Help! I've lost my early game focus...

[DeltaV]

Well, for a while there I was doing good. I could consistantly beat Prince, and was working on being able to do so on Monarch. Now it seems I have a hard time beating either. I think my early game has gone to hell. I keep getting to a point where I'm at 10-20% research and I'm weak militarily, and it's a long wait for Code of Laws to get that research back up. Meanwhile, everyone else is jumping ahead in tech.

My early game usually goes something like:
found city
build warrior/scout + research Hunting->Archery
build 2 archers + research to Bronze Working
build settler, send out with archer
build archer+settler
find Bronze, locate city nearby
research wheel
build more settlers+(archer or axemen)
research fishing/masonry/agriculture/animal husbandry, depending on nearby resources
research pottery
head for Code of Laws

So what am I doing wrong? I know I'm missing something.

[weltenbrand]

More workers? Maybe earlyer?

[DeltaV]

Yea, I do build a few workers in there as soon as I have the techs to make them useful. Usually 1 or 2 per city at that point in the game.

[Dusty Monkey]

Most people will tell you that pottery needs to be higher on the list... and they are probably right.. but that truely depends on your play style.

The most glaring ommission from your list is workers.. when are you going to build workers? Heading on to CoL without workers?? hmmm



The opening "pattern" I have been playing with when I feel like being a "builder":

If my civ has a usable worker(boat) tech on move 1, a worker(boat) is what I build.

I shoot for Bronze Working just like everyone else (the tech is too damn important to not have it A.S.A.P)

My city settling plan is (more or less) to try to settle near Copper and Horses but when those tiles arent visible yet or simply arent around, I will place the city on the coast instead.

The coastal city placement follows a simple trend:

If the land is mostly green, it does not need a bonus food tile. A commerce city from start to finish as it can work both coast (early) and cottage (late.)

If the land is mostly tan, then it needs 1 or 2 bonus food tiles (prefer to save the 2nd bonus food for ANOTHER city, however! Especialy at the higher levels with lower happy caps)

If the land is mostly dark brown, then it needs at least 2 or more bonus food tiles to be worth it.

Obviously exceptions are made.. big patches of luxery for example or near floodplains+river commerce.

The ENTIRE idea being that if the city isnt going to grab an IMPORTANT resource (Copper, Horses, or Iron), then its going to placed where I know it will pay for itself.. on the coast or in a big patch of commerce.

meanwhile back at the ranch.. a cottage or two is put up in the capitol.. nothing extreme.. just 1 or 2.. this probably wont be my capitol after Civil Service so its really not that important to beef this city up on commerce in the early game.

I find that this is enough to keep the research moving at a good clip.. fast enough to get alphabet before the A.I's which is the most important early research objective (unless you like slingshots)

[Nestorius]

Why you are researching Hunting and Archery before Bronze working? Don't you want to chop a few settlers before the barbs show up?

[fortytwo]

I agree with Nestorius.

Researching Pottery should depend on how much money you've picked up from Goodie huts. Only get Pottery when the money is going to run out and your research is in danger of falling to 50% or lower.

Chop-rush is crucial. Using rivers or coast to connect cities saves time with building roads. Agriculture gives your workers something to leave tiles with after taking the trees.

Writing gives your cities something to build besides stupid old Obelisks or military units. Chop-rush libraries at your leisure.

Might as well get Iron Working before Alphabet b/c it ain't like you're going to trade for it without giving up Alphabet, which is too generous until later when you can get Mathematics or Metal Casting for it.

As far as military, try to get the bronze resource and get Axemen. They can do double-duty of handling barbarian warriors no problem and then later invading cities after you've shorn up your empire with archers/bowmen. So upgrade for City Raider, they are plenty strong against barbs without any other upgrades.

[Sisiutil]

I think you might be wasting a lot of turns researching those techs you listed in your post. I bee-line to BW right off, so I can start chopping those workers, warriors, and settlers; then I usually head for Alphabet so I can trade for other techs I've missed. (Most of the other Civs are quite willing to trade innocuous, non-military, low-level techs like hunting, agriculture, animal husbandry, even archery, and so on.) Code of Laws usually follows, unless there is, as you mentioned, a specific resource I need to exploit (like iron if I have to fight an early war, ESPECIALLY if I'm playing as Caesar).

[PublicEnemy]

Beelining for Alphabet is probably the most over rated strategy going.
It's too early in the game to worry about trading easily researched, cheap techs, especially with the limit on how many techs the AI will trade.

Building a solid economy is more important. Start working river cottages and coast, this way you can keep ahead of the AI.

The strong early economy opens up all the victory conditions.

[Sisiutil]

Originally Posted by PublicEnemy

Beelining for Alphabet is probably the most over rated strategy going.
It's too early in the game to worry about trading easily researched, cheap techs, especially with the limit on how many techs the AI will trade.

Building a solid economy is more important. Start working river cottages and coast, this way you can keep ahead of the AI.

The strong early economy opens up all the victory conditions.

Can't you do both? (tech trade and build a strong early economy)

"Cheap techs" still cost turns. Since I started playing on Noble I find I prefer to choose which victory condition to pursue, and that pretty much means I need to make a bee-line to specific techs, abandon others, and trade for the rest.

Besides, it's all about what strategy you find fun. I LIKE trading for techs and resources.

[ownedbyakorat]

I don't like early-alphabet strategy either. When trading techs, it's best to have met all the other players, or most of them, first. That way you can trade away one tech to all of them and get several techs by trading it to a few on the same turn - and they can't turn around and trade your tech to each other, leaving you out of the loop, because you've already traded it to everyone. In that way you can trade for less-valuable techs and still make a handy net gain vs. the AIs.

I go BW first, then a few basic worker techs, then Meditation->Priesthood->CoL, which usually founds Confucianism for me as well as letting me build Courthouses. At that point the lay of the land usually determines further strategy - I'll go conqueror if I have neighbors and commerce-nation if I do not.

[PublicEnemy]

Originally Posted by Sisiutil

Can't you do both? (tech trade and build a strong early economy)

"Cheap techs" still cost turns. Since I started playing on Noble I find I prefer to choose which victory condition to pursue, and that pretty much means I need to make a bee-line to specific techs, abandon others, and trade for the rest.

Besides, it's all about what strategy you find fun. I LIKE trading for techs and resources.

Yes, you can do both.
Guess which one I feel is much more important?

You can only trade a certain amount of techs before you reach the "too advanced" limit.
Don't waste the trades too early in the game.

[Dusty Monkey]

Originally Posted by PublicEnemy

Yes, you can do both.
Guess which one I feel is much more important?

You can only trade a certain amount of techs before you reach the "too advanced" limit.
Don't waste the trades too early in the game.

On the contrary, there are several problems with this thinking.

Firstly:

The early game is where your beaker rate will be at its poorest relative to the beaker demands for the techs you can research. Thus its a good bet to take the trade now rather than later.

Secondly:

An early certain advantage is better than a late speculative advantage. Period.

[colony]

My main goals for the early game (ie by about 1000BC) are to generally get 2 or 3 more cities down, make sure I have copper or horses (or iron if I get IW early), as well as building a few workers and axemen or chariots. Expanding early on is expensive, but will help in the long run, it just depends on how long those cities will take to pay for themselves as to whether or not they're worth it.

I hardly ever research Archery myself. Fog busting Warriors in forests or on hills can cope with barb Archers (just about), and to me Archers just don't give me enough protection to be worth 1 or 2 techs that early on. Even on Emperor I can cope with Warriors, although then going for Pottery first becomes risky.

From what I can see it looks like most people seem to head straight for BW and then Alphabet. BW is important, but it's not essential to go straight for it at first, depending on how long you're prepared to go with just Warriors for dealing with barbs. Generally if I get BW first my tech order goes: Mining, BW, Wheel, Agri/Fishing, Pottery.

I'll generally leave Alphabet until a couple of other techs later (so I generally research techs like Mysticism and Masonry/Priesthood depending on if I want to build any early wonders), but still get it early enough to trade Writing away most of the time, or to get a few techs for peace from an early war. The AI often leaves it very late anyway, making it quite easy to get there first even on the higher levels, and once I have it I keep it to myself for as long as possible, it's the one tech I'll almost never trade, because it helps the AI so much

Going for Pottery first can be just as effective, if not better in some situations. Having 2 villages early on will give you a big boost to your research. And it makes the CS slingshot that much easier to pull off, if it's doable at the current level. If it isn't then you can still afford to expand more than if you'd left Pottery later, although the first Settler does come later most of the time.

Of course the longest I leave BW is to be the 3rd tech I research, which means I like to start with 2 out of Fishing, The Wheel, Agriculture and Mining to try this, normally ending up going: (Pottery pre-reqs), Pottery, Mining, BW, possible wonder techs, Alphabet/CoL/Maths.

I've got quite attached to building a Worker or Workboat first virtually all the time, and I also like to build a few warriors (normally about 3) to get rid of a lot of the fog early on to prevent too many barbs from appearing. Normally this leaves me with not much room left to expand beyond 4 or so cities peacefully, at which point it's off to war, which can be done even with Chariots if you don't have copper.

Of course there are more than these two approaches, such as the religious approach, but these generally give me the best chance of winning. And as always it depends on the map. A Pangaea pushes me towards BW first, and an Archipelago to Pottery and Sailing first

Edit: Also being Financial pushes me towards Pottery first. 3 commerce from a cottage on a river just makes the decision a bit easier for me

[kunou126]

Food + Gold ftw.

Produce. money. early. What's in the bank and goody huts are nice, but what you pull from the ground seems to directly effect how quickly you research science when at 100% output in the early game. I don't know why that is, but when my city starts on a gold mine I tend to pop out the early techs in half the time as when I don't. And having a financial leader trait boosts that even further. When you get to iron working and metalworking a good 50-100 turns before anybody else, you tend to dominate.

Not only that, but it allows you to expand to 3 or 4 cities early without slowing down your science output. In fact, done right, you never need operate with less than 100% output in science/culture.

[n0xie]

Originally Posted by kunou126

what you pull from the ground seems to directly effect how quickly you research science when at 100% output in the early game. I don't know why that is, but when my city starts on a gold mine I tend to pop out the early techs in half the time as when I don't.

That's because if your science is at 100%, every commerce you produce is turned into beakers Therefor a goldmine (7 commerce iirc) is 7 beakers, which is about 1/4 of all the early techs, depending on speed/level. A Super Scientist 'only' produces 6 beakers so it's not THAT suprising that a gold mine is 'pretty good'.

Originally Posted by ownedbyakorat

I don't like early-alphabet strategy either. When trading techs, it's best to have met all the other players, or most of them, first. That way you can trade away one tech to all of them and get several techs by trading it to a few on the same turn - and they can't turn around and trade your tech to each other, leaving you out of the loop, because you've already traded it to everyone. In that way you can trade for less-valuable techs and still make a handy net gain vs. the AIs.

That reasoning is flawed, since the AI can't trade away tech untill it has Alphabet. Because the AI usually skips Alphabet untill very late, you'll be the only one able to trade for a long time. Also the AI only trades with 'itself' if it can trade 'fair'. While a human player might take a '1800 beakers vs 1200 beakers' trade because he needs the 1200 beaker tech right now, the AI won't make such a trade. So if you trade off your one expensive 1800 tech for several 1200 techs across the board, the AI won't trade that 1800 tech away to another AI untill that other AI can give something equally expensive in return.

Basically you need to 'learn' how to trade with a loss, to keep up with the rest (at higher levels at least). The one rule is to never trade Alphabet away unless you have no other choice. It helps if you can 'predict' what tech path the AI is choosing (pretty basic) so you can focus on getting another tech and trade for the ones the AI is getting.

[Sisiutil]

Originally Posted by colony

Going for Pottery first can be just as effective, if not better in some situations. Having 2 villages early on will give you a big boost to your research. And it makes the CS slingshot that much easier to pull off, if it's doable at the current level. If it isn't then you can still afford to expand more than if you'd left Pottery later, although the first Settler does come later most of the time.

At the risk of branding myself as the noob that I am, what exactly is the "CS slingshot"? I've seen it mentioned a couple of times on the board, but I haven't come across a post/thread explaining it...

[PublicEnemy]

Originally Posted by Dusty Monkey

On the contrary, there are several problems with this thinking.

Firstly:

The early game is where your beaker rate will be at its poorest relative to the beaker demands for the techs you can research. Thus its a good bet to take the trade now rather than later.

Secondly:

An early certain advantage is better than a late speculative advantage. Period.

Your beaker rate is at its poorest, but you're also researching by far the cheapest techs.
You beeline for alphabet just to be able to trade for, let's say, Hunting and Meditation, techs you could have researched anyway if you didn't beeline for Alphabet!

The early certain advantage comes with building a strong economy, not with cheap tech trading.

[colony]

Originally Posted by Sisiutil

At the risk of branding myself as the noob that I am, what exactly is the "CS slingshot"? I've seen it mentioned a couple of times on the board, but I haven't come across a post/thread explaining it...

The CS slingshot is where you time completing the Oracle so that it finishes the same turn that you finish researching CoL, and then you can get Civil Service as your free tech from it, giving you access to Bureaucracy much earlier than if you'd had to research it yourself. A 50% increase in your hammers and base commerce from your capital that early on gives you a huge advantage in research.

It's doable on Monarch, but I've never tried on Emperor, so I'm not sure if researching CoL yourself takes too long to finish it before an AI finishes the Oracle.

[al_thor]

Tough to do on Emporer. I have managed it as Financial and having Gold or Gems on a river tile. So normally, no. The AI loves to build the Oracle too much and it is fairly cheap, even without marble.

[Dusty Monkey]

Originally Posted by PublicEnemy

Your beaker rate is at its poorest, but you're also researching by far the cheapest techs.

I related the RELATIVE value of beakers per turn to the cost of the techs. The first person to alphabet gets a big hidden multiplier on his beakers not just for alphabet, but for many techs to come. The beakers invested into and recently after alphabet get multiplied by your trading skills.

If you are heading into the late game with poor research (making a late game beaker way too valueable) then thats a different problem that should be addressed in another manner.

Originally Posted by PublicEnemy

You beeline for alphabet just to be able to trade for, let's say, Hunting and Meditation, techs you could have researched anyway if you didn't beeline for Alphabet!

The early certain advantage comes with building a strong economy, not with cheap tech trading.

I'm not sure you get it.

Nobody suggested that you neglect your economy, and you will get a hell of a lot more than hunting and meditation for being the first to alphabet!

The first person to alphabet has a trading advantage because he DENIES those same trades to the opposition. There is NOTHING, short of having alphabet themselves, that will void that advantage.

When most of the world has an alphabet, the advantage is gone. Its gone forever after.

But there is another lasting advantage....

If you are tech trading with half the continent, the other half is getting the shaft! You get to choose who will fall *permanently* behind in tech, just by trading to everyone else. They will only rarely get a chance to trade the techs that they have been researching because you (or one of the other more advanced A.I's) consistently gets to the tech first and beats them out of the trade.

This continues even when nobody will trade with you.