Catherine Cottage Spam

[azzkicar]

Hi Synex,

Your strat is really interesting, but a lot of it is based on fast expansion (lots of workers and settlers built early). My problem is I often find myself on an isolated island (I play continents, normal size world, normal speed, 8 civs, prince). On that island I can usually place only 5-6 good cities. Then that's it. Even though I was doing relatively well in my last game, I found myself behind other civs that were on a larger land masses and that were conquering neighbours for further expansion.

I bee-lined to astronomy to get the galleon and settle new cities on nearby islands. However with 8 civs, all close-by islands were already taken, and the remaining were so far away that by the time I got there other civs had already beaten me to it (by like 2-3 turns only!!).

How would you proceed if you started on a small island like I described?

Sorry if you already replied to a similar question, I didn't go through the 8 pages of replys!

thx!!

Given your scenario, I usually go to war early and pick off a weak civ (preferably if he's already at war with another civ). One game I even bribed a distant civ to attack my opponent, and it worked to perfection, since he was sandwiched between me and my ally. I let my opponent go to war several turns before I declared war myself. The opponent's forces were spread thin so I was able to capture 2 developed cities in quick succession (I just got catapults at this time, so it's relatively early game still). That gave me the edge I need to jump up ahead on the tech tree.

I find that as soon as I have a general idea where my opponents are, I decide right away who I'll ally and who I'll alienate. Here's how I decide on between ally and foe:

1. Neighbors are better enemies than allies. You want to ally with those some distance from you, perferably those who flank your neighbors.
2. If you have multiple neighbors, choose which direction you want to conquer first, and make allies to others initially. You do NOT want to fight a war on several fronts, especially at early age.
3. Do prepare for war in virtually all ages. Having a strong military, even if you never use them actively, poses important advantages:
--- AI tends to not be as hostile towards you. They can smell weakness.
--- AI tends to make less demands.
--- You can even make demands if your army's big enough

 

[Synex]

I also have questions about GP city as well. I played another game, and I tried to develop my GP city early (2nd city in fact), and I find that I don't really know what to do with them early game. Some questions for both Fratboy and Synex:

1. Besides, food, what should the city focus on? What buildings to build?
2. Fratboy, with wonders that add +merchant appearing so late in the tech tree, how do you generate great merchants in mid game?
3. Fratboy, I always build Oxford at my capital city and Wall Street on my best commerce city. How does a GP city benefit more from Wall Street? I understand how great merchants and prophets as super specialists will be a factor, but I rarely ever get either (I almost always get scientists or artists. I only got merchants, prophets, and engineers once in all my games).
4. I too would love a picture, from both of you, on a developing GP city and a fully developed GP city. That would be awesome.

I don't have any trouble beating AI in Noble now, so I think I'll try Prince soon. Thanks for all your help!

My GP Farm is all about food food food. The more food you have, the more specialists you can run. So grassland/flood plains ftw!

Buildings... hmm, anything that allows you to boost happiness (more specialists) and allows you to assign specialists (market/library/temple etc)

Great Library is great if you can build it in your GP Farm. Often, if i can find a big spot of forested grasslands by a river (not TOO specific) then i'll plonk my GP Farm about the same time as the GrtLibrary comes in, and chop-rush it. That, along with a library, the Parthenon and the National Epic will give you about 42 GP/turn. Not BAD for just 4 spare food!

Building a GP Farm, as i mentioned before, i look for grasslands and flood plains. Flood Plains will give you bad health, but often you can counteract this with Aquaduct/Health Resources, and i usually find Happiness is a much greater limiting factor.

I used to make the mistake of trying to plonk all my wonders in my GP Farm, but often i find it won't have much production in it. Also, although the +2 GPP/turn IS nice.. it doesn't make all that much difference when you realise each of your specialists are producing 3.

 

[azzkicar]

I guess what I ultimately like to know is: How do I know when I've built a solid GP farm city? How many GP points you guys get per turn? population size? food?

 

[walkerjks]

I guess what I ultimately like to know is: How do I know when I've built a solid GP farm city? How many GP points you guys get per turn? population size? food?

I am pretty happy with any spot that can easily produce +12 excess food (pre-Biology). That's enough to support 6 specialists. As the game goes on, the excess food may increase, either due to Biology or due to great merchants being added as super specialists.

Even though that's my personal basic standard for a great person city, I won't hesitate to use a lesser city for great people early in the game. 3 or 4 specialist cities (which are common - you basically only need 2 food resources) will produce a great person in a reasonable amount of time, even if they are competing against a 6 specialist city with the National Epic. You won't get significantly more great people by using these lower production great person cities, but you will get great people earlier, which can be huge. The important thing to recognize when using secondary great person cities is knowing when they are unlikely to produce another great person in a reasonable amount of time and switching the specialists into something more productive (though specialists are sometimes the most productive option anyway).

 

[War4War]

Given your scenario, I usually go to war early and pick off a weak civ (preferably if he's already at war with another civ). One game I even bribed a distant civ to attack my opponent, and it worked to perfection, since he was sandwiched between me and my ally. I let my opponent go to war several turns before I declared war myself. The opponent's forces were spread thin so I was able to capture 2 developed cities in quick succession (I just got catapults at this time, so it's relatively early game still). That gave me the edge I need to jump up ahead on the tech tree.

I find that as soon as I have a general idea where my opponents are, I decide right away who I'll ally and who I'll alienate. Here's how I decide on between ally and foe:

1. Neighbors are better enemies than allies. You want to ally with those some distance from you, perferably those who flank your neighbors.
2. If you have multiple neighbors, choose which direction you want to conquer first, and make allies to others initially. You do NOT want to fight a war on several fronts, especially at early age.
3. Do prepare for war in virtually all ages. Having a strong military, even if you never use them actively, poses important advantages:
--- AI tends to not be as hostile towards you. They can smell weakness.
--- AI tends to make less demands.
--- You can even make demands if your army's big enough

What I meant to say by isolated island is that I'm the only one on that island. And the island is just big enough for 5-6 cities. Conquest is just not an option early on when the only water unit is the galley. Later, it is possible with astronomy (galleon), but it's very expensive to wage war overseas, esp in the early-mid game, and often by the time you get to the enemy, he's got units more advanced than you do because it took like 30 turns to amass your army and boats and actually get there. But out-developing the AI is sometimes not an option either when it starts conquering everyone else and getting stronger while I'm sitting silently on my island.

What would be your approach in this situation?

 

[azzkicar]

I haven't played a Continents game where I'm on an isolated small piece of land. I played Continents, but I always end up in a big continent with minimum 2-3 AI. So my advice here is simply that, my 2 cents.

If I were you, I think once I got the 5-6 cities, get 1 to be GPP farm and rest all on commerce (you don't have to worry about production too much since you are isolated). Focus on tech and cash buildings, in that order. I would also get a caravel and settler to settle somewhere on the main continent, regardless of how crap the land may be. You will need that as your starting point for an invasion. Get the civics and techs needed for the Kremlin, finish it, then immediately turn down tech to 0% go hog wild on military and navy. Build military on mainland.

It is important to know what technologies you can likely trade for and what ones you should research yourself. I find Construction / Monarchy / Drama often researched by AI early, so don't do it yourself. Try to get the commerce techs through trading while you beeline for the vital techs for the cottage spam strategy.

 

[Sonobovich]

I've been trying out this strategy and it works great!
Here are a few things that I've discovered:

1. For the GP city, get Shakespeare's Theater! Going to the Merry Wives of Windsor will keep those theatre fops happy enough that they don't mind living in a squalid, violent hellhole of a city. Statistically, your GP city will cause the life expectancy and approval rating of your empire to be at the very bottom of the heap. How Great People can arise from a dank underhive like that I'll never know.

2. The more competitive the game, the more production cities you need. Sometimes, I even mine hills in my commerce cities so they can pump out military units when there are no commerce improvements to build. To keep from being overrun, a detour to Military Tradition after Liberalism is a good idea so you can spam cossacks and fight off the 1,567,430,290,194 units the AI sends to pillage your empire.

 

[Mano3]

Well, I tried this on Noble and won a very close Space Race Victory with only 19 turns left. If my spy didn't sabotage the Malinese SS Stasis Chamber, I would have lost by two turns. I also managed to wage two good wars and wipe out the French and Persians on my continent.

It was a different and fun approach as opposed to my usual build strategy. The jury's still out as to if it is one of the top winning strategies.

 

[Synex]

Well, I tried this on Noble and won a very close Space Race Victory with only 19 turns left. If my spy didn't sabotage the Malinese SS Stasis Chamber, I would have lost by two turns. I also managed to wage two good wars and wipe out the French and Persians on my continent.

It was a different and fun approach as opposed to my usual build strategy. The jury's still out as to if it is one of the top winning strategies.

To be honest with you, if you won the Space Race THAT late in the game, and that is the one you were aiming for, then you definatly didn't use this strategy. This strategy will produce a space race victory in 1600 / 1700, somewhere around there, EASILY.

 

[Mano3]

To be honest with you, if you won the Space Race THAT late in the game, and that is the one you were aiming for, then you definatly didn't use this strategy. This strategy will produce a space race victory in 1600 / 1700, somewhere around there, EASILY.

I had the feeling that I was missing something... I'll try again and report in.

 

[azzkicar]

I tried to mix things up a bit, so I tried Qin (fin/ind), Prince difficulty, epic speed, large map, and I am now at a loss.

I started way up north, and I think I expanded too much. I had Bismark close to me but I beat him down good (he had a really crappy start location). Unfortunately I am lagging behind in tech and I am having difficulty managing my commerce. Attached is the saved game. Any advice?

 

[Synex]

I tried to mix things up a bit, so I tried Qin (fin/ind), Prince difficulty, epic speed, large map, and I am now at a loss.

I started way up north, and I think I expanded too much. I had Bismark close to me but I beat him down good (he had a really crappy start location). Unfortunately I am lagging behind in tech and I am having difficulty managing my commerce. Attached is the saved game. Any advice?

Ok... here goes.


First off, over-expansion is not a bad thing as long as you take a few steps to deal with it. Over-expansion is painful in the short-term but can be beneficial in the long term if you play it right.

First step: Code Of Laws! With Courthouses in every city, and the Forbidden Palace in Shandong (sp?) you can bump your tech rate straight to 50%. (45 beakers/turn to 84! Thats just doubled your research!)

Next, change your civic to slavery - (36 upkeep -> 29)
Science to 60% (84 beakers -> 101)

Librarys in all cities (pretty much already done this - good job! 101 beakers -> 103)

Kill off some units! (extra 12 gold/turn to be had here)
Science can now be set to 70% while still growing your treasury.

Thats boosted your research from 45 beakers to 125. Not bad - thats a 3x increase.

Long term, i'd say chop all those forests down and plaster the country side with cottages. Get your grassland cities grown as a priority, up to their happiness limit. Production squares should be ignored, all of those little citizen buggers should be working a cottage square.

Also, on higher difficulties, religion can be very useful, not only for hapiness (larger cities) but also for research (monastrys? 10% extra beakers) and also, if you can manage to found your own religion, the coin income will help to offset your research costs.

Hope this helps.

 

[azzkicar]

I followed your advice Synex, and boy what a difference. I actually wind up restarting the entire game from 4000 BC, changed my tech strategy to take advantage of the IND trait (I also found marble) and built some early wonders quickly (Partheon, Stonehenge, Oracle). I expanded a tiny bit slower, not by much, and I was able to found Confuanism (beeling to that relatively early really helps. Found 1 religion + Courthouses + Forbidden Palace makes such a difference). I now have 12 cities, running green at 70% science, and I am way ahead of all my neighbors in tech. I am poised to settle at least 3 more cities and push for space victory.

I subsequently founded Christianity and Taoism. None of my neighbors founded a religion so I'll be able to exploit OR / holy city income hehe. I think given the scenario I'll stay with OR. I always tried free religion in the past so I want to see how far I can take OR.

The only sad thing is that since the continent is so big, I don't have much chance for warfare. Can't really take advantage of Chinese UU heh.

You are awesome, Synex. Thanks so much for the tips.

 

[mikey79]

hi!

i really love this thread, since i am not really a warmonger and like to tech rush and live peacefully
however, my main problem is that most of the time i really have to fight unhappiness in my cties and then i do not have enough workers to work the cottages for me, which results in not enough money to rush my techs.

you all write: grow your city as as long as you don't reach unhappyness level. well if i do this, say, my city is size 3 or 4, and if i then swith my workers to my cottages, my size decreases again after a couple of turns because i have not enough food. what am i doing wrong here? since it takes quite some time until the cottages are big enough, i always end up with very few money and cannot tech rush anything prior to the enemies...

hope someone can help me on this...

edit// here is a savegame from an "middle-game" stat:
click me!

 

[icecool]

This is a very interesting way to play - I'm going to be trying this tonight!!.

Cheers, Ice

 

[carterba]

Even the half-assed version of this strategy is very powerful, at least on Noble. I've been alternating Washington and Catherine, and even though I make lots of mistakes (my cities aren't specialized enough; I spend too much time on branches of the tech tree I don't need; I don't chop enough) I still have any choice of victory condition once I build the Kremlin---which is guaranteed by dropping science to 0% for a turn or two.

- With Washington, I went from controlling 16% of an Archipelago map to controlling 50% in less than 100 turns by buying a transport full of tanks every turn. Don't matter how many tanks I lose, I've basically got an endless supply. Ended that game with a quasi-Domination (Diplomatic, but I had 65% of the population).

- With Catherine, I won an easy space race victory. But why do space race, the least interesting of all victory conditions, when you can do anything you want?

- With Washington, I took a cultural victory even though I had gotten very few Great Artists and built none of the early or mid-game wonders. I took one city from 4000 culture to 50,000 culture in less than 75 turns by buying all the late game wonders and stuffing it with catherdrals that were paid for in cash, and that were supported by temples paid for in cash, for religions that had been spread by missionaries paid in cash.

I must conclude that the Kremlin+Financial is overpowered, but I hope they don't de-power it in future patches, cause it's the only way I know how to win.

 

[GenocideBringer]

If commerce centers are pure, 100% cottages, then how do they grow large enough to make use of all those cottages?

 

[Andrei_V]

I must conclude that the Kremlin+Financial is overpowered, but I hope they don't de-power it in future patches, cause it's the only way I know how to win.

Just try it on a higher level, like the emperor. And find a way to get past the situation when your cities do not grow beyond the size 3 due to happiness/health problems.

I agree with you in one point, though. It is the only way I could manage to win a space race on emperor level.

 

[Andrei_V]

If commerce centers are pure, 100% cottages, then how do they grow large enough to make use of all those cottages?

They must have some specialized food resources (corn, wheat etc), some floodplains nearby, or at least enough grassland (green) tiles.

The farms built on regular grassland tiles are not good enough until you discover biology, however it is a good idea to build a few farms there, even if you do not use them at the moment. When you need your city to grow (like after getting another luxury resource +1 happy face), you temporarily put your population to work these farms instead of cottages for the fastest growth, then put them back on the cottages again.

When your city size is at its limit, put the population to work as much cottages as you can, balance 1-food plains with 2-food grasslands as to stagnate the city growth. I typically do this even if the city can grow, but grows very slowly. In this case, I think, it is more advantageous to stop the city growth but work more cottages.

If you do not have any specialized food resources, you can work on 2 plains and any number of grassland. Every extra food allows you to work 1 plain tile more. On the other hand, every 'green face' (due to unhealthiness) basically means one plain tile less.

 

[Firebot]

I've tried this tactic in my most recent game, and it's extremely effective as long as you stick to it. I worked on it at Prince level on a huge Lakes map, but unfortunatly I was plagued by pretty bad terrain and luck on ressources (my starting city has tundra 2 squares above, while south expansion was almost all desert ; 1/3 of the land for my first 5-6 cities are unusable). Also didn't have either marble or stone around anywhere to expand, but I decided to stick with this game. Despite this handicap and missing out on almost all early wonders (other then Great Library which I chop rushed like mad) I am currently well in front in score and have military tradition available around 1250AD, only a couple techs remaining for the Kremlin at which point I will mad rush Cossacks and take over a dominating win. At the worst point of the expansion I was at about 30% science with 6 or 7 cities, and working on rushing to Alphabet which was 50 turns away. I should do much better next time on a better map that's suitable for cottage spaming. I don't even have a true GP city location, the best is a desert city with a few flood plains tiles, the rest plains and desert.

I might post some pics and saved states later once I finish up the game.