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[tristanzz]

Originally Posted by kmonster

So... What would you say is an ideal tax setting?

The path of maximum aggression, useful on hard settings and among neighbors, is to max science solely to discover The Wheel, and max taxes for a long time afterwards to rush out as many settlers, militias, and chariots as possible. Use settlers to build new cities and improve tiles (particularly with roads, which finish quickly and give both commercial and strategic benefits), and the settlers' food maintenance will keep the home cities from outgrowing the difficulty setting. On emperor you only get 3 content citizens per city, and less if you control large numbers of cities. Militias, the cheapest units, can be useful standing in town; each one renders an unhappy citizen content. Chariots explore the map fast and can capture rival cities.

Chariots simply cannot be over-praised. The highest early attack strength is a catapult, but chariots come much earlier and move twice as fast. If you look at all the numbers on attack and defense, it becomes clear that Civ1 favors attacking. When fighting a "defensive war" it's far more effective to actively roam the field and mow down your attackers with chariots than to build walls and defend. Spam chariots to attack rivals and defend large stretches of territory.


Good techs to look for, after you've expanded comfortably under 100% tax, are mapmaking (ships), trade (vans), bronze (colossus), the Republic, and Democracy (governments with massive trade yields). I recommend against researching and switching to monarchy at any point.