Guide to Economic Victories
Intro: This thread is to help anyone who may need some tips on getting economic victories. Multiplayer almost always ends in a domination victory, just by it's nature. But, if the game has reached a stalemate, or you find that leaving your opponnets alone will help you acheive a non-dom victory faster, then the economic victory is usually the fastest and easiest path to choose. Even if the game doesn't end in an economic victory, you can still use this guide to gain an advantage in any game. Gold is the most flexible resource in the game, it can get you whatever you want, including more cities, buildings, tech, culture, GPs, bonuses, aid in diplomacy. Amassing 20,000 gold and building the World Bank is just an end result, building a giant gold reserves and getting a huge amount of gold per turn can be used more interchangably than production, culture, or tech, in most cases.
How do I start?
Just like normal
Really.
Sound strategy is still sound strategy, and high gold production is something that has to be planned for. You should probably never enter a game saying "I'm going to get an economic victory in this one", because there's just too many things that can happen, and gold produced by cities isn't as important in the early game as expansion, teching, and producing units.
The goal in the early game is still to get your 100 gold settler, tech up to the key techs you need to expand (usually code of laws, bronze working, and irrigation if you can get it without slowing yourself down).
You want to be able to expand in the early game. The goal that is commonly repeated on the boards is to have 10 cities by 0AD, and that's a good goal to shoot for. If you have 6-8 cities, you're probably doing just fine. 10 or more cities, and you are probably doing very very well. Games where there's a lot of rushing tend to have few cities on the map early on, if those rushers aren't successful. Basically I'm mentioning this stuff just to say that you should rush if you want to, defend against rushers when you need to, but for the purposes of a good setup for a later eco win, you need to have more cities, so the strategy for the BC years won't be different. More cities= more power.
When should I get my first "gold" city?
In the early game, all cities should usually focus on tech. No city in the early phases will net you a lot of cash. If you need some gold, and you haven't got it from huts or barbs or other methods, then an option is to spend a turn or two with all cities set to gold, and then switch them all back to tech. This kinda of group working can work, but it's usually a waste to have an early city just set to gold.
To answer the question, your first gold city should be when you research Currency. Currency is often an underrated and neglected tech, which you can often pick up really late. I don't recommend passing it up if it's available to the 1st to research bonus. You recieve a free market if you are the 1st to research currency. Keep an eye on other's gold milestones. People can get Currency for free if they eclipse the 250 gold mark (the 2nd gold milestone). If you get Currency from amassing 250 gold, you do not receive the market, but no one researching Currency receives it either. Often people get Currency right after they get 7 cities of gold, so if someone else gets it, keep an eye on their gold milestones if you are working your way towards currency.
Currency is an 80 beaker tech, and has pre-requisites of Bronze Working and Code of Laws. This is great, since those are two technologies that you want to target anyway. Currency should be on a short list of techs that you set to research after you get Code of Laws. There are other techs that can be just as important, but usually you can't go wrong with getting the Free Market.
Hopefully, you will have found a good spot to expand to in order for your free market to be powerful. 2 or 3 trade squares are not really going to work out that great for you. Islands are great spots to have your free market. If you can't get to a good island by the time you research Currency, then a city with plenty of trade and good resources that can help it grow (fish and whale) will work. To influence what city the free market is placed, switch that city to gold production the turn before finishing the research, and you'll usually get it there. Otherwise, it will usually put it in your city with the most trade production, but sometimes if it's a tie, it seems random. Usually it puts it in a good spot if you have a good trade-dominate city already settled.
Now do I start saving gold?
Not really, if you got Currency right after Code of Laws, then you'll still be in the early Medieval. This is still the time to be expanding. Just leave your gold city on gold, and use that gold to help you rush more settlers, or for whatever else you may need. Later on, it will be a good idea to get your 2nd and 3rd gold milestones (@ 250 and 500 gold, to get banking and a GP). You usually won't start saving gold until the late Industrial and early Modern eras. The emphasis is to still expand, hopefully be in the tech lead or stay up with others, you need tech to survive and flourish.
What if I don't get the free market?
Not a huge problem, it just means you won't have a head start. You should still keep expanding and teching up. In the Medieval, it will cost you 180 gold to rush a market, and that's too many hammers to hammer one out that early. 180 gold= 3 settlers, and that's would usually be more powerful than just getting a market in one city. Your emphasis should be on teching up, hopefully getting Industrializaton and Corportation first in the Industrial Era, and then worry about getting your first market for 240 gold or 60 hammers. Waiting till the modern may be ok to get that first market, but it's a lot easier to get it in the industrial due to the lower rushing costs.
When do I make the decision to go for the Economic victory?
Usually I try to make this decision as early as I can recognize it. Typically it's when I'm about 20 techs into the game, and realize that with my gold production, I can start getting a few markets in a short amount of time.
Here's an example of how to do this:
Let's say you have 10 cities in the Industrial era. You are producing 40 gold in democracy out of your market city (a very low and conservative figure, usually you can have 50-80 gold per turn by this point). A market costs 240 gold to rush in the Industrial Era. All you need is 6 turns doing nothing but saving gold, and you'll have your second market, hopefully in a high trade city as well. Usually, you will have some gold saved, and you can use some hammers to lower the cost (as 1 hammer= 4 gold, so just 10 hammers can knock the turn count down to 5, for each 40 gold you had saved you can knock another turn off the time).
So let's say it takes you 5 turns to get your second market. Now you probably have about 80 gold per turn, assuming that the 2nd gold city is comprable to the first in trade production. So instead of 6 turns to rush your 3rd market in the Industrial, you can get it 3 turns, just by saving gold alone. So after 3 turns w/ 2 markets, you will have your 3rd market, and you should be making around 120 gold. Now it's only 2 turns to reach the magic number of 240 gold for a market. So spend 2 more turns saving gold and rush the 4th market. Your gold output should be around 160, again this is a low ball estimate, typcially, by the time I've got my 4th market, I'm doing between 200-300 gold per turn, without the aid of Industrialization and Corporation. If you get the +5 gold bonus from those two techs, you should be producing about 400-500 gold per turn, if not more.
So, going very conservatively, we have our 2nd market in 5 turns, the 3rd after 8 turns, and our 4th after 10 turns, all from saving gold alone. In 10 turns you've probably more than quadrupled your gold output, and set yourself up for a nice gold per turn production. This late in the game, people are usually not making the best of their turns, and just trying to get some key tech first, you should still go for those techs, but you'll probably be building a lot nice foundation than they are in those 10 turns.
While still in the Industrial, you can use the same method to get banks in your cities. It will cost 480 gold for the bank. If you take our low ball estimate of 160 gold per turn after 4 markets, then in 3 turns you'll have your first bank, and then less than 3 turns for your subsequent banks. In 20 turns, it's usually not hard to be getting more than 1000 gold per turn. 20 turns is a long time in the game though, so hopefully you will have good bonuses and wonders to cut the timeframe down a little bit.
What other bulding/wonders should I consider?
Well, you still need some trade cities, so libaries are a must if you don't have them in your non-gold cities.
A factory is the most imporant thing to get in order to win the economic vicotory. The World Bank costs 500 hammers, and it can't be rushed with gold, so you'll need to have the factory well before you approach the 20000 gold mark, so you can start banking hammers, to reduce the amount of turns it takes you to win after you reach 8/8 gold milestones.
Courthouses can work ok, if your cities are large and by having a courhouse, you can access more good growth and trade resources.
As for wonders:
East India Company trumps all. +1 trade to sea squares is really nice to build up the gold and tech. If you have a Great Builder, this should be at the top of your list. It obsoletes when someone else gets Flight, so if it's later in the game, it may not make as much sense.
Trade Fair is a pretty good one too, but only works in one city. Usually it's very powerful to have one city producing a lot more gold than the others. A city w/ trade fair, a bank, and maybe a settled GE, can easily produce 700 gold by itself in the late game. It obsoletes w/ Globalization, which is a later game tech, and is really targeted to research, this wonder usually is in play the whole game after it's built.
The Internet can be really helpful. It doubles your economy. This can really provide a huge boost if you are already producing a ton of gold. It's costly, at 750 hammers, so it's usually out of the question to rush w/ gold or build, but it can be considered if you recieve a GB later in the game. Networking is the tech required to unlock this one, which also gives you the bonus of half cost universities, which is nice too. It doesn't obsolete. Still, it's pretty rare to get or need this one.
Oxford University can be considered. If you have industrialization as your last tech reasearched, you will get Advanced Flight, corporation and you will get Networking. Pretty much a defensive/offensive wonder, either getting bombers for you, or keeping them from others. Not really needed for the win, but can be costly if you don't keep it from others.
Key Technologies
You still need tech, even in the later game. You mainly need tech for two reasons: To survive and to get production for bulding the World Bank.
Industrialization and Corporation: Probably the two most powerful late game bonuses. They give you +5 gold per city each turn. If you get both 1st, and you are in Democracy, then you'll be getting +15 gold per turn in each city. Even without markets, +15 gold in 10 cities= 150 gold. These can really help you rush those markets in the Industrial for cheap, making your gold amassing a lot faster. Industrializaton gives you the ability to build factories, which is a must to build the World Bank.
Mass Production: You need to protect yourself right? These should keep you safe from tanks. Riflemen usually won't. If you skip going for Combustion, you can often have Mass Prodcution about as fast as they get tanks.
Flight: For protection against bombers (and other units). A good thing to have to make sure you are safe. If bombers aren't a threat, then you can skip this, but it's a good safeguard.
Communism: Reduces factory costs by 33% (134 hammers instead of 200), if you are the 1st to reasearch it. Also, the production boost that you get while in Communism will shorten the time it takes to build the world bank after you get your 20000 gold. If you don't have a lot of hammer banked, but are producing more than 1500 gold in Democracy, then it makes sense to switch to Communism before 20000 gold and save your gold while banking more hammers.
When to stop building makets and banks?
Basically, I usually try to get to 1500 or 2000 gold per turn in Democracy before actually saving gold to reach 20000 gold. Also, if I feel threatened, and don't have the techs needed to protect myself, then I'll focus on getting to first. You should also have a factory before you start saving, as you want to bank as many hammers as possible before reaching the 20000 gold mark.
But, typically, I like to get to a level where I have only 10 turns to save to get to the 20,000 gold mark. It's usually enough time to get everything set up for the win. If I have to spend a little bit of that gold to keep myself save or do other tasks, it probably won't set me back by more than a turn or two. If you try to save when you have 1000 gold per turn or less, then 20 turns can really drag on, and there's a lot of chance for things to go wrong. You could have more than 500 hammers banked by that time though, so it's really a judgement call on how things are going against the other civs tech and rushing, your hammers banked, and other factors.
The Win
The Economic win is usually the most sneaky. They may or may not get warnings that you are producing a lot of gold per turn. They should know the gold milestones you have reached, but it's still 10,000 gold between the 7th and 8th gold milestone.
After you get 20,000 gold and end a turn, you will always have the ability to build the world bank. So, feel free to start spending all that gold, because you've got a whole lot. Shoring up your defenses is a good idea if you've got a few turns left before the World Bank if finished. You can probably rush just about every available wonder in 1 turn, which can be a good idea. You may want to set all your cities back to tech if you need to acheive some short term tech goals to ensure your safety.
You do not need your capital to win an economic victory. You only need the World Bank. It's probably a good idea to have a backup city building the World Bank in case you get nuked, flipped, or rushed in that city where you are buidling it. If you are in communism, it will probably only set you back about 10 turns if something does happen to the city that you were banking hammers in. 50 hammers per turn isn't that hard to have in the Modern Era with a factory and in Communism.
The Eco win vs. Space Win
We've established what it takes for the Ecnomic win:
-20,000 gold
- the World Bank (500 hammers)
- You do not need your capital to win.
This is way less costly and faster in most cases than going for the Technology Victory. The Culture victory is too slow to consider usually. But, for the Technology victory you need:
- Space Flight, which costs 5860 beakers. It has prereqs of Advanced Flight (2150 beakers), Electronics (1570), and Nuclear Power (2150?). Often times the way to make this quicker is to be producing a lot of science per turn, have a Great Scientist saved, and use the GS to rush Space Flight. Teching all of this out can be a long process, but usually that late in the game, you will have a GS handy.
-You need 5 space ship parts: 4 Fuel Pods, 80 hammers a piece. 1 Propulsion Module @ 120 hammers. 1 Life Support @ 200 hammers, and the SS Habitation @ 400 hammers. That's over 1,000 hammers just to launch the thing!
- You need to wait for the Spaceship to land, usually 5-10 turns.
- You cannot lose your capital, or the Spaceship will not give you the win.
It's a lot more costly to go this route. The total beakers you will need is often more gold than you will need to get the Eco win. Losing your cap can nullify it all, where as it doesnt' matter in the Eco win.
The Space Flight victory can be safer than the Eco in the sense that your advaned tech will typically keep you safe from rushers. It's not a bad route to go sometimes, especially if you are blazing in tech, have an extra GS, and you can't get a good gold base started.
A Word on 50% Gold Civs
Spain, Zulu, and the Aztecs all recieve the bonus: +50% gold production. This would be great if it was just this at face value. The problem is that once you receive this bonus, your rushing costs for units, buildings, and wonders go up as well. So it's inflation, and can be a negative bonus, especially if you don't have gold flowing in by the time you receive the bonus. Basically, this bonus is only here to get those gold milestones sooner, and get the Eco win faster. It does make the economic victory noticably shorter, and with these civs you can pull of some really early Eco wins. I reguarly get 1200AD Eco wins with the Spanish on MP, in Single player I can get a pre- 1000AD on my first playthough of a map pretty much everytime with the Spanish or Zulu.
The inflated costs:
Industrial= x6 gold per hammer. normally it's x4. This means that a 20 hammer unit will cost 120 gold to rush instead of 80.
Modern= x7.5 gold per hammer. Normally it's x5.
Closing Remarks
I hope this helps. This thread is large, so I may have overlooked things, mistyped things, or need to check my math again. If you see anything that needs correcting, improvement, or expanding, let me know, and I'll see to it.
Hope it helps.
Intro: This thread is to help anyone who may need some tips on getting economic victories. Multiplayer almost always ends in a domination victory, just by it's nature. But, if the game has reached a stalemate, or you find that leaving your opponnets alone will help you acheive a non-dom victory faster, then the economic victory is usually the fastest and easiest path to choose. Even if the game doesn't end in an economic victory, you can still use this guide to gain an advantage in any game. Gold is the most flexible resource in the game, it can get you whatever you want, including more cities, buildings, tech, culture, GPs, bonuses, aid in diplomacy. Amassing 20,000 gold and building the World Bank is just an end result, building a giant gold reserves and getting a huge amount of gold per turn can be used more interchangably than production, culture, or tech, in most cases.
How do I start?
Just like normal
Really. Sound strategy is still sound strategy, and high gold production is something that has to be planned for. You should probably never enter a game saying "I'm going to get an economic victory in this one", because there's just too many things that can happen, and gold produced by cities isn't as important in the early game as expansion, teching, and producing units.
The goal in the early game is still to get your 100 gold settler, tech up to the key techs you need to expand (usually code of laws, bronze working, and irrigation if you can get it without slowing yourself down).
You want to be able to expand in the early game. The goal that is commonly repeated on the boards is to have 10 cities by 0AD, and that's a good goal to shoot for. If you have 6-8 cities, you're probably doing just fine. 10 or more cities, and you are probably doing very very well. Games where there's a lot of rushing tend to have few cities on the map early on, if those rushers aren't successful. Basically I'm mentioning this stuff just to say that you should rush if you want to, defend against rushers when you need to, but for the purposes of a good setup for a later eco win, you need to have more cities, so the strategy for the BC years won't be different. More cities= more power.
When should I get my first "gold" city?
In the early game, all cities should usually focus on tech. No city in the early phases will net you a lot of cash. If you need some gold, and you haven't got it from huts or barbs or other methods, then an option is to spend a turn or two with all cities set to gold, and then switch them all back to tech. This kinda of group working can work, but it's usually a waste to have an early city just set to gold.
To answer the question, your first gold city should be when you research Currency. Currency is often an underrated and neglected tech, which you can often pick up really late. I don't recommend passing it up if it's available to the 1st to research bonus. You recieve a free market if you are the 1st to research currency. Keep an eye on other's gold milestones. People can get Currency for free if they eclipse the 250 gold mark (the 2nd gold milestone). If you get Currency from amassing 250 gold, you do not receive the market, but no one researching Currency receives it either. Often people get Currency right after they get 7 cities of gold, so if someone else gets it, keep an eye on their gold milestones if you are working your way towards currency.
Currency is an 80 beaker tech, and has pre-requisites of Bronze Working and Code of Laws. This is great, since those are two technologies that you want to target anyway. Currency should be on a short list of techs that you set to research after you get Code of Laws. There are other techs that can be just as important, but usually you can't go wrong with getting the Free Market.
Hopefully, you will have found a good spot to expand to in order for your free market to be powerful. 2 or 3 trade squares are not really going to work out that great for you. Islands are great spots to have your free market. If you can't get to a good island by the time you research Currency, then a city with plenty of trade and good resources that can help it grow (fish and whale) will work. To influence what city the free market is placed, switch that city to gold production the turn before finishing the research, and you'll usually get it there. Otherwise, it will usually put it in your city with the most trade production, but sometimes if it's a tie, it seems random. Usually it puts it in a good spot if you have a good trade-dominate city already settled.
Now do I start saving gold?
Not really, if you got Currency right after Code of Laws, then you'll still be in the early Medieval. This is still the time to be expanding. Just leave your gold city on gold, and use that gold to help you rush more settlers, or for whatever else you may need. Later on, it will be a good idea to get your 2nd and 3rd gold milestones (@ 250 and 500 gold, to get banking and a GP). You usually won't start saving gold until the late Industrial and early Modern eras. The emphasis is to still expand, hopefully be in the tech lead or stay up with others, you need tech to survive and flourish.
What if I don't get the free market?
Not a huge problem, it just means you won't have a head start. You should still keep expanding and teching up. In the Medieval, it will cost you 180 gold to rush a market, and that's too many hammers to hammer one out that early. 180 gold= 3 settlers, and that's would usually be more powerful than just getting a market in one city. Your emphasis should be on teching up, hopefully getting Industrializaton and Corportation first in the Industrial Era, and then worry about getting your first market for 240 gold or 60 hammers. Waiting till the modern may be ok to get that first market, but it's a lot easier to get it in the industrial due to the lower rushing costs.
When do I make the decision to go for the Economic victory?
Usually I try to make this decision as early as I can recognize it. Typically it's when I'm about 20 techs into the game, and realize that with my gold production, I can start getting a few markets in a short amount of time.
Here's an example of how to do this:
Let's say you have 10 cities in the Industrial era. You are producing 40 gold in democracy out of your market city (a very low and conservative figure, usually you can have 50-80 gold per turn by this point). A market costs 240 gold to rush in the Industrial Era. All you need is 6 turns doing nothing but saving gold, and you'll have your second market, hopefully in a high trade city as well. Usually, you will have some gold saved, and you can use some hammers to lower the cost (as 1 hammer= 4 gold, so just 10 hammers can knock the turn count down to 5, for each 40 gold you had saved you can knock another turn off the time).
So let's say it takes you 5 turns to get your second market. Now you probably have about 80 gold per turn, assuming that the 2nd gold city is comprable to the first in trade production. So instead of 6 turns to rush your 3rd market in the Industrial, you can get it 3 turns, just by saving gold alone. So after 3 turns w/ 2 markets, you will have your 3rd market, and you should be making around 120 gold. Now it's only 2 turns to reach the magic number of 240 gold for a market. So spend 2 more turns saving gold and rush the 4th market. Your gold output should be around 160, again this is a low ball estimate, typcially, by the time I've got my 4th market, I'm doing between 200-300 gold per turn, without the aid of Industrialization and Corporation. If you get the +5 gold bonus from those two techs, you should be producing about 400-500 gold per turn, if not more.
So, going very conservatively, we have our 2nd market in 5 turns, the 3rd after 8 turns, and our 4th after 10 turns, all from saving gold alone. In 10 turns you've probably more than quadrupled your gold output, and set yourself up for a nice gold per turn production. This late in the game, people are usually not making the best of their turns, and just trying to get some key tech first, you should still go for those techs, but you'll probably be building a lot nice foundation than they are in those 10 turns.
While still in the Industrial, you can use the same method to get banks in your cities. It will cost 480 gold for the bank. If you take our low ball estimate of 160 gold per turn after 4 markets, then in 3 turns you'll have your first bank, and then less than 3 turns for your subsequent banks. In 20 turns, it's usually not hard to be getting more than 1000 gold per turn. 20 turns is a long time in the game though, so hopefully you will have good bonuses and wonders to cut the timeframe down a little bit.
What other bulding/wonders should I consider?
Well, you still need some trade cities, so libaries are a must if you don't have them in your non-gold cities.
A factory is the most imporant thing to get in order to win the economic vicotory. The World Bank costs 500 hammers, and it can't be rushed with gold, so you'll need to have the factory well before you approach the 20000 gold mark, so you can start banking hammers, to reduce the amount of turns it takes you to win after you reach 8/8 gold milestones.
Courthouses can work ok, if your cities are large and by having a courhouse, you can access more good growth and trade resources.
As for wonders:
East India Company trumps all. +1 trade to sea squares is really nice to build up the gold and tech. If you have a Great Builder, this should be at the top of your list. It obsoletes when someone else gets Flight, so if it's later in the game, it may not make as much sense.
Trade Fair is a pretty good one too, but only works in one city. Usually it's very powerful to have one city producing a lot more gold than the others. A city w/ trade fair, a bank, and maybe a settled GE, can easily produce 700 gold by itself in the late game. It obsoletes w/ Globalization, which is a later game tech, and is really targeted to research, this wonder usually is in play the whole game after it's built.
The Internet can be really helpful. It doubles your economy. This can really provide a huge boost if you are already producing a ton of gold. It's costly, at 750 hammers, so it's usually out of the question to rush w/ gold or build, but it can be considered if you recieve a GB later in the game. Networking is the tech required to unlock this one, which also gives you the bonus of half cost universities, which is nice too. It doesn't obsolete. Still, it's pretty rare to get or need this one.
Oxford University can be considered. If you have industrialization as your last tech reasearched, you will get Advanced Flight, corporation and you will get Networking. Pretty much a defensive/offensive wonder, either getting bombers for you, or keeping them from others. Not really needed for the win, but can be costly if you don't keep it from others.
Key Technologies
You still need tech, even in the later game. You mainly need tech for two reasons: To survive and to get production for bulding the World Bank.
Industrialization and Corporation: Probably the two most powerful late game bonuses. They give you +5 gold per city each turn. If you get both 1st, and you are in Democracy, then you'll be getting +15 gold per turn in each city. Even without markets, +15 gold in 10 cities= 150 gold. These can really help you rush those markets in the Industrial for cheap, making your gold amassing a lot faster. Industrializaton gives you the ability to build factories, which is a must to build the World Bank.
Mass Production: You need to protect yourself right? These should keep you safe from tanks. Riflemen usually won't. If you skip going for Combustion, you can often have Mass Prodcution about as fast as they get tanks.
Flight: For protection against bombers (and other units). A good thing to have to make sure you are safe. If bombers aren't a threat, then you can skip this, but it's a good safeguard.
Communism: Reduces factory costs by 33% (134 hammers instead of 200), if you are the 1st to reasearch it. Also, the production boost that you get while in Communism will shorten the time it takes to build the world bank after you get your 20000 gold. If you don't have a lot of hammer banked, but are producing more than 1500 gold in Democracy, then it makes sense to switch to Communism before 20000 gold and save your gold while banking more hammers.
When to stop building makets and banks?
Basically, I usually try to get to 1500 or 2000 gold per turn in Democracy before actually saving gold to reach 20000 gold. Also, if I feel threatened, and don't have the techs needed to protect myself, then I'll focus on getting to first. You should also have a factory before you start saving, as you want to bank as many hammers as possible before reaching the 20000 gold mark.
But, typically, I like to get to a level where I have only 10 turns to save to get to the 20,000 gold mark. It's usually enough time to get everything set up for the win. If I have to spend a little bit of that gold to keep myself save or do other tasks, it probably won't set me back by more than a turn or two. If you try to save when you have 1000 gold per turn or less, then 20 turns can really drag on, and there's a lot of chance for things to go wrong. You could have more than 500 hammers banked by that time though, so it's really a judgement call on how things are going against the other civs tech and rushing, your hammers banked, and other factors.
The Win
The Economic win is usually the most sneaky. They may or may not get warnings that you are producing a lot of gold per turn. They should know the gold milestones you have reached, but it's still 10,000 gold between the 7th and 8th gold milestone.
After you get 20,000 gold and end a turn, you will always have the ability to build the world bank. So, feel free to start spending all that gold, because you've got a whole lot. Shoring up your defenses is a good idea if you've got a few turns left before the World Bank if finished. You can probably rush just about every available wonder in 1 turn, which can be a good idea. You may want to set all your cities back to tech if you need to acheive some short term tech goals to ensure your safety.
You do not need your capital to win an economic victory. You only need the World Bank. It's probably a good idea to have a backup city building the World Bank in case you get nuked, flipped, or rushed in that city where you are buidling it. If you are in communism, it will probably only set you back about 10 turns if something does happen to the city that you were banking hammers in. 50 hammers per turn isn't that hard to have in the Modern Era with a factory and in Communism.
The Eco win vs. Space Win
We've established what it takes for the Ecnomic win:
-20,000 gold
- the World Bank (500 hammers)
- You do not need your capital to win.
This is way less costly and faster in most cases than going for the Technology Victory. The Culture victory is too slow to consider usually. But, for the Technology victory you need:
- Space Flight, which costs 5860 beakers. It has prereqs of Advanced Flight (2150 beakers), Electronics (1570), and Nuclear Power (2150?). Often times the way to make this quicker is to be producing a lot of science per turn, have a Great Scientist saved, and use the GS to rush Space Flight. Teching all of this out can be a long process, but usually that late in the game, you will have a GS handy.
-You need 5 space ship parts: 4 Fuel Pods, 80 hammers a piece. 1 Propulsion Module @ 120 hammers. 1 Life Support @ 200 hammers, and the SS Habitation @ 400 hammers. That's over 1,000 hammers just to launch the thing!
- You need to wait for the Spaceship to land, usually 5-10 turns.
- You cannot lose your capital, or the Spaceship will not give you the win.
It's a lot more costly to go this route. The total beakers you will need is often more gold than you will need to get the Eco win. Losing your cap can nullify it all, where as it doesnt' matter in the Eco win.
The Space Flight victory can be safer than the Eco in the sense that your advaned tech will typically keep you safe from rushers. It's not a bad route to go sometimes, especially if you are blazing in tech, have an extra GS, and you can't get a good gold base started.
A Word on 50% Gold Civs
Spain, Zulu, and the Aztecs all recieve the bonus: +50% gold production. This would be great if it was just this at face value. The problem is that once you receive this bonus, your rushing costs for units, buildings, and wonders go up as well. So it's inflation, and can be a negative bonus, especially if you don't have gold flowing in by the time you receive the bonus. Basically, this bonus is only here to get those gold milestones sooner, and get the Eco win faster. It does make the economic victory noticably shorter, and with these civs you can pull of some really early Eco wins. I reguarly get 1200AD Eco wins with the Spanish on MP, in Single player I can get a pre- 1000AD on my first playthough of a map pretty much everytime with the Spanish or Zulu.
The inflated costs:
Industrial= x6 gold per hammer. normally it's x4. This means that a 20 hammer unit will cost 120 gold to rush instead of 80.
Modern= x7.5 gold per hammer. Normally it's x5.
Closing Remarks
I hope this helps. This thread is large, so I may have overlooked things, mistyped things, or need to check my math again. If you see anything that needs correcting, improvement, or expanding, let me know, and I'll see to it.
Hope it helps.
