few questions abt strategies

[joyceanblue]

hi first of all thanks for all the info available in war academy it was really useful.
now i have few questions after playing a few games at noble difficulty level.
in most of the thread ppl suggest to have a city dedicated to generating great persons (gp farm) now my question is how soon should i settle a city like that. cause in the beginning i am usually stuck with creating cities that can create good production and good commerce. by the time i get time its almost 100ad.
my second question is, should i engange in race to build wonders or should i concentrate on creating a big army early in the game and wipe off atleast one civ as soon as possible.
my third question is about the cities that i capture, most of the ppl suggest that i should raze all the cities i capture except the holy cities as the captured cities maintainance is going to kill my economy, i also read that instead i should send my settlers their to form new cities. but i am running into this problem that as soon as i raze the city and proceed to attack on another, another ai civilization sends the settler their and makes its own city, it makes my job more difficult when in future i want to attack that ai.
thanks in advance for all the help.

 

[facistal]

Hi, welcome to cfc!

1) GP farm - Great people are important, and you should be actively trying to generate some as soon as possible, but it will a little while before you can really get going a a true GP farm. In order to assign specialists you either need to be running the Caste System civic (available after Code of Laws) or have the appropriate building (e.g. 2 scientists can be assigned when you get a Library) So I would say, begin by having a city that has a library and some pop to spare generate a scientist for you early, or build the oracle or stonehenge to get an early prophet if you want, then as the game progresses and the cost of GP's is higher, you will have more options, then decide which city should be your National Epic city.

2) Wonders - Wonder addiction is a hard habit to break, but I think most people on this forum would agree that you should formulate a strategy early and only really attempt to build the few specific wonders that really fit in. The only wonder I almost always try to get is the Great Library. When in doubt build axemen or catapults.

3) Capturing cities - It is true that keeping every city you capture will drain your economy quickly. You should try to have limited goals to a campagin. Decide based on quality of the city and how it fits into your empire which cities you will keep and which you will raze before you get into a war, but if you are running along early game with three cities at 80% science I can tell you that you CANNOT get away with adding more than 3 more cities (unless they all have gold or gems or something) REX (Rapid Expansion) is a difficult thing to master and it is usually best to expand in a wave Conquest -> Fix economy -> conquest -> fix economy

Hope that helps - good luck