Optimized production strategy

[Martin Alvito]

I finally got around to playing another Quick game for G-Minor I. It is pretty clear that LE is the winner on Quick speed. The boxes are smaller, and +2 plus 15% growth ends up hitting the sweet spot for growth.

For normal speed games it is possible to make a compelling argument for Collective Rule or Meritocracy depending on your strategy, at least in SP.

 

[Tabarnak]

My very own optimized production strategy is as followed:

WORKER/city to size 3->SETTLER/LIBRARY or GRANARY/SETTLER

I rush-buy scout or warrior if I need.

Playing with France I usually get landed elite a few turns before 1st settler is ready (that is on QUICK), Capital then grows to 5 during library/granary is built.

Sometimes I rushbuy a library.

Downside: If you get dowed, you have to be able to shift production to war, that might lose some turns, but thats what youre ahead at that point anyway. You will see you recover in no-time. Your enemy usually loses more than you cause hes in attack. Only winners in this case are the other MP-players. But maybe they have their own problems.

In most cases i can't have enough money to rush buy a library. And when iron shows up, i want money for upgrade. I barely have enough cash to rush buy 3-4 warriors to swordmen around turn 40-45...i also want to attack a civ with no iron(or yet). A trick is to check litteracy.

If a neighbor has some percentage over 0%, you know he went for writting early and it's defenitively time to prepare an early attack on him because he will probably doesn't have iron yet.

But some starting positions and goody huts can boost your cash enough to do multiple tasks.

France is indeed very strong for the fast LE approach.

There is many way to boost hammers but in multiplayer games you can't let you in a bad position about military specs. And a fast and successful war brings you the possibility to rush Steel and upgrade all these swords from gold conquered cities and continue rampage.

 

[Tabarnak]

I finally got around to playing another Quick game for G-Minor I. It is pretty clear that LE is the winner on Quick speed. The boxes are smaller, and +2 plus 15% growth ends up hitting the sweet spot for growth.

For normal speed games it is possible to make a compelling argument for Collective Rule or Meritocracy depending on your strategy, at least in SP.

You are right Martin. I discovered that also.

 

[Tabarnak]

Here is a situation where a production oriented strategy saved my ass.

Small continents, small map, i picked China. 9 city states.

I landed in a place with no iron or horses. Siam south of me. I had 3 cities. I rushed warriors and spears to beat down his only city, but a walled and big capital(IVANISTAN). He had 2 iron and the best i did with my 4 spears and 4 warriors is to cut down his city's HP by half only. I retreated, but i've got a GG in from last battles. I suggested a peace threaty but he wanted 5 gold per turn. Early on, it was not a good idea.

Was building NC in cap when i started workshops. He tried to attack me with swords but i had a nice bottleneck. With help of my GG, i killed his 2 swords. We finally mad peace. England was going alone and i was stuck there with 3 cities and nothing else. But god yeah i picked China. I beelined Machinery.

When workshops where done, i had 5,6 and 7 pop cities pumping 15 hammers each. I upgraded 3 archers and hard built 5 cho ko nus. When i throwed my 8 CKNs, he got phants. But when 6 CKN are aiming at you, there is nothing you can do. I killed him in few turns. Killed Egypt too.

I won my first diplomatic victory in a multiplayer game. Each players had quit very late before losing. So i had to deal with humans all the time.

I hadn't a great engineer at the end. Took 13 turns to hard build UN. No wonder bonuses, but golden aged it.

Diplo window

Spoiler :

Main land

Spoiler :

Demographics

Spoiler :

 

[Smote]

Well done. I would never try fighting a walled city with spearmen and warriors, haha. I would satisfy myself with pillaging and sitting on hills, so my opponent would lack production tiles.

 

[stratocast85]

I was Elizabeth in that game. I expanded very well in the beginning, but sat with my two cities and puppet for far too long. I don't know why I stopped expanding. I light bulbed 7 or so techs at once, with rationalism policy and oxford university, to get to mech infantry, but my production was too crappy to support building a decent army. China's might was too much! We must play again though. Add me on Steam: Amulius23.

 

[Tabarnak]

I got beat last night by a player who beelined Samurais on turn 50-55. I think he built the GL to bulb Steel. I had only 2 iron, and i got Steel around turn 70. I settled not too close from him but in a wide and spaced area with no hills(but with some production tiles around).

He throwed 5 samurais around turn 72 with a GG but i had only 2 longswords, 1 spear and 2 horse archers. Barbs were very aggressive on me because i didn't have any cs close and i was in a wide open area. Lost 3 warriors and 2 scouts for first 40 turns. Barbs almost always attacked me in groups. Very annoying sometimes.

But my biggest mistake was to not build a wall before workshop for my front city. Was at 3 turns of completion when he captured the city. When you only have 2 iron and are exposed to a big war for next turns, don't build low strengh units or other buildings. Build a wall first. It would have changed a lot of things. Lesson learned.

But resisting to 5-6 samurais with a GG on turn 70 is often a pain in the ass.

@Smote : Yep i think it would have been better for me to pillage instead. But i really wanted to take down his city...without much consequences at least.

@stratocast85 : Welcome to the forums! I added you on steam. Yeah we entered the modern era on same turn...Lets' play another one sometime!

 

[Smote]

Ouch. Sounds like a nice rush on his part. Losing more than 1 unit to barbarians in any civ game is unacceptable play, and must be remedied! Did you do a stables rush to make use of the production tiles? Also, did you have a river, and get a fast-ish water mill? How many cities did each of you have? What policy order did he go? (Meritocracy?)

It is tough to survive in such a situation, especially because the barbarian threat makes it so that you cannot easily harass your opponent earlier to slow him down. The samurai also get that free shock upgrade, for added brutality.

Building econ is always a risk. I will not generally agree that walls must be a priority in border cities, but it sounds like the workshop did not pay off for you this game ;/

Do you like chariot archers? I typically prefer horsemen myself.

 

[Tabarnak]

Ouch. Sounds like a nice rush on his part. Losing more than 1 unit to barbarians in any civ game is unacceptable play, and must be remedied! Did you do a stables rush to make use of the production tiles? Also, did you have a river, and get a fast-ish water mill? How many cities did each of you have? What policy order did he go? (Meritocracy?)

It is tough to survive in such a situation, especially because the barbarian threat makes it so that you cannot easily harass your opponent earlier to slow him down. The samurai also get that free shock upgrade, for added brutality.

Building econ is always a risk. I will not generally agree that walls must be a priority in border cities, but it sounds like the workshop did not pay off for you this game ;/

Do you like chariot archers? I typically prefer horsemen myself.

Didn't have time to build horsemen...i had enough cash to upgrade 2 swords to longswords. I barely had time to build HA. I hate when i sit close to a barb camp ready to destroy it when another spearman barb spawns before i can move...double teamed twice because of this.

I was 1st in MFG almost all the time tho.

There is some games where map, ressources, barbs and neighbors are really not well placed or shaped to make your way through the game without having too much troubles. At least i went to bed sooner than usual

 

[Smote]

Its true. One game i decided after barb troubles to not even build national college, and just war with water mills and swordsmen.

Also, if a neighbor has great land, they have to die before they pummel you with it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I spun this up on Deity with Siam and it's not a bad opening. I ended up about thirty turns further behind in than I usually do (and trending worse), because I couldn't exploit Research Agreements with many civs early on. On the plus side, I had a ton of population (four cities, all 8+ pop) and builds finish quickly as advertised. The Wats finished about ten turns behind when they usually do due to the high output.

It's worth noting that MP politics might be sufficiently different that a build that allows more usage of RA is less viable.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It's worth noting that MP politics might be sufficiently different that a build that allows more usage of RA is less viable.

I never intended to comment on the build's multiplayer viability. I assumed that Tabarnak knows what he's talking about there. I was simply curious to see how it would play in a single player environment. What I found was that it should serve anyone very well up to Immortal, and that it's a little unfocused for Deity but should still be good enough to produce some wins. Genghis had to die in the sample game faster than this strategy would permit.

 

[Enfeeble]

take a great engineer throw him on a hill (+7 production) and enjoy,
this also works for great merchants and extra resources (G.m on spices / sugar / furs (+7 gold)
now you may think that ure better of using the engi for a wonder, perhaps ure right, or maybe u forgot to take in account production after workshop windmill and wonders, still think ure better of with the wonder?

 

[Tabarnak]

take a great engineer throw him on a hill (+7 production) and enjoy,

Since you can add +1 hammer(+2 after chemistry) on a hill, it's better to add a manufactory on a plain or grass land, where you can't add hammers in other ways.

About manufactory, sooner the better. Going straight to the free ge is the best thing to do if you really want to leverage this approach.

But interesting when we compare Landed Elite vs manufactory.
LE gives an extra hill to work, so with 4 cities it's +12 hammers...

 

[Tabarnak]

From recent patch notes released for july, i examined some details and i think that the main strat may be changed but only by a few things. Since policies scaling acquisitions will be reduced, i think it's possible to get +2 food and 15% bonus soon enough to pull something interesting. Philo will be needed, but only after Iron working.

By the time you can put cities around, it's possible to get IW before and build libraries meanwhile. Calendar ressources will be more appealing since it's on the philo route. The extra 100% bombarding fixed will include building 1 or 2 archers...and i know exactly when. I will told more about this later when the patch will come out.

Everything is in my head and the puzzle may be solved sooner than i tought.

Monarchy is going to be a lot more valuable...Republic with 5% is not bad but not enough. Honor with +15% production is not enough appealing. +2 food beat this(1 extra hill gives approx 25%). But after Tradition it will be interesting to see if Honor or Piety will be the best thing to pick. Not sure yet. The free GP from Liberty can be good for Notre-Dame tough...but production will always be the no1 problem.

 

[Zeknichov]

I've been giving this a try in standard speed and it is very resource/happiness intensive. If you don't start by a mining resource you aren't going to be very successful. The optimal strat will have a gems/silver/gold in your cities. Having to get calendar or trapping or masonry or two of the three really slows your progress toward Iron Working and not getting at least two different resources before you progress toward iron working will make you go unhappy prior to your ability to harness your second resource, especially after the next patch.

Say you get an ideal start, happiness isn't much of a factor then but I find GPT is. 4 cities all on production is too gold intensive I find, after my fourth city and after I have quite the army my GPT is negative. This kind of defeats the whole purpose of the strat because now I have to subtract from production to add GPT. I think 3 production heavy cities with a 4th gold focus would be more beneficial. I found at turn 100 with 4 cities I was producing units so fast I didn't even know what to do with most of them.

Of course if you're lucky and playing against poor opponents you can puppet a city before GPT becomes an issue and start putting down trading posts as you work your way into currency. That is if the opponents you're playing against aren't very good. I was playing Diety (without using diplomacy). While my army was able to compete no problem, I wasn't able to make much progress. The AI had LS at the same time I had LS. It was really much a stalemate. Assuming you're up against a human of similar skill to yourself you would also probably be in a stalemate. That means either you should stick to 3 cities or your 4th city should probably be gold focused.

Thoughts?

 

[Tabarnak]

Interesting. I assume that post patch going 3-4 cities while going for iron working might be more complicated. Maybe a 3 cities approach will now more fit with this strategy. For sure around turn 100 unit production is so heavy that you don't really know what to do with them(that's why you also can make buildings instead).

But since buildings will cost less maintenance, a production strat can win again. I suspect a little detour to temples and get the Piety policy with extra happiness for religious buildings, or simply go honor and put archers in border cities and scouts in others for another +1 happiness.

For next patch, i think the formula for settled cities will be :

#cities = # luxuries instead of #luxuries = # cities +1. Not a big deal, because filling the Tradition tree will surely take a bit more turn, delaying extra growth. With no culture ruins, i always get LE at turn 34 or 35. If i can fill the Trad, tree around turn 40, i think my strat will work well.

National College is important, but not that much if you REX first. This is a big advantage, if i can go IW before Philo and writting. We will see.

 

[nzjase]

Mate, your strat is providing a noob like me with great guidance.

Would you mind editing your opening post for any additional changes etc you would make given recent patches?

Also an explanation as to why you go certain ways re: techs and build orders would be invaluable to learn from.

I know this is all work for you so just to let you know it is really appreciated. If you don't have the time, no worries. The OP is still very useful.

Cheers

 

[Tabarnak]

Would you mind editing your opening post for any additional changes etc you would make given recent patches?

I will create a new thread for next patch. Changes are so big that i can't just cut and add stuffs from this thread, it's not necessary and not convenient.

 

[nzjase]

Cheers mate, really appreciated.

This has been a godsend for me learning the game i.e. policies to take, techs to research etc.

I know it all changes game to game but me having a nice solid base like this has helped me no end learn the basics and now I am starting to try and tweak things.