Adjusting Tech Sliders During War?

[ratrangerm]

OK, so I was playing an offline game of vanilla CIV as Frederick at Prince level. I built five cities quickly and then concentrated on building up my land. I notice Huayna Cupac was pretty isolated to the south of me and I decided to take him out before he got too big.

So I chopped and whipped together an army of Axemen and took him out pretty quickly. That left me with eight cities (but I ended up founding a ninth because I saw a good site with Copper on a grassland that I knew one of my neighbors would grab... I had Copper, obviously, but I wanted to keep it away from my neighbors, and besides, this city also had Rice and Cow and river territory with jungle, so it was going to be a really nice city site).

However, during this time, I had been researching Iron Working and then Code of Laws, but I ended up really having to drop the tech slider low... at one point, it was at zero percent. I had cities working as many cottages as I could and stopped building military units, making my production cities build research instead, because I was bleeding so badly.

End result was I didn't get to Literature as soon as I wanted, and somebody beat me to the Great Library (and not one of my neighbors... my neighbors are Napoleon and Roosevelt and both were behind me in tech... as of my last save, Nappy still hadn't researched Alphabet). Why do I figure Gandhi is one of my unmet neighbors?

Anyway, to the topic... I've seen the various games people have shared here and it seems some people drop the tech slider for science during war time... sometimes out of necessity, but I swear I've seen at least a couple of people on this forum say it's a good idea to reduce your science slider during war so you don't lose so much money, then crank it back up in peace time.

So what is really the best way to adjust tech sliders, so that on one hand you don't lose a lot of money from an early rush, and on the other hand, you don't tech too slowly.

I can upload my saved game if people want to look at it.

 

[JimT]

I think 9 cities in the early game will bleed you dry (but thats on small/standard). Cities have to be worth keeping with wonders or brilliant locations (I am usually short of production sites), with the latter it may still be worth waiting until later in the game. If your neighbours settle them, thats fine its another city to raze later.

This works for me on monarch and I fine my slider is often at 100% with plunder, tribute and sold techs (as the sweetener to collecting techs) supporting my deficit.

Also try sending a couple of chariots behind your stack of doom. Any thing outside your cultural borders can be pillaged and helps support your economy further but beware of pillaging towns/villages that you are likely to want later.

The proviso to the above is that I often have trouble taking my advantage in to the post liberalism era, possibly due to my limited empire size but probably due to caution and the builder instinct

Edit: As you say Huayana was isolated so there was probably no problem filling the gaps in later, if there was no neighbour to fill in the gaps.

 

[cabert]

9 cities is a lot, but slider at 0 % for a short while isn't a problem.
Do you know currency? CoL?

It's pointless to keep your slider down during the war, but it's highly important that you know where he "should be" = % where you get enough gold to pay for your expenses. So I play yoyo with the slider each turn.

 

[JIM G]

I found myself with a similar problem in my last game - swallowed up my neighbour whole & took a massive hit in finances.
Luckily I had a lot of coastal cities & built the colossus (first time I've done so) - it saved my bacon - though I probably relied on it for too long after & put off obsoleting it too long!

 

[oyzar]

Why did you research Ironworking if you have 9 cities before col? Reasearch Col asap and whip in those courhouses. You cant have everything. Sometimes you just dont get GL if you want to war around that time.