Many early cities + building points = quick FF?

[Emperor_ofRome]

I've been playing a game with a friend and he always seems to nab a large majority of the founding fathers very quickly. In our game right now he has 4+ and I've been offered only 1 (reveals ruins - really useful seeing as the whole continent is already scouted ).

So I ask him his strategy and he says he builds lots of 1 pop cities early on and builds political points in each of them. AS of now I usually build buildings in all of mine, although recently I've dedicated maybe 1 city for building political points.

I've read liberty bells are also a good way to get political points, but this would seem counterproductive because it will add to the king's army in the long run.

So basically, is spamming low pop cities early and building PP the key to grabbing founding fathers really fast?


- EoR

 

[M07]

Indeed, your friend has a good strategy, but I think it is really a pity to play as he does.
That's why I gave less power for the founding fathers. For instance, -50% for the Europe trip, or -25% to reduce the price of Europe units didn't give by the founding fathers.
I thought they had too much power. If you want test my mod, you can download it here.
This mod can be used in MP too, so your friend will have more pb to win you .

 

[Emperor_ofRome]

Thanks for the reply M07

I agree with you about the founding fathers, those two in particular just seem too powerful. I really want our games to focus less on grabbing the good founding fathers for this reason.

I checked out your link and it looks like your mod would solve alot of issues in terms of gameplay and fairness. I will make sure to test it out soon.

EoR

 

[Neikius]

Quickly make army and invade his territory then. Since he is producing nothing he should respond "well" to some blitzkrieg.

 

[Elliot]

I think the reason he is doing so well is that he is building many size 1 cities. Since the base square is worked for free, you should build as many cities as you possibly can. You may even want to space them as close as possible. I did this in a recent game and it really helps to get the economy started. The only downside to ICS in this game is running out of space and possibly annoying the natives. Also, you'll need to road to your cities and have enough wagons to transport the goods. These are small requirements(besides pissing the natives off) however, and the benefits to ICS are very strong. Try it out sometime.

Since I usually build all my factories in one large coastal city, building political points instead of other buildings in your helper cities may be useful. Sure its only 1 hammer worth of political points per city, but its better than building most other things.

BTW, this is how many founding father points each activity generates:

• Exploration Points
○ 5 - Each land tile explored
○ 3 - Each water tile explored
○ 50 - Each Native Tribe Met
○ 50 - Each Native Village Encountered
○ 100 - Each Native Village Encountered First (giving you a goody)

• Religion Points
○ 250 - Each Mission Established
○ 50 - Each Church Built
○ 100 - Each Cathedral Built
○ 2 - Each Cross Produced

• Trade Points
○ 30 per 100 gold - European Trade Gold (Assuming Purchase or Sale)
○ 15 per 100 gold - Native Trade Gold (Assuming Purchase or Sale)
○ 100 - Each Dock Built
○ 200 - Each Drydock Built
○ 300 - Each Shipyard Built

• Military Points
○ 20 - Each XP Gained (could be 1 per 20 but this makes more sense)
○ 300 - Each Colony Conquered
○ 200 - Each Colony Razed (assuming mutually exclusive)
○ 50 - Each Stockade Built
○ 100 - Each Fort Built
○ 150 - Each Fortress Built
○ 100 - Each Armory Built
○ 200 - Each Magazine Built
○ 300 - Each Arsenal Built

• Political Points
○ 5 - Each Bell Produced

 

[Emperor_ofRome]

I think the reason he is doing so well is that he is building many size 1 cities. Since the base square is worked for free, you should build as many cities as you possibly can. You may even want to space them as close as possible. I did this in a recent game and it really helps to get the economy started.

The only downside to ICS in this game is running out of space and possibly annoying the natives. Also, you'll need to road to your cities and have enough wagons to transport the goods. These are small requirements(besides pissing the natives off) however, and the benefits to ICS are very strong. Try it out sometime.

Since I usually build all my factories in one large coastal city, building political points instead of other buildings in your helper cities may be useful. Sure its only 1 hammer worth of political points per city, but its better than building most other things.

I think the reason he is doing so well is that he is building many size 1 cities. Since the base square is worked for free, you should build as many cities as you possibly can. You may even want to space them as close as possible. I did this in a recent game and it really helps to get the economy started. The only downside to ICS in this game is running out of space and possibly annoying the natives. Also, you'll need to road to your cities and have enough wagons to transport the goods. These are small requirements(besides pissing the natives off) however, and the benefits to ICS are very strong. Try it out sometime.

Since I usually build all my factories in one large coastal city, building political points instead of other buildings in your helper cities may be useful. Sure its only 1 hammer worth of political points per city, but its better than building most other things.

Thanks for that. I've been a Civ 4 player for a while and the Colonization transition has been an interesting one. I do enjoy the game much more after a few weeks of playing it now.

So building lots of small cities is optimal...dedicating coastal cities to building infrastructure sounds like a good idea too.

It feels like learning that in Civ 4 having enough workers is a good thing, lol.

The only downside to ICS in this game is running out of space and possibly annoying the natives.

Sorry but what is ICS?

 

[Elliot]

Thanks for that. I've been a Civ 4 player for a while and the Colonization transition has been an interesting one. I do enjoy the game much more after a few weeks of playing it now.

So building lots of small cities is optimal...dedicating coastal cities to building infrastructure sounds like a good idea too.

It feels like learning that in Civ 4 having enough workers is a good thing, lol.

Sorry but what is ICS?

ICS stands for infinite city strategy. Basically, you concentrate on building many cities rather than developing the cities. I go for a hybrid approach. I build numerous raw material feeder cities and export everything to a coastal city. This coastal city will house factories and be my main port city. It makes the micro much easier to manage.

 

[NetGear]

Civ games usually have penalties for ICS and in this game only thing you need to fear is the natives.

I havent tried the really hard difficulties yet, but it seems like as long as you can build away from native cities, you can avoid their wrath for awhile. Your empire's shape does get really weird trying to evade other AI's city though.

 

[Mutineer]

Problem with a lot of small cities are natives. I do not think it works in a long run. I rarely see map where I can build a lot of cities with out buying or annexing land and annexing land create problems fast.

 

[Nicolas10]

Lots of little cities won't help you get PP. You only get one free hammer with each city.

Big cities with lumber mills allow Master carpenters to generate 12 each, and 3 per city. See my post on advanced gameplay for how to utilize this.

If you want early founding fathers, build your capital up before expanding much. Buy a lumberjack and Master Carpenter, build/rush a lumber mill, and then you will be pumping out points.

The main two you want to get early are Cabal (faster Europe trip) and Minuit (25% less to buy from Europe. These are crucial advantages, and far more valuable to generate the PP's to get these two then to build stockades, trading posts, etc.

After that... it depends. If you're low on food, Thomas Hooker or Diego Cielcidad gives you 3 men (Jesuits from Hooker; IServants from Diego). They can be a great boost to your economy or military.

But be ready to get points in large chunks down the road, as tax rate ffs (Adams, Paine, and Lafayette... Baltimore for crosses is less important, imho) are awesome.

Nick

 

[Eg Atma Oom]

Nicolas10 your guides are surely very good and they show how to achieve an all in all straight victory also at revolutionary. Personally I don't play revolutionary because I'm annoyed by the irrational behaviors of the AI and, as always happens at the last level of civ games, you don't play anymore the game but against the game. Having sayed that, I disagree with you about the lot-of-small-cities/few-big-cities question. If you play at patriot and want to play an expansion game for example, you can build a lot of small settlements in the beginning and, micromanaging the only citizen of every settlement (he shall go to collect wood and every 3-4 turns he shall work in the mill) you will end up with all the founding fathers you need in the beginning. Then, after a galleon (bought with the indian "offers") and the load of money coming from treasures, your strategy of getting PP through lumber mills is my favourite. I don't like too big REF's too, as you said in your guide, and normally i rush bells just before declaring independency. At that point I have my 10-12 task force of super promoted veteran dragoons (from the wars with natives) and some cannons and minutemen. That is enough to get rid of a small REF.

@Mutineer

I play the strategy of many-small-settlements with washington. I buy vet soldiers and some cannons, sometimes also before minuit, with the money coming from treasures. Having 3-4 scouts roaming around, you will have the cash for a galleon pretty early and a lot of treasures (and if you play AodII, exploring also with the treasure units, you will have a galleon in a blink). When I finish to explore the world or I'm sure I have no rival scouts around, I send back all or some of my scouts and use the horses to make dragoons. I immediately attack the natives villages around (normally 1 or 2 different tribes). I may wait a bit if I have Pocahontas on my side, but in the end I wipe out all the villages on my way. So I don't see the natives as a problem, at least at patriot level.

Eg

 

[Nicolas10]

Thanks for your comment. Your points about style of game and difficulty preferences are well taken.

In general, the idea of unlimited expansion, i.e. building several small cities with a micromanaging individual, seems oddly inefficient towards PP, though. I mean, one colonist working both lumber and points (alternating), will only yield 18 hammers in 9 turns. That's 18 Lumber in 3 turns, and then 18 hammers over 6 turns. Now, a new city will have that extra one hammer bonus, but only boots it to 27 hammers in 9 turns.

That will only earn you 81 PP. In 9 Turns.

In contrast, buying a lumberjack and master carpenter (1700 pre-Minuit, 1350 afterwards; cheaper, of course, if one pops in the immigration window) will immediately yield far more. If you have another colonist in the colony, then you immediately can get 10 hammers each turn (6+3+1), with two wood left over.

That adds up to 90 hammers in nine turns, or 270 PP. That would take 3.5 small colonies.

If you can build a lodge, then the lumberjack can develop 14-16 a turn. If you build a Lumber Mill, then you can now put 3 colonists in for double hammers.

So, with my method, you can get 3.5 times as many PP in the short run, with the option to quickly expand with building a lumber mill. In short order you can build up to 37 Hammers a turn (12+12+12=1). In other words, in one turn, you can out-produce over a dozen small colonies.

Leaving aside the question of expanding to 12+ colonies (buying or stealing land; buying guns and building stockades to keep them safe), I'd rather use 6 specialists to outproduce those 12+ colonies, and then have the remaining 6-9 colonists to either produce goods or to have a mobile army with which to attack with. And I now have a fully productive capital to build anything quickly.

Now, there are other advantages to expanading (provided you can defend your cities and don't start wars), i.e. the food, ore, cotton, etc. generated each turn by the city square. And that helps, but that's separate from the PP issue.

 

[Eg Atma Oom]

I will not be the one to discuss the brute math. But I ask you a question: in the end how many hammers/PP do you need to outstand the AI players?
Eventually is the result that counts and both strategies give you the same result. Plus, in the first 50 turns, while 1 or 2 cities start building the lumber mill, all the others continue to produce PP instead, if you have only 1 city, producing anything else means also to stop the PP production.

Besides this, as you noted, there are other several advantages: first, collecting tons of raw material and possibly trade it. In the beginning with low taxes this means not only cash but also a load of trade points (Minuit very early and an advantage on the Trade-FF line which means, later, a boost in the hammer production).

Second: you collect some raw materials that later will support the critical demands from factory-level buildings, in particular wood for the lumber factory and food to sustain cities with too many workers.

Third: expansion means control of the land and, when you have 1 or 2 european neighbors, it’s better to cut them out. This can avoid other complications in the midgame, not to mention the fact that the AI needs a load of time to move a scout with a ship. So you’ll have all the land at your disposition.

Coming back to the first question. Is the maximum efficiency what we should achieve in the game? Or is it only a benchmark we compare to the different levels (and durations) of the game to decide exactly how much of that efficiency we need? If to beat the AI I don’t need all the hammers I could actually produce with your very efficient method, I can produce less hammers and focus on other things. And, as for the question of the first poster, having many cities work very well as having only one or two and focus on them. You can adapt both strategies to your gameplay.

You know perfectly Nicolas10 that the 1-only-city strategy is the fastes and most efficient way to victory. You need less than 200 turns to win... Well I don’t know exactly what is winning C4C. Is it to win the independece war? Is it to win the independence war and score more then the other players or is it simply to score more than the other players? Or to score more in every field (military power, crops yielded etc.)?... But, despite this fact, we never play a 1-city-game...

Anyway, I find very interesting your comments and insight of the game and I will try soon your strategy.

Eg

 

[Nicolas10]

You raise some very elegant and interesting points, eg. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about different playing philosophies, joys, and other othings.

I think I'm so used to playing on higer difficulties and normal to small maps that the strategy seemed so underthought, hence my postings. Still, you obviously have given it a lot of thought and playing, so there must be some merit in your ideas for the style of game you enjoy.

I appreciate the dialogue,

Nick

 

[Malkaviel]

The way your friend plays with many small undefended cities is silly in multiplayer or even single player anything tougher than the first 3 difficulties. It's not cheap or an exploit, you're simply LETTING him do it. Raze his cities. If he cries, tell him to defend them. He will stop.