How quick can you get tanks/modern armor?

[Protozoan]

Hello everyone.

First post. I'm pretty new to the Civ games. I just got Civ IV a month ago and have been hooked on it since. I discovered this forum a while back and have used it to get decent in a short amount of time. I've just moved up to prince and am winning pretty easily from reading the beginner's tips.

My question is more of a novelty thing. How quickly can you get tanks.

More importantly how can you maximize your beakers per turn? I read the quick space victory thread and people are saying they can get 10K-20K per turn?! That's bananas.

At best I can get 4k-6k per turn (but around very late game like say the end of a space race). In my most recent game as Darius (on continents) I conquered my entire continent, Cottage spammed. Had a few good production sites. Found mining inc by around 1000AD and Sid's Sushi a little before that. Spread mining inc to all my production sites and ran them on wealth so I could research at 100%. I had oxford+wallstreet in my capital and had most of the tech improvements.


I managed to get Tanks by the 1700s or so, and modern armor around 1850 (playing on marathon.)

I tried it again as Huayna Capac on continents again and conquered the entire land area. I had more production cities and spread mining inc+sid's sushi, but I could only manage around 2000 beakers on 100% research and got to tanks around the 1800s. I like playing huge maps on Marathon settings, but I've played standard and normal speeds as well.

Can anyone suggest a better tech strategy/tell me if I'm doing something wrong? I can post a screen in a sec. Does it all come down to micromanaging? If so what's the best way to micromanage? I feel like I'm at a plateau and can't generate more tech so any help is really appreciated.


Thanks!

 

[Bostock]

One way to increase your beakers/turn in the AD's is to play a higher level and play it well. Getting higher counts earlier is easier when you can trade for key economy techs earlier (or trade for military techs, enabling you to self-research the economy techs, and trading earlier is easier when everyone else researches faster.

 

[bestsss]

there is a famous game in the hall of fame launching spaceship in the BC; that's on settler difficulty.
check hall of fame for space victory and finishing date to see when it's possible.
Did you run representation w/ the sushi? One more: beakers per turn are relative to the map size, thus 2k on small (which I believe I had in single city) is not the same as 2k total on a huge map

 

[Lansky]

You had Railroads and Medicine by 1000AD and it took untill 1700AD to get Industrialism? On Marathon? Something is very wrong in there.

 

[DMOC]

A fast space race should be generating about 2,000 - 2,500 beakers per turn at the end of the game.

 

[Protozoan]

Thanks for the quick answers! So I did not run representation, I switched to Universal Sufferage and I can see already that that was a mistake. Should I switch to emancipation right away or keep the caste system and generate a GS almost every 50 or so turns?

Right so 2000-2500 beakers per turn is a good aim. Is this only for a huge map and Marathon?

By cottage spamming and having two phases of REXing (the first early phase, and then crashing the economy, and then a second when my economy is able to handle it again about 1000 years later) I managed to get 6000 in one game.

 

[Polobo]

Make sure you build labs/libraries/universities/observatories + Oxford;

Run Representation + Pacifism and settle you Great Scientists in the Oxford City; After building an academy there as well.

With Wall Street + Corporations a/o Shrine you should be able to get one or two cities to fund your empire and then build science where necessary.

Also, only have 1 unit per city to minimize maintenance costs early-mid game (and even later) which will help to limit how much gold you need to build to run 100% science.

There are a lot of things you can do to maximize science; but keep in mind that converting science into hammers is difficult and thus you are a bigger target for bullies. Favorable diplomatic situations helps here (i.e., your neighbors all love you OR you have no neighbors/rivals)

 

[jameson]

I'm not an expert by any means, but it seems to me that running free religion would be far superior for science than pacifism once you have a fairly big empire. With the whole continent in your hands, 10% extra science in every city should easily beat the occasional extra scientist in your Oxford city (Oxford-powered GSs can IIRC generate 31.5 beakers max per turn, which is peanuts if your empire as a a whole can generate 1000+ beakers).
Emancipation also seems like a no-brainer to me if you are cottage-spamming for its faster rate of cottage growth. Caste system relies on food for specialists and does nothing to help cottages (also cottages means less food means less specialists, so in general cottage-spamming and caste system are not an ideal combination).

 

[Polobo]

Forgot about Free Religion; I agree that this would be superior later (though getting GPP while running Representation+CasteSystem and farming most everything is viable and in some cases desirable)

 

[ShannonCT]

I'm not an expert by any means, but it seems to me that running free religion would be far superior for science than pacifism once you have a fairly big empire. With the whole continent in your hands, 10% extra science in every city should easily beat the occasional extra scientist in your Oxford city (Oxford-powered GSs can IIRC generate 31.5 beakers max per turn, which is peanuts if your empire as a a whole can generate 1000+ beakers).

Free Religion gives a 10% increase to your raw beakers. So it wont increase your current science output by 10% when you already have a lot of libraries, universities, academies, etc. If you're making 1000 beakers per turn, your raw beakers might only be 500. So Free Religion would increase your beakers by 50, i.e. 5% of your current beakers per turn. Keep this in mind when deciding whether to switch from Pacifism to Free Religion. Also keep in mind that Pacifism will be cheaper to run than Free Religion if you have few units.

Industrialism requires a lot of techs that Great Scientists can bulb: Electricity, Physics, Scientific Method, Astronomy, Printing Press, Education. If you stay in Pacifism/Caste, you'll get through these techs faster.

 

[jameson]

Somehow I completely forgot to take into account that FR adds only to raw beakers, so thanks for the correction !

 

[Protozoan]

Cool thanks for the responses.

Last thing. Say I have 4 really really good commerce cities, and then maybe 4-6 others that have to develop in around 500 years. I got quite a few great scientists that I built academies in all my commerce cities. So now my main 4 are getting 200-300 beakers per turn (with libraries unis and observatories.) But the not so good ones will go from 40 or so to 70-80.

Would you recommend that I bulb these ones instead of academizing them?

 

[DMOC]

Thanks for the quick answers! So I did not run representation, I switched to Universal Sufferage and I can see already that that was a mistake. Should I switch to emancipation right away or keep the caste system and generate a GS almost every 50 or so turns?

Right so 2000-2500 beakers per turn is a good aim. Is this only for a huge map and Marathon?

By cottage spamming and having two phases of REXing (the first early phase, and then crashing the economy, and then a second when my economy is able to handle it again about 1000 years later) I managed to get 6000 in one game.

I wouldn't think that it'd matter much on Marathon. I aim this for a standard/normal sized map, and would do the same thing for a huge map (although maybe for huge I'd aim for 3,000).

 

[DaveMcW]

If you have several cottage-spammed cities with academies, a golden age will boost research more than bulbing.

 

[Yamps]

If you have several cottage-spammed cities with academies, a golden age will boost research more than bulbing.

How much is a several? 5 cities with 10 towns would gain extra 50 commerce. If all cities have Academies, Libraries and Universities that's a multiplier of 2 for a total of 100 extra beakers per turn. 8 turns of GA on Normal speed only gives 800 extra beakers. Bulbing is 1500 + 3*pop_number...You'd need a lot of cottages out there to top it. I'd have to check how long is a GA on Marathon, but bulbing values scale as well. (*3)

 

[Protozoan]

Thanks again for all the pointers guys.

Few more questions. I've read that the two best corporations are Mining Inc and Sid's Sushi probably because you can get them early. Wouldn't getting Ethanol or Civilized Jewelers be better for a Tech strategy rather than Sid's Sushi? I guess by the time you get them you're complete with a good chunk of the tech tree, but I feel like I'm not using Mining Inc or Sid's Sushi as effectively. I know that it makes sense to move Mining Inc or SS to your production cities, but I've seen people on the fast space race victory say that moving them to every city helps/is the best. I know building wealth is nice in your production city, and SS and Mining Inc can help with that, but it seems pointless in your commerce cities.


Another thing. Playing as Huayna Capac on a huge Pangea map just now. I managed to wipe out a lot of my close neighbours (Suleiman, Montezuma, Quin Shi Huang, and Brennus) so now I have half the continent to expand into if I chose to do so. I got there early enough and was lucky enough to pop a few quechuas from huts when exploring so that I could overpower their single warrior or the city was empty.

Anywho should you expand by building cities along the rivers closer to your capitals, or take the cities that are far off and not raze them but suffer the big maintainance cost? I usually like to build my cities far off or on tiles that are maybe 12-13 away or taking enemy capitals early so that I can make sure I get good resources and block out the AI from expanding there, but is this form of expanding hurting me more than expanding fast with cities closer to my capital (say 6-7 tiles away?)

Is an organized leader like Darius better for a tech rush type of strategy than someone like Huayna (though getting 1-2 wonders with the latter is nice.)

 

[JBossch]

How much is a several?

Pretty sure he means more than 5. Most empires have more than this before the end of the BCs.

 

[bestsss]

JBossch, more than 5 fully devoted cottage cities pre AD?
That's some very, very good land available.

 

[Lansky]

They do not have to be developed cottage cities, though the multipliers help. Even riverside farms/mines get the commerce bonus and in a space race I find my production cities still end up with a full compliment of multipliers simply due to how fast they can go up and my personal proclivity for watermills later on. Bare minimum late game they have +50% for the lab and likely another 10% from FR.

 

[Silu]

Holy crap, 5+ fully devoted cottage cities with Academies in the BCs? With an extra for the Golden Age? That's quite nice indeed

Anyway, when would you ever consider bulbing if you already have multiple Academies? Pretty sure at that point your viable choices are GA/Academy/Settling... On the flipside, who would ever consider burning the 1-GP-GA at that point even if it was better than bulbing? Better to use it later and have it be even better.