The "Size-5" strategy

[rah]

Not a fair question. I believe this strategy will produce more science, but it depends on the game situation and how it is executed. There are always little setbacks in MP games that force you to modify plans.

RAH
The mp game where I used it I started without a trade special, so I played a modified ics opening, but then I switched back to modified perfectionism when i got enough cities down and they were starting to grow. And once 4 of the got to 5, BANG.
Thanks

[Ming]

I'll give my standard answer...
It will depend on their starting positions

With even an average spread of trade specials, and a decent starting position, I think the Size-5 strategy is more effective. Now, if I have to wander for many years to find a place to start, I'd give it to the ICS'ers who can pretty much start just about anywhere

[Sten Sture]

I generally hate the GL for messing with my tech path, but the GL as a very early wonder - now that is interesting! 5-sci to get GL, then low sci and jack taxes up. Next would you go early Rep or toward Feudalism to get the pikemen?

I haven't MPed much and not in 12 ferret generations, but does the GL pick up dupes that have already passed? Like Monarchy? I would assume that everyone is going to get it pretty soon, and I doubt if GL completion will beat Monarchy discovery...?

[Kitana]

I read your post a couple times and it really makes good sense. I don't always play at deity though, I usually play at King, because I play mostly to relax, not to see how good I am. You can use a similar strategy with king level, except you can go to size 8 cities and just don't build aqueduct. Since you need an aqueduct to get past 8 you don't have to worry about growth. When you get to Democracy start building aqueduct, hopefully Michellangelo's Chapel and set your luxuries to 60, tax to 20 and science to 20. Your population explodes with the We Love the ____ Days every turn.

Just a thought.

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Kitana
Shogun of the Japanese

[Xin Yu]

In 2x production a size 5 capital city will give 20 shields (working on forests). Now what is the earliest time to build the GL?

[Ming]

(A MP double production answer)
Again, that depends on when you started building a wonder. Once you get a wonder science, many people will start building that wonder knowing they will switch it to something else when they can. Plus, maybe you have a city location that provides more than that number of shields in 2x pro...
In addition, if you are near a barb area... you could maybe have hundred of dollars sitting around thanks to some kings... making it easy to buy a wonder whenever you want it...
Now, assuming you might be able to get into monarchy by 3000BC, and that you took writing as your non path science, and didn't get any sciences from huts, and were able to take literacy as your next science, and it only took 4 to 5 turns to research it... you could have it as early 2750...

So to answer your question... too many variables

[My Wife Hates CIV]

'I usually play at King, because I play mostly to relax, not to see how good I am'

now see, i agree with that. what fun is playing all night trying to squeeze out every single little freakin trade arrow?? but in MP you have to because everyone else is.

but as i've always said - it's all luck, at first anyway more so! a few lucky huts and 6 horses comming down on Xin's early (undefended cities)... and it's over for him.

[cavebear]

quote: Originally posted by My Wife Hates CIV on 09-12-2000 08:52 AM a few lucky huts and 6 horses comming down on Xin's early (undefended cities)... and it's over for him.

Right, sure, piece of cake. Maybe 6 vet knights *very* early... *LOL*

[Ming]

If six horses hit anybodey early, they would be in trouble... And that is the way to really hurt ICS'ers

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Sten Sture on 09-11-2000 01:53 PM I haven't MPed much and not in 12 ferret generations, but does the GL pick up dupes that have already passed? Like Monarchy? I would assume that everyone is going to get it pretty soon, and I doubt if GL completion will beat Monarchy discovery...?

The GL makes a check each time somebody discovers a tech and if this wasn't the first tribe to discover it, you get it too. So if everybody else already has Monarchy before you finish GL, there will never be a check and it will never give it to you.

Btw I just played an OCC game in which only one of the AI tribes had discovered Monarchy by the year 1500 AD ...

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Sten Sture]

(side note for Ribs - if you edit the rules text to make Monarchy and its prereq's 8,0 the AI will research it within the first dozen techs - sometimes even 5th, but usually around 10th)

[Sten Sture]

quote: Originally posted by Xin Yu on 09-08-2000 08:28 PM f) as soon as city #1 grows to size 3, add the two settlers to city #1.

Since the food box retains the previous food stored when you add a citizen - would it be better to add the settlers when the food box has more than just a couple of food stored or is it a push? Is adding three settlers to a nearly ready to grow size two city better??

Don't you wish the granery worked as well backwards as it does forwards.

I nominate this for the GL.

[Xin Yu]

SS: accrue food before adding settlers to the city is not good since it takes several turns to get enough food just for one turn's consumption. As for adding 3 settlers to size 2 cities, you can do it later in the game, but not at the beginning. Roughly speaking, from size 3 to 4 you need 40 food, so by adding a settler to the city you trade one shield with one food; adding a settler to a size 2 city would trade 40 shields for 30 food.

[Scouse Gits]

Xin, May I add my (somewhat belated) praise - I am trying this new scheme within an ICSish framework pumping the heartland cities up to five - works like a dream! Now where exactly are the French ... ?


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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
"The Great Library must be built!"

[Xin Yu]

Some notes:

Just as 5 scientists can give you 16 science bulbs, 5 taxmen can give you 16 golds. The effect increases when you build city improvements. This is very useful when you are rushing for a wonder. You can have some cities build caravans, and others hire taxmen (stop scientific research for a while), and use tax money to rush buy caravans.

One food caravan can supply a city enough food for 5 turns. Using this, in later stage of the game, you can push the above strategy to its limit -- in a big city hire 16 scientists or taxmen (with corresponding city improvements), and use food caravans to keep them work there forever. Suppose you have a size 20 city and build marketplace, bank, and stock exchange. Hire 16 taxmen will give you 120 gold per turn (suppose the other 4 citizens can provide enough gold for the maintainance). Spend 125 gold every 5 turns for buying a food caravan, you net 95 gold per turn, enough to buy 30+ shield of production, only without any happiness and pollution problem.

The ultimate parctice is to use food caravans to increase SSC's population to 36, and hire 16 scientists, then use food caravans to support the food consumption.

I have been making some 'science' cities and some 'gold' cities. I make a whole bunch of gold cities, because my size 5 cities don't have good production, because they aren't producing jack diddly squat every other turn. So, I rushbuy. The gold cities have tax improvements and not science ones, and the science ones get science improvements and not tax ones. I've started an Emperor game to try it out and I'm looking at a chance to land before 1500. But then again, arii landed in 1075 on diety, so I guess I have a long way to go.
*goes off and starts cussing out the mongols and persians under his breath*

[Xin Yu]

SilverDragon: maybe if you build more caravans and trade a lot, you can get to AC faster . Size-5 city is a starting strategy. They should grow to size 20 eventually.

They do. I use them for a while, and then they "graduate" to being a normal city, around 18-20 population. After i get 8 normal cities, I stop size fiving.

[Smash]

This "hire specialist" scheme does have a place in any game.You don't have to do this all the time.You may want to do this during certain parts of a game.And maybe not every city.
It works really well in scenarios.You can get techs way before you were supposed to.Its fairly easy to generate 5000 beakers in the first 2 turns of Red Front for example.

A good tactic for fast science but eventually you need some sheilds.I find myself hiring scientists and taxmen at certain times.

[cavebear]

I'm trying it in a current game against a player who is really better than I am. It's working well, though it feels odd. Doubtless, I do not have the system working well yet.

Still, I am holding my ground on development (actually ahead on the better techs, and got to Monarchy faster). In fact, I will have Philosophy in just a few turns. I have fewer cities, to be sure, but they are 5-5-5-4-3-1, and about to build another.

IN SPITE OF this world being mostly plain and swamp (which seems hard on the "size 5" strategy), it is working well enough. On a more grass and forest setting (we are in 2x1x), I would have a killer lead!

I got my first 2 cities built on corn, close together, and that certainly helped, but it is very very difficult to build up the needed food surplus with plains. This idea needs grass/forest around the specials.

Errors I made: Forgot how to add a settler to the main city and disbanded it there instead of using "b". That set me back. Built barracks because I couldn't decide between more settlers or warriors (and my opponent is a fierce attacker). But I also got pikemen and monarchy fast, so maybe I've come out ahead (vet pikes early, cool). Best tech rate I can maintain is 4, but had 3 once.

Have had difficulty keeping the scientists fed with the plains terrain, but even then, I had 6 turns of 5 scientists before having food problems in the main city the first time.

With some practice, this could really work well.


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[cavebear]

Hmmm, in reviewing Arii's post, I see he went for Writing and Currency, while I did go for Writing, but later, and went for Feudalism for defense.

Perhaps I can get the Currency with Philosophy, but I think I would rather have Chivalry or Monotheism, given the aggressive nature of my opponent. I have to give some thought to Map-Making, too.

I think that if I had played this strategy more accurately at the start, I would have each of those by now and could well have Vet Crusaders and Trade while my opponent was looking for Elephants.

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[arii]

I like this stuff. Tried it in my current tourney game and it allowed me to beat the other players to key wonders. You pay a price with a slower expanssion since you are sacrifying 2 cities for 1 size 5 city very early in the game. The game being exponential that's a big loss. On the other hand you can get to key techs a lot faster and hire taxmen to rush build wonders a lot faster.
Things I'm thinking of doing to maximize this strategy:
rushbuild city improvements library/market place to improve scientist/taxmen return
once you have 3-4 other city at size 3 go to republic for a few turn an WLTPD them to size 5-6 and go back to monarchy. You loose 6 turns of science but am sure you can make up quickly with 3-4 new scientist cities.
I like that you can be in monarchy (happyness+unit support) and get a good science rate.

Xin,

Couple of problems with this strategy--or it might be just my game.

1) Having only 1 food surplus did not stave off famine. 8 deficit with five scientists in Despotism (7 if in Monarchy--assuming you are on grasslands which I was); dropped a pop.

2) Huts effect your tech research--one game because of techs coming from huts. I didn't get monarchy until 100BC.

3) Location, location, location. If area is swamped, jungled, forested, hilled or Mted. Slows you down, BIG TIME.



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"And his word shall carry
death eternal to those who
stand against righteousness."

[SCG]

quote: <font size=1>Originally posted by Maud'Dib on 10-05-2000 03:09 AM</font> Xin, Couple of problems with this strategy--or it might be just my game. 1) Having only 1 food surplus did not stave off famine. 8 deficit with five scientists in Despotism (7 if in Monarchy--assuming you are on grasslands which I was); dropped a pop.

what version of the game do you have? I have the PC 2.42 version, and even with a 10 food deficit, but 1 bushel in the food storage, i was able to stave off famine.

quote: 2) Huts effect your tech research--one game because of techs coming from huts. I didn't get monarchy until 100BC.

This strategy is one way to compensate for that problem in the short term. Of course the fewer non-essential techs you have, the more effective this strategy will be. As a rule of thumb, the number of beakers early on needed is 10x the number of techs you have. This is compensated upwards if you are ahead, downwards if you are behind. If you read some of the other threads in the strategy forum, you'll see that quite a few people will deliberately avoid tipping many huts until they are in monarchy for that very reason.

quote: 3) Location, location, location. If area is swamped, jungled, forested, hilled or Mted. Slows you down, BIG TIME.

That is why you use settlers from feeder cities to get you up to size 5. And an added benefit here is that you do have a chance to pick and choose where to build those feeder cities to best pump out those settlers.

Edit: clarification on point 2 - all your starting techs combined (irrigation, roads, mining, and any bonus techs) can be viewed as having 1 tech for purposes of the rule of thumb. In other words, if you get 5 bonus techs, you still only need 10 or so beakers for your first discovery.
[This message has been edited by SCG (edited October 05, 2000).]

[Andromeda]

What do the references to "2x1x" and "1x1x" mean ?

I get the impression they only apply to MP games, is that correct ?

TIA

[Ming]

That is correct. In MP games, one of the options is to change the amount of production and movement of units.

2x2x means double production (every sqaure produces twice what it normally does, and the second 2x stands for double movement. Each unit gets to move twice it's normal amount. (horses move four, explorers move six)

People can play any combination... 2x1x (double production, single movement) or 1x2x or 2x2x or 1x1x.

[DaveV]

quote: Originally posted by Ming on 10-05-2000 09:51 AM 2x2x means double production (every sqaure produces twice what it normally does

Well... yes and no. I don't have a lot of experience with 2x production, but it seems that +1 type modifications are not handled properly. Specific examples: if you build a city on a square that would normally produce no shields, it will produce 1 shield in 1x production. In 2x production, it still produces 1 shield (not 2, as you might expect). Even more egregious: building a road in grass, plains, or desert will increase trade by +1, rather than +2.

Note that if you own MGE, you can start a hotseat game with 5 AIs and 2 human players, don't restart eliminated players. Quit when you're one of the human players, and you can play a 2x production game against the computer. The AI is even more clueless than usual in 2x production, of course...

[Ming]

You are correct that it never quite works out the way it should seem to...

However...

quote: Originally posted by DaveV on 10-05-2000 10:07 AM Note that if you own MGE, you can start a hotseat game with 5 AIs and 2 human players, don't restart eliminated players. Quit when you're one of the human players, and you can play a 2x production game against the computer. The AI is even more clueless than usual in 2x production, of course...

All you have to do to play on these settings against the computer is start a mp game, and when it the screen that shows other players coming in comes up... just continue with no other players... real simple. And you don't have to be connected to the net to do this.

[DaveV]

Ming - I believe that a no-opponents internet game works for you, but it hangs up for me during one of the setup screens - I can't rememeber which. Probably due to my antique hardware that doesn't even have a modem. The hotseat method does work for me.