As I start off the game I always think that I am expanding well until I see how my neighbor is doing. When I look at what the size of his empires are, like they are huge. I would probably only have about 5 or 6 cities but my neighbor would have like 15 cities or something. I would like to know: what can I do to change this? How can I expand without putting my nation in dept or losing money?
Expansion strategies
- Thread starter Civ001
- Start date
s.bernbaum
Mostly lurking
What level are you playing on? (Settler….Noble….Deity or something in between) Also tell us a little more about what you do when you are starting out. Posting a save game or screen shot from around when you notice that you are having trouble would also help people customize their answers to the way you are playing. Be prepared for constructive criticism!
^ I usually play on Settler or Cheiftan. I first start settling my city then I train a warrior unit. Then I build a Granery to get food, then I build a settler and send him out to settle while I am researching, then I repeat the process while I am building new buildings in between.
God-Emperor
Deity
You seem to have left out the step(s) where you build workers.
In most cases, the "worker first" strategy is the best. This is because improved tiles are much better than unimproved tiles. The small initial delay in growth is overcome very quickly by the extra output from working improved tiles. Improve the food resource tiles first to maximize growth rate.
Also, a granary doesn't actually give you food. It helps the city grow faster by retaining some of the food normally spent when the city grows so it has a head start to get to the next level, and it provides some extra health if you have the relevant resources. At the very start of the game this is not very important since the starting locations generally have plenty of food to quickly grow to their useful limit (imposed by happiness) without a granary - as long as you have one or more workers improving the food plots to get the full output, anyway.
In most cases, the "worker first" strategy is the best. This is because improved tiles are much better than unimproved tiles. The small initial delay in growth is overcome very quickly by the extra output from working improved tiles. Improve the food resource tiles first to maximize growth rate.
Also, a granary doesn't actually give you food. It helps the city grow faster by retaining some of the food normally spent when the city grows so it has a head start to get to the next level, and it provides some extra health if you have the relevant resources. At the very start of the game this is not very important since the starting locations generally have plenty of food to quickly grow to their useful limit (imposed by happiness) without a granary - as long as you have one or more workers improving the food plots to get the full output, anyway.
vandermerwe
Butt of many jokes
Workers are indeed vital. But so are the techs which allow them to improve tiles. If you're building granaries after one warrior you must be researching pottery pretty early. Don't do that until you have both the workers and the early 'worker techs' you need to improve the resource tiles near your capital. Depending on what those resources are, you're looking at any of: agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, hunting, masonry, mining, and the wheel if your resources aren't connected by a river. All civs start with at least 1 of those, and most start with 2, so you just need to fill in the gaps. Pottery can follow, but for cottages as well as granaries. Calendar - which gives you sugar, silk, bananas, spices etc. - comes later but should also be a priority if these resources are nearby.
Overall, there's a reason why many the best players focus on getting the minimum number of cities needed to build some of the more important national wonders (6 on normal speed). Fewer good cities (well-placed with improved tiles) are better than more bad cities. They give you a stronger economy and a much better base for expansion, conquest and cultural / tech advantage later in the game. So don't worry too much about numbers of cities in the early game - or score, for that matter, which is a pretty crude measure too. Quality should eventually beat quantity.
Overall, there's a reason why many the best players focus on getting the minimum number of cities needed to build some of the more important national wonders (6 on normal speed). Fewer good cities (well-placed with improved tiles) are better than more bad cities. They give you a stronger economy and a much better base for expansion, conquest and cultural / tech advantage later in the game. So don't worry too much about numbers of cities in the early game - or score, for that matter, which is a pretty crude measure too. Quality should eventually beat quantity.
As allready stated: you should build workers. Many. About 1,5 or even 2 for each city you have. On the levels you're playing you can automate them without a problem. But build them. They improve the land your city population is working on, increasing the amount of food, hammers and trade you gain each turn. Plus they connect your resources and cities with roads, also increasing trade, health and happiness and enabling you to build stronger units.
Especially if you're not experienced in going to war it's important to get quite a decent handfull of cities early on. As soon as you have positive income of a few gold per turn plus the workers to improve your other cities plus some defence you should build the next city. Don't bother too much with buildings in your other cities, rather use them to build the workers, settlers and defenders required for your new or to be founded cities. At the levels you're playing you should have no problems at all getting eight to ten decent cities. If you can take more. You can even lower your science slider quite drastically to get the necessary cash in to found new cities. It does not matter too much if you fall back a bit in score or tech compared to the AI. You can and will catch up later - and the number of cities should be a quite good base for whatever strategy you want to follow for the rest of the game.
Some more thoughts: build your first cities where they can grow (and produce many workers and settlers). Make sure they have juicy food ressources - and also make sure you get the proper techs to use them. Resources you can't use or don't need at the time should be lower prioritiy if there is still enough food available. And stay away from jungle. Takes ages to improve and really bogs you down...
And then there's slavery and whipping. An effective way to help your unhappy population to do something usefull.
And then there's slavery and whipping. An effective way to help your unhappy population to do something usefull.
SamSniped
DJ Goodboye
When starting out, try to find the coastline with your scout/worker. I try to settle first at the areas where cities are going to be valuable, and then in a line across the continent between the shortest length to prevent people I don't want from getting to areas that have potential. This is an extremely useful tactic when on a peninsula.
Quibblesome
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2009
- Messages
- 231
If you're getting left behind try this opener.
* Settle. Use your scout/warrior to find decent nearby settling spots. Don't wander off looking for huts, search all nearby land, you're looking primarily for food resources, the more the better (flood plains count as a food resource).
* Beeline Bronze Working.
* Try to ensure your first worker pops out when bronze working is finished (so if you need mining first you can just about squeeze in a scout or warrior before the worker).
* Revolt to slavery (optional, you can actually do this later if you wish)
* Set your first worker to chop.
* Build a settler or a worker.
* If you built a settler, now build a worker or a work boat if you started with fishing and have nearby fish/clam/crab.
* If you built a worker now quickly chop out that settler.
You'll want either two or three workers before making your third settler which hopefully you can whip instead of chopping. Use your first warrior to secure the lands and escort your settlers or fit a warrior/archer into that build. Typically you want to leave your cities unprotected for a while as there is limited benefit in building military units at the start of the game.
If you start expanding over four cities your income will start to dip. So you need to start building cottages or libraries and force scientists to keep your research up (or well... both really). If your research is high enough then having the slider between 30% - 50% isn't as big a deal (so you can expand more!). Other options include getting a wonder that helps with expansion such as Great Lighthouse or a religion with the great prophet building (that will give you gold per city). Remember to build roads to link cities so you get trade routes. Remember that getting sailing and building roads that link to other empires that you have open borders with give you extra gold in the form of foreign trade routes (+2 instead of +1 per foreign trade route).
At some point you're going to have to decide how to deal with your gold deficit. The technologies Code of Laws, Currency and Calendar all deal with it in different ways.
Code of Laws helps you build Courthouses which is a good option if you have a unique courthouse like Monty or Gilga (who only needs priesthood to build his) or you're an Organised leader. It also lets you go Caste System which means that big cities can run as many merchants as you want.
Currency gives you an extra trade route per city and means you can build markets (great for cottage farms or cities with religion's great prophet building). Almost more importantly it lets you sell your surplus resources and trade tech for gold. Don't underestimate the amount of money you can get from selling resources!!!!
Calendar is great if you're surrounded by lots of calendar resources that you can transform into very valuable squares with plantations.
---
I hope with this information you should be able to expand more quickly and start to appreciate how to deal with the costs of expanding so you can keep up and not fall behind the computer's expansion.
I _highly_ recommend getting the BUG mod which shows you (farthest number on the right) how many cities your enemies have on the main screen.
---
Building granaries isn't necessarily that important. In most cases happys and healths prevent your cities from growing that big early on so granaries only really help if you're whipping a lot. Don't consider them a must get, they're probably slowing you down.
* Settle. Use your scout/warrior to find decent nearby settling spots. Don't wander off looking for huts, search all nearby land, you're looking primarily for food resources, the more the better (flood plains count as a food resource).
* Beeline Bronze Working.
* Try to ensure your first worker pops out when bronze working is finished (so if you need mining first you can just about squeeze in a scout or warrior before the worker).
* Revolt to slavery (optional, you can actually do this later if you wish)
* Set your first worker to chop.
* Build a settler or a worker.
* If you built a settler, now build a worker or a work boat if you started with fishing and have nearby fish/clam/crab.
* If you built a worker now quickly chop out that settler.
You'll want either two or three workers before making your third settler which hopefully you can whip instead of chopping. Use your first warrior to secure the lands and escort your settlers or fit a warrior/archer into that build. Typically you want to leave your cities unprotected for a while as there is limited benefit in building military units at the start of the game.
If you start expanding over four cities your income will start to dip. So you need to start building cottages or libraries and force scientists to keep your research up (or well... both really). If your research is high enough then having the slider between 30% - 50% isn't as big a deal (so you can expand more!). Other options include getting a wonder that helps with expansion such as Great Lighthouse or a religion with the great prophet building (that will give you gold per city). Remember to build roads to link cities so you get trade routes. Remember that getting sailing and building roads that link to other empires that you have open borders with give you extra gold in the form of foreign trade routes (+2 instead of +1 per foreign trade route).
At some point you're going to have to decide how to deal with your gold deficit. The technologies Code of Laws, Currency and Calendar all deal with it in different ways.
Code of Laws helps you build Courthouses which is a good option if you have a unique courthouse like Monty or Gilga (who only needs priesthood to build his) or you're an Organised leader. It also lets you go Caste System which means that big cities can run as many merchants as you want.
Currency gives you an extra trade route per city and means you can build markets (great for cottage farms or cities with religion's great prophet building). Almost more importantly it lets you sell your surplus resources and trade tech for gold. Don't underestimate the amount of money you can get from selling resources!!!!
Calendar is great if you're surrounded by lots of calendar resources that you can transform into very valuable squares with plantations.
---
I hope with this information you should be able to expand more quickly and start to appreciate how to deal with the costs of expanding so you can keep up and not fall behind the computer's expansion.
I _highly_ recommend getting the BUG mod which shows you (farthest number on the right) how many cities your enemies have on the main screen.
---
Building granaries isn't necessarily that important. In most cases happys and healths prevent your cities from growing that big early on so granaries only really help if you're whipping a lot. Don't consider them a must get, they're probably slowing you down.
UnforcedError
Settler
Granaries are probably the most important buildings in the game, not just for whipping purposes. Faster growth means working more improved tiles earlier (or running more specialists). However, in 99% of the cases your capital should not build any buildings before it built at least a worker (build second at size 2, 3 or 4 depending on land), 1-2 warriors (next city defender) and a settler. It's even recommended to repeat this for a third city before any buildings.
However: almost all cities need a granary, the sole exception being cities with a very low pop cap (e.g. one 4F food resource, just enough to work two silver mines, no other useful tiles in the city), which you should only settle if they are profitable (make more commerce than they cost maintenance) and / or get you a unique resource.
Ramesses-Rules
King
I play at Immortal with barbs, so the first job is build a worker and then get out enough Archers (or if lucky enough to have Horses in Thebes) War Chariots until I hit happy cap (pop. 4 in Warlords), then with BW chop Settler, Worker, Worker, Settler. Make sure your second city has decent production so it can produce a Settler. Get your first 4 cities this way, and block off territory from neighbors if necessary/possible. At Immortal, that is about all the early expansion your economy will support until you get your Libraries and cottages producing. The next plateau is to get to at least 6 cities with Currency. That is pretty much my goal in every game unless I am doing an early war.
Quibblesome
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2009
- Messages
- 231
I agree that eventually all cities want a granary, especially when you're going to be running caste system but caste system is miles away. I'm talking about the early game. Unless your Oracle beeling CoL you're not going to have it until you have about five cities if not more.
In the early game you're not going to get the city very high on population until you're running Monarchy (another early-mid tech unless you start surrounded by a ton of happys) so as long as your cities have a couple of food resources they don't need the granary to get up to 4/5/6/7 (depending on your difficulty level) that quickly. You're almost always better off getting workers/settlers/units etc. Unless of course you're planning on lots of lovely whipping.
If anything I'm responding to the OP when he said:
Just trying to ween him off the premise of such super early granaries. I apologise if in doing so I trashed granaries too much.
Ramesses-Rules
King
You're right, of course. I sometimes have the opposite problem. I realize at some point in the middle of the game that I actually forgot to build the granary in one of my cities -- usually when I notice its population is lagging my other cities.
UnforcedError
Settler
@Quibblesome: don't forget that the OP is playing on a low difficulty level so his happy cap is incredibly high. Nice to get some early granaries going but definitely not before he settles at least 1-2 other cities.
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