Meritocracy Great Person musings

[Mark the Bold]

How come no one mentions how powerful an early Manufactory is?




You dont actually need to build lots of cities to get benefit from Meritocracy, the left hand side of the tree is mostly useless compared to the right. Even for a small empire of 4 cities, +4 , +2 , free worker, free GE and +25% worker construction is a huge boost.



I'd rather take a free manufactory first while settling 4 cities and building monuments, then 4 free temples, and then landed elite. You never have to choose between either meritocracy or landed elite, you can easily have both.

Agreed. I'm a huge Egpyt fan so I always go Tradition -> 20% wonder builders. Crank out a couple wonders (Stonehenge, Pyramids, Great Library) while culturing Liberty. I build Monument -> Worker -> first and play meek and mild with neighboring civs. By the time I get Meritocracy and build a Manufactory on the river grassland tile (2 , 4 , 1) my four cities with monuments already built are just in time to get free burial tombs then landed elite.

Sure I don't get a NC right away, but the huge time savings of not having to build 4 burial tombs allows me to build libraries / NC quite fast. AND I have a very happy and cultured empire already. AND if I get marble near my capital, I pretty much can grab most if not all wonders with a +65% production boost with a self feeding manufactory to boot. Also, I'm now READY for war. IF you're smart, just a couple war chariots can play hell with invading armies in the opening turns. 5 movement on roads allows for a very nimble and annoying defense strategy.

Solid, solid, solid start.

 

[bhavv]

Landed Elite is more powerful on quick speed, low levels and for multiplayer(usually prince-emperor and quick settings). You can have a larger boost of food and production by going LE first. A manufactory gives +4 hammers, but 4 cities under LE can give up to +12 hammers. It's a matter of distribution. Some paths emphasise leveraging capital first(check G-Major I thread for many examples) and some other paths are better for many cities at the same time(check G-minor II thread for other examples).

AI is dumb. You can actually concentrate your power on a single city and win. Put humans in the game and a NC first and/or GE first strategy and you will be at risk, because in the long run you will not be able to resist to 20+ units in the renaissance era and you can't build such army with limited ressources. You will be outteched and outproduced as well.

RAs and trades make an early manufactory a lot more powerful.

I only play Civ games single player though, so I'm not discussing multiplayer strategies.

Boosting production in the capital is highly useful in single player games at all difficulties.

Agreed. I'm a huge Egpyt fan so I always go Tradition -> 20% wonder builders. Crank out a couple wonders (Stonehenge, Pyramids, Great Library) while culturing Liberty. I build Monument -> Worker -> first and play meek and mild with neighboring civs. By the time I get Meritocracy and build a Manufactory on the river grassland tile (2 , 4 , 1) my four cities with monuments already built are just in time to get free burial tombs then landed elite.

Solid, solid, solid start.

Meritocracy before Aristocracy would be even more useful. +20% bonus early on isnt going to get you +4 that the manufactory does. You need a base production of 20 before Aristocracy gives you the same boost.

 

[mchl]

landed elite is the best for early game on difficult levels, it saves the maintenance of a granary until later and allows a new city to be formed working an entirely production hill or mine or something and still grow. A city may be making 4-5 production out of the box with 1 pop size and still grow with landed elite. I use landed elite in the place of a granary, when my production oriented population stalls then I make granary. Level 7 and esp 8 is impossible to win with a lot of maintenance hogging buildings early. Then I get moncarchy for the 2-3 extra happiness and gold.

Meritocracy for great engineer and manufactory. It takes a while unless playing with russia before theres 5 production tiles. Usually this can hold the civ over till the medieval era and theocracy is reached for more happiness, the trebuchet and higher offense weapons make that a good time for warring

 

[mchl]

Meritocracy before Aristocracy would be even more useful. +20% bonus early on isnt going to get you +4 that the manufactory does. You need a base production of 20 before Aristocracy gives you the same boost.

x2 aristocracy is a wasted social policy

 

[mchl]

Agreed. I'm a huge Egpyt fan so I always go Tradition -> 20% wonder builders. Crank out a couple wonders (Stonehenge, Pyramids, Great Library) while culturing Liberty. I build Monument -> Worker -> first and play meek and mild with neighboring civs. By the time I get Meritocracy and build a Manufactory on the river grassland tile (2 , 4 , 1) my four cities with monuments already built are just in time to get free burial tombs then landed elite.

Sure I don't get a NC right away, but the huge time savings of not having to build 4 burial tombs allows me to build libraries / NC quite fast. AND I have a very happy and cultured empire already. AND if I get marble near my capital, I pretty much can grab most if not all wonders with a +65% production boost with a self feeding manufactory to boot. Also, I'm now READY for war. IF you're smart, just a couple war chariots can play hell with invading armies in the opening turns. 5 movement on roads allows for a very nimble and annoying defense strategy.

Solid, solid, solid start.

This is a good strategy with egypt I like the monument build first, my only delimma is on harder levels there needs to be 4-5 warriors or early ground units to keep the opposing AI from going hostile quickly. Monument building time is bad, early maintenance hogs and building time. A lot of wonders means less time for building early ground units, worker, settler, and libraries and production buildings. The AI always lets the human player get stongehenge if started somewhat early. On top of the fact that culture and SP's become less productive as the game goes on (because gold and happiness are found from more luxuries and cities in conquests) unless wanting a culture victory, egypt will become less effective as the game goes on. Even on 7,8 no one builds pyramids early two wonders can be had without wasting those bonuses. Production, military bonuses are always highly effective for the duration of the game (russia, china, etc)

Whenever maintenance free buildings may be constructed vs a wonder for science, always pick the maintenance free building. Production for science is not the best strategy till the late game. Making trades for gold will give research agreements and thats science, 200-300 gold from a quick lux trade, or open borders to friendly nations for 50 gold in return = 20 turns building great library.

 

[Mark the Bold]

Well Deity strategies change everything. I never play Deity. Its too tedious. Emperor is the right difficulty for me. I also use a mod to remove Research Agreements. I think they are a broken game mechanism; Apollo program in the 1800's? C',mon thats just silly.

You know, I've tried all the other supposedly elite civs but I always like Egpyt. Its UA is useful all game and its UB is phenomenal with Traditional so long as you wait a bit to get monuments.

Then again, I'm not a warmonger unless on multiplayer. Killing all the other civs in the game ASAP is not CIV in my opinion, its Starcraft.

I also have a wonder fetish. And with Egpyt, I can get the triumvirate uber-awesome wonders of Chechen Iza, Angor Wat and Sistine Chapel usually every time. Once I get my culture rolling, warmongers like Mongolia & Persia fall like water before my cultural onslaught.

 

[Mark the Bold]

This is a good strategy with egypt I like the monument build first, my only delimma is on harder levels there needs to be 4-5 warriors or early ground units to keep the opposing AI from going hostile quickly. .

I'm usually pretty good at defense with Egpyt. The chariot is a great HIGHLY mobile artillery in the ancient era and you dont need horses to get it.

Also, let it be known, I am very weak in the beginning game but once I get to Sistine Chapel my culture explodes with all the Wonders I've cranked out.

I'm sure you can all beat me in war in multiplayer, but Wonders REALLY help your score in the game, and I'll make you pay a dear price for any invasion with Hijemi, chariots and pikemen. A five attack per turn city defense is quite ferocious with Hijemi....

 

[Mark the Bold]

Also, maybe I'm just not understanding how you guys beat the system, but building lots of warriors and spamming cities on difficulties 5/6 sounds like a recipe for bankrupt misery states. AND you're telling everybody to sell all luxuries.

Hell with burial tombs and piety I'm always borderline with my happiness for most of the early game. So power to you with that strategy, but I find happiness your number one enemy on the higher difficulties.

 

[slobberinbear]

Also, maybe I'm just not understanding how you guys beat the system, but building lots of warriors and spamming cities on difficulties 5/6 sounds like a recipe for bankrupt misery states. AND you're telling everybody to sell all luxuries.

Hell with burial tombs and piety I'm always borderline with my happiness for most of the early game. So power to you with that strategy, but I find happiness your number one enemy on the higher difficulties.

I hear you. There are two general strategies that appear to be followed early game, which are capital-focused (usually with a National College early) and rapid expansion. The early single-city strategies allow you to deal nearly all of your luxuries; the REX strategies only allow selling your surplus. The REXing requires more units to deal with irritated AIs that don't like your rampant land-grabs.

 

[iggymnrr]

Also, maybe I'm just not understanding how you guys beat the system, but building lots of warriors and spamming cities on difficulties 5/6 sounds like a recipe for bankrupt misery states. AND you're telling everybody to sell all luxuries.

These ideas also work on the lower levels. AIs on any level are piggy banks waiting to be cracked open.