What do you build in Al Falah cities? With nothing, there's barely any production for city developments. With every building, there's no time to switch to city developments. Is it trade depots, production buildings, then energy to buy the other buildings, then science? I think I've read that it's more efficient to skip a lot of building, regardless of your chosen sponsor, but I haven't worked out that strategy.
Al Falah Infrastructure
- Thread starter Kaushad
- Start date
opinion: with strong play, the game ends before you get to feel the power of Al Falah city developments. Their bonus does allow some more efficient micromanagement to grow to a higher pop 1 turn earlier or to learn a virtue 1 turn earlier etc.
In theory you can get to use the bonus for a strong effect if you focus all trade routes on a city that has high food and use it as Agricultural Development. The other cities will get high food and grow as a result. Then, when they have 10 pop and can afford one more trade route, you designate another city as Agricultural Development and send the 2nd trade route there. This way you get X number of cities with high population and high yields.
Another strong way to use it in theory is around mid game to switch all cities to Cultural Development and get a few important virtues in a fast period of time.
The problem for this is that game length is too short. It is possible this might work better for Epic / Marathon speeds.
In theory you can get to use the bonus for a strong effect if you focus all trade routes on a city that has high food and use it as Agricultural Development. The other cities will get high food and grow as a result. Then, when they have 10 pop and can afford one more trade route, you designate another city as Agricultural Development and send the 2nd trade route there. This way you get X number of cities with high population and high yields.
Another strong way to use it in theory is around mid game to switch all cities to Cultural Development and get a few important virtues in a fast period of time.
The problem for this is that game length is too short. It is possible this might work better for Epic / Marathon speeds.
vorlon_mi
Emperor
Answering your question with a question -- which victory condition are you pursuing?
I agree with @Tiberiu post about using a single food-rich city to be a food producer that exports food to the rest of your empire, and thus all cities grow. Let's follow that logic further, to see what several larger cities could do.
For Domination, one could set a number of cities to Economic Development (energy), and buy an army in mid-game. That is between turns 100 and 150, after you have several cities planted. Success would depend on whether you need only a navy, or both an army and navy/
For Contact, setting several cities to energy could get you the 1000 energy you need to ignite the Beacon quickly. But in all my Contact victories, I've been able to crank up my energy production (as another faction, not Al Falah) so that I have 1000 in the bank by the time my Beacon is finished construction.
I'm not sure that Al Falah's trait is especially suited to Promised Land victories. Energy is collected from all cities, so setting some cities to energy might let one buy units to push through the Emancipation Gate. For Harmony, one can buy Xeno Sanctuaries with energy, but not Mind Stems; the latter need to be built using production.
For all of the affinity victories, trade routes sending production to the build city helps speed construction of the final wonder. A bigger city (grown by sending it food from Ag Development towns) would build the wonder faster.
Setting smaller cities to Science Development might give a boost for Harmony, getting all 3 techs researched earlier.
After getting the Might policy for faster affinity accumulation, a Science sprint might make sense.
To answer the original question, it seems that production buildings and trade depots would be useful for Al Falah. Colonists, too, since one would be pursuing a wide strategy with more than 5 self-founded cities. Depending on how close your neighbors are -- and how belligerent -- building units will also be needed.
I've read comments from skillful Civ3 and Civ4 players who write that most buildings are not needed; they build a lot of units and go to war. I haven't read enough strategy articles to know if that applies to Civ5 also; the warmonger diplomatic penalties are pretty severe. The faction leaders in BERT seem a lot less bothered by warmongering. In all of my recent games, the AI have no reservations about DOWing each other, more frequently as the game goes on.
Independent of which sponsor I'm playing, I tend to build a LOT of buildings, especially health buildings.
I agree with @Tiberiu post about using a single food-rich city to be a food producer that exports food to the rest of your empire, and thus all cities grow. Let's follow that logic further, to see what several larger cities could do.
For Domination, one could set a number of cities to Economic Development (energy), and buy an army in mid-game. That is between turns 100 and 150, after you have several cities planted. Success would depend on whether you need only a navy, or both an army and navy/
For Contact, setting several cities to energy could get you the 1000 energy you need to ignite the Beacon quickly. But in all my Contact victories, I've been able to crank up my energy production (as another faction, not Al Falah) so that I have 1000 in the bank by the time my Beacon is finished construction.
I'm not sure that Al Falah's trait is especially suited to Promised Land victories. Energy is collected from all cities, so setting some cities to energy might let one buy units to push through the Emancipation Gate. For Harmony, one can buy Xeno Sanctuaries with energy, but not Mind Stems; the latter need to be built using production.
For all of the affinity victories, trade routes sending production to the build city helps speed construction of the final wonder. A bigger city (grown by sending it food from Ag Development towns) would build the wonder faster.
Setting smaller cities to Science Development might give a boost for Harmony, getting all 3 techs researched earlier.
After getting the Might policy for faster affinity accumulation, a Science sprint might make sense.
To answer the original question, it seems that production buildings and trade depots would be useful for Al Falah. Colonists, too, since one would be pursuing a wide strategy with more than 5 self-founded cities. Depending on how close your neighbors are -- and how belligerent -- building units will also be needed.
I've read comments from skillful Civ3 and Civ4 players who write that most buildings are not needed; they build a lot of units and go to war. I haven't read enough strategy articles to know if that applies to Civ5 also; the warmonger diplomatic penalties are pretty severe. The faction leaders in BERT seem a lot less bothered by warmongering. In all of my recent games, the AI have no reservations about DOWing each other, more frequently as the game goes on.
Independent of which sponsor I'm playing, I tend to build a LOT of buildings, especially health buildings.
Thanks, fellows.
I play on the fastest speed, but I often go past 200 turns. I pursue any victory but domination. I typically have to train an enormous navy anyway, because the AI sends waves of ships with negligible logistic contraint. I'd choose a victory that's mechanically convenient, based on Al Falah's unique trait or whatever I think fits their philosophy. I suppose that my usual approach to trade, which is centralising it towards the capital, wouldn't be effective early in the game, but I could designate Farah as the bread basket and use to get to the point where second traders can be sent to Ard more quickly.
I play on the fastest speed, but I often go past 200 turns. I pursue any victory but domination. I typically have to train an enormous navy anyway, because the AI sends waves of ships with negligible logistic contraint. I'd choose a victory that's mechanically convenient, based on Al Falah's unique trait or whatever I think fits their philosophy. I suppose that my usual approach to trade, which is centralising it towards the capital, wouldn't be effective early in the game, but I could designate Farah as the bread basket and use to get to the point where second traders can be sent to Ard more quickly.
vorlon_mi
Emperor
I also rarely play for Domination, though that probably means I haven't practiced my warring enough. At this point in my BERT career, I'm still trying to make each game exceed the score of the last time I played as that leader, or try for a VC with the leader I haven't achieved yet. That depends a LOT on the map, the type of terrain I get, and how close my neighbors are.
As I think more about it, Al Falah's trait is more useful tactically than strategically. At certain points, a sprint for science to unlock a tech or a sprint for culture to unlock a virtue would be helpful. But all of the affinity victories involve building something with production; Al Falah's trait to divert production into one of the other yields can't help with speeding up the victory.
As I think more about it, Al Falah's trait is more useful tactically than strategically. At certain points, a sprint for science to unlock a tech or a sprint for culture to unlock a virtue would be helpful. But all of the affinity victories involve building something with production; Al Falah's trait to divert production into one of the other yields can't help with speeding up the victory.
