I'm thinking about how I start my games, and although I consider myself a very advanced player (play immortal or emperor, huge map) I feel I'm lacking something in the beginning of the game. I always find myself getting out-REXed by the AI -- perhaps it's because of the AI bonuses at the levels i play but I don't feel my REXing is the most effecient either. Does anyone have any "REXing systems" that they use, such as "I always settle my 2nd city in the best production location and it becomes a settler farm" or something like that? Typicaly I just build settlers as I see fit from whatever city is getting towards it's happy limit (to utilize the extra food while I wait for whipping unhappy to dissipate). Post some of your ideas, and we'll have a good brainstorm.
What's the most effecient and balanced way to REX?
- Thread starter hoopsnerd
- Start date
I'm not an expert but I've had success on Emperor and Immortal using a worker-settler-settler-warrior start. Aim for food early then spread out. Try to go inland then settle coasts. First warrior shouldn't stray too far as he needs to come back to escort settlers.
My computer can't really go above standard size maps without choking so I tend to go Standard/Low Sea Levels/Normal Speed.
My computer can't really go above standard size maps without choking so I tend to go Standard/Low Sea Levels/Normal Speed.
johnny_rico
one more turn addict
I woulnd't necessarily say there is a formula that should always be followed. Needs in any game are unique and dynamic so I'd advise against strictly adhering to a specific pattern.
there are a lot of simple things that can help though:
Building a settler escort while chopping works and then switching the build to collect the hammers for the settler. Does that make sense?
whip units/buildings, chop settlers/workers.
There's always the gambit of moving the settler either further inland if coastal or at the very least migrating your initial city towards another AI. You can backfill later.
If looking to REX, scouts are key so you can build at choke points to keep the AI out.
Which leaders are you playing. Expansive, imperialistic, spiritual, and creative are good REXing traits. One could argue for organized but I say no (if cities are small, civic upkeep is relatively low).
Rely on your capital (and maybe one other city) for early production. Keep most cities at a population 1 or 2 for low maintenance.
Try to keep cities close (overlap is ok in REX, shoot for an early SE, keep costs low, whip frequently, work your best tiles).
Try to get in the habit of having an extra settler just available for use, it's nice to have one 'ready to go' as soon as opportunity knocks.
In the end, it doesn't matter how sweetly you try to pad things, the AI is simply going to out REX you on immortal. But it is important to stake a decent claim of land and not get boxed in.
there are a lot of simple things that can help though:
Building a settler escort while chopping works and then switching the build to collect the hammers for the settler. Does that make sense?
whip units/buildings, chop settlers/workers.
There's always the gambit of moving the settler either further inland if coastal or at the very least migrating your initial city towards another AI. You can backfill later.
If looking to REX, scouts are key so you can build at choke points to keep the AI out.
Which leaders are you playing. Expansive, imperialistic, spiritual, and creative are good REXing traits. One could argue for organized but I say no (if cities are small, civic upkeep is relatively low).
Rely on your capital (and maybe one other city) for early production. Keep most cities at a population 1 or 2 for low maintenance.
Try to keep cities close (overlap is ok in REX, shoot for an early SE, keep costs low, whip frequently, work your best tiles).
Try to get in the habit of having an extra settler just available for use, it's nice to have one 'ready to go' as soon as opportunity knocks.
In the end, it doesn't matter how sweetly you try to pad things, the AI is simply going to out REX you on immortal. But it is important to stake a decent claim of land and not get boxed in.
^^ Just to clarify, I'm not refferring to the initial build order, but rather a general "rule of thumb" for how fast to REX while supporting your cities and keeping your science slider ~70.
Thanks for the ideas though, those are great tactics of which I currently use most of. The real "ineffecient" part of my startegy seems to be that I always seem to either overstretch myself or not REX fast enough, perhaps I need more workers.
What about second city location/specialty? Anyone look for a big forest nearby and chop it all for workers/settlers/military units? I do that sometimes, but only if there's good tiles AND forest. After chopping the forest I usually try to make it into a cottage-farm to support the rest of my REX and research
Thanks for the ideas though, those are great tactics of which I currently use most of. The real "ineffecient" part of my startegy seems to be that I always seem to either overstretch myself or not REX fast enough, perhaps I need more workers.
What about second city location/specialty? Anyone look for a big forest nearby and chop it all for workers/settlers/military units? I do that sometimes, but only if there's good tiles AND forest. After chopping the forest I usually try to make it into a cottage-farm to support the rest of my REX and research
OTAKUjbski
TK421
That sounds like more of a city management question...
Basically, you want to build effective, specialized cities as early as plausible. The earlier you can set up a nice Cottage-spam and/or Scientist-spam city to cover the research/slider and a decent production city to cover the unit-spam, the faster and better your REX will be.
Additionally, the faster your new cities can be set up with cottages or specialists, the quicker they'll be able to support themselves and thus allow for more cities to be founded.
-- my 2
vicawoo
Chieftain
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- Feb 12, 2007
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- 3,226
I've been practicing my REX lately, and I've been trying to refine mine. I feel I've improved mine by not building barracks or granaries (unless expansive), and building more workers and a few more warriors than I usually do.
If I have a 4+ food source that's easily techable, I go worker, settler, switch to warrior to grow on when 4 food source is complete, whip settler, worker. Otherwise I go worker worker settler, which helps a lot in getting the 2nd settler out. 2nd city I improve then chop 2-3 forests for a settler. If I can risk it, I skip gold cities for production/food cities to get the settler out faster, then I might go for the gold mine. If I'm building a wonder, 1st city makes a wonder (usually grow to 4 first), otherwise it makes the 3rd settler (you have a little time before you grow to 6 and whip a library).
The 2nd city usually can rely on it's 1 tile, so you don't need to continually improve it, so worker goes off to 3rd city. If the capital is being cottaged, it needs 1 guy to continually improve it. 2nd city either grows to size 2 on warriors or makes a 3rd worker, who will head off to city 4.
I think it might to faster if the capital builds a 3rd worker instead of a settler so you can chop settlers out of cities 3 and/or 4.
One more city usually makes a decent block and starts to kill my research.
If I have a 4+ food source that's easily techable, I go worker, settler, switch to warrior to grow on when 4 food source is complete, whip settler, worker. Otherwise I go worker worker settler, which helps a lot in getting the 2nd settler out. 2nd city I improve then chop 2-3 forests for a settler. If I can risk it, I skip gold cities for production/food cities to get the settler out faster, then I might go for the gold mine. If I'm building a wonder, 1st city makes a wonder (usually grow to 4 first), otherwise it makes the 3rd settler (you have a little time before you grow to 6 and whip a library).
The 2nd city usually can rely on it's 1 tile, so you don't need to continually improve it, so worker goes off to 3rd city. If the capital is being cottaged, it needs 1 guy to continually improve it. 2nd city either grows to size 2 on warriors or makes a 3rd worker, who will head off to city 4.
I think it might to faster if the capital builds a 3rd worker instead of a settler so you can chop settlers out of cities 3 and/or 4.
One more city usually makes a decent block and starts to kill my research.
johnny_rico
one more turn addict
I would think the biggest limitation is the low happiness cap. That being the case, monotheism (OR) and monarchy (HR) are probably two keys to a good immortal REX.
I stated earlier it would be best to keep cities at 1 or 2 population for low maintenance. In rethinking this, HR for happiness and lots of cottages to stimulate growth and manage costs may be your solution. I don't know if it is realistic though to envision a REX with a science slider at 70%. If you follow this route, most cities will be cottage heavy and you'll still be reliant on the capital and maybe one other city for production/chopping. Add in some timely whipping, and things could get rolling nicely.
If you're heavily forested, as you say, you can chop away and replace with cottages before moving onto the next tree heavy city site. Given this plan, you'll need pottery for cottages so perhaps expansive (cheap granaries) would work well.
GW might be a nice REX leader as you get happiness and health bonuses right off the bat plus cheap granaries to grow quicker to work those cottages.
I stated earlier it would be best to keep cities at 1 or 2 population for low maintenance. In rethinking this, HR for happiness and lots of cottages to stimulate growth and manage costs may be your solution. I don't know if it is realistic though to envision a REX with a science slider at 70%. If you follow this route, most cities will be cottage heavy and you'll still be reliant on the capital and maybe one other city for production/chopping. Add in some timely whipping, and things could get rolling nicely.
If you're heavily forested, as you say, you can chop away and replace with cottages before moving onto the next tree heavy city site. Given this plan, you'll need pottery for cottages so perhaps expansive (cheap granaries) would work well.
GW might be a nice REX leader as you get happiness and health bonuses right off the bat plus cheap granaries to grow quicker to work those cottages.
You might well have nailed it Johnny, I often find myself with a bunch of cottage farms and not enough early production because I don't want to slow my science while I grow. Do you usually try to REX real fast while ignoring science to some extent and then "catch up" after your infrastructure is more developed?
REXing is done below the happy-cap. Raising happiness with either Monarchy or Calendar is phase two, and shouldn't occur until you've claimed (or blocked off) all the land you can.
Technically, REXing is defined by food and hammers, not commerce. You want to improve your best tiles (food resources first, then hammer resources, then mine some hills), which means workers. And bring them under cultivation, which means city growth. And stake out new sites, which means settlers. All while avoiding barbarians, which means fog-busters. So it's a balancing act. Don't bother with barracks or granary -- build fogbusters while growing (unless you can foresee that the fogbuster won't finish and will decay in the queue, but growth is still the priority; in which case banking the hammers in a barracks/granary might be necessary).
Roughly speaking, I think it's best to grow onto all of your food/hammer resources before spitting out a settler. The increased tile yield will be worth it, unless the neighbors are really close and key city sites must be claimed. In some cases it might be worth it to grow onto mines if you have a high food surplus, though not necessarily. If my capital has a high food surplus, it may spit out one settler at size 2 or 3, then grow to the happy cap while building fogbusters, then become a worker/settler factory, with one warrior for garrison duty. If it's not high food surplus, I may not grow it to it's happy-cap for a while (depending on the balance between the need for workers/settlers and the need for fog-busters), and the garrison isn't needed.
When settling, the issues are: Proximity, less walking time, less barb protection needed, lower maintenance; Early growth potential, especially resources that can be worked without a border pop; Strategic resources, mainly Copper but sometimes Horses or Marble/Stone if that's your gameplan; and Blocking -- on high levels, the AIs will expand faster than you, both faster than you physically could and faster than you could economically support. If you want to have near-parity in land, you need to block off some territory that you can settle at your leisure.
Chopping: Building a worker to chop is an investment of 60 food/hammers that returns 5 hammers/turn (normal speed). That's not as good as growing onto food/hammer resources (say, 24 food to add a +2F+2H grassland Cow as your second tile); it's about equivalent to growing onto a mine (say, 26 food to add a -1F+3H grassland hill mine as your third tile), but with the opportunity cost that you can't chop those forests in the future, or use them for health. Overall I feel that chopping should be a secondary use of your workers, after improving resources and mines, but at that point it becomes a good return. Imperialistic and Expansionist leaders can leverage it a bit more. And if you settle a city that needs a border pop to access its best tiles, by all means chop the monument.
Of course, it all depends on the particulars. And commerce can't really be neglected forever -- if I start with floodplains, I may research Pottery first to get cottages growing, which doesn't play into a true REXing strategy, but it does keep me solvent. And there are alternatives to REXing, such as early Wonders.
Perhaps generate a game, save the start position, and then play it several times up to ~1000 BC to compare different approaches.
peace,
lilnev
Technically, REXing is defined by food and hammers, not commerce. You want to improve your best tiles (food resources first, then hammer resources, then mine some hills), which means workers. And bring them under cultivation, which means city growth. And stake out new sites, which means settlers. All while avoiding barbarians, which means fog-busters. So it's a balancing act. Don't bother with barracks or granary -- build fogbusters while growing (unless you can foresee that the fogbuster won't finish and will decay in the queue, but growth is still the priority; in which case banking the hammers in a barracks/granary might be necessary).
Roughly speaking, I think it's best to grow onto all of your food/hammer resources before spitting out a settler. The increased tile yield will be worth it, unless the neighbors are really close and key city sites must be claimed. In some cases it might be worth it to grow onto mines if you have a high food surplus, though not necessarily. If my capital has a high food surplus, it may spit out one settler at size 2 or 3, then grow to the happy cap while building fogbusters, then become a worker/settler factory, with one warrior for garrison duty. If it's not high food surplus, I may not grow it to it's happy-cap for a while (depending on the balance between the need for workers/settlers and the need for fog-busters), and the garrison isn't needed.
When settling, the issues are: Proximity, less walking time, less barb protection needed, lower maintenance; Early growth potential, especially resources that can be worked without a border pop; Strategic resources, mainly Copper but sometimes Horses or Marble/Stone if that's your gameplan; and Blocking -- on high levels, the AIs will expand faster than you, both faster than you physically could and faster than you could economically support. If you want to have near-parity in land, you need to block off some territory that you can settle at your leisure.
Chopping: Building a worker to chop is an investment of 60 food/hammers that returns 5 hammers/turn (normal speed). That's not as good as growing onto food/hammer resources (say, 24 food to add a +2F+2H grassland Cow as your second tile); it's about equivalent to growing onto a mine (say, 26 food to add a -1F+3H grassland hill mine as your third tile), but with the opportunity cost that you can't chop those forests in the future, or use them for health. Overall I feel that chopping should be a secondary use of your workers, after improving resources and mines, but at that point it becomes a good return. Imperialistic and Expansionist leaders can leverage it a bit more. And if you settle a city that needs a border pop to access its best tiles, by all means chop the monument.
Of course, it all depends on the particulars. And commerce can't really be neglected forever -- if I start with floodplains, I may research Pottery first to get cottages growing, which doesn't play into a true REXing strategy, but it does keep me solvent. And there are alternatives to REXing, such as early Wonders.
Perhaps generate a game, save the start position, and then play it several times up to ~1000 BC to compare different approaches.
peace,
lilnev
It depends so much on map and difficulty level and resources available... you are better off simply starting a ton of games and playing various strategies to get a 'feel' for what works and what doesn't, than to try to draft a comprehensive flowchart or something, of what to do when REXing. Just my opinion. And for what it's worth, I say screw the slider during the early BCs; it's meaningless if you do SE, and even under non-SE economies, REXing is going to hurt you anyway, so deal with it some other way, like using spies or pointy stick research or whatever.
Big Boss Man
Chieftain
Don't under estimate the power of your captial and your well placed second city . Development of a third will come eventualy either by settler or conquest . Just depends on the situation your in . The power in quallity cities is often forgotten by lust for quantity of cities .
Darth Meanie
Warlord
TRADE ROUTES!! These underestimated devices can help pay alot for expansion, especially with the Great Lighthouse (coastal cities instantly pay for themselves). Keep maintenance paid for to REX.
Skallagrimson
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2006
- Messages
- 2,043
A lot of good advice here.
Not much to add except maybe that the explosive power of high-yield food resources is better channeled into settlers and workers than into whips. I've gone to whipping only in LOW-food cities, because in high-food, they grow back too quickly and I'm not ready to SE yet (still REXing).
I've become less of a believer in chopping at the higher levels of play, because while at the lower levels you just accumulate health haphazardly (resources, etc.) to where it's rarely a problem, at the higher levels you want to balance the other improvements with trees for health and hammer supplements. My main criteria for chopping is 8-box locations near an enemy border, obviously the trees have got to go so as not to give away a high defensive bonus approach to their armies. If most of the outer tiles are forested, then I'll consider chopping the ones on rivers, but *only* on rivers. If it's not on a river, and not covering an enemy advance, I need that frickin' health bonus dangit.
So for REXing, that puts more of the weight back into food for the settlers and workers, and whips for the units and buildings.
Generally I alternate any high-food city: escort-fog-buster unit, followed by settler. Whipping there is the last resort when the happy limit hits. In low-food cities, it's mainly units and some key buildings (e.g., libraries), and I'm more whip-happy there as the grow-back doesn't burn the city into a whip-wearing vicious cycle.
Not much to add except maybe that the explosive power of high-yield food resources is better channeled into settlers and workers than into whips. I've gone to whipping only in LOW-food cities, because in high-food, they grow back too quickly and I'm not ready to SE yet (still REXing).
I've become less of a believer in chopping at the higher levels of play, because while at the lower levels you just accumulate health haphazardly (resources, etc.) to where it's rarely a problem, at the higher levels you want to balance the other improvements with trees for health and hammer supplements. My main criteria for chopping is 8-box locations near an enemy border, obviously the trees have got to go so as not to give away a high defensive bonus approach to their armies. If most of the outer tiles are forested, then I'll consider chopping the ones on rivers, but *only* on rivers. If it's not on a river, and not covering an enemy advance, I need that frickin' health bonus dangit.
So for REXing, that puts more of the weight back into food for the settlers and workers, and whips for the units and buildings.
Generally I alternate any high-food city: escort-fog-buster unit, followed by settler. Whipping there is the last resort when the happy limit hits. In low-food cities, it's mainly units and some key buildings (e.g., libraries), and I'm more whip-happy there as the grow-back doesn't burn the city into a whip-wearing vicious cycle.
vicawoo
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2007
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- 3,226
If you're about to grow into unhappiness, start on a worker or settler.
Cottage cities will take forever to make workers/settlers.
And growing into all your resources is not the best way. You get diminishing returns fast, which when factored with the growth time can kill you. Let's say you're growing at 2 food/turn, and you are growing from size 3 to size 4, so it requires 26 food. 13 turns, let's say you have 4 food/production tiles (farmed flood plains or mines), so you're going from 9 to 11 food/production. You're losing 9*13=117 production while growing. If you're limited by food/hammers (like REX) and not commerce, then only grow if you have high food sources.
Production cities usually don't have high pop, so chopping isn't a big problem. Non-flood plain commerce cities can chop their grasslands. And any forested hills will probably get chopped anyway.
My edit: the food/hammers argument applies only for workers and settlers. For commerce, larger is almost always better, for production, it often applies.
Cottage cities will take forever to make workers/settlers.
And growing into all your resources is not the best way. You get diminishing returns fast, which when factored with the growth time can kill you. Let's say you're growing at 2 food/turn, and you are growing from size 3 to size 4, so it requires 26 food. 13 turns, let's say you have 4 food/production tiles (farmed flood plains or mines), so you're going from 9 to 11 food/production. You're losing 9*13=117 production while growing. If you're limited by food/hammers (like REX) and not commerce, then only grow if you have high food sources.
Production cities usually don't have high pop, so chopping isn't a big problem. Non-flood plain commerce cities can chop their grasslands. And any forested hills will probably get chopped anyway.
My edit: the food/hammers argument applies only for workers and settlers. For commerce, larger is almost always better, for production, it often applies.
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