Over the last few months there have been a lot of threads wondering how one might raise their level of play, whether up to Emperor or Immortal or beyond. As someone who used to be a mediocre Immortal player this spring (maybe 33% winning percentage) to a pretty successful one now (90%+), I thought a post on utilizing the Oxford leap might be helpful.
Certainly it's important to learn a good opening, particularly if there are aggressive AIs around and you need to appropriately prepare for war and prepare a good bribe to other AIs to fight someone who is not you
. The opening game is undoubtedly key, what with planning city cites, building National College, gaining a Pantheon, et al.
But I see a lot of threads where people are unhappy if they are not winning by turn 150 or 200. That is unnecessary panic. Even with mediocre lands and or a mediocre start, or having to waste/use hammers for military rather than economy to fend off an AI, a good Industrial era can change nearly every game.
From my experience, the key gameplay mechanic to learn is the Oxford.
I used to be somewhat mercurial as to when I would use my Oxford, but now that I prepare and dedicate it to a leap forward and take Radio (thereby leaping into selecting an ideology), I struggle to think of any other half-decent purpose.
The leap is amazingly strong. If you save your Great Scientists (and personally, I save mine 95% of the time), you can do a long plan and be ready to leapfrog the AI from a poor position. Even if you're 7-10 techs behind the tech leader, or frankly even more.
Learning to Bulb into Electricity, while timing an Oxford to finish either the same turn or the next (don't mess up and finish Oxford before finishing Electricity), is absolutely crucial to combating an AI lead. I have been first to Ideology in all my recent Immortal games, and often, sometimes I'm first by 30+ turns. Think about that: 30 turns or more before the leading AI has that open.
That is immense, and further planning can really capitalize on that. I am personally a Freedom player, mostly because I love running a specialist economy. Getting the specialist growth bonus and great person +25% opener as fast as possible gives an enormous boost to one's growth, and if you save a great writer, you can quickly get the tier 2 policy of +50% longer Golden Age and half specialist unhappiness. This is a monster. In my most recent game as the Dutch, I timed a natural Golden Age to occur a few turns after gaining that policy, and then burned Great Artists one after the other... I got a 50-turn Golden Age, which on top of all the Specialist bonuses (obviously using Rationalism as well), went from 6th place in science to a clear tech lead in a matter of turns.
A long Golden age means all that extra hammer boost, gold boost, and culture boost stack into all the nice things you need to build economy, science, or upgrade military, and the Industrial era (you'll be in Modern from leaping into Radio) is the perfect time to put those economy bonuses to use. Positive Feedback Loops would be the technical term; they are key to excelling in CiV.
Also, if you're super fast to get an Ideology, you can be quick to propose it in World Congress... and often pass it if you have some CS allies or the other proposal is unpopular. And boy, is that a help. I've had games where I'm getting bombarded with Order unhappiness and have to absorb a -30. But if I get mine passed (and I nearly always go Freedom because it just suits me), I use all that extra happiness to build a few more coastal cities, which with cargo ships I can grow to be strong science/hammer monsters in 30 turns or less, depending on whether I've gone far enough down the commerce branch yet.
In the mid-game, if you see on Demographics that you're getting killed in hammers, science, and/or food, you should know where you stand and how desperately you need to plan to use the Industrial age and all the toys that come with it (Factories, Public Schools, Stock Exchanges, Hydro Plants and eventually Research Labs, Hospitals, Med Labs, et al.) to completely change your game. Making sure to Beeline through Economics up towards Electricity with a Bulb/Oxford combo ready, can alter games.
If you want to take the war to an AI, that Industrial era growth change can propel you to get to flight or Artillery asap and, again, good planning of saving up a few scientists and 1,000 gold can get a nice 8-piece Artillery rush ready to go in case you want to go annihilate a neighbor. But you want to do that after getting your economy built up so you can keep stretching your tech lead.
I really think a player wanting to raise their play should certainly focus on the opening 80 turns, but should also focus on that turn 160-220 window as well. That is where games are most often swung (at least in Immortal and below).
I thought having this topic thread might be more useful than responding in each smaller thread. Hope it helps, and maybe other good players have stories of learning to Oxford in the most powerful ways possible.
Certainly it's important to learn a good opening, particularly if there are aggressive AIs around and you need to appropriately prepare for war and prepare a good bribe to other AIs to fight someone who is not you
. The opening game is undoubtedly key, what with planning city cites, building National College, gaining a Pantheon, et al. But I see a lot of threads where people are unhappy if they are not winning by turn 150 or 200. That is unnecessary panic. Even with mediocre lands and or a mediocre start, or having to waste/use hammers for military rather than economy to fend off an AI, a good Industrial era can change nearly every game.
From my experience, the key gameplay mechanic to learn is the Oxford.
I used to be somewhat mercurial as to when I would use my Oxford, but now that I prepare and dedicate it to a leap forward and take Radio (thereby leaping into selecting an ideology), I struggle to think of any other half-decent purpose.
The leap is amazingly strong. If you save your Great Scientists (and personally, I save mine 95% of the time), you can do a long plan and be ready to leapfrog the AI from a poor position. Even if you're 7-10 techs behind the tech leader, or frankly even more.
Learning to Bulb into Electricity, while timing an Oxford to finish either the same turn or the next (don't mess up and finish Oxford before finishing Electricity), is absolutely crucial to combating an AI lead. I have been first to Ideology in all my recent Immortal games, and often, sometimes I'm first by 30+ turns. Think about that: 30 turns or more before the leading AI has that open.
That is immense, and further planning can really capitalize on that. I am personally a Freedom player, mostly because I love running a specialist economy. Getting the specialist growth bonus and great person +25% opener as fast as possible gives an enormous boost to one's growth, and if you save a great writer, you can quickly get the tier 2 policy of +50% longer Golden Age and half specialist unhappiness. This is a monster. In my most recent game as the Dutch, I timed a natural Golden Age to occur a few turns after gaining that policy, and then burned Great Artists one after the other... I got a 50-turn Golden Age, which on top of all the Specialist bonuses (obviously using Rationalism as well), went from 6th place in science to a clear tech lead in a matter of turns.
A long Golden age means all that extra hammer boost, gold boost, and culture boost stack into all the nice things you need to build economy, science, or upgrade military, and the Industrial era (you'll be in Modern from leaping into Radio) is the perfect time to put those economy bonuses to use. Positive Feedback Loops would be the technical term; they are key to excelling in CiV.
Also, if you're super fast to get an Ideology, you can be quick to propose it in World Congress... and often pass it if you have some CS allies or the other proposal is unpopular. And boy, is that a help. I've had games where I'm getting bombarded with Order unhappiness and have to absorb a -30. But if I get mine passed (and I nearly always go Freedom because it just suits me), I use all that extra happiness to build a few more coastal cities, which with cargo ships I can grow to be strong science/hammer monsters in 30 turns or less, depending on whether I've gone far enough down the commerce branch yet.
In the mid-game, if you see on Demographics that you're getting killed in hammers, science, and/or food, you should know where you stand and how desperately you need to plan to use the Industrial age and all the toys that come with it (Factories, Public Schools, Stock Exchanges, Hydro Plants and eventually Research Labs, Hospitals, Med Labs, et al.) to completely change your game. Making sure to Beeline through Economics up towards Electricity with a Bulb/Oxford combo ready, can alter games.
If you want to take the war to an AI, that Industrial era growth change can propel you to get to flight or Artillery asap and, again, good planning of saving up a few scientists and 1,000 gold can get a nice 8-piece Artillery rush ready to go in case you want to go annihilate a neighbor. But you want to do that after getting your economy built up so you can keep stretching your tech lead.
I really think a player wanting to raise their play should certainly focus on the opening 80 turns, but should also focus on that turn 160-220 window as well. That is where games are most often swung (at least in Immortal and below).
I thought having this topic thread might be more useful than responding in each smaller thread. Hope it helps, and maybe other good players have stories of learning to Oxford in the most powerful ways possible.
