Thoughts on civ economy/civic/religion synergies

[[to_xp]Gekko]

actually those points you mention above got much improved lately. no longer early aw, no longer too much lairpopping, AIs are good at pursuing victory condition. I'm not sure what the culture bug is though, could you explain?

 

[UnforcedError]

The holes you get after pillaging before the city starts generating culture, like here

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that should also be fixed in the latest version iirc. I thought you were talking about another possible exploit related to building culture, that should be fixed in eitbv10

 

[UnforcedError]

that should also be fixed in the latest version iirc. I thought you were talking about another possible exploit related to building culture, that should be fixed in eitbv10

I see. No, that's supposedly fixed, although I wouldn't use it anyway, so I haven't tried it yet.

 

[doktarr]

We could merge it into the suggested strategies for Elohim. Deception-->Fanaticism, get Gibbon and Corlindale early, switch to OO later for Hemah and Stygians and eventually OO druids.

Even if you win the race for Deception, then I would suggest staying in whatever religion is convenient diplomatically and for happiness, or wandering through some religions to pick up priests. Your next tech target is Poisons, for promoting your free Nightwatch to a Devout (and potentially winning the race for Aeron's Chosen in the process). Then you can spread CoE crazy fast with your Devout once you have Nox Noctis, and get a big economic edge.

After Poisons, head to Fanaticism, convert to CoE, build Gibbon and Corlindale, burn their promos, kill Corlindale, build the Shrine, kill Gibbon, and leave CoE. What you leave CoE for is pretty wide-open and probably depends on what you have for non-Elohim cities. OO is an option, of course.

 

[akatosh]

Under the fast flesh golem strategy using Gibbon or Corlindale, what class of units are enemy civs likely to have? Priests will be out for sure, and axes or horse archers?

 

[doktarr]

Definitely Axes and Archers. Which T3 units will be out will vary.

 

[Northstar1989]

Cottage is self-explanatory. These four civs favor cottages over aristofarms on grasslands for whatever reason. The choice of a cottage or a mine on a hill depends on an individual city's needs.
- For elves, the synergies with GoN and dis-synergies with Agrarianism are obvious. With up to +20 from GoN, they don't need Aristocracy to help them convert into -- they can do it directly with a better to ratio from cottages or use specialists.

*Cough* the elves do most definitely NOT do their best with a cottage economy. Their abundance of food (due to the ability to improve Forests- which develop into Ancient Forests and provide extra food), health (from Forests and GoN), Happiness (from GoN), and hammers to build city improvements (from Forests) mean they have a clear preference for a late-game SPECIALIST economy.

After all, what do specialists require? Food, Health (so Food costs don't grow too high), and Happy faces! The ability of the elves to grow their cities to MUCH larger sizes than other civs, and to use civics to save hammers on buildings (and use those hammers for defensive units) gives the elves a natural affinity for a specialist-heavy economy...

To compound this, the Ljos get their Flurry unit at Machinery- which is only a short hop from Engineering. If they manage to grab the Guild of Hammers, and eventually work their way to Guilds, they end up with ENORMOUS hammer production from Engineer specialists in the very Late game (and with their slow-growing economy, the elves are probably the only civ that will ever make it this far w/o the winner already being effectively decided 100% of the time...)

Even before this, elven high terrain base hammer production from Forests, builder tendencies (due to a slower-maturing economy), and need to have VERY high production to produce badly-needed defensive units in their weak/vulnerable early game (lots of Archers for Amelanchier! Priests for Arendel!) give them a clear preference for God King over Aristocracy. Plus, they might well need to run Conquest to survive their Early-Mid Game...

The elves (especially the Ljsofar) are a great civ to run a specialist economy in the late game- particularly if they haven't produced a lot of Great People in the early game due to their need to simply survive (Food is often better whipped into hammers with Slavery rather than used to feed specialists in their Early-Mid Game, as they are likely to be under a lot of pressure from stronger civs, and it is important for the elves, particularly Amelanchier, to grab a lot of territory in the Early Game so they can Bloom it and turn it all to Ancient Forests as a massive natural defensive barrier later in the game...)


Regards,
Northstar

 

[scutarii]

Lanun FoL synergy is better than expected or arete (Rok) for instance. Commerce from coastal cities, hammers, health and happness from lumbermills and Guardian of Nature civic.

 

[doktarr]

*Cough* the elves do most definitely NOT do their best with a cottage economy. Their abundance of food (due to the ability to improve Forests- which develop into Ancient Forests and provide extra food), health (from Forests and GoN), Happiness (from GoN), and hammers to build city improvements (from Forests) mean they have a clear preference for a late-game SPECIALIST economy.

I don't see how the things you cite conflict with akatosh's assessment that they do well with cottages. The basic point is that agrarianism has obvious anti-synergy with elves (outside of flood plains). If you compare aristo-farms (without agrarianism) to repuiblicottages, the cottages give you a lot more coin for just a little less food.

If a typical city has, say, 17 workable tiles that are more useful than a specialist, then you will start wanting specialists once you blow past that level of population. But nothing is stopping you from running scholarship/caste system in late game even if you pursue a cottage strategy with elves. Republic and GoN are in other slots, after all.