Does Anyone REX?

[Gliese 581]

I've found so far on deity that if you are the first to meet a religious CS early and get +8 faith, building a shrine in your cap asap gives you at least 2/3 or 3/4 chance of getting a pantheon. If you rush buy a shrine in that situation you're almost guaranteed to get the pantheon.

 

[Slvynn]

2-3 warrior / Archer.
You could also chop more in newer cities.
Obcourse if i start close to monty on plains i will prioritise more... This is not a universal scheme... But if you have nice landscape well-defendable layout you could hold with 2-3 warriors and archer pretty well.

 

[Slvynn]

How the hell do you want to REX effectively when you don't know your surrounding land? You definately should build a scout first or second after monument.
a) for scouting good city locations and luxuries
b) for getting gold, meeting civs, getting CS quests etc.

Other than that, it's a good buildorder!

scouts less usefull on defence, while warriors could travel too.
And again, its situational... if you have Plains, i wont take scout, if you have hills i will build it.... I had plains but very slim 1 tile corridor leading to closest civ, bit far from cap, i settled just before it, limiting entrance area, while exploring abit with warriors.
Scout are not mandatory, but could be better to fit in in many cases too

 

[firstconsul]

America and Russia are probably the two best REXXERS.

 

[Slvynn]

America and Russia are probably the two best REXXERS.

they are but not the best. Best are Romans and Carthage and France.

 

[Ghonasiflaids]

It's best to wait till you get all the national wonders before you REX. Specially if your cap is next to a mountain.

 

[Slvynn]

It's best to wait till you get all the national wonders before you REX. Specially if your cap is next to a mountain.

then it wont be REX and u miss all point of shrine spam and ultra early messenger of gods outcome.

 

[Drawmeus]

Ironically, Ethiopia would be the best at this kind of REX, wouldn't they? Stele's are pretty much ideal for the strategy you're talking about.

 

[Slvynn]

Ironically, Ethiopia would be the best at this kind of REX, wouldn't they? Stele's are pretty much ideal for the strategy you're talking about.

Quite Yes, beside the thing that then you will need to neglect Ethiopian UA.

To tell truth they are civ that does not require such approach actually. They are pure "Tall" with minimum city number, at least at start, to have the 20% working. To take religion they need just to Build steeles, and they do not have additional benefits for actual REXing, like Carthage or Rome or France have. But if they do they will get Religion First, and They could create quite impressive religious empire very early. Just take Messenger of Gods and Amen!

 

[chazzycat]

try the mayans if you want to REX before NC, the pyramids are perfect for the "expand & spam shrines" strategy. doing it on immortal right now with 6 cities and 1st in science before even starting NC. 1st free GP from long count should come at a perfect time to enhance the religion if you do it right

 

[Infiltrator]

Never. I can't support my conquering sprees AND rex at the same time.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Meh. It's rapid expansion in my book, and "early" is a relative term. I can argue "if I do it before 500 AD, it's early".

"Plopping down" 5 or 6 cities in the first 3000 years only works on prince and below.

While I agree that I always thought of REX meaning Rapid Expansion, it's usually described as an opening game strategy. If you have to build up an infrastructure first, you aren't expanding "rapidly," you're just being rewarded for building off a good foundation. Then it just becomes a debate between a tall empire and a wide empire, both of which have merits.

 

[thadian]

I always REX first, pay for it later. Usually the AI will expand so fast that i have to in order to keep up. Once i get 3 cities down, it's unlikely i will ever build another one unless i have a big need.

 

[VikingHaag]

Rexxing can be extremely effective with some civ, mayans will get beakers and faith at ridiculous rates if they churn out 10 cities or so.

Rome can get a ridiculous empire too, 25% production in nothing to laugh at.
Arabia can become an economic powerhouse if you get rivers.
Polynesians you can give a big middle finger and don't even settle on the continent.
I just left the continent and settled all the sorrounding islands. Ai never came after me.

 

[PhilBowles]

Shrines are horrible. I haven't built one in the opening line-up since the first week.

They're not that bad - only three (Ethiopia, Maya, Celts) out of 34 civs in the game have any better regular faith generation in the early game, and only one civ can get Stonehenge in any given game. Mostly they're useful later in the game, after a religion's been established, as a cheap way to make use of shrine-related religious benefits. And yes, if you expand early and build them in your first two or three cities they can give you enough faith to get an early pantheon.

 

[dexters]

Shines are required for pantheon and religion. Getting Pantheon early is crucial if you have ideal terrain that benefits from one of the beliefs.

Shrines can later be coverted into even stronger buildings via religion with extra food and happiness bonus. One of the best returns for hammers in the game.

 

[S.K. Ren]

I used to REX in Vanilla before the minimum placement distance got patched. Lately I never get any starts with enough unique luxes to support it. I suppose it would be interesting to play like the Kuriotates from the FFH2 mod for CIV.

I've recently been trying to do a little REXing as the Mayans with only a little success.

 

[mabalogna]

I tend to expand with ICS in mind for the majority of games i play. I'll only ever go Tall if i'm backed in a corner.

I'll REX up to 4 cities really early on, then hold back for a bit to build some extra troops/monuments, then pump out another 4-6 cities depending on terrain. I've not used the messenger of the gods pantheon yet, so i might try this strategy out right now.

 

[Adjuvant]

ok. At what "year" are you no longer "rexing" and simply "expanding", then?

1000bc? 5ad? 500ad?

I argue if I've "rex'd" I have 7+ cities by 500AD. If I have not, I have 3-4 cities in 500AD.

*from settlers, not conquering.

 

[Barghaest]

With the right religion and some easily accessible luxuries, it's not too hard to REX (especially if Askia with raging barbs since you can just buy those settlers). The problem isn't crapping out settlers so much as managing happiness since extra cities are more unhappiness than extra pop.

It's far easier to do in Standard or Quick than Epic/Marathon (but considering how fast those games are I wouldn't call it REX as much as SOP) because of delay on accessing most luxuries/happiness buildings/happiness SP.

And Scouts are more useful on defense than Warriors (especially if you go Survival line since the "March" effect is easier to get and they get a +50% defense boost not to mention being able to rapidly move from one front to another); where scouts are less useful than warriors is on offense (since they get NO bonuses from promos while attacking) unless said offense is merely barb camp/wounded unit hunting (they excel at finishing off units whittled down by city fire). I usually pump out two scouts before I ever build a warrior and those two scouts do more to keep my capital safe than the sole warrior you have at start. They can more easily fend off invaders/pull back out of range/sweep around to flanks to catch archers or finish wounded units. It isn't until Spearmen than their utility is truly outshined since the strength difference between Scout and Warrior is very slight.