Border Expansion Yields

[zeofig]

There are some cool border expand additions in the new patch. However, maximising border yields seems rather complicated. Some important points:

• It's possible to run out of tiles
• Yields scale with era (except God of the Expanse)
• There are only a handful of sources of border yields and speed increases, often with significant costs
• Any cities you found late can experience great yields since they have many tiles and low costs

Thinking about these points I realised there's a lot I don't know about how to play border yields. I have some questions I would like to hear your thoughts on:

• Should I worry about running out of tiles?
  
• Is focusing on border yields as tradition (or progress) a good idea? Or is it just better with the huge yields from authority?
  
• Can authority+tradition really compete with full auth or full trad, with an border yields strat?
• Do these kind of yields "fall off" at some point, or do they stay relevant all the way to the end?
• How important is getting local culture (e.g. inspiration) compared to global bonuses like Angkor Wat?
• Would you always go God of the Expanse if it's available, if doing a border yield strat?
• Can puppets get border yields? Can they get "border culture" from the new fort and Spain UI?

I think a lot of this also applies to population growth yields, as they scale in a similar way and have a loosely similar range of sources.

 

[stii]

All educated guesses but,

It is very hard to max out border growth and run out of titles so I wouldn't worry. Generating a huge amount of culture with terracotta army still took ages for me to get capped out, 5 squares out is a huge amount of extra land.

I don't like split polices, losing out on the faith purchased GP is a big hit, I'd rather take both fully and not take a second tier policy, they aren't that exciting anyway. Authority is a fine second tree if you plan on attacking later. Working out how to split them is a bit harder, it will depend on when you want the border growth policy from authority.

It will scale up during the mid game and fall off in the end game but this often isn't much of an issue as pretty much all scaling effects do. If it works really well you can afford to have it not always be good.

Puppets certainly get the border yields from authority policy. I would assume they can get border culture but it is probably hit by the puppet reduction

 

[BliTTzZ]

There are some cool border expand additions in the new patch. However, maximising border yields seems rather complicated. Some important points:

• It's possible to run out of tiles
• Yields scale with era (except God of the Expanse)
• There are only a handful of sources of border yields and speed increases, often with significant costs
• Any cities you found late can experience great yields since they have many tiles and low costs

Thinking about these points I realised there's a lot I don't know about how to play border yields. I have some questions I would like to hear your thoughts on:

• Should I worry about running out of tiles?
  
• Is focusing on border yields as tradition (or progress) a good idea? Or is it just better with the huge yields from authority?
  
• Can authority+tradition really compete with full auth or full trad, with an border yields strat?
• Do these kind of yields "fall off" at some point, or do they stay relevant all the way to the end?
• How important is getting local culture (e.g. inspiration) compared to global bonuses like Angkor Wat?
• Would you always go God of the Expanse if it's available, if doing a border yield strat?
• Can puppets get border yields? Can they get "border culture" from the new fort and Spain UI?

I think a lot of this also applies to population growth yields, as they scale in a similar way and have a loosely similar range of sources.

I have tried to play as border blob Russia. Opened with Tradition for additional culture and after that went straight to Imperium in Authority. Got God of the Expanse, went for Sovereignty. By this time I've founded a couple of cities already and crazy border growth bonuses started to kick in. On religious front most important beliefs were Cathedrals (gold from border expanse), Veneration and To the Glory of God for bonus yields (culture especially) and ability to purchase GPs (since Tradition and Fealty were not finished). In Feaulty I've reached Burghers and it was enough. Then I built also Anghkor Wat. I have received bonuses every turn until Modern Era, it was crazy.

 

[zeofig]

All educated guesses but,

It is very hard to max out border growth and run out of titles so I wouldn't worry. Generating a huge amount of culture with terracotta army still took ages for me to get capped out, 5 squares out is a huge amount of extra land.

I don't like split polices, losing out on the faith purchased GP is a big hit, I'd rather take both fully and not take a second tier policy, they aren't that exciting anyway. Authority is a fine second tree if you plan on attacking later. Working out how to split them is a bit harder, it will depend on when you want the border growth policy from authority.

It will scale up during the mid game and fall off in the end game but this often isn't much of an issue as pretty much all scaling effects do. If it works really well you can afford to have it not always be good.

Puppets certainly get the border yields from authority policy. I would assume they can get border culture but it is probably hit by the puppet reduction

Great ideas, thank you.

I have tried to play as border blob Russia. Opened with Tradition for additional culture and after that went straight to Imperium in Authority. Got God of the Expanse, went for Sovereignty. By this time I've founded a couple of cities already and crazy border growth bonuses started to kick in. On religious front most important beliefs were Cathedrals (gold from border expanse), Veneration and To the Glory of God for bonus yields (culture especially) and ability to purchase GPs (since Tradition and Fealty were not finished). In Feaulty I've reached Burghers and it was enough. Then I built also Anghkor Wat. I have received bonuses every turn until Modern Era, it was crazy.

Yeah I've had a lot of success with it so far. I don't really like cathedrals though, 10g is not much and the flat culture from creativity helps with border pops. I like cathedrals with golden age strategies actually, since the +1g can become +2g under GA.