by el_kalkylus:
I was inspirated by a game that Starlifter played (hey, it's you that responded!). You played world map at king-level, and had 9 cities where you (on one island of 3 cities) had built 5 wonders, about 20-40 caravans (or more), harbor, aqueduct, marketplace, courthouse, library, bank, university (in 2-3 cities!!) and some diplomats + you had developed the island (england) with irrigations, mines and roads. Not only that, but you were very developed in science, and had almost every citizens happy in each of the 3 cities (the largest was about 8).
Yeah, King level is kind of nice in some ways, but science is slower than at Deity.
The game you're talking about is GOTM 7, on the World Map, starting in England. The early key was founding the northern city on a mine (start mining first), and concentrate on non-military units. My military aspect was (and usually is) so weak that I could not even attack the Celts... which is because I did not want to divert resources to a Catapult at the time. Almost all resources went into developing a "Perfectionist" core empire, instead of rapid expansion to North America and Europe. It makes for a somewhat slower start, but extract a lot of work from what you have. In retrospect, it would likely have been better to take the Celts and all of England.
London was my SSC, and it got the cream of the crop. I rarely
build improvements... I buy them. Or more accurately, PRB. PRB=partial rush buy. I cannot afford to have cities sit around and grind out improvements, so I study the shield multiples, and use gold to assist while minimizing shield wastage. The reason for buying, RB and PRB, is math... improvements are by far the cheapest to buy, at only 2 gold per shield. So BUY improvements, esp. if they will help income (like marketplaces)... and BUILD wonders and part of units. BTW, I also count science beakers in early game, and check it all against each other at the end of each turn... in particular the shield balance. Micromanagement is important throughout a game, but esp. in the first half.
Note also that I made some forests from grassland, to increase shield output when I needed. The one near London should have been immediately irrigated to a Buffalo, to get the trade and extra shield. That was a significant mistake that I didn't notice till after I moved my settlers to Europe.
BTW, my SSC was important, but until I was finally able to get KRC, the
real key city was the unlikely city of Nottingham...
Note the shield balance, which is altered every turn BTW. And in particular, note the number of shields in the city square (3). It takes at least two settlers to pull that off... one to start the mine, and the other to start the city.
It is far cheaper to PRB and IPRB (Incremental Partial Rush Buy) caravans than buying wonders. Wonders cost 4 gold per shield, and rows of 10 shields for units cost 25, which is 2.5 gold per turn.
Take an example. A city makes 5 shields a turn. How long does it take to make a caravan? Trick question. The obvious is 10 days (50/5=10). But no. My answer (money permitting) is 3 days... Day one=5 shields. day 2= IPRB to 40 (cost 11+25+25+25=86 gold), then two more days. Once Feudalism is discovered, the cost is 41+25+25=91 gold. Of course, let money be your guide. Sometimes you take another 2 days, but save 25 gold. But keep cranking out the caravans from early on, because you can get extra commodoties, which can then be worth a lot more in the future, or even used for wonders (which is a very common thing personally I use them for in early game).
Not only that, but you were very developed in science, and had almost every citizens happy in each of the 3 cities (the largest was about 8).
LOL, actaully, my science was lagging, as I was way too small and kept having to raise gold.
The citizens are usually evenly split between happy and unhappy, with 0% or 10% lux.... but at that point, the Luxuries were 40% to force several cities to start growing. In the SSC (London), folks are very happy because the Hangning Gardens give 3 happy faces. All the other cities in the empire get a further bonus of one happy dude with the HG. It makes growing in an early republic much easier!
A final note... as you can doubtless tell, even at King, you can't get it all; my own emphaisis is usually on the economic improvements and happiness & science wonders. Often, this means leaving many juicy wonders unbuilt, or the AI gets them. In that game when you're talking about, the next big things I was getting ready for was KRC and MC, which will really bust open a game if you do it right.
Well that's an overview of the late-early part of the game strategy I use. There's more nitnoids to it, but that probably hits the highlights
.
Oh, one more thing. To be fair, my early games and starts are only "good". Other players such as Shadowdale (the best) and Smash and Cactus Pete are much better, and would really recommend emulating them in general. I'm learning from looking at their starts, too. My own best part is late game economics and late game modern combat (which I normally don't see unless I "let" the AI survive). If you want a stong late game Democracy, my strategies in that area are pretty good (for making a huge empire, that is).
So though I'm still working on early game, and am coming to believe that this perfectionist stuff is not the best route to take in the first 100 game turns.
I post so much stuff there that sometimes they edit and threated to delete my posts, LOL...
.
