The Art of the MiddleGame : I need some advice from adv players about the expansion

Flower

Warlord
Joined
Jan 13, 2004
Messages
144
Hi, I played a free for all ranked multiplayer game yesterday and I think I should have won but maybe I'm wrong... Here's the scenario : I am the Zulus and the other players are the Aztecs twice and the Arabs. The AI is the Spaniards. I got a pretty good start with a couple of barbarians villages and found the Cities of Gold. I killed the Arabs player and took his capital. I got my 2 libraries in my two Zulus cities with one having a tile with spices. One of the Aztecs player manage to take the capital cities of the AI and the other Aztecs player kicking them out of the game. At one point from the game I was ahead in tech with like 11 techs and the other Aztecs had 7 techs. Then, a couple of turns later I was finding myself behind in tech. At the end he was way ahead with like 26 techs to my 17. He finished me of cours with tanks. I don't know how I lost the lead like that.

I would like to have some advice from advanced players to know how you manage your expansion game. I really don't know how to do it. Do you rush settlers or do you produce them regularly... How much do you pump...

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Flower
 
Well I found my answer in the strategy forum... Maybe I posted in the wrong forum but anyhow if someone have comments feel free to reply I will read for sure.
 
It's worth repeating, don't rush libraries in the early game, rush settlers. Two cities will produce just as much science as one city with a libary.

Get 3-5 cities at least before you get to Code of Laws. Then start expanding fast.

Look for things that will help city growth like fish, whale, wheat and cattle.

I usually shoot for 7-10 cities by 0 AD, and hopefully have more than 15 by the time I'm in the modern.

But the more cities the better, even crappy cities can be useful. Expand as much as you can defend.

A lot of Zulu players don't know how to tech well, and sit back and don't expand enough, this is where they rack up most of their losses. If the other player has more cities or any tech bonuses, they will overtake the Zulus in tech if the Zulus don't expand enough and tech right. The Zulus can expand really fast because they claim a large part of the map in the early game, and then they get rapid city growth, which helps get more cities. You shouldn't have any problems with tech or gold, since those large cities can become pretty powerful.
 
Alright, thanks for the answer but I have another reply just to get more precise information on settlers. Do you wait to have a certain amount of pop to rush them or you do it as soon as you can? Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
FLower
 
usually i want to get my settlers as fast as possible, but safely. If you don't have anywhere to expand to, then you need a boat first so u can get to island, if there are horsemen or zulu warriors roaming, you probably want an escort for the settlers, things like that.

but I typically like to grow in my city a little bit, but not up to the next population, just enough food banked so on my next turn the city I rushed the settler out of will grow. If you city is 2 pop (and you're in republic), spend 2 turns on 4 grass or 4 turns on 1 grass so the next turn the city will be back to 2.

if you are not in republic, then you need to get to 3 pop to be able to produce a settler. In this case, I'll still bank 8 food, but the city will be at 2 pop the next turn.

Finding a new city spot that has good growth resources around it will help produce a lot of settlers, then you don't really have to worry about the math so much and you can spam settlers out of it and it'll still grow back to size quickly.

but in general, as soon as I can get a settler, I'll probably take the chance to do it. I don't grow to 4 pop or higher, this can be slow. You want new cities at first to basically have more cities to produce settlers, once you get some settlers going, it's easy to pump out more and more because you have more cities to build them in.
 
usually i want to get my settlers as fast as possible, but safely. If you don't have anywhere to expand to, then you need a boat first so u can get to island, if there are horsemen or zulu warriors roaming, you probably want an escort for the settlers, things like that.

but I typically like to grow in my city a little bit, but not up to the next population, just enough food banked so on my next turn the city I rushed the settler out of will grow. If you city is 2 pop (and you're in republic), spend 2 turns on 4 grass or 4 turns on 1 grass so the next turn the city will be back to 2.

if you are not in republic, then you need to get to 3 pop to be able to produce a settler. In this case, I'll still bank 8 food, but the city will be at 2 pop the next turn.

Finding a new city spot that has good growth resources around it will help produce a lot of settlers, then you don't really have to worry about the math so much and you can spam settlers out of it and it'll still grow back to size quickly.

but in general, as soon as I can get a settler, I'll probably take the chance to do it. I don't grow to 4 pop or higher, this can be slow. You want new cities at first to basically have more cities to produce settlers, once you get some settlers going, it's easy to pump out more and more because you have more cities to build them in.

My old trick of expansion :D (joke)
 
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