Good Opening Strategies after Fall '12 patch? (King/Emperor)

[Tomice]

Hi! I'm returning to Civ5 again after a few months. I just wanted to know which openings are currently state of the art?

I used the national college beeline quite often in the past, and it still works rather well, especially since noone recognizes you as threat if you delay expansion. Fact is, it makes the early game rather boring and you're really vulnerable once you have the wonder and have to rush-expand to catch up.

I've also read a lot about the "tradition 4 city opening" but the inventor himself admits it doesn't work well on King difficulty and below, even more so since the fall patch that stops the AI from hording huge sums of gold.
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So, any ideas for other openers?

 

[Browd]

The development approach reflected in the Tradition 4-city strat works at lower levels, it's just slower due to lack of AI gold (compensated a bit by the flexibility to delay getting quite so many archers for defense -- the lower the level the less the urgency and the fewer archers required). So, the main impact of lower levels is on timing--just ignore the suggested turn milestones and focus on the build order and other elements.

 

[RedRover57]

ICS strategy is a lot of fun and very effective with the appropriate civs (e.g., Mayans, Arabia, Egypt, etc.). G&K's religion is responsible for digging this strategy back up. And you won't even have to worry about building the NC, ever. Kind of hard to build it when you have 8-10 cities by turn 100 and 40+ cities by turn 250. Requires the right type of map also, of course. On Emperor you can easily outtech the AI by T100 even without the NC.

 

[Bandersnatching]

There are good things to say about non-ICS Liberty, I think, where you try to get 5-8 cities fairly early on while still building the National College (though not beelining to it) and then founding an Academy with your free Liberty Great Scientist. I find that I am able to maintain a slight technological lead over the AI on Emperor difficulty, and this strategy is more conducive to founding a religion than a 4-city Tradition start due to having more shrines and temples. It probably isn't truly comparable in strength to ICS or straight-up 4-city Tradition, but you can obtain victory through various means while not totally giving up on social policies. Eventually this will morph into an ICS in the late game or just more golden ages than usual once you get a good grip on happiness.
Does anybody else play that way?

 

[swishizzle]

I've actually been ICS-ing lately (Mayans, Arabia, Ethiopia) and have loved it. With the Mayans you can couple it with Messenger of the Gods and delay libraries, with Arabia you get a bit of a gold bonus (which can be nice with Machu Picchu), and Etiopia will have an insanely powerful religion with little effort. The main concern about ICS is that you need to get the right religious beliefs to help with happiness.

I'm actually going to attempt a 4 city core with Tradition and Honor after watching MadDjinn's newest Beyond the Monument.

 

[Cedbird]

There are good things to say about non-ICS Liberty, I think, where you try to get 5-8 cities fairly early on while still building the National College (though not beelining to it) and then founding an Academy with your free Liberty Great Scientist. I find that I am able to maintain a slight technological lead over the AI on Emperor difficulty, and this strategy is more conducive to founding a religion than a 4-city Tradition start due to having more shrines and temples. It probably isn't truly comparable in strength to ICS or straight-up 4-city Tradition, but you can obtain victory through various means while not totally giving up on social policies. Eventually this will morph into an ICS in the late game or just more golden ages than usual once you get a good grip on happiness.
Does anybody else play that way?

I do in a nutshell . However I think you can overthink in a game like Civ . Although it is a thinking game .... Tech wise if you expand your population by planting cities , grabbing resources which allow more city planting and better defense and offense . Library up asap. Bam you have tech , defense , resources all sown up . My biggest issue is trying to have it all aka doing wonders at the same time . Life is simple but complex .So is Civ.
I m on the verge of greatness thinking I can build troops in time to hold off an invasion . Then I get backstabbed and the Ai is a lot better at getting a nice invasion force . Thats when I get caught slipping and the Ai attacks alone or bring friends and my prize city is gone . Then I rage quit Lol .