What is more powerful, Knowledge or land?

[Tecibbar]

In early - middle game, there is often a trade-off between tech/land. Expansion will hurt your economy

Tech advantage: Advance military,can build wonders earlier, can bribe AIs to war each other.

Land advantage: More hammer, higher power ratio, more resources, more tiles for future expansion. Could vassalize other.

I would say Tech > Land most of the time. The major reason is that you could bribe AI to shape world diplomacy in your favor. In games where I overexpand, I usually try to cripple the tech top-dog.

 

[Sian]

land over tech ... more land means protentially more beakers and more hammers ... which again means that you'll over time gets more techs than the ´person going directly for techs ... specially if you binary research with beelines

 

[Iranon]

I'd say land *as long as you can stay in trading distance*. If your opponents get too far ahead, they'll feed each other techs while you have to research everything yourself; on most maps no realistically obtainable amount of land can compensate for that.

This is the reason I usually expand a lot harder on Immortal than on Deity - in the former case I might fall slightly behind in tech overall but it's nothing I can't compensate by researching unpopular techs and trading them around, followed by a bit of brokering.

 

[michmbk]

Give me land and in most games, I can turn that into far superior tech later on. Another vote for land, as long as I at least have writing and ideally, any one of the key economic techs (alpha, currency, COL).

 

[madscientist]

If you have enough land you can get knowledge, either by massive amounts of commerce of a massive army to take it. You will almost always win.

If you have alot of knowledge with little land you will struggle to get more land, and winning depdnds alot more of diplomacy.

 

[Tecibbar]

If you have enough land you can get knowledge, either by massive amounts of commerce

True in late games, but not in early game. Without col/currency, your cities will cost you money. without monarchy/calender, you won't have enough population to develop cottage. While in the long run you will have more commerce, by then you will be lagging.

If you have alot of knowledge with little land you will struggle to get more land, and winning depdnds alot more of diplomacy.

True in early games, but not in late game. If you get rifleman/cannon or infantry/artillery earlier than your neighbour, the war is mostly a steam roll.

In summary, early tech advantage -> better economics -> late tech advantage -> better military -> more (developed) land.

On a side note,
Axe VS Mace. 1:1.6 Mace cost twice as axe.
Rifle VS Infantry. 1:1.8 Infantry cost 30% more than rifle.
So in late game, a military tech advantage is much more significant than in early game.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

On a side note,
Axe VS Mace. 1:1.6 Mace cost twice as axe.
Rifle VS Infantry. 1:1.8 Infantry cost 30% more than rifle.
So in late game, a military tech advantage is much more significant than in early game.

Only until Assembly Line. After that, only Modern Armors and Mobile Artilleries pose a significant threat to a big enough infantry stack. Hell, I conquered Churchill with Mechanized Infantry using my Fighters, Infantries and Paras in the LHC Mao Zedong. (Still have to finish it so I'll probably post checkpoint 4 tonight or tomorrow).

 

[Sian]

True in late games, but not in early game. Without col/currency, your cities will cost you money. without monarchy/calender, you won't have enough population to develop cottage. While in the long run you will have more commerce, by then you will be lagging.

which is fixed by beelining and intellegent trading ... playing Emperor and can still keep up even when expanding as heavily as i can due to intellegent trading (and Philosofical empowered GPP production) and Binary researching

On a side note,
Axe VS Mace. 1:1.6 Mace cost twice as axe.
Rifle VS Infantry. 1:1.8 Infantry cost 30% more than rifle.
So in late game, a military tech advantage is much more significant than in early game.

Means zip ... give me enough siege and i'll eat your infantry for breakfast with Riflemen ...

 

[Tecibbar]

which is fixed by beelining and intellegent trading ...

Do you mean pop philosopy with GS, and then trade for Currency, MC / machinery, monachy, calender, etc with different AIs?

Means zip ... give me enough siege and i'll eat your infantry for breakfast with Riflemen ...

Try machinegun.

Only until Assembly Line. After that, only Modern Armors and Mobile Artilleries pose a significant threat

Don't forget bomber. but yeah, after Assembly Line, not many inportant military tech.

 

[Sian]

Do you mean pop philosopy with GS, and then trade for Currency, MC / machinery, monachy, calender, etc with different AIs?

could be a way yeah ... but its also very good to know other ways to dig yourself out of an hole, though ... wouldn't personally recommend going after Monachy or Calender since the AI seems to like to tech those themselves ... i'd rather go Aestetics / Currency / CodeOfLaws / Philosopy and use those for backtrading (my usual way is workertechs - Writing - binaryteching Aestetics (after Libaries are online), partial teching Alphabet and then go currency - CoL - and then Bulb Philpsofy depending on if i need it to backtrade at that point.

currently playing a Large/Fractal/Emp/Epic game with Perclies and the tech rate is dreadfully slow (and thats even though i'm 'only' used to monarch) due to everyone hating each other, and the only remotely generally liked one (gandhi) was made an offshore TwocityChallence by my chariotrush before he got anyone to enter his religion, and becomming pleased... i'm at 1300AD and have been waiting for anyone even getting to Education before i'm taking Lib ... and have been sitting there waiting pretty much since 900AD ... still got Monopoly on Paper even

 

[Freedom]

Land is an investment in your future. Only stop expanding when expanding would not allow you to accomplish a critical short term goal.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Land is much more important. My favorite Civ is Germany I expand as much as I can early on. Make sure I sit on a Great Merchant and Great Engineer, and make sure I'm not dead last in techs (normally mid level - leaning towards the upper half). Make a beeline to get the techs for Mining Inc. and Sid Sushi and then go through an unbelievably fast growth spurt where my production, commerce, and population go through the roof. One of my latest games (Monarch level) I ended the game with an 8 to 1 production advantage over the rest of the world (5 civs left) and a 14 to 1 production advantage over my nearest rival. Even the civs who had a couple of techs on me could do nothing to stop literally an endless stream of panzers.

 

[DMOC]

Knowledge is more powerful than land, as long as you have 6 cities and a few are decent.

 

[6K Man]

Land can be turned into anything, given enough time. At least on the levels up to Monarch.

 

[DMOC]

Knowledge can be turned into a dominatino victory when starting with just 6 cities.

Long story short, give me Rifling 20 turns earlier rather than 4 extra cities and I'll be happy.

 

[Ecori]

Last game I played - rolled Pericles - I rushed Lizzy earning me a huge empire early on, but leaving me behind in the dark. However over time I was able to turn my advantage of territory into a huge production advantage, making me able to conquer more advanced civs, and later on the vast numbers of cities turned into raw knowledge.

My current game - rolled the Incans so I thought I would use the UU to rush some nabours until I met my two closest opponents: SB and Saladin - then the rush was out of the picture
I ended up with 6 cities that were pretty good. I teched super fast, won the Lib race and beelined Rifling. Once I got them online I took out SB. Then I slaugtered a primitive Ragnar with Cavalries. Then I had the land to do pretty much what I wanted...

Both are powerful, whatever you prefer is up to personal taste. I usually fancy lots of land with good production as it makes me less vulnerable to backstabs and DoWs.

 

[Windsor]

The sooner you can get a (military) tech lead the better.

 

[Warning Sign]

Yeah, I gotta go with land as well. Within reason, of course.

 

[mi6agent]

if you want Dilomacy or culture: Knowledge > Land
if you want Classical or Medievial War : Land > Knowledge
if you want Rifles or Calvary War: Knowledge > Land
if you want Inf/Arti War : Land > Knowledge

 

[Shafi]

Land .... I like to see a large empire that belongs to me