The Skeleton Infrastructure Strategy

[Artichoker]

I agree that marble is essential. However given the choice, I would settle near marble rather than stone (going for GLib/NE rather than mids).
Also, if I have no marble and no stone, I might still build the Glib/NE (not always, but with a lot of forests I might), but not pyramids.

Now that I think about it, the Pyramids are really expensive compared to the Great Library. Not only is the raw hammer cost higher, but it comes at an earlier time when hammers are more precious.

I have yet to try using the Great Library/National Epic/Pacifism combo. But it looks pretty strong in theory. With Pacifism, you'll have the option of cutting back on specialists in the GL city, in order to allow other cities to keep up with GP generation. Or...you can try to time the GP progress so that the GL city is making 2 or 3 times as many great people as other cities.

I'm pretty optimistic about going for Constitution with this strategy. It seems that late Pacifism would be more suited for this, but it largely depends on winning the Liberalism race to gain Nationalism. I totally agree about the usefulness of the Philosophy bulb, and I know this works even with the late Pacifism strategy. Pre-Pacifism, it's not unreasonable to use the 1st GS to bulb Philosophy and the 2nd GS to build an Academy.

If you have the Great Library, on the other hand, that Academy can go a long way towards producing extra research. You might not need to bulb anything after Philosophy in order to win the Liberalism race. That would give reason to go for the late Pacifism strategy, which focuses on post-Liberalism techs, and therefore provides an opportunity to leverage Constitution.

 

[oyzar]

Or just maximize GP production in the GL city and use the other cities for something else...

 

[silverbullet]

I totally agree about the usefulness of the Philosophy bulb, and I know this works even with the late Pacifism strategy. Pre-Pacifism, it's not unreasonable to use the 1st GS to bulb Philosophy and the 2nd GS to build an Academy.

In most of my games it's the other way around - 1st GS will build an academy in the capital, 2nd GS will bulb philosophy (in some cases it's better to settle an early great scientist instead of academy- when slider is going to be low for a very long time).

It is important to build a library and run 2GS early. I usually do this once I have 4 cities. By that time usually another city takes over settler/worker production duty while the capital focuses on the first GS (even if production becomes a lousy 3 hammers per turn as a result).

Philosophy is a useful tech even if you don't want to run pacifism. It's a great trade opportunity, especially if you fall behind in tech because of early warring. This technology can bring you to tech parity, as shown in Unconquered Sun's Justinian's University and a lot of other games.

 

[Artichoker]

After further thought, it looks like there might be room for a Market under Phase 1, after all...under certain limitations.

You see, the definition of "Skeleton Infrastructure" need not be limited to a fixed set of buildings. The important thing to remember is that the total hammer cost of all buildings built in the city generally needs to fall under a certain total, so that the hammers spent on units will be adequate.

During Phase 1, a typical city will build a Barracks, Granary, Library, Courthouse, and Monastery. This is considered the "standard package". In order to maximize the effect of specialists during Phase 2, however, it can be beneficial to have one or more cities substitute a Market for the Library. Of course, Markets are more expensive than Libraries, and herein lies the problem. It can be solved, however, by taking a look at the hammer cost of the other buildings in the standard package. If you can eliminate buildings that roughly equal the cost of a Market, then you're paying the same hammer cost in the end by substituting a Market for those buildings.

Since the cost of a Market (150 hammers) equals the cost of a Library (90 hammers) and a Monastery (60 hammers) combined, it's reasonable to consider replacing the Library and the Monastery with a Market, so that the city can focus on gold production during Phase 2.

The Courthouse is another buiding that can be replaced, in some cases. For cities such as the capital, which have relatively low maintenance, it might be better in some cases to replace the Courthouse with a Temple and some other cheap building. It often depends on the specific needs of the city.

 

[Bleys]

There was a pretty good thread a while back about how a Market may be a better choice than a Courthouse is some situations, where the additional gold generated by the market outweighed the gold saved from the courthouse.

 

[badger_md]

Its important to specify what level of play you are at.

At monarch level, your strategy would make a lot of sense b/c you don't need to bulb liberalism.

At emperor level or above, you need to bulb liberalism to get there first. You can't afford to wait for constitution to get representation before you run your scientists. You have to either build the great library (plan a) or lightbulb philosophy and run caste system/philosophy and run as many scientists as you can in all your cities (plan b). Plan a allows you to stay in slavery, which is much better for your production/economy. Staying in caste system is done ONLY to generate great scientists to bulb to liberalism at higher level play. You sacrifice A LOT economically early on when you are out of slavery. A size 6 city is going to take a long time to produce anything without the whip, particularly if you have to devote 2 of the citizens to be scientists.

After you bulb liberalism, you should be in either org religion to help bulid the taj, or in theocracy to crank out level 3 trebs. No reason for caste system at that point.

If you have built the mids, one combination that you didn't mention that is helpful is the police state/nationalism/slavery/theocracy combo. The extra 25% boost to hammers when whipping riflemen is addative to your 25% boost with forges in your cities. It really makes a big difference. Also, the 50% war weariness decrease will allow you to keep your capital/commerce city at a higher level then you otherwise would have, thus decreasing the defecit that you have to run at during a prolonged war.

 

[Artichoker]

Its important to specify what level of play you are at.

I'm an emperor level player, by the way.

At monarch level, your strategy would make a lot of sense b/c you don't need to bulb liberalism.

At emperor level or above, you need to bulb liberalism to get there first. You can't afford to wait for constitution to get representation before you run your scientists. You have to either build the great library (plan a) or lightbulb philosophy and run caste system/philosophy and run as many scientists as you can in all your cities (plan b). Plan a allows you to stay in slavery, which is much better for your production/economy. Staying in caste system is done ONLY to generate great scientists to bulb to liberalism at higher level play. You sacrifice A LOT economically early on when you are out of slavery. A size 6 city is going to take a long time to produce anything without the whip, particularly if you have to devote 2 of the citizens to be scientists.

OK, let's analyze the situation by dividing the timeline into two parts: Slavery and Caste System. That's Phase 1 and Phase 2 in my strategy. Furthermore, let's assume that there's no Great Library, because it's never a guarantee.

During Phase 1, one of the goals is to make the jump to Phase 2, and this requires Philosophy. So one GS is spent to bulb Philosophy, and that also happens to be on the Liberalism path...notice that this GS was generated without the help of Pacifism/Caste System, because Philosophy itself is required to unlock Pacifism.

Another GS is used to build an Academy...so both the 1st and 2nd GSs are generated during Slavery, yet they both help towards winning the Liberalism race.

The question we need to ask is how many GSs must be generated during Phase 2 in order to reliably win the Liberalism race. We already generated two GSs during the Slavery phase, and they've been accounted for. If it requires as little as one more GS, then it's possible to wait until we've finished Education, before bulbing Liberalism.

Constitution is not very far away from Liberalism. If Nationalism is taken as the free tech, then getting Constitution requires only one more tech that is actually researched. The timespan of Phase 2 can realistically cover both the bulb of Liberalism and the post-Constitution period, where the extra research from Representation is gained.

 

[Artichoker]

Early Pacifism vs. Late Pacifism



Advantages of Late Pacifism

--more opportunity to utilize Slavery
--more opportunity to fight Medieval Era war
--lower cost of Pacifism achieved through expansion
--more opportunity to utilize Representation (assuming no Pyramids)


Advantages of Early Pacifism

--higher chance of winning Liberalism race


more on this later...

 

[UncleJJ]

OK, let's analyze the situation by dividing the timeline into two parts: Slavery and Caste System. That's Phase 1 and Phase 2 in my strategy. Furthermore, let's assume that there's no Great Library, because it's never a guarantee.

During Phase 1, one of the goals is to make the jump to Phase 2, and this requires Philosophy. So one GS is spent to bulb Philosophy, and that also happens to be on the Liberalism path...notice that this GS was generated without the help of Pacifism/Caste System, because Philosophy itself is required to unlock Pacifism.

Another GS is used to build an Academy...so both the 1st and 2nd GSs are generated during Slavery, yet they both help towards winning the Liberalism race.

The question we need to ask is how many GSs must be generated during Phase 2 in order to reliably win the Liberalism race. We already generated two GSs during the Slavery phase, and they've been accounted for. If it requires as little as one more GS, then it's possible to wait until we've finished Education, before bulbing Liberalism.

Constitution is not very far away from Liberalism. If Nationalism is taken as the free tech, then getting Constitution requires only one more tech that is actually researched. The timespan of Phase 2 can realistically cover both the bulb of Liberalism and the post-Constitution period, where the extra research from Representation is gained.

I agree with a lot of this but why is there a presumption that Caste System is needed to research Liberalism? I rarely if ever use Caste System at that time. There are so many uses for Slavery, not least of which is spreading the religion needed for Pacifism, I then build the monasteries in science cities for an additional research boost.

Is Caste System really that useful between CS and Liberalism? There are several ways to get Liberalism and one I've found useful is to research Paper and then use 1 GS to lightbulb part of Education researching the rest normally. Then immediately start building universities in key cities (and enough other cities) such that by the time the capital has built its university I can whip/ build the others needed for Oxford. That allows an early start on Oxford and really sorts out the research problems for a while at least.

I might use a GS to lightbulb Philosphy in which case I might run Pacifism with Slavery, especially if I'm also Philosophical. That gives a double boost to GPPs and means that Slavery is available to whip the cheap universities into weak cities. I'll often run a spy part time alongside the two scientists to further boost the GPP production. Slavery also means that warfare is possible as it recovering from earlier warfare by installing infrastructure. Caste System is particularly unattractive at this time if warfare is likely. Without Guilds or Chemistry it means that workshops are a weak improvement compared with chain irrigated farms that allow big cities and rapid re-growth after a whip.

I usually research Liberalism normally often building research or wealth if the race is tight. I don't even know what the conditions are to lightbulb it with a GS but I might do it that way if it wasn't too difficult. I sometimes use a GS later on to lightbulb part of Chemistry, but that's another story.

 

[PublicEnemy]

If I remember correctly, to bulb Liberalism you have to avoid Machinery.

I could be wrong though, I usually self research it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If I remember correctly, to bulb Liberalism you have to avoid Machinery.

I could be wrong though, I usually self research it.

Yeah...I also seldom bulb lib itself (hell, about half the time I don't even try for it) but I can verify that if you don't research machinery, you block printing press (and the optics/astro line), which allows a lib bulb. Not nearly as useful as the research-powering and (once you have lib) highly tradeable education bulb however, IMO.

By not going for lib, I'm implying that after currency/Col/construction the player would go MC ---> Machinery ---> engineering. This usually doesn't involve a bulb for me so far but a merchant could conceivably help in there...or if you skip fishing IIRC you can use scientists. I usually don't bulb this path. I whip. The thing I like about the "bottom path" is that it 1) keeps military stronger in the short term and 2) You actually get counter units for military before stronger units. Example: Xbows > maces, pikes > knights, knights > muskets. Of course, siege > anything in cities. I've dominated emperor with this path and one of my two immortal wins also went this route (strangely). Obviously this is a war path however . Sometimes you can broker MC or Machinery and kind of keep up though...depends on the AIs. It's surprising what trebs, promoted units, and a few attached GG's can do here.

I do agree that caste isn't necessarily important, especially if you have TGL. This opinion changes drastically for spiritual, where even a micro-hating player like me loves quick blasts into massive scientists + pacifism in a city with no true penalty between most whip anger expirations (again, of course, assuming I'm not just blasting out units exclusively)...especially because I play on epic and whip anger takes 15 turns to go away. I might delay 1-3 whips this way...big deal.

 

[Artichoker]

I agree with a lot of this but why is there a presumption that Caste System is needed to research Liberalism? I rarely if ever use Caste System at that time. There are so many uses for Slavery, not least of which is spreading the religion needed for Pacifism, I then build the monasteries in science cities for an additional research boost.

The argument for early Pacifism is based upon its ability to speed up the progress toward Liberalism. The higher number of Scientists allowed by Caste System will help speed up the generation of the next Great Scientist. Although I do not think this is a strong enough reason to prefer early Pacifism over late Pacifism, a focused effort of research towards Liberalism can be helped by using Caste System rather than Slavery.

Is Caste System really that useful between CS and Liberalism? There are several ways to get Liberalism and one I've found useful is to research Paper and then use 1 GS to lightbulb part of Education researching the rest normally. Then immediately start building universities in key cities (and enough other cities) such that by the time the capital has built its university I can whip/ build the others needed for Oxford. That allows an early start on Oxford and really sorts out the research problems for a while at least.

The usefulness of Caste System largely depends on timing.

As you point out here, switching out of Slavery too early can stunt the productivity of your cities...this is why I prefer late Caste System. With late Caste System, you will more likely benefit from the +1 hammer bonus for workshops. Regarding Universities, however, I often find that they are too expensive for non-Philosophical leaders, especially when using an early Education tech path. The population spent by whipping them can instead be used to run more specialists during Pacifism. If you also lack Stone, then building Oxford University becomes especially expensive.

I might use a GS to lightbulb Philosphy in which case I might run Pacifism with Slavery, especially if I'm also Philosophical. That gives a double boost to GPPs and means that Slavery is available to whip the cheap universities into weak cities. I'll often run a spy part time alongside the two scientists to further boost the GPP production. Slavery also means that warfare is possible as it recovering from earlier warfare by installing infrastructure. Caste System is particularly unattractive at this time if warfare is likely. Without Guilds or Chemistry it means that workshops are a weak improvement compared with chain irrigated farms that allow big cities and rapid re-growth after a whip.

I find that the Philosophy bulb is the most useful of all the GS bulbs, by far. The Education bulb is often not sufficient to finish the tech on its own, and in many games it's possible to delay Education in favor of more practical techs.

If you commit yourself to one specific GS bulb in your strategy, then you can better control your overall strategy. The only time I would not do a Philosophy bulb would be if I built an early wonder that popped some great person other than a GS. An Education bulb, on the other hand, is unheard of in my strategy. If I wanted to, however, I could substitute an Education bulb for an early Academy, and delay the Academy until the 3rd GS is popped.

Regarding the Slavery + Pacifism combo, I see a drawback. Although this combo gives you a lot of options, these options are counterproductive with each other. Slavery requires surplus food to recover from whipping, and Pacifism also requires surplus food to run many specialists. Being able to do either one requires sacrificing the potential to do the other.

This is why I prefer to do the whipping beforehand, while I'm still in Phase 1, and wait until Phase 2 before cranking up the specialists. As a result, the duration of Phase 1 is extended for this reason. Although this also delays the generation of GSs, the focused application of the 2 GSs I generate during Phase 1 is usually enough help for winning the Liberalism race.

I usually research Liberalism normally often building research or wealth if the race is tight. I don't even know what the conditions are to lightbulb it with a GS but I might do it that way if it wasn't too difficult. I sometimes use a GS later on to lightbulb part of Chemistry, but that's another story.

The option you mention here of building research or wealth can actually be combined with the late Pacifism strategy to shoot for Liberalism. However, it requires conserving hammers so that you have enough of them to build your skeleton infrastructure. This is why my recent games tend to delay Universities and other expensive buildings.

 

[obsolete]

At emperor level or above, you need to bulb liberalism to get there first.

I think if someone NEEDS to bulb on emperor to get to lib first, then there is lots of room for improvement in their game.

 

[Artichoker]

By not going for lib, I'm implying that after currency/Col/construction the player would go MC ---> Machinery ---> engineering. This usually doesn't involve a bulb for me so far but a merchant could conceivably help in there...or if you skip fishing IIRC you can use scientists. I usually don't bulb this path. I whip. The thing I like about the "bottom path" is that it 1) keeps military stronger in the short term and 2) You actually get counter units for military before stronger units. Example: Xbows > maces, pikes > knights, knights > muskets. Of course, siege > anything in cities. I've dominated emperor with this path and one of my two immortal wins also went this route (strangely). Obviously this is a war path however . Sometimes you can broker MC or Machinery and kind of keep up though...depends on the AIs. It's surprising what trebs, promoted units, and a few attached GG's can do here.

How about Nationalism -> Constitution as an alternative to Liberalism? If you find that a rival civ is far closer to Liberalism than you are, by the time you complete Paper, then it might be advantageous to skip Education and Liberalism in favor of Nationalism and Constitution. I haven't tried this specific route myself, but it looks like an alternative that I might follow in case I know I wouldn't be winning the Liberalism race.

 

[Artichoker]

How about Nationalism -> Constitution as an alternative to Liberalism? If you find that a rival civ is far closer to Liberalism than you are, by the time you complete Paper, then it might be advantageous to skip Education and Liberalism in favor of Nationalism and Constitution. I haven't tried this specific route myself, but it looks like an alternative that I might follow in case I know I wouldn't be winning the Liberalism race.

Here is some information I took from the Civilopedia regarding tech costs and prerequisites:

Technology       Cost        Prerequisites


[I]---Constitution Path---[/I]

Nationalism      1800        Civil Service + (Divine Right / Philosophy)
Constitution     2000        Code of Laws + Nationalism

[I]---Liberalism Path---[/I]

Paper            600         Theology / Civil Service
Education        1800        Paper
Liberalism       1400        Philosophy + Education

As you can see, both the Constitution path and Liberalism path require a total of 3800 beakers.

Liberalism gives you a free tech if you win the race, but the Constitition path arguably picks up techs that are far more useful than the Liberalism path.

 

[silverbullet]

Here is some information I took from the Civilopedia regarding tech costs and prerequisites:

Technology       Cost        Prerequisites


[I]---Constitution Path---[/I]

Nationalism      1800        Civil Service + (Divine Right / Philosophy)
Constitution     2000        Code of Laws + Nationalism

[I]---Liberalism Path---[/I]

Paper            600         Theology / Civil Service
Education        1800        Paper
Liberalism       1400        Philosophy + Education

As you can see, both the Constitution path and Liberalism path require a total of 3800 beakers.

Liberalism gives you a free tech if you win the race, but the Constitition path arguably picks up techs that are far more useful than the Liberalism path.

If you run a pure cottage economy and all you great scientists just build academies, I could agree with this math. However, if you run a pure cottage economy, education and oxford are far more beneficial than constitution.

If you run some scientist specialists in your empire, you can bulb philosophy education and liberalism. Each scientist provides "only" 3 beakers per turn, but when you factor in the GPP converted into beaker, and the beakers you get by trading, they provide much much more than that in terms of beakers.

Also, liberalism->nationalism is the WORST case scenario. you can many times pick more expensive techs if you have met all civs and you know that you are the only one with education. In the best case you could pick biology if going peaceful, or steel or military tradition if going for war.

If you run caste system/pacifism and have a lot of food (or you are philosophical) You can use additional great scientists to bulb printing press, chemistry, sci method, before you finish liberalism, depending on how fast the AIs tech.

Taking all that into account, the only scenario i can see where you would not want to go for liberalism is when you are sure you are going to lose the race

 

[Artichoker]

Well, for the record, I've never tried the Constitution-first strategy before, so I don't know how well it does in practice.

But I still think that Constitution is a better technology than Education, for the strategy I use. I don't use a pure CE, or a pure SE, but rather a hybrid economy. During Phase 1, I typically run a hybrid CE/HE, and during Phase 2 I switch to a hybrid CE/SE.

The HE component of Phase 1 is achieved by removing all of my specialists, once I have popped my 2nd Great Scientist. The plan is then to use Slavery as much as possible until I finally make the transition to Phase 2 and run Pacifism.

During Phase 2, the HE component disappears because the high-hammer tiles are removed to create new specialists, and thus transforms into a hybrid CE/SE.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think if someone NEEDS to bulb on emperor to get to lib first, then there is lots of room for improvement in their game.

No kidding, I scrape just to win immortal but can easily win lib w/o a single bulb on emperor on most maps. Unless darius or liz start on their own, non-isolated island and get GLH or something.

@ Artichoker - nationalism is an option there of course, but keep in mind if I'm ACTUALLY going down MC ----> Machinery, especially on Immortal, I'm doing so because I want war units ASAP. This makes machinery, engineering, guilds, and gunpowder important techs. Priority techs, actually. I don't mind falling behind on that path because as I pointed out the counter units to something tend to come earlier in the tech tree than the unit being countered provided you have the resources!

If I'm going the "idiot full monty assault" like this, techs I'd actually advocate are chemistry and steel to climb out of the hole post-war. For some reason, most AIs *really* put off chem and especially steel, and they're both very tradeworthy - enough to cover some ground. Military Science less so but if you get some techs out of chem/steel you can usually beeline something like democracy, rifling, or steam power if you need more trade magic.

I've found that once you start talking 15+ cities, it's amazing how easily the player can catch up after he stops warring. Some cottage growth, a beeline or two, a GA/civic swap, and all of a sudden the player's BPT is ahead of the AIs, and with even quasi-intelligent tech pathing it seems AI tech leads just melt away. Except on immortal where I screw up in war, and probably on deity that is .

 

[oyzar]

Its important to specify what level of play you are at.

At monarch level, your strategy would make a lot of sense b/c you don't need to bulb liberalism.

At emperor level or above, you need to bulb liberalism to get there first. You can't afford to wait for constitution to get representation before you run your scientists. You have to either build the great library (plan a) or lightbulb philosophy and run caste system/philosophy and run as many scientists as you can in all your cities (plan b). Plan a allows you to stay in slavery, which is much better for your production/economy. Staying in caste system is done ONLY to generate great scientists to bulb to liberalism at higher level play. You sacrifice A LOT economically early on when you are out of slavery. A size 6 city is going to take a long time to produce anything without the whip, particularly if you have to devote 2 of the citizens to be scientists.

After you bulb liberalism, you should be in either org religion to help bulid the taj, or in theocracy to crank out level 3 trebs. No reason for caste system at that point.

If you have built the mids, one combination that you didn't mention that is helpful is the police state/nationalism/slavery/theocracy combo. The extra 25% boost to hammers when whipping riflemen is addative to your 25% boost with forges in your cities. It really makes a big difference. Also, the 50% war weariness decrease will allow you to keep your capital/commerce city at a higher level then you otherwise would have, thus decreasing the defecit that you have to run at during a prolonged war.

Since when do you need to bulb to win lib over monarch? i've won lib at deity without bulbing(with hits like darius and mansa in the mix).

 

[Artichoker]

If you run a pure cottage economy and all you great scientists just build academies, I could agree with this math. However, if you run a pure cottage economy, education and oxford are far more beneficial than constitution.

If you run some scientist specialists in your empire, you can bulb philosophy education and liberalism. Each scientist provides "only" 3 beakers per turn, but when you factor in the GPP converted into beaker, and the beakers you get by trading, they provide much much more than that in terms of beakers.

However, bulbing comes at a cost...if you intend on using the extra GPs for long-term future use, that option becomes less valuable.

My plan just involves bulbing Philosophy, and that is common to both the Nationalism and Liberalism tech paths.

...

Here's an illustration...assume the current beakers per turn are 200/turn, and the modified cost of Constitution is 3000 beakers. So without Representation, it will take 15 turns to research Constitution.

This means the Nationalism tech path gets Constitution 15 turns before the Liberalism path, assuming no bulbing past Philosophy.

If we are running 20 specialists, with an average science multiplier of 4/3, that's 60 * 4/3 = 80 extra beakers per turn, which results in 1200 extra beakers during those 15 turns--not as much as the 2000 beakers from Liberalism, but on the other hand you get to decide where to put those beakers.

If you consider that winning Liberalism is not always a guarantee, it then becomes reasonable to consider taking the Nationalism path instead.