Any tips for xp farming?

Does anyone have any tips for xp farming?

I get the basic idea -- build archer, move it to near city state, and let yourself get shot. Move away to heal, then repeat the process. But I've never managed to get that many promotions -- not enough to make a big difference, anyway. There is no doubt something I've been missing.

Cheers.

I am not an expert in this area, but I have the most success by putting units near barb camps. You can just keep killing the barbs without taking the camp. When you get to two promotions, bring in new units.

Watch Peddroelm's DCL #2 LP, which contains some good XP farming episodes. They were fewer and further between than is optimal, but he had an angry neighbour to deal with at the same time.

The basic idea is to pillage and draw units out, and farm XP not just off the city but off the the units.

That said, I still prefer to use weak AIs as XP farms...a certain bald fakir from India, for example

Barbs will only get you to level 2 upgrades so you will need to declare war on a nearby CS and continuously attack it without ever killing it. That should do the trick.

Thanks guys. I thought there might be more to it than this, but perhaps there are no real secrets or hidden techniques.

Cheers.

mbbcam said:

I get the basic idea -- build archer, move it to near city state, and let yourself get shot. Move away to heal, then repeat the process.

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I might do this with an warrior after getting two promotions off barbs. Archer's are a little fragile, so it is better and faster for them to attacking units. If the city spawns an archer, it is easy to accidently get an archer killed.

But usually if I am camping a CS, it is because I want a worker -- and the CS will not send one out while shooting at my units.

First two promotions take only 15xp. After that, it is 30xp, so it can be more tedious than it is worth the bother. Units get the same xp attacking or being attacked, but cities are worth 3xp and units 2xp. So archer-on-archer battles will get xp faster than just having the archer take hits from a city while fortified and healing.

But I've never managed to get that many promotions -- not enough to make a big difference, anyway.

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It as like consentient wrote. You really want the fighting (and the subsequent promotions) to be a natural consequence of your expansion plans. Farming just for its own sake is just too slow. On the other hand, maybe your CBs are just a few xp shy of that crucial +1 range, and you have run out of soft targets?

In my thread the go-to advice given to me for farming off CS if xp is the goal is to rotate in warriors that are damaged (but not so damaged as to die) to take defensive potshots while archers shoot the city.

TheMeInTeam said:

In my thread the go-to advice given to me for farming off CS if xp is the goal is to rotate in warriors that are damaged (but not so damaged as to die) to take defensive potshots while archers shoot the city.

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Even better if they're spearmen as few turns later Pikemen with double cover will be awesome tanks while getting promoted warriors to be useful again will take significantly longer unless playing with Denmark.

Thanks for the previous two posts -- this is a useful insight. Funnily enough, I was beginning to come to that conclusion myself, based on a recent experiment. So, one has to plan to have a mêlée unit available at the same time as the ranged units. Good to know.

Yep, a slightly wounded Warrior or Spearman (I recommend the rough terrain promotions and on a hill or forest) will draw the city's fire, thus letting you XP your Archers without much risk.

mbbcam said:

Thanks for the previous two posts -- this is a useful insight. Funnily enough, I was beginning to come to that conclusion myself, based on a recent experiment. So, one has to plan to have a mêlée unit available at the same time as the ranged units. Good to know.

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I'm a firm believer in 2/3x Warriors by Turn 80 that will become the most badass Infantrymen every by T200.