stategic value of very early universal suffrage

[civzombie]

MANSA + UNIVERSAL SUFFERAGE = PWNAGE?

Universal suffrage is the civic that allows you to "gold rush" buildings and unit. This civic comes very late in the game, unless you build the pyramids. This thread is about very early use of this civic via the pyramids and the spiritual trait.

With the importance of city specialization, getting certain buildings in certain cities right away can be extremely important. For example, when banking is discovered you NEED that bank in your commerce/religious city ASAP to optimize the benefits. However, it seems like, particularly my science and commerce, are always strapped for hammers and take FOREVER to build the new stuff.

Okay, with that said, has anyone every tried building the pyramids with a spiritual leader and frequently switching to universal suffrage to rush buildings and unit in key cities???

I was thinking of a strategy with Mansa (spiritual and financial, forges +10% commerce) whereby I would implement some of the following:
-get pyramids ASAP, switch to REPRESENTATION and apply liberal use of merchant citizens specialists to boost the treasury. May also favor commerce over research in assigning research percentage.
-at key times, such as when the treasury is up and a new building is available, instantly switching to the universal suffrage civic to gold rush the new building.
-rushing towards banking and gold rushing banking in the commerce cities.


Other thoughts:
-This would work particularly well when you have high food cities with so-so hammers.
- this would work particularly well in combination with coastal cities as they generally high commerce and low hammer output
- probably would want to use the great engineer from early pyramids and early forge to rush the great lighthouse
- flexibility of having all that gold on hand would be fun. It would sure help tech brokering, and it would probably make you very flexible at war.
- this hair-brained scheme is great if you are impatient. Probably a fun alternative play style.
- anyone better leaders than mansa? I would think that spiritual is a required trait for this as you are constantly switching between representation and universal suffrage
- probably better for a more compact empire where certain cities need to be optomised

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

For the tech brokering/selling, you would want to have Currency just as quickly to get gold from the AI. This is an interesting premise, and the UB of Mali really complements it. Perhaps India's fast workers could help build gold/gem mines or other improvements more quickly; they are religious.

 

[civzombie]

"Perhaps India's fast workers could help build gold/gem mines or other improvements more quickly; they are religious."

Yes, in addition to that, India is philo, so if you build the pyramids early enough with them, you can great a great engineer to burn on the great lighthouse.

With the whole earlier-benefit-is-better theme of civ, perhaps Ghandi is a better choice than Mansa for this strategy.

 

[drkodos]

I have used this strategy (or some such variant) many times, but mostly when I am generating Great Merchants to send out on trade missions. Cash rushing is not cheap, so large amounts of capital are needed, usually a lot more than can be generated by just a few cities. On Huge maps, marathon speed it can be made to work because there is relatively more time to generate the capital needed to make it feasible.

As far as pwnage? I wouldn't go that far.

Beelining to Currency is a key tactic once one gets Alphabet, and then make sure to be the first to Economics to grab that free Merchant.

 

[UncleJJ]

This strategy can work but you have to chose carefully where the use of gold to hammers conversion is most useful. It is a way to concentrate the whole economic power of your empire on a single problem. US is an expensive way to get hammers and you can't do it everywhere.

A good example of where it can kickstart a new city is to rush buy the granary, which basically doubles the value of food. That can increase the growth of the city by maybe 20 turns for the cost of a cheap building. But it is not cost effective to buy expensive buildings like a bank ( 200 hammers cost 600 gold) in a small city with only 10 gold per turn.

MANSA + UNIVERSAL SUFFERAGE = PWNAGE?

Other thoughts:
-This would work particularly well when you have high food cities with so-so hammers.
- this would work particularly well in combination with coastal cities as they generally high commerce and low hammer output
- probably would want to use the great engineer from early pyramids and early forge to rush the great lighthouse

I would use US sparingly if at all in high food, low hammer cities. Slavery is a very good way to turn food to hammers by sacrificing pop. The food can be viewed as hammers in some senses. The same reservation would apply to coastal cities.

Why build the Great Lighthouse? The Colossus has a very strong synergy with Financial and each coastal tile gives 2F4C which is better than cottages in the early game and they don't need working

 

[drkodos]

Why build the Great Lighthouse? The Colossus has a very strong synergy with Financial and each coastal tile gives 2F4C which is better than cottages in the early game and they don't need working

Building both is even better and usually very doable.

 

[clairis]

I have used this strategy with isabella, which worked quite well for me.

 

[civzombie]

Yes, spending the coins selectively is key to the premise. Also, it does seem like this is better for epic, but I haven't fully thought that out yet.

High food city? Don't spend the coins, you can just whip.

High hammer city? Don't spend the coins, production will occur quickly.

High commerce city such as cottage spam city? YES!! You don't want to whip here because the city probably won't grow back super fast. Plus you have low production since you are using all cottages.


Thanks for the comments from those who have tried. BTW, "pwnage" was a joke. This is definitely a niche strategy that is almost certainly inferior to just attacking and taking over your nearest neighbor with axemen or something

 

[DaveMcW]

Rush-buying? Yawn.

Universal Suffrage is all about the +1 hammer towns.

 

[flamingzaroc121]

Beelining to Currency is a key tactic once one gets Alphabet, and then make sure to be the first to Economics to grab that free Merchant.

i love this strategy and in a costal city with high food this works even better, build the GL and or Colossus and with early currency build a market and get two merchant specialists. then if you can get early Caravel or if you play Pangea you can use your GM to fund your rush buying. though it probaby has to be done on a low level

 

[drkodos]

i love this strategy and in a costal city with high food this works even better, build the GL and or Colossus and with early currency build a market and get two merchant specialists. then if you can get early Caravel or if you play Pangea you can use your GM to fund your rush buying. though it probaby has to be done on a low level

I've worked it up to and including Monarch level, but conditions must be oh-so-perfect to focus purely on money. Extra good diplo relations so as to not get attacked and lack of looney neighbors such as Monty is a prerequisite.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

i love this strategy and in a costal city with high food this works even better, build the GL and or Colossus and with early currency build a market and get two merchant specialists. then if you can get early Caravel or if you play Pangea you can use your GM to fund your rush buying. though it probaby has to be done on a low level

Key words: low level

Plus I use money to do other things that I cant do with whipping...tech trading, upgrading, bribing civs to fight each other, defecit research.

 

[flamingzaroc121]

whats low level about beelining to currency and building the GL, you usually have a neighboor on your continent that you can use your GMs on if you are HC it is even easier because of his traits

 

[bassist2119]

US via pyramids is very powerful for any financial civ, and I'd emphasize it's use more by itself than as a spiritual leader going back and forth. Upon acquiring pyramids, there's usually a period of Rep booster, during which you cottage anything that can be fed (i.e. everything green and white, one brown for every extra food provided by resources.) When these develop into towns, and contributes a hammer in addition to mass commerce, every single city becomes both a monster commerce outlet and more-than-capable producer - you have your cake and eat it too. This scenario also allows for ICS, as running as high as 90% research can still pay for itself, and the more cities you have, the more eventually adds to the 10%$ that covers maintainance.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I can never remember - do production bonuses apply when you buy rush?

I like this idea in general (especially after the production experiments in the other thread), but wonder at it's utility?

The mature cities with cottages are going to be pulling hammers from the town, so they don't need much cash boost. The production cities are already doing fine. High food cities can whip. So where are you rushing? The GP Farm, I suppose, and new cities.

This feels to me like a tactic most suited for an expansion phase (either war, or Sulla's cultural domination game), where you are using cash to transfer production from your estalished core to the front (rush buying airports and flying in the units built in the back lines). But I'm not convinced it is suitable for a builder/researcher game.

 

[UncleJJ]

I can never remember - do production bonuses apply when you buy rush?

I like this idea in general (especially after the production experiments in the other thread), but wonder at it's utility?

No, there is no production bonus from forges etc. when you spend the gold. It is a flat rate of 3 gold per hammer (2 gold per hammer with Kremlin) for all buildings and units that already have one turn of production at least. Wonders cost twice as much per hammer. The bonuses that applly to the process are the gold bonuses market, grocer and bank (if you get your gold that way). A fully developed town producing say 7 commerce can (with 100% gold multiplier and 0% research slider) make 14 gold per turn which can then be spent as 4.6 hammers making it very powerful especially as the hammmers can be spent in any of your cities. I'm not sure what percentage of commerce cities will have good gold multipliers though... most seem to have just a market for its happiness boost.

The mature cities with cottages are going to be pulling hammers from the town, so they don't need much cash boost. The production cities are already doing fine. High food cities can whip. So where are you rushing? The GP Farm, I suppose, and new cities.

The hammers from towns are useful in the many low production commerce cities but the few extra hammers don't help a lot. They allow a university to be built slowly but don't expect to throw out a whole load of infantry or tanks. That is another use of rush buying, you can assemble a new army relatively quickly while temporaily running favourable civics such as Vassalage or Theocracy.

This feels to me like a tactic most suited for an expansion phase (either war, or Sulla's cultural domination game), where you are using cash to transfer production from your estalished core to the front (rush buying airports and flying in the units built in the back lines). But I'm not convinced it is suitable for a builder/researcher game.

Exactly, I use it to rush buy strategic buildings in domination games and to hurry troops through the WP.

I guess it has a powerful use in Cultural games, rush buying the temples and cathedrals in the slower cities to shave turns of the end date. In a space race it can't actually build the parts but it can rush buy factories and power plants to boost production of the space parts indirectly in cities that rip out towns for workshops and watermills.

 

[cabert]

I guess it has a powerful use in Cultural games, rush buying the temples and cathedrals in the slower cities to shave turns of the end date. In a space race it can't actually build the parts but it can rush buy factories and power plants to boost production of the space parts indirectly in cities that rip out towns for workshops and watermills.

right!
And going for cultural, if you manage the pyramids, you don't have to tech all the way to democracy! That's huge!
About space race, I did a bit of hard thinking in "fix another trash game" about it.
Rushbuying via US was so strong that I even built the kremlin to abuse it further.
I did buy :
- forges
- factories
- power plants
- culture buildings in border cities
- National wonders (globe theater and ermitage)
- spies.

A little trick : on the turn before having another spaceship part available for building, rushbuy something (preferably not without invested hammers! = start the build sooner) . So on turn 1 of SS part building, you have double base hammers (overflow from the previous object, provided it's big enough to not be built in 1 turn).
example : you start the factories all over the place while your ironworks city builds the apollo program, on turn N, you see that your IW city will finish the apollo, you go through all SS building cities (except IW, apollo cannot be $rushed as far as i know) and rush the factories.
Head start!