We will need something that will be done quickly, so that happiness is dealt with, that is of course we can get connected to a lux quite early.

I would say that we should build a warrior as our first unit.

I'm really tempted to say curragh, I think it should be our 2nd unit if we're a coastal city

As our greatest need is to explore, find/hatch goody huts and spy the land ... I agree with the both of you

I say warrior.

Warrior, then curragh.

Warrior --> Curragh ---> Settler? With all the Floodplainyness and Cows we're going to get amazing growth.

Warriors should be used for exploration and garrison units (Pre-spearmen)

warrior -> explore

Use lux slider if need be to keep people happy. What is inportant is to get those goddies FAST.

Warriors should be used for exploration and garrison units (Pre-spearmen)
What are spearmen? we wont be building them. ;)

We might not need to go with a warrior first, because we have instant acces to a luxury. The first thing we must do is get connected to the luxury. The capital is a very settler factory. We have access to both cows and wheat. This is a gold mine that we are sitting on, both figuratively and literally. I still cannot believe we have this starting position.

warrior for exploring then settler to get the the explored place right?

With all this food I'd say Warrior --> Settler --> Curragh --> Settler (?)

I'm thinkin like you're thinkin Fallensmith

That is what I was thinking too.

What are spearmen? we wont be building them. ;)

Its better to be safe than sorry. The image of CFC's Iron city being razed by the GCA is still imprinted in my memory. I do not wish to see the same faite to happen to one of our cities.

Its better to be safe than sorry. The image of CFC's Iron city being razed by the GCA is still imprinted in my memory. I do not wish to see the same faite to happen to one of our cities.

do you know what civ we're playing as? or our UU?

I would think that our Hoplites should not be churned out until a barracks has been built ...

In my games I never build defensive units until I have a barracks, and I never build a barracks until I have 3 or 4 cities, depending on barbarian activity (random always). This may not be the best overall technique, but I don't think we have to worry about ingame threats for quite a while.

Even if there are a couple barabrians, they worst they'll do is take some gold. Unless they chase down a settler. I hate it when that happens.

I did an analysis of a few sample starts on a spreadsheet (I’ll try to figure out how to post it later if anyone wants to look at it) – I compared:

1. Warrior, settler, curragh, settler
2. Warrior, curragh, settler, settler
3. Warrior, warrior, settler, settler
4. Warrior, curragh, worker, settler

I thought #4 might be good because there are a lot of tiles we want to improve, but it turned out that was not very impressive.

In comparing #1 and #2: in #1 we get the first settler 3 turns earlier, but in #2 we get the second settler 3 turns earlier and we have more food in the bin so each additional settler will be 3 (or more!) turns earlier. #3 gives us the second settler 1 turn earlier than #1, but delays the second settler too much.

The main problem with #1 and #3 is that the first settler knocks us back down to pop 1. When we are at pop 2, we can work both the cow and the wheat and grow quickly. If we let ourselves go down to pop 1, then it takes an extra turn or 2 to get back to pop 2.

My conclusion from this is that we should build warrior, curragh, settler, settler, then probably worker, worker. Our initial worker should irrigate and road the cow (after roading the ivory), then irrigate and road the wheat before moving to BGs.

Damn thanks for joining the team Chamnix ... brilliant and succinct report ... this will help a lot :thumbsup:

Your analysis make sense ...

EDIT - could you possibly e-mail the excel doc to me ... (I'd love to look over what you've done ... Excel is a fantastic tool and I've created numerous multi-linked variable spreadsheets which calculated - audience box office income projections to bizzare stuff like the price of sand required vs time vs number of cones needed to create a projection curtain ... experimental opera :blush: )

You give me too much credit – my spreadsheet is no more sophisticated than pencil and paper, but I will be happy to email it to you (not least so you can correct any mistakes before I get blamed for suggesting a terrible path!).

Incidentally, I think I found a couple improvements. Here are the new results summarized for the first 3 approaches (subject to future revisions if I keep looking at it):

Approach 1:

Turn 4 – warrior
Turn 12 – settler
Turn 17 – curragh
Turn 24 – settler (end at pop 2, 14 food in the bin)

Approach 2:

Turn 4 – warrior
Turn 8 – curragh
Turn 15 – settler
Turn 22 – settler (pop 2, 7 food in the bin)

Approach 3:

Turn 4 – warrior
Turn 7 – warrior
Turn 14 – settler
Turn 21 – settler (pop 2, 0 food in the bin)

It is really not obvious which is the best, but I would lean toward approach 2 or 3 – I still think building a settler second is not ideal.

We need to explore the coasts ...

We need to explore the coasts ...

agreed. #2. approach 1 gives us a settler too late. #3 gives us a settler only 1 turn earlier, and gives us less food so it's longer for growth. definitatly #2.

I would lean towards the curragh path over the double warrior path.

take the #2 approach... more growth more shield more commerce more everything in the long/short run we need growth to put out settlers

I have put option two in the build queue. This can always be changed, but i have orders from the Defence Minister.

Isn't Warrior-->Warrior-->Sett-->Sett Option 3?
That seems to be what is in the build queque, since it said 2.Warrior 3.Settler 4.Settler

I was under impression that Option 2 was :
Turn 4 – Warrior
Turn 8 – Curragh
Turn 15 – Settler
Turn 22 – Settler (pop 2, 7 food in the bin)

Should instruct our President to change the 2nd Warrior to a Curragh ???

... as it was my interpretation that the majority (unpolled) wanted to explore coastline and hence have the second unit naval ...

I must not post so late. :shakehead The option I meant was three. It gets us to two settlers a turn early. We need fast expansion.

For the record, here is what I was doing for options 2 & 3 so you know what tiles I was expecting to work and what improvements to make if you want to stay on this schedule. Of course, if anyone can see any improvements, we can go off this schedule anytime..

OK ... I fully concur with late night/early morning postings ;) ...

i guess you are right about early expansion ... but I still think that we should still get a ship early as well ...

OK ... I fully concur with late night/early morning postings ;) ...

i guess you are right about early expansion ... but I still think that we should still get a ship early as well ...


It's just one turn, plus we'll have more food left over, so our next workeer will come faster

I believe that it would be better for us to have one of the warriors for happiness garrison, because it is better to do it that way, rather than use the slider, because the faster we can research, the better.

Perhaps a curragh after 1-2 extra workers? We do need one eventually.

I did an analysis of a few sample starts on a spreadsheet (I’ll try to figure out how to post it later if anyone wants to look at it) – I compared:

1. Warrior, settler, curragh, settler
2. Warrior, curragh, settler, settler
3. Warrior, warrior, settler, settler
4. Warrior, curragh, worker, settler

I thought #4 might be good because there are a lot of tiles we want to improve, but it turned out that was not very impressive.

In comparing #1 and #2: in #1 we get the first settler 3 turns earlier, but in #2 we get the second settler 3 turns earlier and we have more food in the bin so each additional settler will be 3 (or more!) turns earlier. #3 gives us the second settler 1 turn earlier than #1, but delays the second settler too much.

The main problem with #1 and #3 is that the first settler knocks us back down to pop 1. When we are at pop 2, we can work both the cow and the wheat and grow quickly. If we let ourselves go down to pop 1, then it takes an extra turn or 2 to get back to pop 2.

My conclusion from this is that we should build warrior, curragh, settler, settler, then probably worker, worker. Our initial worker should irrigate and road the cow (after roading the ivory), then irrigate and road the wheat before moving to BGs.

Perhaps #4 would be a better compromise.

Having settlers sent out is critical though, we dont want to be outexpanded by the other players.

Personally, I’m starting to lean toward having a curragh be our second unit since we will pump out lots of warriors once our factory is running (see my post in the military ministry thread for a description of the factory), especially if our second (and possibly third) towns are not going to be on the coast.

The question I have now is does anyone think it is worth delaying the factory for a bit until we get a barracks up (possibly even partially pop-rushed)? Which bothers everyone more – pumping out regular warriors or delaying expansion?

Perhaps #4 would be a better compromise.

with only 1 settler? besides, the consensus seems to have formed strongly behind #2

Personally, I’m starting to lean toward having a curragh be our second unit since we will pump out lots of warriors once our factory is running

ohhhhh...VERY good point, hadn't even thought of that.

I'm still strongly behind #2. But it should be known that I'll be content with any of the moves, as I've never ever encountered such an insightful and well-researched determination of these early moves.

My reasoning for a curragh is that I'm a little unsettled about our starting location ... I'm very eager to search coast and hope that we are part of a large land mass

Having settlers sent out is critical though, we dont want to be outexpanded by the other players.

I've been thinking... I don't think anyone can out-expand us in a meaningful way at this point. It's safe to assume we all got comparable starting positions. The only ones that can grow faster than us are Iroquois and Celts. But they can't build units faster than us, so we don't have to worry about a swarm of their settlers any time soon. The Persians are industrious. These are the ones I'd worry about. But, they won't be able to set up a settler factory sooner than us, so we don't have to worry on that point.

Please think those lines through, and tell me if you think I screwed it up; but most likely they are all having the exact same discussions. We won't be out-expanded.

A reminder of Chamnix' evalutaion of option #2:
but in #2 we get the second settler 3 turns earlier [than second option1 settler] and we have more food in the bin so each additional settler will be 3 (or more!) turns earlier.

Actually, I made some changes since then :blush: You should look at post #20 in this thread instead of post #18 - the difference is not as great as I had originally thought, but I think nearly everyone agrees now that the next unit will be a warrior or curragh.

Incidentally, have we grown to size 2 yet? Please keep in mind that the schedule I prepared does occasionally require rearranging citizens.

The interesting part about the Iroquios and Celts is that they also start with pottery. I would expect them to build a granary in their capitals fairly quickly. Our second and probably third settlers are likely to come before theirs while they build the granary, but once it is built, their growth could be truly explosive.

Thanks for that. I still prefer curragh. Glad you mentioned that about the granaries. When I get home tonight I'll do some projections to see what span of turns we might expect them to have granaries (talk about specualtive!). Imagine the debates they must be having about that.

In a way, I wish we didn't know which civlizations we are playing against. Takes some of the surprise out of it.

We will expand to population 2 in 2 turns ... refer to Looking Glass thread as I try to keep updated ...

We are also producing a second Warrior in 3 turns

and TNT had their city population expanded to 2 (this turn)