The Ugly Side of Expansion

[Zx Zero Zx]

Wow you have hardly any cities. Here's what you do. Tech pottery and BW. They are both super duper techs that you need. Next step build like 10 Axes while chopping and whipping. Can you guess what you do next? KILL YOUR NEIGHBOR. The Civ gods aren't like your Christian gods they want you to kill thee neighbor. By doing so you get gold for capturing their cities and have more land. After totally wiping out one neighbor you should have enough gold to run negative while teching Currency so you can build wealth. After you have that you are set to expand and kill more neighbors while still teching at a good rate.

 

[deathturnip]

Well, if you plan on expanding quickly, scouts can reveal places a lot faster, so that's their purpose.

Scouts also die. Your opening warrior will likely show you a few good places to settle so scouts are generally not needed. Also, scouts require hunting, which is usually a bad thing to prioritize. Just sayin'

 

[KOpharaoh]

Scouts also die. Your opening warrior will likely show you a few good places to settle so scouts are generally not needed. Also, scouts require hunting, which is usually a bad thing to prioritize. Just sayin'

I see your point about the dying thing. But I don't get what you mean when you say hunting's a bad thing to prioritize, doesn't that lead to archery and animal husbandry if I'm not mistaken?

 

[deathturnip]

I shouldn't have said bad I suppose, but usually sub-optimal. Agriculture is often the better way to unlock AH since you are way more likely to settle by grains then by deer. Sure, there are other hunting resources, but very early on food is generally prioritized.

Archery is rarely needed if you have copper, though it may be that at deity level you do not want to take that risk. I do not know since deity is way out of my league.

 

[Sportyatuncw06]

I used to grab archery and build lots of archers. Then I saw a the DRKossin walkthrough where he never researched archery... Ever got it on a late trade. He had tanks and nukes bt that time and it was a throw in tech some AI gave him in a trade. I don't think he had elephants or deer or anything and like death said if you get copper who needs archers? There are more important techs. If you start with hunting or need it to link up resources or to produce a UU (keshiks for example) go for it. If you dont have copper or iron you may need to grab archery and beeline for vassalage (and suck up to all your neighbors). If your looking for quick exploration build chariots (assuming you have horses) Also I think horse archers are a wast of time. Spearmen chew them up. Frankly I am not a fan of any mounted UU's.

 

[Sportyatuncw06]

So, here I am, hooking up with my main man Survayarman II of Khmer. On Noble diff, BtS, Continents map. I keep an eye on my tech rate as I use the worker-warior-worker-settler method. All of a sudden I go from 100% tech down to 60% in a heartbeat, so I stop after 3 cities. But, I see the tech rate go down even MORE to a mere 30%. I'm still winning, because the only civ I've met was HRE. But I'm in trouble. Is there any way I can salvage this game, and if not, what should I do next time?

I used to always priortize science and often expanded to slowly because I wanted to keep my beaker slider high. After following some upper level walkthroughs I have seen people with 0% science and 10 or 15 tech behind. This would have freaked me out but they bounced right back. Here are a couple things I noticed:
1) great people bulb techs early on the tree. Later they will only cut the time needed to research a tech but that can still be useful. I would always merge GP's into the city for bonuses but they can help catch up on the tech tree quickly, espically GS. Acadamys are powerful. If you can't build wonders (and even if you can supplement them) with specialist. Make sure you have plenty of food in the city and whatever buildings needed to produce them (libraries=GS) and Caste System is beneficial.
2) total beakers more important than slider. It is hard for me to judge what a good number of beakers is but if you have libraries and monastaries and such you can drop the slider and not lose beakers
3)trade, trade, trade. I used to be stubborn about this because I wanted to get wonders or keep AI from getting military advantages but as you move up in difficulty wonders are less of an option so whoring out techs is necessary. Also instead of scattering around the tech tree pick a line and run down it. Get to a tech no one else has and backfill other techs through trade. Also don't let spare resources go to waste. Eve 1 gold piece per turn is better than letting them sit idle. This will boost diplo also
4) courthouse, forbidden palace and select marketplaces help a lot with upkeep and commerce. If you have good relations and trade options harbors and castles and custom houses can be a big boost.
5) early tech are cheap so you can make up a lot of ground quickly is you can become bigger than anyone and develop your economy. Cottages don't help much early but as they grow they make a big difference. You can also build wonders for failure gold or produce wealth (not my favorite choice but necessary at times)
Hope some of these tips help. On noble you should be able to get 5 or 6 cities fairly early I think. I just popped 6 on monarch before COL or CUR and although it put me in a tech hole I cant keep up with AI anyways, so the land was very valuable. I am back to 60% now and only 4 or 5 tech behind most people in the midevil era. One or two good techs and trades and I will be back on par.

 

[Deathstar]

In addition to pottery, hooking up resources that give gold and trading with whoever you can to obtain resources that give gold is another thing you can do. I always experience an economic crash up to 0% but once I get alphabet and start trading techs, (calender, currency, and techs leading to monarchy specifically), things turn around.