England - Elective or Monarchy

[1SDANi]

I'm starting to play more late game Civs now and decided to play as England, and I'm uncertain if I should run Elective from the start or Monarchy.

Monarchy you start with and will give me higher happiness, but with the amount of pasturable and campable land in England and Ireland Elective looks really good. Does anyone have any opinion on this?

 

[Ecthy]

Yeah, me. I tend to prefer Elective for the reason you cite. Monarchy will allow our cities to grow bigger, at first. But then as you run into health trouble, they won't grow as fast, in fact since most tiels are 2 food they'll stop growing. Also, they'll cost more in maintenance. I thus prefer to keep those cities medium-sized (happiness-capped basically) and profit from those few extra coins.

But it all explodes as soon as you start building colonies, what with the English UP and all

 

[youtien]

The best way is: spawn an army ASAP. We know Seljuks will purge Middle East in 1050-1100, so what you should do is to send lancers to take Jerusalem and Baghdad from them.
The best case scenario is conquer Alexandria and Egypt first, but it's kinda hard and there could be Egypt respawn.

So the only best choice is despotism. Whip an army. There are two choice:

1. OB with France and Holy Rome - Take Rome with last hit - build galley and conquer Egypt - Jerusalem - Damascus - Baghdad.
2. Conquer France. Rob workers first, make peace, build 2-3 catapults, war again, take Paris while their main army is away.

 

[1SDANi]

The best way is: spawn an army ASAP. We know Seljuks will purge Middle East in 1050-1100, so what you should do is to send lancers to take Jerusalem and Baghdad from them.
The best case scenario is conquer Alexandria and Egypt first, but it's kinda hard and there could be Egypt respawn.

So the only best choice is despotism. Whip an army. There are two choice:

1. OB with France and Holy Rome - Take Rome with last hit - build galley and conquer Egypt - Jerusalem - Damascus - Baghdad.
2. Conquer France. Rob workers first, make peace, build 2-3 catapults, war again, take Paris while their main army is away.

Yeah I saw your suggestion for that in the English Discussion, but I couldn't figure out how to get there, thought I had to take a sea route around Spain. Completely forgot about France.

 

[1SDANi]

Speaking of English strats, would the southern Manchester spot be a good position for the fourth starting settler's city? It has much more resources within it's fat cross and immediately puts the western fish within cultural borders. Only bad thing I see is it has a bit of overlap with Edinburgh and London, but to me it looks way better than Plymouth.

 

[star15389]

I like to found Manchester as my capital, other cities being Edinburgh, Dublin, and Southampton. Gets good faster than London even if the max output is a little lower; by the time that makes a difference it doesn't matter

 

[Ecthy]

I always found Newcastle instead of either Plymouth or Manchester. It's not like that Oil will ever be used before winning the game, but who cares.

 

[1SDANi]

I like to found Manchester as my capital, other cities being Edinburgh, Dublin, and Southampton. Gets good faster than London even if the max output is a little lower; by the time that makes a difference it doesn't matter

Why Southampton instead of London? You won't have access to the deer and either way you can't reach one Grassland tile. Is it because the Grassland within Southampton's borders is riverside? Does the ability to put a farm or watermill there make it worth not being able to share the deer? Wait, wait, wait.

The London grassland is within the borders of Manchester, the goal here is to minimize crossover and maximize usable land. I got it. I guess I answered my own question, gonna post this in case anyone wonders the same.

Edit: Why not settle Aberdeen instead of Edinburgh? You don't lose any land tiles, you get Fish in your starting territory so you can start growing immediately, your worker's won't get there before you finish your Theatre anyways, and you gain access to another hill for more production.

 

[youtien]

What matter now is speed. London or London 1S is fine enough.Once you grow to a huge empire, capital spot becomes irrelevant. I suggest London - Newcastle (forest SE from fish) - Inverness (fur) - Dublin (found it, don't wait Celtic spawn, for you need horse). Found Plymouth to fill core after Renaissance.

 

[star15389]

Why Southampton instead of London? You won't have access to the deer and either way you can't reach one Grassland tile. Is it because the Grassland within Southampton's borders is riverside? Does the ability to put a farm or watermill there make it worth not being able to share the deer? Wait, wait, wait.

The London grassland is within the borders of Manchester, the goal here is to minimize crossover and maximize usable land. I got it. I guess I answered my own question, gonna post this in case anyone wonders the same.

Edit: Why not settle Aberdeen instead of Edinburgh? You don't lose any land tiles, you get Fish in your starting territory so you can start growing immediately, your worker's won't get there before you finish your Theatre anyways, and you gain access to another hill for more production.

One of the things I want to do is get Manchester, itself, to be an amazing city, so the goal is less to minimize crossover than to maximize commerce, GPP and production in Manchester and run Absolutism/Centralism. I actually want some crossover; it's good early on to let Edinburgh have the Iron and Southampton have the Wheat while Manchester is at its happy cap. They can get basic infra done without having to be whipped much, then once the happy cap is high enough Manchester can take their best tiles and the leftover, now food-rich but prod-poor cities can be used to whip Settlers and units to send to North America, sparing Manchester which should have an Academy, the Leaning Tower, etc. With London as the capital you either have to have a lot of crossover with Newcastle/Plymouth or have Newcastle take tiles from Edinburgh/Inverness, so you're either not getting the highest share of your tiles in the capital or you're making the provincial cities less whippable

 

[youtien]

Do not go for 'minimal crossover'. Crossover is GOOD in DoC - you share work tile when small, and it becomes irrelevant after you grow big. And after industrial error, health becomes big issue so you want to run republic and cram specialist.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

And after industrial error

Is that what they call the Great Leap Forward these days?

 

[1SDANi]

What does my army need to be to capture Roma?

 

[youtien]

Is that what they call the Great Leap Forward these days?

I don't know how and why I typed that word, but you got a pretty point.

What does my army need to be to capture Roma?

If AI like HRE attacks - just take last hit with crossbowben or whatever.
If you go alone - better lure pikemen out first. Need at least 2 catapult, then horse archers / lancers. It got harder in recent versions. If you are French you can simply toss your starting army in, but English gets only 4 crossbowmen.