Starting Early Expansion Strategy? (Emp+)

[yanner39]

Check out the thread below for Rapid Expansion. In the thread I was doing Monarch. Beat that one with ease. Culture Victory but only 8 turns from a Space Race too.

With such good luck I moved up to Emp. Used the same strat and am on par with AI tech wise. Also i am the third largest with 9 cities (standard map).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=365786

I do not discuss tech's in that post though. I usually go for Pottery pretty quick as well as mining, Agriculture and AH. Basically go for the techs that allows your workers to improve the tiles. Then work on getting currency as fast as possible. You can use to to trade for the other techs that you have neglected.

Once you get like 4-5 cities have some other ones beside the cap build settlers and let the cap start building improvements.

Good Luckl.

Were all the settlers and workers built before you built a Library? I tend to try and pump out a few workers and settlers from my capital but I also try and get the Library up and running quickly to run some scientist to get my academy as quickly as possible. In your Monarch game, how long was it until you had the chance to run scientists?

I always try and get the academy in the BC's. I could see how your build sequence could be really effective in Rexing.

 

[Ghpstage]

1. Is it worth (on Emp+) bothering to research my own religion. For instance, if I start with Myst and have a 2+ gold tile I can immediately access, should I try for Bud or Poly? Or is it just too much of a pain and a slowdown in early growth? From what I've read, it makes more sense to just try and capture a holy city later on, but it seems this would incur the wrath of a lot of people, especially if the AP has been built for that religion.

Founding a religion delays important worker and techs, its also a diplomatic hornets nest. A shrine is nice to have but if you found and build it yourself you also need to burn a Great Prophet on it. Some people do have success with founding early religions on higher difficulties but I prety much always avoid it.

2. Ghost, 50 beakers at what year?

50AD, I edited to add it to the last post but i'll put it here too, really cant believe I forgot

3. I start a new game and end up with Pearls and Corn, but do not have either Ag or Fishing as techs. Do I build a worker and research Ag, or do I research Fishing and build a warrior while growing then build boats?

The rest of the terrain and start techs are important in a final decision, such as if you have mining do you have hills without trees? Is the Corn irrigated? Do you have a forested plains hill? If you have to research fishing then my gut says agri/worker.

4. At home city, what population should I be at before I build my first settler. Max pop? 1 less than max pop? The longer I wait, the more land advantage it feels like I'm losing.

No set value, I aim to work all my strong tiles, so resources and if Imperialistic a mine or two. I never go above 4 pop before my first Settler though.
And just to add more confusion, on occasion as Imp with a 4 start its good to go settler from the start . Ths is only really the case if you can't get a worker thats able to do something, most often this happens as Justinian with a forest heavy start.

 

[thelibra]

Okay, using the advice given, and analyzing the previous game, I started a new one, and quickly found myself hemmed into a corner with only 4 cities (maybe I could pinch out 5) due to not having creative (I'm Alexander) and getting sandwiched with someone who does (Suryevarman). I was going to grab the island to the west, but it turns out another civ already snagged that space too.

Here's the saved game... Should I gear up for war after Currency, or bide my time, specialize in war techs and take him out? Specialize in Ocean travel and seek greener pastures, or something else?

Again, I can't thank y'all enough for helping me improve my game!

 

[vicawoo]

In most maps, 10 cities means you have a lot of mediocre cities in between your good cities. You're not going to get currency that fast if you waste that much money on maintenance.

chopping your first settler was more of a warlords strategy when AI bonuses made it extremely difficult to secure land without being boxed in.

Fast academy is 90 hammers and 34 population turns, so about 150 food/hammers. It's better than a mediocre filler city, but it's not worth losing 1.5 really good cities and blocking off more land.

I'd worry more about relative amount of land and total food/hammer production than the number of cities.

 

[SillyGoat]

Okay, using the advice given, and analyzing the previous game, I started a new one, and quickly found myself hemmed into a corner with only 4 cities (maybe I could pinch out 5) due to not having creative (I'm Alexander) and getting sandwiched with someone who does (Suryevarman). I was going to grab the island to the west, but it turns out another civ already snagged that space too.

Here's the saved game... Should I gear up for war after Currency, or bide my time, specialize in war techs and take him out? Specialize in Ocean travel and seek greener pastures, or something else?

Again, I can't thank y'all enough for helping me improve my game!

I had a go at this from your save. After currency, I made a few tech trades and picked up Iron Working, Meditation, Priesthood and archery. Teched Math and Masonry and construction, then turned off research. Built a galley in Western Harbour and sent the settler to the one tile island up in the far north west. Chopped out a decent cat heavy stack of doom. Declared on Sury in 75 BC.

Spoiler :

There are a few more cats en route that you can't see in the screenie, and I actually switched research to Aesthetics rather than Col.

Took Monarchy and Col in exchange for peace in 350 AD with 9 cities and room for a couple of backfill cities. Should be plenty of land for the moment.

 

[bigwinw]

I have to address an entirely new system of thinking about it, something like:

By 3000 BC you should have 5 beakers.
By 2000 BC you should have 10 beakers.
By 1000 BC you should have 20 beakers.
By 1 AD you should have 50 beakers....etc...

So this is what I have from a Standard/Normal/Inland Lakes map. I am playing with Willem van Oranje of the Dutch on Emp difficulty. I am very close to AI in all the techs. I am in third place right now and i am the third largest with 9 cities.

Date - Beakers - Science Slider

4000 BC - 10 - 100%
3000 BC - 10 - 100%
2000 BC - 21 - 90%
1000 BC - 23 - 60%
1 AD - 49 - 50%
500 AD - 77 - 50%
1000 AD - 124 - 50%
1250 AD - 227 - 60%
1500 AD - 344 - 70%
1750 AD - 781 - 80%
1800 AD - 900 - 80%
1850 AD - 914 - 80%

between 1800 and 1850 I had some cities taken from me but I took them back, I did loose some science improvements that have not yet been rebuilt.

Hopefully this helps.

 

[thelibra]

Having failed at the previous game, I tried again. Sorry for all the restarts, but mastering the early years has apparently been my biggest downfall apparently. Finally, using all the advice y'all have given me, I managed to get a pretty good performance up to mid-game.

Random, Standard, Tectonics. Random pick ended up with Portugal. I'm on a large island with one other nation (Ottomen, Suly, oddly enough again).

Using what y'all have taught me, I managed to hem Suly in and left him only 3 cities while I have 6. I could have pinched out a 7th in the north coast, but instead realized that since I have no IW, and Suly has 2 holy cities, if I wanted a chance, I had to gear up for war and strike him before his tech allowed him to become invincible. There's only so much you can do with copper before you're at the mercy of those with iron. After sacrificing a serious technical advantage to build up a military one, I successfully took Suly's capital, with heavy losses, but still an adequate stack.

I now have 2 more cities to capture, and then the entire island is mine, and will bring me up to 9 cities, where I can pinch out that tenth on the north shore if needed. I just hope decades of 0% research slider didn't put me so far behind that I can't make up the losses later once I have the entire island. On the bright side, I'll have an incredible military and religious advantage, as Hinduism, Taoism, and Christianity were all founded on this island.

Here's the saved game, enjoy if you like. And again, thank you. Anyone following my saved games can probably see the increased skill in gameplay as y'all's advice is implemented in new ways each day. I think I will play this game out to the end unless Suly pulls out some surprise that destroys me, or I find the other continents only to find out I'm the sad last-place backwater that fails on every level. I'm hoping to be at least average.

 

[thelibra]

Well, I managed to take the other 2 cities which killed off most of my offensive stack. I got 3 GGs along the way which I haven't used yet, and I now control the entire island with 3 holy cities, AP and 9 cities total, 7 of which are coastal. Other civs found me and I do indeed appear to be in the middle, point-wise. However, I have absolutely nothing stopping me from teching forward at this point. I think I can pull off this for a win despite there being only about 400 years left in the game.

 

[SillyGoat]

@thelibra:

You say that you "failed" at your previous game, if you are talking about the Alexander game, you were not in danger of failing. It's a tough map, yes but it's still winnable.

I've played it up to 1200 ADish, and I'm still in the game (playing from your save). Give it a shot, either from your save or from my 350 AD save. Even if you chalk up a loss, you'll learn more from your mistakes than simply giving up.

If you do play the game out, and you are interested, I can type up a report of what I did (and more importantly WHY I did). I'm not the greatest player on these boards, but I do have some Civ experience.

 

[tinstaafl]

I played the greek game too and i agree it's far from failed, in fact in my run it isn't even hard. Did did you play it on and failed? Because the 675BC state was far from failed. When you are on that small an island with a neighbour you can't expect to get more than 5 cities. Here's what i did:
From the 675BC position you posted, i proceeded to postpone currency a bit and first got horse archery and monarchy (then currency) i took at Suyarvarmans 4 cities on the island from 200AD to 475AD with 13 (+9 reinforcements) horse archers, (9 of whom died so it was a bit expensive but on the plus side Suyarvarman buillt the GLH in 100AD for me which was admittedly a bit lucky cause it's a big part of me looking ok in 1000AD and leading in 1340AD, stopped playing there (if i played on i would take out the backwards buddhist civs i guess).

Nice that you think you're able to pull a win in the current one. I am thinking that on that island and with horse, chariots or horse archers to kill him early could have been a good idea (then pyramids if still possible). BTW, if you still want comments to your games your posting the state in the late ADs is really maling it hard to see what you actually did, it's easier to critique if you post state in increments of maybe 40/25 turns or some such format, like say, 2000BC, 1AD, 500AD 1000AD.

Why did you build mines that can't be worked but leave tiles in coppersteal cow unimproved btw. There are other problems ( one more city to share the capital northern corn, should probably have used caste and lots of scientists ather than cottages in coppersteal cow, corn city above the capital, and perhaps the capital even for earlier good research speed) and your position could be stronger there but i find that when i open a typical savegame from me especially if i'm warring there are also typically many oversights/errors so that's that.


greek game:

 

[SillyGoat]

@tinstafl: It's a fun map to play.

Spoiler :

I had a hunch Sury was building a wonder in his capital. He didn't whip any extra defenders when my stack o doom laid siege. Looking at the date the GLH went in your saves, it looks like he was only a couple of turns from finishing it when I took his cap. Sigh. TGL is insanely powerful on this map. William built it in my game, and is a major tech beast. Thankfully he swapped into Mercantilism as soon as he got banking.

I'm actually going to play this one out, going for a domination win. State property looks like the economic civic of choice, otherwise colonial maintenance will kill me once I start taking cities.

 

[Mikehendi]

@OP:

VoiceOfUnreason posted a map a hort while ago, in a thread named "REXercise" I believe. You might want to check it out, play the map and compare your game to the other ones posted.

 

[thelibra]

Well, I restart for the same reason I do in other games. Take "Go" for instance, if I'm trying to grasp a particular segment of the game, like how to "make life in atari" or other exercises, then I keep playing that area over again till I understand. In chess, if I am trying to grasp the most effective way to escape mate, or to checkmate an opponent, I play that section over and over again. In such cases, the point wasn't to play the game on to the end, it was to understand the concepts underlying those parts.

It wasn't until the Portugal Game that I really felt like I grasped the better REXing policy. At that point I could then focus on my next problem: waging war. For another problem I seem to have is in knowing how to wage an early war without dropping myself into a terrible position, techwise. This last map, where I'm playing Portugal, is a prime example. Once I contacted other civs, it turns out I was really second to last, not average. I've been teching like crazy and buying/trading everything I can to close the gap.

I'm tempted to use my GE to start a golden age, but to me those always seem like the most valuable units in the world. I've got 4 GS academies going, 5 supporting cities. I'm thinking about trying to snag that little island in the upper left, but to do so in a timely fashion would mean slowing down my scientific juggernaut from its slowly inching pace.

In any event, my understanding of REXing has dramatically improved at this point thanks entirely to the combined advice. Now it seems I need to focus on how to take out a neighbor. Despite doing somewhat well in my current game, going off my own philosophy, it makes more sense to focus on what I need to learn.

For this, however, I'll start a new thread, so as to not derail my own. I expect there are probably some others who will want advice on REXing, rather than warfare.