jackelgull
An aberration of nature
The Intro:
Well folks, last time I outlined my first contribution to this fine subsection a strategy on how to turn Portugal into a colonial power with a financial leader. Now I'm back for a new installment with Catherine the Great for her civilization of Russia.
Now the AI for this leader has often been hated for being the Cersei Lannister of the game- She sharpens her knives even as she spreads her legs for you as one person put it. But in the hands of the player she is fantastic.
Now to begin with, her traits are imperialistic plus creative which just screams for a REX the likes of which the world has never seen. I'm honestly surprised that the forums haven't declared her the uncontested queen of Domination yet. You may be saying what?! Imperialistic and creative aren't that strong.
After all these are its effects-
Imperialistic: Fifty% extra speed on the production of settlers plus 100% great general emergence.
Creative: +2 culture in cities, double production of libraries plus theatre.
Why are these traits so important? You certainly don't see veteran players hold their noses up at them and declare that using these traits is cheating or for newbies like they do with Financial. And besides imperialistic is considered one of the weaker traits especially in the early game where all the REXing happens right? After all then your production is likely to be like 2 hammers and a fifty percent increase of 2 is 3.
In fact this is wrong- imperialistic's bonus is multiplied by slavery's hammers too, so after inputting 30 hammers on marathon, a two pop whip is required for an imperialistic civ to pop out a settler as compared to a non-imperialistic civ's 3 pop whip. And creative frees your cities from the needs of culture, and cheap libraries help with early science and keeping your science from crashing as you expand.
The Strategy:
After recieving some feedback, and playtesting it, I've made some changes to this strategy-
Research a food tech first- either agriculture or animal husbandry, depending on surroundings then go for bronze working then masonry.
Your initial build should be a worker-warrior-warrior-settler. Once you get bronze working, switch to slavery and pop your settler out. The time you save will more than make up for the missed turns in anarchy. Begin pre-chopping with your first worker after bronze working in preparation for the Great Wall. While waiting build 2nd worker.
While all of this was going on, your scout should have been scouting, looking for good city sites. Once you find seven or eight, your scout has pretty much accomplished this mission- but he still has one more vital role to fulfill-goody hut popping. This will save your economy until alphabet in many cases. Three to four huts with gold will net you about five hundred gold on noble, allowing many turns of deficit research in the early game.
After masonry, it is time to begin building an economy. You have 2 excellent choices-pottery or writing. If the land you scouted for cities reveals several early commerce sources, writing is the better economic option, made even better by the fact that creative gives cheap libraries. Also scientists allow more flexibility with the slider and they mean that as long as you are making money at 0% then you are fine. If you have much cottagable land, then pottery first.
You capitol should be building the Great Wall after masonry, and your pre chopped forests should help you rush production. Shift tiles to gain as many hammers as you can.
You second city, when founded, should begin with warriors until size two, worker then whip when possible. Build warriors until size two then settler and whip. This should be the general initial build of your early cities, until writing and pottery, then which build libraries and granaries wherever you can after the workers. In many cases, you can skip granaries altogether. I have found that I don't use slavery often enough for them to be useful, though that may be bad play on my part.
By the time the GW is done it should be around the end of the 2000 BCE's and you should have two to four cities depending on how much production your second city has, and how much food. Begin cranking up the settlers- by 1000 BCE you should have seven to ten cities.
After writing and pottery head to priesthood. On noble the AI won't give you too much competition for the Oracle, and if circumstances are right then you should be able to self tech code of laws and take philosophy, if you have managed to pop meditation from a hut. Otherwise I'd recommend teching to alphabet after priesthood and taking code of laws with the Oracle. Or if you are feeling lucky, tech CoL and bulb philosophy.
Now begin the push to liberalism. You large number of cities and goody hut fueled deficit research should have you in a comfortable tech lead. I like to take a detour to Music, get the Great Library, self tech Nationalism and use liberalism for MT. From here beeline rifling and curb stomp the world with cavalry.
Oh, and you the the Great Spy points from the GW? I hope you didn't dilute them or run any other specialists, you want your first great person to be a spy and use him on an infiltrate mission to a rival who has a tech you want. Use spies to pick up techs that the AI is not willing to trade with with you for. The discounts you get will likely allow you to skip useful but out of the way techs.
Well folks, last time I outlined my first contribution to this fine subsection a strategy on how to turn Portugal into a colonial power with a financial leader. Now I'm back for a new installment with Catherine the Great for her civilization of Russia.
Now the AI for this leader has often been hated for being the Cersei Lannister of the game- She sharpens her knives even as she spreads her legs for you as one person put it. But in the hands of the player she is fantastic.
Now to begin with, her traits are imperialistic plus creative which just screams for a REX the likes of which the world has never seen. I'm honestly surprised that the forums haven't declared her the uncontested queen of Domination yet. You may be saying what?! Imperialistic and creative aren't that strong.
After all these are its effects-
Imperialistic: Fifty% extra speed on the production of settlers plus 100% great general emergence.
Creative: +2 culture in cities, double production of libraries plus theatre.
Why are these traits so important? You certainly don't see veteran players hold their noses up at them and declare that using these traits is cheating or for newbies like they do with Financial. And besides imperialistic is considered one of the weaker traits especially in the early game where all the REXing happens right? After all then your production is likely to be like 2 hammers and a fifty percent increase of 2 is 3.
In fact this is wrong- imperialistic's bonus is multiplied by slavery's hammers too, so after inputting 30 hammers on marathon, a two pop whip is required for an imperialistic civ to pop out a settler as compared to a non-imperialistic civ's 3 pop whip. And creative frees your cities from the needs of culture, and cheap libraries help with early science and keeping your science from crashing as you expand.
The Strategy:
After recieving some feedback, and playtesting it, I've made some changes to this strategy-
Research a food tech first- either agriculture or animal husbandry, depending on surroundings then go for bronze working then masonry.
Your initial build should be a worker-warrior-warrior-settler. Once you get bronze working, switch to slavery and pop your settler out. The time you save will more than make up for the missed turns in anarchy. Begin pre-chopping with your first worker after bronze working in preparation for the Great Wall. While waiting build 2nd worker.
While all of this was going on, your scout should have been scouting, looking for good city sites. Once you find seven or eight, your scout has pretty much accomplished this mission- but he still has one more vital role to fulfill-goody hut popping. This will save your economy until alphabet in many cases. Three to four huts with gold will net you about five hundred gold on noble, allowing many turns of deficit research in the early game.
After masonry, it is time to begin building an economy. You have 2 excellent choices-pottery or writing. If the land you scouted for cities reveals several early commerce sources, writing is the better economic option, made even better by the fact that creative gives cheap libraries. Also scientists allow more flexibility with the slider and they mean that as long as you are making money at 0% then you are fine. If you have much cottagable land, then pottery first.
You capitol should be building the Great Wall after masonry, and your pre chopped forests should help you rush production. Shift tiles to gain as many hammers as you can.
You second city, when founded, should begin with warriors until size two, worker then whip when possible. Build warriors until size two then settler and whip. This should be the general initial build of your early cities, until writing and pottery, then which build libraries and granaries wherever you can after the workers. In many cases, you can skip granaries altogether. I have found that I don't use slavery often enough for them to be useful, though that may be bad play on my part.
By the time the GW is done it should be around the end of the 2000 BCE's and you should have two to four cities depending on how much production your second city has, and how much food. Begin cranking up the settlers- by 1000 BCE you should have seven to ten cities.
After writing and pottery head to priesthood. On noble the AI won't give you too much competition for the Oracle, and if circumstances are right then you should be able to self tech code of laws and take philosophy, if you have managed to pop meditation from a hut. Otherwise I'd recommend teching to alphabet after priesthood and taking code of laws with the Oracle. Or if you are feeling lucky, tech CoL and bulb philosophy.
Now begin the push to liberalism. You large number of cities and goody hut fueled deficit research should have you in a comfortable tech lead. I like to take a detour to Music, get the Great Library, self tech Nationalism and use liberalism for MT. From here beeline rifling and curb stomp the world with cavalry.
Oh, and you the the Great Spy points from the GW? I hope you didn't dilute them or run any other specialists, you want your first great person to be a spy and use him on an infiltrate mission to a rival who has a tech you want. Use spies to pick up techs that the AI is not willing to trade with with you for. The discounts you get will likely allow you to skip useful but out of the way techs.
/population whipping is when the IMP trait shines for me. Not that I necessarily REX because of it, but being able to 3 or, often, 2 pop whip a settler on 2nd turn is great. More turns for other important things like units and workers to work the new land. It's clutch when you spot that iron near to Julius and need to grab it quick.
