[BTS] Tall vs wide.

I've gotten a ton more consistent at immortal by growing larger cities instead of settling as much land as possible. Reasoning is that settling 5 cities on t150 or whatever is significantly worse than getting a good cuir date and capturing 5 ai cities which have already grown some pop, have some grown cottages, and likely have some markets/courthouses/other goodies.
Yes. If you are going to expand, expand early and hard. If you are going for cuirs, get them as early as possible. You can't be doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Pick a strategy and execute it in the best possible way.
 
Maintenance is killer but generally you can afford whatever the AI lets you grab on most map scripts, as long as you have an eye towards trade routes and writing & currency.

Generally I agree with this, although I do play 90% fractal so less sure on the map script variation. I do struggle with low sea level maps though perhaps for this reason...I’m not sure when to stop expanding and probably over expand.
 
I tend to find on most maps i end up with ivory. So on these maps i might take down 2 ai and have 20 cities by 1000ad. At which point i go with late cuirs around same date. By this time i start with a stack of 30-40 cuirs as i have so many cities. On huge maps i was using 70-100 cuirs by end. Often declaring with 4x20 stacks.

So how should i approach earth 18 with Aztecs on always war maps. Maybe expand to take over americas and then wait for hammer economy. There is sooo much land and barbs are a real pain before copper. If you settle all the land that could be 40+ cities.

You don't want to reach Europe unless you have a huge army. As once you capture a city all ai stacks will head towards it. Some of these can be 30-40 in size.

Initially my thoughts was go rifles but this has not worked well. Also due to city costs past 15-20 cities starts slowing science.

I did consider a raze strategy but ai will keep rebuilding cities. I think i needed a bigger tech lead. Might have a rethink for a later game strat with a bigger army that isn't whip based
 
Could you do something with taking one city in Spain, and setting up a choke point with machine guns?

Then land main force eg in Africa and raze a few AIs whilst the doomstacks kill themselves?
 
A good thought Nick. Never played it that later date. Setting up an empire was never the hard bit.
 
Seems like there's a big benefit to "tall" for two particular city types:
-A bureaucracy capital with a lot of well-developed river-side cottages, and hopefully Oxford
-A Great Person farm with a lot of specialists and GPP bonuses

Otherwise the diminishing returns hit hard. With each pop the city is growing slower, increasing upkeep, growing onto marginal terrain, and maybe having to make buildings just to get the health/happiness to stay healthy and happy. Of course an extra pop is always better than nothing, growth for the sake of growth is a pretty low return-on-investment. If you're building a market just so you can work a couple plains tiles, it'll be a very long time before that pays off. Better just to make settlers or whip units instead.

Other situations where it might make sense to go tall:
-Temporarily, as preparation for whipping/drafting a bunch of units before you get the key tech. Might even be worth growing into unhappiness for this
-A production center to make wonders. Still probably won't be *too* big of a city though, since hill mines lose food.
-Maoi city with financial
 
Late game you want as many tall cities as possible, either with towns and banks/libraries/observatories or farms/windmills/watermills/mines/workshops. With Biology many cities can grow into efficient tiles.
 
So how should i approach earth 18 with Aztecs on always war maps. Maybe expand to take over americas and then wait for hammer economy. There is sooo much land and barbs are a real pain before copper. If you settle all the land that could be 40+ cities.

I would take over all the Americas. There is a lot of land and some nice rivers to spam cottages and tech like crazy. Get communism and assembly line then spam infantry out of 40+ cities to roll over everyone else with pure numbers. Add artillery and/or bombers if you get tired of brute forcing cities. You could also get tanks, but I think infantry should be fine to crush most of the map.
 
I would take over all the Americas. There is a lot of land and some nice rivers to spam cottages and tech like crazy. Get communism and assembly line then spam infantry out of 40+ cities to roll over everyone else with pure numbers. Add artillery and/or bombers if you get tired of brute forcing cities. You could also get tanks, but I think infantry should be fine to crush most of the map.

I think my early tech order is wrong for earth 18 always war as the Ai on continent are trading techs like crazy. I did only build 30 cities. I leave tech trading on.

My usual tech order Agg, mining (silver), TW, masonry, BW, Sailing, med, PH. (Oracle tech) Probably squeeze in fishing too. Usually try for mids for happiness and science. Sometime GLH. Could be doing too many wonders.

I wonder if missing colosus early on was a mistake with so many coastal cities. That would require copper to enable some nice fail gold. Copper involves a trek or a poorly placed city. Barbs are a real pain on this map with so much empty land.

So Early tech choices:
COL is nice for a religion. Speeds up CS. Caste is also good with spiritual. Would you really run caste when you need to whip?
MC for Colosus. Chance of fail gold too with copper. Copper takes a while to settle.
Maths offers bigger chops and HG. Is fail gold better than free pop on always war?
Alphabet offers science build and not much else on AW. Certainly think avoiding alphabet. Suggestion is just before PP. Can't trade techs anyway. Could steal but Gspy very unlikely.
Currency adds value if you have 2-3 island cities. Chance to run wealth to help speed up science.
Aesth line offers nothing economy wise. It's the economy stalling early on that is the biggest issue maybe?

Then a question of fail gold wonder economy vs rexxing fast vs caste specialist with mids. Bureau capital makes good sense. With 30 cities I was just not teching fast enough. I built lots of early wonders but missed Maus, Great Lib and music artist as too busy rexxing.
I normally move capital to west of where Washington is as it has so much cottageable land and can easily reach size 18 with double corn.

Ideally I need a huge fleet and stack of cuirs or rifles by about 1100ad or before. Getting the tech vs expansion is the big ask here. Or building so many cities I can reaqch 2-3k science a turn. Could of abused fail goild on Moai too.

If it was just about controlling the Americas it woud be easy albeit Ai do send fleets.
 
I think my early tech order is wrong for earth 18 always war as the Ai on continent are trading techs like crazy. I did only build 30 cities. I leave tech trading on.

My usual tech order Agg, mining (silver), TW, masonry, BW, Sailing, med, PH. (Oracle tech) Probably squeeze in fishing too. Usually try for mids for happiness and science. Sometime GLH. Could be doing too many wonders.

I wonder if missing colosus early on was a mistake with so many coastal cities. That would require copper to enable some nice fail gold. Copper involves a trek or a poorly placed city. Barbs are a real pain on this map with so much empty land.

So Early tech choices:
COL is nice for a religion. Speeds up CS. Caste is also good with spiritual. Would you really run caste when you need to whip?
MC for Colosus. Chance of fail gold too with copper. Copper takes a while to settle.
Maths offers bigger chops and HG. Is fail gold better than free pop on always war?
Alphabet offers science build and not much else on AW. Certainly think avoiding alphabet. Suggestion is just before PP. Can't trade techs anyway. Could steal but Gspy very unlikely.
Currency adds value if you have 2-3 island cities. Chance to run wealth to help speed up science.
Aesth line offers nothing economy wise. It's the economy stalling early on that is the biggest issue maybe?

Then a question of fail gold wonder economy vs rexxing fast vs caste specialist with mids. Bureau capital makes good sense. With 30 cities I was just not teching fast enough. I built lots of early wonders but missed Maus, Great Lib and music artist as too busy rexxing.
I normally move capital to west of where Washington is as it has so much cottageable land and can easily reach size 18 with double corn.

Ideally I need a huge fleet and stack of cuirs or rifles by about 1100ad or before. Getting the tech vs expansion is the big ask here. Or building so many cities I can reaqch 2-3k science a turn. Could of abused fail goild on Moai too.

If it was just about controlling the Americas it woud be easy albeit Ai do send fleets.
What difficulty? I actually tried this a few weeks ago, though only on noble. I firmly think pyramids is the way to go, maintenance gets so high and making cottages in south america doesn't make much sense since you want to workshop all of that anyway.
 
Immortal level. I also wonder if Aztec ub should of been spammed as only 90H. I just feel my tech is too slow for what i am doing.
 
I haven’t tried this but from reading your posts...might Great Wall be a good play? Solves barb issues and great spy can help you backfill a lot more efficiently
 
Great wall not possible on Earth 18. Ai always beat you to it. To steal would require alphabet. Dead end tech.


Aztecs need agriculture, mining and masonry for GW. By which time French will likely have started it. Then you need the hammers too with no chops for 13+ turns. AG as it's food resource. Otherwise you have a rather bored worker.
 
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I did a test and you can get it. I think perhaps you forget that you don’t need mining, as masonry can also go through mysticism.

If you settle on the stone and go masonry first, you can build a couple of warriors, grow to size 2 and then build the wall for turn 28.

If you go agriculture first then masonry, you get it turn 34 which was still early enough on my immortal play through and gives a less compromised start.
 
Where are you settling cap? On the plains hill 2 north? Settling capital on the stone is not great. I use second city for this. Plus my start involves building warriors to rush Washington. So adding 1 element removes another.

Washington will come at you with warriors on AW games. The ai mainly throw warriors at you. The issue is most of the land is plains and hills so hard to defend on forest. Biggest issue is axes later on as top of map needs about 7-8 units to fog bust hence why you want a fast expansion.

GW would save a lot of fog busters. Likely costing me 7-8 gold a turn.

Here is one of my attempts up to 200bc. I am paying 9 gold unit upkeep but I made mistake of going alphabet. Up to 15 cities.

My big issue is I am way too slow science wise.
 

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Wondering if I should of moved the capital. Lack of academy in capital was a mistake. Shrine for religion would of been nice. Too many units to stop barbs. How would you make early GW work as you would still need a plan to take out Americans. Not convinced mass caste and scientists is best either. Looking at save Colossus would only add 11 commerce a turn here. Albeit more once cities grow. So tech choice becomes a decision. Fail gold would of really helped my science here.
 
Yes, settling on the stone - otherwise I don’t think it’s possible. Settle on stone isn’t too bad.

Can’t Washington be taken out with Jaguars (+catapults if really needed?)? He won’t have anything but archers for a while?

One thing that counts against a great spy in always war is the shared religion/holy city bonus. Does anyone know anyway to spread religion in always war?
 
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One thing that counts against a great spy in always war is the shared religion/holy city bonus. Does anyone know anyway to spread religion in always war?
Well you could prepare a city reasonably close to your capital with the right religion and then let your infiltrated opponent capture it. If you want to switch Espionage target later on reconquer the city and let the desired AI take it.
 
He will have access to copper. I wasn't sure if it was a great idea to go for war later on. I can take out washington by 2500bc if warrior rush goes well. Jaguars requires iron. You could settle nearby copper with view to letting barbs raze city. Not with GW.

I did have a religion spread from inca before i met them on one attempt. With closed borders it's much harder. I don't think early iw is great here as it's better to steal or tech later. Still not convinced on great wall. Would need to test. I am just trying to work out quickest way to tech on this map.

On one attempt i did manage to raze a lot of china cities with cuirs or rifles. Problem is once i captured a city huge stacks came my way. 30-40+. My economy was dead. I needed police state. You need naval control of seas too. So no frigates would be a huge no.
 
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