Early builds and expansion

[yanner39]

Lately I say I've been winning roughly 80% of my Monarch games. The one thing I struggle to this day is my build order and balancing my growth with my defense and my research.

I don't suspect this is a huge deal but it's something I'd like to get better at.

For example, the Academy. I keep reading that a goal should be to get it in the BCs. Yet, to get an academy, you need to build a Library and then run 2 scientists for 17 turns to pop a GS. So that's a fair number of turns where the capital isn't building a settler or a worker. Should I build the Library in a second or 3rd city and make it a priority over a monument or granary?

I am trying to start on settlers and workers before my cap reaches its happy cap. But eventually by the time I get my 4th settler out and mixing in some defenses, my cap turns unhappy as I am building my Library. So at this point I should whip yet because of the food, it'll grow back into unhappiness.

I'm just wondering if I'm putting too much emphasis in getting a Academy this early. I mean, in the BCs, commerce is less of an issue and food/prod should be the priority for military/settlers/whipping. Right? I usually try and make my 3rd city a commerce city.

Would getting the academy roughly around the time I make the buro switch make sense? I would get a +100% increase in my research?

As I said, I doing well as it is, but I'm trying to kick my starts up a notch. I mean, I noticed the Monarch AI is so dumb, unimproved tiles galore. Perfecting my starts would really allow me to dominate Monarch.

 

[Derakon]

The sooner you start running scientist specialists, the sooner you start benefiting from their +6/turn (which automatically becomes 7.5 since you have a library), which is quite significant in the early game. Building the library means not building settlers or workers, sure, but it shouldn't take that long for a city to make, especially with forests and the whip available. Don't be afraid to whip just because your city will grow back into unhappiness; that just means you can use the whip again!

 

[lymond]

It depends a good deal on the land in the cap and your overall happiness. If you can grow your cap to 6 or even 7 pop, then even running 2 scientists it will still be fairly productive. I will still build workers/settlers in the cap. If you still have some forests around it, you can chop some things out too. At some point, I will run scientists in other cities as well fairly early to push through to some key techs like Aesth, Math and Currency. Sometimes actually settling the first GS is better than building an Academy.

 

[Rittmeyer]

The sooner you start running scientist specialists, the sooner you start benefiting from their +6/turn (which automatically becomes 7.5 since you have a library)

that`s if you have the Mids.

 

[Framesticker]

that`s if you have the Mids.

I think he's refering to 2 Scientists.

Really the easiest way to get an an early Academy is to get an early city (3rd/4th city or so) with at least 2 good food resources (and preferably a few forests) then either whip or chop a Library as your first build, then run scientists until the GS. The city would be better if you'd have built a Granary first, but you're contributing more to the empire by running the Scientists.

 

[Derakon]

Yeah, sorry, I meant 6/turn overall, not 6 per scientist. That's still pretty dang good considering that your average early non-capital city will be making maybe 10/turn otherwise.

 

[ahcos]

not only the monarch AI is dumb, the deity AI is dumb aswell x) and so is the settler AI. the only things that change are the production/research bonuses the human or the AI receives.

building a library while doing binary research in you cap is a HUGE benefit. there's no need to run the scientists in the cap aswell, but a lib is really great. if you're philosophical you can even do binary research while waiting for your scientist for the academy.
settling the first GS is rather weak imo, only useful if you're overexpanding and don't have any beakers whatsoever... but if find this to be rather unlikely. normally you can balance research/growth pretty good by just using scientists and working cottages or even coastal tiles. 50% more research from the academy make the pure trade route yield and palace yield (usually 8+2 pre currency) from 10 research to 15 whithcut any additional commerce your city might bring in aswell, cottages, river, coastal tiles... ofc on 100%, but even if you make "just" 20 commerce and are at 50% slider it's still 10 to 15 ~

settling GSs while rexing is a pretty good tactic for victoria, but that's it imo - IMP + PHI doing great here.

 

[Derakon]

I'm not convinced it's ever a good idea to settle GSs until you stop caring about research and only want the hammer the GS gives. Bulbing gives you an instant payback that would take a settled GS dozens of turns to pay back at best (settled in a city with all research multipliers + Oxford), academies are an outright additional multiplier on all of your other beaker sources, and of course golden ages are wonderful things. In my last game I got 10 great scientists, made 2 academies, bulbed 6 techs, and used the other two for golden ages.

 

[Clam Spammer]

I usually find that settling the first GS gives a better return than an academy. By the time the academy would start giving more beakers than settling, I have a second GS which I can then use to build an academy (which then stacks on the first GS). I think map size might have something to do with this though - I play mostly Small maps where distance maintenance is higher than on Standard, which means the slider drops more during the initial expansion phase. With a little effort (or PHI trait), you can get the 3rd GS in time to start bulbing good techs like Philosophy.


Btw: Victoria is IMP + FIN. Suleiman is IMP + PHI.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

A large empire is always better than a super early Academy. Focus on expansion first, and when you have extra pop that isn't working a workered tile run specialists.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

I find the best time to run those scientists is after writing and before Monarchy, when there's no point growing over the happycap. It gimps your whipping and worker/settler builds, but the academy boost is just too good. Early academies are best when you have a nice food rich river city, and can easily grow into a bureaucracy supercapital.

 

[kossin]

Decide how much EARLY land grab you want. This means 3~4 cities relatively fast without crashing economy. As those cities get their improvements done and minor infrastructure done (granary), THEY take over worker/settler production while the capital goes into library/scientist mode and you turn off the slider at some point when you're anticipating 1. the library and then 2. the Academy.

 

[vicawoo]

First library (for academy) before granary. The math is, you're losing 15 food per pop you would have grown - but you're going to start near cap anyway, and that first city tends to have enough food that it will regrow 2 sizes way before the 10 turns of anger are up.

So you're trading like 30 food for 60 hammers and 10 extra turns without anger.

As long as you're able to keep up with the AI with research, land is more important than a tech lead. Once you have enough settlers in queue around your empire to grab potentially contested land, then you can go for the academy for the research boost. People get an academy at higher levels because they run out of contested land sooner, and because they need to keep up with a faster AI tech rate. What's optimal for high levels isn't always optimal for lower. Understanding the conditions for expansion vs commerce allows you to choose between better options.

 

[yanner39]

Decide how much EARLY land grab you want. This means 3~4 cities relatively fast without crashing economy. As those cities get their improvements done and minor infrastructure done (granary), THEY take over worker/settler production while the capital goes into library/scientist mode and you turn off the slider at some point when you're anticipating 1. the library and then 2. the Academy.

Thanks kossin. That's a good way of looking at it. I think I read somewhere (I think vicawoo mentioned it in another post) that once all the specials in the capital are improved, that's the time to start producing settles/workers. Maybe I read it wrong so I apologize in advance is I misquoted him.

One thing I'm embarrased to say I never think of is the binairy reasearch you talk about. I'm so concerned about defense and the stupid barb archer coming my way that I never think of putting my slider to 0%. I should start using reminders - set them up early in the game.