Start of industrial era strategy?

[dhokarena56]

Most of the time when I play Civ, I play on Large Continents on Monarch level.

In a recent game, I was playing the Iroquois, and had conquered my continent completely by the late Middle Ages, as usual.

At this point in the game, I usually spend the late Middle and early Industrial ages building a lot of cavalry and galleons to invade a weakish overseas neighbor. The problem is that this is really sort of a big investment in terms of my empire's production capacity, and it doesn't produce any real returns, because the territory I grab is of course crap at production. In other words, although I'm helping my eventual domination victory along, I'm doing it by throwing away a lot of my empire's wealth, and I was dissatisfied with this turn of events.

So, in this game, I decided to try something different. I built a city on the other continent's coast so that I would have somewhere to land my tanks once I got motorized transport. Then I just built workers in all my cities and had them develop the continent's land. At the start of this campaign I had maybe 70 workers for an entire continent; at the time of writing I have four times that number. I also switched to Communism to make the development mean something in my outlying cities. Since I already have most buildings in all my cities (courthouse, library, etc.), there's literally little for them to produce but workers.

The problem is that although development is very fast, the population drop is starting to shrink my economy. Research hasn't taken a visible hit yet, and since I'm mostly producing workers, which are cheap, not buildings or expensive units, neither has production (most cities, because of railroads, are producing at least 10 shields a turn) but my cash flow, and the proportion of my population towards a domination victory, have. So here's my question: what do you all spend that period of the game doing?

[Spoonwood]

Many games don't really get there... including domination, conquest, and 100k games. In a 20k game I have a team of workers in my capital ready to clean pollution in one turn (if I can get that many there). In a diplomatic game, I might conquer territory. In a space game, I'll also conquer territory. I don't agree that you throw away your empire's wealth by capturing highly corrupt cities. You invest your wealth into new cities for your empire. Those cities can yield science or tax commerce for your empire once you realize what to do with them. The key lies in recognizing that specialists do NOT corrupt. You might want to see this thread.

[Sakiar]

Originally Posted by dhokarena56

Most of the time when I play Civ, I play on Large Continents on Monarch level.

In a recent game, I was playing the Iroquois, and had conquered my continent completely by the late Middle Ages, as usual.

At this point in the game, I usually spend the late Middle and early Industrial ages building a lot of cavalry and galleons to invade a weakish overseas neighbor. The problem is that this is really sort of a big investment in terms of my empire's production capacity, and it doesn't produce any real returns, because the territory I grab is of course crap at production. In other words, although I'm helping my eventual domination victory along, I'm doing it by throwing away a lot of my empire's wealth, and I was dissatisfied with this turn of events.

So, in this game, I decided to try something different. I built a city on the other continent's coast so that I would have somewhere to land my tanks once I got motorized transport. Then I just built workers in all my cities and had them develop the continent's land. At the start of this campaign I had maybe 70 workers for an entire continent; at the time of writing I have four times that number. I also switched to Communism to make the development mean something in my outlying cities. Since I already have most buildings in all my cities (courthouse, library, etc.), there's literally little for them to produce but workers.

The problem is that although development is very fast, the population drop is starting to shrink my economy. Research hasn't taken a visible hit yet, and since I'm mostly producing workers, which are cheap, not buildings or expensive units, neither has production (most cities, because of railroads, are producing at least 10 shields a turn) but my cash flow, and the proportion of my population towards a domination victory, have. So here's my question: what do you all spend that period of the game doing?

Since every new city produces roughly 7 gold or 1 gold+9 science, and you can use CxC, it is quite beneficial to conquer new territory all the time.

If you think about it, a settle cash-rushed is 116 gold (rushed after 1 shield has been invested). A new city will produce (at size 5 or 6) 7 gold, so thats 16 turns to get the gold back after growing up to max size (I dunno how to calculate this). Now you got 2 cities cash rushing a settler, creating 2 new cities etc. In other words, its increasing your income more and more (and is actually very strong - by using 10% (estimated, many of the farms were still growing and I did not bother micro them all) of the land in a huge map to these science farms I was able to tech modern age techs in roughly 8-12 turns with 0% science slider!)



When I enter IA, I am usually quite lacking in infrastructure in cities (I got roads and stuff, but not improvements), so I tend to look over my amount of cavalry - can I with this force conquer a new enemy without having to wait too long, or do I need to produce many more cavalry before having the strenght? (also, to end it quickly, I play in republic). If I do not have sufficient cavalry, I tend to invest production in infrastructure, rush to Replaceable Arts (Infantry + 2x worker speed) so my slaves work as good as normal workers as well as being able to build infantry. Then I get factories (tech as well as improvement) and tech directly to tanks. A direct tech to tanks should be able to give you some (long) time to get a large army, and then you can steamroll the enemy. Especially if you got armies! I just played a huge game on emperor where I had the same problem, start of IA, not enough to take a country, so I teched to tanks (and seeing as Modern Armor was 20 turns away, and I was cash rushing an army every other turn, I just kept teching). Once having Modern Armor I could take ALL AI cities with 2 armies only (even 4-5 infantry in metropolis got destroyed easily by 2 armies!).

So, I would tech . Unless you got a huge chunk of Cavalry, then I would tech AND use these cavalry to take some easy land from whoever got weakest military, then handle the bigger boys with tanks.

[MysteryX]

I often play on Monarch level with a continents map too. I would not prioritize capturing land as much as capturing resources, particularly luxuries. Usually my continent only has 3-5 of the luxuries and the other continent has the rest. I always need Happiness and I hate spending my treasury gold for it.

Whatever that non-productive city on the other continent costs me, it's nowhere near the value of having an additional luxury to add to the marketplaces. Other civilizations want unreasonable prices to trade for them, and are unreliable anyway. The more luxuries I have under my control, the less I need to use my treasury money for entertainment, meaning I can shift more to research. I can even sell back captured resources to the civilizations from whom I took them.

Secondarily, I would look to take land to capture strategic resources to deny them to my opponents. The value of taking away an opponent's only source of rubber or oil is far greater than the cost of your non-productive city.

So I wouldn't focus much on capturing land on the other continent as capturing resources (mainly luxuries) on the other continent. You'll start to pull away in relative power. Soon enough you will be in a position to quickly capture the rest of the land you need to win without significant opposition.

[Sakiar]

Originally Posted by MysteryX

I often play on Monarch level with a continents map too. I would not prioritize capturing land as much as capturing resources, particularly luxuries. Usually my continent only has 3-5 of the luxuries and the other continent has the rest. I always need Happiness and I hate spending my treasury gold for it.

Whatever that non-productive city on the other continent costs me, it's nowhere near the value of having an additional luxury to add to the marketplaces. Other civilizations want unreasonable prices to trade for them, and are unreliable anyway. The more luxuries I have under my control, the less I need to use my treasury money for entertainment, meaning I can shift more to research. I can even sell back captured resources to the civilizations from whom I took them.

Secondarily, I would look to take land to capture strategic resources to deny them to my opponents. The value of taking away an opponent's only source of rubber or oil is far greater than the cost of your non-productive city.

So I wouldn't focus much on capturing land on the other continent as capturing resources (mainly luxuries) on the other continent. You'll start to pull away in relative power. Soon enough you will be in a position to quickly capture the rest of the land you need to win without significant opposition.

+1. I always target future science farm areas with most resources first (nothing beats having 8 luxuries)