On Deity difficulty level you don't have enough time to waste building scouts, they are exponencial unnecessary, it's for long preferible to lose city-states rewards and some ancient ruins and run by improving food and developing your city, a simply mistake can be fatal and losing turns isn't the best strategy for me.
Early game strategy help
- Thread starter Hebbe
- Start date
On Deity difficulty level you don't have enough time to waste building scouts, they are exponencial unnecessary, it's for long preferible to lose city-states rewards and some ancient ruins and run by improving food and developing your city, a simply mistake can be fatal and losing turns isn't the best strategy for me.
Well I believe that you´re the only one claiming that scouts shouldn´t be built at all in a normal situation, I´ve never seen anyone else make that claim and frankly it makes absolutely no sense. By missing out on 20 culture, 60-100 gold, free archer upgrade etc. you also lose a fair amount of turns.
As soon as you have your worker out, you pretty much need the warrior in close proximity to protect both the worker and the improvements, so running around with the much slower warrior 20-30 tiles from your cap isn´t really an option unless you want your worker taking shelter in the city for the 5 turns it takes the city to kill one barb and later wasting at least 2 turns repairing the improvements the barb pillaged.
Cicerosaurus
Emperor
I think Hebbe is pretty much correct- at least the way I play.
JailorSerry
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2013
- Messages
- 2
It's definitely situational for me. I'm currently playing through Prince/standard speed/huge/continents plus (additional civs/cs) with a lot of restarts as I try different strategies- but my build order is usually scout-monument-scout-worker-settler/archer (depending on where I'm at in the game at that point). I usually spiral my warrior away from my city to collect near ruins and see close luxuries/resources as my scout builds. Then by the time my worker is done, I'm usually being targeted by barbs- my warrior is rarely more than a handful of turns away from my city so he can usually get back in time to finish off any nearby barbs so my worker can start working right away. Meanwhile I'm sending my first scout out to explore the coastline (or to find the coast if I don't start there)- my second scout is moving in the opposite direction. If I find a suitable 2nd city location, I can get my settler out- if my warrior and capital are being overrun, I usually delay my settler a few turns and build an archer for range support (and it usually keeps any potential aggressive neighbors from taking advantage of my weakened state). I generally don't need to buy any units/buildings- but if I have the gold (and it's a big if at that point), I do. As far as SPs go, I'm very situational. If I look like I'm going to be boxed in for a while, I go Traditional and focus on a tall strategy- if it looks like I have resources aplenty to maintain my civ, I go Liberty/wide-usually capping off at three-four cities, building them up, and slowly expanding as necessary (and warding off any expansion-crazy neighbors). My games are very inconsistent with each other as I adapt my strategies often and early depending on the "world" around me.
By meeting other civs you can sell them Embassy for one gold per turn. Meet ten civs, make 10 golds/turn.
Finding city states give you random quests/rewards which can be very helpful. Find 20 city states, and you are flying.
Barb cambs can sometimes be stolen too by using scout, and of course the ruins give decent enough rewards.
There is no way you're better off saving a few turns by skipping scouts -if you play on a large continent. I only skip scouts if I play without city states and ruins, or if I play on a tiny crowded map or on small islands.
It takes about 16 turns to build one and stealing one probably isn't much quicker (i don't do that as i don't want to be a warmonger on Prince). Mining is usually the first thing researched, so that's done before the worker pops out. So, i can get to work on any mines/farms in city limits, then use him to chop forest to speed the national library once i get writing, which i beeline right after.
Obviously if you spawn in a totally treeless environment you might have different priorities.
I don't play with raging barbs but they can be an issue. I use my starting warrior to explore the closest tiles to my city/open terrain. Scout is the next thing to come out after worker, i send him off exploring and bring the warrior home to stop barbs capturing and pillaging. By the time the scout is done, i've got Pottery so i can work on one of those buildings, which are themselves done about the time writing is finished so start NC.
It´s not really about it being faster, the major difference is the hammers you save early on if you manage to steal a worker instead of hardbuilding it. Also writing doesn´t give you NC, philosophy does.
I should have wrote GL
Ye stealing workers is efficient and TBH it never occured to me to do it myself, but it's a tad abusive (unless you're RolePlaying an Atilla type) so i'm glad i don't have to do it on the difficulty levels i play at.
I have a harder time working out what social policies to get. If I go pure Liberty i run short of Happiness, if i go all Tradition i miss out on the free Great Scientist from completing the tree.
Maybe unlock Liberty, go citizenship (free worker), then back to Trad to get the free monuments and tall city happiness thing, then back to lib to found my 3rd city (bought the 2nd settler for cash) and to complete the tree.
