing BNW I have noticed that a major change is the fact you can only trade gold with the AI if you have a DoF with them.

My standard strategy used to be the 4-city Tradition start which envolved selling the AI luxes and using the cash to buy settlers/workers etc.

Was just wondering if anyone had an updated strategy guide or early build order that adapts the 4-city Tradition start to the new rules and requirements in BNW. I have had a poke around the forum and War Academy but can't seem to find anything defniitive.

Apologies if this thread is in the wrong area.

Happy to have joined the Civ fantatics community! :D

Edit - i believe I have already failed my first assignment - I meant to post this in the BNW forum section - but don't know how to delete the thread and repost it :(
 
I think you have to be more adaptable. You can't settle as many spots ASAP as you could in G&K. Sometimes you get lucky with early DoF(s) and you can go for 3 more cities before NC (2 produced, 1 bought settler), but most of my Tradition starts have seen me settle the most delicious location with a settler built at 4 or 5 pop and then building NC at two cities, adding additional city/ies if the map allows. If there are multiple good spots you have to compete for and you can't get a DoF, 3 cities NC is what I'd aim for.

Welcome and congratulations on your first post! You probably want this thread in Strategy & tips. Pretty much all the guides are there. Tabarnak, who wrote the 4 cities strategy, did write a 3 city guide where he produces two settlers and sends food caravans to his expansions. It might be what you're looking for!
 
In BNW, I normally go 2 city NC; with the settler hand built. The first 400 gold is going to rushing the library in that second city so that NC can start in my capital as soon as I get the tech.

If I don't get an early DOF then my 3rd & 4th settlers will also be hand built.

I wouldn't waste a trade route spot on a food caravan; use a food cargo ship instead; even if on the same land mass you get 2X the food from a cargo ship.
 
welcome!

You can trade luxs for GPT up to 7 (standard speed) if the AI likes you. Most of the time I find I can trade them for 6 gpt. This helps in the early game especially if you have multiple copies. Or if you don't need the happiness because of buildings, pantheon, etc.

w/o a DoF
 
You should be able to get 3 cities before you build NC. Start hard building settlers once you get 4-5 pop. Make sure you can build them around 8-9 turns.

Get the 4th after you build NC.
 
Tachii said:
You should be able to get 3 cities before you build NC.
Get the 4th after you build NC.
Click to expand...

In regards to 3 city NC with tradition: How in the world do you come up with the 800 gold needed to cash buy two libraries before turn 70 in BNW??? I sometimes have trouble just coming up with the 400 gold for one library.
 
joncnunn said:
I wouldn't waste a trade route spot on a food caravan; use a food cargo ship instead; even if on the same land mass you get 2X the food from a cargo ship.
Click to expand...

I agree with this unless you're isolated and can't use ships (not coastal or w/e). Food caravans is better than sending to CS for gold.

joncnunn said:
In regards to 3 city NC with tradition: How in the world do you come up with the 800 gold needed to cash buy two libraries before turn 70 in BNW??? I sometimes have trouble just coming up with the 400 gold for one library.
Click to expand...

Why is t70 so important? There is no difficulty level specified in the OP. I wouldn't risk losing out on a good 2nd expansion spot just because I need to start NC on t70.
 
livsbrand said:
Why is t70 so important? There is no difficulty level specified in the OP. I wouldn't risk losing out on a good 2nd expansion spot just because I need to start NC on t70.
Click to expand...

With BTW, the AI gets a new science handicap on all difficulty levels. (AI only needs 85% of the science you have to get to the next tech.) In addition for every level above Prince you are, the AI starts with a free tech.

You need NC up and running as soon as possible to overcome this.
About the fastest you can possibly research Philosophy by that doesn't leave you wide open to an AI invasion is turn turn 55; more commonly was turn 60 from luxuries not being on that path. (This assumes you DON"T build the Great Library; if you succeed in that you can choose Philosophy as your free tech around turn 40 and should have a 1 city NC up in running by turn 55)
 
In my experience, 3-4 city tradition starts make it difficult to get the NC up before T90-100, which on Immortal means taking a little bit longer to catch up tech wise (mid-Renaissance, typically). I'm going to try a 2 city NC start strategy and see how much that helps in the long run.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys.

A few quick questions on caravans - do you only start building them after all your settlers are out? Or do you build Library's first too? And what is the priority order of where you send them once finished?

1 - City state for gold?
2 - Home city for food?
3 - Other civ for gold?
 
joncnunn said:
With BTW, the AI gets a new science handicap on all difficulty levels. (AI only needs 85% of the science you have to get to the next tech.) In addition for every level above Prince you are, the AI starts with a free tech.

You need NC up and running as soon as possible to overcome this.
About the fastest you can possibly research Philosophy by that doesn't leave you wide open to an AI invasion is turn turn 55; more commonly was turn 60 from luxuries not being on that path. (This assumes you DON"T build the Great Library; if you succeed in that you can choose Philosophy as your free tech around turn 40 and should have a 1 city NC up in running by turn 55)
Click to expand...

I get this, but what I'm asking is if you really want to risk losing a good city spot just to finish NC so early.
 
calgary said:
Thanks for all the advice guys.

A few quick questions on caravans - do you only start building them after all your settlers are out? Or do you build Library's first too? And what is the priority order of where you send them once finished?

1 - City state for gold?
2 - Home city for food?
3 - Other civ for gold?
Click to expand...

I build trade units when I have my cities and workers down, and can protect them from barbs and stuff (archers). Cargo ship > caravan. Early routes should not be to CS unless you have a quest. On Deity you can get so much science from routes that you want an early route to another civ. Second route I will probably use to grow my smallest city. However, gold routes can be necessary for unit maintenance in early wars.
 
livsbrand said:
I get this, but what I'm asking is if you really want to risk losing a good city spot just to finish NC so early.
Click to expand...

It depends on how many good city spots there that are risk of being taken. If you are playing on Emperor and below, the AI is very slow to expand so do not worry about it. On Immortal/Deity you have to worry a lot more about forward settling, your not going to get the juicy spot 18 tiles way unless you are isolated. Just put out one city, settle the one most likely to be nabbed by the AI, build the NC then get the last 2.

Alternately, go scout/scout/shrine/worker/settler/settler/buy settler/NC, steal 3-4 workers from the AI/CS
This will put the NC up around T95 pretty consistently provided you settle hills (which you should anyway). Its a worth while BO in the right map where you are risk of being forward settled and losing all the good spots.
 
joshua43214 said:
It depends on how many good city spots there that are risk of being taken. If you are playing on Emperor and below, the AI is very slow to expand so do not worry about it. On Immortal/Deity you have to worry a lot more about forward settling, your not going to get the juicy spot 18 tiles way unless you are isolated. Just put out one city, settle the one most likely to be nabbed by the AI, build the NC then get the last 2.

Alternately, go scout/scout/shrine/worker/settler/settler/buy settler/NC, steal 3-4 workers from the AI/CS
This will put the NC up around T95 pretty consistently provided you settle hills (which you should anyway). Its a worth while BO in the right map where you are risk of being forward settled and losing all the good spots.
Click to expand...

The former is what I've been doing with most of my Tradition starts in BNW. I play mostly Deity, sometimes Immortal. I'm just saying you can have a very strong game with the latter as well, and sometimes it feels like a better choice to get those cities settled before NC, depending on the neighborhood, etc. Missing t70 NC isn't a game broken, not even on Deity.
 
livsbrand said:
I get this, but what I'm asking is if you really want to risk losing a good city spot just to finish NC so early.
Click to expand...

Yup; if the AI settles if, conquer it later.
(Or more likely raze the city that planted in a bad city spot one or two hexes away and then found the city.)

But sometimes the AI even forgets to escort its settlers, in which case you just grab a free worker or two right before the AI would have settled.

Now all that being said, I have had some really bad gold starts that also had high hammers in the second city, and if that's the case that it's clearly going to be more turns to get 400 gold than it takes to hand build that library in the second city in this case you may as well go ahead and found that 3rd city early.
 
livsbrand said:
I build trade units when I have my cities and workers down, and can protect them from barbs and stuff (archers). Cargo ship > caravan. Early routes should not be to CS unless you have a quest. On Deity you can get so much science from routes that you want an early route to another civ. Second route I will probably use to grow my smallest city. However, gold routes can be necessary for unit maintenance in early wars.
Click to expand...

Difficulty definitely changes this strategy. On emperor when it's a giant early hug fest I will usually do a 1 city National College then pump out the next city or two with food routes. They grow pretty fast this way 2-3 turn population growth and they'll catch up pretty quick
 
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