Expanding and science slide

[alosza]

Hi,

i'm new on this forum. It will be my first post, sorry for my english.
My current civ lvl is sth more than prince, but not monarch yet.

Anyway. The main problem that i struggle while playing is the overexpanding. I'm afraid of having too many cities, because it cripples my economy. I stop to building new cities, when my science slider goes down to circa 60%. When i have less than that, i'm screwed. So that means, i can only build about 6-8 cites before AI comes to my border and blocks me. Recently i'm rather peacemonger, because wars crippling my economy even more.

What am i doing wrong? What is the right balance between expanding and science slider? Maybe there are some tips, just like i can see in this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS19qUO4v28 where player was selling his techs for 60-100g...?

 

[pigswill]

Research slider is not important. What is important is beakers per turn, that's what decides your research rate. 10 cities at 50% will produce more beakers per turn than 3 cities at 100%.

 

[Kjotleik]

...I'm afraid of having too many cities, because it cripples my economy. I stop to building new cities, when my science slider goes down to circa 60%...

...What am i doing wrong? What is the right balance between expanding and science slider? Maybe there are some tips, just like i can see in this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS19qUO4v28 where player was selling his techs for 60-100g...?

Hello, alosza!

I will first repeat what pigswill said: Research-slider is not important. What is important is the number of beakers per turn! (cannot be said too many times, really).

The YouTube video you linked to is one I recommend! Highly recommend, in fact. Chris67132 is a strong player that we all can learn a lot from... (except from the really small group of people better/equal to him).

Don't be afraid of the science-slider getting lower than 60%. If you are close to Currency, putting the slider to 0% and working Scientist-specialists from Libraries to reach the tech is a valid tactic.

Now, how to get beakers per turn?
In the beginning of the game it is from Commerce. Once you reach Alphabet you can of course build Research in your cities (instead of units/buildings), and at Currency you can build Wealth (which is strong!). Once at Currency you can also do trade deals including money (lump sum or gold-per-turn).

Once you reach Writing, open borders with everybody and connect them to your trade-network (by building roads into their territories, or having a river connect from your city to one of theirs). This will get you commerce from trade-routes (foreign is better than domestic).

If you have the tech-lead, you can easily sell off your older techs for money, in order to finance a high research-slider (and having a negative gold-per-turn for long periods).

Financing your research can also be done with selling resources for gold-per-turn.

But the best way (in my opinion) is to do technology trading (Alphabet required for this). If you have just researched a technology that you can trade away to three different AI's, you will probably end up with getting technologies worth more beakers than you invested into the tech you traded away. This will effectively double (probably) your gained beakers. Don't deny trades just because you see the value of the tech you get is lower than the one you give away. Making deals with multiple AI's will net you a profit (3 x 0.5 = 1.5 - so if you only get half the value in exchange for each deal, you still increase your beakers 1.5 times trading with three AI's)


PS!
But of course, if Chris67132 contradicts me in his videos, listen to him instead (he's better than me in this game, you know - and that's NOT something I'm ashamed of!)

 

[alosza]

So how much i can expand, when i have a free space, and temporarily no no AI close to my borders? Should i go down with my tech slider to 30%?

 

[jackelgull]

A healthy tech rate for 0 ad I find would be 100 beakers per turn. Doesn't matter where the slider is. And by liberalism, 300-500 beakers would be best. Of course, others could give you a better rule of thumb. But as they say, slider doesn't really matter. And expand when you can. Wide open space to expand and no AI around? Go for it. Make sure you have an escort for every settler though and workers to improve your land.

 

[elitetroops]

The tech slider might sometimes drop very low pre-currency. Even to 0% with negative income if you expand very aggressively. You can get away with this if you know how to recover, though I don't recommend trying that right now, because that's not a beginner stunt.

But, as mentioned, don't judge your economy by the slider. 30% means nothing if you don't also look at the total amount of commerce. 30% of 100 is more than 100% of 25. What matters is /turn.

As for how many cities to settle, that's so map dependent that it cannot be answered without info about the map. Some city sites will generate so much commerce that they easily pay for the added upkeep costs, resulting in an immediate net gain when you settle them and get some improvements online. If you have Great Lighthouse and currency, then you can settle a ton of coastal cities without ever wrecking your economy, especially if you also settle a couple of offshore cities. If there are no good city sites in sight, but an AI nearby who has been given great lands, then probably build units instead of settlers and go get that land.

 

[Tatran]

I've seen the whole video and I simply can't see what other players learn from him.
Is it only because it's Deity level. His 5 cities are stuck at 2-3 population because all the unit whipping.
His money comes from begging, resource trading and selling techs very cheap.
The AIs have less than 10 cities, that's almost no competition.

 

[alosza]

Thanks for replays.

Usually i play on large/huge map, few continents, trying to win by the space race. The problem is - even i win few wars with my closest neighbors, the others AI outnumber me with tech.

My standard style of play was:
- farm and mine spam, cottage only on plains;
- specialist economy;
- aiming for maximizing production (factories as soon as possible);
- rushing for religions (hindu, judaism), trying pyramids; so tech order: poli, masonry etc.
- 6-8 cities; depends on tech slider (if slider goes below 70%, i stop);
- aiming for wonders;
- build order: barracks, warrior, anything until my capital having 4-5 pops, then worker, settlers, wonders;
- tech trading is a must, of course;

Recently i am trying new strategies on my most hated leader (Joao) on the same map, checking over and over which is best - because of failing my previous strategies.

Map: hemisphere, 3 continents; large map; normal speed; quite lot of space; starting on a lot of grasslands; prince (regularly i won on this lvl, but this time i had a lot of problems)

Changes which seem to improved my playing(?):
- tech order: agriculture, then rushing for bronze working and chopping like mad;
- build order: worker->farm; second worker semi-chopped and settler chopped;
- spam cottages;
- spam cities, even if it downs my tech slider to the level of 40%;
- build no wonders;

And so... it looks much better, but not outstanding.

What i'm afraid, is the possible problem with playing with my friends, who are peacemongers and rushing for tech even harder than Mansa, but overall they are don't better than me and applying strategy with very limited expansion, recently aiming for early religions.

 

[elitetroops]

Yeah, forget everything on that first list except tech trading for now. You can eventually bring back specialist economy, but that is a lot harder to pull off than cottage economy, so I'd recommend starting by learning that. Also, specialist economy is at it's best only to a certain point, if you are going for space you are going to need more than just specialists.

So my tips:

-Tech order: Food techs to improve your available food resources first. Then usually BW/pottery/writing, order depends on map, so you can start chopping/whipping and get your economy going. Then I'd usually go for either Alpha or something to trade for alpha. On the lower levels you wouldn't be able to trade for alpha in a long time, so self teching that seems better. Not sure how early it's worth going for though if the general tech pace is very slow. Once you have alpha you can trade for religious techs, IW and other backfill techs.

-Build order: Worker first almost always. The situations where you'd want something else are very rare. Then a couple of warriors until capital has reached pop 3, or maybe 4 if you have 4 strong resources you can work, then settler. After that you often want a quick second worker out, then it depends.

-Spam cottages, yes. First on Floodplains and green riverside tiles. Then on green non riverside tiles. Forget about plain tiles without resources in the early game, you are better of whipping away that pop or running specialists than using them to work plains tiles.

-Place your cities wisely. Food in first ring is priority number 1. Second priority is food in first ring. Seriously, it's that important. If you have to grab a strategic resource where there is no possibility for first ring food, then food in second ring. If that is not even possible, then I'd look for the resource elsewhere or ask myself if I really need it. Overlap between cities is good. You especially want overlap with your capital so that other cities can help with working it's cottages.

-Build only wonders that you really can benefit from immediately, and usually think twice if you don't have the resource (stone/marble) for some of the more expensive wonders. If you have stone and a lot of food, then building mids to run rep for the specialist boost is often good. If you get to alpha, trade for the religious tech and find that nobody has priesthood yet, then maybe get that and chop out the oracle for CoL or something even better. If the land is such that most of your cities will be coastal, then Great Lighthouse is a ridiculously strong wonder. But don't build wonders just because there is nothing else to build (unless you build it for failgold, but that's a whole other chapter).

As for that last comment, are you playing multiplayer? In that case I have absolutely no idea if these are good advice or not, no experience in that field. This advice is for single player.

Oh, and post a save if you want advice that would be more specifically suited to your play.

 

[sinimusta]

Playing multiplayer with a couple of humans and mostly AIs is quite similar to SP especially if those other humans are peacemongers. I've played some games like that. So if that's the case I'd say SP advice is applicable.

 

[pigswill]

Let's give it a go:

Joao, prince, normal speed, large, 3 continents, no huts/events, all else default.

edit: whizzed through to 1000bc. It's....interesting.

 

[alosza]

Starting position:
View attachment alosza BC-4000_JOAO.CivBeyondSwordSave

and even now, with tips above, i lost to Alexander:
View attachment joaoEXPANDER2.CivBeyondSwordSave
(war in 5 turns, Greeks will outnumber me with medieval infantry)
In this game i made 2 major mistkaes:
- not intervened when alexander had attacked Winston;
- didn't build enough soldiers for defend;

-Build order: Worker first almost always. The situations where you'd want something else are very rare. Then a couple of warriors until capital has reached pop 3, or maybe 4 if you have 4 strong resources you can work, then settler. After that you often want a quick second worker out, then it depends.

This is sth, which intrigued me. What about this: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/earlygrowth.php ? Which build order is better?

 

[elitetroops]

This is sth, which intrigued me. What about this: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/earlygrowth.php ? Which build order is better?

I'd avoid strategy articles written in 2006... The game was very new back then and strategy has evolved a lot in the past 8 years. Also, that article appears to use some ideas that are specific to vanilla and wouldn't work in BTS.

 

[elitetroops]

Okay had a look at that game. At least you have spammed cottages... Way too much actually. You have built a huge amount of unnecessary improvements, and to top it of you are running serfdom. I know you should never say never, but I will still say never run serfdom. It's by far the weakest civic in the whole game.

Now for city locations. What was the first and second rule? Food in first ring!!!! Most of your cities have been settled far away from the closest food resource, they will be way too slow to become productive that way. And bananas don't count as food until you have reached calendar. Also, a lot of your best resources you haven't settled at all? You have 3 dye right east of your capital, but they are out of reach of any city to work! Along the eastern coast there is even a lot of food resources that you can't work at all as you have settled your cities so far away from them. I'm sorry but I have to ask, you are familiar with the concept of working tiles within your BFC, right?

As for the cottages, a cottage has to be worked by a city for a very long time to become a village or town. Until then they are not that strong. This means that you want to build them early, and in locations where you actually will work them most of the time. Priority should be around your capital, because you will most likely be running bureaucracy, as that is usually the strongest civic in that column. You should also aim to get an academy in your capital (which you have ) to benefit the most from the bureau bonus. Then I mentioned overlap between cities. This means that you build the surrounding cities close enough, so that they also can work cottages in your capital's BFC. Now these helper cities can develop the cottages that your capital itself cannot work (because of limited population). Then each time your capital grows, it can grow onto an already developed hamlet or village, instead of starting with a fresh cottage. By 1520AD your capital should be surrounded by nothing but towns (except for improvements on resources of course) and boosted by bureau, library, academy, uni and oxford it can easily generate 5-10x the beakers that your capital is generating in that game.

In other places than around your capital you should be more selective with cottages. If there is room for a lot of them and you settle the city early, then go ahead and cottage. If the game has already advanced far into the ADs, then it's a bit late to start a new cottage site. They just wouldn't have time to develop.

There are many other things also, but I think you should start with rethinking your whole settling habits. Food in first ring, really!

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

First thing that comes to mind is make sure you have enough workers. Having the right amount of workers is the one thing that made my jump to Monarch easier. You should have at *minimum* 1 worker per city. That doesn't mean the worker has to stay with the city, it's just a good ratio. I've found that my economy flounders when I haven't devoted enough (or via whipping) to training workers. And have too few improved tiles.

That being said, the early stages are usually the hardest for your economy to overcome a hard REX. Trade economy can help particularly if you can get early trade routes with neighbors (via sailing usually)

After you get your first 2 expansion cities, plan on how you are going to cover the costs of further expansion. If you have lots of riverside tiles in the area near your capital, plan on teching Pottery (if you haven't already) and lay down cottages in new cities. That will fund further expansion. If the land is less forgiving, you may need via specialists. You would want to do this in your GP Farm anyway, but if you don't have cottagable tiles, your will come mostly from specialists and your ahead of the game in getting to your first GS.

Don't be afraid to whip your population often. Early game you will have issues anyway (happy cap is low), so whipping is a way to maximize . In fact, whipping is so powerful, that I try to do so each time the from previous whips wears off. Judicious whipping allows you to REX quickly, get workers to quick improve new land, get libraries online ASAP for early , and defend all that land with units. WHIP IT!

 

[barbertje]

This is sth, which intrigued me. What about this: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/earlygrowth.php ? Which build order is better?

I think this is a reasonable opening



You can see 4 cities here that were settled by 1560 BC. these are the core of the empire, settled fairly close and all of them next to a food source. Except for these, there's also a city between the cow and the 2 golds in the north and a city in the floodplain area to the south that are both settled a around 1200 BC

I started out with a worker, than a warrior while the city grew to size 4, than another worker and then a settler. After that a warrior and then the great wall.
Usually it's best to let the city grow after the first worker to get some warriors out and you should grow until you can at least work all the special resource tiles.

The most usual is to grow the city to size 3, but because the first 2 tiles here produce only food and no hammers, the city was nearly at size 4 before the first warrior was out. If I grow the city to size 4 I will usually build a second worker before the first settler, because the first worker won't be able to improve 4 tiles before the settler is out.
On this huge map, the great wall is a no-brainer. There's so much open space for barbarians. On higher levels you should probably build it before your first settler and tech agriculture and then masonry. (there are enough mines to keep your worker busy)
The second city was on the coast. I build a second work boat for scouting and researched sailing early. I already have trade routes to churcill and my 2 newest cities are connected without wasting worker time building long roads.
The opponents expand rather slowly. Churcill has a coastal capital and that always makes the AI start slower.
It should be easy to keep the city count above their combined total, so you'll be bigger, even if one conquers the other.

View attachment alosza BC-1120.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[alosza]

My civ skills are very grateful for your advices, hope my multiplayer opponents less.

and even now, with tips above, i lost to Alexander:
joaoEXPANDER2.CivBeyondSwordSave

Have to add, that i loaded game from this point one more time, Greeks didn't attack me so fast, but few turns later and i easily won this war. Probably i will also easily win whole game. Anyway, i'm aiming for, at least, immortal level.

The reason why i didn't found a city on the east is that i wanted to block Greeks from expansion. Though i found quite early few cities on the west, making my border "horizontally" (contrary to barbertje, who made his border "vertically").

I will remember about "food in first ring" rule. I've never heard about it before and haven't "invented" it by myself. I just always tried to found cities: 1) close to each other due to maintenance; 2) with acces to fresh wather; 3) maximizing resources in the second ring radius (building monument/theatre as first).

Few questions:
1) Should i build cottage on plains? If not, then cottage only on grasslands and floodplains?
2) why GLighthouse wonder is so good? yeah, i know, +2 trade routes, but really it is so important? which wonders in the ancient/classical era are usually the best (yeah, i know, it all depends on circumstances, but come on, there are surely some principles); for example, i value the most - by far - The Pyramids; then GLibrary, Parthenon, eventually GWall can be useful; GLighthouse, Colossus, ToA, Stonehenge as a luxury;
3) barbertje found his 2 cities on the north and south quite far from capital/his border; is it good in this "starter"? what about maintenance?
4) his city on south was founded on floodplains? is it advisable despite of health penalty?

 

[Tatran]

Anyway, i'm aiming for, at least, immortal level.

Why?
The AI gets more bonuses and the human player gets more handicaps. The game stays the same.

 

[elitetroops]

I will remember about "food in first ring" rule. I've never heard about it before and haven't "invented" it by myself.

Yes, in the early game food resources are the most important resources. A city must grow a bit to become productive. If you for example settle next to gold, you can't really work that gold mine until you've grown at least to pop 2, or growth stagnates. Also, with slavery food yield is worth a lot more hammers than actual hammer yield while your cities are small. With good food a city can grow quickly, whip in the essential infra and grow back quickly for more whipping.

Few questions:
1) Should i build cottage on plains? If not, then cottage only on grasslands and floodplains?

Plains are bad tiles because they are food negative (each population eats 2 food, plain tiles give you only 1 food). As mentioned, you should avoid them in the early game. You are better of whipping away that population, into for example an army that can go get you some better lands to work.

2) why GLighthouse wonder is so good? yeah, i know, +2 trade routes, but really it is so important? which wonders in the ancient/classical era are usually the best (yeah, i know, it all depends on circumstances, but come on, there are surely some principles); for example, i value the most - by far - The Pyramids; then GLibrary, Parthenon, eventually GWall can be useful; GLighthouse, Colossus, ToA, Stonehenge as a luxury;

If you have currency ant GLH, then each new coastal city automatically gets 4 trade routes. With open borders to your neighbors and enough foreign trade routes, this usually means +8 at least. Later on it can grow to a lot more, especially once you get astro for intercontinental trade routes. You can also settle a few cities on islands to get higher yield offshore trade routes in all your coastal cities. Early on, settling a new city often adds less than 8 to your total maintenance. This means that with GLH the new city immediately upon settling results in a net gain to your economy.

Or if you look at it another way, when you settle coastal cities with immediate 8 in trade route income, it's like every one of them got a free riverside financial gold mine compared to settling a city with no trade routes at all.

3) barbertje found his 2 cities on the north and south quite far from capital/his border; is it good in this "starter"? what about maintenance?

This depends. (Didn't look at barbertje's save.) If you can grab strong commerce tiles, then the generated commerce will overcome the added maintenance quickly for a net gain. Or if you this way can block off your opponent to secure that you get a lot of other good spots later, then it might also be worth it.

4) his city on south was founded on floodplains? is it advisable despite of health penalty?

There is no health penalty from settling on FPs. FPs work like forests, they are an addition to a desert tile that disappear when you settle on it. Then you have your city on a normal desert tile. Usually it is adviced against doing so mainly because floodplains are such strong tiles to work and you don't want to waste them by settling on them. But sometimes, depending on the map, it might be worth doing so anyway. There is a health penalty from floodplains in the BFC, but this is so low that you shouldn't worry about it. Trade actively for more health resources (or take them by force ) and you will be fine.

I say go ahead and aim for immortal! Once you get the basics right you will shoot up in levels quickly!

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

If your leader is Creative, you can settle with food in the BFC (big fat cross) and not in the small cross. I differ, slightly, on my opinion of settling with gold in the small cross and no food. If it's my first expansion city and it is close by with food in the BFC and in the direction of blocking off another civ, I'll settle that city and work the gold with no growth and build a worker while it's happening. +1 , +6 or 7 depending on riverside, and build a worker isn't a bad plan. It just may not be optimal given the other circumstances.