New Strategy - No Science...

KingDerfliw

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 28, 2008
Messages
19
Location
WPB, FL
OK, so I had this idea for a different strategy yesterday, to focus all my cities from the start on Gold production, no science, just to see what would happen. I figured I could buy whatever techs I really needed, and the main tech for gold producing, Currency, I could get as a bonus for reaching 250 gold.

I decided to try this strategy with the Chinese because they start with writing which lets me build the Great Library from the start. Plus they get the +1 population to cities which means I can produce gold from turn 1. Also, they later get Literacy as a bonus. So I started (Deity Level) and did the normal exploration getting my goody huts and meeting the neighbors. I frequently checked my diplomacy tab to see if anyone had researched anything yet. As soon as I saw someone with a new tech, I would check what they had available. I got some gold from the barbarians, and I got a Caravan which I used to explore and eventually get me over 100 gold for my free settler. I took my free settler to a nice area with 2 oaks, some grasslands, and plains, and some hills. I rushed my second settler from this city immediately and settled not too far away near a river, on a hill (very cool, because you get the hill bonus when defending or attacking from the city!). This city would become my production powerhouse. I bought Bronze Working from the Romans for 30 gold as soon as I could and fortified my cities with archer armies (partially rush bought!). At this point I decided to start building the Great Library in my capital. I also continued to buy technologies from different civs, and although I was not getting the first to research bonuses, I was actually tied for the tech lead with the arabs. Everything was going just as I planned and I was hoping to get the great Library so that I could stop buying tech, but this was when the AI decided to go to war with me. I had just bought Mathematics from the arabs and the Zulus declred war. I had used a great scientist I got to research construction, so My 2nd city had very good production(due to oak), and my other cities also had decent production. I rushed a cat army and destroyed their invasion force from my city on the hill. A few turns later, I got free currency from reaching 250 gold and rush bought markets in 2 of my cities (abandoning the great library). At this point I was producing about 68gpt from my three cities. I rush bought 3 more cat armies and and went on the offensive I took down 2 zulu cities and they asked for peace. I gave it to them, but from this point forward it was smooth sailing. I went to war with the romans and took all of their cities and then turned on the arabs. i used another great scientist to get Democracy and also got numerous techs when conquering cities. I built the colossus and the trade fair in my capital which was producing close to 200gpt in fundamentalism(+1 attacks and no negative because I had no libraries). I went on to easily win a domination victory by 1750AD.

I've only tried this once and with the Chinese, because I thought I would need the Great Library to keep up in tech. I won easily on deity. I wanted to see if anyone else had tried this strategy and what your results were like. This probably will not work in Multiplayer because you can't buy techs, only trade, but it seems to work great in Single player and made for a fun and different game experience. Try it out and let me know what you think.
 
if you want to generate gold, check out my article.

it is way more efficient to tech harder to the better economic techs than switch a major city to gold production

for working with the AI, after you get your settler you can buy tech, sell them back tech to get most of your gold back. its almost like straight trading but you can buy one tech then sell it to everyone else. this may well push you to the 250 mark

if you can help it, get currency BEFORE you hit 250 so you get banking for free.

with a bank, trade fair, democracy, settled specialist you can generate almost 1000 gpt. with one of the econ bonus civs you can easily do 1500.

with that kind of buying power you can do whatever you want really to win the game. either mass bombers and modern infantry on the cheap with a purchased military industrial complex, or rush buy the internet and hit like 3k-4k per turn. start building the manhattan project so that when you hit 20k you can switch production and finish the bank within a turn or so

works great on multiplayer, especially since the trade fair is often neglected

NaZ
 
I used this exact same strategy right after I read your post. I thought it was pretty innovative and worth giving a try. I did everything the same such as immediantly moving warriors to find huts and other civs to buy technology from as well as focusing my capital on wealth. I recieved the free settler and built two more cities also focusing them on wealth. I remained tied for technology with the Germans who were my closest neighbors. I rushed archers and cats and had about 4 cat armies and around 6 legion armies. The Germans declared war on me and I conquered them by around 1200AD. I continued to rush armies and conqured the Arabs and was disappointed to find out that I was on an island and would have to transport all my troops to continue conquering. I had about 13 cities and a whole continent controlled by me so I made the decision to switch to science production as I built libraries and universities and focused on science. I ended up winning in 2080AD! It was a long game because another civ became 1 great person away from winning culturally and luckily I had a ICBM and nuked their main city which totally destroyed their hopes of that. I built my spaceship and steadily fought off the other civ until 2080AD and won a technoligical victory on Deity.
 
I don't think it would be that great with the Americans. The 2% on Gold Reserve only helps if you have lots of gold, which you're consistently buying stuff so you'll never have lots of gold. Spain and China would be the best. Spain because of the Double Exploration Cash and +50% gold production, and China for the fact that you can start gold production at your cities quicker then everyone else.
 
Haven´t tried this. It sounds like a fun thing to try. The fun part is to really avoid all science. Will try and get back with comments. Japan should also be a good civ for this since they can have multiple cities on small islands with great gold production.

My three prioritized civs for this would be Chinese, Spain, and Japan.
 
I've been testing this out of King and Emperor difficulties. So far, here's what I got:

Americans (Emperor)- Despite my previous comments, America is good for this technique. The +2% on Gold Reserves does generate you some need gold in the early stages of the game. The starting great person is amazing, no matter what you get (Scientist researches you clutch techs, Thinkers convert choke point enemy cities). If you don't win the game before the Modern Era, the Factories Triple Production bonus helps immensely while trying to build tank units.

Spain (Emperor)- Spain, as I thought, is amazing. If you can find some goody huts, you're in the gold (literally). If you build a galleon early enough, and get lucky on what artifacts are on the map, it will be very easy to win the game. When I played, I got Atlantis (Got me first to Monarchy/Invention, researched an inferior tech) then I got the Seven Cities of Gold, which helped me rush Catapults. The +50% Production helped a lot, but would've helped more if the game lasted longer.

India (King)- I wanted to try having a mass colony empire with India, so I tried them out on King. Luckily, my Capital and my Second city both had Oak in their borders, while my Third city had Rubber, this helped lots. At the beginning of the game I started out like normal (Huts, free settler, build settler) but instead of settling my cities closer to the coast to maximize science, I brought them more mainland to get some good production cities; that paid off. I got a Galley from a hut and built a settler in each city (3). Loaded them all up into my galley and looked for some island cities. First one I found was a 2 square island with Oak, Dye and Whale, brilliant! Perfect for a gold city, while still having enough production to build a market/bank. The other two settlers pretty much settled on the same type of island as one another, Grassland, Forest, Fish. Good for high population and lots of gold because of the high population, but not extraordinary. Once I had my island cities set up and bought Math, the game was over. Was getting 100 gold/turn before I had markets and banks. Catapults rushed into my enemies cites and it was a quick victory.

I'm not sure the Indian strategy would work on higher difficulties, but I'll try it.

Next on the list: Japan, Greece.
 
OK so I just finished the game with the Japanese using this strategy. I´m playing on Emperor level. I never had any science in any of my cities. Still it was greatly successful! I built 7 cities on different islands and switched them all to gold priority. I could basically build a new improvement each turn in at least one city. It was great. The only thing holding me back was that it was only one civilization that didn´t go to war with me so my Tech buying wasn´t too successful. Still I could buy myself all necessary techs and progress. I won quite early and had over 3000gpt when I finished. Felt like a new game, and was lots of fun! Japan is certainly a successful civ to use for this strategy.
 
I'm glad to see that some people have tried this out. I found that it was very fun to play this style and was a good change from the standard... I had great success in Deity with this strategy. I think Egypt might be really good for this strat as well... just find some desert paradises and let the gold start pouring in!!
 
I tried with the Egyptians on Emperor and it was easy, and fun!

If you use the mega-city technique, you can get your mega-city producing around 3500 gold/turn using the Egyptians, very impressive.
 
Why the egyptians? And how do you play them successfully with this strat?

Because of the +1 food/trade form desert squares. My city had 3 ocean tiles and the rest was desert/mountains (With Gold). I rushed straight to Code of Laws and got the free trading post in my city, and started settler spamming. This strategy is possibly the best with the Egyptians, but you have to have enough time to get ti started.
 
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