Hey, I'm new to the Civilization series. I realize that everyone is new to the game, but there are a lot of Civ2 and Civ experts that have some idea on how the game works.

I can play just fine, but I always seem to be expanding slower than the computer in the beginning of the game.

I thought it might help people if you guys could post your initial build strategies (what units to build, when to start on yr first wonder, early city improvements, etc.).

Thanks

Build a city pretty quickly--within the first few moves. I've found this is more critical in Civ III than in previous versions. If you don't, a barbarian will come out of nowhere and kill you.

Explore just a little, though, if you can before settling down. Find a spot that can be developed and defended. Don't worry much about resources. Your first city will be around for a long time, and other cities can bring it the resources you need. Plus, most resources don't show up until later in Civ III.

If you encounter other nations, be at peace with them early on. Concentrate on building and expanding.

Build one (not more) military unit per city. That is just enough to keep the barbarians away.

The thing you should build most in the early game is settlers. Start spreading your civilization through a network of cities.

Starting Colosus early can be a very good strategy. It is a very helpful wonder for making a science city. And that is helpful no matter what strategy you choose. I often make my capital city a science city.

Have fun.

capital (first city) exploring unit first, then 2 defenders, then settler, (who is escorted by one of the defenders, then temple then wonder or another settler depending on what I have researched.

other cities (which are already defended) temple, then defender then settler, then other improvement (barracks/walls) then worker pr settler depending on population size..

I build offensive units as needed.

Haven't you guys been reading the other threads lately?? There are way more effective strategies out there for developing your empire and ensuring late game success. The prevailant strategy seems that a militaristic expansion is the most advantageous. Although i have to agree that finding a city VERY SOON (as in immediately) is very important, i have learned that in almost any level (Chief to Emperor - haven't tried Deity) all the other civs will expand impossibly fast. The only way to curb their eventual domination of your continent and thus securing your own, is to fight them. No way around it. If you take the peaceful route, your empire will end up being intertwined (sphere of influences are all mixed up) and your territory will look like a technic-colored painting.
-Set your tech to 0%. Buy them from your friends... or force them off your enemy when you sue for peace.
-DO NOT build settlers, exception to this is when building a new city at some choke point on the continent will be usefull. One such example is in the World Map, where a city in Central America can bottle neck any South American invaders and serve as the Panama Canal.
-BIG ARMY. Period. That's all you need to know. Build your army up and stack them out side your enemy's city.
-Repeat this until you have taken over the entire contient or a region where you feel comfortable working in.

i have been doing this and have managed to clear out pretty much the entire continent before 1000BC. Although sometimes the computer cheaps like a @#!(^&!@.

I think playing a militaristic civ, your idea makes sense, but I have no problem winning by culture and shrewd trading as well.

Yes, bull. That is one way to win. But I am definitely sure it isn't the ONLY way to win. I would prefer not to get embroiled in war that early. If you can advance quicker than the other civs, and out-culture them, you can destroy them later on, with more powerful units. If you take your route, and you have some bad luck, the entire game is lost. And the reason that the AI expands so fast is why I wanted to know how everyone's initial build worked, because it is SO important.

I agree with Bull to a point. In my game I started exploring and expanding with a few cities. When I ran into the Russians I made peace with them and started some minor trading. Before I knew it the Russians were building cities right next to mine.. even deep in my territory between my cities. This seemed very odd for an ally of mine.

Eventually I had to go to war with them just to get rid of their cities that were moving in on my resources. While this was happnening other civs who I made peace with moved into my territory and did the same thing, sprouting 1 population cities all over my damn territory. I wanted to win through culture and trade, but they are forcing me to go to war with them just to get them out of my personal space.

Don't your allies respect your area in the game? Because of the need for resources I am quickly finding out that military conquest seems to be my only option. Anyone else having this problem?

Also how the hell do you absorb an enemy city through culture.. I have 2 12 pop cities with like 1000+ culture on either side of an enemy 1 pop city with no culture and after 20+ turns they are still sitting there breaking up my road network.

I have to admit I want to try the early blitzkrieg method..I just cannot do it. Maybe I am chicken...wait I know I am early on...just not that bold.

I tend to play it like I did Civ2. Develop Tech, expand and so forth and then go out of the warpath..and later the spypath. I guess it is a hangup..but it seems to be working OK. Although, I am only playing on Warlord til I get a bit more comfortable with how everything works. This is a very different game than Civ2. I wait until the middle age (when I have sizable civ and infrastructure) and then go out with knights and do some hack and slash campaigns and take turf and sue for money and techs or whatever I can get and then repeat. You can get more out of them later..and then when you take a city it is mostly developed. So whether you raze it or take it...the city is very good.

The last time I was a super aggressive was in Civ1 (man..how long ago was that!.) I started sacking cities as soon as I got the chariot. Maybe that strat works now..just not that comfortable doing it. I'd love to hear other people who are aggressive early on. I must admit sometimes you have no choice. They are just too close...I just try to avoid unless it is a necessity.

The culture thing is strange. It must be a highly random formula. I have had cities right next to my own territory that don't come to my side. However, at the same time (same game) I had a city across an ocean that wanted to join me. Very strange. I ended up selling that city back to its original owner for MAD cash, and it came back to me like 20 turns later. :-)

To help figure out 'optimal' build strategies it may be worth watching the AI. Play a few sample games with expansionist civs, and just build scouts to watch them, plus trade maps (if you get to map making) then quit. Here is what I've gathered from this:

1) Build settlers in your first few cities as soon as possible after they hit 3 pop. Watch the build time, and you may want to change production to the settler and produce right after you gain a level.

2) Build your early cities in grassland, you need the growth potential, but then use mines not irrigation (irrigation will build your city too fast, you want to crank out units).

2) I build a defender while I wait for my city to grow to 3, but usually that will suffice in the early game.

I'm not any great expert, so I'm certain there are better strategies, but this usually lets me get started ok. It's my early/mid game that really hurts; I don't keep expanding hard enough (esp since I'm not military oriented) so the other civs beat me on city numbers.

I don't have any special insight into how to start out, unless you count lessons learned on what NOT to do. Most importantly, I have found that you should Not attempt to wipe out a neighbor first thing, unless you are playing on an island heavy map and you and your neighbor start out on a relatively small island. Trying to wipe out a neighbor first thing on any other kind of map will put you so far behing logistically (city improvements and such) that you will have to be extremely lucky to catch up with the other civs. On a small island this is alright because you can use your relative isolation for defense while you consolidate your new holdings. In my experience, establishing piece and attempting to outgrow your nieghbors is athe best bet. However, be sure to produce enough units to establish an effective border guard so that you're covered in case your neighbor decides to stab you in the back.

I haven't done the math to see if this is optimized, but I've been doing:

1. - warrior (either garrisons an already empty city, or frees the existing garrison unit to accompany other settlers/explore)

2 - settler

3 - granary

3.5 - worker

4 - settler

5 - temple

6 - settler

I use the whip whenever 1 citizen would finish the project, and mix it up a little if the city isn't growing enough to support that many settlers.

My strategy goes

1. Found city within 1 or 2 squares of where you start.

2. build 1 or 2 warriors (for exploring, goody huts, use explorers if you have them) depending on how many bonus grassland squares are in your city's radius.

3. build settler, if you do it right you'll get the settler built right as you get enough population points.

4.build temple, cause you city'll revolt real quick without it.

5. by this time your second city should be founded and you should have located the nearest civ. Repeat steps 1-4 till you get a decent fighting force, or till you have a lot of the map explred. Then, if you have warriors, go take a city of the nearest civ with lots of tech/money and sell it back to him. If you have explorers, then just make a bee-line for goody huts and explore as much of the world as possibe. Your world map will be worth a lot if you keep it to yourself for a while.

Greetings, all. First post here... be kind!

Anyway, I tend to go with a peaceful strategy myself. The discussion on the "pope strategy" in the thread titled "The Perfect Strategy" really helped my early game.

That said, I think it is essential to have the ability to engage in an early war. That doesn't mean you need to do so, but you need the ability to do so.

I have started the habit of creating a slew of warriors right off the bat. You don't need a cultural improvement in your capitol right away, since the capitol itself will serve that purpose. You need something to do before building that first settler, so build 2 warriors, even 3 if you have a city that can produce them and still get the settler out just after the population jump to 3 citizens.

The goal for these initial warriors is to grab nearby goodie huts and determine the location of your second city. The placement of the second city is, in my opinion, the key to getting a good start. You want to find something that has both good production and food and is close enough that you can settle it quickly--preferably 3-4 tiles from the capitol.

The second city should also produce 2-3 warriors. You'll now have 4-6 warriors at your disposal. Send them out in pairs, staggered a square or two off to maximize your map discovery. Your goal here is, in order: Locate and grab goodie huts, locate opponents, and locate prime real estate for expansion.

Why send warriors in pairs? Logistical support. If a goodie hut releases barbarians, you'll have something to fight back with. (The early game seems to only release a single warrior from goodie huts most of the time; I think I've seen more, but usually just one.) This way you can still lose a warrior and not take several turns getting a new warrior in place to do the mapping.

Also, if you run across an enemy city, you can make an assessment of the situation. Odds are, the AI will only have a single warrior in the city. Open up a trade negotiation, get whatever tech and gold you can from him, and invade. 2 warriors on 1 will usually be enough to get the job done. Not only does this give you a free city, but it takes one away from the AI. Instead of a 2-2 tie in cities, you are up 3-1, and that is usually enough to cripple the AI well into the mid-game. He may survive (if you don't take his second city) but will end up behind in the land grab. If you are lucky enough to find his capitol with your initial group of 2-3 warriors, rush the capitol. You'll get the AI to restart elsewhere on the map, and you should end up with a pretty good spread of real estate to work with before meeting another opponent.

Obviously, if you run into an opponent with spearmen already in the city, invading with warriors won't work. But often, you'll find that warriors are the ones holding down the fort. Again, obvioiusly, some of this depends on the geography, and how many/how few opponents are in your way to start the game. If I can't kill an enemy city before they've settled their third city, I'm probably not going to be able to do so. Which comes back to the importance of getting several warriors out into the field early in the game. You don't HAVE to wage war, but you need to discover right away if you have the opportunity.

Beyond that, I usually wait on culture in my second city as well, figuring that I would rather have one more settler out in the field than worry about cultural borders when the second city isn't likely to be on the frontier anyway.

I also set tech to 10%. There seems to be no difference between 10% and 50% in the early game, yet you still can increase gold production while not losing speed in tech. Don't set tech to 0--you still want to get that one extra tech to sell--but set it down to 10.

Every opponent you meet (even the one you are about to kill in 3000 BC!) is a trading partner. Get any tech you can. Pay lump sum cash, then trade that tech back to everyone else you've met. The AI will trade if you don't, so make the cash for yourself. Sell for gold per turn if possible, since it is worth more in the long run, unless you need to make some quick cash to buy a new tech from someone. In that case, sell for lump sum gold. Any opportunity you get to trade for communications, do it. (To this end, it helps to make an early galley or two for the purpose of establishing communications with another continent. Just need to meet one; the rest will trade communications to you.)

Take advantage of the fact you can rushbuild improvements like temples and libraries under despotism by sacrificing population. If you have a good location, your food and population have a good chance of outpacing your ability to keep them happy, so kill two birds with one stone and sacrifice that population point that is about to become unhappy in order to rushbuild that temple. This is another good reason to shoot for the Pyramids early on, since you can rushbuild more and recover faster. (Plus, the Pyramids never expire, the only early Wonder where that is true.)

Once you move to Republic, you'll need the temples in place since military units can't be used against unhappiness. Be sure to get the infrastructure in place. When you switch to Republic, you'll be able to increase science a bit and still make a ton of gold to rushbuild or trade.

I'm convinced that it is very difficult to get ahead in the early game in C3. I've switched to just not wanting to be behind. I've found that once I get into the next age, I've got enough gold and infrastructure in place to start to make my move then. In C2, I often build the fewest number of military units possible, especially early on, but in C3, I think it is more important to get a bunch of units out into the field ASAP. Even if you plan a peaceful strategy, you need to claim goody huts and pick off easy opponents as soon as you can. Goody huts can reveal techs that in turn reveal horses and iron, and that may make a huge difference in the direction you want to expand. You need this information ASAP, unlike C2 where you could get by for a while without certain techs. This is a huge difference between the games.

Sorry for the long winded post. Opinions welcome.

But I still find sword a much better option.

With some tweak and build cities close together, build lots of workers and abuse the depotism 's whip :D, I finally able to expand a good size of cities, no falling too far behind AIs. My best game so far I have 7 cities before 1000BC, all build by myself, and 3 of them are over size 10 :D And that's on Deity.

But in my first deity game, where I played much less skillful, I easily got 10 cities around same time frame, plus have 2 Great Leaders! My second game, I took out Jap's 10+ cities before 1500BC , it was fo fast that they respawned. :D. Plus, in those 2 games I am all tech advanced due to my constant torturement of my unfortunate neighbours. :P


In my current game, my tech lags behind at least 4-5 steps, even I am the scientific persian, and I have the #1 population in the game, also 3-4 libs. Actually, I 've been abandoing the peaceful approach and build up a good size army. I plan to launch the war as long as I enter Monarch, to trigger a much needed Golden age and grab some good wonders(sistines , etc.).

My initial plan is to see how far can I go with a peaceful/scientific approach. As far as I can see, I can make a decent effort, but the tempt to wage a war at certain point just seems undeniable. :)

I will eventually try an all-out expansion-culture game, with assimilation my only way to get enemy cities, and focus on researching/tech brokering. The downside, though, as O4B once point out, the AIs has a 60% discount on production/sci research in deity. By invest on researching/wonder grabbing you are playing into their advantage.

Militarily though, AI don't have same advantage except for larger size of army due to cheaper production. But that can be easily overcome by human(Me :) )'s superior tactical maneuver. I hope there is some way in Sci that by carefully planning, you can perform better than computers. Sadly that was not in the design. ( Surely, looking at the Sci. trees, if they tried harder in designing it, they can really make the reasearch tree a tricky one---too bad they didn't. )

Originally posted by WonderPup
Greetings, all. First post here... be kind!

Great first post! Keep posting!

I also prefer the peaceful strategy, but have had some trouble using the pope strategy due to aggresively expansionist neighbors. I like your early game approach... i tend to start focusing on city improvements too soon, and always end up behind in the land grab. I also like to bypass warriors for spearmen if I get bronze working early, but i think this is slowing down my growth too much. I'll be giving your approach a try soon.


Originally posted by WonderPup
Beyond that, I usually wait on culture in my second city as well, figuring that I would rather have one more settler out in the field than worry about cultural borders when the second city isn't likely to be on the frontier anyway.

Sound reasoning. Like I said, I usually go for improvements too soon.

What's your take on a good civ for this strategy? I like the expansionists... helps to have a scout or two who can cover ground quickly to find far away civs, and it's nice not to worry about barbarians in the goody hut grab. So far with this strat I've tried the English and the Americans. I like both, but with the english I'm always stuck near the russians and germans, not always with happy results ;)

Thanks again for the great post.

I've heard it said that building a warrior and then rushing a granery can get you the fastest (peaceful expansion). You will need to keep the warrior at home when you rush the granery since you create discontent, but a granery in your fist few cities can be key since killing pop for production is a key strategy.:crazyeyes

In cheiftan and warlord it should not be difficult to keep up with the ai in settlers. Build for all cities defense+settler+?+settlers+?+settlers+...

The '?' depend on the situation and how much food/production you city has. High food/low production cities might jusr push out settler+worker+settler+... while low food/high production can throw in temples, explorers, in between. Don't worry about offensive units until you have about the majority of the cities you want. Then start producing improvements, workers and offense.

At some point, after 5-6 cities, I start using my highest producing city (maybe top 2) to start wonder productions. First is usually the Pyramids (free granaries are nice). Because of this, I don't build granaries at all. I generally don't rush my cities at first b/c I am trying to get settlers out so pop means alot to me. Also, the americans are explorers so I've sent out 4-5 scouts and have generally advanced much higher than the AI in techs by the time I am ready to stop expanding. At this point, I put libraries at top priority so that I can keep up my science.

In my currnt game (Warlord) I am nearly and age ahead. Mainly the other civs are this close to me b/c I had to trade some techs for resources that weren't in my large boundaries.

Higher than warlord I've found that if you don't build a nice size army as you build settlers than you will face many demands early in the game. If you don't concede to these demands then you will be faced with war.

So in these levels and early good size military is important. If you still want to play peaceful the just build plenty of defensive units and let them grind their teeth down on your spearmen/pikemen. They will sue for peace if they loose their entire army.

Also, here is a key, BUILD CITIES IN DESERTS AND TUNDRAS. If you want the resource that occur there later in the game (oil) you need to have cities there early in the game or the AI will take it.

Also build near mountains, hills, jungles and forest. Don't knock down all the forest or ou may lose rubber.

I'll chime in and say I also prefer not to do the early-military thing. Its fun, but it *guarantees* the game will take three or four times as long; and my CivIII games already average 10-15 hours for a full game. Even playing as obsessively as I do that often means two or three evenings of play.

I also prefer to be a builder, with powerful cities; I have found you often just can't build up properly *and* crank out units. Its hard to be in a useful government while in Conquest mode; Demo/Rep have WarWeariness and Monarchy has corruption and bad commerce generation.

For building, the point is the PopPoints; have them on the board working for you with buildings multiplying their efforts. Ensure they're always working developed squares, with mines/irrigation/roads. Ensure you're not growing a city unable to grow (i.e., no Aquaduct/Hospital, or a lack of happy buildings to keep the new PopPoints in check). Workers are *critical* to the Builder strategy; have them fixing your lands. When you get Railroads you'll probably need to add more Workers to finish the RRing on your lands.

My main focus in the early game is getting warriors out to explore for many reasons:

1) I can send the settlers to regions I know have serious resources that will jump start my cities.
2) My warriors can make contact with other villages, getting either a science, military unit (to do more exploring) or even a settler...
3) Meeting other barbarians and killing them for sometimes 25 gold or 50 gold and in the process, making an elite out of the warrior
4) Meeting the rival AI's early in the game is good because they often want to trade sciences, and I just do counter proposals and give them cash from the dead barbarians instead of my science.

Now, you're probably thinking, how the hell do you do that with a unit that only moves a single square at a time?
Well, here's the trick, take it to the mountain! The warrior travelling from hilltop to hilltop can survey an incredible amount of space.

During your exploration, your initial worker needs to get to work. His initial moves and roadbuilding can also have a significant effect on the long term. I think that it is worth the effort to build a road to a luxury, even if it's in the mountain... But if there are no luxuries in plain sight, then the worker should focus his work on plains so that he can build roads faster.

Usually, I build the road in spaces previously explored by one of my exploring warriors. My first city builds three warriors: the first two go and explore, the third stays behind to guard the city. If my city is at population 4 after the third warrior is built, then I build my first settler, otherwise I recall the worker to increase the city's production.

The first settler get's no escort because by the time he's off to build a city, one of my exploring warriors is one his way back, to pass through and he'll take on any wandering barbarians. The second city will first build a 1-warrior, 2-temple or barrack and the worker should already be working on a road for the third city. If the second city grows rapidly because of the choice location and the mines and road already in place then after the city improvement, both the capital and the second city should be ready for settler production.

If I've met an AI already and he's not to far, then I would get the two settlers to go near the AI's border to settle there, for two reasons:
1) I'm creating a border with the AI and chances are he'll start expanding in the other direction, so I'll be able to settle the rest of the spare space at your leisure.
2) Later in the game, I can build palace in those bordering cities and chances are, the AI's bordering cities will want to join me.

After I've established four cities, there isn't another city established without a warrior or archer for immediate security and city happiness. I try to build as many wonders as possible too. The first two wonders are usually built in my capital city, after I build a second worker... The second city may also build two wonders... But it's not impossible to get more than half of the wonders completed.

My general rule is, until the date is 0 A.D. I try to expand aggressively, after 0 A.D. I need to work at seriously improving the city, roads, irrigation, mining, the works.

I don't worry too much about the time it takes to research new sciences because most of the time, I can just buy them and they're not expensive at the beginning of the game. Once I notice the AI has no more sciences for me to buy, then I pay more attention to sciences I pick. But I only start accelarating research when I'm in the middle ages.

Anyway, I feel I'm telling my life story here so I'll stop... Go ahead and give a try, see what happens. This usually get's me off to a good start, sometimes a great start!

Good luck
Xenzat

OK..my tactics are for s#it!

They were wonderful on Warlord..but this weekend I was playing Regent and it is a whole new game. The AI spreads wayyy to quickly, impossibly quickly. I determined that you have to engage in war early and knock somebody out. This is not my usual way of doing things..so I have encountered problems. I get behind the tech race when I wage eaarly war...so I am probably going to have to cut spending down to 0-10..and just go shopping with my neighbors.

Any other tips for a newbie stone age killah? Good civ to play? Babs are coolio..but there Bowman seems to weak. I am thinking of going with the Iroqouis. Looking for help here...anyone?

Thanks in advance,
Sam

I just had a load of fun last night with the Persians--I got Iron working right away, and commenced cleaning off my continent. I lost about one immortal for every 5-10 enemy units I'd get--this in cludes regular and veteran immortals as well. Ancienct spearmen just don't stand a chance...

The early game is where you make or break your civ. Here is the order I build 90% of the time and it seems to work for me.

1. warrior - exploration/barb management/contact w other civs
2. settler - usually by the time he's built you hit the 3 pop mark, you just gotta time it right if you're growing too slow make another warrior in the meantime.
3. warrior - another warrior for more scouting in a different direction
4. settler - get those settlers out asap! using the warriors' scouting you should know where to send these guys. I do admit there is a risk here as there is not much defense, but this early in the game the only worry you have is the barbarians.
5. spearman - your first defensive unit, helps with defense and also will squelch unrest which will come soon if playing at high difficulty
6. temple - unrest management and culture boost

all this time the worker is either building a road to your other cities or building mines next to the capital. The reason for that is pretty soon your offspring cities will be the ones cranking out the settlers and you capital will start its wonders. Try building the mines on grasslands with a shield first, so you get 2 shields from those tiles as well as good food. When your city is busy building its wonder and you see you're about to grow too big and get unrest bring in your old scout warriors or build some spearmen in other cities and bring them in to your wonder city to keep 1 citizen content. Remember in despotism you can have up to 3 'peace keepers'.

In all your offspring cities build a temple asap. It will give them a jump on culture and its real important to expand your borders, so you can get better tiles/resources available and also to keep the ai away from your towns.

The main key is rapid expansion and military is a close second. After you've build a solid 6-7 cities with a temple and a spearman depending on your cituation, find a weak neighbor and crank out some fast units. Egypt with the war chariots is GREAT for this. In actuality you dont need that many of these to go to war. Build 5-7 quickly, rushing pop if needed and start taking 1 town at a time. You will most likely not lose many, if any! since they will retreat right before they die. I find usually it takes 3-4 to take a town defended by spearmen. once you take it, put your injured chariots in. They will squelch resistance while at the same time healing up. In my last game i pretty much doubled my empire by taking out the russians early and it gave me such a boost that no other civ was ever able to catch up.

After the first war, if you havent finished off that civ, make peace with it, and concentrate on city infrastructure. Rushing construction works great here, as food in much more plentiful in civ3 than shields due to corruption, _and_ when playing prince+ difficulties you dont wanna grow too quickly anyway due to unrest. The wonders you should concentrate on are the happy wonders for sure, and pyramids are nice, but not essential, you'll see your cities sitting on 6 population waiting for aqueduct too soon anyway, so its not a big deal if you dont get it. Great library is good too mainly to keep it away from a civ more than for your own benefits. Go for oracle and hanging gardens and michaelangelo's and st. bachs are probably the best wonders overall.

Playing a religious civ is great, you get cheap temples and cathedrals pretty much assuring you a cultural superiority and keeping people happy.

I find i usually dont need more than 1 defender per town, but will put extras in 'hot areas' where there are tensions with other civs. if there is a confict i usually rush build extra defenders or bring them in from other cities via my well developed road network. You can in a time of crisis leave cities undefended in the interior of your empire since now other civs cant use your roads it would take them a long time to get there anyway.

Well this is my strategy. I do admit I carried over some of my old civ2 strategies for this but they work for me. Rapid expansion + keeping people happy are the main keys. Enjoy this great game!

I think some people's problems wiht the AI out expanding them comes from not having enough opponents. If a world will comfortably hold 80 cities it is better IMHO to have 9 cities and 7 other civs than to have 16 cities and 3 other civs. The difference is slight, but the AI is going to beat you in the expansion game, esp. at the higher levels. Better that the world fill up faster so that you are only a little behind than a lot behind.

PS Behold the power of the Granery. Try rushing this when you can. you will thank me later. It might be the thing that makes expansionist a viable ability. Warrior, Granery, Settler, Settler, Set... you get the picture. You don't have to have an intervening unit. If you can get a spot with good food, you are set. Use the whip early and use it often.

Hi guest,

You seem to have no profile! Didn't know this was possible!

Oh well, happy posting anyway!

I think that it all depends on the situation, your civ traits, your opponents and available land mass. The smaller the land mass, the less settlers you need in the beginning. So let's say for a small archipelago map....

warrior-temple-settler-2 spearmen-settler-wonder or military

I like to get a granary as early as possible. Makes it easy to just keep pumping out settlers. In my current game as the babylonians, I was able to block the American's expansion toward me by having of my main cities pumping out settlers constantly(without having to build a unit in between, thanks to the granary). The area was fairly big, so It required about 6 settlers, but it worked well, and I was also able to cut off the germans expaning south east of me with two settlers(small area). Since the beginning I've already taken out the Germans and am in the process of exterminating the pesky americans. I was able to take Washington on the first turn I attacked, since my border was right beside washington, and I was able to gain the oracle as well :D

Just entered the Industrial age too.

Axxess is right - get that Granary ASAP! Unless you have a couple of high food (3+) tiles, getting your city to grow quickly is extremely important. Plus, by the time you get your first settler after the granary, you should have explored enough territory to know exactly in which direction to expand first. You may fall behind a bit at first (especially on higher levels), but that granary will really pay off when you are pumping out settlers with no fill units (have another city supply the spearman). You should be comfortably ahead on lower levels, and very close to even on higher levels, by A.D. times.

Nikitos, do you play on Warlord or lower? Build orders shouldn't be followed exaclty 90% of the time - it will vary on your difficulty, starting location, and map size, and several other factors. But I try to follow something like this (Expansionist Civ substitutions in paren):

1. Warrior (Scout)
2. Warrior (Scout)
3. Warrior for defense.
4. Granary.
5. Spearman
6. Settler (yes, your city is likely size 5 or 6 now, but you will produce settlers much more quickly than the AI now)
7. Temple (if religious or high production)
8. Spearman
9. Settler, Settler, Settler, etc...

By 9, I have another city making spearmen/workers (or one on each if you popped a settler from a goody hut). Make sure your initial worker builds a road to your second city site - this can save 2-5 turns.

I may make 1 settler before the granary if I discover an AI very close so I can cut him off, but I never wait for the granary longer than that.

I mostly play on Monarch and Emperor running min science and trading techs with civs I meet and don't build much in the way of improvements in the beginning (obviously don't go for cultural win this way). I win handily at Monarch, and am doing pretty well so far on Emperor using this strategy. I did very poorly using the 3 or 4 settlers before granary method on these levels.

Hope this helps someone - finding this out helped me a great deal.

WOW so many words!

1) You need to tailor your strategy to your difficulty level. For example: A) setting research to anything but 100% at lower levels is going to slow you down - research as much as you can. B) trying to build wonders at Diety level is nearly always stupid. These are things that can only be learned by experience. Try following Succession Games (found under the "stories and tales" forum) for some good tips at different difficulties.

2) Use the lands that you have. If you have really good starting squares (say 3 grassland cows) then build 2 cities really close together where they can always work those squares, and micromanage - that gives you a HUGE bonus at the start of the game. Keep expanding until you have a reason to stop - eg. nowhere decent to put a city, a war for a resource, its an island so you need to research etc.

3) Decide you strategy ASAP. The key to efficiency is specialisation.

4) Keep upping the difficulty level :)

hey edawstwin,
why don't you just build that spearmen first. earlier defence and same time to build the both of them

[QUOTE]Originally posted by liupang
[B]But I still find sword a much better option.

Hey man plz answer me a few things about your tactics:
1.When do u start attacking AI ? ( #of your own cities, kind of units u have)
2.Which civ abilities r best for such a gameplay?
3.When do u change goverment and to what?
:confused:

Help~~:love:

You should almost always build a granary before your first settler. The only exception to this is if you're on a sardine can of an island with other civilizations and there's only a couple of available city sites. Otherwise, it's much more economical to build a granary. It doubles your population growth, and population is power.

Remember, the thing that takes ages to do is to get your city to grow large enough to build a settler. If you don't have any bonus food tiles, then it will take 20 turns to grow from size 1 to size 3. That's far too long. Chop the growth times for a settler down to 10 turns.

What's more, if you build a granary you'll get your capital up to 5 or 6 by the time it's done. This is a better size for the capital anyway. Have it varying between 3-6, rather than slamming it all the way down to 1.

It is very rare that an immediate granary isn't the best strategy.

Also, remember the most important aspects of choosing a city site, they are:

- Access to fresh water. This is the most important consideration. If your capital is on fresh water, it can shoot up to size 12, meaning that you get more commerce than your rivals, have more chance of building wonders, and so forth.
- Access to bonus food tiles. Any tile that can produce more than 2 food under despotism is a huge advantage. If you see a forest/game tile, always cut down the forest and irrigate the land, this will make it into a bonus food tile.
- Coastal access.
- Good defensive location, resources, less terrain etc.

If you're expansionistic, always move the scout on the first turn before settling. Usually move your worker before the settler.

The *most* important thing to remember though, is the granary. Unless the AI is about to sieze land really near your capital, the difference between having a size 6 city and a size 4 city and a second city of size 1 really isn't that much: just a handful of shields which can be made up in a few turns and the time it takes to move the settler there. The thing that really matters is how fast you can grow your total population, and building a granary is the best way to do this.

-Sirp.

build four cities tight- build troops with uu's. wait for a civ to start getting close to u. attack
Monarch thru diety
anything lower and u can use whatever strategy u want, ai is a sitting duck.

If you want a Despotic victory, play as the Egyptians and whip your people to crank out temples and War Chariots. Building the Pyrimids will help cities reccover from pop rushes and it might trigger a Golden Age which would be very helpful.

To bad Egypt isn't Militaristic....

:egypt:

I am very interested to se the comments about an early Granary and frequent application of the whip for rushbuilds - two ideas I'm going to try after work today.

For you elucidation this is my current strategy which is working fairly well.

Crank out Settlers, build cities, forget making a cohesive block on the map; get those cities built on fresh water, near horses and iron and any other resource you will want later in the game.

Starting with the very first turn, before clicking to end the turn, crank research up to 100%. Then head straight for The Great Library.

The Great Library will give you any tech discovered by any other two Civs. This allows you to slack off on your own research while building madly and accumulating massive wealth, which you already know how to employ through trading with your fink neighbours and rushbuilding.

When you get the discovery, put your best producing city on building the Great Library. In fact, it pays to start *any* Wonder when you can - even if you have no intention of finishing it, there will be alot of shields there waiting to jump on the Great Library when it come sup for construction.

When you build the Great Library, Squash research back to 20%. If you feel compelled to spend money this early in the game, devote the cash to increase citizen happiness - this reduces riots, war weariness, and provokes "We Love the Leader" days and their obvious effects.

Any cities who are overheating at this point are great for churning out Workers. Your goal is to have a road in every square by time tyou get Steam Power. They will develop your land, build railroads and clean up pollution as quick as it occurs.

In the meantime, build no City Improvements except the Barracks. Build units first to explore, defend, develop, then conquer. I like 1 defender, 1 Attacker, then crank out Settlers/Workers.

As your early Civ grows, keep your bank in good shape, never making money and keeping research maxxed.

Your next research step is highly individual. If the backstabbing traitors I share the map with are leaving me alone, I will head straight for Monarchy, followed by Iron Working, Construction and then the rest of the trash as needed. However the Great Library should scoot you quickly into the next age.

You will soon reach the point where there is no more land to grab. The next (second) city improvement *everywhere* is the Library. Watch your borders zoom outward), followed by Aqueduct to take you over the City Size 6 hurdle.

At this point it is about a 50-50 chance that the calendar is barely at 0 AD, you have 1500-2000 in cash, most cities are at 6, or rocketing toward that point or better, and you will easily have absorbed some minor enemy cities.

Now is the time to build cultural, economic and military strength and follow your favourite strategy!

Have fun all!

To make short...

1. I play regent
2. I ALWAYS take an industrious civ.
3. I NEVER start a game whithout any grassland cow square.
4. Mine & road on the cow ASAP (thanks to the industrious trait !), then mine&road 2 or 3 grassland squares. Then build the road to your second city
5. Search potery
6. 3 warriors (or 2 scouts + 1 warrior) : 2 scouting/ 1 defending
(or, if you're the lucky man - 2 cows or more !! - you can often build 4 warriors/scouts)
7. Granary
8. Enjoy your settler farm ! (3 or 4... depends from the number of cows... and the neighbourhood situation !)
9. 2 spearmen (when your farm needs to "regenerate" !)
10. settlers
11. worker
12. Temple
13. worker (if you have time enough...)
14. Pyramids

Of course, if :
- you have a too close neighbour, build archers and blast it. But your garrison city should be your second or third one, not your capital.
- you discover luxuries, rush to build a city (especially if you find 3 or more squares of them in the same area)
- you need an urgent settler (another civ REALLY too close), build (only) one before the granary.

And, of course 2... I love the egyptians...
:egypt:

I don't keep a 'set in stone' build strategy. It always depends on the terrain you start on, the type of civ you're playing as, and what your initial goals are. Always set goals for your civ though. If you want to be a brutal slash and burn type, then by all means build up that military! If you want to build and win through culture, make sure to build those Wonders early and often! If you want to win through diplomacy, befriend your neighbors and research Writing ASAP for ROP with your neighbors!

Just be flexible when you're neighbors aren't adhering to your goals and need to be "taken care of" for the grander goal of winning >:)

Generally...

Warrior
Warrior
Settler
Granary
Settler
Temple
Settler
Settler
Wonder or More Settlers

Varys quite often but generally something like that.

Mine breaks out as follows:

(1) Warrior
(2) Worker
(3) Warrior
(4) Settler

You have an option at this point:

(A) Repeat 1-4
(B) or build up
(5) Temple
(6) Settler
(7) Granery
(8) Settler
(9) Wonder

You option based on your situation. If you're getting crowded in, then switch to miliatary units.

There is no "magic bullet".

Your choices are determined by your start location, nearby resources and the level you're playing on.

Look at Cracker's opening plays for some ideas on how to assess your initial position and apply those ideas to your game. Remembering to keep re-assessing new territory as it becomes availlable.

I repeat, there is no "magic bullet". Play and have fun. When it goes badly try and figure out why.

You'll soon be a better player.

regards

Ted

I always try to get a few units to discover the lands around my start position before building a granary and producing settlers. The key to outpacing the AI at the start of the game is to micromanage your cities. Get one city producing settlers (usually the one with the most food bonuses) and have your other cities creating militay units and workers.

A good article on early game expansion is Bamspeedy's "Babylon's Deity Settlers". This walkthrough shows some of the finer points to micromanaging your growing empire.

OK, I'm a Veteran of Civ, Civ2, and I play a lot of Civ3 (on and offline). This is how I start. Of course, its flexible, but it's similar each time. This works on all but diety.

In a perfect world:
1) Barracks
2) Warrior--> finds a suitable city location
3) Settler---> makes a coastal city (city 2) w/ balanced resources
4) Spearman
5) Settler---> builds a "settler factory"
6) Troops & improvements
NEVER BUILD A WONDER IN YOUR CAPITAL DURING THE EARLY GAME; YOU NEED THE FLEXIBILITY OF PRODUCTION THAT A POWERFUL CITY PROVIDES!!

City2 builds:
1) Temple
2) The Collossus
3) troops (after mapmaking, boats mostly) and improvements that augment the above-mentioned wonder

Settler Factory builds:
1) Granary
2) guess...

This works, let me tell you. From this point on, each city must have a focus (food, shields, or cash)
Happy Civing:king:

Warrior
Warror
Warrior
Granary
Settler
Warrior
Settler

etc, etc, throw in a temple

Mind you I'm playing on Warlord, probably get my clock cleaned on higher levels

I'm glad to see that there is so little concensus on the right path to take. It speaks to the complexity and flexibility of the game that so many paths can lead to victory. In non-MP games I generally play at least regent and have the following build pattern:
warrior - explore
warrior - explore (and meet first settler at good site)
warrior - defend
settler
granary
warrior
settler

If I can I use my first few settlers to block strategic choke points to delay AI expansion and to grab strategically important ground (high food or production lands, lux and iron). Once I have established 3-5 cities to define my empire limits I work earnestly to fill all the gaps with cities. Early cities beyond the capital get assigned work orders based on what they can best do [usually a settler/worker factory (builds granary) or a military factory(build barracks)]. If I can successfully avoid war with my neighbors for the early expansion I usually win the game.
No temples or other improvements until the expansion phase is done. I rely on a rapidly build road network to whatever lux are available. If I have none temples come earlier. Flexibility is key, every game requires a different approach.

my build order, which works on deity for me, is very simple.

Warrior
Warrior
Pre-Build Granary
Settler
Warrior
Settler

IF i have a food rich capitol, then i dont build the warrior inbetween. i also like to setup a worker factory and a military factory. it works very well for me

I've found that if I can take out one civilization pretty early (usually before they can build more than 2 or 3 cities) and capture those cities intact. This give me an edge in production and resources that I can hold for the rest of the game if I decide to play a peaceful game. Usually I take them out before anyone knows anbout them so no one is mad at me. And if I don't play a peaceful game I'm in the best position to produce military units.

I tried the warrior warrior warrior granary strat on regent, and it worked great. I out expanded the AI until I got immortals. Hehehe. Then I stopped building cities, and starting taking them.

Wonderpup - great post. It helped me (an untra-green novice) heaps!

Where can I find the Pope Strategy you mentioned? I searched and searched (and searched) but no luck.

Depending on what food bonus you get, I try to get a warrior -> granary ->warrior ->settler.

Anyway, I try to place my city where I initially start but I may move the settler one tile to pull in a luxary or food bonus. So, I move my worker and see if there is a slightly better spot one move away.

Once I have my city, I irigate the food bonus and all food bonus near the city. Floodplains also get irigated. In any case, you don't need more than 3 irigated food bonus/flood plains.

ok, my first tech is pottery or if im expansionistic I go for alphabet.

Now, in typical start the path is warrior ->warrior ->granary -> settler. Where I have a ton of food, I may go war -> war -> settler.

In any case, chop down trees and get that granary up and you will find that you can keep up with the other civs.

i use this strategy on warlord... its fun but i haven't been able to use it effectively on higher levels.
1. play as persians
2. toggle off culturally started locations. otherwise, ur always near the greeks and early wars drag on.
3. build right away. if ur in a bad location, restart.
4. good location=at least a couple squares of grassland, not a lot of mountains, no jungle/marsh
5. as far as research goes, start with alaphet and work towards literature. u can buy everything else from other civs. keep the science rate as high as possible and use barbarian tribes to get the extra cash.
6. explore with worker. if what he finds doesn't look good, restart.
7. build warrior and send him off in the opposite direction
8. start building settler
9. when the worker finds a good city spot, start building a road back to the capital
10. finish settler and build city.
11. spearman in capital, warrior in new city
12. explore with new warrior
13. have worker build road to another good city location
14. as soon as u can, build settler and go there
15. find another civ and start expanding in their direction. expansion must be aggressive; the less land they get, the better. if theres civs in multiple directions, expand towards the closest or the best land. ignore the ones with lots of jungle or mountains between u and them.
16. once ur borders meet, fill in everything else with cities.
17. get iron working from someone and build immortals. lots of them too.
18. bully a bordering civ into giving up money and then declare war. this usually happens to me around AD 1-100. u must have enough immortals to make it a swift war, or else ur in trouble. once u start the golden age, switch everything's production to libraries.
19. if the war is over quickly, u've bascially won the game. go after ur next neighbor, and ur next neighbor, and ur next neighbor...

CIV 3 and PTW up to Deity, Standard Map size, Continent.
Although you can find some exception, my build order is not very different from many other players:
Warrior sent out for scouting (if no hut within the 21 tiles) Otherwise I will start by barrack or Temple or Granary whatever is available.
Warrior sent out for scouting
Warrior stays home
Granary
Settler
Then I like to get another Worker now, but this will depends on how much food I have. Second worker may have to be built from my new founded city.
Warrior
settler, Warrior, Settler ....
I also try to build an early Temple between two settlers (IMO, i think that early culture is very important especially at high level).

Yup, when you aren't expans. and there's a hut in the 21 tiles, a temple first is very great for culture. 4culture points after few turns :p

I used to do like JMK but it depends on the situation. In a 5CC without barb I build the first military unit when my 2nd city have the barrack to do it ^^
No scout, no defend against AI rush... but it pays on the long term if no war is declared.
With the world map tradable with Navigation, early scout is not *so* great (it is but less than before)

I notice a lot of you guys pump out the granary very quickly....sometimes within the first three.
How do you get the tech so fast?
If you crank science to 100%, is it possible to research pottery this fast, or are you guys just using Civs that start w/ pottery (not that I know of any that do this)?

Yes, pottery is often researched at max when its not already known. With some luck it can be traded for early, but that means a close neighbor, not always a good thing.

I notice a lot of you guys pump out the granary very quickly....sometimes within the first three.
How do you get the tech so fast?
If you crank science to 100%, is it possible to research pottery this fast, or are you guys just using Civs that start w/ pottery (not that I know of any that do this)?
Pottery is very cheap Tech to research, time to research will vary but you will get it (even playing Deity on huge map) while you are building your 2 or 3 first warriors. if not a prebuild will assure a fast granary once Pottery is found.
You can also get Pottery from trading.

if not a prebuild will assure a fast granary once Pottery is found.


Might I ask what a 'prebuild' is? Is the the same as hurrying production?

Might I ask what a 'prebuild' is? Is the the same as hurrying production?
Let's give an example you already built 3 warriors and still need 6 turns before getting Pottery, and you do not want to build anything else than a Granary.
Then comes the PRE BUILD, so you start building something that require at least 6 turns before completion, and when Pottery is discovered, you change your build order to Granary. All shields that have been produced during the past 6 turns are being used towards the Granary.

Let's give an example you already built 3 warriors and still need 6 turns before getting Pottery, and you do not want to build anything else than a Granary.
Then comes the PRE BUILD, so you start building something that require at least 6 turns before completion, and when Pottery is discovered, you change your build order to Granary. All shields that have been produced during the past 6 turns are being used towards the Granary.

Aahhh...I see, I see.... Nice. I've done that to an extent in my games, but never really thought of it as a strategy or knew that it was referred to as 'prebuild'. I'll have to start actively using this more. Thanks.

i've noticed a lot of people tech advance rather quickly. despite building libraries/universities in city where they'd make a difference and setting the science rate to 90%, i'm only a hundred years or so ahead of real world history (i.e. gunpowder in 1200 or so). what am i doing wrong?

It's not the player who tech advance quickly, it's the AI at the upper lv. Player just buy and trade tech from AI to AI with the science rate at 0%, or focus science on very few tech in the hope to have it before AI (hard to do ^^).
You have to know which tech AI don't focus on, ie Math->currency quickly for example.