Advice re Industrial (or Renaissance) start

[dalamb]

I'm interesting in playing a series of Industrial-age start games to see how things are different, especially to see how useful the late-game UUs and UBs might play out. I'm looking for general advice about playing and specific advice about which civilizations to pick.

Are there any big differences about how one plays when starting this late? I fired up one game just to see, and found out:

1. Everybody has all the religious techs, so nobody can found one. Religion (and the Apostolic Palace, yay!) are out of the game -- but so is Theocracy since without a state religion it's useless.
2. At least at Noble, you start with 3 settlers on the same square, 3 riflemen, 2 workers, and 2 explorers. I imagine the settlers need to sit tight until you find some good sites, so only the first can settle quickly.
3. I now understand that "available for free on XX or later starts" means your cities have those buildings immedately. I notice there are no free culture-generating buildings, so I imagine Library is a big priority!

Civilizations with late-game UU and UB include:

• America: SEAL and Mall
• Germany: Panzer and Assembly Plant
• Russia: Cossack might obsolete relatively soon, but Research Institute might be good.
• England: You'd have Redcoats right at the start! And Stock Exchange gives an extra 15% commerce over that of a bank (50%).

Anything else?

If I started at Renaissance instead, there's one fewer settler, and Gunpowder can be researched immediately -- so civs with gunpowder-based UUs could build them soon; in an Industrial start the Musketman replacements would be obsolete:

• France: Musketeer. The Salon gives a free artist, which would help with border pops and a cultural VC.
• Ethiopia. I've heard people rave over Oromos. The Stele would be obsolete.
• Ottomans: Janissaries. The Hammam is free, and still gives +2 happy along with the +2 health.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

I've played a few late start games and there are a few things that I have found:

1) Do your recon early using all the units that you have and pick city sites that have the important resources: iron, coal, oil, preferably 2 or 3 of corn, wheat, or rice, and some happy resources.

2) Caste system and Mercantilism early are really good since you can have really quick great people, especially with PHI leaders. Get a great engineer (to help with wonders), a great scientist for an academy, and a great artist for bombing. Late start games are the only ones in which I find that a GA's culture bomb is really useful. Don't forget to change your civics on the very first turn!

3) Razing and re-settling cities is usually preferable to capturing them unless they have wonders or possible shrines. This way you don't have to rebuild the free buildings.

4) The race for wonders is especially intense early so pick your important ones carefully and build them ASAP, even using your GE.

NPM

 

[Bigv32]

I have done this many times. I usually use Germany on a Renasaise (spelling) start. This way I can get settled and have a good empire with large production by the time I hit Assembly Line. I then spam assembly plants and power and go straight for panzers. Then I steamroll the rest of the world and always destroy Shaka. (I had a bad experience with him once so I always put him in my games and I destroy him even if it means I lose the game. One time I lost because I spent so much time destroying him that I fell behind but it was worth it.)

Also, the speed difference with marathon is important. I do not recommend doing this on normal because teh AI will destroy you on higher levels by getting everything good. Marathon or maybe epic is important.

 

[euripides]

played some renaissance starts lately, but with pericles. getting border pops is usually not the problem with caste system at start, but the fast library and university is nice, to get your science rolling. I found this is important because you need so much hammers for expansion (settlers are quite expensive).
Change all your civics right at start, so you get 3 or more turns to move your settlers around. Taking pacifism is nice together with merc, because an religion is nearly guaranteed (and you start with just a few troops, so low upkeep).

 

[dalamb]

How can anyone found any religions with Renaissance or later starts? You get all the religious techs right at the beginning. Or did you mean Medieval, where Theology and Divine Right are still to be researched?

 

[Amask]

religions get randomly founded after a couple turns
not sure how they get distributed since I only tried it in 1v1

 

[dalamb]

I've been figuring it's only fair to pick units with decent late-game UUs and UBs, but that removes some of the surprise factor. So, do you think a start with random opponents makes for a reasonably fair game? or are, say, the Egyptians, at a significant disadvantage? (War Chariot, long since obsolete, and Obelisk, obsolete after Astronomy, which is available soon after Renaissance start and already known with an Industrial start.)

BTW first game started, with Lincoln.

 

[dalamb]

I made a few observations after terminating my first Renaissance start game. I'm replicating them here since they might be of general interest:

What I've learned:

• If you have early access to iron and horses, your knights can stomp anybody on your continent. For a game to be any fun you have to limit how much of your opposition is on the same continent. Maybe I should try a Standard map with 3 continents? or an Islands map? After all, stomping somebody at the start is fun, even if you want to postpone most warring until your UU is available.
• Tech rate is incredibly slow compared with what we're all used to at this point in history with an Ancient start. Don't go Epic like I did; things are already too slow to be fun.
• Education is available right from the start. Go for one of the other techs, e.g. gunpowder, build libraries and run scientists for a GS, and bulb the sucker. After that you should be able to win the Liberalism race -- unless, of course, an AI had the same strategy; anybody know enough about how the AI strategizes in this game?
• With less than 6 opponents it looks like you have a really good chance of having a religion in a few turns -- or two in my case on a Small map.
• Run Mercantilism at the start so you can run one specialist per city immediately -- maybe a GS in one and a GE in the second? If you choose differently in each city you could time which one happened first by running the specialist you wanted first in a city built at least one turn before the other, or, if you somehow founded both in the same turn, run the "citizen" specialist in the lower-priority one for a single turn. Or, of course, multiple scientists after a library if that's the one you wanted first. If you want both, the GS is much easier to get "second" because you can run lots of scientists with libraries or Caste System.
• Serfdom is definitely useful during the initial phase of infrastructure-building.