Key Early Steps for REX

[Divi Filus]

REX: Rapid Early Expansion (for non CivIIIers) was a early and very effective strategy for getting a leg up. In Civ4 its back with the forest chop shield bonus.... The key question is..

"How do you get your empire's income going to maintain your quick expansion rate"

I am usually down to 50% science with 8 cities, and its slow going; does anyone have good ideas for fast movement through the tech tree... I have been emphazing alphabet after Bronze Working, but this may be delaying me... Would going for monarchy/ org religion make more sense?... Obviously Code of Laws is important, too.

Help appreciated.

 

[Harv72b]

The key is, in Civ4 you can't really expand too quickly in the early game, because doing so will wreck your economy (as you're finding out). Some key things you can do to get that economy going are:

-Connect your cities via a trade network. Rivers, coastline (with proper tech) and roads start your cities trading with each other, which generates added income for your empire.

-Found and spread a religion, and build your shrine with the first Great Prophet you get. This nets you an additional +1g per city.

-Build courthouses. Knocking 50% off the maintenence costs in each city provides a HUGE boost for your income level, especially once you've expanded to 6-8 cities +.

-Settle near rivers/luxury resources. This will again boost your economy as your workers toil on these rich tiles, although you have to be careful to balance the added income (and research) with enough production to keep your defenses up & allow for building libraries & universities.

-Settle your subsequent great prophets as "super specialists" in your cities. Each one provides a nice bonus in research and gold.

I don't know that there's a "perfect" path through the tech tree, or at least if there is, I haven't found it yet. Making a beeline for writing/education would seem like it would help, but those libraries & universities cost money, which forces you to lower your overall research level. I find that a more balanced approach tends to work well, at least once you've got that first religion & the techs to improve your resource tiles.

 

[Padmewan]

Going for organized religion would just up your maintenance costs even more. But...

Is the REX strategy one in which the much-maligned Organized trait actually be a big boost?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Quite possibly a focus on cottages after the forests have been chopped. The organized trait should help.

 

[yoshi74]

Question: Is 50% research with 8 cities much worse than 100% with four?

My Answer: Maybe slightly worse at the moment, but when you improve your economy its worth. Slow expansion is only better when you have no one else near who can grab the good land before you. Since war is expensive and often not that rewardful, grabbing a lot of land quite fast isn't a bad thing imo.

 

[Astax]

Harv72b don't knock the man's walker while he's using it. He's obviously an old timer living in the past who has a problem with not havign a win always strategy. Leave him at his 50% science and watch my Cavalary thrash his longbowmen.

 

[Divi Filus]

Astax - actually I have yet to lose (on Noble) - and, yes I am an "oldtimer" played Civ1 on DOS! - but I want to improve my early game efficiency before moving up. My civ is entering this expansion "dark age" and does pop back out on the otherside quite nicely (after a couple hundred years). I want to power through this faster - Just wondering if I am missing any early key techs/steps than may help..

 

[weimingshi]

After you research writing, make a beeline to the tech that let you build oracle ( I think its monotheism, anyway u can check) The reason is alphabete is too damn expensive to research early game, much better off get alphabet from the free tech bonus for building oracle, thats how I jumped to top on emperor difficulty.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I never get the Oracle... I always get screwed for Marble or Stone ...

 

[weimingshi]

well, i have to mention, my leader is qin, industrious/financial. And yes i had the marble when I got to oracle. If you are not industrious or don't have marble, its hella hard to get it. Anyways, this is the only shortcut I found in early tech race.

Wait, come to think of it, even if u dont have marble or industrious, its still doable, most the hammers I got from wood chopping anyways, i got 3 worker chopping at same time.

 

[anton_z1]

Build cottages as soons as you can. I was playing with Quin and Had 90% of science almost all the game. (Except in the end when i needed gold to abusively produce tanks ). Also a good idea with quin is to build coastal. Being financial, you get 3 Gold per water tile. Add a lighthouse and you get your money beast !!!!!!!. By the way i play prince.

 

[weimingshi]

Frankly I don't know why alot people thinks you need build cottages early. I think build cottage early will do more harm then good. Remember you need a citizen to work those cottages for it to grow, you can't just build it leave it there without working it. In early games, your population is limited, you can't work every tile, cottages and hamelets gives ****ty bonuses, villages and towns only becomes good when you have universal suffrage and printing press, before that they sucks. If you work your cottage early, you will have to give up on mines and farms in early game, which will slow down your city growth and production early on. Maybe at lower level difficulty this don't seem to be much a problem. But at emeperor level, if I choose to develop cottages early, I will be effectively out of the race early in the game. I only start building loads of cottages at late middle age and early industrial age and with emancipation civic, before you even notice those cottages already turned into towns.

 

[Harv72b]

After you research writing, make a beeline to the tech that let you build oracle ( I think its monotheism, anyway u can check) The reason is alphabete is too damn expensive to research early game, much better off get alphabet from the free tech bonus for building oracle, thats how I jumped to top on emperor difficulty.

I generally try to get metal casting with the free tech (forge/colossus are big in the early mid-game). When I manage to get The Oracle, that is--I've missed on like the last 4 games.

 

[anton_z1]

. In early games, your population is limited, you can't work every tile, cottages and hamelets gives ****ty bonuses, villages and towns only becomes good when you have universal suffrage and printing press, before that they sucks. If you work your cottage early, you will have to give up on mines and farms in early game, which will slow down your city growth and production early on. .

All depends on where your city is located. At the beginning of the game you dont have this much buildings to produce anyway thus you dont really need mines.(and if you need to build Chop Chop Chop ). High pop is not very useful if you do not have hapiness and health to support it with. finally to get farms you need fresh water. Also if you are not financial you will have hell to get the gold required to research tech !!!!. Towns + markets + banks = Hell lots of gold.

A good thing would be to build several farms in the beginning to boost your pop, then raze the farms and put hamlets instead.

 

[Heroes]

After you research writing, make a beeline to the tech that let you build oracle ( I think its monotheism, anyway u can check) The reason is alphabete is too damn expensive to research early game, much better off get alphabet from the free tech bonus for building oracle, thats how I jumped to top on emperor difficulty.

You build oracle at emp? In my monarch game, I researched priesthood and was thinking about chopping forest to help oracle, then ... Egypt built oracle! Good, at least I saved some hammers to try ...

 

[damxam]

-Cottages rather than farms.
-Beeline for courthouses.
-Free market comes a little late, but it's good if you have many cities.
-Get as many goody huts as you can, it can mean you remain in the black for an extra twenty turns or so.
-Be nice to the AI. Trying to sufficiently garrison a lot of cities when you don't have the money to maintain your cities is bad. Having your cottages plundered is also bad.

I don't feel rapid expansion does me any direct good. Playing on a large map, I end up doing better staying with a reasonable number of cities, building them up, expanding, rinse and repeat. It might just be my playing style though. Also, on smaller maps (which I usually play) I use a rapid expansion strategy just so I can grab a lot of land. I hate nothing worse than building up my cities nice and big to find out I've been completely enclosed by the AI with precious resources outside my borders. And towards the end of the game, having a small number of cities does have a negative impact unless you're going for a culture victor.

 

[khumak]

I've found that 6 cities is usually a good place to stop at early in the game especially if you like to build pyramids. That allows you to switch to Representation for a boost of 3 happiness per city and 3 extra beakers per specialist. Makes those 6 starting cities into real powerhouses.

 

[Strobe]

1. Configure some of your cities as commerce centres. Coastal cities are good for this, gold resource, or high food city you can afford to build lots of cottages on. Get commerce boosting buildings in these cities and merchant specialists if possible. Also if building commerce wonders then put them in one of these cities.

2. Use financial leader trait.
I often play as financial and go for Colossus and Great Lighthouse wonders(remembering these off top of my head) which both boost cities on coast financially.

3. If I get into early war by choice, neccessity (resource) or the AI takes a dislike to me then I try and build a great merchant while at war. I know my research is going to be screwed, so after the war I send the GM out and collect some gold via his special function, normally enough to leave my science spending high. This works better on land based maps where you can send GM a long way and collect at least 1300 gold easily in a few turns. This tides you over while you build the economy back up.

4. Chop rush where it makes sense.
I find this to be so pwerful that I include it in all my strategy. If I am trying to raise more money then I will chop forest to get wonders and buildings quickly that relate to commerce.

Note this mostly applies to the early game. Later on it is not so difficult to keep things under control, it's what you do early that sets your path.

 

[ToadFaerie]

Over at Apolyton, they're saying ICS is gone, but REX is alive and well. But they're using REX to get just a second city only, or some case up to 4 or 5 cities. After that the strategy is to develop those cities in the more usual manner.

Whether REX'ing is good or not depends entirely on the specific map one is given. It can often be better to make a worker first thing in the capital, beeline for bronze working, and then forest-chop-rush a settler. While the settler is being made, one should get a tech that the worker can use right away. That's how one can have 2 cities, with one or two improved tiles by 2920 or so. That's 4 worked tiles, and 1 or 2 improved while everyone else is just now thinking about making a worker from their size 3 city.

It is a higher risk tactic: other human players or barbarians can ruin you day. But if the risk doesn't materialize, the payoff can be huge. This is especially true with a financial civ who happens to have some floodplains and researched pottery quick.

 

[Gato Loco]

Your expansion should go in bursts. First REX (or axe/sword rush), checking upkeep before and after each new city, until the most recently founded (or captured) city starts upping total city upkeep by more than you're comfortable with. Then settle in and build up what you have until you have positive cash flow and courthouses everywhere. Then you can start strategically placing more cties in spaces where they're worth the added cost. The trick is to not let your expansion outstrip courthouse building once you hit the OCN (optimal city number). Also remember that with the devaluing of most terrain types, some tiles just arent worth claiming until you can build the better improvements later in the tech tree. In particualr, you probably want to leave low-food hilly areas alone until you get windmills, and certain expanses of grasslands will have serious production problems before guilds. Also, the new restrictions on farms make some areas just plain uninhabitable before civil service. If a city won't be able to grow beyond 3-4 pop, don't build it.

The big change is that in Civ3 you could build a settler pump and found an arbitrarily large number of cities without real consequnses, so city placement tended to be based around utilizing every tile, good or bad. In civ4, it'll be a good while before you can afford many more than 8-10 cities, so you have to ration your cities carefully in most situations, preferably using early cultural expansion to grab as much territory as possible and filling in the less-optimal blanks later when you can afford to..