Reconsidering strategy with BtS

[MrFelony]

Shwegadon Paya (sp?) - it seems strangely absent from strategy discussions, while it is a Pyramid equivalent for Religious civics - early Pacifism for SE, early Theocracy for everybody anyone?

I think this will come into play a lot more at higher levels where it is improtant to not have a religion if it'll cause tension between you and a lot of civs. It would have been a life send if i was able to get it before i got liberalism so i could run free religion instead of nothing at all (i had 2 religions, but everyone else was different and i didnt have theirs ). other than that, i dont see much use for it besides offering a counterpoint/compliment for pyramids/SE

 

[Chrispy]

Shwegadon Paya seems tailor-made for a Philosophy beeline for Taoism. If you can lightbulb Taoism with a scientist and build this wonder, there's no longer a need to backfill Monotheism or Theology.

But I agree that early Free Religion is probably the best benefit. If you can run multiple libraries, early FR can give you another quick boost to research. Then again, religion takes on a new importance with the Apostolic Palace.

 

[Pomp]

I didn't realize that adopting FR would make the AI stop witnessing to you on behalf of its state religion. That's good to know.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I will only add that Mausoleum of Mausollos is simply an incredible build, a must have. Period.
Even when You are not philosophical You can still easily pull up four golden ages (ten GP used total because now You can start GA with one Great Person only ). Add to that Taj Mahal plus let someone attack You (You can count on golden age in case of surprise attack) and You're laughing, it's like sixty turns or more!
And now a nail to the coffin - NO. ANARCHY. DURING. GA. Spiritual leaders not needed anymore

Honestly, it needs to be nerfed somehow, I'm finishing my second BTS with Frederick (well, first one was with Darius ), and I consider Monarch waaaaaaay easier than before - to many goodies + AI have smaller armies (unless aggresive AI). But game will be much, much more exciting on multiplayer

 

[Indibil]

Playing on Marathon/Huge/Fractal/Raging Barbs/Agressive AI/Prince Level (<-mostly due to raging barbs and agressive AI as I was testing)

I had to REX to cover good land as there was no neighbour near enough to assimilate and I didn't want the AI to grab the land.

Despite working 4 gold mines, 4 elephants and having cottage spammed the heavy commerce cities it looks like 8 cities before 0 AD was overkill. 40something turns for researching currency sound painful. That should improve once those damned 4 courthouses are rushed and my 3 seafood, horse, rice and corn city is working to its full potential.

On the other hand the AI is way behind me in tech so I might not have done that bad.

 

[Scaphism]

Here's something I've often wondered:

Does anyone know of a list of dates when wonders are typically built? (range of dates).

We definitely have the resources at Civfanatics to pull that kind of data. I'm sure there's plenty of variety based on difficulty, map type, number of civs.

I'm sure there's some way to normalize that data. I'm sure there are some rare cases where you get a large number of industrious civs but that should just push the "early" range of dates even further up a bit.

That kind of info would be really useful instead of eyeballing it and approximating my chances of being beaten to a wonder.

 

[kniteowl]

I was thinking of playing Ramsees and Combining the AP wonder with SoM and UoS because they all give benefits to State Religion Buildings and make a nice addition to the Religion Economy and I'd also think of attempting a Divine Right Slingshot with Oracle lmao, Research Monarchy and use my first Great Prophet to lightbulb Theology that would be one crazy game.

 

[DrJambo]

I don't really understand this insistence of CE vs SE...

Surely it's based on a city to city basis rather than game to game? At least that's the way I play (i could be wrong of course). In my eyes, cities swamped in grassland, say from the clearance of jungle, are ideally suited to a cottage economy. Hills and flood plains for instance or a city with a plethora of food resources, might be more suited to a SE. I always aim to have at least one Specialist city regardless.

Anyway, my advice would be go for a mixture.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Civics tend to favour one economy though.

 

[Alsn]

Civics tend to favour one economy though.

Not like you *need* to have US if youre playing a cottage economy and theres also no real point to emancipation once you have towns all over the place and free speech doesnt exclude any important SE civics.

 

[Martinus]

Not like you *need* to have US if youre playing a cottage economy and theres also no real point to emancipation once you have towns all over the place and free speech doesnt exclude any important SE civics.

You don't *need* it but it is certainly a case of playing to your strengths - it's a bit like playing a peaceful game when you are Aggressive or refusing to build a single wonder when you are Industrious - sure you can do it, but it is as if you did not have any of the benefits and if your opponent is playing his traits/civics properly he should get a significant advantage over you.

 

[yavoon]

I don't really understand this insistence of CE vs SE...

Surely it's based on a city to city basis rather than game to game? At least that's the way I play (i could be wrong of course). In my eyes, cities swamped in grassland, say from the clearance of jungle, are ideally suited to a cottage economy. Hills and flood plains for instance or a city with a plethora of food resources, might be more suited to a SE. I always aim to have at least one Specialist city regardless.

Anyway, my advice would be go for a mixture.

different civics, most notably sufferage and representation. also SE pretty much demands u build pyramids to get representation, and early wonders at high levels usually require pretty specific strategies.

 

[kniteowl]

lol you c an play the SE without Pyramids and Possibly without GL, although without the GL it makes beelining to Liberalism and Consititution more difficult and slower but still possible.

I've been attempting Contitution Beelines. You basically save up 3-5 GS to lighbulb liberalism once you finish CS then while you're researching Liberalism (you're genrally won the race more or less) you switch to Bureaucracy and Caste system and focus on Producing 2 GMs to lightbulb Constitution by the time Liberalism is Finish (remember to ignore Guilds or you're GMs will lighbulb Banking, Economics, Corporation).

If you finish liberalism early you can research another tech until you get two GM, like Gunpowder to open up Chemistry for example. When you're GMs are finish lighbulb Consititution and switch Civics again to Rep and Slavery or Nationhood, depending on you're strategy you can stay in Caste system if you want.

 

[futurehermit]

yeah, FE/SE does not require pyramids (although it of course doesn't hurt).

it is primarily a war-based economy where you run scientists just to tech to the military techs you want and then focus on whip/drafting units en masse.

 

[yavoon]

lol you c an play the SE without Pyramids and Possibly without GL, although without the GL it makes beelining to Liberalism and Consititution more difficult and slower but still possible.

I've been attempting Contitution Beelines. You basically save up 3-5 GS to lighbulb liberalism once you finish CS then while you're researching Liberalism (you're genrally won the race more or less) you switch to Bureaucracy and Caste system and focus on Producing 2 GMs to lightbulb Constitution by the time Liberalism is Finish (remember to ignore Guilds or you're GMs will lighbulb Banking, Economics, Corporation).

If you finish liberalism early you can research another tech until you get two GM, like Gunpowder to open up Chemistry for example. When you're GMs are finish lighbulb Consititution and switch Civics again to Rep and Slavery or Nationhood, depending on you're strategy you can stay in Caste system if you want.

u can play civ w/o building workers too. I would say that w/o the pyramids that SE drops even more horrifically down compared to CE.

 

[futurehermit]

the strength of the SE is not raw beakers. it is in lightbulbed beakers and the ability to convert beakers into hammers (i.e., farms --> beakers --> farms --> hammers) when you want it.

a SE can produce more troops a lot faster than a CE can

of course in the mid-to-long term a CE will win out in tech-pace, which is why CE = space race imo. but for domination you want POWER not tech as first priority and that comes from whip/drafting as much as possible.

 

[yavoon]

the strength of the SE is not raw beakers. it is in lightbulbed beakers and the ability to convert beakers into hammers (i.e., farms --> beakers --> farms --> hammers) when you want it.

a SE can produce more troops a lot faster than a CE can

of course in the mid-to-long term a CE will win out in tech-pace, which is why CE = space race imo. but for domination you want POWER not tech as first priority and that comes from whip/drafting as much as possible.

I can imagine on marathon, w/ a pre planned lightbult tech advantage and perhaps even a heavy raze strategy that u can do the one unit sweep map thing, otherwise u need to tech along w/ the computer.

I suppose a confession here, I play w/ no tech trading, so I can't extort techs for 10 turns of peace and just redeclare, nor can I whirlwind tech trade. if u play marathon(where 10 turn peace extortion is ridiculously powerful) then u might find u can keep up in tech even w/o actually having good research.

but overall CE just produces too much. I generally run a CE/beaurocracy w/ helper cities next to my huge cottage cities strat.

 

[kniteowl]

Well You still Cottage in the SE, but only you're Capital so you still benefit from Bureaucracy but you're capital is used for the purpose of paying maintenance cost for you're other cities but in the early game but you can still use you're capital to research basic cheap early game techs.