Best Traits For REXing?

[Culture Bomb]

What about Ind on a coastal map? It gives you the greatest chance to get the GLH which in turn will pay for most of your cities.

Edit: I guess if you're really focussing on rexing you won't want to spend the hammers to build wonders at all, but if you do get GLH it would give you a great boost for a slightly delayed rex.

 

[RD-BH]

Hammurabi (aggressive, organized)

1) cheap barracks (aggressive)
2) early defensive UU (bowman)
3) reduced costs (organized)
4) UB (garden)

... sometimes I just rex with my military
... that works, too

 

[Merovech]

Yeah, the Great Lighthouse is awesome to pay for expansion-part of REXing is paying for it, after all. I disagree that Hammurabi is a good expansion leader. Everything that he does early game, Shaka of the Zulus does better (except moderately weaker starting techs). He's not a horrible leader, by any means, but not great. Hatty + Egypt or Huyana Capac + Inca are better military REX leaders, as well (and they are more flexible and overall better than Hammurabi). If we're going to include civ traits, I think the argument can even be made for Asoka. The Fast Worker is great, and Spiritual and Organized take a while to kick in, but they allow for sustained expansion quite well. He's not a good REX leader without the Fast Worker, however.

 

[Ringo Kid]

Maybe the important leader is you, the player, when expanding rapidly. Exactly when & where you build the settlers and where they go is very important too.

 

[RD-BH]

... Everything that he does early game, Shaka of the Zulus does better (except moderately weaker starting techs). ...

Shaka's UU cost 40% more hammers for +33.3%/-12.5% strength
... bowman 25 hammers for 3 strength vs impi 35 hammers for 4 strength (+33.3%)
... bowman gets +50% CD for 4.5 strength to impi's 4.0 strength (-12.5%)
... promote 1x bowman/city to longbow and you defend into endgame

I like your point on Asoka;
... if you are sitting on the right terrain, fast workers can improve rexing

RE: military rexing
... I like the immortals' ability to take cities

 

[Qgqqqqq]

@Merovech the strength of joao is not that imp on itself is powerful, but that the combination can be very powerful.
Aggressive is a horrible rexing trait.

 

[Iranon]

@ RD-BH: Technically, no default leader is strictly superior to any other. I think the point was:

Shaka and Hammurabi directly compete - both Aggressive, with a Unique Building that partially offsets the missing trait, neither having access to a game-changing UU. Shaka is usually the stronger of the two.
The saved early hammers from EXP help for both expanding and rushing.

Incidentally: Because of the strange way bonuses are applied, Immortals are frequently inferior to War Chariot against archers (and much, much better against anything else).

 

[RD-BH]

@ RD-BH: Technically, no default leader is strictly superior to any other. I think the point was:

Shaka and Hammurabi directly compete - both Aggressive, with a Unique Building that partially offsets the missing trait, neither having access to a game-changing UU. Shaka is usually the stronger of the two.
The saved early hammers from EXP help for both expanding and rushing.

Incidentally: Because of the strange way bonuses are applied, Immortals are frequently inferior to War Chariot against archers (and much, much better against anything else).

Q: A recent game saw Dog Soldiers decimate Immortals ... do UUs not count as the unit they replace?

Shaka for attacking, Hammurabi for defending ...
... I like the bowman for its defense after REXing.

 

[Kallikrates]

The chariot vs. axe bonus applies only if the chariot attacks. I do not know whether it applies to Dog soldiers, but would expect so.

 

[Quibblesome]

I think it depends a bit on game speed.

On marathon where economy balancing techs are far away (currency/caste) its better to have a leader that offers something like ORG or FIN. But on normal it can be good to trade ORG for EXP/CRE/IMP.

My personal favourite is Cathy (CRE/IMP). IMP is probably my favourite trait for REX.

Is Gilgs worth a nod with his super early courthouse? I never play enough Gilgs to know.

 

[bhavv]

Gilgamesh is very powerful for rexing.

Firstly his starting techs are Agriculture and Wheel, the best start techs you can get, and you can open research with Pottery and Writing.

Cre then gives you half cost libraries very fast (people are missing how strong Cre is for its libraries for rexing, you can break your economy and recover with scientists quicker than non Cre leaders can).

Ziggurats coming as early as priesthood makes for a powerhouse rex, and they are also 30 hammers cheaper.

The only drawback is that Pro doesnt do anything for rexing, and nothing for the Vulture UU, but then a later added bonus to Pro is that Gilgamesh can do machinery + engineering bulbing, and Pro xbows are better than Vultures.

Another niche trick to Gilgamesh combined with Engineering bulbing is how rapidly you can start generating lots of espionage points - you can put up more cities sooner with Ziggurats and run spy specialists if you want. You can ignore CoL for now and try to oracle MC or Machinery and bulb engineering. The fast libraries get you 2 G Scientists easily, and then once you have Engineering, you can pop half cost castles in your cities on top of the Ziggurats and spy specialist for +25% EPs and an extra trade route.

However, playing unrestricted leaders and Cathy of Sumeria is my favorite choice for rexing, or for better building up of cities Sury of Sumeria.

Also with sumeria, if you dont have space to rex, you have vultures to take out a civ very early, but then you need to open with Mining + BW, and if you've already opened with Pottery / AH + Writing, then you're going to be delayed and the AI will have metal and axes already.

 

[noto2]

I don't know why everyone has jumped on the ORG bandwagon for a REX. ORG is the best economic trait late game but in the early game FIN is the trait that will save your empire from going bankrupt from a REX.

Anyhow, best leaders for REXing? Catherine is a REX beast, so is Sury, and Zara, Joao is another.
How about leaders who can REX and easily pay for it? Victoria, Julius (although I'd just rather take cities with prats in his case)

 

[Iranon]

I don't know why everyone has jumped on the ORG bandwagon for a REX. ORG is the best economic trait late game but in the early game FIN is the trait that will save your empire from going bankrupt from a REX.

Could you explain that to me? I keep reading this but it seems backwards:

1. FIN scales more or less linearly with population. ORG has savings per population point and per city, so its direct savings are relatively higher in the early game when city sizes are low. There seems to be some rounding weirdness that makes ORG save slightly less than expected for large empires.

2. Useful higher-cost civics become available relatively early, at a time when we're likely still be expanding. Many mid- and lategame setups favour cheaper civics.

3.a) A high ratio of citizens working high-commerce tiles is rarely practical in the early game - expansion targets, possible wonder targets, fail gold, GPP are very valuable initially. In the late game, we can actively leverage FIN to a ridiculous extent ("forget hammer improvements, hammer multipliers and associated health infrastructure - simply rushbuy everything")

3.b) In the early game when we can't exchange everything for everything, we need to dedicate a reasonable chunk of our economy to commerce tiles to get a good benefit from FIN. FIN by definition isn't in full effect when we're abusing our economy for hammers fuelling harder expansion, ORG is.

4. Average Gold multipliers stay at 0 for some time and tend to overtake inflation eventually.

5. ORG has one early building discount (not in all cities, but useful where applicable) and another that'll aid recovery considerably (usually after the true REX is over... but knowing it'll come allows us to push just a bit harder). The factory discount is usually discounted as "too late to matter"; FIN has much more impressive tricks available by then.

 

[noto2]

FIN does not scale linearly with population, not at all. In a late game empire, running US/FS, anyone can get 7C 1H from a town. All FIN will do is give you 1 more C, so you get 8C. That's a 1/7th increase, hardly impressive. The FIN trait is not all that powerful late game.
On the other hand, in the early game, you can work a riverside cottage for 3C immediately, instead of 2, that's a 50% increase. A hamlet gives you 3C instead of 2C, again a 50% increase. You can work coastal tiles for 3C instead of 2C.
In the early game it's quite easy for FIN to boost your commercial output by 1/3 or 1/4. That's a huge increase.

The most realistic way to pay for a REX is to start working cottages. I know you need hammers to REX too, and the timing is tricky, but at some point you must work cottages, either in your new cities or, more likely, in your capital. FIN gives a dramatic boost to your gold generated in the early game and makes a REX much more realistic.

Don't get me wrong, ORG is a solid trait, and late game I would consider it a match or even better than FIN, but for a true REX it is not as good. It's definitely handy to have when REXing, but I would still say FIN is better. The main reason is that ORG saves you a lot of money per population but not per city. In the early game your expenses are mostly coming from city maintenance as your cities are small. Also, the courthouse comes quite late to deal with a REX. When we're talking REX I'm thinking something like 14 cities by 0 AD. As the game goes on and your population grows, that's when ORG really kicks in. Before that, it doesn't significantly curtail your costs.

 

[Iranon]

FIN does not scale linearly with population, not at all. In a late game empire, running US/FS, anyone can get 7C 1H from a town. All FIN will do is give you 1 more C, so you get 8C. That's a 1/7th increase, hardly impressive. The FIN trait is not all that powerful late game.
On the other hand, in the early game, you can work a riverside cottage for 3C immediately, instead of 2, that's a 50% increase. A hamlet gives you 3C instead of 2C, again a 50% increase. You can work coastal tiles for 3C instead of 2C.
In the early game it's quite easy for FIN to boost your commercial output by 1/3 or 1/4. That's a huge increase.

The percentages are a Red Herring, ORG fares no better: both traits account for a smaller fraction of our total economy as the game progresses.
For a lategame city with 20 citizens, ORG will usually save 5-8 gold (depending on civics) multiplied by inflation. With lategame multipliers, it'd be quite unusual for FIN to do worse even if we don't prioritise commerce tiles.

The most realistic way to pay for a REX is to start working cottages. I know you need hammers to REX too, and the timing is tricky, but at some point you must work cottages, either in your new cities or, more likely, in your capital. FIN gives a dramatic boost to your gold generated in the early game and makes a REX much more realistic.

There are no early gold multipliers, best we can do with honest work is failure gold on resource-boosted wonders. If the REX deserves its R, chances are we're neglecting commerce tiles a little. ORG saves money per citizen and per city.
At an average city size of 5, we'd need to work around 40% FIN-boosted tiles to break even with ORG under the cheap default civics. ORG may save the occasional hammer too, rapid expansion keeps the average size down, chances are we have at least Slavery (which keeps average city sizes lower in addition to increasing upkeep).

Don't get me wrong, ORG is a solid trait, and late game I would consider it a match or even better than FIN, but for a true REX it is not as good. It's definitely handy to have when REXing, but I would still say FIN is better. The main reason is that ORG saves you a lot of money per population but not per city.

ORG has a direct saving per city. FIN only has a benefit on population doing something that won't help you pump out setllers, workers, garrisons and essential infrastructure. Yes, FIN helps paying the bills for expansion... but it'll do more when we're expanding at a moderate pace while trying to keep our tech rate up.

In the early game your expenses are mostly coming from city maintenance as your cities are small. Also, the courthouse comes quite late to deal with a REX. When we're talking REX I'm thinking something like 14 cities by 0 AD. As the game goes on and your population grows, that's when ORG really kicks in. Before that, it doesn't significantly curtail your costs.

Let's run with this. 14 cities, many of which are very small... maybe 60ish population in total, no markets or courthouses yet. Taking into account 7% inflation, ORG will save roughly 25-35 per turn depending on the civics we run.
No gold multipliers yet, so we need to work 25-35 FIN-boosted tiles to break even (whoever is ahead in gold can turn this into a bigger science lead because we have multipliers there... if we're doing science). That's a lot, considering we need hammers to expand hard and we shouldn't neglect GPP entirely. We didn't consider saved hammers from Lighthouses and soon Courthouses.

 

[AdamCrock]

Hre ^^

 

[noto2]

really? 25-35 gpt from ~60 population? That's more than I thought. Still, if I am conducting a REX I really do work a lot of cottages. Come on, by the time you've passed your 6th city you don't need to be pumping settlers out of each city. If I'm REXing hard it's true that I will ignore cottages for the first few cities I pump out but soon after that I need to start working cottages or my economy completely crashes. There's a difference between quickly pumping out your 6 core cities and a true hardcore REX where you're aiming for 12+ cities very early on. In the latter case you have absolutely no choice but to work a lot of cottages. With 60 pop, working 25-30 cottages would be half your citizens working cottages. I don't think that's unrealistic. Remember that's still 30-35 citizens working food/hammer tiles, which is a lot and should be sufficient especially considering the total size of your empire and the fact that it should be larger than that of your opponents.

I haven't crunched the numbers, I just find ORG to be very powerful later in the game. When playing an ORG leader I'm always shocked at just how powerful my economy is in the renaissance and industrial eras (and cheap factories help of course). I've thought that ORG easily matched FIN late game with a large empire, have I been wrong this whole time?

 

[AdamCrock]

org is very powetful One just need to get to COL and his stuff and is all cool take it from me courthouses and/or rathouses for the win ! (eventually ziggurats - hope that I've spelled it right )

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Generally the easiest way to get hammers early is whipping off cottages.
/relurk

 

[Iranon]

@ noto2:

Well, 35 is pushing it... that implies expensive civics. Organized Religion may require assistance from neighbours to be worthwhile, Bureaucracy may be outside the time frame (and if we do have it, it'll also add a little to FIN gains).
Crunching numbers and looking at game snapshots favour ORG for me during the first half of the game, especially when expanding hard.

*

FIN and ORG scale more or less linearly... copy/paste your empire and they'll do twice as much. Now let's look at the deviations from linear scaling in practice, and how they affect the balance of FIN vs. ORG. as the game progresses:

1) Percentage of pop working commerce tiles. I tend to go heavier on commerce as the game progresses, but there are reasonable economic setups where that doesn't apply. Inconclusive, but tending towards relative loss for ORG over time.
2) Average city size. ORG has savings per-city in addition to per-population. After taking into account the above FIN scales linearly with population size. so larger cities favour FIN. Filler cities for corporations and other per-city bonuses nonwithstanding, cities tend to get bigger. Relative loss for ORG over time.
3) Average civic cost. Likely to peak in the early midgame (Organized Religion, Bureaucracy) and decline, sometimes dramatically. Relative loss for ORG over time.
4) Multipliers. ORG savings are multiplied by inflation, FIN gains standardised to be directly comparable are multiplied by our gold multipliers. Those start lower but catch up and surpass inflation: Relative loss for ORG over time.

So yes, I think you got it backwards. If my arguments are wrong or I'm missing something that reverses the trend, I'm happy to be corrected.
There may be a perception bias due to FIN being more visible in regular gameplay... that caused people to overrate FIN relative to ORG for a while. The same quality makes it obvious that the effects of FIN *as a percentage of total economy output* drop over over time. ORG is a superficially constant bonus so its effect feels constant... even though *as a percentage of total economy output* it declines too. And imo more so than that of FIN.

Hope this doesn't come across as arrogant... "I think you're wrong and I know why" generally does, but I'm really interested in getting to the bottom of this.