A bit of my strategy in Single Player

Smallpox vs. largepox, gen2 vs gen5, early war vs. peaceful alliances. Which is your favourite gaming style?
rainbowrobin
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 5:10 am

Re: A bit of my strategy in Single Player

Post by rainbowrobin »

But all those tutorials are for version 2.1 or earlier, and there have been major changes since then, especially in tech development. Tech costs used to be a function of how many techs you had, so racing for Monarchy or Republic made sense. Now (2.3 and later) it's a function of the depth in the tech tree, and going for monarchy has huge opportunity cost. You'd probably get Monarchy faster by developing Pottery (workers, granaries) and maybe Writing (libraries) and Mapmaking (expansion) first.

The original post (from last year) is on a really easy mode, but the basic structure is still similar to how I play island games. I start with Pottery, so I can get granaries and workers (to build roads thus giving trade, and irrigate plains). Mapmaking if I think I can get it fast through huts or research speed, then Bronze Working and Masonry so I can defend against barbarians. Then I'll start thinking about Monarchy, though Currency's nice too (prereq for Trade and caravans, and Marketplace gives a zero upkeep improvement for cities to occupy themselves with.)

I disagree about the Wonders, though; I hardly ever build Great Wall or Pyramids. High cost, GW goes obsolete and leaves your cities vulnerable if you haven't remembered to build real walls, Pyramid benefit not obvious to me. Oracle needs temples to work and isn't really needed, between martial law and temples. I like grabbing Colossus, though: it's cheap, has a long life time, and is great for the city it's in. Ditto for the Crusade.

Then of course there's the win phase: Republic rapture + Marketplace + Harbor, plus buying Aqueducts and later Sewer Systems. Take a city from size 3 to 20+ in as many turns. AIs never seem to do this, so I live to that point the game starts becoming curbstompy.
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