Resoureses

[steven_pelton]

If you really want to no were the resoureses are at so you nknow where to build and such pick a expansionist civilization such as England

 

[civ_steve]

You should use the Expansionist civ's scout capability to scout as much terrain as possible. But, you're still going to get a lot of your map information by obtaining other civ's World maps.

The major strength of the Expansionist civ is the ability to safely pop Huts (potentially giving you better Hut results) and the early scouting of good city positions which you can now send your Settlers to while other civs are still scouting.

 

[Darkness]

And if you're playing expansionist there's good odds you'll get a free settler fairly early (regent level). When playing expansionist this happens to me virtually every game and as non-expansionist it happened to me only once...

 

[rdomarat]

Whether you should play an expansionist civ depends a lot on the map size you choose. With three kids, I don't have a ton of time to spend on the game, so I typically play on Small or Tiny maps, where I've found the expansionist trait to be much less useful than Industrious, Religious or Commerical.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I've often wondered whether Expansionist civilizations should get half-price granaries, similarly to the way Scientific ones get half-price educational buildings and Religious ones get half-price religious buildings. Maybe that would prove to be too powerful, but it seems consistent with the other abilities and would help make Expansionism more useful on small maps. It would also give the trait some value beyond Ancient Times.

 

[Scyphax]

I like expansionist civs but to find resources you need to have the right techs.
Expansionist are good for getting techs, but to know where horses are you need the wheel. The Japanese are an excent civ to spot those horses and once they are hooked up to horses they can build lots of chariots to find the rest.
After the ancient era grabbing strategic resources is all about researching the techs that uses those stratigic resources first and taking or trading those resources before other civs can use them.

An example in my last game I reseached railroads 1st, discovered I did not have iron and that there where 4 sources of iron in total, Germany with 2.
I traded railroad with Germany, then traded coal from Germany, and renewed the trade every 20 turns.
If I had left it until latter another Civ could have discovered RR and traded it to germany and then traded for germanys spare coal.

 

[Lord Vetinari]

Expantionist are useful early game but their usefulness disapers around the time explorers pop in.

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Originally posted by Lord Vetinari
Expantionist are useful early game but their usefulness disapers around the time explorers pop in.

Their usefulness usually disappears way before that as well. By the time you get explorers, most of the map is already explored, and all goody huts looted. Their usefulness is usually gone by the end of the ancient age/beginning of the middle ages, unless you can hold a firm tech lead from techs you picked up from goody huts.

 

[Jamesds]

Explorers areso good as well, with 6 moves over any terrain, it's ashame they become obselete!

 

[Frithiof]

This really isn't easy to answer, because expansionist civs are useful in some situations, map sizes, play styles, etc., but in other situations their traits would be less desireable than others.

So I guess I'd vote for sometimes.

 

[andvruss]

Expanionist civs rule! Although not my fav civ traits (Egypt is), I have a great example why they do. I was Iroquois (Religious and Expanionist), and it was a large map with max civs for that map, on pangea. Built a couple scouts, got way up on cash, tech, and cities. The nearest civ I met had 3 lower techs than I did, had 3 less cities, and had 100 gold less than I did. This was also on Emperor level. I pulled up so big of an early lead, that I eventually won the game in the latter years.

 

[amirsan]

I think expansionist is a waste unless you are the Americans which adds Industrialist.

 

[wargasm23]

I've often wondered whether Expansionist civilizations should get half-price granaries

I feel the real "authencity" of a expansionalist civ can be tested by that particular civ starting with the most agile unit, to uncover useful land and resources.

Sine the western cow herding industries were such a huge contribution to early america, that america and expansionalist civs should start with like 1 calvary scout or something.

it's caveman era - like to have expanionalist civs starting the game with a obsolete infantry unit.
lol

tell me what you think,