Early Oxford Synergy with Elizabeth?

[pi-r8]

So, I've always thought that Elizabeth (PHI/FIN) was a really awkward leader. Two solid traits, sure, but they're always in conflict- specialists and cottages are both amazingly profitable for her, so every citizen and tile improvement is a tough choice.

But recently I had an idea. What if there's a way to use these traits together? Well, what does philosophical do best? It gets a lot of great people really fast, and it gets cheap universities. And what does financial do best? Cottages, especially in a bureaucracy capital with Oxford University.

So my idea was to focus on two goals: get Oxford as fast as possible, while also developing cottages in the capital (move it if necessary) as much as possible (use a second city to help work cottages). With 4 early great scientists you can bulb philosophy, golden age, put an academy in the capital, and bulb education. Then the universities are easily whipped, and you're on your way to a super-cottage city that can pump out 500+ beakers per turn.

I tried it out on immortal/Pangaea/normal, and got Oxford on 1000AD (not a super impressive date I know, but it was my first time doing this strategy and I was rushing through a lot of micro). The biggest hurdle was building Oxford itself, since I didn't have stone and the city that I moved the capital to was almost all flat riverside grassland with very little production. I had to whip like crazy and it still took like 20 turns. But it worked out pretty well- after that I won the economics merchant, the statue of liberty, the physics scientists and the communism spy, and I'm well on my way to winning the game.

Overall, I feel like this is a good but not great strategy. It's not going to gain some massive advantage for you, but I think it's a good way to gain a solid position when you're playing as Elizabeth. If you can get Oxford 25 turns earlier than normal, and it provides on average 60 bpt during that time, then that's an extra 1500 beakers, roughly equivalent to the bulb from a great scientist, except you can use it for whatever you want. And maybe some of the micro experts can find a way to get Oxford even earlier, and gain even more value from it? I'm thinking of something like a hard specialist economy early on, then a rush to democracy (using liberalism), and then switch to a mostly cottage economy for the rest of the game.

 

[NihilZero]

Elizabeth is a monster, with two of the best traits. I don't see any conflict between them, but that's probably just my playstyle.

Anyway, on topic, Philosophical is great for an Oxford drive for the obvious reasons. If you're Grashopa, you can unlock Oxford in the BCs with Philo and Stone...

 

[Gumbolt]

The only issue here is you assume most game will last long enough for Ox Uni. If players are heading for cuirs around 600-800ad then there would be no need for Ox uni. Although being British can sometimes change your view on this.

I agree bulbing and financial can be strong. Pends how you choose to use the bulbs. Do you try to bulb lib or engineering? Do you use them to grab other techs quicker. Double bulb edu/lib/paper and compass too? 1 for academy in capital too.

Of course OX uni requires 6 unis too. These would most likely need to be whipped. Same for Ox uni too maybe and this can need some decent food cities.

You need a challenge save really but I suspect an Ox uni date closer to 300-400ad could easily be possible with the right start. Also approach. Theology could open up paper early. A decent redcoats game is always fun.

 

[lymond]

I'd say the only time PHI/FIN is a little awkward is in an OCC game. Otherwise, there is absolutely no reason to think these traits are in conflict. Regardless of your traits, not every city will be a cottage city and not every city will be focused on maxxing specialists. These are two top traits that can work very well together if you know what you are doing.

As for your Philo>Oxford idea, it is certainly not bad for certain games, but also pretty well established strategy.

 

[MegaLurker]

Super early Oxford in a cottaged bureau capital is really strong on Deity. Less so on Immortal where tech trading doesn't help you along as fast and where the game is often winnable early enough that all those hammers are a waste.

Cseanny had some very nice Oxford dates in the early ADs on a couple maps that I remember.

 

[Izuul]

I love the traits and don't see much conflict either. Lizzy is great and the only things holding her back from being absolute top tier are mediocre starting techs and a UU/UB combo that rarely has an impact on the game.

 

[pi-r8]

Elizabeth is a monster, with two of the best traits. I don't see any conflict between them, but that's probably just my playstyle.

Anyway, on topic, Philosophical is great for an Oxford drive for the obvious reasons. If you're Grashopa, you can unlock Oxford in the BCs with Philo and Stone...

Well, bear in mind that screenshot was just him teching Education, not actually finishing Oxford. For me, building Oxford itself was by far the biggest bottleneck. Having stone would have been great though, and more forests would help a lot too (my Oxford city was mostly jungle).

The only issue here is you assume most game will last long enough for Ox Uni. If players are heading for cuirs around 600-800ad then there would be no need for Ox uni. Although being British can sometimes change your view on this.

I agree bulbing and financial can be strong. Pends how you choose to use the bulbs. Do you try to bulb lib or engineering? Do you use them to grab other techs quicker. Double bulb edu/lib/paper and compass too? 1 for academy in capital too.

Of course OX uni requires 6 unis too. These would most likely need to be whipped. Same for Ox uni too maybe and this can need some decent food cities.

You need a challenge save really but I suspect an Ox uni date closer to 300-400ad could easily be possible with the right start. Also approach. Theology could open up paper early. A decent redcoats game is always fun.

Yeah, you're not going to get any super fast conquest victories with this strategy. But sometimes those aren't possible, or maybe you just feel like playing more peacefully. This is for games where you want to keep teching for a while.

In this game I did not bulb liberalism or engineering (I had a lot of calendar resources so I etched sailing and calendar instead). But sure, I've bulbed those in other games.

I'd say the only time PHI/FIN is a little awkward is in an OCC game. Otherwise, there is absolutely no reason to think these traits are in conflict. Regardless of your traits, not every city will be a cottage city and not every city will be focused on maxxing specialists. These are two top traits that can work very well together if you know what you are doing.

As for your Philo>Oxford idea, it is certainly not bad for certain games, but also pretty well established strategy.

Hmm, I'm surprised no one else thinks these traits are awkward together. Of course not every city is a cottage city or a a GP farm, but every citizen and tile improvement is just one or the other, so you can't take full advantage of either trait. The lack of any early growth trait really hurts, too.

I also searched the forums and couldn't find any mention of this strategy (lots of talk about Oxford in general of course, but none about specifically using Elizabeth to get it really early).

Super early Oxford in a cottaged bureau capital is really strong on Deity. Less so on Immortal where tech trading doesn't help you along as fast and where the game is often winnable early enough that all those hammers are a waste.

Cseanny had some very nice Oxford dates in the early ADs on a couple maps that I remember.

Hmm I'll search for that, thanks.

 

[ohjames]

No, I definitely agree with lymond. A well-focused GP farm should not get much, if any, benefit from FIN, because everything will be farmed. Only coastal seafood and riverside sheep generate 2+ commerce. You should, generally speaking, never work cottages with your GP farm - about the only reason I can think of is if your GP farm is temporarily working cottages belonging to a nearby commerce city. Regardless of commerce input, you are not going to want to load up your GP city/cities with science/gold-multiplier buildings, so FIN or lack of FIN will be irrelevant to them.

That being said, you could just skip running specialists and wonderspam your capital. Then you can apply FIN and PHI to the same city

 

[elmurcis]

There is nothing wrong with Elizabeth traits... You need just 1-2 GP farms (best if one is Wonder spammer+ time by time GP farm, 2nd clear GP farm), and every other city can go for commerce (except some military production).
But for me she seems to be best if in isolated start and real action starts when UU/UB comes into game..

 

[misterfilmgeek]

Regardless of commerce input, you are not going to want to load up your GP city/cities with science/gold-multiplier buildings...

Why is this? Especially if running Rep, wouldn't you want those beakers multiplied?

 

[Izuul]

Aside from maybe an early library it's just not worth the investment. GP farms running specs and farms aren't going to have many hammers anyway, so the only way you can feasibly build something like a Uni is to whip it and that's really expensive b/c it whips away your specs.

Gold multipliers should rarely be built period.

 

[misterfilmgeek]

Aside from maybe an early library it's just not worth the investment. GP farms running specs and farms aren't going to have many hammers anyway, so the only way you can feasibly build something like a Uni is to whip it and that's really expensive b/c it whips away your specs.

Gold multipliers should rarely be built period.

I get not building the non-UU gold multiplier buildings, but if I'm running Rep or a boatload of Scientists, the 10 or 12 turns of those specs that I lose whipping a Uni and/or Observatory (much more likely to build Observatory, unless culture is needed on a border) is usually worth it. Probably not if I'm about to win with Cuirs, but my games tend to go on longer than that because I like multi-continent maps.

 

[Culture Bomb]

Aside from maybe an early library it's just not worth the investment. GP farms running specs and farms aren't going to have many hammers anyway, so the only way you can feasibly build something like a Uni is to whip it and that's really expensive b/c it whips away your specs.

Gold multipliers should rarely be built period.

I normally try to build my GP farm in a location with a reasonable number of hammers as I want enough to build the National Epic (maybe also the Great Library) without whipping away too many specialists.

 

[oppy]

Elizabeth is a monster, with two of the best traits. I don't see any conflict between them, but that's probably just my playstyle.

Anyway, on topic, Philosophical is great for an Oxford drive for the obvious reasons. If you're Grashopa, you can unlock Oxford in the BCs with Philo and Stone...

Wow... Is this even possible outside of deity? What would be good dates for imm?

 

[NihilZero]

Wow... Is this even possible outside of deity? What would be good dates for imm?

With Philosophical, it's really not so far-fetched to bulb Education in the BCs on immortal, but you'll need some things to go your way.

Grashopa had the pyramids and probably a lot of rep scientists running in those cheap Creative libraries and then most likely caste system. He probably got a few decent tech trades and he states that he went via Theology bulb to Paper rather than through Civil Service. I'm not sure if he built an Academy, he probably did.

So that's 3-4 Great Scientists (depending on whether he bulbed Paper or slow teched it) and the Prophet for Theology. It's very doable if you focus and have enough food to run all those specialists, but you'll have to make sacrifices in other areas and if you get attacked it's probably game over as you'll have minimal units.

As pi-r8 mentions, the bottleneck is most likely to be building Oxford itself, particularly without stone.

 

[Izuul]

I normally try to build my GP farm in a location with a reasonable number of hammers as I want enough to build the National Epic (maybe also the Great Library) without whipping away too many specialists.

Those can also be built largely with forests at times. You don't necessarily need a lot of base hammers. Plus anytime you transition to working mines you have to sacrifice food tiles and specs to do so.

That's really not even my primary argument though. Also consider:

1) You won't always be running scientist specs. Merchants are sometimes a better choice, especially later in the game when buildings like Unis become available. Obviously Unis and Observatories give you nothing (or very little if running Rep) when running merchants over scientists.

2) The primary focus of a GPP farm is always going to be GPP. Beakers are important too, but whipping away specs permanently sacrifices some GPP and causes a short-term loss in beakers/gold in exchange for a small amount of future beakers over time.

3) Even in a best case scenario with a very large GP farm (likely later in the game) and running Rep, we are still talking something like 20 BPT or less from a Uni. It's really not going to be a huge amount.

I'm not saying never do it. There are always circumstances where it can be a good play, but the conditions would need to be right for it. It's not something you just want to automatically do every game. Few things are really.

 

[rah]

I do it rarely but when I do it, it's usually when I have a Philo civ, stone, and I'm not going for a quick knock out. Eliz is usually one that makes me consider it.

As with everything in CIV, there's a time and a place for almost everything.

 

[Seraiel]

Elizabeth is very strong in OOC game, she's not only accidentally the choice of most HoFers in OOC type of games.

Elizabeth is generally very strong in any type of game, that require huge amounts of Commerce, so i. e. Space-Races or i. e. also espionage-assisted Culture-Victories.

It's imo best to not see her Traits as a contradiction, but to better think "She's got the best of both" .

Earliest Oxford I know of btw. was by WastinTime when he built it 800 BC in his 700 AD Spacerace. Key to getting Oxford up as fast us possible is basically a Combination of Overflow-whips + well-coordinated chops. It's possible to build it in 1T with good coordination, and what also helps a lot on the way to reaching it fast, is bulbing Education with either the 1st or the first 2 GSs, then Oxford usually pays back many more Beakers than i. e. an early Academy would have given.

 

[NihilZero]

Earliest Oxford I know of btw. was by WastinTime when he built it 800 BC in his 700 AD Spacerace.

Of course, the all-important "Marathon speed" and "Huayna Capac" caveats apply here. Not that it wasn't an impressive game, but those are very specific parameters that don't apply to mainstream civ 4 as marathon is kind of a niche thing.

Nice to see Seraiel around. I've been looking at some of your old threads. You did some really superb work on this forum.

 

[Seraiel]

Of course, the all-important "Marathon speed" and "Huayna Capac" caveats apply here. Not that it wasn't an impressive game, but those are very specific parameters that don't apply to mainstream civ 4 as marathon is kind of a niche thing.

Nice to see Seraiel around. I've been looking at some of your old threads. You did some really superb work on this forum.

Thx m8

Believe it or not, but for some of it, I suffered greatly, so it's nice to see that it's still appreciated .

Regarding the topic, I mostly wanted to say, that I find it interesting, how different people develop similar tactics, which from what I learned is proof to a tactic being truely well .