Is it possible to do really well running a small empire?

[MilesBeyond]

FIN-diminished use in small empires, but still good
ORG-same
CHA- I don't suppose you'll be warmongering much.
AGG & PRO- same, and they're not so great anyways
EXP- well you won't be expanding a ton... but, still useful, you'll likely be settling most of your cities, no?
IND- I would imagine this would be pretty good in a small empire game, especially a culture game.
PHI-what they said
disagreements? additions?

Basically, yeah. PHI is best, IND is really good as well, but as there are no PHI/IND leaders I would sacrifice IND every time. I do, however, think you've under-rated EXP and especially CHA. With small empires, you need big cities, and CHA means that's an extra two population you'll have over your opponents (eventually three should you reach Broadcast Towers, which if you're going for Culture you likely won't). This is a very good thing. XP discounts aren't significant.

EXP is mostly nice for all that extra health rolling in. You get your flat bonus yield, plus bonuses from a Granary quicker, same thing with a Harbour, when applicable. Basically, with small empires, GP farms are essential, and GP farms usually means lots and lots of flood plains, if you're lucky. And flood plains means lots and lots of disease, which will inhibit your growth significantly. EXP counteracts that.

Even if that's not the case, extra health is always nice to have. Especially post-industrialism.

 

[calibur]

Those two traits I'm rather unfamiliar with, that will have to be rectified. I didn't even really remember what they did.

 

[calibur]

Shame on me. Horrid. I missed three, mixed up exp with imp, and forgot the main benefit of cha

 

[babar]

Barring OCC, I would say 6 is the minimum you need for space (playing at your appropriate difficulty level), because of NW requirements. Although, I think I only ever won one immortal space game with an average to small empire, and corps were the key there.

If you get the right land, 3 cities is quite easy for culture. I won an Immortal 3 city culture game by 1660 once, which was my second fastest at the time. I started wondering if it was potentially better than 6 or 9 cities, but... it's not.

If you want to break out with cavalry/cuirassiers after liberalism, I personally struggle with fewer than 4 cities, although it should be possible with two. 5-7 cities is pretty standard for me.

Generally, I find small empires tech faster than large empires for a surprisingly long time. The difficulty comes when you need to convert your tech lead into something, and you lack the production.

 

[babar]

CHA means that's an extra two population you'll have over your opponents (eventually three should you reach Broadcast Towers, which if you're going for Culture you likely won't).

Monuments should be obsolete by the time you get broadcast towers though.

I agree that CHA is good if you are going to fight at some point, and not terrible otherwise. The EXP bonus to health isn't usually significant. It's probably only worth a fraction of the CHA bonus.

If you want to build a lot of wonders, IND is better than PHI. Probably even more so if you abuse fail gold. National Epic, Parthenon and Pacifism take a lot of the shine off PHI too, and those are easier to make time for with a small empire.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Monuments should be obsolete by the time you get broadcast towers though.

I agree that CHA is good if you are going to fight at some point, and not terrible otherwise. The EXP bonus to health isn't usually significant. It's probably only worth a fraction of the CHA bonus.

If you want to build a lot of wonders, IND is better than PHI. Probably even more so if you abuse fail gold. National Epic, Parthenon and Pacifism take a lot of the shine off PHI too, and those are easier to make time for with a small empire.

Some good points, especially about the Monuments being obsolete (DUHDOY)


To me, the real advantage of PHI is being able to get early GP faster. A PHI leader can easily pop out a couple Great Scientists in the time it would take another leader to build the Parthenon and the National Epic. And because Great People, like most other things in this game, have a snowballing effect, I feel the benefit of PHI is much greater than the mathematics might indicate.

To be honest, I would rather take PHI and hope for Marble and/or Stone (and one of them is usually pretty likely) than take IND and plan on NE and Pacifism.

Unless I'm doing cultural conquest. Then IND all the way, baby.

 

[babar]

True, PHI gets GPs before those things come into play, but IND gets the Pyramids out of the way/Rep faster, which is a bigger early advantage. The advantage of getting all the W and N Wonders on line quicker (if you are going to build at least a few of them) gives IND a head start it actually takes PHI a while to catch up on. At least in my experience.