A Multi-Player View on Starting

[Victoria]

First city is 5 pop on the coast not 3 so your starting city does not need housing desperately
The benefit is later in the game for moving to the river yes but only as late as your first districts.
I do not care how long it takes to settle at the river... its an example lets not get tied up in it. It costs 5-6 prod typically for for every turn though


Here is my starting position from tonights game.... just messing around an not intended for this thread. This is at turn 90. I have 9 cities. The nearest cap from my cap was 15 tiles... a looong way and they were not coming my way
The nearest cap to them is another 11 tiles. I can provide a save if you really want. From turn 81 I'm using it for a testbed for district costs in another thread, it seems you may be able to get cheaper districts is you wait a bit.
I would normally has a pop 7 cap by turn 90 but testing other things ... this would house encampment, commercial and harbour
I will often go slinger x5 at the start but tonight I went scout builder slinger slinger settler slinger slinger warrior... as you discover more land your strat changes
My furthest city is a whopping 31 tiles away from my cap but it will soon have my second iron... the first iron was at about 25 tiles and I had to go through Japan with a jolly big stick to get there.
Most importantly I have no rigid build order although on deity it norally is 5 slingers but just depends on terrain an awful lot.

 

[Silver 00]

*I incorrectly stated the capital housing size in previous post. The palace provides 1 additional housing so a capital by coast city it starts at 4 housing limit. (oops) Normal Cities do start at 3 housing on coast though.

*Also, the palace provides 2 production. This means that if you settle on plain hill and have another tile that provides 2 production this means every turn is 6 production is lost. So I finally found your 18 productions as you stated in previous post.
(2 palace production + 4 production from 2 beginning tiles) x 3 turns = 18.

Thanks for providing the picture.

Were all the plains near your city rainforrests in the beginning?

From what I can see you used the builder to improve sheep and fur at the beginning. This increased your housing limit to 5. Then you harvested a rainforrest ... I think.... Can you confirm this? It would be interesting if you did not go after craftsman civic boost early on. Did you instead go straight for early empire civic?

From what you told me and what I see. A lot of our strategies have mostly similar aspects and some differences. Pumping out slingers is a near must in Deity games. I think we both agree on this point. Strategic resources should be a huge focus point in obtaining in the early game. After all you used your huge stick against japan for it. (It would have been more fitting if you played as America though. Teddy is known for the quote, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."

The coastal capital city does have some benefits. Not sure I completed buy into it yet, but you have made you want to look into this again. I have tried to get a similar start, but after 15 tries I am not able to recreate it I am giving up for tonight. Let me know if could provide me with a turn 1 save on Deity difficulty coastal start with rainforrests. The reason I did not talk about coastal start ups in this thread is that I find them to be rare. About 1 out 7 games starts me on the coast. And a lot of the time I only need to waste 1 or 2 turns to get to a river. I never thought 1 or 2 turns made that big of difference, but I will look at it again.

How many settlers did your capital produce in the game by turn 90?
The production does not look good in your capital. Did you in a sense sacrificed your capital's production and growth, so that you could settle faster?
What was the strategy of the game? I would like to hear more.
And are you completely caught up or surpassed the computer opponents in science or about to be?

 

[Victoria]

So many questions, that game was a mess around and it's only on emp. The main thing is that in my original post I agreed with what you wrote but just said that tiles change and so does strategy.

Nice write up
I disagree that there is a formula like the above that works every time, it's a bit more complex than that but playing an online game does force lots of units and aggression so most of what you say is sound advice.

I worry little about fresh water and worry hugely over tiles that have 3 production at the start.

You are trying to pull a formula for how I play and reuse it but as I said in my post, I change my moves to match what I have. The primary general rule I run by is getting settlers out fast after slingers is the most important thing to to do .... unless surrounded by civs so yes Inoften sacrifice growth. This is especially true of England who gets a coastal bias because if I capture all my cities them my museums only have 3 slots. So some strategies are civ based. The most efficient thing to do after settlers is tile development but at the turn above you see I have little development and a harbour because I was running tests for the district costs thread.

In my game above Innof course used 50% settler card but also took Japanese cities, freed Auckland which Japan had taken and stole a settler off Brazil with a scout. This last is reason enough for scouts.

The main thing is the post you wrote was great and quite true... just a couple of things Indisagree with and most people will say the same but for different bits.

I love this game for its variety amd choice. The moment I am forced to use the same strategy every game is the moment AI stop playing.

 

[Silver 00]

I noticed in your build order you build a scout as first unit.

I have said in my first post this.

I do not recommend building scouts for a few reasons.
1) They cannot help you deal with immediate threats (barbarians and other civs)
2) A tribal village my give you one for free
3) They can be produce or bought with gold cheaply (when the city production has grown or your treasury has grown).

I would also like to add the following reason to not build a scout for the first 10 units you produce.
4) They are not upgradable (until modern age)
5) Slingers and warrior can also capture stray settlers and builders early. And they can also defend the captured unit better. So that they do not get recaptured or the city you make can be easier to defend. For example, a stray settler in Deity is usually accompanied by troops and the AI has more troops then you in the beginning of the game. You may be forced to settle on the spot and defend it.

Victoria. We obviously have difference in opinion on scouts. Can you provide your points why creating them early on is more beneficial then military units.

We will then let everyone else decide for themselves whether to build them or not.

 

[Victoria]

There are a huge number of threads on the topic already and plenty of people build scouts all the time and lots of deity youtubers drop scouts first, some even 2

I build scouts in at most 30% of my games.
In this game it's because it's a test and finding the lay of the land intelligence is one reason why

Eurekas, goody huts, having more people to trade with, having someone to joint war with against you neighbour, getting people's first impression down faster.

In one of these threads someone mentioned they send them straight to the enemy and get a great hit rate off taking settlers... and I agree.

Also many said they are faster than settlers and builders and severely damaged units. That sitting on a wooded hill they are hard to kill, they are great for drawing troops as the weakest unit and they add flanking value in attack. People have also said time and again they have a ZOC and are invaluable for stopping an early city healing. Their ability to scout in front of your army is also useful as long as they end in cover.

They are such a flexible no maintenance unit that they are hard to ignore and I am now taking them more for their combat use.

 

[Silver 00]

There are several things I too like about scouts. Some you have mentioned already.

I mostly like using them as a throwaway unit, since they are cheap in terms of production and gold losing them is no big deal. They can as you say scout ahead of your army and for intelligence on, but usually they get killed first, but you have gained some knowledge from it before then.

Sometimes when my army is moving on to another war front, but I still have a lot of unexplored territory. I like to build them to know the territory better. Finding a barbarian encampment will allow my to deal with it with minimum loss. And again if I loss the scout no biggie.

If I attacking east I may use scouts to watch the west. They serve to be my eyes and give me warning about possible attacks to come. I have said this before, but knowledge is very important. Having as many turns as possible to prepare for a threat is key to victory.

The last way I like to use them is to pillage tiles of cities. My army attacks from the front, but my scouts pillage them from behind.

I still would not include them as the first 10 units I build, but for me they do have their uses later on.

 

[PYITE]

Why no mention of getting one of the first great generals?

 

[Silver 00]

Hello Pyite,

Welcome to this discussion thread. There are a lot of topics I have not touched upon yet. So thank you for bringing up great generals.

One of the strategies I used to do, was to go after the first 2 great generals then build legions and horsemen(if i had resource). The general bonuses used to stack both movement and attack strength. If opponent did not try to go after a great general then they were bound to lose to units at about 60 strength. However, I tried this out recently and it did not work. Can someone confirm if an update got rid of stacked bonuses?

Depending on resources I do have I like to go after them. They can make early units more deadlier just from a movement bonus alone. A city may have hills that if you moved on to them you will need to wait another turn until you can attack. A great general allows you units to have an edge on rough terrain. I highly recommend them if you have the time to get it. But it all depends on your circumstances.

Recently, I like build my military units then go after great generals, but it is hard to say you should do this for every circumstance. I have stated in first post, I like to attack early. Doing encampment project early on will make me vulnerable to attack on high difficulty or human opponent because I will have less troops.

This is all my opinion though. If you or anyone would like to add to this or disagree, please do so. It is an important topic on military use in early game.

 

[Victoria]

Why no mention of getting one of the first great generals?

No mention of Military tactics either... just beeline government and sod flanking and support bonuses.
You get an auto eureka on it every game so why not spend a few turns turning your Generals +4 into +10 so it does something decent instead of 6 extra HP

Taking the top civic route to government also gives more gold earlier so more units.... not mentioned in any post I have ever seen here.

When I want to polish my helmet I always take those top 3 first

 

[PYITE]

I agree with your reasoning about accessing your situation in order to prioritize getting one or not.

I view them as the most powerful great people in the game.

This thread is the reason I was asking.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/great-general-stacking.616170/

 

[agonistes]

No mention of Military tactics either... just beeline government and sod flanking and support bonuses.
You get an auto eureka on it every game so why not spend a few turns turning your Generals +4 into +10 so it does something decent instead of 6 extra HP

Taking the top civic route to government also gives more gold earlier so more units.... not mentioned in any post I have ever seen here.

When I want to polish my helmet I always take those top 3 first

Craftsmanship - Flanking. No brainer for optimizing war. And Oligarchy - War of Religions for the +8. So getting +12 is pretty easy.

 

[Silver 00]

I am taking the last few posts as a hint that I have add more military strategy content to further the discussions. However, beware I do have strong opinions on this subject. If you are easily offended by someone who does not share your views then do not read further. I am letting it all loose.

I will fist talk about the military units their best roles and key upgrades to look out for.

Slingers
Main Roles
1) They help you boost archery.
2) They upgrade to archers
3) They also may help you with some early barbarians too, but the above 2 goals are far more important.

Promotion Suggestions
Unless you are desperate and need to defend your city or encampment always go down the following upgrade path
Volley -> Arrow Storm -> Emplacement -> Expert Marksman path.

If you Choose Garrison as first upgrade you should probably always go down the right side to Expert Marksman.

However if your chosen upgrades are Volley, Arrow Storm and Garrison, then it will be a deadly defender unit.
If you have a city or encampment on border of a enemy city though they can become a dangerous offensive unit as well.

Expert Marksman is probably the most powerful upgrade of all. If you get your unit to this upgrade they can change the tide of a battle. Make sure to use them well.

Archers
Main Roles
1) They are your primary attack power until horseman or swordsman. By primary attack power I mean they usually go in first and kill everything.
2) They weaken Cities so a melee (ex. warrior) can take over after hitting it once more.
3) Help you deal with barbarians

Upgrades Suggestions (read slinger upgrade section)

Strategies
1) Hit and Run.
2) Hit, Hit and Hit enemy some more.
3) Taking hills tiles to hit enemy archers on forrest tiles. All archers cannot shoot through forrests or hill that are two tiles away unless they are on a hill tiles. If you have the higher ground you can get 2 shots on enemy archers before they could get close enough to return fire.
4) Building a city or encampment near enemy territories then putting an archer in with Volley, Arrow Storm and Garrison promotions. Can attack city and units around near enemy city with greater damage capabilities.

Warrior
Main Roles
1) They help you deal with early barbarians encampments
2) They capture weakened cities (that archer units have damaged first)
3) They upgrade to swordsman

Strategies
1) Avoid confronting a group of archers with warriors. A group of archers just have an advantage over warriors.
2) Let archers deal with the any military units and city defense. Then let a warrior move in for final blow
3) Try not to let warriors die needlessly. They each have the potential to become a power swordsman (more on this latter).

Promotion Suggestions
I used to always go with Battlecry first, but I believe that was a newbe mistake. A lot of people on multiplayer use archers as their main offensive 2-3 shots can easily kill a warrior. That is why I recommend highly with Tortoise upgrade. The warrior does not usually weaken the city. The archers do that for them. Then a warrior comes in and delivers the final blow, but to do this they must first survive the enemy archers or wall onslaught. I also recommend this on single player as well. The CPU opponent always gets walls. A warrior waits until the archers or siege units to weaken the city then deliver the final blow.

After Tortoise promotion I go with the route that bests deals with the enemy I am attacking or threatened by.

Swordsman
Main Roles
1) They can directly attack cities (so long as the defense is not too high).
2) They can attack group of archers (with little to no archer support). If a swordsman has Totoise upgrade, they are a huge danger to all archers. This is a huge turn around in the game because archers are the supreme attack unit until now. Now archers are the support unit.

Promotion Suggestions (see warrior section)

Heavy Chariot
Just avoid making these. They are not worth it. The only time I have made these was when I had no iron or horse strategic resources. Even then I cringed while making them.

Horseman
They are the most versatile and powerful unit of the ancient era.
Main Roles
1) Attack Cities and units (except pikemen)
2) Out flank melee and range units with there Superior 4 movement points.

Strategies
1) Use them to roll over your opponents weak beginning defenses
2) Destroy weakened units
3) Pilliage and attack. It costs 3 movement points to pilliage and you can still attack in same turn with enough movement points. With promotion you can pilliage for with 1 movement point. This can allow your unit to completely demolish a district in 1 turn.
4) Attack your enemies. Draw in the enemy fire. Then retreat and heal. This is one of my favorite tactics and it works so well because of their superior movement and high attack and defense. Let them take the heat so that your weaker support units (like archers) will not die.

Spearman
I usually avoid making these early on unless my opponent has horsemen and I do not. Be aware that their greatest weaknesses are that they are not early upgradable and archers. I like to think of spearman as weak on start, but strong on finish (due to it's promotions). If a spearman gets the right promotions they will be a force in a game. The problem is that online games moves very quickly throughout the ages, so a spearman will not usually get their time to shine online. Also they will need to survive long enough to get the promotions. Since archers are the main offensive unit early on they will be very vulnerable. In my opinion though, in standard speed games they are a better unit to get.

Main Roles
1) They can kill cavalry units
2) They help deal final blow to city
3) They can defend you cities better against calvary units.
4) Support Bonus. The Square promotion is awesome. If you get a group of 3 or more spearmen together with this promotion they will be tough in early game. A normal support bonus provides +2 strength to adjacent unit. with square promotion an adjacent unit get +4. Get 4 spearmen together they can boost each other by +12 strength.

Strategies
1) Like warriors avoid group of archers. Archers or range units are always their kryptonite. Since they do not have a promotion to defend better against archers they are more vulnerable to attack this way.
2) Like warriors they too can deal final blow to cities
3) When promoted they adapt to the situation better then most other unit in the game. All their promotions are awesome.

Promotion Suggestions
I like all the promotions for a spearman. If you are up against calvary then stick to the left side. If against melee units stick to right side.

That is all for now. It is getting late. I will try to add more to this tomorrow. I still have more to say on all the units I have listed. And I need to add more units too like catapult and Battering Ram. I know people will have their differences with me on some of things I have said. If you are one of those people then construct a good argument why I am wrong. List the reasons clearly so we could have a good debate. And perhaps you may change my mind...

 

[Victoria]

Heavy Chariot
Just avoid making these. They are not worth it. The only time I have made these was when I had no iron or horse strategic resources. Even then I cringed while making them.

Wow!.... really?
So you have never played a knight game with 8 knights and a ram or siege tower?

The only time I make them is when I know I can have iron

 

[stinkubus]

If you use archers to weaken cities the Garrison -> Incendiaries -> Emplacement is the superior upgrade path, imo. Extra strength against the city center and better defense against shots from walls or defending archers. So long as you have an adequate number of units, and get to Machinery in good time to upgrade them when needed, then combat strength vs. units is never an issue.

 

[Silver 00]

Wow!.... really?
So you have never played a knight game with 8 knights and a ram or siege tower?

The only time I make them is when I know I can have iron

I agree that Knights are excellent units for the beginning mid game. The problem is that to upgrade to them gets expensive. Also, the tech you need to upgrade them is about 2 eras away. I will not go much more into knights since this is a discussion on starting. Perhaps in another discussion thread we can discuss knights.

Lets talk about Heavy Chariot though. There strengths and weaknesses in the beginning game. This way people can come to their own conclusions.

Strengths
1) Gains 1 bonus movement if it begins on a flat tile with no woods, rainforests or hills
2) 30 strength. This is 10 strength tougher then a warrior.
3) Calvary unit. Strong against melee units

Weakness
1) They are not quickly upgradable in the beginning game.
ex. Quick upgrades are Slingers -> Archers and Warriors -> Swordsman.
2) They have 3 movement points on flat tiles with no wood, rainforests or hills; however, how often is the map not covered in rough terrain. Not often enough. So they will be limited to 2 movement points a lot.
3) They are tougher then warrior, but a group of archers will pick them off just as easily by using rough terrain and hills to their advantage.

The only times I would consider producing them
1) If I do not have iron and horse resources (rare. Even if I do not have it in first city I can go after them in second city. Or take over another city that has the resource.).
2) Ambush an army on flat terrain (extraordinarily rare).
3) If I will not start to attack my opponent until beginning midgame (I like being aggressive early on. So not likely to happen for me.).

I would rather stick with early upgradable units. Pump out slingers and warrior, then upgrade them. They become a powerful force early on.

Lastly if I had to choose between producing a horseman or chariot, then I will always choose a horseman in early game.

This is all my opinion though and I would like to hear other people's opinions as well.

 

[slowcar]

You usually build chariots a short time before discovering knights. And maybe one or two if you really can't find any horses. Their vulnerability to spears counters the +8 strength (28, not 30) and the bonus movement is often not very relevant.

 

[myclan]

I agree that Knights are excellent units for the beginning mid game. The problem is that to upgrade to them gets expensive. Also, the tech you need to upgrade them is about 2 eras away. I will not go much more into knights since this is a discussion on starting. Perhaps in another discussion thread we can discuss knights.

Lets talk about Heavy Chariot though. There strengths and weaknesses in the beginning game. This way people can come to their own conclusions.

Strengths
1) Gains 1 bonus movement if it begins on a flat tile with no woods, rainforests or hills
2) 30 strength. This is 10 strength tougher then a warrior.
3) Calvary unit. Strong against melee units

Weakness
1) They are not quickly upgradable in the beginning game.
ex. Quick upgrades are Slingers -> Archers and Warriors -> Swordsman.
2) They have 3 movement points on flat tiles with no wood, rainforests or hills; however, how often is the map not covered in rough terrain. Not often enough. So they will be limited to 2 movement points a lot.
3) They are tougher then warrior, but a group of archers will pick them off just as easily by using rough terrain and hills to their advantage.

The only times I would consider producing them
1) If I do not have iron and horse resources (rare. Even if I do not have it in first city I can go after them in second city. Or take over another city that has the resource.).
2) Ambush an army on flat terrain (extraordinarily rare).
3) If I will not start to attack my opponent until beginning midgame (I like being aggressive early on. So not likely to happen for me.).

I would rather stick with early upgradable units. Pump out slingers and warrior, then upgrade them. They become a powerful force early on.

Lastly if I had to choose between producing a horseman or chariot, then I will always choose a horseman in early game.

This is all my opinion though and I would like to hear other people's opinions as well.

Actually I like heavy chariot a lot and love to build them for early rush, because
1: Sometimes iron is just too far and my settle can't reach there is a short time.
2. Sometimes I have to start a battle where there are a lot of forest/rainforest/hill, the range of archer is limited and "move and shoot' become more difficult. So you can't ensure that your archers are doing enough damage to kill all the warriror/archer moving towards, and the best unit to protect my archers before swordman come online is heavy chariot.
3. They move fast in open terrain and sometime it is needed to put a city under siege sooner

 

[Victoria]

I have been playing with Gorgo a lot lately... Either I can get those knights earlier than most with iron in which case I will build 4 chariots soon before knights..... or.. in fact always now I will build spears... GG, adjacency, support, double support they can move 4 and get Oligarchy... and soooo much earlier!