A few basic questions/observations

[ringwraith18]

First of all, a massive thankyou to the guys behind this mod. Not only is it huge and extensive, it is also highly polished and professional. I have enjoyed it thoroughly (except for some lag issues that I made a separate thread about).

First question - what speed should I play at? I *always* play on Marathon in vanilla, but on R:I I played at 0.5 speed and it seemed a bit clunky. But then when I tried it at normal speed it seemed lightening fast, at least at first. Would I be best off sticking with 1.0?

Second question/point. City maintainance is *huge*. Like, catastrophically slow. My first few games all petered out early on due to economic collapse from having too many cities. Does this last the whole game? It seems like the whole world is made up of small civs, and I often feel like expansion simply isn't an option. I definitely think that maintainance should be scaled back, certainly during the early game.

Third, what early techs do people make a be-line for? After researching whatever basic province improvements I need, I tend to go after civics, though I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to tech.

Any general advice for newcomers? I don't think I properly "get" R:I yet, as I think I'm still stuck in vanilla mode.

Many thanks!

 

[Manco Capac]

Depending of the level of difficulty, the expansion varies because the cost for city maintenance should change from prince to deity. Strange enough, my latest games have found best to be playing a One-city-challenge until late BC (and almost 1AD) or restrict to critical cities avering to be really good shots. Usually, when I found another city, it's to get stone, marble or a strategic resource. Or a really really strong production site with enough food to work the highly hammer tiles. But usually I prefer pastoralism boosted cities for the early game than bad grain starts or fishy ones. The workforce of animals is awesome for the early game...and the later game is salvaged by the power of boosted farms and mechanized farms. Compared to vanilla BTS, RI makes non resource plain/grass tiles as much as valuable as a resource tile, meaning it can feed production tiles decently starting Middles Age.

And the hidden advantage of a OCC game is the less need to spread your defenses and build units.

Of course, coming to realism, it makes no sense, but the latest SVN corrected that according to another player...

Regarding the city maintenance (the one that counts for the early game): the early maintenance is ridiculous while the later one is insignificant starting late Middles Ages. My present game has 16 cities and only 116 of city maintenance. And I generate +850 when my gold slider is maxed....that is without banks yet!

During the industrial era, it becomes literally insignificant....

 

[donblas]

I'll answer your questions as well.

1) I always play at the "standard" speed (which is Realistic).
2) City maintenance is huge early game. Tribal Union (government) is a killer. Any government civ is better than it. Early game, I generally expand 1-2 cities until i hit 60% research. I then tech\build until I can get it to at least 65-70%, or am invaded and I have no choice but take a neighbor. Things that help:
- Better Government
- +gold buildings early on
- Courthouses
- Local bureaucracy with Civil Service
- Extra trade routes! Merchant Princes is amazing.
- Solar Cult temples\community centers

My early game research generally starts with:
Are there any visible resources that I can get really early, research that.
Beeline to archery.
Metal Lore \ Stonecutting to see if I have resources
Storytelling for research boost
Bronze Working for military
(Mining \ Religion \ Civic) depending on civ I'm playing.