How to make the most of a heavy gold start

[Peteyboy]

Hi,

Rather than my usual long topics - I have attached the same game - 1 on turn 1, one on turn 130 - Both using BAT mod - Immortal, Pangaea, Large (9 Players)

As you would see from either game, my 1st city (and an easy expansion to a decent 2nd city) are both heavy on gold (floodplains & gold mines) but relatively modest on production.

I was interested to know how people would play the game - either from turn 130 (I went on, doing reasonably, researching liberalism first, but by turn 250 the AI's advantages overwhelmed me.) Perhaps more importantly, getting into a strong position - I just didn't get enough good cities going.

Thanks for any help that can be offered.

 

[MegaLurker]

A popular way to leverage gold starts is to use that fast early research to Oracle something extra nice (currency is possible, metal casting is also nice). If you didn't end up with enough cities for peaceful expansion gold starts make the Horse Archer rush almost too effective on Immortal if you have horses, or elepults (or just cats+whatever) can be done early enough to take down multiple AIs before they get longbows. To this end construction is a possible Oracle target.

Waiting for Lib to break out isn't really using the strong early advantage much.

 

[cseanny]

Pretty much the 1st time I am in 100% agreement with Megalurker. But yes, exactly what he said.....quite perfect. I'm off today so I'm gonna look take a peak at the 4000 BC save and maybe play.......

 

[MegaLurker]

Some things are too obvious to disagree on

If you have high early commerce and nearby horses you can really, really abuse the AI on Immortal. Elepults are a distant second for effectiveness just because of how much slower everything is.

 

[Peteyboy]

Heh, seems fairly unanimous in the way to go, I do find even without heavy gold starts, that you can get slightly ahead of most AI (only because they hugely over expand early doors) but I find a combination of 2 aspects stop me dominating like I do vs Emperor, the sheer cost of maintenance to have enough cities to pump out the units - and the ability to pump out enough units - the average city (heavy gold start) could produce a HA (60 Hammer on Large map) in 7-8 turns, even with whipping only 2-3 cities can get the amount. Also the AI builds an insane number.

In a heavy food & hammer start I just couldn't outweigh my 2 neighbours - Alexander after 80 turns had 8 cities, and a ridiculous force (0.4 to me) and Sitting Bull, who with Protective archers + axe/spear, isn't going to fall quickly, I went for Elephut (being a long way ahead on SB) but with only 3 cities, I can only whip so much. I just cant afford more then 3-4 cities without being smoked on maintenance (i.e in 1 game Augustus was able to research techs like Nationalism in 3 turns with his 12 cities (no war involved))

 

[cseanny]

If you don't have horsies or phants but a little bit of land then it's fine to expand hard and fast. You'll still see some people go for some funky Oracle bulbs like Machinery but imo that's rather unimpressive w/out a crazy UU like Cho's.

What's the point of getting Machinery in 1000 BC or Engineering in 500BC if you don't have a strong empire to leverage the tech? No granaries yet? No barracks or forges. No nothing. I'd much rather expand to 7-8 cities quite early and by the time you reach the same tech you'll actually be able to leverage it into more troops.

 

[ZeekLTK]

Yeah, that is one of the biggest things that hurts me sometimes. I get too far ahead in tech and my production can't keep up.

The better the units you unlock, the more hammers it takes to build them. If you get too far ahead, it can take way too long to produce units and it actually hurts you because while you could have been cranking out archers every few turns, you are waiting and waiting for longbows to be built.

 

[MegaLurker]

Heh, seems fairly unanimous in the way to go, I do find even without heavy gold starts, that you can get slightly ahead of most AI (only because they hugely over expand early doors) but I find a combination of 2 aspects stop me dominating like I do vs Emperor, the sheer cost of maintenance to have enough cities to pump out the units - and the ability to pump out enough units - the average city (heavy gold start) could produce a HA (60 Hammer on Large map) in 7-8 turns, even with whipping only 2-3 cities can get the amount. Also the AI builds an insane number.

In a heavy food & hammer start I just couldn't outweigh my 2 neighbours - Alexander after 80 turns had 8 cities, and a ridiculous force (0.4 to me) and Sitting Bull, who with Protective archers + axe/spear, isn't going to fall quickly, I went for Elephut (being a long way ahead on SB) but with only 3 cities, I can only whip so much. I just cant afford more then 3-4 cities without being smoked on maintenance (i.e in 1 game Augustus was able to research techs like Nationalism in 3 turns with his 12 cities (no war involved))

An elepult war is really hammer intensive and costs a lote more in unit maintenance compared to Horse Archers. You generally face more and better units and have to spend so many more turns paying for your stack in enemy land. It's the beauty of the HA rush, done properly you should face almost entirely archers or chariots, and can take a city every 3-4 turns on average. When you're finished you aren't left with an excessive number of units to support and it was to ofast for any AIs to have left you in the dust technologically.

Good tactics are what separate an okay HA rush from an excellent one. Elepults are just straightforward, you move your stack along the best terrain possible to city after city, the only strategic decisions you really make are siege:troop ratio and how much to bombard. HAs are all about luring enemy units out of cities, scouting, cutting roads, pillaging metal if the target has any right at the beginning, positioning your stack(s) to do the most damage on the first 2 turns of the war, it makes a huge difference.

Then an excellent HA rush becomes so good it almost breaks the game if you get situations where you can get Alphabet or better for peace, get multiple soft neighbours (non protective, no source or single source of metal, low peace unit probability).