Opening Turns Practice

Greetings, all.

So I've been working on my first 40 to 50 turns and getting so I can develop more quickly (and appropriately), and I decided yesterday to work on a bit of a challenge.

I downloaded the Nobles' Club starts LVI, LVII, LVIII, and LIX, and played up to about 60 turns of each (I played a few more turns of this one because I was having fun).

Below, I've attached the final save of each one, and I'd love to get come criticism of my method.

In each case, the capital built worker first, then a second worker who was chopped, and a settler who was also chopped, before building warriors, and then archers and other units (after a monument in the second city).

I also sometimes built a third city in those opening moves. These seem to be fair starts, at least on Noble, but I'd like to hear what people say.

I believe in one of the games I declared on Julius, and I wasn't really ready for it because my focus wasn't there, so I just pillaged his capital and am sitting outside it waiting for reinforcements, but that wasn't the point of this exercise.

Interesting; after uploading I realized I played a bit further in each successive game.

Typically, you don't want to build a second Worker or a Settler with the capital still at size 1. Building Warriors up to a size where you can work a few good tiles--ideally 3 or 4--is usually the stronger play, followed by chopping out Workers and Settlers (and, at some point, a Library and a Granary).

See "The Everyone's Guide"....

Yahya said:

In each case, the capital built worker first, then a second worker who was chopped, and a settler who was also chopped, before building warriors, and then archers and other units (after a monument in the second city).

Click to expand...

A couple comments on just this much.

This isn't the opening script I encourage new players to adopt. It's not wrong, or weak (although it is weaker than it was before the chopping nerf), but my concern is that it tunnels your attention.

Rather than always prioritizing a second worker, and always prioritizing Bronze Working, I think you get a better foundation by adapting your early research path to your immediate surroundings (primarily, this means the resource tiles that are workable by your capital).

Emphasis on units is good - emphasis on archers, maybe not so much. Part of the puzzle in the opening is that you have to make tradeoffs; researching Archery is great when archers are more important than anything else... but that situation doesn't happen very often. The archer is a nice, inexpensive defensive piece, but defensive pieces aren't usually all that important until after the opening is done.

It's generally preferable to grow your cap such that you can work all your spicy tiles before you produce your second worker and/or your settler. I define spicy here as any tile which yields a sum of 5 or more food and hammers.

If you intend to do a HA rush or any particularly ambitious slingshot, getting on your big commerce tiles is also important - but not so much in the general case.

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. I read them all yesterday but needed time to think and process the information.

The Oz-Man said:

Typically, you don't want to build a second Worker or a Settler with the capital still at size 1. Building Warriors up to a size where you can work a few good tiles--ideally 3 or 4--is usually the stronger play, followed by chopping out Workers and Settlers (and, at some point, a Library and a Granary).

Click to expand...

Yes, I've seen that stated many times. I tried this method because I came across ohioastronomy's article, Optimum Early Growth Strategy in the War Academy, so I decided to give it a try and see the results.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

See "The Everyone's Guide"....

Click to expand...

Thank you for that tip. I quickly looked at it yesterday, and I will read it in more detail today. I didn't know that existed.

I will say that I have read much of Sisiutil's guide, but I found it difficult to process because it seemed to me sort of like all the information at once. I decided I needed to break the information into smaller segments, so I went looking for something that dealt with only one issue and found the article by ohioastronomy.

Perhaps I should start with reading and processing Sisiutil's guide in more detail, dealing with each section as a small step and working with it until I understand better.

EDIT: I am now reading Sisutil's guide, and I now see my earlier impression of it was wrong. It is sufficiently broken into segments to allow me to do what I am trying to do, which is learn the game better in smaller segments.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

This isn't the opening script I encourage new players to adopt. It's not wrong, or weak (although it is weaker than it was before the chopping nerf), but my concern is that it tunnels your attention.

Click to expand...

Yes, I agree it tunnels attention, which was one reason I decided to try it. I find myself too distracted in my openings, leading me to have no cohesive strategy, and this was something to try. It worked; but I'll concede that it is likely not the strongest strategy.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

Rather than always prioritizing a second worker, and always prioritizing Bronze Working, I think you get a better foundation by adapting your early research path to your immediate surroundings (primarily, this means the resource tiles that are workable by your capital).

Click to expand...

I am inclined to agree with this even from the limited results of my test. I found that in some cases there weren't that many forests around, so I cleaned out cities -- the capital especially -- which could lead to early health problems, if I am not mistaken.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

Emphasis on units is good - emphasis on archers, maybe not so much. Part of the puzzle in the opening is that you have to make tradeoffs; researching Archery is great when archers are more important than anything else... but that situation doesn't happen very often. The archer is a nice, inexpensive defensive piece, but defensive pieces aren't usually all that important until after the opening is done.

Click to expand...

That's a bit of a segue to another topic; that is, when is the opening done? I find myself feeling after about 30 turns that I need to start building something other than warriors. Archers might not be the best choice in many cases, agreed. Of course, to come up with a real strategy, I need to consider the civilization, the leader, and the terrain, but this was a starting point.

OhJames said:

It's generally preferable to grow your cap such that you can work all your spicy tiles before you produce your second worker and/or your settler. I define spicy here as any tile which yields a sum of 5 or more food and hammers.

If you intend to do a HA rush or any particularly ambitious slingshot, getting on your big commerce tiles is also important - but not so much in the general case.

Click to expand...

That's an interesting distinction, the 'spicy' tile. That's a good thumbrule to remember, I think.

I find it useful to play the same start several times. Try a few strategies -- different build orders, different tech paths -- and see what kind of positions you're in at the end.