Strategy discussion

[AnotherPacifist]

So somebody mentioned building multiple Olympic Parks. It's actually crucial in certain conquest games. I think the any of the Mexican cities, 2 cities in middle of Canada, San Francisco and Vancouver are great production cities, and if you have either the Americans or the Aztecs as vassals, what you can do is build nothing but factory/coal plant (assuming you already have a forge being European), and chop everything in sight for these 2 buildings. Then build Olympic Park, and as soon as it's done, and when you need some stability, liberate it to your local vassal. Then feel free to build another park in another city. So far I've already had 3 GA as such, and no Olympic Park in Russia proper (maybe I save it for last).

 

[kbk]

I'm aware of this one, but I've always considered it to be to much of an exploit to take advantage of. Using your great people to skip anarchy makes some amount of sense, but a theoretically infinite number of golden ages seems too much.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I'm aware of this one, but I've always considered it to be to much of an exploit to take advantage of. Using your great people to skip anarchy makes some amount of sense, but a theoretically infinite number of golden ages seems too much.

It's not so good to liberate a size 20 city to your vassal for domination wins, but for conquest BECAUSE you don't want to get too much land, this strategy actually is good. Your culture typically will deprive that city of much of its usable tiles from your vassal anyway.
Is it theoretically infinite? Certainly any city can build an Olympic Park, but it takes too long for some to do it. (Just like in real life we'll never have the Summer Olympics held in Mombasa, at least not in the next 100 years).

Edit: never mind, it is possible to have a permanent golden age in the 1900's. For example, with 12 moves of GA left, I'm about to build an Olympic Park in Sinamary (in South America) which I'll probably liberate to Inca. I have already improved much of China and Mongolia and those cities can probably whip a factory out or 2, and the 3 Gorges Dam (which IMHO is really suited more for conquest and domination to save you from needing to build plants in newly conquered cities) will provide power.

Another trick I learned while playing for Russian conquest: America has respawned twice already, simply because I keep giving New York to the Aztecs who become only stable. I'm keeping France alive with once city in Magadascar (so that the Vikings can keep all of France safely without respawn) while America is limited to San Francisco and some useless central Asian cities. I'm going to build another 3 OPs in New York, Washington and Charleston, and then they go to Aztecs. Yes, the big war with Turkey has finally begun, and I've nuked them 15 times already.

 

[onedreamer]

anyone wants to discuss this ? : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7259960&postcount=6

 

[kbk]

anyone wants to discuss this ? : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7259960&postcount=6

I saw that post, and kind of forgot about it. Frankly, I'm surprised that no one jumped onto that discussion, because its been wildly believed that trading resources around helped your economic rating.

I've never bothered to trade spare resources, and yet have won some very difficult domination games (even on emperor), so I think I believe it. I'd be curious as to figuring out how much of a difference in size would offset the benefit of open borders in the foreign column. I've always just opened borders with everyone, but maybe some civs just aren't worth it.

Also, I was never clear if its just trade routes or if its more exports than imports, or more imports than exports that you want to have. Is that "/" in the wiki supposed to represent a ratio or is it just a slash?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Is it good that the US has such a large trade deficit (i.e. we import more than we export) while China has such a large trade surplus? Probably yes for both up to a certain point.
Is it bad that other countries don't have nearly as large the amount of trade that the US and China have? Probably, and that says a lot about their economy.
I just wish we can quantify this better while playing (what's too little import/export?), just like we can do with other categories of stability.

 

[onedreamer]

I saw that post, and kind of forgot about it. Frankly, I'm surprised that no one jumped onto that discussion, because its been wildly believed that trading resources around helped your economic rating.

I've never bothered to trade spare resources, and yet have won some very difficult domination games (even on emperor), so I think I believe it. I'd be curious as to figuring out how much of a difference in size would offset the benefit of open borders in the foreign column. I've always just opened borders with everyone, but maybe some civs just aren't worth it.

Also, I was never clear if its just trade routes or if its more exports than imports, or more imports than exports that you want to have. Is that "/" in the wiki supposed to represent a ratio or is it just a slash?

it is a subtraction

imports (routes) - exports = trade score. I didn't double check , but it might also be:
totalimportscommerce - totalexportcommerce = trade score.

The end result though is only one: if you are a big empire going for domination, it is hardly convenient for you to open borders because you will be very big and need many trade routes but your opponents will likely be small and few. As long as you're big and you have big trading partners, or many trading partners, you will have a decent imports/exports score. In the other case, I assume Mercantilism should help.

 

[kbk]

Subtraction would result in less of an extreme effect compared to a ratio. I think I'll try to keep an eye on those figures in the civ info screen, and see if I can follow any trends in my economic stability.

It seems likely though that open borders would still make up for other factors based on increased gold income and foreign stability. At least in most cases.

 

[onedreamer]

Subtraction would result in less of an extreme effect compared to a ratio.

well, it depends how stability considers it. Maybe it already does a ratio, I was speaking only of how the demographics work.

It seems likely though that open borders would still make up for other factors based on increased gold income and foreign stability. At least in most cases.

Yeah but you can have open borders (+ foreign stability) together with mercantilism in order to mitigate the bad effects of a low imports/exports score.

 

[kbk]

Yeah but you can have open borders (+ foreign stability) together with mercantilism in order to mitigate the bad effects of a low imports/exports score.

True, although in that case you'd have to question how much money you'd make from those foreign trade routes (combined with Customs Houses) compared to with mercantilism. And then you could compare it to what you get from a free specialist.

Still, late game I favor communism or environmentalism purely to dodge great depressions suddenly collapsing a sprawling empire. I tend to Free Market with smaller to medium empires for the trade routes.


Lets say a medium to large city has 2 foreign trade routes at 8 gold. Some will be bigger and some will be smaller, so I'm just spitballing numbers here.

Switching to mercantilism gives you a free specialist which could be say 3 hammers. Obviously you could pick a lot of different specialists, and I don't want to spend time on each individual one, so I'm just thinking about engineer for now to simplify.

You're paying 8 gold to 3 hammers.

Of course, maybe only half of your cities have a foreign trade route, so on average, its 4 gold to 3 hammers.

So, then what's the difference of that on GDP? Probably small, but it depends on the weighting of GDP differences vs. imports/exports.

I think overall this just strengthens my reasoning for staying in Mercantilism until I adopt Communism or Environmentalism for a large empire. I always thought the differences would be larger, because I would have those trade routes, but it seems that overall those trade routes hurt more than they help, stability wise.

 

[onedreamer]

I know very well that Mercantilism and Free Market aren't even comparable from a economic income point of view, and especially in RFC, however I was discussing on stability and if trading resources actually helps it.

 

[Ambassador]

Hi all!

How to cope with the drastic stability drop when you play the Spain and start to war with the NW civs and occupy their terrain?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Hi all!

How to cope with the drastic stability drop when you play the Spain and start to war with the NW civs and occupy their terrain?

Leave only 1 Aztec city and they'll never respawn. As for Incans, it tells you to occupy their territory in 1760, which means that you can conquer independent/barbarian Tucume later and just keep Cuzco while razing the other 2 worthless cities (Ariqipaya, Coqatunambo). Or build Tucume yourself (since it'll probably have no infrastructure). It's the territory in Europe that often makes my stability bad.

 

[fearuin]

Something you can do is to build a city in north America, more or less in Texas, and give it to the aztecs. They usually accept. Later on, you can conquer all the rest of their cities, and Americans will have to worry about them. Or conquer New Orleans to the French, and give it to the Aztecs. This one is pure theory, I haven't ever tried it out.

About South America, my strategy is pretty the same as AnotherPacifist.

 

[djenghis]

Hey,

Can someone give some tips to survive and thrive in a Rome conquest challenge. I modded the scenario to have no stability issues thanks to Umarth. The problem i am having is that i often go very near bankruptcy. I can only spend 10% to research which causes me to be way WAY behind in tech. When i go for currency and guilds banking straight away it helps a little: 20 - 30% on research. I play on emperor. In the beginning i always trade techs with Egypt and Babylon so that i get agriculture, archery, momotheism and monarchy in exchange.

D.

 

[Ambassador]

1. Try to build as many cottages as possible
2. After that, if stonehenge is in your reach, switch to emancipation (so that they grow faster)
3. Try to get the Christian shrine and have many christian cities/civs in the world
4. Get Divine Right and build the Minarett. Then build many christian buildings
5. Sell maps, cheap techs to inferior civs,
6. build wonders you dont need but do not complete them and when somebody else builds them after a while, you get money
7. Don't overexpand!

 

[Quotey]

8. Get Code of Laws early and build courthouses.the summer palace.

 

[djenghis]

I went for theology and got it first, builded the shrine and the minaret + apostolic palace. lots of cottages and now running at 70% science.

thx a lot!!

 

[The Q-Meister]

Anyone try causing a rival civ to collapse by espionage? It's something I've always wondered about, especially for civs you mistakenly allow to become too big, like Mongolia in my game, and since the AI loves to turtle their troops defeating them militarily can be difficult. I've always wondered though whether it would be possible with a large buildup of spies to make their cities unhappy and unhealthy and that especially large empires would be vulnerable to this since they're probably on shaky stability ground anyway.

I think this could be a very nice strategy for a civ like the Netherlands or Portugal to bring down their larger Euro rivals.

 

[kairob]

I only really use espionage to cause a roit in a city the turn I attack, completely removing their defence bonus.