When do you expand?

[Utyske666]

hey Guys , I have some specific strategy questions, hoping you can help

1) when is it optimal to produce a new colonist ?
considering the reduced prod. time of a large city , how much should i grow the Capital.

2) is a rush to 6 cities viable?

3) how do you implement Weather Controllers effciently?

4) how do you compete on science ?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

3) if you're referring to getting the most from the resources generation feature, one trick is to have it cover some water tiles. They never have improvements unless they have resources.
Also the resources generation always produces at least one, and then 50% of the time a second. Many players wait for the first then brine down the orbital and replace it to get that guaranteed first resource rather than wait a second that might not come. They will likely be easier to use on newer cities that don't have high population and improvements for those many worked tiles already.
If it's not about resource generation then just cover your most productive tiles, which will likely be resource tiles.

 

[tedeviatings]

1) I really don't know what is optimal yet. And I guess we never will know for sure. For sure earlier colonists are better than later ones but it is unclear to me how much it's worth to delay other stuff that's also important.

2) If by viable you mean "Is it possible to beat the AI consistently using this expansion strategy" I believe the answer is "Yes" for all difficulties.

4) Can you elaborate? I could give you a list of all things I do that directly or indirectly increase my science - but I guess that's not what you're looking for, or is it?

 

[Ryika]

My few cents:

1.) The earlier the better. Getting cities and Trade Routes up will boost everything else. As long as you don't die in the process the early game should be as expansion-focused as possible.

2.) Sure, but squeeze in a few trade routes.

3.) In a really efficient strategy? By not using them. Might be somewhat worthwhile to get them in a supremacy-focused game but I don't think they really fit into a tight strategy. When going supremacy you can get them once you start spamming affinity-techs, but at that point the resources will not really matter anymore and the direct food is the only real bonus. But other than that... yeah, either deploy them in coastal cities, or make sure leave some room - which is often only really possible in high-food areas, and those cities will have grown big enough that the resources again don't really make a big difference. So overall... game's just to short.

4.) Not sure what exactly you mean here, but overall... get your cities up early, get the infrastructure up, grow your cities and then get as many academies as soon as possible. On high difficulties some AIs will probably still become runaways (have seen as much as 500+ science on Apollo around turn 200 - completely impossible for a human player, especially on that level), but you have the benefit of hopefully using your brain to choose important techs while the AI will just get whatever they feel like.

Overall GAGA Extrem has written down an quite easy to follow but very efficient overall strategy: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=542124

 

[Utyske666]

@Rylka - with regards to 4) more in the lines of tech-path, and when to prioritize sci-building ?

 

[Utyske666]

Alright so last night i did a little experiment on two start approaches in exact same conditions : 1) a rush to pop 4 then colonist, or, 2) hold up on colonists till pop 7.
the game was quick Apollo and with African Union , +2 food, pioneering. I played both approaches to turn 33. This is my raw data on both plays:

Colonist at pop 4
this approach let me have a colonist by turn 25, in addition to my 'Prosperity' colonist. So by turn 33 i would have:
turn 33:
1 outpost
1 pop 1 city
pop 6 Capitol

output at this point:
culture 14/59
sci +10
health -1

in Capitol :recycler
Clinic

techs:
engineering , chemistry , physics

Wait to pop 7, then colonist:
this approach would let me have a colonist by turn 33, in addition gain to my 'Prosperity' colonist. So by turn 33 i would have:
turn 33:
1 colonist
1 pop 2 city
pop 7 Capitol

output at this point:
culture 53/59
sci +11
health -4

in Capitol :
recycler
trade depot
1 trade route

techs:
engineering , chemistry , physics, eco(2)

 

[Utyske666]

To conclude:
there seems to be Little difference, tho pop 7 has slightly more sci and almost 1 tech more, +it has more Growth/Production potential in trade.

 

[iggbomb]

1) usually when deciding to expand on a larger scale while playing supremacy I usually wait until I get level 6 in supremacy and have the phasal transporter satellite. at this point I will usually have a strong economy and buy colonists and setup transporter satellites over clusters of firaxite around the map. then using the teleporters just build a multitude of new cities to really ramp up the amount of firaxite I posses.

(side note): be sure to send some protection units with those colonists

 

[tedeviatings]

I'm not convinced. The vast culture difference implies that you got different resource pod results and possibly not the same number of pods. At least that is all I can think of to explain 39 more culture on turn 33 when you start with OER in both cases. Which could speed up the prosperity settler, depending on when you got it.
Another point is that your second city is better developed in the pop7 scenario. I'd guess it's trade route magic and / or earlier settler because of the culture difference. I don't think the 2nd city being stronger is a difference in strategy but rather a difference in pods and build order (I'd assume same pods and build order should result in same city development).
Lastly, founding a city 8 turns earlier is an advantage for the whole duration of the game. Assuming similar games afterwards the city founded first is always 8 turns stronger than the city founded later. Ideally this means it gets pop ups 8 turns earlier every time it gets a population. And every building 8 turns earlier. A couple of other things as well. It's basically not difference at turn 33 where city one is an outpost and city two is a colonist. But it will be over the duration of the game.

Edit: Please note I'm not saying that pop 4 expanding is better or worse than pop 7 expanding. I'm saying measuring the difference is harder than that, sadly. Although we did learn something.

 

[Japper007]

Try to expand ASAP, a city needs a lot of turns to develop and, depending on difficulty of course, the AI will fill up open space quick.

Just make sure you have enough units to defend your cities, they are very weak early on, especially when they are close to a rivals borders.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

The game isn't very long, so you can't put off new cities for too long.

 

[DarkestOnion]

Three cities are optimal for science and production. Fewer cities can make you feel like you have to turtle and more can make you feel overextended.

 

[tedeviatings]

Three cities are optimal for science and production. Fewer cities can make you feel like you have to turtle and more can make you feel overextended.

If we're talking total number of cities your definition of optimal is very much different from mine. That or I didn't get the irony.

 

[Ryika]

@Rylka - with regards to 4) more in the lines of tech-path, and when to prioritize sci-building ?

For both. In a fast "standard" rush to victory the tech path with most likely try to get academies very early and then to techs that allow you to sustain a large amount of them without dying.

As for buildings... in the early game there are some buildings to get before the science buildings - the trade hub obviously and the Recycler (which I believe is best when bought with Energy as soon as a city is founded). Not 100% sure about the Vivarium yet, but I usually build that one before the science buildings, too, followed by the pure +Science buildings and and after that the +science +health buildings - or, the other way around in a very food-heavy area when it keeps me above -20 health, which should be top priority as well.

Again, just my take on the whole thing.

 

[Utyske666]

@tedeviatings - no I took no pods at all exactly to eliminate the factor.

 

[tedeviatings]

@tedeviatings - no I took no pods at all exactly to eliminate the factor.

Alright, didn't expect that given such a difference in culture. Good practice, though!
So my next question would then be: How come the pop 7 game has is ahead by 39 culture by turn 33?
Also: Are you comparing "optimal strategy"? E.g. one could argue if a lot of the difference is in having your prosperity-city up earlier in the pop 7 strategy then maybe trade depot + trader is just plain better than recycler + clinic?

 

[Utyske666]

true, however, the point is that the pop 4 city won't have time to do trade ...