Having trouble with early expansion and science

[Athenaeum]

There is a time I would have agreed with you, but the more I've played and the better I've gotten my opinion of scouts has increased dramatically. 3 scouts on pangaea is very good advice, but obviously you need to use them well.

The thing is, you are usually done with pottery (assuming you researched that first) right around the time you're done with the 2nd scout. So if there's a pantheon you want to compete for, you need to start a shrine ASAP. Or if there's not a pantheon you really want, build a granary to help with settler production and future trade route.

I just feel there are better things to build at that time of the game other than a third consecutive scout. Unless you're talking about delaying the 3rd scout until another time.

My scouts are adequate at exploring usually just having two. The only reason I might want to build another one is for side projects, like settler escorting, blocking, worker stealing, etc.

But hey, to each his/her own.

 

[CraigMak]

The thing is, you are usually done with pottery (assuming you researched that first) right around the time you're done with the 2nd scout. So if there's a pantheon you want to compete for, you need to start a shrine ASAP. Or if there's not a pantheon you really want, build a granary to help with settler production and future trade route.

I just feel there are better things to build at that time of the game other than a third consecutive scout. Unless you're talking about delaying the 3rd scout until another time.

My scouts are adequate at exploring usually just having two. The only reason I might want to build another one is for side projects, like settler escorting, blocking, worker stealing, etc.

But hey, to each his/her own.

I wouldn't build a granary if your intention is to help with settler production. It will shave maybe 1 turn off your settlers but cost 6 - 7 turns to make. That would only break even if you were to make 6 settlers in a row. Get the Granary after your settlers because having your cities up 6 - 7 turns earlier is a big deal. Especially if there is land that's contested.

 

[BruinBound]

I like scouts a lot too but you can't delay that shrine or you risk losing the pantheon that you want. Then you're building settlers or a worker if there's none to steal.

Sorry, the original statement was 2 scouts and 3 if there isn't a good shrine option. That was what I was referring to.

 

[Athenaeum]

I wouldn't build a granary if your intention is to help with settler production. It will shave maybe 1 turn off your settlers but cost 6 - 7 turns to make. That would only break even if you were to make 6 settlers in a row. Get the Granary after your settlers because having your cities up 6 - 7 turns earlier is a big deal. Especially if there is land that's contested.

Usually after my 2 scouts though, my capital is only 2 pop and I might want to get it to 3 before producing a settler. If I have to choose between building shrine, monument or granary, i might choose granary if no good pantheons are there.

 

[Redaxe]

Usually after my 2 scouts though, my capital is only 2 pop and I might want to get it to 3 before producing a settler. If I have to choose between building shrine, monument or granary, i might choose granary if no good pantheons are there.

If we're talking about playing wide here with Liberty so we shouldn't wait for Collective Rule - the settler bonus first?

 

[Athenaeum]

If we're talking about playing wide here with Liberty so we shouldn't wait for Collective Rule - the settler bonus first?

On competitive difficulties like Immortal and Deity, there isn't really a way to get to Collective Rule in time for that to be your first settler. You need to hard build one even before getting that policy.

 

[Ashcristokos]

So I've been following the city-state advice. It's pretty helpful! It ended up getting to the point where I had more workers than I knew what to do with! The only problem is that on Prince, city-states tend to take a bit longer to produce workers...so I think I'm going to start hard building the first one...or maybe I should just scale up the difficulty.

BruinBound, your videos were very helpful! I fired up a game after them as Songhai (my favorite warmonger) and ended up starting right next to the English. I immediately went to war with them and managed to capture two workers and a settler after like...2,000 years of ceaseless conflict. My infrastructure expanded rapidly while the English were not able to improve a single tile or found a second city until turn 80 or so. Finished them off in my second war.

Still having a bit of trouble with my early build orders after the first shrine, monument, and initial settlers and such though...but I'm working on it. I've screwed myself a bit in some games though by picking Liberty and getting boxed in and having only four cities...

 

[BruinBound]

Great, that's good to hear. You have discovered the other benefit of worker stealing - the effected AI gets a serious set-back. Even on deity they will fall behind quickly and are much easier to finish off a bit later in the game.

To make things simple and improve more rapidly, I'd suggest going 3 or 4 city tradition start. Liberty is still a viable method but its a bit more situational and there is more opportunity for things to go wrong. What you learn through a tradition empire will help establish the core concepts you need to be familiar with.

Unfortunately on lower difficulties it is harder to worker steal. I am a big advocate of scaling up difficulties rapidly! On deity the build order is usually something like scout-scout-shrine-2/3x settlers. The monument would come from legalism, which you hopefully get to to quickly by finding a culture ruin from your two scouts. If the difficulty level means the workers are coming on too late, you are right in thinking you may want to build one earlier.