I previously had not given much credance to the REX strategy, but I recently started trying to optimize it for my game play. I started on Emperor, and found it to be way too easy using the strategy I came up with to improve my REX strategy.
I have now been playing on Immortal and found that while I lagged behind for a while in tech I am now catching up, and about to own my own continent.
The way I have been playing is with either George Washington or Catherine. I establish my first city, and immediately start going for bronze working and a worker unless I can build a fast warrior in time to get a worker out at the same time as bronze. Once I can chop I get a settler out and get the first nearby copper resource. Make sure you get the wheel next as this will help with linking up the copper.
With the copper resource I start churing out workers, settlers and axemen. Once I have settled the nearby territory, and have a good number of workers I start churning out barracks and axemen. While this was going on you should have been exploring with what ever unit you have to explore with. I love the Russians because of their scout. You will need to target the closest civ to you.
Once I have the wheel and either fishing or agriculture, as the map dictates, I immediately go for pottery. This is the crux of the strategy I have. So you go bronze working->wheel->agriculture or fishing->pottery. This is so that all those workers can put down cottages to help finance your expansion. The workers should also improve the captured cities with cottages asap to allow you to come to atleast even at 10% research. They should be coming into the captured cities even while you are at war just make sure to guard them well. After pottery I usually get iron working or husbandry depending on my needs.
You have to keep expanding this way by capturing cities and operating in a deficit for a while. This will allow you to keep your research up to a certain extent. Once you capture/settle ~10-15 cities you should have around 15-20 workers tons of axemen and be building cottages as fast as you can. You should also have captured a number of happiness resources allowing your cities to expand. You have to make sure in this expansion to budget your loot. If you leave your research too high you will run out of money and your units will strike before you are ready. Make sure at the end of your conquest you have enough to last for ~20-30 rounds of researching. This will allow your population and towns to expand and take up the slack. Prioritize putting towns on rivers because the have a bonus to start with on the financial boost. You will find that your empire will start to sky rocket fairly quickly.
I generally go straight for commerce and courthouses at this point. I then use the forests I left for these improvements to chop rush them. This is a huge boost to your empire at this point so make sure you save enough trees for them.
Once my research starts edging into the 60% range I start building up my army again with catapults and aim for knights by the time I have a sizable number of catapults. Make sure you keep building your improvements even during war time and get banking asap to fund your armies.
All in all I find the rex strategy to work best when done in spurts. I will have a burst of expansion fueled by war followed by a building up period. You will find that the build up time will decrease as the game progresses, since well established towns you capture will pay for themselves much more readily than the ones you captured in the early part of the game. Just remember to be aggressive early and often in the higher levels, and you seem to do fairly well. You just have to make sure you don't expand beyond what you can handle though. I have gotten better at judging this point over the last few games I have played.
P.S. You need to try and have a friend on the continent until you meet the other civs. This way if they like you enough you might be able to get a gift tech even on the higher levels, and have someone to trade with. Once you have the other civ contacts though feel free to start plotting their down falls and befriend the other civs. In the later part of the game I find that my strategy differs so much from game to game depending on situation that I won't go into it. I will say though with a large city lead the computers bonuses are more than compensated for.
I hope this has been helpful, and I would appreciate any comments or suggestions to improve this.
Oh and Kyle if you are reading this remember "America needs riflemen" atleast that's according to a guy at the gun range. I wonder if he meant in the game...probably not.
I have now been playing on Immortal and found that while I lagged behind for a while in tech I am now catching up, and about to own my own continent.
The way I have been playing is with either George Washington or Catherine. I establish my first city, and immediately start going for bronze working and a worker unless I can build a fast warrior in time to get a worker out at the same time as bronze. Once I can chop I get a settler out and get the first nearby copper resource. Make sure you get the wheel next as this will help with linking up the copper.
With the copper resource I start churing out workers, settlers and axemen. Once I have settled the nearby territory, and have a good number of workers I start churning out barracks and axemen. While this was going on you should have been exploring with what ever unit you have to explore with. I love the Russians because of their scout. You will need to target the closest civ to you.
Once I have the wheel and either fishing or agriculture, as the map dictates, I immediately go for pottery. This is the crux of the strategy I have. So you go bronze working->wheel->agriculture or fishing->pottery. This is so that all those workers can put down cottages to help finance your expansion. The workers should also improve the captured cities with cottages asap to allow you to come to atleast even at 10% research. They should be coming into the captured cities even while you are at war just make sure to guard them well. After pottery I usually get iron working or husbandry depending on my needs.
You have to keep expanding this way by capturing cities and operating in a deficit for a while. This will allow you to keep your research up to a certain extent. Once you capture/settle ~10-15 cities you should have around 15-20 workers tons of axemen and be building cottages as fast as you can. You should also have captured a number of happiness resources allowing your cities to expand. You have to make sure in this expansion to budget your loot. If you leave your research too high you will run out of money and your units will strike before you are ready. Make sure at the end of your conquest you have enough to last for ~20-30 rounds of researching. This will allow your population and towns to expand and take up the slack. Prioritize putting towns on rivers because the have a bonus to start with on the financial boost. You will find that your empire will start to sky rocket fairly quickly.
I generally go straight for commerce and courthouses at this point. I then use the forests I left for these improvements to chop rush them. This is a huge boost to your empire at this point so make sure you save enough trees for them.
Once my research starts edging into the 60% range I start building up my army again with catapults and aim for knights by the time I have a sizable number of catapults. Make sure you keep building your improvements even during war time and get banking asap to fund your armies.
All in all I find the rex strategy to work best when done in spurts. I will have a burst of expansion fueled by war followed by a building up period. You will find that the build up time will decrease as the game progresses, since well established towns you capture will pay for themselves much more readily than the ones you captured in the early part of the game. Just remember to be aggressive early and often in the higher levels, and you seem to do fairly well. You just have to make sure you don't expand beyond what you can handle though. I have gotten better at judging this point over the last few games I have played.
P.S. You need to try and have a friend on the continent until you meet the other civs. This way if they like you enough you might be able to get a gift tech even on the higher levels, and have someone to trade with. Once you have the other civ contacts though feel free to start plotting their down falls and befriend the other civs. In the later part of the game I find that my strategy differs so much from game to game depending on situation that I won't go into it. I will say though with a large city lead the computers bonuses are more than compensated for.
I hope this has been helpful, and I would appreciate any comments or suggestions to improve this.
Oh and Kyle if you are reading this remember "America needs riflemen" atleast that's according to a guy at the gun range. I wonder if he meant in the game...probably not.
without some coast lines / other AIs / our axes to restrict their growth, I don't see how we can overgrow the AIs...
