A Guide to Rapid Expansion (REX)

[Gooblah]

Meh. So with the proliferation (fun word, btw) of threads such as "How do I REX" and "What happens after REXing?", etc, I've realized that it's high time somebody do a guide for REXing. And I figure, since I like to REX, have experience countless turns of 0% research, and have pulled out of a post-REX economic slump enough times to know a few of the tips and tricks, it may as well be me. And considering the fact that this community tends to be extremely collaborative, it won't be just me, it'll be a ton of people.

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Round 0: Below
Round 1: Setting Progress into Motion - Turns 1-65, 4000 BC - 2600 BC
I'm a pretty average player, so the game settings will be:



Game options are: Choose Religions is ON; Random Events and Tribal Huts are also ON. I dunno, I like both. I'm not yet comfortable enough with No Tech Brokering to turn it on for a sample game like this. I'll be posting a WorldBuilderSave a bit later in a zip file to ensure that those that don't like Random Events can turn it off. Aside from that....yeah.

So, we rolled a random leader and turned up:



Hehehe. Pretty good leader for a REX - in fact, he polls consistently (and for good reason) as one of the best leaders overall. His Charismatic trait ups the happy cap by one, allowing us to delay Monarchy and/or Calendar for a bit while recovering the economy. The Financial trait will give us the economic backing to REX (and crash) even harder, and recovery time will be shorter. In a way, I'd prefer a less stellar leader for this journey (like...I dunno. Saladin, maybe), since REX is a strategy that can be applied to any leader/Civ, and it may be more helpful to see a harder crash. If this becomes a series of some sort, then yeah, I would pick a bad leader. Enough chit-chat, though, here's the start:



Not too shabby, but plains kind of suck. I think the food bonus from the Clams should help with that, though. I'm thinking a move 1E by the Settler, since that keeps the fresh water bonus, all viewable resources, and eliminates an ocean tile. Warrior should probably be moved 1SE to check for any other resources or information.

So, let the commentary commence!

And the save (WBS file will be posted shortly):

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm bored, so I'll give it a shadow go.

 

[theskibum]

Looks ok, I think I would settle in place unless warrior move reveals a good reason to move. I would want to mine the hill you are thinking of moving to. Don't forget that with Hannibal each of those ocean/coast tiles is 3 so more sea isn't necessarily bad since this isn't a stellar cottage site.

Also, thanks for doing a REXing guide. I am getting pretty good at it myself and am a solid Prince player about ready for Monarch. I think I will open this save tonight at home and give it a go.

 

[Gooblah]

The zip file is up.

 

[mi6agent]

why anyone so anal about REX ? who need more 7 city on Standard to win ?

 

[madscientist]

why anyone so anal about REX ? who need more 7 city on Standard to win ?

The more cities you have, the more overall commerce and military production. If you can get those cities faster, you can get a faster edge over the AI. I can win with 7 cities, but I can do alot better with 12, 20, 30+.

 

[PeteJ]

I would go 1S personally. You lose the fresh water but you gain whatever tiles are covered by the fog to the south(I can't see the pic well enough to see what they are, nor can i open the save). Could be something good down there.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I would want to mine the hill you are thinking of moving to.

Yeah, but there are other hills to mine. Also, I wouldn't want my capital working sea tiles unless they were the clams.

why anyone so anal about REX ? who need more 7 city on Standard to win ?

REX to get all 7 before 1AD.

You lose the fresh water...Could be something good down there.

Can't see that as worth losing Fresh Water. I'd go 1E

 

[madscientist]

An unforrested hill 1E screams to be a metal resource which loses some production. However, I agree it's probablty the best move.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Alright, I played it to 25 AD.

Spoiler :

I settled in place. We have a special resource, just don't know where (capitols are required to have like 4 resources, and seafood counts as 1/2, so there has to be things hidden). Not wanting to settle on it or lose it, in place.

From there it's just cranking cities that let us crank more cities.















Nothing too fancy. Opening techs were hunting ----> AH ----> BW ----> wheel ----> iron working IIRC. Lots of jungle, and found 3x gems to make fast IW worthwhile.

After all that REX the monarch AIs are still not too impressive:



So we continue with it.







A nice shot of the cities.



Don't build anything unnecessary. Monument if you need it, granary if you plan on growing (you can put off granary if you have no intention to grow ATM aka building workers/settlers w/o the whip). Nothing else, not while in REX. All other hammers are for military or workers/settlers.

View attachment TMIT's REXing Guide AD-0025.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[madscientist]

Alright, I played it to 25 AD.

Spoiler :

I settled in place. We have a special resource, just don't know where (capitols are required to have like 4 resources, and seafood counts as 1/2, so there has to be things hidden). Not wanting to settle on it or lose it, in place.

From there it's just cranking cities that let us crank more cities.















Nothing too fancy. Opening techs were hunting ----> AH ----> BW ----> wheel ----> iron working IIRC. Lots of jungle, and found 3x gems to make fast IW worthwhile.

After all that REX the monarch AIs are still not too impressive:



So we continue with it.







A nice shot of the cities.



Don't build anything unnecessary. Monument if you need it, granary if you plan on growing (you can put off granary if you have no intention to grow ATM aka building workers/settlers w/o the whip). Nothing else, not while in REX. All other hammers are for military or workers/settlers.

View attachment 219028

Spoiler :

12 cities by 25AD without a strike. Very nice!

 

[Duke of Awesome]

ive never tried rexing before. it looks like the early game is a pain but it makes the late game extremely easier. im still not comfortable with the 10% research rate but i think ill trying rexing next game. here's to me not sucking!

 

[madscientist]

ive never tried rexing before. it looks like the early game is a pain but it makes the late game extremely easier. im still not comfortable with the 10% research rate but i think ill trying rexing next game. here's to me not sucking!

It's not as hard as you think. Just get pottery/writing before the crash and beeline currency/Code of Laws after.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's not as hard as you think. Just get pottery/writing before the crash and beeline currency/Code of Laws after.

If you research or trade alphabet (better to just research it on monarch), you can also build research, and if you're going to have a lot of cities doing that can net substantial bpt by itself...easily enough to get to other techs as needed, once you've set a border pop and the #1 economic building - the granary - in your cities.

 

[Stormbringer]

What surprised me most about the game is how close together you put your cities. Some of them overlap 6 tiles! And that doesn't seem to be the exception, but the rule in this case. Whenever I try to do anything like this I build cities pretty far away from each other to cut off AI from resources, or just to cover more ground and to make sure the cities will grow to the maximum size. Is there a benefit to putting cities this close together?

 

[MkLh]

why anyone so anal about REX ? who need more 7 city on Standard to win ?

My thoughts exactly. You don't need to "REX" to win at Immortal and certainly not any lower (and at Deity it's impossible). Rex is a lower levels strategy, but there are other ways to beat those levels.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What surprised me most about the game is how close together you put your cities. Some of them overlap 6 tiles! And that doesn't seem to be the exception, but the rule in this case. Whenever I try to do anything like this I build cities pretty far away from each other to cut off AI from resources, or just to cover more ground and to make sure the cities will grow to the maximum size. Is there a benefit to putting cities this close together?

You get more cities.

Spoiler :

At first I just wanted more output, but the jungle cities block expansion of any meaningful kind before iron working. The nearest AI was quite far through that jungle belt so I opted to avoid trying to send a distant settler to block.

There is some benefit to close cities. They let you work more tiles in a given area before raising your caps if resources are concentrated. They can share food tiles so that each can grow quickly, then switch to more food-neutral tiles once up to speed and still gain good output. Close cities are also easier to defend, bring up production potential, and can be absolutely amazing with corporations, espionage buildings, or the draft. The drawback is that they have lower max pops, but most can still make it to > pop 10 even with tight placement.

Slavery-induced production with a granary makes any city with a food resource decent. You'll see this if I play the game out, since I can just whip cats/elephants to mop the nearby ais, or alternatively get to rifling and draft. The AIs are all in the 5-7 city range because this is a high sea level map.

 

[Gooblah]

I just find it a fun strategy, is all. It's not necessary by any means, but I just like huge empires. And I'm pretty sure that there are lot's of people who share my interest. Plus, dealing with the crash is also fun in a way (makes me feel like a Wall Street banker from last year ).

Edit: For pre-game strategy. I'm shifting towards a settle in place, since that will leave room for another city to the east (I'm betting on a resource over there, there usually is in my Fractal experience). I'm thinking a small island or a bay of some sort to the west.

 

[PeteJ]

Can't see that as worth losing Fresh Water. I'd go 1E

Well I would definitely want to see what it looks like in game before i made that decision(rather than what it looks like in the screen shot), but settling in place or 1E is a little food poor for my taste.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

The land to the south looked way too arid (plains all the way). The screenshot shows exactly what you'd see in the game. If you're looking for food, the green to the east looked much more tempting than the brown to the south. Plus, you would have settled right on top of the copper.