Builders Mentality-A Question from a Civ 5 noob on REXing.

[Siderealex]

With the recent sale on Steam I finally decided to get Civilization V, along with the Denmark DLC & G&K. I know however that I'll be playing a lot of vanilla because another friend of mine with a strategy game background in the Total War games got Civilization as well. He however didn't get G&K.

So. I entered playing Civilization with three and then later got four and all it's expansions on Steam so I'm familiar with Civ as a game. For a long time it was hard for me in both games to commit to early rexing since my natural inclination is to build up, expand a little, build up,etc.

I've read some posts, some of the Academy articles,etc. One thing I am still not sure yet on though is how much of an axiom it still is in Civ 5 to devote the first phase of the game to REX until available viable land is gone. I know some Civs like India favour the tall vs wide strategy but I'm still not sure of the nuances that dictate which direction to go.

Anyone's thoughts and advice would be appreciated.

 

[mintcandy]

I've read some posts, some of the Academy articles,etc. One thing I am still not sure yet on though is how much of an axiom it still is in Civ 5 to devote the first phase of the game to REX until available viable land is gone. I know some Civs like India favour the tall vs wide strategy but I'm still not sure of the nuances that dictate which direction to go.

In Civ IV, the early limiting factors on rapid REX strategies was having to pay increasing amounts of gold per turn as you settled new cities. Since there weren't easy ways to earn gold with early technology, and since you need to devote percentages of your empire's financial output to science research, there was an effective limit to early REX in Civ IV.

In Civ V, the limiting factors on rapid REX strategies are happiness and rising Social Policy costs.

Happiness is treated at the civilization scale now, not just for individual cities, and settling MORE cities lowers civ happiness. If I remember correctly, there are production penalties to all cities for dipping below 0 happiness, and the game won't let you build new Settlers if your civilization dips below -10 happiness.

Social Policies in Civilization V are treated differently than they were in Civilization IV. In Civilization IV, social polices were tied to specific technologies, which meant that scientific civilizations tended to unlock better social policies much faster.

In Civilization V, social policies must be purchased with culture points. Culture points in Civilization V are generated in much the same way they were in Civilization IV, either through buildings/Wonders or through culture specialists. However, the cost for each Social Policy requires progressively more Culture Points than the previous Social Policy, and settling new cities increases the Culture Point cost even higher still.

Some of these social policies have very nice bonuses, like +50% experience in combat or +1 Happiness/Gold for every two population in the capital.

In Civ V, REXing isn't terribly useful for a cultural victory, because cultural victories depend on high culture per turn/city ratio. REXing is more useful for science or diplomatic victories, because both victory conditions rely on post Modern technologies, and because REXing doesn't directly affect science output.

EDIT: I think I was a bit unclear. REXing in Civ V tends to be more limited than Civ IV REXing because of the significant bonuses you give up. Typically, I tend to pound out 2-3 Settlers as quickly as I can. After that, I don't build any more Settlers unless I find some rare unclaimed resources later in the game (Fountain of Youth, I'm looking at you.)

 

[Matthew.]

If I remember correctly, there are production penalties to all cities for dipping below 0 happiness

I believe it is only growth penalty at unhappy. The production penalty kicks in when raging.

I don't have much experience with the other Civs, but as far as I can tell, Civ 5 is quite flexible in the number of cities. If you can't or don't expand right away, national wonders and specialist slots help keep you competitive. If you do expand wide, many of the earlier infrastructure has flat bonuses as opposed to percentage-based, resulting in many lower pop. cities adding up.

This is largely my opinion, but I find that 6-8 cities is optimal. Whether that is starting with 3 tall, then puppeting another 3 or 4 later on, or fast expanding into 6-8 right from the start, or settling a couple of cities then annexing your neighbor's empire, etc. This is based off of empirical evidence. My strongest games tend to fall into that range.

 

[Traejun]

3 city start (fast), 4 if you have some luxuries to offset the unhappiness quick bloom.

If you're going for culture, stop at 3 for a little while. Science and domination allow for a race to 4 approach. The free settler and worker from the Liberty tree allow you to get to 3 cities VERY rapidly with improved terrain, the 4th can be a dozen turns behind if you skip an early wonder or you're surrounded by non-aggressive neighbors.

 

[Siderealex]

In Civ IV, the early limiting factors on rapid REX strategies was having to pay increasing amounts of gold per turn as you settled new cities. Since there weren't easy ways to earn gold with early technology, and since you need to devote percentages of your empire's financial output to science research, there was an effective limit to early REX in Civ IV.

In Civ V, the limiting factors on rapid REX strategies are happiness and rising Social Policy costs.

Happiness is treated at the civilization scale now, not just for individual cities, and settling MORE cities lowers civ happiness. If I remember correctly, there are production penalties to all cities for dipping below 0 happiness, and the game won't let you build new Settlers if your civilization dips below -10 happiness.

Social Policies in Civilization V are treated differently than they were in Civilization IV. In Civilization IV, social polices were tied to specific technologies, which meant that scientific civilizations tended to unlock better social policies much faster.

In Civilization V, social policies must be purchased with culture points. Culture points in Civilization V are generated in much the same way they were in Civilization IV, either through buildings/Wonders or through culture specialists. However, the cost for each Social Policy requires progressively more Culture Points than the previous Social Policy, and settling new cities increases the Culture Point cost even higher still.

Some of these social policies have very nice bonuses, like +50% experience in combat or +1 Happiness/Gold for every two population in the capital.

In Civ V, REXing isn't terribly useful for a cultural victory, because cultural victories depend on high culture per turn/city ratio. REXing is more useful for science or diplomatic victories, because both victory conditions rely on post Modern technologies, and because REXing doesn't directly affect science output.

EDIT: I think I was a bit unclear. REXing in Civ V tends to be more limited than Civ IV REXing because of the significant bonuses you give up. Typically, I tend to pound out 2-3 Settlers as quickly as I can. After that, I don't build any more Settlers unless I find some rare unclaimed resources later in the game (Fountain of Youth, I'm looking at you.)

All of this stuff I've thankfully become familiar with, between time having played Civ 3 and 4 for a long time, as well as reading threads here. As well in no small part to recently starting to watch Djinn's LP's.

After having some more time to tinker with G&K I think the biggest thing has been unlearning certain tendencies born out of play from Civ 4 and to a lesser extent,3. The game has definitely grown on me compared to my first impression.

 

[Drawmeus]

An additional limiter is that REX will cause your neighbors to get upset - depending on your difficulty level, this can force you to maintain a much larger military than otherwise necessary in order to keep from being attacked and/or in order to defend yourself when you are in fact attacked, which forces you to pay higher unit maintenance than you otherwise would need and reduces the amount of money available from trading away resources (though this can more than balance out if your REX gets you access to enough resources to trade away in the first place). It will also limit your ability to form friendships, which denies you access to research agreements.

I think the consensus is it's worth dealing with this cost because of how much you get out of faith when REXing, but it's a consideration.