Snaaty´s early game strategy (in more detail)

Hi there,

I was asked to describe the early game strat I usually use (expand peaceful to 6+ cities, get a tech advantage, then go to war with cav. or gren. in late medival) in more detail.

So I have set up a demo game for warlords (which I finally have now) on emperor level and will try to explain it a little better and more in detail then I usually do ...

To make it easier for those interested in joining and trying, I handpicked a financial civ (inka, haven’t played them before).

That’s the start (not very impressing, but will do)

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Before we start:

I have played up to lib. in 660 AD in only a little more then one hour (and it was almost 3 o’clock in the morning and I had to go to bed).

So I haven’t maxed out everything. In fact I even made quite a lot of dumb mistakes (like forgetting to research sailing and therefore not building harbours, which led to forgetting calendar and not working my own happy resources up to 500 AD, extremely bad placement of my capital and therefore not being able to run bureaucracy (I finally figured out the spelling), spoiling my GS farm and getting a GP first (which I settled), not caring enough for relations, not whipping enough and numerous more…).



Still I have maintained a position on my conti. in 660 AD that I think the game can be won from there on via domination or space race (our main weapon is Monty…), so it should do for a demo game…

Anybody is invited to join and try. When correcting the mistakes I described above, lib. can even be through earlier and our position could be quite a lot better (army, tech and relations)


And here is the starting safe:

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more to come

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see you soon

Snaaty

I usually try to play peaceful in the beginning. This means, that I have to secure enough land to build at least 6 cities. If I would build all 6 cities ASAP I would run broke (or on deity simply would not be fast enough), so I’m usually using a trick to slow expansion and to reserve enough settling space for later:

I’m using my capital as main blocking city. If I start costal (which occurs 80% of the time), this means to move the settler inland to reserve the cost for later settlement.

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Since I made some bad decisions concerning the route my settler had taken, this is where my capital happened to be in the end(probably the worst position I could have picked, no water, no trees to whip, only one food resource and the costal cities have to be squeezed in). If you replay, just move the initial settler 4-5 tiles more up north, there you will find a spot to settle paradise city…

So I skipped the plan of having a strong capital build the GL and to run mercantilism already in the beginning. On the positive side is that I have a gold mine nearby, so no early cottages are needed.

Research is still set in the usual way:

Farming and mysticism we already have

Mining (to work the gold, first thing to do is to research stuff that lets you work the surrounding land)

Then the wheel-pottery (to build some early cottages to keep our economy running; I usually build one cottage for every city that hasn’t any early happy and money resources and start to work it immediately to save me from running broke)

Now I would normally go for archery, but since we have quechuas, I voted for bronze working (only to find no bronze)

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This is the spot I mentioned earlier (where the modern armor is parked). There our capital should have been (but who could have know). We have a river, cows, some hills and rice. We even have marble nearby for the GL

We have met Julius and Monty so far (great combo for a peaceful starting strat…)


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see you soon

Snaaty

We researched next:

Animal husbandry (cows)
Fishing (to work the little sea near our 3rd city because of the money)
Masonry (marble)
Then writing – alphabet (19 turns left)

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The second city (Tiwanaku) has been founded 2400 BC. I decided to build (=chop) Stonehenge there, because our 3 city (Machu Pichu founded in 1600 BC) had no woods to chop to get the monument out fast enough and I wanted to bring horses and gold into the fat cross of this city.

I don’t like doing this normally, because this early wonder could spoil our plans to bring out a GS first (what proved to be true…). With an early GS, I usually build an academy in the city that builds the GL, to boost up early game research. Best is to do so in the capital, because of the bonus given by the palace and later via bureaucracy. Normally, the science city does about 50% early game research of my empire. With a bonus of 50%, the overall research bonus sums up to 25% bonus to overall research. Later with bureaucracy you get another research boost added. This does quite a difference…

Since my capital is crap, well, I decided to forget about the academy-plan (but if you happened to move the initial settler to the spot where Tiwanaku is and found your capital there, go for an academy)…



You already see, that I only settle towards the AI´s, to reserve the backlands for later settlement.

Our capital is that crappy, that I decided to degrade it to worker production (next settler is produced in Tiwanaku). The 4th and last city I will build for quite a while will be our north eastern blocking city (spot again marked with a modern armor). There I also plan to build the Great Lib, because there are lost of woods to be chopped, and rivers to boost up trade/science

I have met Wang…


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see you soon

Snaaty

Why didn't you settle in place where you spawned your Settler? It was on the coast and had access to cattle and rice, with hills and grassland also. It looked like a pretty good spot to me. You lost several production turns right off the bat for not settling in place.

Cheers.

I don´t want to go to an early war. Therefore I need 6 cities at least. To settle directly at the cost is a quite high gamble that could end in not having enough space for 6 cities because of the AI´s settling towards you...

So in general, I use my initial settler as a scout for 2-4 turns and my capital as a blocking city to reserve some backlands for later settlement.

In this game, it was quite a big portion of bad luck how the map looked in the end and where our capital ended up to be

Nice job. I haven't ever thought you can use your first settler to block AI too that's something useful in next game to remember.

manu-fan said:

Why didn't you settle in place where you spawned your Settler? It was on the coast and had access to cattle and rice, with hills and grassland also. It looked like a pretty good spot to me. You lost several production turns right off the bat for not settling in place.

Cheers.

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You didn't read what he said: The plan is to play peaceful and build a total of 6 cities. The AI crowds you in very fast on higher levels, so if he starts coastal he moves his settler inland to reserve space on the coast for later cities. This is a good idea imo when planning a peaceful start. Otherwise, you build on the coast and find yourself crowded in by the AI and you pretty much have to go to war.

Nice start Snaaty. Tough luck on the capital. That is one of the risks of moving your settler: not finding a good spot early enough! Happened to me a couple times when I tried it (I HATE getting coastal capitals, so I like your suggestion to move inland )

I will play along with this game I think to compare how I do to how you do to see where I could improve

BTW, I started a new game with hatty doing this strat and it's working out. I am now at 1AD. CS is in. Have 5 cities built and about to build the 6th. On a small continent with Freddy and Issy. Issy hates me because I adopted Taoism to run pacificism, but she's furthest away so no biggy. I have horses (good for cav) but the AIs are not researching fast enough for me to trade what I would like from them (they don't have calendar or currency or metal casting for example...) so I don't know if I will be able to lightbulb liberalism. I will probably just end up self-researching liberalism and then lightbulb printing press while self-researching toward guilds (to prebuild some knights for upgrading) then toward miltrad/gunpowder.

I think this strat would be more powerful on Immortal/Deity where the AI will research fast enough that you can trade for what you need in a more timely manner

futurehermit said:

BTW, I started a new game with hatty doing this strat and it's working out. I am now at 1AD. CS is in. Have 5 cities built and about to build the 6th. On a small continent with Freddy and Issy. Issy hates me because I adopted Taoism to run pacificism, but she's furthest away so no biggy. I have horses (good for cav) but the AIs are not researching fast enough for me to trade what I would like from them (they don't have calendar or currency or metal casting for example...) so I don't know if I will be able to lightbulb liberalism. I will probably just end up self-researching liberalism and then lightbulb printing press while self-researching toward guilds (to prebuild some knights for upgrading) then toward miltrad/gunpowder)

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You don´t need currency/callendar etc. Go to war and stomp them:

When the AI´s are that far back, self-researching liberalism, pick nationalism, build an academy in your science city, settle the next GS...

This will make you more or less trade independent. Set research to gunpowder to draft muskets, then mil. trad.

Don´t go guilds, it´s a waist. In one of the deity challanges, I had also to upgrade horsearchers, 7 cost 2000 gold, so just drop research to 0 when you reach mil.trad (ore use the money of the first captured cities )

@Futurehermit. I also hate coastal starts, but like Snaaty i seem to get them 80% of the time, i wonder if it has anything to do with the leaders i'm picking. IMO there are 3 disadvantages to coastal starts:

- Having to reasearch fishing to get the seafood online
- Distance maintenance problems are bigger with coastal caps
- Poor blocking of the the AI expansion.

Moving the settler is an interesting but risky idea as you have to settle in about 4 turns and there is a chance that you find absolutely nothing worth settling.

@Snaaty,how do you handle a tyical ice start with a great capital starting site but only tundra and ice in the direct neighbourhood? Moving the settler's
not possible on these starts.

Dirk1302 said:

@Snaaty,how do you handle a tyical ice start with a great capital starting site but only tundra and ice in the direct neighbourhood? Moving the settler's
not possible on these starts.

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running in circles and crying...

Not much has happened... …we still have 4 cities and keep our borders closed. I have employed some fogbusters, to keep my backlands clear of barbs. I have 4 workers now (thank you crappy capital)

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Ollan… (umh, the city north east) will start the GL next turn, 2 or 3 workers are nearby to chop and improve the land.

Our research was

Alphabet - Traded for Ironworking (Monty) and Polytheism & Meditation (Wang). Planed to trade Alphabet later with Julius for Math, but then have forgotten it…

Literacy-Prieshood-CoL

…

I was running out of money.

So my initial plan was, to start the ToA in Cuzco and the Pantheon in Tiwanuka (or was it Tiwanaku???). With marble, this would spill in the cash needed to keep research at 100% (I never expected to finish them).

Those dumb AI´s. I ended up building the ToA in Cuzco and the Pantheon is almost through in Tiwansomething at 500 BC

I don’t need/want this wonders, but well so be it. My only hop is, that I don’t end up with two GP before I can bring out the first GS

In fact, with 4 cities and one trade route per city with value 1 the ToA brings 4 gold (next to nothing). The Pantheon is also more or less useless, because with the GL, two hired scientists, the NE and running Pacifism we have already 50 (more or less) GP-points…



I seem to have bad luck on all fronts with this game:

Everybody has a religion, but none would spread to my territory. Very likely I will end up running Taoism (the AI´s are already starting to fall back in tech, so I will very likely found it)

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see you soon

Snaaty

Snaaty said:

You don´t need currency/callendar etc. Go to war and stomp them:

When the AI´s are that far back, self-researching liberalism, pick nationalism, build an academy in your science city, settle the next GS...

This will make you more or less trade independent. Set research to gunpowder to draft muskets, then mil. trad.

Don´t go guilds, it´s a waist. In one of the deity challanges, I had also to upgrade horsearchers, 7 cost 2000 gold, so just drop research to 0 when you reach mil.trad (ore use the money of the first captured cities )

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Ok, thanks!!! I will just continue to beeline mil trad while doing academy + settling GSs. Good idea about upgrading harchers. The AI doesn't have hbriding yet either so hopefully they will get it soon or else if it's cheap enough I can self-research. I don't know what the AI is doing this game I guess neither of them are financial, but still!!!

Also, avoiding guilds is a good idea. I thought since you mentioned before to upgrade knights that I should try to get guilds. However, if I can skip guilds then I can skip machinery which means printing press won't be lightbulbable. That will mean that I just need to do compass and hopefully trade for calendar and then maybe, just maybe, liberalism will be lightbulbable fast enough

Ha! Crazy luck for you this game!!! Crappy capital, but your other cities look nice and it looks like you could get at least 2, maybe 3, cities in your back area there, which would be good. You have horses

So now it's just a matter of getting to military tradition

Isn't that the way things go though? When you want wonders, you can't get them, but when you don't want them, nobody builds them The AI really does not seem to prioritize parthenon at all. It is often available into the AD years...Makes me think about prioritizing it more myself. It really is a decent wonder, especially if you plan on running specialists empire-wide. The only downside is it favours GAs...blech.

The GL was build and we have in fact found Taoism (lightbulbed Philosophy). Our missionary is just about to arrive in the … the City North East (CNE from now on). CNE has built the GL, the NE and is running 2 additional scientists (and has a settled GP). I’m cranking out GS at a high rate now…

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I will revolt now to Pacifism and then adopt Taoism, because I still have no religion. Things are becoming quite tricky now, because Monty has a different religion then the others and I keep gifting my way along in peace.

The real fun will start after I revolt to Taoism, because I already have collected quite a lot of negative modifiers (trading with worst enemy)

Not much trading done (only CoL for math)…

Not much trading planed (I fear I have to gift most techs away)

And I had forgotten some trades (as mentioned before)

CS will be through in 5 turns

2 cities settled in the back lands, one settler more in production (in Tiwa…). I want to open border before switching to Taoism

Most cities are set to produce courthouses to save money

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see you soon

Snaaty

futurehermit said:

Isn't that the way things go though? When you want wonders, you can't get them, but when you don't want them, nobody builds them The AI really does not seem to prioritize parthenon at all. It is often available into the AD years...Makes me think about prioritizing it more myself. It really is a decent wonder, especially if you plan on running specialists empire-wide. The only downside is it favours GAs...blech.

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Don´t mention wonders in this game...

I considered building the Great Pyramids from 1500 BC on (would have taken 32 turns without chopping) and the dumb AI´s have build it around 200 AD (so I could have build 4 of them )

Holy Crap

There must not be any industrious civs world-wide methinks...

My little empire in 580 AD:

All backland is settled and Lib. is through in 4 turns. It would have been earlier, but I had to selfresearch sailing (which I had completely forgotten earlygame), metal casting and compass

Even our capital starts to grow now, since we are bringing water in via chain irrigation

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I managed to trade for:

Currency
Monarchy
Feudalism
Calendar

Well, not much but better then nothing. Tiwa… has already started army production (elephants and catas), all other cities are building infrastructure.

I don’t plan to finish this game, but everybody who feels like can do so (we have a GM waiting and the next GS will be through in 4 turns)

The AI´s are quite far back in tech, nobody has guilds so far, so it should be rel. easy

If you go war, I would advise to pick nationalism, then research Drama (2 turns) first and to build the globe theatre. Then gunpowder to draft muskets, then mil.trad to upgrade the elephants and then whip some cavalry. Trade for optics (if the AI´s will ever research and trade it) and send the GM out to the next cont. This will finance the upgrade of the elephants.

Take 10-15 cavalry , 10 muskets, 6 catas and run over this sad continent (very likely you will encounter longbows, maces and horse archers)...

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If you go peace, pick astronomy for oversee-trade (you must delay lib. then because some prerequisites are missing) and focus on economy techs. Send the GM out to finance research forever at 100%. Then go democracy and build the SoL and join the space race. This should also work out if you bribe the AI´s to war on a regular basis and manage to keep out of wars yourself...

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Whatever you do, switch from pacifism to free religion ASAP, because things are getting risky. And Monty is waiting on an invitation to declare on Wang (to shift the powers a little in our favour)

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see you soon

Snaaty

What's with the Panzer in your 1480 BC screenshot?

Did you pop it from a hut?

Excellent work Nice to see liberalism so early despite crappy capital and delayed turns on founding capital! From now on I'm not going to settle coastal capital or reload when I get plopped down 1 tile from the coast. I'll just move my settler inland This game shows that even with a subpar capital, it's great to quarter off some land and beeline to liberalism. Once you have cavalry it should really be lights out for this continent. Getting it that early they just don't have a chance really. Rifles are the only unit that really has decent odds against cavalry and they ain't gettin' that tech any time soon

Jet said:

What's with the Panzer in your 1480 BC screenshot?

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It´s a modern armor... ... and the first already showed up in the screenshot at 2520 BC...






... they indicate where I plan to place the next cities... ... cool idea don´t you think