Tradition's 4 cities opening

Tabarnak · Jul 09, 2012, 05:30 PM

% of success depends of difficulty level, land, luxuries and neighbors around. Tested under standard settings at emperor, immortal and deity level. Pretty robust strategy, this can be achieved as soon as you can settle 3 more cities and get at least 3 unique luxuries. 2 or 3 traders are at least needed. The goal is to get 4 cities and 3-4 workers as fast as you can. It's important because settled cities will focus on archers. You need them for composite bowmen for early defense or offense. The closest AIs will hate you and you need to be prepared. It's a good thing because you can get more cities(puppets) if you plan accordingly into warfare. Obviously, some civs are more powerful than others for this approach.

With help of Tradition, your cities will grow very fast. Fast production, gold and science will raise your civilization into a powerhouse. This strategy is focused on getting luxuries as fast as you can and use them to finance your expansion.

Part 1 : The expansion. Turn 0-60(Get 4 cities and CBs)

Policy tree order:

-Tradition opener
-Legalism
-Monarchy
-Landed Elite

Monarchy before Landed Elite because the extra happiness and gold will help you to sell more luxs and upgrade more archers.

Tech order :

AH or mining--->pottery--->2 lux techs(under capital, mining luxuries included)--->Archery--->lux tech--->construction

AH first if trapping ressources around or no mining/chopping required early. If not, start with Mining-Pottery. Some starts are more rough than others. Sometimes you get some jungle starts and you need BW to advance. If you need BW, skip AH. Pottery can be 3rd if you build a 2nd warrior before shrine.

Buy order :

-Settler
-Settler
-Worker
-Archers upgrade

Settlers before worker. More gold and production earlier from new cities is better than an early worker. The saving gold opportunity reduces settlers cost. You can rush buy a 2nd worker if you have a lot of luxuries and traders.

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Now, your first worker will get out around turn 20. You need 500

to buy a settler. When first lux/horses is improved, sell it. Buy a settler as soon as you can. Loan some gold if needed. Try to sell a duplicated lux(from capital and land around) first. The idea behind this is to get that lux back around turn 55-60 when you gonna need it. Sort of rotation system, you can sell them before hitting too much unhappiness.

If you can settle your 2nd city on a luxury, do it now. Sell luxury and try to buy another settler around turn 40 after a 2nd lux improved into capital. Buy worker as soon as you can after these 2 settlers. A last settler will get out of the capital around turn 40-45. Steal a worker from a cs. Little diplo hit, but huge improvement for the game in process. Remember that these CBs can get you more cities!

2nd city : archer-archer

3rd city : archer-shrine

4th city : archer-shrine

Capital : scout-worker-shrine-warrior(3 or 4

)-settler-archer-archer

At deity it's useful to get a pantheon from the help of your first shrine(capital). But getting a religion is a lot more difficult. Skip other shrines if you feel that it will be impossible to get a religion. But an early religious ally can change your mind. Some civs are well suited about getting a religion at deity. Ethiopians, Mayans and Celts are some good candidates.

You can get 6 to 8 archers from 4 cities. I prefer shrines after 1st archer to get a chance for a religion later.

VIDEO: PART 1 Bad sound sorry

link to video.

I made some mistakes because i played this pretty fast. I lost a stolen worker from barbs but i recuperated another one a bit late.

Part 2 : War or not to war? Turn 61 to 105(CS allies and NC, up to Metal Casting)

The following section is pretty variable. Lot of actions can modify decisions. Especially with the cs...while you are building libraries, it's a good idea to ally some of them. You will probably have a large amount of gold between the turn 70 and 90 from all these numerous deals. Quests begin to be interesting. CBs can chase barbs to gain more influence. They can also take more cities from the AI...

(Immortal level)Example of libraries build up after CBs while going for Philosophy...with a little gift :

Tech path :

construction-writing-BW-philo-IW-Metal Casting

Policy order :

Aristocracy
Oligarchy

/

After libraries, i usually finish a shrine or 2 and start on granaries. I will rush buy 1 or 2 more units if needed into wars. But the most important are cs allies. These cs can help your civilization to grow at a faster rate. While finishing NC(with the help of Aristocracy) into Capital, it's time to see if there is some iron. Good for you if you get some! I can stop granaries and build some warriors if i find more than enough.

After finishing granaries and extra buildings/units, you can start building workshops. With the Tradition finisher, your cities will grow at lightning speed and build everything faster. Add a worker if you feel that you will be late for improvements. Your civilization is now well rounded to achieve any path of glory!

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At Prince or below, getting gold can be a lot more difficult. Build a 2nd settler from capital and buy only one.
At Emperor or below, you can go for writing and philo before construction. Archers will be sufficient for defense(build 3-4 of them) until construction.
At immortal or below, you need a minimum of 4 CBs to ensure good protection for 1vs1.
At deity, it's better to get 6-7 CBs.

northtexan95 · Jul 09, 2012, 05:53 PM

Awesome! I know a lot of us have been waiting for a comprehensive post about your plan.

snarzberry · Jul 09, 2012, 06:29 PM

Heh, I've been doing almost the exact same thing - right down to buying 2 settlers in a peaceful science game set up, just without the heavy attention to archers. It's been good for a sub 230 science vic for me so far, but I know I'm not totally nailing the mid and late game.

Nice work as always, really the Tradition tree now just screams out for this kind of opening. 4 cities, free aqueducts, boost growth ... etc

Tabarnak · Jul 09, 2012, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snarzberry

It's been good for a sub 230 science vic for me so far, but I know I'm not totally nailing the mid and late game.

Nice work as always, really the Tradition tree now just screams out for this kind of opening. 4 cities, free aqueducts, boost growth ... etc

If you can keep 3-4 RAers, sub 230 is a good target. This can get you a lot of puppets too(thing that i've not achieved yet for many reasons...mainly because i wanted to play most turns as possible for testings, focusing on defense).

ifinnem · Jul 09, 2012, 08:53 PM

I had good fun with the Aztecs taking the early 4 city tall approach to the extreme. On a lakes map you can just go insanely vertical with them so quickly, plus the UA is good for the extra culture to speed through the Tradition tree.
Finally combine that with all the religion growth bonuses and you can have some real fun.

I played a game on Emperor (normally play Immortal but wanted to get all the Wonders). Which adds another nice bit of synergy as TOA, Mids and SH all have GE points for a nice early GA.
In my sample game (1st attempt) I had cities of 13,9,8,3 by T100 and then at T150:
20,18,17,12 & new one at 6
231

per turn

Tabarnak · Jul 09, 2012, 11:26 PM

Video added.

dthompson32 · Jul 10, 2012, 08:18 AM

Awesome, I've been waiting for this writeup!

I'm going to try a variation on this on my current map after my current game is complete (I used a Liberty opener). It will be a bit of a challenge, since its Mayans on a Continents Plus map, no CSs until you can embark units (or take a Great Admiral, but must get Theology to do that).

animalguy · Jul 10, 2012, 08:32 AM

Im encountering some problems when using this stratagey. Playing on king i find gold is a lot harder to come by and whenever i steal a worker from a city state i get called a warmongering menace which leads to denouncements, often by my friends which just ends up resulting in a world war. Any suggestions on how to stop this.

Delar · Jul 10, 2012, 08:39 AM

Tabarnak which civilization leader do you prefer for this setup? ifinnem mentioned Aztecs worked well for this strategy.

_megafone_ · Jul 10, 2012, 10:56 AM

If you're not planning on going offensive, Construction is a waste of time IMO - you'll fill up Oligarchy early and the AI won't ever be able to take your cities if you defend smartly (unless you start close to some overpowered Classical attacker like the Huns or whatever). In that case, should head straight to Philosophy and get your science flowing.

Otherwise, great writeup.

Civologist · Jul 10, 2012, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by animalguy

Im encountering some problems when using this stratagey. Playing on king i find gold is a lot harder to come by and whenever i steal a worker from a city state i get called a warmongering menace which leads to denouncements, often by my friends which just ends up resulting in a world war. Any suggestions on how to stop this.

Playing on a lower difficulty will make this strategy harder not easier. It takes advantage of the AI's extreme gold bonuses by selling your lux/horses to the AI and giving you an early lump of gold to buy units with. If you play on King and lower you will have less gold to take from the AI.

smallfish · Jul 10, 2012, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Civologist

Playing on a lower difficulty will make this strategy harder not easier. It takes advantage of the AI's extreme gold bonuses by selling your lux/horses to the AI and giving you an early lump of gold to buy units with. If you play on King and lower you will have less gold to take from the AI.

That... really depends. Current game and the only one who had way over 900 gold is an "OOC" Washington (who was right in front of me and thus my first victim), who had plenty of troops with Honor - both Netherlands and Iroquois are not having that much cash despite expanding past two cities.

Because I started off so close to him, Washington was naturally disinclined to trade with me his massive goldstack.

e: on lower levels you can just waltz two warriors onto an early capital, take away their workers when their warriors are away, and go farm your lands into a wonderspamming powerhouse.

Tabarnak · Jul 10, 2012, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delar

Tabarnak which civilization leader do you prefer for this setup? ifinnem mentioned Aztecs worked well for this strategy.

Aztecs shine later with their UB and Trad. finisher i agree

All civs related to religion are very nice. The main reason is that faith doesn't scale at all. It's all cumulative! I don't need to explain more here. 4 cities recreating a stonehenge wonder? Anytime!

All other civs with good and early UBs. Egypt, Rome with his UA can also be nice.

northtexan95 · Jul 10, 2012, 01:19 PM

I just watched your video and I have a few questions and comments for you ...

* I've heard something mentioned in previous threads about a "hammer trick" to get more production. Watching your video I noticed you micro managed your citizens but I didn't see anything that looked like a trick.

* Your third city was not founded on a luxary. Was this so you would have more lux's available without having to purchase tiles?

* Your capital grew to 4 and then you put everything into production and coin. Your fouth city was still at a population of 1 (if I remember correctly0 when you shifted everything to production for an archer. So when do you worry about growth? Is is after you capture your first enemy capital?

* I was glad to see the barbarians caused slowed you down as they do me. Last night my capital had three barbarian warriors around my capital as my first worked popped out. Unfortunately, my warrior and scout were several turns away scouting. Grrrr ...

* I guess you normally start off selling lux's at 240 gold? I didn't realize they would go higher than 209. Good to know.

* When selling horses you didn't ask for a price, you just basically got bids from everyone and took the highest. Is that the best way to sell strategic resources?

* Trading one coin per turn for a bulk payment before declaring war. Nice move.

Thanks again for the info and video. This is great stuff ... especially for someone like me who's only be really playing since G&K came out.

Tabarnak · Jul 10, 2012, 01:38 PM

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