Tradition's 4 cities opening

I've tried this with Siam on Fractal, Immortal, standard. Science victory on turn 240 which is my personal record.

I was able to hardbuild two settlers and rushbuy the third because my capital had 4 sheep tiles, two plains wheats and the rest were hills. Huge production potential but only a little amount of food.
Got the NC around turn 85, used the "+15% growth when not at war" and interfaith dialogue + mosque of djenne + cheaper missionaries.

Due to early alliances with cultural city states and Siam's UA I picked four policies in Patronage and allied basically every city state on the map which gave me an additional 100+ science and an insane amount of growth, culture and faith. Three observatories did the rest.

Also three maritime city states, Siam's UA and +15% growth was pretty hilarious. All my cities had +20 pop on turn 200 on a map without any grassland or rivers. xD

Overall, I don't think a wide empire can beat this strategy in quickest science VC. I've played a pretty flawless game with Russia and had 13 cities on turn 100 with great production and early aqueducts. On turn 240 I had 2000 per turn but it was too late. "Only" won on turn 260.
It's certainly much harder than going tall.

RealHuhn said:

I've tried this with Siam on Fractal, Immortal, standard. Science victory on turn 240 which is my personal record.

Overall, I don't think a wide empire can beat this strategy in quickest science VC.

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Not sure about it. It's probably a mix up of Tradition + conquest that can do insane results. This strategy, but with a wide empire

I don't play many games other than OCC ones buy I tried a game with your Tradition opening in a peaceful way with Ethiopia:

- Capitol: Stele (1st pantheon, fertility rites), Scout, worker, worker, settler, buy 2 settlers with the lux sold, granary.
- Research pottery, archery and all lux techs
- Had 4 cities by turn 40, built granaries then shrines, 3 archers with the capitol and another worker, bought 3 more workers and a couple more archers.
- Research philo while building libraries then built NC
- Wheel, horse riding, drama (free amphi helps finishing trad fast), construction, currency, public admin, theo, education.
- Build watermils/stables/stoneworks, circus/colisseums, temples, markets, changed to universities when education was discovered.

Around T100 I had 4 big cities with free aqueducts growing fast (size 9-10 and the capitol 14), roads and almost all tiles improved, 6 workers and 5 CBs without happiness nor money issues, (picked hapiness beliefs, I allied a merchantile CS so I could sell all my lux and had lots of money, and monarchy works wonders), a religion (Ethiopia with those free steles is insane) and I was building my universities.

I was really surprised about Tradition performance. If you plan going 4 cities tradition is incredible and is way better than Liberty.

Tabarnak I converted to your religion.

I saw myself playing when you described your game. Ethiopia is awesome for this strategy. Easy Religion at Deity + combat bonus against wide AI empires make him a top notch civ for this level.

Even more for other levels but probably without his combat bonus

I hope this peaceful Immortal game could develop to something nice.

Education on T91. Bought 2 settlers and build 1, bought 1 worker, build 1 and steal one from an unknown city (barb village, so no diplo. probl.) I settled settler 2 and 3 on same turn as I finished NC (i moved them to sites before). Hopefully I can get Petra in City 4.

And the best, rationalism in T109 with Oracle (tradition and then straight into rationalism)
Update: Religion on T110 (got 60 faith from a ruin...)
10% + 15% growth, I will try Interfaith Dialogue (Gain Science with Missionary)

Robert Smith said:

And the best, rationalism in T109 with Oracle (tradition and then straight into rationalism)

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This. Pretty important for optimal times. If you plan to finish under 220 turns, completing the rationalism tree without Oracle is a real pain in the ass for most civs. This wonder goes usually pretty late, even at Deity.

Just wanted to say thanks!! to Tabarnak.
Fantastic strategy, don't even understand why I used to prefer Liberty to Tradition.
In just one week I went from just starting to play on King to winning my first game on Immortal. Will give it a go on Deity now.

Can some of you recommend benchmarks for this approach. Here is where I stand at turn 125 in my current game:

Capital 10 pop, other cities are at 10, 7 and 9.

Just complete Education, starting on Unis.

Science is at +70 (seems low)
Gold is at +31

3rd in scoring.

Issues:

Happiness is starting to become an issue even with allied Merc CS.
Doesn't seem to be many Maritime CS - scouting needs work I guess
Even if I do find a Martime CS, my gold reserves aren't high enough to influence them.

Any comments would be great.

I've found that many of the examples given here are deceptive, for two reasons. One, it's not uncommon for me to find myself in a starting position with few luxuries and resources. If you don't have those luxuries to sell, it takes longer to get those four cities up and running. Two, since I play Continents and Fractal, it's often the case that I find myself isolated with just one or two other civs, and it's a long way to Astronomy. I'm not saying this is a bad strategy. It's a good one, but I mostly don't find myself getting the results that some people do, primarily for the two reasons that I stated above.

Dactyl said:

I've found that many of the examples given here are deceptive, for two reasons. One, it's not uncommon for me to find myself in a starting position with few luxuries and resources. If you don't have those luxuries to sell, it takes longer to get those four cities up and running. Two, since I play Continents and Fractal, it's often the case that I find myself isolated with just one or two other civs, and it's a long way to Astronomy. I'm not saying this is a bad strategy. It's a good one, but I mostly don't find myself getting the results that some people do, primarily for the two reasons that I stated above.

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every strategy is somewhat map dependant. Ie, on a water map this would be almost impossible to pull off without a long slog to Optics.

Dactyl said:

I've found that many of the examples given here are deceptive, for two reasons. One, it's not uncommon for me to find myself in a starting position with few luxuries and resources. If you don't have those luxuries to sell, it takes longer to get those four cities up and running. Two, since I play Continents and Fractal, it's often the case that I find myself isolated with just one or two other civs, and it's a long way to Astronomy. I'm not saying this is a bad strategy. It's a good one, but I mostly don't find myself getting the results that some people do, primarily for the two reasons that I stated above.

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I think the strategy works well at the beginning. I get my fourth city by between turn 45 and turn 55, I get my defenses up, I have a few AIs denounce me but I defend myself.

Where I have been struggling is getting my 4 cities to grow and this is a result of a few factors:

Happiness issues
Lack of good food like in my current game where I only found the first maritime CS very late.
Even if I can ally with one mercantile and one Maratime CS , I don't have the gold to do so.

I think this is where I am struggling at the moment.

with the right start, this can lead to very fast science wins. turn 223 deity pangea is my best so far, but that was with mediocre starts.

Dactyl said:

I've found that many of the examples given here are deceptive, for two reasons. One, it's not uncommon for me to find myself in a starting position with few luxuries and resources. If you don't have those luxuries to sell, it takes longer to get those four cities up and running. above

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You only need a single luxury into your capital to start this strat. The idea is to sell ALL first luxs improved. Even unique ones. You will get them back 30 turns later when it's time for your cities to grow(after libraries).

If you don't have your gold to rush buy a settler after your first lux, loan the balance from the AI. Now, if you really have a single lux into your capital, put your 2nd city on a lux tile and sell it again. Bring a worker into that city to immediately improve a 3rd lux to rush buy another settler.

Tabarnak, yes I see what you're saying, but as MadJinn said, it's map dependent. My last game, there were two luxs near my capital and one food resource. I was on a continent with two other AI's. That was very constraining. I sold those two luxs and settled another city where I worked another luxury. However, neither of the AI civs had much money at all and neither were friendly toward me. Like I said, this isn't a bad strategy but it has its limitations. I've noticed that the people who have tried this strategy tend to play on a pangea map, which is a perfect set up for this approach.

Of course, you need trading partners with money for your luxes. On a continent there is a chance that you don't have enough of those. In this case I like to go for an early military campaign to have a continent for myself. Depending on the size of the continent Liberty may be a better choice then.

Schalke 04 said:

Depending on the size of the continent Liberty may be a better choice then.

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Liberty is less constraining.

yanner39 said:

Can some of you recommend benchmarks for this approach. Here is where I stand at turn 125 in my current game:

Capital 10 pop, other cities are at 10, 7 and 9.

Just complete Education, starting on Unis.

Science is at +70 (seems low)
Gold is at +31

3rd in scoring.

Issues:

Happiness is starting to become an issue even with allied Merc CS.
Doesn't seem to be many Maritime CS - scouting needs work I guess
Even if I do find a Martime CS, my gold reserves aren't high enough to influence them.

Any comments would be great.

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Score means nothing. Scouting means everything. In any game. In the context of any strategy.
Good benchmark:

I got to say, i failed this one. Basically quit. However this game i just had was remarkable in few ways. Ethiopia, Pangaea, Deity, Standard. Set up 4 cities pretty quickly (t.42), two of them by a mountain, 5 resources to sell. NC at turn 82, 266 bpt Science @ t.150; 493 bpt @ t.184. Full tradition, straight into Rationalism afterwards (t.120 i opened it). Chopped some forest for one 10 turn observatory, rushed another.

Got DoW'ed on turn 40 by both Nebuchadnezzar and Monty. Had to take ridiculous loans and sell completely everything to buy 4 archers, which was basically enough to kill them off. Never mind two of my cities were at 0 health for 10 turns, all melee units were neutralized.. Cause of that DoW i had to let go most of religion and a chunk of culture, since the only Cultural CS on the map (Monaco) was Monty's best friend since turn 10 or something. Long story short, we were warring with these two guys for 220 turns before they came for equal peace.

Meanwhile ... Cathy was teching hard on the other side of the globe. So, turn 190 she completes Apollo. I get two of her closest neighbors, Gustav and Alex do DoW her. She stops building parts and starts building helicopters instead. (+21 aluminium for Russian lady, 0 for Haile). That spy in her Capital was remarkably useful, stealing 1 tech from Pacal and two more from Cathy. Next 40 turns (until t.230) i m trying to level with her. The natural factory GE almost arrives ..but she completes Hubble few turns before me.. meh. So, its turn 230, i am sitting @ 800 bpt and staring at four unfinished techs.. 10-11 turns each. And all i have left is Oxford.

Actually, i feel pretty good about that game, i think it's the best i had, even though my personal best is t.252 on immortal, but that immortal game was almost completely peaceful (+PT and few other wonders), while in this one i was throwing my 12 (highly efficient) units here and there for entire game, and, didn't manage a single wonder. (But managed 12 RAs) One more cultural policy, and i'd have full rationalism. Cities were 13-15-16-20 @ t.230.

This is the first time i was in such a lengthy conflict, while striving for space race. Any advice for my future Tradition Deity games; criticism?

The Pilgrim said:

Score means nothing. Scouting means everything. In any game. In the context of any strategy.
Good benchmark:

Spoiler :

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Wow. Thanks.

Nice work. Vid helps a lot. I'm happily adding this to my opener playbook.

I want to see if someone can make a liberty build order that takes just the opener in tradition for tons of land grabbing cities work. I know the AI gets really mad if you take that much land (huge score even though they are predominantly unworked tiles), and I know the slow free worker and really slow free settler screws up the tempo a lot, even if the tradition opener pays for itself in culture by the end of the game. But add Russian Kreposts and Angkor Wat and every city will be very efficient, population on the best tiles possible, super early, winning all your lux/strategic land grabs without money... mMMMmmmm...

It might just be the ideal option if you get a double culture ruin and your worker would come out before you would have relevant tiles to improve, though.