Leyrann's Early Game Strategy and Q&A thread

[sampsa]

What's the advantage of keeping it there rather than striking a balance?

Rounding. Say you are generating 15. Now 100%-slider generates 15, 0%-slider generates 15, but 50%-slider generates 77.

Is it worth it to build Castles for the sake of trade routes

Usually, no. Though with the -bonus they might be good in some situations, especially with PRO, especially on deity where tech stealing is a thing. On lower levels AIs tech way too slow to make stealing worthwhile.

 

[Gumbolt]

Can't remember last time I actually built a castle. Key building is granary for growth. Maybe lighthouse and library in places. Most other builds a waste unless you play late game. Sometimes a market/forge in capital for happiness. Better to build wealth/research than most buildings. Unless you are playing Spanish for fun? 5xp for seige on Citadel could be fun. Never done it yet.

As well as above 0% science allows you to build up gold to complete a tech in one go. Useful; if trying to be first to music on lib. Why spend beakers if you might lose race? More ai that already have a tech makes it cheaper for you.

Where is your play level at with Civ 4? Noble? Higher?

 

[lymond]

Huh. What's the advantage of keeping it there rather than striking a balance?

I'd add to sampsa's comment, that there are some other not readily noticeable reasons to run 0% slider, especially early game. It gets more complex to think about these things or track them, but things to note are that you are maxxing your income at a time before you generally have research multipliers in place (library). Also, you are usually expanding fast early on one way or another, so you are funding that expansion. Meanwhile, some techs you eventually tech will be teched by more AIs, and/or you will meet more AIs, which provides a bonus on techs. Rather than having to think about too much of this now, just go with the 0% or 100% option once you settle your first city (other than cap) as you will hit deficit research. Bank enough money until you have enough to fully tech it at 100% research. Later on, you will have more options for gold to keep your research slider at 100%

Also, I have another question: Is it worth it to build Castles for the sake of trade routes even though you have no reason to worry about the city coming under siege? An extra trade route sounds very appealing but they become obsolete very early with Economics, which is a tech that I find I don't normally want to delay, plus it takes 150 hammers, or 75 with Stone, which seems like quite a steep cost.

Castles are generally never worth it as they become obsolete very fast. Better to use that gold on units.

 

[coanda]

Three times you think about building castles.

1. A protective leader with access to stone. +200% production on castles makes them reasonably affordable mid-game builds in some cities, and that 1 extra trade route can be worthwhile. Still not a great build, but some cities might get them.
2. If you're trying to play an espionage economy - where you keep your science slider at 0%, but periodically push your espionage slider to 100% and just steal techs from neighbors. Making this work is complicated and requires a lot of knowledge about how espionage cost multipliers work and how to drive costs as low as possible; if you know how then it is a perfectly sound strategy in some games, but it's sort of a weird variant playing style.
3. If you're Isabella and want +5 XP siege units from her unique building.

 

[Leyrann]

Rounding. Say you are generating 15. Now 100%-slider generates 15, 0%-slider generates 15, but 50%-slider generates 77.

Is that really relevant outside of the very early game though? Obviously, if you have 15 commerce, like in this example, your effective commerce is 14, which is a ~7% loss and very relevant. But once I have 100 commerce, I'd consider 1 commerce an acceptable price for not having to keep close track of the slider, let alone when I have 500 or 1000 commerce.

Or is the rounding city-based? I assumed it was empire-wide, and I do remember seeing things that seemed to back that up, but I'll admit I haven't crunched the numbers.

Usually, no. Though with the -bonus they might be good in some situations, especially with PRO, especially on deity where tech stealing is a thing. On lower levels AIs tech way too slow to make stealing worthwhile.

I'll admit, I usually play with espionage off. The system is kinda clunky and while I can accept some suboptimal decisions from the AI that handles citizen assignment in cities in exchange for less micromanagement, the priority it puts on Spy specialists is too much for me.

(and just to clarify, I don't simply ignore the citizen assignments; usually I make cursory checks whenever a city production is complete or I want to decide which of it's tiles to improve next, and I'll play with the prioritization or even manually assign when I'm unhappy with the way it is - it's just that at least half of all cases where this happens, Spies are involved)

Can't remember last time I actually built a castle. Key building is granary for growth. Maybe lighthouse and library in places. Most other builds a waste unless you play late game. Sometimes a market/forge in capital for happiness. Better to build wealth/research than most buildings.

Interesting. I tend to go for buildings by default, but you're saying it's better to go for wealth than, say, a Bank? The production required for a Bank could become 200 gold, but if you're averaging a 30% gold rate on your commerce, and you have something like 40 commerce, which seems like a reasonable number for a mid-game city in my experience, then a Bank would generate 6 gold per turn, meaning it'd accumulate 200 gold in just 33 turns, after which it'd turn a profit.

I always kind of assumed that building wealth and research (and culture I guess but there aren't a lot of situations where that's actually relevant as far as I can tell) was a production sink for if there was nothing left to built.

Where is your play level at with Civ 4? Noble? Higher?

I play on Noble but based on how easily I outpace the AI I'd estimate I can probably go 2-3 difficulty levels higher before getting into trouble.

I might run into some issues with getting attacked the first few times I'd play in those difficulty levels because I tend to build too few units if I'm not planning on a war (habit from Civ VI, I'd wager), but I think I'd adjust to that quite quickly. I'm already adjusting a bit, even though the last time I got attacked when I wasn't expecting it (which is what prompted my adjustments) I managed to switch my entire economy to unit production and build up a sufficient army to stand against the AI in under ten turns.

Meanwhile, some techs you eventually tech will be teched by more AIs, and/or you will meet more AIs, which provides a bonus on techs.

Ah, that's something I wasn't aware of.

If I understand it correctly, techs get cheaper if civs you know have already researched the technology? In fact, I seem to remember that techs also get cheaper if you have more of the 'or' requirement techs (the ones with arrows). Does anyone know the numbers on these things (and any other tech cost modifiers that might exist) or alternatively a link to where that information can be found?

Also, I just realized I didn't quote any of the responses regarding Castles: Thanks for the information on that, I'll ignore them then, no matter how juicy +1 trade route sounds to my trade- and economy-addicted Dutch ears.

And I'm pretty sure I had a new question (apart from the cases where I was asking for clarification above), but I've forgotten it while reading the replies. I'm sure I'll remember it at some point if it was important.

 

[sampsa]

Is that really relevant outside of the very early game though? Obviously, if you have 15 commerce, like in this example, your effective commerce is 14, which is a ~7% loss and very relevant. But once I have 100 commerce, I'd consider 1 commerce an acceptable price for not having to keep close track of the slider, let alone when I have 500 or 1000 commerce.

Or is the rounding city-based? I assumed it was empire-wide, and I do remember seeing things that seemed to back that up, but I'll admit I haven't crunched the numbers.

Yes, it is most relevant early, when you can indeed lose +5% of your output. Later it's not so relevant, but the thing is that there are no real upsides to running say 50%-slider, while the downsides were pointed out by lymond. There isn't really much to keep track of. Before ending the turn, check if you should be at 0% or 100%. It becomes automatic very quickly.

I'll admit, I usually play with espionage off. The system is kinda clunky and while I can accept some suboptimal decisions from the AI that handles citizen assignment in cities in exchange for less micromanagement, the priority it puts on Spy specialists is too much for me.

The thing is that turning off screws the game up, because all is turned into . It's much better to keep on and mostly ignore it. Only direct the -points towards your future trading partner (Mansa is optimal) to see his research and that's all you need to do in most games, especially on low levels.

Turn on emphasize , so that the governor won't run specialists. Also, courthouse is far from a necessary building.

I always kind of assumed that building wealth and research (and culture I guess but there aren't a lot of situations where that's actually relevant as far as I can tell) was a production sink for if there was nothing left to built.

Most buildings are simply bad, because something else ( , , units) pays back BETTER. It's not that buildings wouldn't eventually pay back, it's that it isn't enough to be the best choice.

 

[AcaMetis]

Is that really relevant outside of the very early game though? Obviously, if you have 15 commerce, like in this example, your effective commerce is 14, which is a ~7% loss and very relevant. But once I have 100 commerce, I'd consider 1 commerce an acceptable price for not having to keep close track of the slider, let alone when I have 500 or 1000 commerce.

Or is the rounding city-based? I assumed it was empire-wide, and I do remember seeing things that seemed to back that up, but I'll admit I haven't crunched the numbers.

Rounding isn't city-based as far as I know, but later when 1 commerce is significantly less of your total you also have better tools for keeping your slider high - selling techs, selling resources, etc. - so keeping the slider at 100% is also easier.

Interesting. I tend to go for buildings by default, but you're saying it's better to go for wealth than, say, a Bank? The production required for a Bank could become 200 gold, but if you're averaging a 30% gold rate on your commerce, and you have something like 40 commerce, which seems like a reasonable number for a mid-game city in my experience, then a Bank would generate 6 gold per turn, meaning it'd accumulate 200 gold in just 33 turns, after which it'd turn a profit.

I always kind of assumed that building wealth and research (and culture I guess but there aren't a lot of situations where that's actually relevant as far as I can tell) was a production sink for if there was nothing left to built.

Wealth/Research is better than building a bank in most cases. The caveat is that buildings like market/grocer/bank only increase your city's yield, not your yield. So if you're running your slider at 100% (see previous statement ) a Bank in a city does literally nothing unless there's some form of gold producing building, like a Shrine or a Corporate HQ.

 

[coanda]

Does anyone know the numbers on these things (and any other tech cost modifiers that might exist) or alternatively a link to where that information can be found?

Very old thread on this (like, literally from a month or two after the base game came out). I believe none of the patches or expansions made major changes though, other than some tweaks to how partial values rounded off.

 

[sampsa]

I did investigate the -bonuses a bit some years ago: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hidden-research-bonuses.631078/

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah wealth/ research is good. Don't build many banks but pends where you finish game. I normally play to cuirs or rifles. No real need for banking. Guess with a shrine it holds good value.

 

[Leyrann]

The thing is that turning off screws the game up, because all is turned into . It's much better to keep on and mostly ignore it. Only direct the -points towards your future trading partner (Mansa is optimal) to see his research and that's all you need to do in most games, especially on low levels.

Turn on emphasize , so that the governor won't run specialists. Also, courthouse is far from a necessary building.

Yeah, I found that annoying as well, the culture is completely out of whack even with the doubled thresholds. If 'ignore it' is a valid strategy, I might just do that.

What's the benefit of having one specific trading partner?

Another question: In the lategame, what size is optimal for cities to cap out at? Enough population to work all tiles? A few pop above that so that they can have some specialists? Are there different strategies with their own advantages?

Speaking of, how useful are specialists in the first place? And how useful are strategies revolving around them, e.g. Representation civic, building the specialist-boosting wonders, then growing your cities to huge sizes?

Oh, and yet another question: Are some tile improvements clearly better than others, and are there configurations that are simply better or worse (e.g. farms and mines vs cottages and windmills), or does it only depend on which tiles you have available and whether you're running a specific strategy with your civics such as Caste System + State Property? And should you aim for one specific balance between food, hammers and commerce, or do you let the terrain guide what you go for?

 

[Snowygerry]

Yeah, I found that annoying as well, the culture is completely out of whack even with the doubled thresholds. If 'ignore it' is a valid strategy, I might just do that.

What's the benefit of having one specific trading partner?

I think the idea is to maximize relations with one civ and trade with that, while you can trade with others you will likely not be able to develop good rel. with all.

Mansa is known to be easy to trade techs with iirc.

 

[lymond]

What's the benefit of having one specific trading partner?

It isn't about one specific trading partner, as much as identifying the usual best techers like Mansa in your game. Focus eps passively on a leader like Mansa will let you eventually see what he is teching. This can help with tech choices so that you can set up good trades. You'll still trade with other leaders. (EDIT: Also, note that while Mansa is the best teching AI he is also the one leader that will trade just about anything with you. Ofc, you won't always have him in your game but you will start to learn what the better AI techers are as you gain more experience. Usually FIN leaders and often IMP leaders are good as well as India)

Another question: In the lategame, what size is optimal for cities to cap out at? Enough population to work all tiles? A few pop above that so that they can have some specialists? Are there different strategies with their own advantages?

Yeah, it depends a good deal on what you are trying to accomplish. Space games you will usually start growing cities at some point working tiles and specialists. More military focus games you will usually only focus growth on your core to sustain research needs, while whipping units in most other cities. Some cities like HE city can grow too as you generally won't whip that city.

Speaking of, how useful are specialists in the first place? And how useful are strategies revolving around them, e.g. Representation civic, building the specialist-boosting wonders, then growing your cities to huge sizes?

Extremely. Great People are a very important part of high level play and know what folks are best when and why. Early game you are generally gonna focus on Great Scientists while later Great Merchants have great value.

Oh, and yet another question: Are some tile improvements clearly better than others, and are there configurations that are simply better or worse (e.g. farms and mines vs cottages and windmills), or does it only depend on which tiles you have available and whether you're running a specific strategy with your civics such as Caste System + State Property? And should you aim for one specific balance between food, hammers and commerce, or do you let the terrain guide what you go for?

Early game focus is generally on food first and then grow cottages (especially in your cap usually). Late game workshops really gain in value if you get to that point. Late game hammer economy is very strong. Early game though you are usually gonna whip a lot or run specialists so food is very important (well always but yeah). Keep in mind that FOOD=PRODUCTION

 

[Fippy]

Try to avoid regular farms (without resources) until Biology.
Rivers are generally made for cottages. "Dry" cities should look at running some specialists (usually scientists early), always a good example are seafood cities.
Mines would be much much better if slavery doesn't exist, their main use is usually wonders (but even then the important source of are forests). With IMP some can be good for settlers.
Workshops are pretty bad without State Property, but with it they are really good. Windmills are weak overall.

 

[sampsa]

Speaking of, how useful are specialists in the first place? And how useful are strategies revolving around them, e.g. Representation civic, building the specialist-boosting wonders, then growing your cities to huge sizes?

For me, specialists themselves are not that great, but the that they produce are very strong. I like Mids for representation a lot, but it's mainly for the higher -cap. Rep-specialists are a nice boost of course. Other specialist-boosting wonders? Sistine I guess, but isn't worth much unless playing for a victory.

My game moved up a notch when I realized how strong the golden age is when you have several size +10 cities and access to religion, caste and pacifism. It can be easily worth ~5000, maybe more, again depends on the trades or if there is a huge city with ToA to produce a lot of from GM missions. Stuff like settling a , a shrine or rushing a wonder with GE are worth a lot less. Well, a shrine can be decent in a very long game or a big map. Also, it is possible that settling or rushing a wonder gives so much more immediate benefit that it's the best play. That requires a very early though.

GS bulbs are another very strong use of the . Philosophy is the most common choice for me - a tech that you need before the golden age and very high trade value. An academy can be nice, but it takes very long for it to pay back even 3000. So again, depends on how long game you are planning to play.

And should you aim for one specific balance between food, hammers and commerce, or do you let the terrain guide what you go for?

Keep in mind that FOOD=PRODUCTION

Indeed. A lot depends on your -cap. If it's low (say no -res at all, non-CHA leader), whipping will be very iffy and thus granaries are not worth much. So I would say the biggest guide to what improvements go for is your -situation. In a world with no -restrictions you would emphasize firstly , secondarily (=cottages) and whip for the necessary . Like Fippy noted, mines can be good for building wonders or pumping out settlers/workers before you have access to whipping+granary.

 

[Leyrann]

Try to avoid regular farms (without resources) until Biology.
Rivers are generally made for cottages. "Dry" cities should look at running some specialists (usually scientists early), always a good example are seafood cities.
Mines would be much much better if slavery doesn't exist, their main use is usually wonders (but even then the important source of are forests). With IMP some can be good for settlers.
Workshops are pretty bad without State Property, but with it they are really good. Windmills are weak overall.

So what I'm gathering from this is cottages all the way?

Regarding Slavery: Is it really strong enough to take care of the build queue by itself? Because that's the impression I get here, but I find that not using it more than once per ten turns actually limits how much I can get done with it quite a bit. Sure, sometimes you can whip 4 pop for a building or something, but e.g. a unit isn't going to cost more than 2 pop at most, which tends to mean that the city grows faster than I can whip unless I'm willing to let the unhappiness penalties stack, which seems like a bad idea to me. And at that point, doesn't that just mean that more food doesn't actually help you produce more stuff (beyond worked tiles from pop), making production better?

 

[sampsa]

So what I'm gathering from this is cottages all the way?

As a general rule, yes. Cottages are good because they don't cost you , they provide which is otherwise often scarce plus they improve to better tiles over time.

Regarding Slavery: Is it really strong enough to take care of the build queue by itself? Because that's the impression I get here, but I find that not using it more than once per ten turns actually limits how much I can get done with it quite a bit. Sure, sometimes you can whip 4 pop for a building or something, but e.g. a unit isn't going to cost more than 2 pop at most, which tends to mean that the city grows faster than I can whip unless I'm willing to let the unhappiness penalties stack, which seems like a bad idea to me. And at that point, doesn't that just mean that more food doesn't actually help you produce more stuff (beyond worked tiles from pop), making production better?

So, is the limiting factor. I don't think "whip every 10T" is great advice, I mean I just stack it if needed and then find a way to deal with stacking, be it slow-building a worker/settler or just whipping more, then giving away -resources to cool off. Note how only sharing -tiles allows such powerful tactics.

Most of my whips in the BC:s are 2-pop, but settlers are very good whips because they can be 3-popped. Again, just find ways to improve the -situation and there are no problems! Claim -resources, connect to other civs for resource trades, run representation or hereditary rule, get a religion or build building(s) that give .

 

[Fippy]

There's also the Pyramids economy (better term than specialist eco)
With Rep + Caste you can build only few cottages and still tech very well, until you transist into the eco as Lymond mentioned.
Having no cottages isn't problematic if you can reach State Property just fine.

 

[War Master in Training]

When I decided to start improving at this game I started by watching some high level deity games. I learned a few simple but very important things about the early game. Note that this is mostly targeted at those noble and below. I was about warlord level and these strategies put me at about prince level.

1. Build a worker first
In most situations, this is optimal. Arch Ghost made a good post about when to go worker first (and lots of other interesting build orders). I had always thought that because it limits growth I would wait until at least size two to build one.

2. Explore just beyond your borders first.
This is somewhat self explanatory but something I never did. Before I would send my explorer out in a random direction and make more later to finish finding out what was right next to my capital. Once I adopted this strategy I found myself finding important things near me that I really should know about (ex: strategic resources, other civs, easy to grab huts, important city locations). This simple strategy is easy to use and gives lots of small benefits.

3. Cottageable tiles
This one made the biggest difference for me. Spam cottages on grasslands and flood plains. The idea is that you can start growing the cottages early when turns are short and get towns up and running quite soon. This gave me FAR more than I had before. I prefer to leave some river for farms to spread irrigation, usually using plains rivers to do so. However, I find that when a city has no food resources placing a couple farms on grassland tiles to get a net positive tile can be helpful.

4. Don’t be afraid to use the whip.
I used to think that slavery was mostly useless and was really just an emergency unit rusher before drafting is a thing. It turns out that in the early game it is a great way to get and expand quickly. Try making a part of your micromanagement.

5. Focus your efforts on rapid expansion.
You should be pumping out workers, units, and settlers. Don’t do what I did and make a bunch of buildings that won’t give much immediate benefit. I’m still trying to break this bad habit.

6. Is there anything I missed? These were the main things I noticed.

 

[sampsa]

1. Build a worker first

2. Explore just beyond your borders first.

Yes. Lower level players tend to be very greedy in scouting, though the lower level barbs also somewhat allow more greed. On deity you just can't afford to let your starting unit wander far away and it's much more important to secure a good spot to fog bust.

3. Cottageable tiles

4. Don’t be afraid to use the whip.

Yes, especially settlers/workers are good whips even before granary. After granary they are excellent whips, if -situation allows.

5. Focus your efforts on rapid expansion.
You should be pumping out workers, units, and settlers. Don’t do what I did and make a bunch of buildings that won’t give much immediate benefit. I’m still trying to break this bad habit.

I think this is an excellent observation! IMO even many deity players build too many buildings in games that they aim to win by war.

6. Is there anything I missed? These were the main things I noticed.

Food, food, food. to the 1st ring. Also, I'd like to point out that the lower the level, the harder you can expand early, because 1)it's cheaper 2)barbs give you less trouble.