Early Strategy on Civics

[bigfatjonny]

Once you hit the Renaissance and can get to the trading post science bonus, your science will skyrocket. Gandhi is awesome for this strategy, since the Indians are such happy people in this game.

Has any one else found that you only get 1 science from each TP with that Policy. My tooltip definitely says that I should get 2 science per worked trade post, but in my game (small, standard) I only get 1.

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else.

 

[Frank327]

I feel like the +1 happy per city in liberty is undervalued. It's essentially as good as the -50% unhappiness from # cities policy way later on. Not sure that it is worth churning through the rest of the tree to get it, though.

The only policies you need to get to the +1 happy are the +50% settler production, which is great as a first SP, and the +25% worker productivity which is also quite nice. The only policy which I find really bad is the +50% starting food in new cities.

 

[Nunya]

My current strategy involves going straight for rationalism/Freedom. Save up your policies while you get a great scientist. Do a long research on Philosophy, and then use Great Scientist to pop Civil Service. You get the food boost (to help your specialists) and find yourself suddenly in the medieval era.

I didn't know generating a great scientist took less time than researching Philosophy. Or is this Babylon specific?

Another good option is just saving 4 SP's for communism as soon as you hit the industrial era. 5 production for each city, and +25% building buildings is an amazingly solid boost. Takes a while before it kicks in though.

The problem with this aproach is that by the time you qualify for Order the game has most likely already been decided. Saving policies for the Renaissance is viable with some strategies and essential for others (like the Babylonian Great Scientist + Rationalism slingshot that bumps you from Pikemen to Riflemen), but there is no point in saving yourself up for the Industrial Age.

The only exception might be if you use a sufficently late advanced start, but I haven't played any such games yet so I don't know how it works.