Tech vs Expansion

[Murlorc]

In the beginning phases of the game do you focus on teching or expanding?

Typically I hammer out a horsearmy or 2 and then begin to expand my empire.

I grow my cities to 3, bank food, then create a settler. I repeat this with every city I create while my horsearmys wreak havoc.

I get about 10 cities going, and my horsearmys get stalled at this point by archer armies. I check the tech tree and I see whoever I am playing against at this point is way ahead of me in techs because I have been busy expanding. By the time I get to the point that I get some Knight armies going I am so far behind in the tech race that its game over.

How do you balance expanding and teching?

[Aheadatime]

Experience. Generally, the normal start is something like 2 or 3 warriors, HBR, horsearmy, get 3 cities or 20 science per turn, hit Code of Laws (CoL), switch to all-gold and rush settlers like crazy, usually until youre making around 105 trade per turn, than you can either knight rush with galleons or cruisers, or hit oxford bombers. There are special circumstances in which you can expand without gold, or stop expanding early for a legion/cat rush. Just play the game in MP often and youll get the hang of when to do what.

[dukeblue1987]

Experience. Generally, the normal start is something like 2 or 3 warriors, HBR, horsearmy, get 3 cities or 20 science per turn, hit Code of Laws (CoL), switch to all-gold and rush settlers like crazy, usually until youre making around 105 trade per turn, than you can either knight rush with galleons or cruisers, or hit oxford bombers. There are special circumstances in which you can expand without gold, or stop expanding early for a legion/cat rush. Just play the game in MP often and youll get the hang of when to do what.

I think most of us use 1-2 warriors only if we plan on horse rushing. The goal is to collect 40 gold by the time you complete HBR. Then you can rush the first horse which gets gold way faster due to 2 movement and no requirement to heal.

To the OP, 10 cities is way too many before hitting Code of Laws. In certain situations it is ok (like if you are the Arabs and want to stay in fundy). Usually 10-11 sea tiles is what you are looking for. 21+ science if you want to backfill, or 20 science if not. Some games you just have to go for COL with 12 or 14 science depending on how bad your start is.

[HydroDragon]

I always build either 2 or 4 warriors just because of the way the production works. It takes 3 turns to make the first (or third) warrior but only two turns to make the second (or fourth) one. Seems a shame to have that production stored when it could be wandering around picking up gold. ^__^

Of course, I only make 4 warriors when I'm 'in the middle of nowhere' with land to explore in every direction.

[elthrasher]

If you're making 10 cities in ancient, that's too many and too slow, unless you are the Romans and have a good shot at Irrigation (but then you wouldn't be growing to 3, as you say).

What civ are you using? Who is teching past you? About what year are you hitting your 10 cities and turning on the teching? This kind of strategy can work for the Americans, but you're more likely to have 20-25 cities. 10 isn't enough to just flip teching on and blast past a good opponent.

[AMGBaiton]

Or spanish, 10 cities while still in ancient can also be done, making 105 trade by 1500 bc is quite possible without ever hitting COL

[danthechan]

i seem to see the op's situation frequently myself. its almost always when the opponent took caps and collected much gold, rushing a couple libraries. i usually feel that if i stick to my plan i will catch and pass them in time for important techs. if they are good, and have a specific plan for knights or cats, i may just not catch up in time. i don't use the all gold method as much as i should. if i look and see the literacy bonus, or a free market, it is hard to fight the temptation to take it.

[danthechan]

Or spanish, 10 cities while still in ancient can also be done, making 105 trade by 1500 bc is quite possible without ever hitting COL

how many libraries to get this? i can't imagine having 10 pop 6 cities by 1500bc. is democracy factored into your math?

[TyShine]

Or spanish, 10 cities while still in ancient can also be done, making 105 trade by 1500 bc is quite possible without ever hitting COL

No. This isnt realistic.

[Kadera]

Realistic with BIG luck. Greet Builder for East India Company + democracy from Artifact.

[Grayson]

Or spanish, 10 cities while still in ancient can also be done, making 105 trade by 1500 bc is quite possible without ever hitting COL

how many libraries to get this? i can't imagine having 10 pop 6 cities by 1500bc. is democracy factored into your math?

No. This isnt realistic.

Realistic with BIG luck. Greet Builder for East India Company + democracy from Artifact.

105 beakers with any civ by 1500BC is possible, but is an extremely fortunate and powerful game. Staying in the Ancient and getting 105 beakers w/o Code of Laws is extremely unlikely, though under the perfect cirumstances, it could be done I guess, as there's a lot of crazy things that can happen in this game.

But, that situation is not something that is repeatable or consistent, so it's kind of a moot point even if you were able to do it one time.

You can use the "all cities on gold method" to expand quite well in the ancient with the Spanish, and with the right map (whales, some double whale islands, lots of gold, good artifacts), you can get out a bunch of fast growing cities safely, but to stay in the Ancient and avoid Code of Laws is unecessary. Saving 20 gold per settler and getting the 2 population penalty while not in Republic vs. just 1 pop in Republic when producing a settler, is not worth it. It's almost always better just to press on get Code of Laws, and you'll probably have to go to the Medieval to get there, and it's not that bad of a trade off to do so, as I said, just 20 extra gold per settler (though galleons cost 90 gold in the Medieval, which is quite costly, and it may be worth it to produce/rush several more galleons in the Ancient to help offset those costs rather than the cost of settlers).

But, for the OP. The early tech race doesn't matter, but if you devalue early teching to the point that you are delaying getting a lot of tech till you get to a set number, then you can really be slowing yourself down. You should pay attention moreso to "backfill rates", where you are producing 20,30, or 40 trade per turn, and switch from gold to science when you feel like it's time to advance eras. Expansion is easier in the Medieval, because you can always rush settlers out of new cities, and you'll probably be in Republic in the early Medieval, so getting there is fine.

I usually have about 5 cities when I switch to science and get to Code of Laws, sometimes 3 cities, sometimes 7 cities. But, then in the Medieval I'm usually looking to get to Code of Laws, putting all back on production, growth, and gold, and looking to at least double my city count, like getting between 10-15 cities. Then I'll switch back to science, and maybe build a few more cities later on the game, after the major expansion phase is over.

If you are facing someone who is going to leave you in the dust in tech, then you may not want to go all out on expansion, and just get to about 5-7 cities, and then target more aggressive military techs, like Mathematics for catapults, Iron Working for Legions, Navigation for Galleons, and feudalism for knights. My goal in the 5-7 city model of expansion is to look one or two good production cities to get a barracks and produce units, with the goal of delievering legions, catapults, or knights around 0AD. This works well when you are a civ that is lacking in tech, and facing a tech happy civ like China.

[TyShine]

Realistic with BIG luck. Greet Builder for East India Company + democracy from Artifact.

Possible yes. Realistic no. Play 10 straight games with the Spanish and its highly unlikely to happen.

[AMGBaiton]

Out of 20 Spanish games I have played in the last 2 weeks about 6 of them I had the ability to get 105 tech by 1500, in some I choose to wait and stay at 4 techs and build 2 more libraries so that when I hit medieval I have 130 or so.

What I do during a good spanish game is on any island or peninsula city with 2 whales, whale + fish or 3 fish I buy a library usually thats 4-5 they will each be pop 5, and yes I require at least 1 of pyramid, walk in drop on romans or 7 cities or Confucius with builder to do this

[Pedal2Metal]

Out of 20 Spanish games I have played in the last 2 weeks about 6 of them I had the ability to get 105 tech by 1500, in some I choose to wait and stay at 4 techs and build 2 more libraries so that when I hit medieval I have 130 or so.

What I do during a good spanish game is on any island or peninsula city with 2 whales, whale + fish or 3 fish I buy a library usually thats 4-5 they will each be pop 5, and yes I require at least 1 of pyramid, walk in drop on romans or 7 cities or Confucius with builder to do this

MP or SP?

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[Grayson]

Out of 20 Spanish games I have played in the last 2 weeks about 6 of them I had the ability to get 105 tech by 1500, in some I choose to wait and stay at 4 techs and build 2 more libraries so that when I hit medieval I have 130 or so.

What I do during a good spanish game is on any island or peninsula city with 2 whales, whale + fish or 3 fish I buy a library usually thats 4-5 they will each be pop 5, and yes I require at least 1 of pyramid, walk in drop on romans or 7 cities or Confucius with builder to do this

But why would you stay in the Ancient just to pop a library or more settlers and not just go to the medieval and get Code of Laws. the math doesn't add up....

But, that's missing the point completely...
I don't think the origonal poster is having problems dealing with games where everything is going his way. Deciding what to do with the Spanish when you get Code of Laws for free from a galley drop on the Romans, getting 7 cities of gold, or a Great Builder from School of Confucious, is probably not something many people are looking for advice on. Maybe your advice is just to "play the spanish, and maybe 6 of 20 games, you'll get an awesome situation" is your solution, but that's not really helping anyone actually play the game, other than maybe debating that very unique situation, which may nor may not happen 6 of 20 times, and I'm still doubting that you can have 105 beakers per turn in 25 turns when you play with the Spanish to begin with.

The point is the how to in general balance tech and expansion regardless of civ to better expand faster and not delay tech so long that you are too late to do anything, or how to expand faster and not worry about tech early on, knowing that superior expansion will always give you chance in any given game.