My largest ever Rex with some conquest too

I've recently been playing several games on Noble difficulty with the aim of building as large an empire as possible. I just tried a Game with Mehmed, 7 civs and Large map size, locked modified assets, and got a huge starting Island shared with three other civs that I ended up Jannisary / Riflemen rushing.

I ended up conquering my Island by 1750 with a total of 42 cities and a healthy economy. I also managed to get several wonders as I started with a stone, and ended up with my best game yet on any difficulty



I managed to also build both the Hanging Gardens and Notre Dame, allowing me afford the warring easilly along with the Hammam, and managed several cuture wonders in my second and third cities. During my war with both Frederick and Pacal I had a 30 turn Golden age to pay for my costs, and by the time it finished I completed the Versailles. I can now keep all my cities large and health with 0% , but will increase it as my cities grow. I am now trying to settle as many of the remaining seafood as I can and then get Sid's Sushi Co and then I'll see just how big these cities can get.

This was a great and easy map for my strategy, but all the wars slowed me down, so my cities arent as developed as they could have been

I think I could still do a lot better though, I'm just trying to build as big an empire as possible with no WB, and tried a larger map size with fewer civs for this game.

When the game gets too easy there is a very easy thing to do. Turn up the difficulty. Lucky for you, you can do that plenty of times yet. You mentioned using culture slider, notre dam for happiness. Often the best way to get happiness is just by using herditary rule and building the cheapest unit you have avilable. That way you can grow way larger cities faster (having several double digit pop cities in the BC's sure is nice).

If you want as large empire as possible as fast as possible, the easiest way to go about it is imo to use julius ceasar and plenty of AI opponents. The AI doesn't know how to defend properly against praetorians. Sometimes you can also catch them before they get axemen. This allows you to expand very large very fast. Get COL and use the cheap organized courthouses to keep your economy afloat.

I normally play on Monarch > Immortal difficulty, but I just wanted to try easy noble games to try and improve my building game as I make too many mistakes.

I had to change out of hereditary rule for rush buying. Im currently rushing settlers to the remaing seafood sites.

When I play on Monarch and higher, I completely fail at taking any land from the enemies.

I used mehmed for EXP + Hammams, also I've been trying with the Khmer as well, but +2 is a lot better then +1 , which is completely insignificant once Sushi Co is founded.

If I play on Monarch, I can hardly get any of the mid game wonders or conquer anyone while rexing as well. I can rex on Immortal with Hannibal but with no war, but I hate having to struggle, I prefer playing nice and easy games instead.

I just want lots and lots of cities and everysingle seafood possible all the time

Oh, also getting a large and easy map like this one is usually very hard as well. I need to regenerate loads to get a good start.

And now my game is having a spaz and not letting me use a Great Prophet and Great Spy for my third Golden Age (first with Taj, second with a GE). It keeps on consuming the prophet and my spare GM for sushi, and leaves the spy behind.

oyzar said:

If you want as large empire as possible as fast as possible, the easiest way to go about it is imo to use julius ceasar and plenty of AI opponents. The AI doesn't know how to defend properly against praetorians. Sometimes you can also catch them before they get axemen. This allows you to expand very large very fast. Get COL and use the cheap organized courthouses to keep your economy afloat.

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I'm working on my building and economic ability by rexing to the limits asap (strikes) and then trying to recover ...
For this, I think that combination such as Napoleon of the Incans is great. On fractal/normal size/monarch map with 12 AI you can find yourself with a lot of room to expand after you destroyed your neighbours. In my last game I already had 12 cities when I built the HG If I remember correctly ...
As you might not need BW too early thanks to queshua, potery and writing can be prioritized for keeping the economy/research onfloat ...

The easy way to get a ridiculously large empire is to play any european civ in Earth 18.

I suppose it could be fun but 1500 at 1750 isn't very healthy with so many cities.

I usually don't get 1,500 bpt until late in the modern era (although there is a time I had a 9,000+ bpt game at 1500 A.D., and had mid-future techs and units on a NEXT WAR mod).

In a recent shadow walkthrough I had around 2000 bpt @ 1700ish with 6 cities. My Average bpt with 8-12 city Empires by 1000 AD range from 500-750. By 1800s if I turtled that same Empire brings in 3000+ bpt.

With obscene leaders/UUs I can easily conquer myself into 25+ cities with 1200+ bpt by 1000 AD. I notice this is a water map so that effects beakers but imo water maps aren't the norm. I'd suggest trying to learn how to REX on more standard continents or land maps where you don't get bogus wonders to help. The best way to learn is by leveraging tile management with a good tech path. - TGL goes against the learning process imo because of the instant gold provided from trade routes - kinda defeats the purpose of learning how to REX better.

Nissin said:

I suppose it could be fun but 1500 at 1750 isn't very healthy with so many cities.

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Meh, sorry for the thread necro, but I only just remembered this thread and felt like replying to this in hindsight on this game.

My Science slider was only at 60%, with +232 GPT, with my cities building Wealth instead of research.

The reason for this was that I was rush buying my infrastructure at that point and was building up enough gold to do so while also building the Kremlin.

Crusher1 said:

but imo water maps aren't the norm.

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And why arent they? This depends entirely on your personal preference and playstyle. Theres nothing stopping you from always playing on an Archipelago, or on a Pangaea map if thats what you prefer.

Also even on non archipelago maps, you can still settle coastal cities only and use the GLH.

pigswill said:

The easy way to get a ridiculously large empire is to play any european civ in Earth 18.

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Like 80+ cities before 1 AD. With the Romans, IMP + Org + Warrior Rush + Praets = perfect.