Great Lighthouse/Trade Routes

[yanner39]

In my current game, Big and small Map, Monarch, Standard Speed, I rolled a crappy start. Apart from the abundance of food in the capital, there's a lot of brown land, limited food, and it seems I am semi-isolated, sharing an mini-continent with Joae to my west. (note that I am not done exploring to the west so there maybe more Civs there.

Normally with this map, I must admit I would have "cheated" and re-rolled. But I decided to play on mainly because I had access to Stone and Marble and I would learn better. Having used a workboat to explore, I thought I'd build the Great Lighthouse and base my economy on Trade Routes because for the immediate land, it didn't scream cottages.

I am out of my element here (I'm a cottage spammer) so I'm in a very different situation that I am usually into by simply "playing the map". I just thought I'd try and get tips to maximize the Great Lighthouse. In don't want to post a save just yet. I'd like to figure most of it out on my own.

Here's what I know:

1) many of my cities, if not all will be coastal.

2) TR income is based on the size of cities, so essentially I should be farming instead of cottaging, corrrect?

3) optics and Astronomy are more of a priority assuming I can't meet the other Civs with a workboat?

4) With stone (city #2) and marble (capital), I will try the Mids and Great Library, and hopefully use specialists to complement my "TR economy".

5) In terms of civics, I would think FM is important, especially once Corporations obsoletes my GLighthouse.

6) Because I will have cities on a separate landmass, albeit close to my capital, CoL is also important.

Anything else? Thanks in advance.

 

[Cam_H]

What leader have you got?

No chance of posting a save or screenshots I take it?

 

[pollock]

Erm if you cant meet foreign empires then you wont be running a trade route economy. Internal trade isnt so great even if its spanning a few "continents".

I dont know what trade is based on apart from distance , connection to capital, intercontinental bonus.

Yeah get optics quick to start to foreign trade. You may need to get early commerce somehow.

I wouldnt go for the GLighthouse mids and GLibary. Thats asking to fall behind in settling. Id suggest a modicum of self control and just settle a bit more and skip one of them.

Forget free market for a long while. I often finish my games before it thesedays hehehe

Yeah courthouses need for empires that span many islands

 

[yanner39]

What leader have you got?

No chance of posting a save or screenshots I take it?

Mehmed

 

[Cam_H]

Despite non-Industrious, I wouldn't dismiss The Great Wall > Great Spies. If it's just you and Joao, then theft might be one of your options to maintain tech' parity until you meet other rivals. He's a city spammer, so try to land-grab as best you can.

Coastal cities with cheap Lighthouses also make The Colossus an attractive option, as is the Temple of Artimis if you have a particularly good coastal city.

Economics extends Free Market, Corporation for expiration of The Great Lighthouse, so the two can operate in unison, however bear in mind that The Great Lighthouse affects only coastal cities, so the jump to Corporation may not be too onerous in the end, especially if you have a prime prospective Wall Street city.

 

[NihilZero]

1) It's hard to comment on this without screenshots, but if you have the GLH, coastal cities pretty much pay for themselves right off the bat.

2) As far as I know, you only get a trade bonus for city size when you get to pop 10, so this won't be a factor in the early game.

3) Definitely. With the GLH, Astronomy is often worth "Liberalisming" - assuming you can't get it sooner by other means. You really want to have it for a while before everybody goes into Merc, the bane of the trade route economy.

4) Might as well, assuming you don't have to sacrifice too much to get them. Even if you miss them, doubled failure cash from stone and marble is always nice. But your focus is probably going to be trade, since the land you describe doesn't sound very food rich to support many specialists.

5) The GLH is independent of Free Market (obviously) so you are pretty free to choose whatever works for you, although merc is far from ideal. Obviously if the option is there to really rake in TR (probably post-astronomy) cash then FM will probably be good.

By the way, if it's working for you, there's no need to rush into Corps to obsolete your GLH. You can win the game without Corps. The main drawback is no Assembly Line (a very nice tech in any case, but particularly so for an ORG leader) but if you beeline Flight you can easily beat down the AI's infantry with your riflemen or cavalry, should it come to that. Add Radio for bombers and there is no need for Assembly Line ever as long as you can achieve air superiority. If you really need better gunpowder units there's always SAM infantry.

Flight also gives you another trade route with airports, so the synergy with putting off corps to prolong your GLH is quite nice. Of course, if you are killing everybody you won't have so much foreign trade, but by the time that matters you will be winning the game.

 

[madscientist]

My guidelines for a successful trade route based economy.

1) Best Leader: Roosevelt. starts with fishing, 1 turn from sailing, discounted lighthouse, Industrious makes the GLH go fast.

2) Make as many cities as you can be on the coast, however do ignore a prime land-locked site.

3) Shooting for the Oracle to metal casting for the Colosus makes more sense than Great Library/Pyramids. You will also appreciate earlier triemes to deal with barbs torching all your seafood.

4) the GLH and colosus create Great Merchant points, thus you may want to also run merchant specialists to pump out alot of GMs and run research at deficits.

5) Diplomacy/Peace. The more peaceful you play the higher your trade route yields are. Open borders will all if possible.

6) settle islands if you can, that counts as intercontinental trade yields.

7) Optics only help as a stepping stone to Astronomy, meaning Calendar may be more valuable sooner. Astronomy get's healthy intercontinental trade routes but nixes the Colossus.

8) Economics get's another trade route, but so do castles which are quick with stone and add an espionage/defensive bonus. The custome house is generally not a big help and usually not worth the hammers until cities are powered (and then still questionable).

9) Corporation is the doomsday of the Great Lighthouse, but not that much. Your empire should be stronge by then. Corporations are situational but I assume Sid's will be darned atractive.

10) Flight for airports should be an earlier tech, comes nicely after combustion to rule the seas.

A few of my classic RPCs ran Trade Route games, particularly Victoria and the first Catherine.

 

[yanner39]

Here is my save a few turns after Liberalism. Man, the Great lighthouse is impressive. I've posted my quickest Lib time at 880AD. I've never done this using my regular CE. I think the Mids helped alot as well as the Great Library. Because of my diplo, I also managed to build as little military as possible and run Pacifism. That, along with the NE and Glib and I getting a nice flow of Great Scientist.

I decided to stop there because I don't want to screw this up. Any suggestions as to what I should look to do next? By no means to I think I am playing a perfect game so please feel free to point out so screw ups or deficiencies.

Here was my plan:

1. I am now teching to gunpowder. I took Nationalism with Liberalism so I was planning to draft Janissaries and invade Joea.

2. I didn't prepare so I would need to build/whip threates (after trading for the techs if possible) and build the Globe Theatre, possibly in my Cap which seems to have the most food (cow, wheat, pigs and clams).

3. Adopt a religion, spam missionaries and revold to theocracy.

I reallize that's alot of stuff so I don't know if it's possible. I must admit I didn't check to see where Jaoe is tech-wise, but I doubt he's close to me.

Any suggestions would be great.

 

[yanner39]

My guidelines for a successful trade route based economy.

1) Best Leader: Roosevelt. starts with fishing, 1 turn from sailing, discounted lighthouse, Industrious makes the GLH go fast.

2) Make as many cities as you can be on the coast, however do ignore a prime land-locked site.

3) Shooting for the Oracle to metal casting for the Colosus makes more sense than Great Library/Pyramids. You will also appreciate earlier triemes to deal with barbs torching all your seafood.

4) the GLH and colosus create Great Merchant points, thus you may want to also run merchant specialists to pump out alot of GMs and run research at deficits.

5) Diplomacy/Peace. The more peaceful you play the higher your trade route yields are. Open borders will all if possible.

6) settle islands if you can, that counts as intercontinental trade yields.

7) Optics only help as a stepping stone to Astronomy, meaning Calendar may be more valuable sooner. Astronomy get's healthy intercontinental trade routes but nixes the Colossus.

8) Economics get's another trade route, but so do castles which are quick with stone and add an espionage/defensive bonus. The custome house is generally not a big help and usually not worth the hammers until cities are powered (and then still questionable).

9) Corporation is the doomsday of the Great Lighthouse, but not that much. Your empire should be stronge by then. Corporations are situational but I assume Sid's will be darned atractive.

10) Flight for airports should be an earlier tech, comes nicely after combustion to rule the seas.

A few of my classic RPCs ran Trade Route games, particularly Victoria and the first Catherine.

Good details. Thanks Mad. I played my game to LIb before I read your post so there are definately things I didn't do.

Quick question regarding Astronomy. If I meet all the Civs using a Galley, then were not taking about ocean trade correct? So essentially, Astronomy becommes less of a priority?

 

[yanner39]

@NihliZero

Concerning FM, the reason this came up was I got things confused as it relates to State Property versus Merc. Foreign trade routes STILL exist when using SP and because I was going to have a number of cities on different landmasses, I was concerned about distance costs and not being able to run SP. My mistake.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

Good details. Thanks Mad. I played my game to LIb before I read your post so there are definately things I didn't do.

Quick question regarding Astronomy. If I meet all the Civs using a Galley, then were not taking about ocean trade correct? So essentially, Astronomy becommes less of a priority?

Because you could meet them with a galley means you have the possibility of a trade route before Astronomy, but you have to actually 'have' the routes to be come trade routes.

Need to have 'knowlegdge' (actually see them or trade maps) of the coastal cities the other civ's have.

You can't have your coastal sea routes blocked by anything (a civ with closed borders, or a barb city)

 

[NihilZero]

Here is my save a few turns after Liberalism. Man, the Great lighthouse is impressive. I've posted my quickest Lib time at 880AD. I've never done this using my regular CE. I think the Mids helped alot as well as the Great Library. Because of my diplo, I also managed to build as little military as possible and run Pacifism. That, along with the NE and Glib and I getting a nice flow of Great Scientist.

I decided to stop there because I don't want to screw this up. Any suggestions as to what I should look to do next? By no means to I think I am playing a perfect game so please feel free to point out so screw ups or deficiencies.

Here was my plan:

1. I am now teching to gunpowder. I took Nationalism with Liberalism so I was planning to draft Janissaries and invade Joea.

2. I didn't prepare so I would need to build/whip threates (after trading for the techs if possible) and build the Globe Theatre, possibly in my Cap which seems to have the most food (cow, wheat, pigs and clams).

3. Adopt a religion, spam missionaries and revold to theocracy.

I reallize that's alot of stuff so I don't know if it's possible. I must admit I didn't check to see where Jaoe is tech-wise, but I doubt he's close to me.

Any suggestions would be great.

Nice job getting enough Great Scientists for an early Lib, an early lib is excellent with the Ottomans. However, you should have thought ahead and known you would want to draft Janissaries, ideally as soon as you Libbed Nationalism. Building those theatres and the Globe will delay you quite a bit, I'm afraid. Nowadays I usually have my draft city selected very early and try to lay the groundwork well in advance. It really pays off.

I haven't looked at your save so I'm not sure how your empire is set up, but using your cap as draft city is a little unorthodox. It depends, of course, on what kind of capital it is, but if it's your best food city then I guess there's no reason not to assuming your cap is not fulfilling another critical role (mine is normally a science city). A Globe city doesn't need insane food, it just needs a couple of good food sources or a few little ones (I often use one of those multiple sugar spots you often find).

Theocracy is pretty good with the draft as it gives you promoted draft soldiers which does make a big difference, and it's quite hard to draft promoted units otherwise.

 

[lymond]

I think I'll add a few comments here. First of all, Yanner, it good to seeing you do well on Monarch level. I remember not long ago when you were really struggling with the basics.

I viewed some save and here's some thoughts:

1) This is some shab-nasty terrible land you have here. You have done fairly well with what you have

2) Despite a little too much brown, Istanbul is not a bad city - just think if you had settled on the plains hill. You've essentially made it your GP farm which I generally don't like for caps, but you can change that later.

3) Great Lighthouse was absolute the right call here. Not so sure about Representation.

4) With GLH try to settle more coastal cities. Edirne just flat out baffles me completely. Why settle this city here. You've encroached terribly on Istanbul which could use that wheat now and it is 1 off the coastal. Therefore, Edirne never got the trade route bonus. It also can't build a LH for that lake. 1E of Iron would be better to get the fish. Edirne is just a really poor choice all-around. Honestly, you could have settled this whole land mass coastal and not worried so much about a central non-coastal city.

5) You are in slavery. Use it. A lot of infra should be up in your establish cities. The Hammans/Forges - finished a long time ago. Whip Whip Whip. Honestly, I recommend not posting save until you've done all this. Don't post save with unhappy cities and infra that should have been there long ago. Folks will always gnaw at you about it - always....

6) On that note, once you get Edu, a top priority is whipping in your unis asap (4 or 5 pop those suckers) and getting OX. This is a MAJOR difference maker in any game. Instead I only see 1 Uni being built.

7) hmmm....I'm not sure Nat/Globe is ideal here. Yeah, Istanbul is a somewhat decent site as for as food but I hate doing that to my cap. You nerf it some much and it already has good production to slow build support units like siege. Overall, the empire/map is not ideal for Nat, but you could do it if really needed. I might take Gunpowder with Lib and just start rocking out the Jans. By the way, Istanbul can use that lake as a lake farm.

8) chain irrigate that rice asap near Konya.

9) Trade one of your health resources with Biz. Happiness is much more of a concern than health at the moment and really your overall happiness issues are concerning.

10) Trade Lit for cash now. Net at least 200 gold at the moment

Overall, I do see some improvements. Looks like you are working improved tiles, but still could have used almost twice the workers you have now. You are EXP by the way - SO easy to get enough workers out. Looks like you have a plan early game that panned out ok, but started to lose focus. I really don't see a plan right now. But it least you went for something and got it.

keep up the good work

 

[yanner39]

I think I'll add a few comments here. First of all, Yanner, it good to seeing you do well on Monarch level. I remember not long ago when you were really struggling with the basics.

Thanks lymond. I've appreciated alot of your advice and tips.

I viewed some save and here's some thoughts:

1) This is some shab-nasty terrible land you have here. You have done fairly well with what you have

2) Despite a little too much brown, Istanbul is not a bad city - just think if you had settled on the plains hill. You've essentially made it your GP farm which I generally don't like for caps, but you can change that later.

3) Great Lighthouse was absolute the right call here. Not so sure about Representation.

I thought Rep was a good call. I was lacking and with the bad terrain, I figured +6 beakers instead of working bad land. However, I guess lack of food makes it more difficult to work specs. Would you have suggested to not build the mids at all? Of run HR instead?

4) With GLH try to settle more coastal cities. Edirne just flat out baffles me completely. Why settle this city here. You've encroached terribly on Istanbul which could use that wheat now and it is 1 off the coastal. Therefore, Edirne never got the trade route bonus. It also can't build a LH for that lake. 1E of Iron would be better to get the fish. Edirne is just a really poor choice all-around. Honestly, you could have settled this whole land mass coastal and not worried so much about a central non-coastal city.

I can't remember 100% but Erdina was settled before I decided to build the GLighthouse AND it was settled to get the Stone . Also, I tried to settle it closer to Istanbul to share food resources and minimize early maintenance costs. You will notice that this city is the only non-coastal city. But your point is well taken.

5) You are in slavery. Use it. A lot of infra should be up in your establish cities. The Hammans/Forges - finished a long time ago. Whip Whip Whip. Honestly, I recommend not posting save until you've done all this. Don't post save with unhappy cities and infra that should have been there long ago. Folks will always gnaw at you about it - always....

No matter how much I improve, slavery conitnues to be a very very weak spot here simply because I don't know when it's best. Some say you whip the unhappies away and some say the sweet spot of whipping is when the cities pop is between 5 and 8. For example, for a forge, should I whip 2 pops to get it or three? Should I look at my whip away coastal tiles? I usually try and whip unimproved tiles. Early on, is it simply a question of whipping every 10 turns until all my basic infra is in place?

6) On that note, once you get Edu, a top priority is whipping in your unis asap (4 or 5 pop those suckers) and getting OX. This is a MAJOR difference maker in any game. Instead I only see 1 Uni being built.

Agreed. I have been dooing this. I must admit in this case I was sure where to place Oxford since I didn't seem to have a true science city. I'll have to look at it again.

7) hmmm....I'm not sure Nat/Globe is ideal here. Yeah, Istanbul is a somewhat decent site as for as food but I hate doing that to my cap. You nerf it some much and it already has good production to slow build support units like siege. Overall, the empire/map is not ideal for Nat, but you could do it if really needed. I might take Gunpowder with Lib and just start rocking out the Jans. By the way, Istanbul can use that lake as a lake farm.

8) chain irrigate that rice asap near Konya.

9) Trade one of your health resources with Biz. Happiness is much more of a concern than health at the moment and really your overall happiness issues are concerning.

10) Trade Lit for cash now. Net at least 200 gold at the moment

Overall, I do see some improvements. Looks like you are working improved tiles, but still could have used almost twice the workers you have now. You are EXP by the way - SO easy to get enough workers out. Looks like you have a plan early game that panned out ok, but started to lose focus. I really don't see a plan right now. But it least you went for something and got it.

keep up the good work[/QUOTE]

Thanks again. Well, my plan was to try and wrestle more land away from Joea, then go for space. Because of my diplo situation, I may try for a diplo victory. In terms of losing focus, I'm not sure what to say. My focus was to settle my coastal cities with the land I had. As NihliZero pointed out, I should have gotten my Theatres setup already. I most admit that if I did lose focus, it was due to not knowing how to best handle this garbage land.

Thanks again lymond.

 

[yanner39]

Nice job getting enough Great Scientists for an early Lib, an early lib is excellent with the Ottomans. However, you should have thought ahead and known you would want to draft Janissaries, ideally as soon as you Libbed Nationalism. Building those theatres and the Globe will delay you quite a bit, I'm afraid. Nowadays I usually have my draft city selected very early and try to lay the groundwork well in advance. It really pays off.

I haven't looked at your save so I'm not sure how your empire is set up, but using your cap as draft city is a little unorthodox. It depends, of course, on what kind of capital it is, but if it's your best food city then I guess there's no reason not to assuming your cap is not fulfilling another critical role (mine is normally a science city). A Globe city doesn't need insane food, it just needs a couple of good food sources or a few little ones (I often use one of those multiple sugar spots you often find).

Theocracy is pretty good with the draft as it gives you promoted draft soldiers which does make a big difference, and it's quite hard to draft promoted units otherwise.

I usally also have my buro cap as my science city. But in this case, apart from good food, the cap isn't really nice in terms of green land for cottages. It does have the Trade Route income, so I will probably whip unis everywhere and build Oxford in it.

Thanks for the ideas.

 

[NihilZero]

Okay, I have had a quick glance at your save, and I'm going to disagree with a lot of people and say that your land is actually pretty good for Representation specialists. The land quality itself is poor, but you have numerous sites with good food sources which is ideal for running scientists everywhere. You could have a higher beaker count if you had emphasised scientists more.

Also, Edirne is badly placed. Should be coastal, possibly near the fish. You still have space for a city down there, however.

Maximise your food and get more scientists if you want more research. If you want to attack Joao, now this the time to start making trebuchets. You're going to need some for bombardment. You can out the globe in any decent food city, Gaziantep for example.

 

[yanner39]

^^ Thanks NihilZero. As far as Rep goes, that was my thinking as well. As for Erdine, as I explain to lymond, I settled it for the Stone initially as first and if my memory serves me correctly, I wasn't playing the Great Lighthouse simply because I didn't have a clear idea what my land looked like at that time.

Anyways, it's all moot now. I lost a Religious Diplo Victory to Joao. I had the tech lead for the entire game using my trade routes. Once the GLighthouse was obsoleted (which didn't hurt that much by the way) I replaced the missing TR using airports. I setup some of by cities to produce the space parts and the sppace win would have been easy actually.

What I seriously neglected was increasing the cities that had Christianty in them. I don't know a whole lot about the AP because in this case, I didn't think it was an issue - when the vote came up, Joao was the only option. So I abstain. I don't understand this: He was the only option to win a religious diplo victory. Essentially, all had to abstain for him not to win. Kind of a rotten way to lose.

Anyways, overall I'm pretty happpy I was running away with things before that. I diplo was great - ever a threat of war - I had very little military.

 

[lymond]

^^ Thanks NihilZero. As far as Rep goes, that was my thinking as well. As for Erdine, as I explain to lymond, I settled it for the Stone initially as first and if my memory serves me correctly, I wasn't playing the Great Lighthouse simply because I didn't have a clear idea what my land looked like at that time.

Edirne is bad with or without the GLH and you essentially prevented some good land/sea from being used. Another city could grab the stone or just settle Edirne differently so that a 3rd city can go on the coast down south.

I love Representation. My point was related to a couple of factors. For one, I'm not sure yan really used it to its potential. Secondly, one of Mehmed's strengths is the ability to grow large productive cities early. HR would have really helped with that and the unhappiness issue you have now.

 

[yanner39]

Edirne is bad with or without the GLH and you essentially prevented some good land/sea from being used. Another city could grab the stone or just settle Edirne differently so that a 3rd city can go on the coast down south.
I love Representation. My point was related to a couple of factors. For one, I'm not sure yan really used it to its potential. Secondly, one of Mehmed's strengths is the ability to grow large productive cities early. HR would have really helped with that and the unhappiness issue you have now.

I won't dispute that Erdine was bad - it was my worst city. In fact, I could have settled it 2SW on the coast. However, there is no food resource in that area. To get the stone with Istanbul, I would have needed probably a second border pop.

Your point w/HR is very well taken. However, as my game progressed, unhappiness wasn't very much a problem.