Turn 20+: Mid-Game Strategy

The Path to Democracy

While you are filling in the map with as many cities as you can, you are going to be developing your empire by terraforming tiles and adding infrastructure with Workers and at some point it will be necessary to add happiness buildings as well. Once you research Monarchy or Republic and take the two turns of Anarchy to change governments you will really see a change in output of all of your cities due to the elimination of the Despotism penalty.

Note

As a reminder, you can also get rid of the Despotism penalty with the Pyramids Small Wonder if that fits your strategy better. However, at some point you must get to Democracy.

You should research the following technologies (not necessarily in this order):

  • Currency — Gives Marketplace improvement, which increases the luxury and tax output in a city by 50%.

  • Writing — Gives Library improvement, which increases the science output in a city by 50%, or by 100% once the Great Library Great Wonder has been built by any player.

  • Seafaring — Gives Harbor improvement, which gives one extra food resource on all Ocean or Deep Ocean tiles (but not Lakes).

  • Construction — Gives regular Aqueduct for those cities not near fresh water to get them bigger than size 8.

  • Monotheism — Gives the Cathedral improvement, which makes 3 unhappy citizens content in a city.

  • Bridge Building — Allows your Workers to put roads everywhere, especially rivers. This is an important task for all of your Workers. You get an extra trade point for a road on a river tile.

  • Feudalism — For the Pikemen unit. Your first really good defender. With a Barracks and the Sun Tzu’s War Academy Small Wonder you can produce vv Pikemen. Phalanx can be upgraded to Pikemen as well.

  • University — Gives the University improvement, which increases the science output in a city by an additional 50% (in addition to what the Library is doing), or by 100% once Isaac Newton’s College Great Wonder has been built by any player.

  • Banking — Gives the Bank improvement, which increases the luxury and tax output in a city by an additional 30%. With both a Bank and a Marketplace in a city, the total bonus is 80%.

  • Invention — Gives the two workshop wonders. If someone else gets Verrocchio’s Workshop you should still build the Leonardo’s Workshop.

  • Economics — Gives the Mercantile Exchange improvement and also allows for the Federation form of government. Mercantile Exchange increases the luxury and tax output in a city by an additional 30%. With a Mercantile Exchange, a Bank and a Marketplace in a city, the total bonus is 110%!

  • Democracy — Allows for the Democracy form of government.

  • Gunpowder — For the Musketeer unit. Your second-level, really good defender. Warriors and Archers can be upgraded to Musketeers.

  • Sanitation — Gives the Sewer System improvement. This allows your cities to get bigger than size 16.

Getting your Cities to Celebrate

While you are researching the list given above, you need to work to get all the happiness and luxury buildings constructed in your cities as it makes sense.

Note

Cities size 3 or smaller cannot celebrate. Also at this small size you get very little effect from all the happiness and lux buildings anyway, so it makes sense that small cities will not celebrate.

You need to eventually get the following buildings inside your largest cities:

  • Temple → Cathedral

  • City Walls

  • Courthouse

  • Library → University

  • Marketplace → Bank → Mercantile Exchange

You must have Temples in all of your cities at a minimum before you switch to Republic or Democracy or you will have disorder on your hands all over. Ideally you would have Temple, City Walls, Courthouse, and Marketplace, along with all the Small Wonders that enhance them before you switch to Republic or Democracy.

With all this in place, you will want to now get your largest cities (ideally all of them, but it is not always possible to do that) to celebrate. To accomplish this is a multi-part process:

  • Ensure you have Temple, City Walls, Courthouse, Marketplace, and a Bank inside the city.

  • Even better if you can get Mercantile Exchange in there as well.

  • Amphitheater and/or Cathedral help with the happiness aspect as well and are needed for cities larger than size 16.

  • Change the global Lux value to 30%.

  • Manipulate the citizens in your cities and convert them to Entertainers (yes this will stall growth). As you add Entertainers the content citizens will turn happy and if you have enough Lux and Happiness available the city will go to “happy” in the city dialog (right panel). You need half of the citizens to be happy for the citizens to celebrate.

  • The citizens will go from happy to celebrating at TC. You will see the effects in your gold and science output when this happens.

Tip

You might have to go to 40% global Lux to get the cities to celebrate initially. Once they are celebrating you can adjust the global Lux value down and still keep them celebrating. You can use the Cities view to monitor the situation. Be sure to have the “state” column enabled to see the status.

Mid-Game Military

This is the point in the game where some fighting often happens. You are going to be bumping up against your neighbors, they might have more land than you at this point. Just like with the notes about military aggression for the early game, any involvement in military conflict is taking away from growth. As with all things Longturn, there are tradeoffs.

A few thoughts about aggression at this stage of the game:

  • You cannot declare war on a player you are at peace with if you are in Republic, Democracy, or Federation. You have to go into Anarchy and then declare war, which will kill 2 turns of any progress.

    Note

    In Monarchy, Despotism, and Tribal you can declare war at will.

  • If you are going to go into a hot war with a neighbor, make sure they are smaller than you. If they are bigger you have no chance as they can out produce you. Get some help with an ally if it is really necessary to invade. Also, if your neighbor is further along in the technology tree than you are, they could easily have more advanced defending and attacking units than you do. You really have no chance in this scenario as you cannot out produce them and it will take more units than you can produce in a reasonable amount of time to kill more advanced defenders. Wisdom over Valor!

  • As a general rule of thumb, at this point in the game you still do not have a ton of production capacity and it still takes awhile to construct units (or gold to buy them, which could be scarce). If you are going to go to war, it is advisable that every city is involved. Every city should be producing units (attackers and defenders). If you do not go all “in”, you risk your opponent doing the same in retaliation and taking you out of the game as a result.

  • Be sure to have your own defenses set up very well. There is an old saying — a good defense is the best offense. This is a team sports phrase, but it works very well in Longturn games.

  • Also recall from earlier, cities without City Walls will lose a citizen for every unit killed inside the city, plus one more when you enter the city. Use a Diplomat to investigate cities before you go in and attack. If you think you are going to get some beautiful, large city as a result, you may be surprised to see ruins instead. At this stage of the game, only ships do not kill citizens for the coastal cities.