National College First Question

[bryanw1995]

I have done the math and your city placement must royally suck. By turn 55 my 3 cities are very healthy and I have completed a library in the capital and usually completed a library in 1-2 of the others (keep in mind, I have no idea what settings you are playing on, I am assuming quick, but standard would of course be different). If you would have read my whole post rather than just rage-posting, you would have seen my argument was that you are weakening your civilization *not* simply that you have higher science. Lastly, this is all moot anyway as the original poster said, he's not worried about the outcomes, just what is the fastest path, which has since been answered.

Also, If you don't play multiplayer, you're not playing a real opponent. I don't play with the sir-rush-alots I play with real opponents on my steam friends list. The AI is predictable, stupid, and ALLOWS you to take ridiculous building paths like this whole NC debate and get away with it. They declare war based on a set of pre-defined code that says when some programmer at Firaxis thought the computer should attack. In a multiplayer game where your opponents *think* and know the point of the game is not to run around with workers and settlers and pretty buildings and make peace with city-states, this strategy is not a strategy at all.

lol. quick would be much faster, he is assuming standard speed. I typically snag luxuries first, then NC. for faster results settle on one of your starting luxuries and/or steal a worker or two.

 

[bryanw1995]

Just trying this out:

1 city (india)

Research order:
Pottery
Writing
Mining
Bronze Working
Iron Working
Calender +5turns to go.

National College +2turns to go.

It is turn 34.

I've chopped 2 forest, built two mines, and I haven't bought anything.

is that on standard speed?

To me it seems a bit crazy to chop down forests to say you got a NC earlier.

It's an artificial goal.

I would rather have NC on turn 48 + 2 forests than NC on turn 40 with no forests. The number of hammers in your capital chopping those 2 forests will cost you over the rest of the game will be staggering.

early game >> mid game. 8 turns quicker to NC is a pretty substantial savings, it lets you start your expansion that much faster, supercharge tech rate that much faster, etc etc. chopping is situational but is often just fine. heck, if the forest is on plains it's no penalty at all and actually gives you greater flexibility (tp, farm?) or is even highly desirable if it's plains forest on a river. and it COULD be desirable if the forest is on a hill. only time you wouldn't want to chop at all is if you have limited/no hills and limited forests that are only on grasslands.

 

[elthrasher]

Playing on immortal, I find that if I beeline the NC in one city, I don't always have enough space or enough military to remain competitive. Here's my formula:

Beeline Iron Working, regardless of nearby luxuries. A mining luxury is nice, but it isn't needed. With no libraries or anything else, I will still get Iron Working around the time I could have finished the NC. It's so important to reveal the iron because if you don't get any, it's a hard road. Note that I play Pangaea. If you play continents or islands, this probably isn't so critical.

By the time Iron Working is finished, I should have minimum four warriors, a settler and maybe a worker (though this is also optional). I should also have some gold from selling open borders, maybe selling a mining luxury. If there was a totally awesome site near my capital, I may have already settled it so my iron city will be my 3rd city.

Iron city settles on the iron. No time to mine it. I need a vein of six. Occasionally I get by with two veins of two. Upgrade warriors to swordsmen, go kill neighbor and puppet his cities.

While that's going on, I research writing, build libraries and work on the NC. This usually gets me to Steel by the time I move on to my 2nd or 3rd opponent.

I've tried going a more peaceful route and it just doesn't work out for me. If anybody has suggestions, I'm open to them. As an example, in my most recent game, Genghis Khan had 12 cities by turn 99. All of them were growing like weeds since there's basically no happiness limit for the AI. How can I beat that other than by running right at him? He's going to have many times the population I can have and pop=science, plus he gets bonuses on science and production. The only solution I have is to run right at him and take or burn all his cities. I reduced him to four cities and he still hit industrial right after me and my 24 cities! Meanwhile Caesar is the runaway and is a full era ahead.

But anyway, that's kind of off topic. I do think the NC is powerful, but I think getting iron hooked up asap is more important. I like my chances with no NC better than with no iron.

 

[diz2]

early game >> mid game. 8 turns quicker to NC is a pretty substantial savings, it lets you start your expansion that much faster, supercharge tech rate that much faster, etc etc. chopping is situational but is often just fine. heck, if the forest is on plains it's no penalty at all and actually gives you greater flexibility (tp, farm?) or is even highly desirable if it's plains forest on a river. and it COULD be desirable if the forest is on a hill. only time you wouldn't want to chop at all is if you have limited/no hills and limited forests that are only on grasslands.

Oh, I understand earlier is better, but selling out everything else to getting a NC as fast as possible doesn't seem like a universal rule to me.

Whatever you are foregoing by devoting all your effort to an NC early (whether it be a monument or an extra couple warriors, or revealing horses or iron) you are also foregoing early.

 

[vexing]

Whatever you are foregoing by devoting all your effort to an NC early (whether it be a monument or an extra couple warriors, or revealing horses or iron) you are also foregoing early.

if you're at 4 population in your capital the nc changes your science from 7 to 18
(4 from pop +2 from library +1 from palace + 5 from nc) * 1.5,
which in turn makes revealing horses/iron etc take half as long.

 

[bryanw1995]

yes, it's not always the best strategy, I often dance the warrior rush upgrade salsa as well. obviously you can get IW faster by beelining, but you can get steel faster by going for the NC first.

 

[diz2]

if you're at 4 population in your capital the nc changes your science from 7 to 18
(4 from pop +2 from library +1 from palace + 5 from nc) * 1.5,
which in turn makes revealing horses/iron etc take half as long.

???

I can typically reveal horses on turn 8 or 9, I think.

If I beeline to NC in 40 turns, I'm pretty sure I won't know where they are until turn 40+.

 

[gcaliber]

if you're at 4 population in your capital the nc changes your science from 7 to 18
(4 from pop +2 from library +1 from palace + 5 from nc) * 1.5,
which in turn makes revealing horses/iron etc take half as long.

Its 21 bpt, the palace is 3 bpt not 1. I think you can get IW faster building NC first than just beelining it.

 

[vexing]

Its 21 bpt, the palace is 3 bpt not 1. I think you can get IW faster building NC first than just beelining it.

okay, that makes more sense.. so with just a 4 pop capital you have
7 bpt with no library
9 bpt with library
21 with nc

with 6
9 bpt with no library
12 bpt with library
25.5 with nc

???

I can typically reveal horses on turn 8 or 9, I think.

If I beeline to NC in 40 turns, I'm pretty sure I won't know where they are until turn 40+.

my point was the > doubled rate at which you earn science early. doing animal husbandry first might net you some horses in a tile in your expansion area that are near a river and gain you a hammer, but that's pretty unlikely, so knowing where horses are immediately generally isn't that beneficial.

 

[Txurce]

Playing on immortal, I find that if I beeline the NC in one city, I don't always have enough space or enough military to remain competitive.
I've tried going a more peaceful route and it just doesn't work out for me. If anybody has suggestions, I'm open to them.

It's definitely a risk on Immortal, and sometimes the wrong close neighbor or two leads me to drop the NC strat. Here is what I've been doing lately: warrior X3, library, NC, researching to Writing, then to IW. The three warriors tend to get me a free worker. And by the time I'm done with the NC, I've researched IW. So unless someone DOW'd me really early (less likely due to the three warriors), I now have three swordsmen ready to easily defend or, in the case where my projected build sites have been taken, reclaim them.

 

[Luke42_02]

Songhai gets the gold bonus for killing barbarians. I built a scout which was upgraded to an archer by a hut. With my archer and warrior I was easily able to get enough gold to buy a library.

 

[Airey]

Songhai gets the gold bonus for killing barbarians. I built a scout which was upgraded to an archer by a hut. With my archer and warrior I was easily able to get enough gold to buy a library.

you're not seriously putting ruins in a strategy. it's lucky the time you got it...
but don't bank on it. building warrior with songhai is fine for the camp money.

???

I can typically reveal horses on turn 8 or 9, I think.

If I beeline to NC in 40 turns, I'm pretty sure I won't know where they are until turn 40+.

my point was the > doubled rate at which you earn science early. doing animal husbandry first might net you some horses in a tile in your expansion area that are near a river and gain you a hammer, but that's pretty unlikely, so knowing where horses are immediately generally isn't that beneficial.

In theory ya, in practice, it's actually useful to see where horses are early...after turn 8/9, can decide to beeline for NC or expand that 2nd city first. Sometimes blocking AI early or early horse monopoly is important. Although horsemen is nerfed in attacking cities, they still make good power rating units, detours super early AI DOWs.

Plus the rare cases where horses are in the BFC, the extra hammer that early speeds up your early and most vital builds.

 

[Luke42_02]

Building a second warrior is a low risk strategy that works just as well. You really only have to kill 3-4 barbarian cities and the city states constantly alert you to their where-abouts.

 

[Bibor]

Super-early National College tech pace bonus might actually be a drawback on King and below, because AIs will become hesitant to sign fair Research Agreements.

It all depends on the terrain or map. If the second city would be a legendary city spot, but is potentially contested area (say, halfway to an AI) it would be really dumb not to take it first, and worry about the library later.

 

[elthrasher]

Its 21 bpt, the palace is 3 bpt not 1. I think you can get IW faster building NC first than just beelining it.

I usually get Iron Working around turn 45. Judging from this thread, people aren't usually getting the NC up until turn 40-50. The fastest way to get Iron Working in my experience is just to beeline it from the start.

 

[Nares]

But it seems to me it's very unlikely you could get 5gpt from your city beginng in turn 1, and then get 6+ hammers beginning in turn 20...

Plains Calender resource (to settle on?), plains wheat and a sheep. That should be roughly 5gpt to start, and 6+hpt at pop3.

Earliest I've completed it was turn 41, with El Dorado, a culture hut and a population hut, and possibly 1-2 chops. I forget if I used the tradition policy, but if I did it was the only production modifier I had going.

 

[gareththegeek]

Taking some of the advice posted here I managed to rush buy the library and get the NC faster. I've learned a lot from this thread about ways to optimise things in those first critical turns, thanks!

I found that in my particular game, rush buying the library (even though I had to borrow some money) actually gave me a slightly stronger position by turn 100; but of course this is just anecdotal evidence

 

[gareththegeek]

Make sure your citizens are working some production and gold tiles, instead of just food. The default focus likes to work just food until the city hits about 4 pop, so you'll have to manually move one of them. Just make sure you still have enough excess food to continue growing, even if it's slowly.

So perhaps its better to do this which will make the capital grow more slowly but build faster and instead use the money you have raised to ally with a maritime. Then the extra food and tradition will allow the capital to grow quickly AND be productive so that you can get NC out quick and start on settlers.

In the past I've tended to have the view that the capital should get all the food it can because its going to stop growing soon while it spams out a few settlers...

 

[biohazard72]

Grab Aristocracy if you're France or if you get cultural ruins. It's a nice bonus, as is marble.

Chop forests on hills, as forests will not be useful early-game, but hills can be.

Ideally you have at least one 3F or 2F1H tile to start, hopefully improving with a pasture/farm. Horses are excellent production tiles, which is why I'd recommend teching Animal Husbandry early after grabbing Writing. The preference is for immediate luxury techs and Mining (for chopping), but if you have the time grab AH.

Even with perfect play, sometimes it doesn't go up until late (turn 55-60). Usually happens with a grassland start with no bonus resources and no river. Usually turns 40-45 I consider excellent starts. I don't often buy the Library, because the luxury sale gold is better spent on RAs, IMO.

 

[metatheory]

I tried a different approach as Babylon last night. Once I got writing I used my GS to build an academy. I expanded to 4 cities, sold 2 extra wine lux, open borders and my iron (I was turtling) and bought 2 libraries while building the final in my 2nd founded city that I was pimping out with production.

It worked well and I had expaned borders to compete with Hiawatha who ultimately DoWed me a few turns later for grabbing some key luxs nearby.