Pathfinders. How many do you get and optimal strategy?

Recently gave Shoshone a spin to play around with Pathfinders early game vis a vis how many to build and trying to work out what the best selections are in the goody huts.

I felt that since Pathfinders' abilities are so strong early, and can upgrade to Composite Bowmen (which by the way is immense if you manage to get Scouting III and then upgrade to CB, 2 extra sight and 1 extra movement and ignore terrain cost, and upgrade them all the way to gatling guns and beyond with logistics and blitz), it's probably worth building more of them than usual scouts.

So how many?

I realise that the map and its size has to be a factor. It goes without saying that Shoshone are not a good civilization on island maps but they thrive on Pangaea or Plains.

Also I realised that game speed has to be a factor also.

Then we should discuss what the best choices are depending on how many ruins we've found/how late on it is in the game. The later on in the game it is in the scouting phase, the less the hut bonuses are worth. +1 population is surely vastly superior over culture/faith once a few social policies have been scribbled and we've grabbed our pantheon. But earlier on, for example on the first goody hut, culture/faith seems better.

BTW if anyone wonders what 4 Pathfinders are like on Marathon speed Plains I gave that a go. Emperor difficulty.




I am pretty sure I discovered almost all the goody huts on the map! And whole map scouted by turn 123 standard speed!

I like playing Shoshone and usually take pop, culture, unit upgrade, pop, faith if possible, anything else is a bonus

You should look up Tichs Shoshone guide if youre interested in a strong strategy for this civ

I usually build 2 pathfinders then granaries etc. Maybe a third pathfinder a little later

Do you mean build 2 pathfinders and not 1? I actually forgot that you start with a pathfinder, which is another thing which is great about Shoshone - you start with a scout!

Yeah I build 2 pathfinders in addition to the starting one. With a lot of good tiles to work and fast growth it can take about as a long as standard 2 x scout opening.

You really want to take advantage of as many ruins as you can. Also at least one of these guys will upgrade to a composite bow so you wont necessarily have to build any archers before your first wave of settlers is out. Finally, pathfinders are scouts but have the strength of warriors so are just fine on city defence and settler escort. Oh and they make excellent worker stealing units.

Pathfinders are all you need early game as Shoshone. I would have at least 3 before my first settler is built on a pangaea map.

As Shoshone I like to go wide for the huge land grab, so building an early monument is really important. The number of Pathfinders I build depends on the size of the map, but generally I only build one in addition to the one you start with, followed by a monument and a shrine.

Always start with culture, there's no better choice, and if you can get it twice you will get to your free Settler incredibly quick. I usually go something like: Culture - Population - Upgrade - Faith - Culture - Population - Gold - Tech, though good luck getting that many ruins.

The free tech isn't as good is I used to think, though if you get lucky it can be good for a Stonehenge rush on higher difficulties, or it might get you one of the annoying luxury techs, such as Trapping.

I think it depends on the map, which VCs you are potentially seeking, how much you want to use religion, and your initial socially policy choices.

Tradition, tall, science = take the pop one first and 4th
If religion is paramount = take the religion and the 'prophet'

Personally, when I play as Shoshone I play wide domination, since one of their advantages is not having to generally buy tiles for resources. Plus, using 'war cities' and planted GGs, you can use the supposedly-defensive UA to your advantage by hit and run tactics that force the AI to fight in your territory

Played around with them for few hours last night, rerolling many times just to work on the opening. What you need with them right away is a worker to improve your tiles and a means to defend the tile improvements. Its good to research AH AND BW to reveal more hammer tiles. Barbs will be in your face t20 to 30 and will pillage you. If you cant defend the tiles, you lose out on the kick start and end up on par with other civs by t50 to 60. So, I don't think you need more than 1 more PF at first because I think you need a worker, a Monument and an archer. Of course you can go Liberty and get the worker which I think is a good way to go.

If you are playing on larger than standart map, its probably good idea to build 3 in addition to the starting one. But I'd never do less than 2, these are fantastic.

Antagonise said:

Always start with culture, there's no better choice, and if you can get it twice you will get to your free Settler incredibly quick. I usually go something like: Culture - Population - Upgrade - Faith - Culture - Population - Gold - Tech, though good luck getting that many ruins.

Click to expand...

If you take a culture ruin on turn 1 it doesnt actually help you. You'll only have 20-21 culture and the first policy choice is at 25.

Pop on the other hand provides an immediate benefit, and will allow you to take another pop on the 4th ruin you encounter.

The ideal scenario in my opinion is pop - culture (before or on turn 5) - upgrade - pop

I've never played with Shoshone, so I have a doubt: I usually find 1 or 2 goody huts, 3 with luck. Does Shoshone find more than that? If not, is it really worth it to rush pathfinders?

I usually only build 1 pathfinder at the start. I take culture, then CB, as a CB makes early game much easier. My second one will usually take CB as soon as possible. If I get lucky with this, I'll build a 2nd pathfinder to scout the rest of the map. If it's after T20 and I have a beneficial pantheon option, I'll definitely take faith.

On a water map I'd probably beeline optics and put out a few triremes. The AI leaves a lot of ruins in play on water maps.

Forkandles said:

If you take a culture ruin on turn 1 it doesnt actually help you. You'll only have 20-21 culture and the first policy choice is at 25.

Pop on the other hand provides an immediate benefit, and will allow you to take another pop on the 4th ruin you encounter.

The ideal scenario in my opinion is pop - culture (before or on turn 5) - upgrade - pop

Click to expand...

I thought that. If you're going to Tradition, it's 20 turns saved for opener and to legalism. It's useful for your border expand. If you're going to Liberty it's 20 turns saved to collective rules. One pop doesn't provide such advantage.
And because, I don't know if you'll find another ruin, I prioritize my wishes with Shoshones :
- culture
- upgrade unit
- pop
- faith after T20

I'm playing a Shoshone game now, emperor large map. I'm well into modern times and working on a domination victory.

With the pathfinders I went mainly for culture/faith boosts. This way I could get a pantheon while completely ignoring faith otherwise in favour of early expansion, I never built a shrine for the whole game. I wanted to go wide early and get the most out of the extra border size. I got a strong starting position this way with lots of luxuries. This helped me through the whole game, just two more capitals to go now.

I think scouting with the pathfinders goes well together with grabbing the sweet spots for cities and the extra land Shoshone gets when settling. You need to get the most out of the advantage you have right at the start and then leverage that to stay ahead for the whole game.

brasaelal said:

I usually find 1 or 2 goody huts, 3 with luck.

Click to expand...

That seems very low to me. How many scouts, and how early? Standard everything, just about any map type, I get about twice that many. Two scouts are the first thing on my build queue (iff not on a small island).

notyourtypical said:

I take culture, then CB, as a CB makes early game much easier. My second one will usually take CB as soon as possible.

Click to expand...

Upgrade goody hut is definitely my favorite, but I don't really like scarchers unless they already have +2 sight. Do you make it a point to level up xp before upgrading Pathfinders? Or is early CB just so OP that it should not be skipped?

early CB means easy CS allies from barb camps. that's better than sight.

I usually prefer to make 2 pathfinders then a monument or whatever I was going to make in the build. For ruins I usually pick:
#1 Culture: Open Tradition ASAP for +3 culture and absurd border growth.
#2 Population, The first couple pops are easy to get, use the pop when growth is taking more turns.
#3 Free Tech
#4 Culture again trying to get to the free liberty settler ASAP
#5 Pop
#6 Free Tech or faith if available

CraigMak said:

I usually prefer to make 2 pathfinders then a monument or whatever I was going to make in the build. For ruins I usually pick:
#1 Culture: Open Tradition ASAP for +3 culture and absurd border growth.
#2 Population, The first couple pops are easy to get, use the pop when growth is taking more turns.
#3 Free Tech
#4 Culture again trying to get to the free liberty settler ASAP
#5 Pop
#6 Free Tech or faith if available

Click to expand...

I don't have much experience with Shoshone, I'd imagine you'd want to hit a pop ruin the turn you hit pop 2.

SammyKhalifa said:

I don't have much experience with Shoshone, I'd imagine you'd want to hit a pop ruin the turn you hit pop 2.

Click to expand...

For me it really depends on how long it's going to take to grow from 2 to 3 pop. I like to get that pop ruin once I hit the growth wall. I see no reason to shave off a turn or 3 from my growth if the next pop will take 10 turns. Id rather wait until I hit that 10 turn pop and then get a pop ruin.