Fast national college vs expansion

So I tried the “fast national college” start yesterday, playing as France, immortal level (figured I would drop a level for the new patch). Let’s use this thread to discuss the optimal way to do this and the opportunity cost of doing so 

Basically I built a scout while growing to size 2, a worker while growing to size 3-4, then bought the library as soon as writing finished (I beelined writing and sold open borders as soon as writing was completed and took out a loan for a nearby civ + some ruins/CS discovery cash). The worker is a better “buy” than the library, but I saved more turns by buying the library, because tech time to writing is basically “dead” time in terms of the beeline anyway.

I chopped 2 forests for the national college and you can have it anywhere between turn 30 and 40 depending on if you can get the tradition wonder bonus, if you have 3 food resources in your starting area, etc etc. Interestingly, you don’t really need the tradition wonder bonus, it’s only around 30 hammers saved. Basically, starting area plays a huge role, but it’s doable with average terrain at turn 40, because you don’t have to grow to size 4 or pick up any social policies to complete this mini beeline.

So best case you will have: 3 (palace) + 4*1.5=6 (population) + 5 (college) = 14 base science *1.50 (multiplier) = 21 science/turn at turn 30-ish.

The problem is of course that if you go liberty and scout + spam settlers from first + 2nd city you can have 4-5 extra cities at this stage (turn 30-40). Science will be about 10/ turn, but with a much stronger production + growth base, not to mention the fact that in theory, each of those cities could be placed directly on top of a luxury for an immediate 300g “refund” which can be used for maritime alliances, workers, more settlers, or hell, even buying a couple of libraries and thus be pretty well on the way towards national college anyway, if that really is the way you want to play it.

So, is it better at this stage to have 1 super science city that will play REX catchup or an already expanding empire of 4-5 cities? I’m leaning towards the cities because I tend to favor production + expansion over science.

My gut would say to still take the expansion in a game vs the AI. On higher levels he's going to be ahead of you for a long time anyway, may as well pump out some cities early.

On the lower levels it really doesn't matter what you do.

It will depend of the map as well. If you need some spots before AI or human, you may want to delay this National College.

If you delay cities, you delay worked improvements and the snowball effect. You will need a great hammer capital and some spared gold to build it right of the bat, then aggressively build settlers with some units.

In my experience 3 or 4 cities should suit well for this.

At immortal and deity you don't have the time or "luxury" to build wonders--especially early, since it's a game of catch-up by definition. Putting your capital offline as a production city at the start is self-crippling; I think the most solid/viable starting strategy is quick expansion to 5-6 cities, building libraries and monuments off the bat in the newly settled ones, and minimal defensive units until you hit Longswords and can invest in an army that can do serious damage. You have enough well-settled cities then to do the actual unit production and the AI will leave you alone until then as well.

Whatever you are behind in science can be made up in tactics when at war. The most important bit of science/teching is to get to those powerful next units: longswords, rifling, artillery--so you're beelining your techs and I doubt the AI does the same; also you've got libraries in all your minor cities and are signing RAs whenever possible so you should get tech parity at about rifling if all goes well.

The national college seems to be a very large boost. If you expand, you can't reach the same science level before turn 100 or so, even if you manage to get enough happiness to actually use it.

I've been experimenting with this start as well (although Martin Alvito is probably better at it than I am) and I don't think buying the library is worth it. My approach is:

Build 1-2 warriors and build or pre-build a settler. Use the warrior and your starting warrior to capture a worker or two if you can. Then grab tradition when you get your first policy and do everything in your power to get a maritime ally ASAP (this includes taking loans). When you get writing, switch over to a library and then NC. Your capital is now most likely at size 5 or 6, which will put you at 25 or so science. When you finished NC either finish your settler or plant it if you built it completely.

I think the extra science is well worth the wait. The boost is very substantial and your settler production is low anyways before you get a maritime ally, and afterwards your capital will dwarf the other cities easily.

Sign RA as quickly as possible to get to Astronomy. Martin has done it on turn 86, my best so far is 95 or so.

Chances are you'll get a second policy unless you push settlers very hard. I typically chose Oligarchy but Martin proposed to go for Aristocracy to get the wonder building bonus. Aristocracy gives you a good chance of getting Hagia Sophia for an additional GPP per scientist, and of getting the Porcelain Tower which is one free tech basically.

If you play Babylon, I'd plant the academy to get 7.5 science per turn from National College with a tendency to improve when you get universities

alpaca said:

(this includes taking loans)

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Hey, did I miss something here?!

This thread make me think about multiplayer guy who want NC with capital right away. He will take at least 30 turns on quick speed to build it. If his score stay low until then, this means one thing....attack him ASAP

One question : Can you capture ennemy's NC for your profit?

@ basta

I think taking a loan means selling off your initial luxery resourses even if you only have one of them.

Taking a loan means giving an AI gold per turn in exchange for an upfront cash amount.

Did it today on emperor taking liberty instead so I could buy a settler cheap. It does majorly cripple expansion but the science is very powerful, i like it, it's a nice trade-off. I'm starting to think that on some maps it may be optimal to found a second city first to block off land, and then either chop, build or buy a library there.

I do however think that this is a major step in the right direction, no longer is the equation as simple as pre-patch science=expansion, now there is at least a trade off. Although I have found that getting the national college can give you the tech edge so you can conquer the land you would have otherwise settled with swords+cats.

National college first certainly seemed very nice on archipelago, where you only get 3-4 cities pre-optics.

alpaca said:

The national college seems to be a very large boost. If you expand, you can't reach the same science level before turn 100 or so, even if you manage to get enough happiness to actually use it.

I've been experimenting with this start as well (although Martin Alvito is probably better at it than I am) and I don't think buying the library is worth it. My approach is:

Build 1-2 warriors and build or pre-build a settler. Use the warrior and your starting warrior to capture a worker or two if you can. Then grab tradition when you get your first policy and do everything in your power to get a maritime ally ASAP (this includes taking loans). When you get writing, switch over to a library and then NC. Your capital is now most likely at size 5 or 6, which will put you at 25 or so science. When you finished NC either finish your settler or plant it if you built it completely.

I think the extra science is well worth the wait. The boost is very substantial and your settler production is low anyways before you get a maritime ally, and afterwards your capital will dwarf the other cities easily.

Sign RA as quickly as possible to get to Astronomy. Martin has done it on turn 86, my best so far is 95 or so.

Chances are you'll get a second policy unless you push settlers very hard. I typically chose Oligarchy but Martin proposed to go for Aristocracy to get the wonder building bonus. Aristocracy gives you a good chance of getting Hagia Sophia for an additional GPP per scientist, and of getting the Porcelain Tower which is one free tech basically.

If you play Babylon, I'd plant the academy to get 7.5 science per turn from National College with a tendency to improve when you get universities

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It’s good to have some discussion on this

What’s optimal depends on your goal I suppose – but I don’t see much reason to beeline astronomy/renaissance – to get freedom? Or go down rationalism? I don't mind spending some ancient age SPs to be honest.

Buying the library is getting the national college at least 8-10 turns earlier – it may or may not be worth it. I’m also not a fan of building workers, but I wanted consistency for what was basically a couple of test runs. You can also steal a worker with your starting warrior. City state workers spawn around turn 20-30 in my experience, so you can grab one of those too (but you can do that with a scout or starting warrior too). Taking other civs workers can be a real "luck of the draw"/constant reload type of thing in my experience, so I don't like to build my gameplan around it unless warrior rushing (which may not be possible anymore, have not tested)

breaking 10 prod/turn is going to be hard for a capital with primarily underdeveloped land and the library + national college is 80+120 = 200 hammers/10 prod = 20 turns. You won’t have writing before turn 20 so that’s turn 40 – best case, maybe turn 36 with a couple of chops. If France/Egypt, maybe you could do sub-35 with wonder bonus. All this also assumes that you are close enough to steal a worker early and finding a very early maritime for what is essentially a rather late college.

Let’s for argument’s sake say that this puts you somewhere between 21-25 science, compared to a REX/ICS approach which will be at 10-12 science at the same time. Basically you are trading a lot of production, expansion & potentially 4 new luxury sales from settling 4 new cities on luxuries for “only” 11-15 science. I’d say it’s a pretty high risk, questionable reward strategy (but of course a fun beeline) I may change my mind though if I can be convinced that it's more efficient than old school settler spam

I think the question boils down to the utility of the new techs. If you build NC and get a science boost, you will need to pump settlers after that, meaning you cannot build the new items. Exactly where are you supposed to utilize the new tech?
What I mean is, the more advanced units and buildings are expansive, not to mention that the utility of for instance super early marketplaces, is hard to put into practise due to limited production and reserve of resources (production/gold).

One might argue that early Civil Service is beneficial but again, consider the sacrifices of not settling early. Also you need workers and cities to make the best use of it.


Personally, I have played my first games with expanding 3-4 cities and prioritizing libraries, even considering to buy them to make the College available faster. I am yet to try NC rush but I have the suspicion that it is just a trend to experiment with a new feature. Maybe I am wrong but I think in theory, the cons generally outweight the pros.

This is all based on the fact that early REX is far far less lucrative. I am also assuming probably correctly that alpaca and Martin are dabbling with Siam as well. The reason to go vertical first is to get to Education and Astro/Acoustics ASAP, which in turn equals Wat + Siam Ren CS bonus. Libraries in multiple cities are just not worth the hammers. Going horizontal early nets you a few more warrior production/gold production cities but that is really all you will be building. Beelining Wat is seemingly the best way to guarantee fast tech for the continuation of the game. Also, the capital becomes a pretty sexy settler pump considering its incredible growth with Tradition+Siam MCS.

One thing that was noticeable doing this myself was the slowdown on worker turns thanks to no 25% liberty boost. Considering the trade off with the much nerfed tree bonus and Meritocracy, this is a sacrifice I can live with.

Re: Aristocracy. I had previously been going Oligarchy or the Capital unhappiness reducer, but I did a 100 turn tester with this. I managed to actually grab Hagia Sophia. This alone probably made the policy worth it.

Sneaks said:

This is all based on the fact that early REX is far far less lucrative. I am also assuming probably correctly that alpaca and Martin are dabbling with Siam as well. The reason to go vertical first is to get to Education and Astro/Acoustics ASAP, which in turn equals Wat + Siam Ren CS bonus. Libraries in multiple cities are just not worth the hammers. Going horizontal early nets you a few more warrior production/gold production cities but that is really all you will be building. Beelining Wat is seemingly the best way to guarantee fast tech for the continuation of the game. Also, the capital becomes a pretty sexy settler pump considering its incredible growth with Tradition+Siam MCS.

One thing that was noticeable doing this myself was the slowdown on worker turns thanks to no 25% liberty boost. Considering the trade off with the much nerfed tree bonus and Meritocracy, this is a sacrifice I can live with.

Re: Aristocracy. I had previously been going Oligarchy or the Capital unhappiness reducer, but I did a 100 turn tester with this. I managed to actually grab Hagia Sophia. This alone probably made the policy worth it.

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You assume correctly. Education beeline for Wat (which will be the second item you build after a colosseum in most cities) and Astronomy for Observatory, Freedom and Rationalism. The Observatory can give you a third scientist slot for +2 happiness from Freedom if you settle next to a mountain. Rationalism is even more useful with it's +4 beakers per city.

The AI being what it is, they don't attack you if you stay small. My whole army consisted of 2 horsemen and 2 warriors and the AI started cannibalizing and denouncing each other rather than go for my throat, because I was cute, cuddly, and had RA with all my neighbours, which I guess they are loath to cancel now. You can play them much more easily after the patch and focus on expansion instead. Make sure you settle all tiles next to an opponent in the same turn, and use that turn to buy the tiles you need there, even if it means stalling some foundings for a couple of turns. It's well worth it because the AI will warn you but if you promise not to do it again, they'll most likely leave you alone.

The lost production isn't critical enough to detract me from trying this strategy. As I said, maritime allies provide +4 or +5 (Siam) food in the capital, which is the vast majority of your settler production. If you have a size 5 or 6 capital with improved hills or farms nearby, it will produce settlers quite quickly after you get the NC, so you don't really lose a lot if your citizens can work profitable tiles.

Goat: A Maritime ally is worth more than a bought library or worker. If you play Siam 5 food per turn, just in the capital. 2 everywhere else. This is a massive early growth boost, and you usually get some resources after a while.

My gut reaction is take all the luxury resources in your area before you do anything, that's about 6-7 cities, then stop for a few dozen turns to get all the good national wonders. After that, I'd do whatever seems best in the game.

NC first appears to be stronger. I have an ideal ICS start (FoY six tiles from capital) saved, and I will play it both ways later today and post the comparison.

You could compromise and do a 2-city NC rush.

Build settler, library in the capital. Claim the best resource spot with your second city and buy a library there.

alpaca said:

A Maritime ally is worth more than a bought library or worker. If you play Siam 5 food per turn, just in the capital. 2 everywhere else. This is a massive early growth boost, and you usually get some resources after a while.

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Dang, lost a post... under normal circumstances i totally agree, but my goal was to minimize time to NC, hence both buying the library (saves 8-10 turns by not building library) and building the worker (saves 4-5 turns on NC by chopping 2 forests).

I think this is the FASTEST NC, not necessarily the optimal play

DaveMcW said:

You could compromise and do a 2-city NC rush.

Build settler, library in the capital. Claim the best resource spot with your second city and buy a library there.

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That's also an option to be tried out