Optimal early teching for high difficulties?
- Thread starter [to_xp]Gekko
- Start date
UnforcedError
Settler
Better than building research
I might be stupid but I don't play like that... 
I like my 100% research slider...
as I can't use my gold to buy research, I use the commerce multipliers in science cities, commerce being scarce enough.
and I use the gold multipliers on holy city and merchant/priest cities.
never have a gold issue (but I use gold only for upgrading so....)
(and I only play monarch)
i my games, gold is only useful for fighting maintenance and upgrading units.... which is needed only if I get better techs.
I get techs by specializing in a tech path, get to tierIII/III.5, exchanging all but latest military tech for all the small stuff of 3-4 other civs, getting 2-3 times the worth of my research.
then I go aconquering the powerful (or the one that didn't want to exchange tech) and get their tech by either : peace treaty or vassalisation.
but the main aspect is science and not gold.
I'm interested in your version because it might work better than mine... especially if I could understand it..
I like my 100% research slider...
as I can't use my gold to buy research, I use the commerce multipliers in science cities, commerce being scarce enough.
and I use the gold multipliers on holy city and merchant/priest cities.
never have a gold issue (but I use gold only for upgrading so....)
(and I only play monarch)
i my games, gold is only useful for fighting maintenance and upgrading units.... which is needed only if I get better techs.
I get techs by specializing in a tech path, get to tierIII/III.5, exchanging all but latest military tech for all the small stuff of 3-4 other civs, getting 2-3 times the worth of my research.
then I go aconquering the powerful (or the one that didn't want to exchange tech) and get their tech by either : peace treaty or vassalisation.
but the main aspect is science and not gold.
I'm interested in your version because it might work better than mine... especially if I could understand it..
![[to_xp]Gekko](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/74/74677.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
[to_xp]Gekko
QCT junkie
you're prioritizing your enjoyment of the game over efficiency, which seems perfectly reasonable
are you using no tech brokering? makes abusing tech trading a bit less OP
are you using no tech brokering? makes abusing tech trading a bit less OP
UnforcedError
Settler
You also use gold to pay city and civic upkeep and to feed your army. On Monarch the maintenance costs aren't devastatingly high, that's true, but if you can run 100% research all the time you're probably not rexing fast enough. Also, on the higher levels an early shrine is not a given as you may very well lose out on your chosen religion even if you bulb it.
You're right in specialzing your cities. However, commerce is actually not that hard to come by with either farm spamming or cottage spamming for the selected few civs. The idea Gekko was suggesting was to use sage specialists with Scolarship + TGL + (I assume Caste?) which has a superior
yield to even a full grown town with 100% research. So in this case you could afford a 0% research slider keeping your empire steady, getting gold for upgrades, rush-buys etc. Gold, as already discussed has better general multipliers in the game. (Besides, you can use gold for research as you can rush buy both the Infernal Grimoire and the ToD which can potentially grant you great 
--> conversion.)maybe it's because I don't REX much.. (even not at all)...
mayhap I'll need to learn to rex and be more aggressive.
I'll need to rex if I wanted to mass produce units...
However when you Rex, you need gold to pay for your cities... thus less science, as those new cities don't give much science and your big cities use their commerce for gold, thus you have a slow-down in research, thus you get latter to those T3 units.... (but I'll give you that you'll have more T2)
however I generally 'turtle', with 3 quick cities , then 5 then 10 cities by conquering/crushing 1 or 2 neighbors and I don't go farther until I have 2-3 kind of T3 units, then I go on rampage... generaly by razing or appointing vassals. but I don't need rexing.
mayhap I'll need to learn to rex
and be more aggressive.I'll need to rex if I wanted to mass produce units...
However when you Rex, you need gold to pay for your cities... thus less science, as those new cities don't give much science and your big cities use their commerce for gold, thus you have a slow-down in research, thus you get latter to those T3 units.... (but I'll give you that you'll have more T2)
however I generally 'turtle', with 3 quick cities , then 5 then 10 cities by conquering/crushing 1 or 2 neighbors and I don't go farther until I have 2-3 kind of T3 units, then I go on rampage... generaly by razing or appointing vassals. but I don't need rexing.
Jet
No, no, please. Please.
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[to_xp]Gekko;12115881 said:
0. Background -- I haven't played in a year, but I'll use present tense. I play Deity / Imm+increasing / sometimes Emp+increasing, always Tectonics/Lakes/Small/Normal with ~10 AIs, and always go for Domination. Tectonics gives weird starts, and I reroll until I get one with some food, something to support research, and some production - for example, wheat + incense + a couple 2H tiles.
1. I almost always start Agr -> Mysticism. Maybe with Mining, Fishing, or Calendar thrown in, situationally. The God King production and a very early great person are both extremely powerful. (The production is less great if you don't have tiles that produce 2-3 hammers, as I generally do.) I run Pacifism until I spawn at least 1 or 2 great people.
2. T2s aren't always a top early priority; sometimes you can go for a while with just warriors. The goals after that depend mainly on the civ, and also on the map, but it's some combination of expand / get collateral damage / get other intermediate techs. The choice of what kind of collateral damage you're going to use is the main decision in a Domination game. I don't do Catapults unless I'm going to stick with them for a while; they can be an OK choice for collateral, but as a side dish they take too long to tech to and too long to build.
3. IMHO Hunters and Horsemen are pants, although Hunters can be good for capturing animals. Just build Warriors and don't worry about it. Delete them later if needed. They're cheap to build.
UnforcedError
Settler
Just out of curiosity... do you play with or without Tholal's current mod? Running paci is pretty bold with Tholal's psycho AIs as it gives a penalty to unit production.
I don't like sticking to cats because they're slow, not because they're expensive to tech. In fact getting Crafting + Masonry + Construction is the cheapest way to get collateral damage (unless you're the Sheaim in which case Crafting + Mining + BW is a bit better -- but not cheaper). All other ways to do collateral in this game (say PH + OO, PH + AV, Sorcery, not to mention Gibbon, Hemah, Chalid, archmagi, high priests) are much more expensive.
Try to catch a giant spider once and let it roam around the neighbour's land killing everything ourside of cities. Can be quite useful. Besides.. horsemen can potentially get a better withdrawal chance than cats, especially with Defender or Horselord. That 95% ensures that they will live to fight another day. Bronze warriors can be incredibly useful, I agree. But building too many of them just for defense will kill your economy early in the game. Better use them as cannon fodder in a war.
[to_xp]Gekko;12115881 said:
Honestly, on IMM/DEI MNAI I just don't think this is viable. At least I dont think I could pull it off. Due to difficulty the AI will have large well promoted stacks of warriors early and with MNAI they WILL declare war on you early too.
Your only hope IMO is to get T2 military units, or bronze warriors early. If you try to set up an economy as you describe, you simply wont be able to deal with the inevitable early war.
My tech path (if I dont have gold, or a few plantation resources) is to go agriculture -> ancient chants -> mysticism -> crafting ->mining (hope for bronze) -> T2 military tech of choice.
Production is worker, then warriors then elder council when available then warriors until mining. Then settler and settle bronze location (hopefully!) you can use chopping to help your expansion.
The idea is to switch to god king and pacifism in one revolution at mysticism, then use the elder council and scientist specialist to power your research. Your early great scientist can then found the acadamy to get you your chosen T2 military tech at a reasonable time.
If you have a fortest start, this makes things even harder. I don't survive a lot of the time on IMM/Deity with a forest start on MNAI.
Personally, the early war dec on IMM/DEITY isn't inevitable (at least on normal/quick) and even bronze warriors aren't enough.
Basically I go the way gekko goes because yes you can go mining->bronze working and pray for copper, but the academy/specialists aren't enough to keep research going, and you've crippled your expansion too.
You're hope is that you have enough time to loop through CoL and into bronze working before you get attacked. Then you can use your superior production to push them out.
Also, CoL needs to come before any T2 military, because all T2 military loses to bronze warriors.
Basically I go the way gekko goes because yes you can go mining->bronze working and pray for copper, but the academy/specialists aren't enough to keep research going, and you've crippled your expansion too.
You're hope is that you have enough time to loop through CoL and into bronze working before you get attacked. Then you can use your superior production to push them out.
Also, CoL needs to come before any T2 military, because all T2 military loses to bronze warriors.
Well, I admit im quite new to IMM having just recently moved up in difficulty. So a couple of questions.
What do you do to prevent the early war decleration? The AI is super aggresive in MNAI, do you just build loads of warriors and hope they work as a deterent? If so, how many per city do you need?
Also, what about if you dont have any bronze? Do you go for horseman? Or just upgrade to axeman without bronze?
If you don't have bronze you are likely screwed 
But no, if bronze isn't available then what I go for depends on Civ - for hippus dur obvious move along, sidar/svartalfar recon, lanun can normally grab what they want, but of course prioritizing OO.
Tbh most civs have they're preferences and id just try to tech up through those, but for something vanilla like elohim/bannor/balseraphs I generally go for catapults and axes - horses are too big a diversion while not helping the economy.
Guess the best answer is: it depends but yeah you're likely screwed.
I don't have any special strategy for avoiding war decs, its really just a matter of how far the map places you/can you avoid contact/will they deign to spare you - I do generally gift all ais nearby all surplus resources, and sign whatever I can, but the ai spareth on little more then a whim.
The latest patch is less...violent though.
I will say this though, trying to ward off the ai is a fools bargain - if they hit you before bronze then your stuffed, but from what I understand of the code the ai needs a exorbitant amount of power to change its feelings based on that, so don't keep a massive standing army.
Seriously, more then two warriors a city is too much, you need to be pushing expansion because the way you beat the ai is basically just by getting to sufficient tech that your tactical advantage (and even a brain dead ape has a tactical advantage over a FFH ai) outweighs their production/promotion advantage. And for that the economy needs to be the focus - basically ignore the ai until they invade you, even past BW as bronze warriors are cheap and relatively strong so will carry pretty much any defence.
But no, if bronze isn't available then what I go for depends on Civ - for hippus dur obvious move along, sidar/svartalfar recon, lanun can normally grab what they want, but of course prioritizing OO.
Tbh most civs have they're preferences and id just try to tech up through those, but for something vanilla like elohim/bannor/balseraphs I generally go for catapults and axes - horses are too big a diversion while not helping the economy.
Guess the best answer is: it depends
but yeah you're likely screwed.I don't have any special strategy for avoiding war decs, its really just a matter of how far the map places you/can you avoid contact/will they deign to spare you - I do generally gift all ais nearby all surplus resources, and sign whatever I can, but the ai spareth on little more then a whim.
The latest patch is less...violent though.
I will say this though, trying to ward off the ai is a fools bargain - if they hit you before bronze then your stuffed, but from what I understand of the code the ai needs a exorbitant amount of power to change its feelings based on that, so don't keep a massive standing army.
Seriously, more then two warriors a city is too much, you need to be pushing expansion because the way you beat the ai is basically just by getting to sufficient tech that your tactical advantage (and even a brain dead ape has a tactical advantage over a FFH ai) outweighs their production/promotion advantage. And for that the economy needs to be the focus - basically ignore the ai until they invade you, even past BW as bronze warriors are cheap and relatively strong so will carry pretty much any defence.
