Getting Out-Researched!

[Oh My]

Alright, maybe I just suck at the game, but in 1982, I am still sailing Frigates around and France is just owning me with Destroyers. What is the best way to start out a game so you will out-research everyone?

For example, is it important to build a lot of cities in the beginning or just build a few and make work on them? Also, I was having a hard time accumulating money which I'm sure contributed to my slow research.

Let me know some of your strategies for success.

Thanks.

 

[DaveMcW]

Cottages!!

 

[Oh My]

Cottages!!

What do those actually do? I am not sure whether I should build more cottages or farms..

 

[jwk9]

Well, fear not, you're not alone. I have the same issues, especially since I've started playing on Noble level.

One thing I've learned is to be a little less agressive in waging war and taking over other Civ's. If you get caught up in really long wars, then it just eats up your research and makes everything take a long time. If you do get caught up in a long war, be careful about how many of your opponent's cities you occupy. They put a strain on your economy. I've found that it is sometimes better to just raze a city and take the gold. I think my issue is that if I get caught up in a war, I can't finish the other Civ off fast enough. Anyone have any ideas for quickly finishing off a Civ?

 

[.Shane.]

To the OP, what level do you play on? How many rival AIs? What size world? Map type? Which civ are you? etc...

If you want help you have to give more specific info upfront.

 

[Cam_H]

What do those actually do?

Cottages are a tile improvement that when worked 'grow' into Hamlets, Villages, and then Towns. Each growth stage adds an extra . It is possible to get more out of them than the base rate, for instance; placing them adjacent to a river, if you have the Financial trait, or by adopting the Free Speech civic. Cities with lots of Towns can underpin your strategy. See the Civilopedia or the manual for more information. Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners is probably well worth a read if you've yet to do so.

I am not sure whether I should build more cottages or farms..

It depends upon the role of your city and the resources available to the city, and whether you want to run lots of specialists in your city.

A Cottage tile must be 'worked' in order to grow, so you need to ensure that your city has enough food to sustain the Cottage tile. For instance, if your city has hypothetically lots of food-poor squares, spamming Cottages will not be useful as the city will stagnate after a while due to a lack of a food surplus, and many of your Cottages remain unworked. Therefore, it is helpful to count the food surpluses and deficits of the tiles in the fat-X to evaluate how much farming is needed to support your Mines, Cottages, etc.

A Specialist Economy involves using lots of Specialists and complementary Civics (and arguably Wonders) rather than having the bulk of your citizens working the city tiles. As such, these cities will tend to need more food to feed these Specialist citizens.

Anyone have any ideas for quickly finishing off a Civ?

Not rocket science here, but a few ideas could include;

(a.) keep your frontline attackers moving, and fill up newly captured city garrisons from units from behind ... there's nothing worse than having City Raider III Macemen acting as city defenders,

(b.) bring lots of seige units so you can knock down the city defenses in one or two turns,

(c.) use Workers to build roads to the war front,

(d.) sometimes using your navy may be quicker to get units from one end of a landmass to the other (pre-Airports),

(e.) Engineering gives improved movement along roads, and

(f.) obviously two-move units can cover more ground in fewer turns.

 

[Wlauzon]

Alright, maybe I just suck at the game, but in 1982, I am still sailing Frigates around and France is just owning me with Destroyers.

Yes, you suck.

Whereas, I am uber.

I have a commanding tech lead in 2001, but I have this minor detail of Alexander having about 984 cavalry in my back yard ransacking everything in sight, and all I have for military are some old archers and one mech infantry.

 

[pigswill]

Re: keeping up in tech. Use slingshots (oracle and great people researching technology), also get alphabet for tech-trading. To profit from tech-trading you need a tech that AI don't have and you want to trade the same tech to two or more AIs in the same turn. The trick with this is to avoid the standard AI tech paths (they'll often go for monarchy, mathematics, currency, calendar) ;if you have researched metal-casting you can trade it for all four of these techs from four different AI; they all get 1 tech, you get 4.