National College by turn 80 or 90

[Plumfairy]

I've seen many people mention that getting the NC by turn 80 or 90 is a fairly standard progress benchmark. Y'all are talking about starting it by turn 80 or 90, right? Because completing it by 80 or 90 doesn't seem possible. If you keep the # of your cities low, then you can't research up to philosophy fast enough. And if you go ahead & found 3 or 4 cities, then national wonders simply take too long to construct even if you manage to build/buy libraries in all your cities.

Hell, even if we're talking about starting it by turn 80, I often have to make sacrifices to accomplish that that I don't care for: my empire is sometimes left too weak militarily & I haven't grabbed the city spots that I really wanted and/or my infrastructure isn't what I'd like it to be. I often delay starting building it until turn 100 or so in order to get my empire in shape. Research doesn't do you any good if you don't have the hammers/gold to build your newly researched stuff.

Oh... and because difficulty level matters for any of these types of discussions, I should say I always play on Immortal.

 

[Deau]

It's possible to complete by T80.

You simply need to get beakers from trade routes instead of satellite cities growth. It's obviously easier on deity since often the 2nd settler from AIs will be within 10 tiles of cap saving you from needing to wait on 2nd city to get trade route.

Most people don't build units beyond the 2-3 scouts and initial warriors unless there's a clear aggressive neighbor and he's unbribeable (no other neighbors close to him).

 

[Buccaneer]

Two thoughts: it is pretty easily done (on Immortal) between turn 80-90; and it doesn't have to be done early - it can be easily delayed by circumstances. Here's how using my last science game, having a military, religion, and two trade routes:

Pottery
Mining (had salt)
Animal Husbandry
Archery
Masonry (had marble)
Writing
Calendar
Trapping
Sailing
Philosophy (turn 75)

Two Cities - capital at size 9-10, other at 5 (didn't settle that until turn 58)

Mix Tradition/Liberty (apparently) but Tradition done before turn 100

Capital build: Second city:
scout
stele (playing as Ethiopia)
scout
worker
archer
granary
archer
settler
library
caravan
cargo ship granary
shrine buy library (had 800 gold by then)
completed NC (turn 84)

Pantheon was Fertility Rites and religion (turn 81)

I'm sure the optimizers can get it done much sooner (whatever) but just wanted to show that you can have it done in 80-90 range and have a decent military (had four Archers including one from Military CS), two trade routes and a religion too.

 

[CultureManiac]

I play lots of Immortal as well, and having NC by turn 90 is definitely possible. You need to beeline the techs, often have expansion cities build libraries before anything else, sometimes buy a library in a new city ... so you need gold for that. Hook up your resources and sell them ASAP, steal workers to do so if that's your style, and yes, you may have to forgo a few other things in your empire first, but the boost in tech is worth it in the long run.

 

[Plumfairy]

Most people don't build units beyond the 2-3 scouts and initial warriors unless there's a clear aggressive neighbor and he's unbribeable (no other neighbors close to him).

What? How? The barbarians alone overwhelm me if I don't have at least 2 archers running around putting down barbarian insurrections. (I'm more comfortable with 3, though.) And even disregarding the barbarians, one AI or another often declares war on me even with my 2 archers. (plus my warrior, plus my 2 scouts... not that they matter for war purposes) And I usually find that when war is declared, I need to increase my archer/CB count to 4 to survive, so I gotta divert yet more production/gold to creating those dudes.

 

[Soffacet]

What? How? The barbarians alone overwhelm me if I don't have at least 2 archers running around putting down barbarian insurrections. (I'm more comfortable with 3, though.) And even disregarding the barbarians, one AI or another often declares war on me even with my 2 archers. (plus my warrior, plus my 2 scouts... not that they matter for war purposes) And I usually find that when war is declared, I need to increase my archer/CB count to 4 to survive, so I gotta divert yet more production/gold to creating those dudes.

Define "overwhelm." Afaik it's pretty much impossible to be overrun in the vicinity of your cities, which can kill them in ~4 turns. At worst you just need to run your worker into your city for a few turns until the intruder is dead.

 

[joshua43214]

What? How? The barbarians alone overwhelm me if I don't have at least 2 archers running around putting down barbarian insurrections. (I'm more comfortable with 3, though.) And even disregarding the barbarians, one AI or another often declares war on me even with my 2 archers. (plus my warrior, plus my 2 scouts... not that they matter for war purposes) And I usually find that when war is declared, I need to increase my archer/CB count to 4 to survive, so I gotta divert yet more production/gold to creating those dudes.

I play nothing but Immortal 'cause I hate Deity. I seldom finish the NC after T87, I almost never get an early DoW. I am lucky if I can squeeze out 2 archers in my early build - I usually buy one, and bring my warrior home ~T30.

You are probably getting too greedy with your settling. If you must take the "choice" spots even if it means forward settling the AI, then you just have to live with early DoW's, late science games, and spending all your early gpt on units...

 

[Cromagnus]

National College is harder to achieve by t80 on Emperor or below. Trade Routes make it *easy* on Deity. One of the reasons I don't like Deity... you start with a tech deficit but immediately have more beakers/turn. Not well thought out on their part.

However, NC completed by t80 is easy on every difficulty level. Either a) stay one or two cities until it's built, or b) stay three cities and build library *first* in the third city, or d) four cities and build first in the third, and *rush-buy* in the 4th. You can get NC early than t80 if you plant your cities on hills, chop forest, steal workers, etc. etc.

 

[Johan^^]

It is possible and unless you face aggressive neighborgs you should complete it somewhere from turn 70-85. If you have to rush CB first to survive, its more like 85-100 that NC should be finished. If you search abit on the forum, you can find NC finished as fast as turn 60-65 with 4 cities....

 

[Tabarnak]

Fastest NC you can build is when you start with 2 cities, grow them a lot starting with early granaries and food caravans. Then you can hope for a low 70s NC. The advantage is that you gonna have 2 strong cities to pump more workers/settlers and pushing a 2nd phase of expansion before the AI settle too close and finish the Oracle asap(before 90).

 

[Acken]

The only hard part is to get those libraries in time. Philosophy is easy to get early as long as you don't try to get too much unecessary techs.

So fastest is usually only 2 cities but I usually prefer 3 fast cities to be sure the AI won't settle the 2 best locations. It usually result in a 75 to 85 NC depending on how good the spots are and I quickly add 1 or 2 settlers after that to grab the remaining good spots.

I also find 3 cities to be the perfect spot to make sure your happiness can catch up by giving your workers time to hook up luxuries. Quick 4 or 5 cities can have happiness problems so I delay that for after the NC (I build/buy the settlers during the NC, hook up luxuries to make sure that as soon as the NC is done I settle down 1 or 2 cities and have the happiness to support it.

Don't hesitate to chop forests, work hills for some time, send food caravans, and rush buy library if everything else fails in order to make sure you have those libraries up when philosophy is finished.

 

[lindsay40k]

If you want it really fast, you can always get philosophy from great library and build NC before first settler. Doesn't work on higher difficulties, and leaves expansion right on the back burner. Good with Babylon, though.

 

[Plumfairy]

Define "overwhelm." Afaik it's pretty much impossible to be overrun in the vicinity of your cities, which can kill them in ~4 turns. At worst you just need to run your worker into your city for a few turns until the intruder is dead.

Well, when I say "overwhelm", what I mean is that there's usually at least one barbarian wandering near my cities pillaging improvements, which means my worker(s) tend to spend their time either hiding in the city or repairing the few improvements I've finished. But occasionally on a couple map types (I'm looking at you, Frontier) I've been truly overwhelmed: 5 or 6 barbarians attacking my city.

 

[Deau]

What? How? The barbarians alone overwhelm me if I don't have at least 2 archers running around putting down barbarian insurrections. (I'm more comfortable with 3, though.) And even disregarding the barbarians, one AI or another often declares war on me even with my 2 archers. (plus my warrior, plus my 2 scouts... not that they matter for war purposes) And I usually find that when war is declared, I need to increase my archer/CB count to 4 to survive, so I gotta divert yet more production/gold to creating those dudes.

Yeah I must admit, again, that I play deity and unless raging barb is on, AIs clear out barb camps so quick that I can hardly squeeze any CS quest ever making units useless if I don't need to attack or defend.

The map type plays a lot in that as well though. Large landmasses maps like highlands/boreal even without raging barbs you'll have to handle quite a few.

I would typically just manage my gold safer and go for 3 or even 4 scouts and retreat the scouts turned into archers towards capital on larger maps/immortal. By managing gold safer, I mean keep hovering around 200g in case you need to rush-buy 1 archer. The warrior positioning should allow you to prevent barbs from plundering more than 1 tile before dying which really shouldn't be a major issue to make it to T80 NC.

But yeah, the big deal is AI proximity. On larger landmasses where closest neighbor is 15-20 tiles away and on immortal where he has only 1 starting settler, the T80 can very well be moved to T90 target and you are still on a good pace.

 

[Deau]

If you want it really fast, you can always get philosophy from great library and build NC before first settler. Doesn't work on higher difficulties, and leaves expansion right on the back burner. Good with Babylon, though.

Sadly, getting, say, ToA instead of GL will factor and snowball into significantly more science over the course of the game than GL -_-. You won't necessarily meet T80 NC but you'll be in a much better shape nonetheless.

 

[Resipsa]

Sadly, getting, say, ToA instead of GL will factor and snowball into significantly more science over the course of the game than GL -_-. You won't necessarily meet T80 NC but you'll be in a much better shape nonetheless.

That is if you can manage the happiness with the additional growth. Post patch I'm having a difficult time in the midgame

 

[kb27787]

t60-70 is what I go for... you can pump out the settlers but don't settle them until it gets up unless you can rush buy some libraries...

Or if the terrain allows you to block settlers with your scouts or send them into loops... just rush to NC THEN expand (hopefully you have room for at least 2 more cities)

If on immortal (AI doesn't have a free settler) it's really easy to expand after NC. Unless you get a really sucky spawn where you are closed off by CS on all sides, you can nab 2-3 more cities easily. Be warned you may not get exactly the ideal locations you want, but it's up to you to decide whether or not the nascent city in that exact location is worth the effort protecting it early game/diplomatic hits from AI coveting your lands/delay your NC/tech/generally making life a little harder.

 

[Plumfairy]

Huh. I'll be damned. I tried the strategy outlined by Buccaneer, and I finished the NC on turn 69, no problem. (I was using the Aztecs so I could test it out with an ideal civ.)

Followup question: when you're going tall, do you generally keep an internal food trade route on each city until they "fill up"? (i.e. able to work all tiles & fill all desirable specialist slots) Or do you just get them to a good size (size 15, say) and then let them grow naturally?

 

[marekb]

Followup question: when you're going tall, do you generally keep an internal food trade route on each city until they "fill up"? (i.e. able to work all tiles & fill all desirable specialist slots) Or do you just get them to a good size (size 15, say) and then let them grow naturally?

It depends on many factors: happiness, gpt, CS quests, etc. With one Venice game I keep 6 internal routes (from each puppet to Venice and Venice to each puppet) all the game. Anyway I usually keep some internal routes entire game.

 

[Buccaneer]

Huh. I'll be damned. I tried the strategy outlined by Buccaneer, and I finished the NC on turn 69, no problem. (I was using the Aztecs so I could test it out with an ideal civ.)

Followup question: when you're going tall, do you generally keep an internal food trade route on each city until they "fill up"? (i.e. able to work all tiles & fill all desirable specialist slots) Or do you just get them to a good size (size 15, say) and then let them grow naturally?

Nice work. I know it could be done faster but I just wanted to show that you can get NC under 85 and still have trade routes and archers (and a pantheon and religion). Remove those until after and then you can get NC under 70.

Regarding the early trade routes, I find the early gold and science to be most beneficial. That may change after NC when I add 1-2 more cities quickly.