Tradition's 3 cities(food focused) opening

If I can add a comment that I did not notice yet in the thread, if the map type allows to settle coastal cities, using cargo ships instead of caravans is completely broken. It's somewhere around +8 food instead of +4 for a mere 25 extra hammers.

Absolutely. I forgot to tell about cargos but the evidence is clear. If you can build a cargo for food instead of a caravan, just do it.

Is there any reason you're pushing food pre-aqueducts?

What you would do instead? I find the early food caravans the best way to enhance other cities to make them productive and populous(especially when they have finished libraries) and recuperate faster in term of science and military. When you hit education and artists building you can run 4-5 specialists early without crippling too much the overall growth.

Having 10+ :c5citizen: cities by the turn 90-100 is the actual mid term goal of this strategy.
 
Update : added example into OP.
 
What you would do instead? I find the early food caravans the best way to enhance other cities to make them productive and populous(especially when they have finished libraries) and recuperate faster in term of science and military. When you hit education and artists building you can run 4-5 specialists early without crippling too much the overall growth.

Having 10+ :c5citizen: cities by the turn 90-100 is the actual mid term goal of this strategy.

I run a caravan to the AI, for science and gold. You get more science from a caravan than a library in a 8 pop city. And you gain gold instead of lose it. And it makes the AI less aggressive.

I guess my 2nd city strategy doesn't care as much about turn 90-100 pop, but more about turn 160-170 pop. Get the grainery up, shrine, then production buildings like stoneworks or watermill or stables as applicable. I always skip economic and cultural buildings (cultural buildings only get built when they're actually needed to house great works). I do run a food route to my 2nd city if I've decided that that city will be my cultural center instead of my capital (or even spread), but much later, using my 4th/5th trade route at banking or compass.

In my trial runs, the 2nd and 3rd cities were both bigger than mine by a pop in Renaissance, but my capital was starting to surpass yours due to the ToA bonus (which was also starting to stack some nice GE points, to help you beat the AI to an early Renaissance wonder), and I'm sure the 2nd and 3rd city would get there before turn 200. It seems better for science victory condition to have a higher pop later than earlier with ToA (science for mass GS bulbing); conquest is greatly aided by Zeus over pop; diplo doesn't care about early game, or pop in general, so grabbing Colossus would give you a nice head start on setting up the best trading city. I'm not comfortable enough with the cultural victory to know exactly what would work best re: timing the Guilds (because in deference to my lower early pop, I delay the artists/musician's guilds by a dozen or so turns each).

Basically, it feels like I'm able to squeeze in a targeted early wonder at 100% (so far) on Immortal and end up in a nearly identical situation as your start by Renaissance, just by taking things slower in the beginning w/ the timing of the 2nd settler. I may be something like half a tech behind and not realize it, but it feels the same. Free wonder! :)
 
I run a caravan to the AI, for science and gold. You get more science from a caravan than a library in a 8 pop city. And you gain gold instead of lose it. And it makes the AI less aggressive.

I always found the early international trade routes a bit under par. I prefer these trades after cities has grown up and huger AIs for best gold output.
 
Is there any reason you're pushing food pre-aqueducts? The early expansion is nice... but you have no army so it's questionable to expand into the AI, and the AI doesn't expand fast enough that it would take up all your space if you delayed it until you can buy. You really just get +1 pop (which will eventually be less pop due to ToA's bonus kicking in), and +1 building (or the gold from purchasing the building). And you lose out on a wonder or other uses of hammers.

It's always good to push growth in your capital.
I always lock to best food at least the first 5 citizens, then the following 2-3 ones are locked to highest hammer tiles, then more food locks.

This allows your cap to be on par with other civs' cap, which means more bakers and therefore fresh bread.
 
At immortal I have never been attacked period. At deity I have never been attacked before the turn 70. Never.
Imagine that. :crazyeye:

Small sample size though, yet it's... well.. it is what it is.

Early wars have been frequent on Emperor/Immortal for me lately. I've been forward settling a lot.
 
I just tried this build as Sweden, and it worked really darn well the first time I tried it. I am a very tradition oriented player, but I usually tend to sacrifice getting my other 2 or 3 cities out super early in exchange for getting the NC in the capital ASAP. With this start, I did fall a little bit behind in early science especially compared to an early NC start, but I quickly got a very nice science train rolling and by the mid game I was the clear tech leader, being the first to enter the renaissance era, and eventually I was entering the atomic era before any AI was even in the modern era. Needless to say, I coasted to one of the easiest diplomatic victories ever. I did get a bit lucky in havin no true warmongering civs in my game, and although most of my Pangea neighbors were eating each other up, nobody ever touched me, especially not after I forced a nuclear monopoly on the world (I built up a bountiful nuclear arsenal and was able to pass a nuclear non proliferation agreement before anyone else even built the Manhatten project). I didn't really plan on using nukes, especially since everyone on the diplomacy screen was afraid of me, just having the nukes was doing enough good. I think BNW really did justice to Sweden. Gifting every other great artist/musician/writer you get will earn you a complete stranglehold on city state allies and the world congress. I will definitely try this build again. Two thumbs up!
 
I always found the early international trade routes a bit under par. I prefer these trades after cities has grown up and huger AIs for best gold output.

The higher the difficulty, the more early trade routes are broken OP. On deity, they typically provide 4-6 gpt and 4 bpt very early on. I have to give it to adwcta on that, I will often take the caravans yield over internal food routes and just not work my university specialists until later in renaissance in satellite cities since the early trade routes will generally get me to universities earlier than internal food anyway.

The big tradeoff is that trade routes are not 100% secure and losing 75 hammers from a war or a barb early in the game is extremely detrimental and it is generally easier to save trade routes within your own lands.
 
The higher the difficulty, the more early trade routes are broken OP. On deity, they typically provide 4-6 gpt and 4 bpt very early on. I have to give it to adwcta on that, I will often take the caravans yield over internal food routes and just not work my university specialists until later in renaissance in satellite cities since the early trade routes will generally get me to universities earlier than internal food anyway.

The big tradeoff is that trade routes are not 100% secure and losing 75 hammers from a war or a barb early in the game is extremely detrimental and it is generally easier to save trade routes within your own lands.

Interesting. I already told in the OP about the huge difference between Deity and lower levels in term of decisions. The gape is so huge that you need to focus on an almost completely different game :

-Not over settling early to provoke wars
-Bribe the AI a lot more
-DoF come earlier(make a settler buy a lot more appealing)
-International trades gives a lot of science and gold pre 70 turns because the AI is often 6-7 techs ahead early on

And so on. That's why this strategy must be taken with a grain of salt at this level. Exclusive deity players will find this approach a bit useless but for other levels from prince to immortal it can be very useful.

I played my 1st online game yesterday and used the Trad food approach...incredible how strong this is...the strategy is always concentrated on bullying the cs around so the initial BO can be done faster than sp! :crazyeye:

I think BNW really did justice to Sweden.

Great! With all these artists to run and game lasting longer i can bet too!
 
On my couple of attempts at this so far, I've been pretty plauged by barbarians. On my most recent attempt as Siam, I had a nice protected homeland but found myself fighting for happiness the same time.

I feel like, when it does work, the pop flies, but I can never manage enough happiness to stay ahead. How do you all prioritize happiness so that you can maintain the growth?
 
I feel like, when it does work, the pop flies, but I can never manage enough happiness to stay ahead. How do you all prioritize happiness so that you can maintain the growth?

Without Monarchy you need at least 2 luxuries with 3 cities. Monarchy should pop up a bit later. You can stay into unhappiness for some turns if you sell a lux before and anticipating to connect a new one very soon after the unhappiness moment.
 
Hey, I tried this on Emperor with Poland. Thanks a lot, it worked wonders for me! Got a Science victory on turn 304 (could have been Diplo on 300, but I wanted the achievement; could have been Science on 303, but I wanted the Opera House; could have gone for Culture if I waited about 15 more turns and had 2 other capitals, wouldn't take too long). By the end of the game, I had about 13 cities, 700 gpt, 28 happiness, 2300 science, 111 faith/turn, at least 20 of all strategics, around 800 culture and 450 tourism, the biggest military, all CS allied, WC Host for the whole game, most wonders etc etc etc. I don't know if it was Poland, this strategy or both, but it rocked! At the end of the game, Warsaw was 37, Krakow was 36 and Lodz was 27. I don't usually have such nice cities :) In the end, those early domestic trade routes do wonders. One of the coolest games I've ever had! Thanks for sharing the strat, it is quite solid, at least on this level. I might even go back to Immortal (my usual GnK level) after this. :D
 
What is your view on chopping forests for Settler builds, Tabarnak?

I've been getting good results by building Worker 2nd or 3rd, then immediately starting to chop for a Settler. The Cap can get to 4 pop on most starts, and the second city goes down in the early turn 30's. Through various starts, I find myself preferring to chop instead of improving luxes right away, unless there is a DoF.

Focus on Food Caravans is right on though. I usually will only build a Settler if I have plans to research another available Trade Route, and I usually keep the food going until a city is at 10 pop.
 
What is your view on chopping forests for Settler builds, Tabarnak?

I've been getting good results by building Worker 2nd or 3rd, then immediately starting to chop for a Settler. The Cap can get to 4 pop on most starts, and the second city goes down in the early turn 30's. Through various starts, I find myself preferring to chop instead of improving luxes right away, unless there is a DoF.

Focus on Food Caravans is right on though. I usually will only build a Settler if I have plans to research another available Trade Route, and I usually keep the food going until a city is at 10 pop.

Yep chopping forests when nobody can afford buying your first lux can be a good way to start but only if you don't have horses. What is nice with horses is that you can sell them separately and grants +1 hammer for settler production. But right after first lux/horse sold it's definitively a good way to accelerate the BO especially when the worker has to go by a forest to gain access to another ressource/lux.
 
Alex also doesn't like your strategy: turn 42 DoW.

It's the aggressive expansion. Triggers AI's need for land. What you want to do if you're executing this super-early expansion strategy is to settle lands away from the AI first (counter-intuatively). Otherwise, AIs who covet your land already will get high enough coveting and see enough land disappearing that even in BNW's peaceful early game AI, they'll still DoW you. If there's a spot you really want that's toward an AI, expand there and immediately pay the AI 5gpt (or whatever you can afford, but 5gpt works). You need to keep paying the AI until someone annoys him more, or you manage anther major positive diplo modifier (like shared religion).

I've tested the AI's early game war tendencies extensively on Immortal and Deity. It's now possible to avoid war without giving gifts or having an army in early game almost 100% of the time (in G&K it required extensive bribing on Immortal, and flat out didn't work 50% of the time on Deity), but you can't annoy the AI. Or, you could always just give gifts (this has to be done early enough that the AI hasn't already started to execute a plan, and is still in the "planning" stage).
 
It's the aggressive expansion. Triggers AI's need for land. What you want to do if you're executing this super-early expansion strategy is to settle lands away from the AI first (counter-intuatively). Otherwise, AIs who covet your land already will get high enough coveting and see enough land disappearing that even in BNW's peaceful early game AI, they'll still DoW you. If there's a spot you really want that's toward an AI, expand there and immediately pay the AI 5gpt (or whatever you can afford, but 5gpt works). You need to keep paying the AI until someone annoys him more, or you manage anther major positive diplo modifier (like shared religion).

I've tested the AI's early game war tendencies extensively on Immortal and Deity. It's now possible to avoid war without giving gifts or having an army in early game almost 100% of the time (in G&K it required extensive bribing on Immortal, and flat out didn't work 50% of the time on Deity), but you can't annoy the AI. Or, you could always just give gifts (this has to be done early enough that the AI hasn't already started to execute a plan, and is still in the "planning" stage).


I didn't expand next to him; he settled his second city right next to my capital, on the left side, while I expanded on the right side. But to be fair, I did plan to expand next to him with my second settler as if I didn't I would have been stuck, never being able to get more than two cities up with 2 lux (I spawned right in the middle of Alex to my left, Ghandi to my right, cs below me, and above me Askia and Austria. Yay for continents!)
 
I didn't expand next to him; he settled his second city right next to my capital, on the left side, while I expanded on the right side. But to be fair, I did plan to expand next to him with my second settler as if I didn't I would have been stuck, never being able to get more than two cities up with 2 lux (I spawned right in the middle of Alex to my left, Ghandi to my right, cs below me, and above me Askia and Austria. Yay for continents!)

Well, if he expanded into you that's 100% a sign you should be paying tribute. :p
Sounds like a very unfortunate start.
 
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