Tradition's 4 cities opening

Even on Large Islands (where you will generally have enough good land mass), you just won't meet people fast enough to pull this off with the timings that are possible on Continents/Pangaea. Tradition openers still aren't bad at all on those kinds of maps because the geography almost forces tall anyway though.

dthompson32 said:

I've gotten spoiled now. I tried playing an archipelago map and using this opening, it wasn't pretty.

Too hard to find trading partners, and you need Optics to settle in good spots, or take poor spots on your opening island. If you can even fit 4 cities on it.

The only reason I tried was I wanted to try out Carthage and a water based map, instead of roads, sounded interesting. The actually play wasn't fun though.

Click to expand...

I have to disagree.

My first Immortal game in Gods and Kings i did Dido on Large Islands w/ Tradition then Commerce opener and extra movement for naval units, then all of
Autocracy due to all the culture i was getting from capturing cities.

It's a slower start on islands maps, so mainly you build up your core cities for a while.
Once you get them tall enough you can pump out tons of ships for going on a rampage.
The free harbors means you do not need roads for anything really, and it's hugely helpful for connecting all those captured cities elsewhere in the world. Makes for a ton of GPT once you get the war machine going.

As i mentioned, slower starting...


But wow, once you get going, you are unstoppable...


I may have gone slightly overkill on my navy...Privateers are insane for making up a massive fleet.

For island starts you have to build 2 or 3 settlers by yourself and rush buy a worker as soon you get 320 gold. Of course it's slower, but you only need a few units and you can beeline writing and philo without a problem.



But when you are on a island, you can make a lot more friends Sign RAs like mad for fast peaceful victories.





2 words : Big Cities. Slower or not, they provide you everything needed to accelerate any process.

I think i will post 3 more videos :

1 island start
1 with really few luxuries around and/or few traders
1 sea luxs start

I watched my OP video once again and i feel that it doesn't represent a ''regular'' game. And omg i played this game really badly

With some more clever moves i think it will be more instructive and entertaining. At least it showed that it can be pretty easy to make with a great land and lot of traders.

Tabarnack any chance you could post the 4000BC auto-save for that islands game? Id love to give it a go, haven't tried isolation in civ v yet!

i_imperator said:

Tabarnack any chance you could post the 4000BC auto-save for that islands game? Id love to give it a go, haven't tried isolation in civ v yet!

Click to expand...

The save can be found at the GOTM forum. The link is also presently on the CFC home page.

Tabarnak, thanks again for the method. I have been using a lot lately and i' d like to ask a question in that regard. I know you are growing your cities a lot to achieve high bpt super early. (800+) However, two recent games i had (Pangaea) shown that there is some kind of a science (RA?) threshold. And if you cross it super early, you don't need anything else, no GS's, no new RA's.. nothing. You are carried to a finish line at a rate of 1 tech per turn.

Sounds buggy, i know, (or maybe not?) but that is how it works these days.

So, after 11 RAs matured i rushed two Labs (around t.180) and it started again on me. Turn 200 - future tech. Actually, i had to use Oxford, since the science wave stopped right before Nano tech. (20 turns to it).

The question: Are you utilizing this feature in your games?

Check attachments.

Moriarte said:

Tabarnak, thanks again for the method. I have been using a lot lately and i' d like to ask a question in that regard. I know you are growing your cities a lot to achieve high bpt super early. (800+) However, two recent games i had (Pangaea) shown that there is some kind of a science (RA?) threshold. And if you cross it super early, you don't need anything else, no GS's, no new RA's.. nothing. You are carried to a finish line at a rate of 1 tech per turn.

Sounds buggy, i know, (or maybe not?) but that is how it works these days.

So, after 11 RAs matured i rushed two Labs (around t.180) and it started again on me. Turn 200 - future tech. Actually, i had to use Oxford, since the science wave stopped right before Nano tech. (20 turns to it).

The question: Are you utilizing this feature in your games?

Click to expand...

Never happened to me so far. I think Snarzberry put a thread about it a week or 2 ago. I don't even know exactly how this is working. It will surely be patched someday.

ifinnem said:

@Robert while you are waiting for help on the endgame can you help me with the early game...

How are you getting to Education in the 90s and then Renaissance in the early 100s?
What's your tech path and building order? (Are you going via MC as Tabarnak suggests?)
How early and what CS allies?

I just can't seem to get there until ~T120 even without going via MC... (Immortal level btw)

Click to expand...

I made a bait for Askia on the "Spain map". I was Ally with my culture neighbor CS (Warsaw). I denounced Askia and DoW, He took Warsaw and I just waited to the right moment to strike back. I liberated Warsaw and they gave me over 200 points, Ally for the rest of the game... No problem with culture easy to open renaissance. After that I had 4 AI how like me and no problem with RA (11 Ra in total).

For Education i just follow Tabarnaks guide, not so hard on this map when u start with 1000 . My 3rd city was settled on turn 8 or 9 . The map is very good for practice, so pls try it.

I made a 212 Sience victory, I will play it once more from the turn i unlocked R. lab.. This topic from Tabarnaks signatures is great. I'm so bad on getting large cities. My 18,18, 12. 12 produced 750-800. They there perfect until T167 when I unlocked Apollo after that....

Tabarnak said:

Big cities are needed near the end to maximize raw science and production. If you keep having low cities you will struggle post 200 turns and fail to get a fast science rate. Near the end you need a lot of gs to propulse yourself far away into the tech tree and you need these raw beakers floating around 1000 bpt to unlock every techs in time.

Click to expand...

OK you are right

At T167 I will save the 2 free tech and open Freedom instead. to get one ore two more GS.

Thanks for the Island advice. I'll give it another whirl.

ifinnem said:

How are you getting to Education in the 90s and then Renaissance in the early 100s?
What's your tech path and building order? (Are you going via MC as Tabarnak suggests?)
How early and what CS allies?

I just can't seem to get there until ~T120 even without going via MC... (Immortal level btw)

Click to expand...

With starting capital of 1000 you can do all king of things.
But 120 is a little late. Tech order that works for me: Pottery (build granary asap after scouts and monument), luxes techs, AH, Writing (build library in capital asap), Archery, Civil Service beeline, Philosophy (rush buy library in the slowest city or two if you can afford it and start on NC immediately), Education beeline, Acoustics. On continents getting into Renaissance takes a bit longer, I prefer to go through Astronomy.

ense7en said:

I have to disagree.

Click to expand...

Let's just say that Tradition is not what won this game for you. BS are pretty strong.
On regular archipelago map there is usually not enough high production tiles that justify having 20 pop and dealing with unhappiness. Another obstacle is strategics spawning. You often have to settle new city for each strategic (can't rely on deity CS too much) and you don't know with how many cities you'll end up eventually. Without very strong production mitigating culture hit is next to impossible. I haven't realized the real strength of Representation before my last water heavy map game. . Had enough space for 3 semi-decent cities on initial island, but couldn't stop kicking myself in the head for not taking Liberty since the mid-game. Although for peaceful play on large island it's still very strong.

Robert Smith said:

I made a bait for Askia on the "Spain map". I was Ally with my culture neighbor CS (Warsaw). I denounced Askia and DoW, He took Warsaw and I just waited to the right moment to strike back. I liberated Warsaw and they gave me over 200 points, Ally for the rest of the game... No problem with culture easy to open renaissance. After that I had 4 AI how like me and no problem with RA (11 Ra in total).

For Education i just follow Tabarnaks guide, not so hard on this map when u start with 1000 . My 3rd city was settled on turn 8 or 9 . The map is very good for practice, so pls try it.

Click to expand...

Ah ok you are using THAT map.

@Tabarnak or others are you consistently getting to Education in the 90s and Renaissance in early 100s? If so please share the approach...

PS Just got my best finish T230 Immortal with Japan, pretty good dirt.
Thats after only hitting Rationalism opener T122...

ifinnem said:

are you consistently getting to Education in the 90s and Renaissance in early 100s? If so please share the approach...

Click to expand...

Education around turn 100 is good enough. NC built around turn 85 with already high pop capital will propulse you a bit under 100 turns(with MC). You can go there without MC but i don't like beelining Education too fast and concentrate on other things first. What is better is rush buying a university in your 13-14 capital and immediately feel a sudden breeze

Even around turn 120-125 you can finish under 230 with enough RAs.

I prefer getting Education around turn 115 with 7-8 cities than getting it 15 turns earlier with only 4 cities. With a lot of cities you will make enough to rush buy public schools and research labs when needed. Getting Education fastest as possible is really not the ultimate key to fast science victories. Lot of variables can affect the long run too. These workshops are too good to skip them

Hi, I suppose you lose a bit of food/gold/hammer from settling on a luxury rather than improving it. Am I right? Is it really necessary?

If I turn raging barbarian on,do you think the strategy will still work by opening honour first before going for tradition?

I most try it once more and this time focus on getting high population in my 4 cities and get those high raw beakers around 1000 bpt. And also solve my production problem (can't shift to high production for producing all space parts in time). In last game I had 384 bpt at T140 and unlocked Apollo at T167 but after that I really suck. I max my bpt to early in the game...

I have some questions regarding jungle tiles and Fertilizer tech.

Is following math is correct?

With all science buildings (no NC, no observatory) and skipping happiness bonus (15%) to get even numbers. The modifier for a is 4. The modifier for from buildings, terrain and GP is 2.

=> Remove jungle and build farms

=> Build TP on plains with jungle (N.B. with only jungle build farms to fill up all slots...)

=> This one surprised me. If you have plantations on bananas gives you more flexibility and more with Fertilizer

I guess you research Chemistry and Fertilizer even if they are not part of the "path" for science victory. When do you do it?

Hi Tabernak. Really appreciate the input!


I've played the start of that GOTM over and over, trying to get to the same level of progress at T115. Without the greatest success! (Best finish 248 with homemade tactix)

*How did you become allied with those far-away CS this early? I see you sold off all your own lux's, i smell something. Also, do you continue to dump gold in them to keep allied?

*What was your initial BO of capital? Did you aim for any wonders?

*I see only 3 workers, is someone hiding or is this correct?

*Did you go intentionally unhappy in the start to accumulate gold/workers?

*Which beliefs did you go for?

*Did you manually stop growth of bigger cities to save happy for smaller ones?

*Did you tech optics early to find the other civs/CS?

*Did you rush buy any buildings up to this stage?

Hope you've got time to answer, much appreciated


And generally. Do you guys assign specialist scientist ASAP from unis, even if it will cripple your cities growth? Or what is your approach to this?

Kind regards S.

Robert Smith said:

I most try it once more and this time focus on getting high population in my 4 cities and get those high raw beakers around 1000 bpt. And also solve my production problem (can't shift to high production for producing all space parts in time). In last game I had 384 bpt at T140 and unlocked Apollo at T167 but after that I really suck. I max my bpt to early in the game...

I have some questions regarding jungle tiles and Fertilizer tech.

Is following math is correct?

With all science buildings (no NC, no observatory) and skipping happiness bonus (15%) to get even numbers. The modifier for a is 4. The modifier for from buildings, terrain and GP is 2.

2 Grassland with Jungle: Civil Service=YES and (Water=YES or Fertilizer=YES)
slots Terrain Total
2 TP 4 2 0 6 20
2 Farm 8 4 2 0 24

=> Remove jungle and build farms

2 Plains with Jungle: Civil Service=YES and (Water=YES or Fertilizer=YES)
slots Terrain Total
2 Farm 6 3 1 0 16
2 TP 4 2 0 6 20

=> Build TP on plains with jungle (N.B. with only jungle build farms to fill up all slots...)

2 Bananas on Jungle: Granary=YES and Fertilizer=YES
slots Terrain Total
No improvement 8 4 2 4 32
2 Plantations NO Fert. 10 5 3 0 32
2 Plantations 12 6 4 0 40

=> This one surprised me. If you have plantations on bananas gives you more flexibility and more with Fertilizer

I guess you research Chemistry and Fertilizer even if they are not part of the "path" for science victory. When do you do it?

Click to expand...

Well, its indeed correct assuming you have extra happiness, some food bonuses and more slots. Normally jungle cities, in order to get as much as possible science at start:
1. WORK all science GP slots
2. WORK maximum possible TPs. Earlier you get those +3 beakers (before bonus multiplier) - better.
To grow further - it will happen, all you need is to be sure that every GS slot being filled, and then maximum TPs worked.

Assuming you farm it up, you , by yourself deny yourself from earlier higher beaker output. So, no, i don't think farming jungles is good. As soon as you get all GS slots filled , and still have good food increase, each jungle TP is jewel. (assuming you aim for SC, or use specialized jungle cities + NC cap to tech)

there is reason of doing that in order to work not only GS slots, indeed, but not if you just Science focused.
Also its ok to do that after Public Schools being built (2 beaker per pop), just less cashey, but to farm before PS built? No , you lose some early beakers, which is actually thing which moves you to even more beakers (Labs?) faster

Robert Smith said:

I most try it once more and this time focus on getting high population in my 4 cities and get those high raw beakers around 1000 bpt. And also solve my production problem (can't shift to high production for producing all space parts in time). In last game I had 384 bpt at T140 and unlocked Apollo at T167 but after that I really suck. I max my bpt to early in the game...

I have some questions regarding jungle tiles and Fertilizer tech.

Is following math is correct?

With all science buildings (no NC, no observatory) and skipping happiness bonus (15%) to get even numbers. The modifier for a is 4. The modifier for from buildings, terrain and GP is 2.

2 Grassland with Jungle: Civil Service=YES and (Water=YES or Fertilizer=YES)
slots Terrain Total
2 TP 4 2 0 6 20
2 Farm 8 4 2 0 24

=> Remove jungle and build farms

2 Plains with Jungle: Civil Service=YES and (Water=YES or Fertilizer=YES)
slots Terrain Total
2 Farm 6 3 1 0 16
2 TP 4 2 0 6 20

=> Build TP on plains with jungle (N.B. with only jungle build farms to fill up all slots...)

2 Bananas on Jungle: Granary=YES and Fertilizer=YES
slots Terrain Total
No improvement 8 4 2 4 32
2 Plantations NO Fert. 10 5 3 0 32
2 Plantations 12 6 4 0 40

=> This one surprised me. If you have plantations on bananas gives you more flexibility and more with Fertilizer

I guess you research Chemistry and Fertilizer even if they are not part of the "path" for science victory. When do you do it?

Click to expand...

To get the extra pops you need to grow which will cost alot in the late game, maybe 500 gold for each pop if you replaced the farms with TP. You should probably swith to TP or specialist somewhere in the game to get faster wins but I can't say then.

I typically research Chem->Fertilizer after public schools (maybe stopping via Industrialization first)
Don't forget the massive boost for Chem mines and quarries etc.

The other question for me at this stage is late game bpt micro - ie when to stop growing and switch to full TPs and mines vs farms...

Robert Smith said:

I guess you research Chemistry and Fertilizer even if they are not part of the "path" for science victory. When do you do it?

Click to expand...

ifinnem said:

I typically research Chem->Fertilizer after public schools

Click to expand...

This.