99% of my spawn

[Vargas1]

Correct me if I m wrong .. but if no scout Ancienter era = dark age on Classical era. Under the circumstances of the pic in my first post; how could I make new cities with 2 AI's so close to me??... even if I had succeed to defend my capital.

No one is saying never train a scout in the ancient era - the point is that on deity training another military unit first is usually a good idea, and in cases like this where you will find out you have a very close neighbor, you may want to just continue churning out military units. Goody huts are subject to RNG, so even with a scout you’re not guaranteed a lot of era score from that avenue. And meeting city states early is great, but doesn’t impact your era score.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Not sure if this helps but many games I will open with Warrior x 3 or 4.
It certainly isn't optimal but it is very safe.
I use the warriors to kill barb camps, defend, pillage and plunder.
Sad Face when I can't get my hands on Iron to upgrade them.
I usually abuse the AI with trade.
The game is completely different depending on what rules you play under.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Not sure if this helps but many games I will open with Warrior x 3 or 4.
It certainly isn't optimal but it is very safe.
I use the warriors to kill barb camps, defend, pillage and plunder.
Sad Face when I can't get my hands on Iron to upgrade them.
I usually abuse the AI with trade.
The game is completely different depending on what rules you play under.

You can do that, but as you say it isn't optimal.
The cost for opening that way usually comes later (assuming deity), when you delayed your second city too long and run into issues catching up (unless you steamroll the neighbour with those units and take all his cities).

Whether or not you need to go for military units or can get away with a fast builder/settler comes down to experience.
Personally I judge that by how much production I can get my hands on in my first turns.
If I see a 2f2p (or 3f1p, 1f3p or more) I usually get a fast settler, especially if I settled on plains hills.

The window for getting a fast settler/builder before you need to raise your army value is so short that any extra production is worth its weight in gold before that window closes.
Spending an extra 1-3 turns early on for non-military purposes can be the difference between a comfortable early game, and an inconvenient surprise war that messes up your start completely.

This obviously doesn't apply if you get an isolated starting location with a large subcontinent to settle, with no immediate neighbours.
At that point you can go ham on non-military stuff and skip it completely, apart from enough units to beat down a barb camp or two.

 

[Archon_Wing]

So after all this talk, and still no save? Or did I miss it?

 

[bengalryan9]

Not getting a scout drives you to dark age...so reasonably I wondered even if I managed to survive how could I expand in a dark age with AI's so close to me.

If the choice is between getting a dark age in the classical era (which could possibly lead to a heroic age after) or death, I'll take the dark age. Plus you gain access to the Twilight Valor card as well which would be mighty nice to have in a situation like this.

No one is saying never train a scout in the ancient era - the point is that on deity training another military unit first is usually a good idea, and in cases like this where you will find out you have a very close neighbor, you may want to just continue churning out military units. Goody huts are subject to RNG, so even with a scout you’re not guaranteed a lot of era score from that avenue. And meeting city states early is great, but doesn’t impact your era score.

Exactly. Yes, it's good to do some early scouting, but not always. The minute I found my neighbors this close to me on this map I would've stopped worrying about scouting, and if I had already trained a scout I still would've pulled them back to help in defense (at the very least they can draw attacks from the AI units or help keep barbs from piling on). This is a situation where you should've adapted.

I cant tell why people is so aggressive here tho.

Right, you're soooooooo innocent... no track record there!

Not sure if this helps but many games I will open with Warrior x 3 or 4.
It certainly isn't optimal but it is very safe.
I use the warriors to kill barb camps, defend, pillage and plunder.
Sad Face when I can't get my hands on Iron to upgrade them.
I usually abuse the AI with trade.
The game is completely different depending on what rules you play under.

I usually go slinger -> slinger (to help pop the archery eureka) -> warrior -> warrior -> settler, and will usually spend gold on either scouts (if I have some space) or more warriors (if I'm cramped). Not what I always do but that's probably my most common start.

 

[Duuk]

Normally the forum is good at picking up a newbie making a mistake, but everyone clearly missed one here:

If the OP is always picking the same map type and size AND uses the same map seed, especially if also selecting which Civs appear, not only can he achieve 99% response, he could reach 100%. When people are freaking out about their starts always being the same, my first thought is "Are you reusing the same map seed?"

 

[Leucarum]

One of the nicest things about civ6 is that a lot of openings are better in different circumstances. Everyone has their favourite. I love the variability introduced by a scout opening, but would I go for that if I could see within the first couple of turns that I had an AI right on top of me? Nope.

Working out whether you have the space to go greedy and get a scout/builder early, deciding between warriors/slingers based on whether the AI/barb swarm is likely to attack you immediately or if you have a bit of time to tech up...

The one thing I will say for a scout opening is that scouts can really easily be used to bait the AI into moving to disadvantageous positions... Though that usually is more useful if you have an unit or three to back them up...

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Working out whether you have the space to go greedy and get a scout/builder early, deciding between warriors/slingers based on whether the AI/barb swarm is likely to attack you immediately or if you have a bit of time to tech up...

Using these little things work extremely well during the right circumstances.
I usually do the same in reverse when attacking - bringing along a bait builder, so that that annoying archer/crossbowman happily goes out of the fortified city, where I promptly kill him with my warriors, retake my builder and repeat.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Normally the forum is good at picking up a newbie making a mistake, but everyone clearly missed one here:

If the OP is always picking the same map type and size AND uses the same map seed, especially if also selecting which Civs appear, not only can he achieve 99% response, he could reach 100%. When people are freaking out about their starts always being the same, my first thought is "Are you reusing the same map seed?"

How in the world did I not think of that??!! Of course, I forget that's a variable. Anyway, yeah, @Manol0, is this a seed you use every time?

 

[AntSou]

Normally the forum is good at picking up a newbie making a mistake, but everyone clearly missed one here:

If the OP is always picking the same map type and size AND uses the same map seed, especially if also selecting which Civs appear, not only can he achieve 99% response, he could reach 100%. When people are freaking out about their starts always being the same, my first thought is "Are you reusing the same map seed?"

Do new players even know what seeds are for? One kind of needs to go out of one's way to re-use a seed.

I've only done it a few times and had no need for them as a new player.

 

[MrRadar]

One kind of needs to go out of one's way to re-use a seed.

You only need to save your preferred options configuration. Then it saves the seed as well for some reason. You load the configuration and you always get the same seed.

 

[intellectsucks]

One of two possibilities for what you're describing:

1. The settings you are using are making this type of start (really close, aggressive neighbors) an almost certainty
2. You're exaggerating out of frustration.

The "standard" game I play is Standard size map, pangaea, random civ, random AI, random city states, level 2 disasters. I don't change the number of either civs or city states. With these settings I get a start similar to yours (less aggressive though as I play on emperor at the moment) about 25-30% of the time. If you are REALLY getting this start as often as you say, maybe change the settings for your starts.

 

[The Civs 6]

One of the nicest things about civ6 is that a lot of openings are better in different circumstances. Everyone has their favourite. I love the variability introduced by a scout opening, but would I go for that if I could see within the first couple of turns that I had an AI right on top of me? Nope.

Working out whether you have the space to go greedy and get a scout/builder early, deciding between warriors/slingers based on whether the AI/barb swarm is likely to attack you immediately or if you have a bit of time to tech up...

The one thing I will say for a scout opening is that scouts can really easily be used to bait the AI into moving to disadvantageous positions... Though that usually is more useful if you have an unit or three to back them up...

I actually feel like this is an area where 5 was superior. To me there is only one choice in 6 - rush as many warriors as possible, and then a settler, and back to warriors. How often do you have the space to even go builder?

 

[MrRadar]

How often do you have the space to even go builder?

Whenever I see three readily improvable tiles nearby, I'll likely start with a builder. Depending on the further developments I may have to switch to a warrior or a slinger, but I may also have a chance to finish it calmly.
Rushing warriors is an extreme case, when you find yourself in a very vulnerable position. It does happen, but it is far from being the only choice every game. In the case of close neighbours, diplomacy may help sometimes. In the case of barb camps, a city state may solve your problem, or a neighbour.
I find my starts very much varied. Including very turbulent ones, when I get killed by a pincer attack from a triggered camp and a surprise dow. But also including those where I realize, I haven't yet boosted Machinery or Mercenaries when time comes for that tech/civic, because I had no need for troops that far.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Whenever I see three readily improvable tiles nearby, I'll likely start with a builder. Depending on the further developments I may have to switch to a warrior or a slinger, but I may also have a chance to finish it calmly.
Rushing warriors is an extreme case, when you find yourself in a very vulnerable position. It does happen, but it is far from being the only choice every game. In the case of close neighbours, diplomacy may help sometimes. In the case of barb camps, a city state may solve your problem, or a neighbour.
I find my starts very much varied. Including very turbulent ones, when I get killed by a pincer attack from a triggered camp and a surprise dow. But also including those where I realize, I haven't yet boosted Machinery or Mercenaries when time comes for that tech/civic, because I had no need for troops that far.

I usually build 2 Military Units during the early turns, just to make sure I don't get surprised by any of my neighbors.

 

[Leucarum]

I actually feel like this is an area where 5 was superior. To me there is only one choice in 6 - rush as many warriors as possible, and then a settler, and back to warriors. How often do you have the space to even go builder?

I disagree, I've had plenty of spawns where I'll go builder first. Especially if my best tiles are 2F/1P hills I want mining and improvements out ASAP. Keep that starting warrior very close, lay low and prioritize millitary straight after.

 

[The Civs 6]

I feel like 80% of the time I don't rush warriors, I get punished by barbarians or a neighbor. I dunno if that's just me.

 

[Leucarum]

I feel like 80% of the time I don't rush warriors, I get punished by barbarians or a neighbor. I dunno if that's just me.

If you are only going to get decently workable tiles by improving some, the opportunity cost of not getting a builder early can be very harsh... Maybe try and explore less but keep your warrior on guard to try and discourage scouts or slow down activated barbarians.

 

[lohaller]

All this talk about rushing a bunch of warriors?? Why would u ever build warriors instead of slingers, upgrade into archers, and ur safe.

Of course, it will depend on the situation, and in the scenario described in the first post it might just be lights out, it happens and I don't see a way around it without a redesign of the AIs.
But I would still argue that the best start is just to get a slinger and keep the warrior close by. It is possible to defend the early attack and deal with barbs with just 1 archer and a warrior, with some poorly defensible lands u might need a little more or work with getting a suzerain of a nearby city-state or more units. But archers are the way to go as they scale way better in difficulties, u just can't fight warrior vs warrior on diety.

A safe opening that transitions into aggression is otherwise slinger-slinger-archer-warrior with a settler somewhere in between or after and using gold to purchase a builder. This way when all the slingers are upgraded u just walk over to the closest neighbor and snag a city or just pillage the lands, maybe capturing a settler. Early aggression without killing someone is underrated and totally doable even on diety, with pretty low investment as long as u don't lose units. With 4-5 early game units u can just upgrade them through the course of the game and never have to build more. Making the investment early resonable.

 

[The Civs 6]

If you are only going to get decently workable tiles by improving some, the opportunity cost of not getting a builder early can be very harsh... Maybe try and explore less but keep your warrior on guard to try and discourage scouts or slow down activated barbarians.

I'm not thinking so much about barbarians as I am about a turn 15 rush by an AI that already has like 5 units.