Dealing with early expansion....help

[Endure]

How do you guys cope with AI's taking the land you've earned via conquest early and early-mid game?

When I'm warmongering early on in the game, I'm producing axemen/swordmen/etc in my few cities almost non-stop and don't really want to interupt the flow to produce settlers because I'm at war and am probably going to need replacement troops.

I run into one of 2 problems then.

1) I keep all, or most of the AI cities that I capture. There's usually not much of a problem with other AI's attempting land steals here because I can block them off with closed borders. However, high maintenance fees cripples my economy and brings my research slider pummeling down to 10-30% and brings my war machine grinding to a halt.

2) I raze most of the AI cities, maybe keeping the capital (s) and plan to resettle the land with my own settlers when I can (trying to keep the science slider above 50%). Invariably, before I can even really begin to resettle the land, other AI civ's settlers are starting to flood into the now-empty terrority and stealing the land my armies had won.
I'm forced to either go to war, or lose the land I've already won.

I'm not really sure what to do here, seems I'm caught in a catch-22.

 

[Johnpecan]

1. CoL
2. Cottages
3. Currency

These early times are what I consider the most defining and difficult part of the game. If you want to fuel your early war machine, my prescribed 3-step plan can be found in 1000 articles in these forums.

 

[TheGreatSteve]

1. Keep only the cities that will quickly be able to pay for themselves, or will help block off land for later. The AI will stick a settler on a desert tile in the middle of your empire if they can, but generally they hold off until they're out of land elsewhere. So even if you can't block an area off totally, if you get most of it you'll slow them down and make it easier to take the cities later.


2. Don't be too quick to peace your neighbors, even if you're done axe-expanding. Even a small stack by their borders will help keep the settlers home and their workers hiding, preventing development. And if you can declare on someone and swipe their workers to help develop the land you.. uh... liberated, that's even better.

3. Goes with the last part of 2, but.. Workers. Lots of workers are your friends. Cottage to improve commerce, chop to get the settlers out faster or the courthouses done earlier. Roads, terrain improvements, the faster those cities get developed the faster you can expand.

 

[Endure]

I generally do have quite a few cottages up, though I am weak in the worker department. After building a few, I tend to rely on stealing workers from the AI while I'm fighting early wars.

I try to beeline for Currency and CoL but my research gets dragged down to the point where it takes a long time for me to actually get to them.

So maybe I need to hold off going to war until I have them? And during that time just build more units and a few more workers?

 

[Johnpecan]

I think you're on the right track. I normally try to expand/conquer so my economies is just about to crash when I get CoL/Currency.

The other tip I forgot if you crash BEFORE CoL/Currency is running scientists with your high food cities, aka an early SE. You should be able to whip libraries and run 2 scientists in enough cities to finish off CoL/Currency and recover your economy.

 

[theKurgen]

If you make the mistake of capturing one city too many and not razing the early maintenance cost can be devastating. I made this mistake in a recent game of mine and it sent my economy to the depths, all because of one crappy city in hindsight I could have razed.

I'm now starting to think that after an axe rush it's vital to push on after you've captured the cities you want and raze the next one. Not only will you delay the AI in resettling the lands you've purged, but any axes that die in your attack will be a bonus - they won't have to be disbanded!

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I almost never raze. Its very rare that I can't keep up science after a war. I've even been at -20 gold at 0% science and recovered.

- The cash from the war shouldn't be diverted into upgrades - keep it to assist your economy.

- Grow your cities. Most problems of overexpansion horizontally can be solved by expanding vertically. Ten size 2 cities are a huge maintenace burden. Ten size 10 cities are no maintenance burden at all!

- You don't need courthouses in a hurry. Courthouses don't save a weak economy - they help a strong economy be stronger. Courthouses in size 2 cities will do little for you. What you need is that size 2 city to grow to size 10. At size 10 you won't have a maintenance problem any more - but a courthouse can help you reduce costs across your empire at that point.

- Markets in high cash producing cities are better than courthouses in your outlying cities.

- Monarchy and HR are probably going to do more for your economy than COL or Currency. Your excess of military becomes military police and your number of tiles worked in proportion to your maintenance costs can increase significantly.

- If you need cash you will need either merchants or cottages in a hurry - so either go to town cottaging and pursue currency first so your best cottage cities can get markets. Or go to COL and run merchant specialists in your high food cities.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I generally do have quite a few cottages up, though I am weak in the worker department. After building a few, I tend to rely on stealing workers from the AI while I'm fighting early wars.

I try to beeline for Currency and CoL but my research gets dragged down to the point where it takes a long time for me to actually get to them.

So maybe I need to hold off going to war until I have them? And during that time just build more units and a few more workers?

More workers is really important. If you don't capture at least one per city during the war build these first.