Help For Going Tall

[Doormat123]

Hi everyone,

I've been playing on Emperor, and I can usually do quite well if I choose a warmonger strategy or a wide strategy. However, I'm really having trouble winning when going tall. When I try to do this, I can usually take a solid lead in techs/policies, but as I'm getting close to winning, all the AIs declare war on me and pillage my trade routes. Since I'm going tall, my loss of trade routes means I've in the negative in gold per turn. Since spies usually can steal close to all my gold, I quickly get into negative gold territory after a certain number of turns, and my army gets disbanded, so I can't defend myself anymore.

Can everyone help me see what I am doing wrong when playing tall? Right now I'm finding wide way easier because if I settle a bunch of cities, I can produce enough gold to keep a large army and defend myself when all the AIs attack me.

Thanks.

 

[Delvemor]

I don't play tall very often but when I do I try to maximize the number of villages and towns on roads, with trade routes passing there. Tall or not, I always try to keep trade routes going even if it means mostly internal ones when at war. I will replace pillaged caravans or cargo ships and make sure no road between cities are neglected. Growth is important but it quickly reaches diminishing returns and I usually don't prioritize it over other yields, such as gold for example. If anything, when playing tall I feel the need to work tiles providing gold even more, especially during Golden Ages.

For the gold stealing, a good way to mitigate it is to not accumulate too much of it at any time. Many players seem to prefer to stack gold until they can upgrade all their units all at once. In my experience this is very risky and probably not necessary if you're playing tall and only defending yourself on choke points. I tend to spend my gold early to rush key buildings, especially the ones giving production, which is badly needed for Tradition. If I really need a lot of gold to upgrade units, I use the Wealth process. All of this is probably not optimal in theory but the alternative is potentially losing ridiculous amounts of gold from AI spying. To me it's an easy choice. Another way of preserving your gold is trying to sell your excess luxuries and strategics only to friends who will pay you in flat gold, and then spend that on the same turn.

If you are in the negative and some units might get disbanded, consider giving the less important ones to an allied CS close to you.

 

[CrazyG]

What era are you in?

Tall with tradition does have a gold weakness, but you shouldn't be negative. Two really good wonders that will help are Petra and Notre Dame, which gives a free Cathedral for 1 gold on all farms, which will be doubled to 2 gold during golden ages. Religious beliefs, such as Cathedrals, can help too. Build villages on roads as well. This should get you there for most of the medieval and renaissance eras.

Come industrial, I think the key to gold is the agribusiness. You absolutely need one in your capital, and ideally some other cities can get one too. If you want a cultural victory, industry is also a great choice to address tradition's weaknesses.

 

[Doormat123]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll give a few of these a shot the next time I play Tall.

What era are you in?

Tall with tradition does have a gold weakness, but you shouldn't be negative. Two really good wonders that will help are Petra and Notre Dame, which gives a free Cathedral for 1 gold on all farms, which will be doubled to 2 gold during golden ages. Religious beliefs, such as Cathedrals, can help too. Build villages on roads as well. This should get you there for most of the medieval and renaissance eras.

Come industrial, I think the key to gold is the agribusiness. You absolutely need one in your capital, and ideally some other cities can get one too. If you want a cultural victory, industry is also a great choice to address tradition's weaknesses.

I was in Information era the last time this happened. I did go Rationalism instead of industry though; maybe I'll try industry next time to see if that helps.