How to play this start?

[cleverhandle]

I'm a builder by nature. Give me enough space for 10 or so decent cities, a couple of luxes, and horses or iron and I'll happily sit tight until late Ancient or early Medieval and then take whatever else I need. Of course, not all starts go that way, like the one attached here. I'm sure there's a right way to approach this and I just don't know it yet. Key characteristics include...

1) Hemmed in - I started on the southern tip of a small peninsula and Egypt is right on top of me at the choke in the north. Our capitals are 10 squares apart, on a standard map.

2) Behind in tech - I got no GH techs (playing Arabia) and went for the Wheel. By the time I got it Babylon already had it and the others would barely trade anything for it anyway.

3) No resources - Well, no horses at least. That's the only resource I can see so far. At least it doesn't look like anyone else has them either.

4) Weak terrain - While the start position was OK (game and a BG), the rest is crap. No rivers, no fresh water, lots of plains, forests, and tundra. Many of the city sites would be limited to 2pop.

This is an Emperor game. On Monarch, I never had much of a problem - the AI expanded slowly enough and had a weak enough army that I could clumsily knock over a few cities to make space if I needed to. On Emperor the starting military makes that harder.

So what's the way to make the most of this? Do I even bother to research anymore? If so, what? Iron Working might get me swords, if I'm lucky. But I'm sure the others will have it by the time I get there. If I go for zero research, what are the key techs I want to buy? Obviously I'll have to fight Egypt soon - how much do I try to develop my core before declaring? It seems like time is of the essence, since Cleo will only get more powerful the longer I sit, and I don't have an early UU to turn the tables. But just two cities is clearly not enough to fuel a military.

Give me some advice, you ancient warmongers...

[BasketCase]

Screenshot? (If Clever doesn't wanna put one in, could somebody else pirate one into the thread? )

[cleverhandle]

I can put a couple up in a minute, Basket - gotta put some laundry in first.

Loved your Deity game story, BTW...

edit: Here ya go... Both cities' builds and the tech (Wheel) were just completed, so pretty much everything there is a placeholder until I figure out what I'm doing. Carthage is a little ways away - you can just see the dot on the mini-map. Babylon is around somewhere, further NW from what I can tell.

[Desertsnow]

Is that wine in the fog east of Medina? Grab that, posthaste. Also see if you get the fish tile within reach of an early city. A city on that forest tile might work. Then work mostly along the east coast, though a city in the plains a couple spaces north of Mecca would not be a bad move, but that can wait. You'll probably need workers once you get a couple more cities built. Building the barracks in Mecca as you're doing is probably not a bad idea for now. Go with that. As you are hemmed in, research somthing with a military edge; horse-riding would be good; maneuverability is a must in your situation.

[cleverhandle]

Originally Posted by Desertsnow

Is that wine in the fog east of Medina? Grab that, posthaste.

Yup. City #3 will be 3 NE of Medina.

Also see if you get the fish tile within reach of an early city. A city on that forest tile might work.

I'll probably settle on the forested tundra near there eventually. Unfortunately, the only site that could get the fish without a border expansion is too close to Mecca.

Then work mostly along the east coast

Yup. Get myself a military base close to Cleo.

As you are hemmed in, research somthing with a military edge; horse-riding would be good; maneuverability is a must in your situation.

Probably not a great idea - I already know I don't have horses. That's why I was saying Iron Working earlier. But I'm wondering if saving money to buy Writing, establish embassies, and sign alliances would get me more.

[SJ Frank]

Here's my proposal:



I think the next city should go to the red dot instead of the yellow dot, because the red dot has immediate access to 3 grassland/forrest tiles, and after chopping those forrests down to make a barrack, the red dot can grow to size 4-5 and have enough production to help in the war effort. The yellow dot will be stuck at a smaller size, and will have a little more corruption due to its distance to the capital. So while it will claim the wine, it won't help much during the war.

The two blue dots should be founded next. Both cities can borrow a lot of grassland tiles from Mecca and can be productive.

The two pink dots are to be founded later, they won't help during the war, but they will be good commerce cities.

I didn't plan any cities north of Medina/Red Dot, because during a war, you want to have a narrow front to defend. Any cities founded up there will be too corrupt to help during the war, and will drain the precious defensive resources that you have. So, let the Egyptians build them, so we can take them

Build Queues:

Mecca should be switched to a granary right now! Even if war is the plan, you still need cities. Waiting 20 turns per city is too much. Considering that you can (and should) build 3 more productive cities before warring, without a granary in Mecca, that's at least 60 more turns before the last city is founded. With a granary, and choping down that forrest game, you can cut that down to 8 turns per settler, and roughly 30-35 turns before founding the last productive city.

The idea here, is to identify all the cities that can be productive enough to help with the war, and found them as soon as possible. This way, the war preparation effort can start sooner, and the war can start sooner. The sooner you start your war, the less prepared the AI will be.

Mecca should build a granary first, then a settler, two warriors (for military police), a settler, a barrack, a settler, then archers.

Medina should build about 3-4 more workers, then use the last worker to help chop towards a barrack, then build archers and a couple of spears.

The Red Dot city should build a worker first, then use the worker to chop the grassland forrests to help towards a barrack, then build archers.

The Blue Dot cities may have to build a worker first, or the Medina workers might have migrated to their area by the time these cities are founded. These cities don't need barracks, they should build catapults! Get them to their maximum sustainable size in terms of happiness, then let them use a pair of forrests instead of grassland for more shields. This way, they can reach 5 or 7 shields per turn, for 3 or 4 turn catapult production.

Worker Management:

Pull your lone worker back to Mecca right now, and use him to chop forrest to help the granary. As long as Medina is size 1 and building a worker (and it will be for a long time), it does not need any worker help. Getting the settler factory up and running in the only city that has food bonus is the most important worker action.

You can chop that silk forrest and have the shields going to Mecca by switching Medina to a wonder on the turn that the forrest chop completes. Since you don't have a wonder tech right now, the silk forrest chop should wait for a little bit. Choping that tile down will allow your cities to use it. It will add a significant amount of gpt to your civ, so you should do it sooner rather than later.

All the workers that Medina produces should be sent to Mecca, and chop, mine, and road the area around Mecca. The first tile that should be chopped is the game tile, because it increase growth! Then, the other forrest tiles can be chopped if they fit well with Mecca's build queue. Almost all of the grassland tiles around Mecca will need to be mined and roaded. Mecca will need 4-6 of those tiles, and each of the Blue Dot cities will need about 3 more.

Eventually, after all of Mecca's citizens are working improved tiles, 1 worker each can be spared to help the other cities.

About 10-15 turns before the war, you may need to send some workers towards the front to build roads.

Scientific Research:

Forget about the idea that you need superior units to win a war, all you need is concentrated forces, and catapults. The techs that you'll need to prosecute this war are: Math, Bronze Working, and Warrior code.

Math is the most expensive tech in this bunch, you should concentrate your research towards math, and focus on exploration. Use your superior AI contact knowledge to help you trade for Bronze Working and Warrior Code.

The tech that will help you the most is Alphabet, because it is both on the way to Math, and allows you to build curraghs. This should have been your first tech researched.

Military Affairs:

A stack of 6 cats, 8 archers and 2 spears is a "good enough" stack, provided that the AI city is less than size 7 and defended by no more than 2 spears. If you attack early enough, that is the kind of defense that you'll face, hince all the focus on trying to attack as early as possible. Just keep your stack together, take one city at a time, rinse, repeat.

A stack of 1 spear, 1 archer, 1 catapult, plus what ever reinforcement that's coming up the pipeline is good enough to defend a city against a continuous stream of 1 or 2 AI units. This is the kind of defense that you could use to defend newly conquered cities and freeing up the big stack. Of couse, if the AI sends a big stack towards you, then your big stack needs to stay behind and help, but once the AI is down to "trickle mode", your big stack can move on to the next city.

Bottom Line:

Get all the productive cities settled, build a large stack of archers and catapults (and a few spears). You should have no trouble with Egypt.

[BasketCase]

Not a bad start at all. One of my early games looked a lot like this, except with more jungle and ZERO fresh water anywhere on the continent. Won it by culture victory (by accident--I didn't know about the single-city 20k thing!)

You'll definitely need big military. Take Thebes, irrigate your way south, and you can make full use of all those plains tiles. Plus, you've only got one front to fight on. While I'm a strong proponent of superior units instead of lots of units, sheer numbers will work as well.

[Breunor]

SJ Frank,

What a great analysis! I'm no beginner, but I learned a lot reading your post, and its not even my game! I know I don't chop forests enough, I'm always worried about keeping those shields -- but this is a great example!

Thanks!

Breunor

[Desertsnow]

Yeah, Iron-Working would work. I was assuming that you'd find horses or trade for them eventually. I'm in agreement with SJ Frank that the south coast can wait. You need to expand northeast before Egypt ends up expanding in your face. I might have considered putting the next city on the hill tile, but OTOH you might have cities spaced too far apart, and you're going to need cities, plus there are the grassland-forest tiles, as SJ Frank pointed out. The blue dot in the southeast is actually an excellent location. It got my attention almost immediately.

[cleverhandle]

Progress Report:

Following SJ Frank's plan to the letter, Arabian forces conquered Thebes, Memphis, Byblos, and Hieraconpolis. A series of (what seemed to me) savvy trades during the buildup and in the peace negotiations (got dogpiled by everyone but Carthage, with whom I MA'd) left me almost at tech parity - the Babs are up by Engineering, that being their freebie. However, it's going to take quite some time to build a genuine economy and I'm expecting to fall further behind at least for a little while. Clawing my way to Feudalism would really help - this is the perfect situation to actually use the government for once! Arabia now controls 13 cities, with a 14th in another turn or two and perhaps another one later to fill a gap (leading 2nd place America at 11 cities). Still only 3 luxuries, but now I have several of each, so solid trading should be possible. Sadly, I still have no horses, but I have iron securely placed within an expansion. And there's a lone American city on a nearby peninsula with both horses and another iron within its 21 tiles. That, obviously, is the next target once I get things under better control. The power graph shows a solid tie for the lead with America, which will only improve as borders expand and the economy develops.

There are a few questions and observations I had that may be instructive to myself and others, but it's late and I have to work tomorrow. So I'll just stick with a screenshot and a save in case anybody wants to check it out.

Many, many thanks for the advice...

[cleverhandle]

Screenie...