You've early rushed someone - now what?

Whenever I early rush people, even when I completely destroy/conquer my entire continent, there's a "now what" experience that comes right afterwards.

Conquering other cities doesn't exactly help your science, and it sure doesn't help your gold (usually, and of course it depends on the cities that you conquered). What it does help is for you to snowball cities and production.

But once you've conquered your whole continent, you have a lot of units lying around that are just waiting gold maintenance per turn. But you dont wanna get rid of them because of all the promotions they've accumulated. And you don't have astronomy yet (and even if you did it will take awhile to travel across the ocean).

So what do you do at this point?

Not play continents?

Let's assume that you wanted to challenge yourself and not take the easy route.

Take oligarchy and garrison the units ... no maintenance.

At the expense of Liberty?

And does that apply to puppets too?

Athenaeum said:

Let's assume that you wanted to challenge yourself and not take the easy route.

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Then on a more serious note, you probably should delay overrunning your continent (so you're taking the map into consideration) and/or try dominating your continent with as few units as possible: not only will this mean you're paying less for unit maintenance both during and after the conquest, but you're performing the conquest slower as well, so you are more likely to reach Astronomy and Navigation by the time you take your last city.

Make CS happy. You have monopoly on their quests now. Should not be hard. A point in Patronage also helps.

Machu would be nice. It really helps with gold when you have such a huge empire.

Settle empty spots, burn/resettle junk spots, rebuild, build, ...

Use half caravans/ship for food, the other half to CS for gold/quests.

If you have religion, spread it everywhere. If you have more then one, flip cities to get all buildings, then keep the best one and kill (inquisitor on Holy City) the other.

Fill Commerce, Rationalisem.

Steamroll other continent. Or win SV or CV or DV.

Athenaeum said:

At the expense of Liberty?

And does that apply to puppets too?

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Yes, I checked the economy report on unit maintenance in a current game and it works for puppets ... garrison units are listed as free units with oligarchy. This may save you a lot of GpT depending on the size of your empire and army. (In my save game it were 42 free units saving ca 160 GpT in post-industrial era.)

I don't go to early war on a Pangea map where lots of people will know of my warmongering and hate me unless I'm the Huns and get that early Battering Ram.

I usually avoid early war all together unless I want a domination victory but usually I'll wait later and war only if I have to stop an AI or something or if they attack me first.

I've run into a problem with the continents map of someone running away with the other continent.

If they would be so kind as to have coastal capitals I could do lots of things. But I am kind of leery of jumping into an unknown situation with a ton of units.

Tradition is your friend. A big capitol earns lots of gold and it comes with Oligarchy built in. I also tend to dip into Piety to get Theocracy which helps with the gold.

Consider this late game issue and then choose a pangea map instead of continents.

Athenaeum said:

Whenever I early rush people, even when I completely destroy/conquer my entire continent, there's a "now what" experience that comes right afterwards.

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There are only two choices. Wait til Astronomy then continue the war, or pretend to all the other AIs when you meet them that you legitimately founded your continent-wide empire and go for a peaceful victory.

Conquering other cities doesn't exactly help your science, and it sure doesn't help your gold (usually, and of course it depends on the cities that you conquered). What it does help is for you to snowball cities and production.

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You have it backwards. Conquering AI cities and annexing them gives a huge increase in beakers at the time you need it (just after Education). Ditto for Gold. Having those extra cities will increase your gold. My suspicion is that you have buildings in your self-founded cities that you don't need, and that's what is corrupting your economy.

But once you've conquered your whole continent, you have a lot of units lying around that are just waiting gold maintenance per turn. But you dont wanna get rid of them because of all the promotions they've accumulated. And you don't have astronomy yet (and even if you did it will take awhile to travel across the ocean).

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It doesn't take that long to swim them on a Continents map, unless you're playing on Huge or something, and then I strongly advise you master Standard before playing on bigger maps.

So what do you do at this point?

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I play Continents more than anything, and I usually think "OK I had my little Domination session, now let's build some culture"

Bite the bullet and sell the army. The savings are crazy good.
Unless they are four-promotes, but even then, some Military Academies when you're crossing the ocean and you can get back there. Just fogbust.

What you "do" is you max out science then farms then culture growth. You have no threats to contend with, the overhead costs are irrelevant and the returns are huge.

WE are on archipelago, having been isolated on Our Continent, have now 7 cities humming along into education; workshops going up everywhere, temples, libraries, granaries, caravansaries, and barracks too; while test-driving "Barbarian Lands", and finally found neighbors by T180-ish. Do note that WE are using "Caravansary Trade Routes" mod to finance 'wide' .

Consolidation in expansion, slowly but surely, is the key, here . As WE (Elizabeth) are now building up Our navy and TRs, WE must look for the best fit (Lux's vs. position) in future Cities . Costs for doing what must be done will be weighed very carefully; construction vs. upgrades, what building order to start where; and so on .

Chasing barbarians, with full Honor, has cleared off 2 islands for Us, and now, WE are looking at 5 possible sites for cities; should Our building cycles, (a cycle being 1 build for every city), go: settler, ship, TR, and 4 other builds ? Then there is travel time to consider; are there more barbs in the way, or hostile fleets to avoid ?

Our TR policy is to use the tech tree TRs for internal use; the 'mod' TRs for external cash .

This is why continents is a terrible map. Any map that involves people being separated by water is pretty much not a good map. Pangea, skirmish, oval, doughnut etc.. are the only playable map types for a balanced game.

Although some times you have no choice but to play continents because that's what all the sheep are doing. If i were in your situation I would use the army to demand tributes and then delete anything that doesn't have significant promotions.

If you have the continent to yourself an army is almost useless. It is time to focus on growth, tech and happiness. Also, if it's an FFA, just don't go liberty. It's not going to work out. Anyone going Tradition will out grow and out tech you unless they get into a long drawn out war.

Horseshoe_Hermi said:

Bite the bullet and sell the army. The savings are crazy good.
Unless they are four-promotes, but even then, some Military Academies when you're crossing the ocean and you can get back there. Just fogbust.

What you "do" is you max out science then farms then culture growth. You have no threats to contend with, the overhead costs are irrelevant and the returns are huge.

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seconded.

The per-turn gold savings is substantial; at that point in the game, often makes the difference between double-digit negative GPT and a healthy positive economy. While you're giving up some units that have promotions, you aren't that deeply invested in them yet (as the game is pre-astronomy) and the units that you make later will have 2 promotions out of the gate with armory, possibly as well as the awesome morale promotion if that's the path you take. Just make sure you save enough to keep barbs from tearing up your terrain, being the sole entity on an entire continent often leaves plenty of places for encampment spawns, which can lead to dealing with multiple barb fronts.

The silver lining to the "now-what" dilemma you've described is two-fold:
1.)It solves the catch-22 situation regarding city expansion. Normally, there's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation regarding expansion as expanding too early is problematic because of happy-caps and the opportunity cost of smaller cities (including early game capitals) making settlers whereas late game expansion is an exercise in futility as there isn't enough game left for them to grow to be noticeably beneficial. By clearing your own continent early, you have a larger core of cities that have enough time to grow to be a substantial addition. Your hand will be forced to deal with a difficult issue regarding happiness, but if you find an answer, you'll be in incredibly good shape.

2.)You get to have your cake and eat it. Normally you have only two options: play the total pacifist game, to the extent where you'll invoke finger-wagging just for successfully defending yourself, or give up the perks of diplomacy and completely disregard what other civs think of you. There's very little middle ground; if you take a single capital, even if the other civ DoWed you to create the opportunity, that plus territory jealousy will spark one denouncement from a losing civ, then his friends will denounce, and before you know it you're the pariah. There is always the option of 'peace first, then betray and conquer' but clearing your own continent is one of the only ways be aggressive at first and then have good diplomatic relations.

Unless Polynesia narcs on you...

Your slow science is because you are keeping puppets. If you are going to conquer your entire starting continent (especially before Astronomy when you haven't met other civs), you are best to burn all the cities except capitals. The capitals should be annexed once you have the happiness to support this. Puppets have the same %5 penalty to research that founding a new city does, but they do not produce as much science to offset the penalty. When you annex them, you can build or buy a courthouse and then concentrate on science buildings as you would in your founded cities. This should help your research to pick up again.

Since posting #15 this thread; WE in Our Programme to Eradicate the Barbarian Lands, have established Oxford, Dover, and Liverpool; take Copenhagen and Lhasa; WE have grabbed another 18 iron for Out Fleet, placed 5 Mosques, 4 Caravansaries, 3 TRs; Our finances have yet to fall below 100 gold (30 GPT), Our Happyness, once fallen to +9 when annexing Lhasa, regained its previous lofty +24 standing, and as of T 303, WE have yet to get into a war .

There are so many barbs running loose, that WE shall be able to pick and choose which barb cities to Liberate (CSs), and which to keep (AIs) .

Explore world.
Discover AIs.
Establish strategical trade ports to maximum trade revenue.
Discover excellent military ports that permit maximum coverage of city states as possible.
Grab luxuries you don't have and establish monopolies on luxuries.
Get them hooked on your opium.
Burn down few backward AIs cuz you're bored or want luxuries that they have but refuse to trade it to you.
Enjoy the sun never sets on your empire as you vote in a diplomatic victory.

Generally how I play civbe i guess..