Ancient Era Theory Crafting

[playshogi]

There is no warmonger penalty in the ancient era, so speeding through this era by grabbing every possible eureka might be a mistake. I think this is the best time to conquer nearby cities, even city-states where you got the first envoy for free.

 

[rpgalon]

If you chop jungle/forest outside your city borders, do you get the production?

I could see builders being rushed out to clear all green in the map to Kickstart a great city.

If you can chop for production outside your civ borders, I can see a lot of fighting over builders and territory with wood.

If you can escort a couple of builders close to another civ future forests and chop them down, you can save yours for later while denying for them.

 

[joncnunn]

There is no warmonger penalty in the ancient era, so speeding through this era by grabbing every possible eureka might be a mistake. I think this is the best time to conquer nearby cities, even city-states where you got the first envoy for free.

That's a better idea for Germany than anyone else. For one thing if you are playing Germany, then AI Germany won't be in the game to denounce you for having killed city states.

If you chop jungle/forest outside your city borders, do you get the production?

I could see builders being rushed out to clear all green in the map to Kickstart a great city.

If you can chop for production outside your civ borders, I can see a lot of fighting over builders and territory with wood.

If you can escort a couple of builders close to another civ future forests and chop them down, you can save yours for later while denying for them.

I've not seen a video of someone trying to chop forest or drain marsh outside their borders.

 

[Galbias]

There is no warmonger penalty in the ancient era, so speeding through this era by grabbing every possible eureka might be a mistake. I think this is the best time to conquer nearby cities, even city-states where you got the first envoy for free.

How viable is it to conquer a city while still in Ancient Era? Seriously asking because I think you'd have to either really, really rush military (more viable if you have an Ancient Era UU) and/or artificially delay your progress, I believe Civics can take you to a new era as well as Technologies.

 

[Promethian]

That's a better idea for Germany than anyone else. For one thing if you are playing Germany, then AI Germany won't be in the game to denounce you for having killed city states.

I've not seen a video of someone trying to chop forest or drain marsh outside their borders.

Don't you have it backwards with Germany? In the Quill Norway game Germany wagged their fingers at him for sending Envoys to City States. Germany has a combat bonus against city states. I would think Germany would be in favor of conquering city states.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

Don't you have it backwards with Germany? In the Quill Norway game Germany wagged their fingers at him for sending Envoys to City States. Germany has a combat bonus against city states. I would think Germany would be in favor of conquering city states.

It's both. Fred hates anyone who becomes the Suzerain of a City State (because that means you might protect them) and anyone who conquers a City State (because he wants to do that himself). He only likes people who ignore City States altogether.

 

[stealth_nsk]

How viable is it to conquer a city while still in Ancient Era? Seriously asking because I think you'd have to either really, really rush military (more viable if you have an Ancient Era UU) and/or artificially delay your progress, I believe Civics can take you to a new era as well as Technologies.

If there are a lot of barbarians you may want to build a significant army and if your opponent is weakened by those barbarians, you may use this army to conquer. Actually if the city doesn't have walls and defenders, army as little as 2 Warriors + 1 Slinger, or 1 Warrior + 2 Slingers could take a city if terrain allow them to block it.

EDIT: Of course I don't think it will be a common case.

 

[Ornen]

It's both. Fred hates anyone who becomes the Suzerain of a City State (because that means you might protect them) and anyone who conquers a City State (because he wants to do that himself). He only likes people who ignore City States altogether.

Fred is gonna be the most hated AI when this game comes out. There's a lot we don't know about how the game itself will play out, but I guarantee you this guy is gonna be hated.

 

[Promethian]

Fred is gonna be the most hated AI when this game comes out. There's a lot we don't know about how the game itself will play out, but I guarantee you this guy is gonna be hated.

Agreed. Even in the worst case scenario of a lot of competition for Suzeran you are going to end up focus firing your envoys to lock down a bonus. Additionally the 6 point bonus is damned useful, enough so that I would be willing to war to keep him off off a city state I have invested in.

 

[King Jason]

How viable is it to conquer a city while still in Ancient Era? Seriously asking because I think you'd have to either really, really rush military (more viable if you have an Ancient Era UU) and/or artificially delay your progress, I believe Civics can take you to a new era as well as Technologies.

With the difficulty we're seeing - it's incredibly viable. Which is the main reason we really are in no position to talk strategy until we actually have an accurate representation of the the competition in the game is actually going to be like. Apart from the fact that it's "prince" - the game may very well not even be tuned correctly in these builds. Taking for example, the A.I. granting egregious trade deals to the players (and, presumably, each other in the case of joint wars and other diplo-oriented agreements).

Returning to your question, you can take a city with 2-3 archers and a warrior with virtually no meaningful opposition. Building those things does not deter your progress in any meaningful way. In fact, most players seem to get about that force to deal with barbarians anyway.

Really, the only legitimate opposition in play at the moment is if one of the streamers have had the misfortune of being surrounded by two or more barbarian camps that also target them and not other neighboring civs or city-states. The A.I. might as well be trumped up city-states in the current build. So there's no honest way to make any form of assessment on what players should or shouldn't be doing.

 

[Monika TSarn]

There are multiple things that will change around any strict build order you can think of.
- Civilizations are to different to actually have all the same build order, that would not be playing to their strengths.
- A build order has to consider the tech boosts you get and need, possibly changing things
- The terrain of your first city is important. Unimproved tiles can be much better then in Civ 5. food 2 production is available - if you have tiles that good, maybe you do not need a builder early.
- A city looses one population when building a settler, and optimally you would grow back one before building the next. If you have 5 really good tiles to work, you could time it so that you grow to 6 pop just as the settler is finished, so that you always keep working those. If your starting city isn't that great, maybe 5 population is the optimal point. This also of course depends on your housing situation.
- What city states you meet can be important as well. If you get a cultural city state very early, you can probably afford to wait for the monument longer.

I really like civilizations with an early advantage, so I've been thinking about their unique ways to start up.
- Rome: Free monument, that means twice the culture, and earlier civics. Maybe you actually wait for craftsmanship to build your first slinger with a 50% production bonus ?
- Germany: You get two military bonuses very early, maybe building two or three scouts to actually profit from the double experience for recon units policy nobody else will use.
- China: Your bonus to early wonders with builders runs out quickly, so why not build the pyramids, so that your builders have more charges later on for great wall spamming ?
- Russia: Early religion seems to be their trick - work tundra tiles for an early pantheon, then build your cheap holy site with a tundra bonus and get a religion before anybody else.
- Sumeria: Perhaps build war carts instead of scouts.

 

[Promethian]

I really like civilizations with an early advantage, so I've been thinking about their unique ways to start up.
- Rome: Free monument, that means twice the culture, and earlier civics. Maybe you actually wait for craftsmanship to build your first slinger with a 50% production bonus ?
- Germany: You get two military bonuses very early, maybe building two or three scouts to actually profit from the double experience for recon units policy nobody else will use.
- China: Your bonus to early wonders with builders runs out quickly, so why not build the pyramids, so that your builders have more charges later on for great wall spamming ?
- Russia: Early religion seems to be their trick - work tundra tiles for an early pantheon, then build your cheap holy site with a tundra bonus and get a religion before anybody else.
- Sumeria: Perhaps build war carts instead of scouts.

Don't forget Aztecs. Higher base strength warriors that turn defeated enemy civ (not barbarian) units into workers is one hell of an early advantage and definitely affects your build order.

 

[Gintoki89]

I really like civilizations with an early advantage, so I've been thinking about their unique ways to start up.
- Rome: Free monument, that means twice the culture, and earlier civics. Maybe you actually wait for craftsmanship to build your first slinger with a 50% production bonus ?
- Germany: You get two military bonuses very early, maybe building two or three scouts to actually profit from the double experience for recon units policy nobody else will use.
- China: Your bonus to early wonders with builders runs out quickly, so why not build the pyramids, so that your builders have more charges later on for great wall spamming ?
- Russia: Early religion seems to be their trick - work tundra tiles for an early pantheon, then build your cheap holy site with a tundra bonus and get a religion before anybody else.
- Sumeria: Perhaps build war carts instead of scouts.

Yeah with China, and since the Pyramids give a free builder anyways, I would think just full 4-builder-charging the pyramids would generally be a good idea.

 

[joncnunn]

How viable is it to conquer a city while still in Ancient Era? Seriously asking because I think you'd have to either really, really rush military (more viable if you have an Ancient Era UU) and/or artificially delay your progress, I believe Civics can take you to a new era as well as Technologies.

Difficulty level dependent; it would be a peace of cake to rush a close enough AI to steal their capital on Prince; in which the AI isn't expected to get any extra starting units.
By the time Immortal is reached though, it's unlikely to be viable due to AI starting with several units.

Now on any difficulty level, if the AI forward settles right next to you; it becomes very viable, but this is much more likely to occur in early Classical than Ancient.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Capital starts with Scout, Scout, Builder, Slinger, Settler, Granary, Slinger, Settler, Monument, Slinger, Settler, Builder, Slinger, Settler.

Way too much cruft here for a 'fast expansion' start. Granary is pretty unnecessary (unless wheat and rice present), because building multiple settlers will keep your pop below the housing cap.
Scouts, too, are questionable. Maybe one, but not two. You'll need more real military units to fend off the barbarians from multiple cities, they can and will get rather aggro fast.
The culture points from monuments are desirable earlier to get to decent policies and governments quicker.

So, I'd suggest something along the lines of
Slinger, Builder, Warrior, Settler, Monument, Slinger or Warrior, Settler, Campus or Holy Site, Builder, Settler, Holy Site or Campus, Settler. Hopefully with enough cash to buy more builders.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

Way too much cruft here for a 'fast expansion' start. Granary is pretty unnecessary (unless wheat and rice present), because building multiple settlers will keep your pop below the housing cap.
Scouts, too, are questionable. Maybe one, but not two. You'll need more real military units to fend off the barbarians from multiple cities, they can and will get rather aggro fast.
The culture points from monuments are desirable earlier to get to decent policies and governments quicker.

So, I'd suggest something along the lines of
Slinger, Builder, Warrior, Settler, Monument, Slinger or Warrior, Settler, Campus or Holy Site, Builder, Settler, Holy Site or Campus, Settler. Hopefully with enough cash to buy more builders.

Wheat/Rice bonus is associated with Water Mill, not Granary.
Scouts are not questionable, they are almost mandatory on Pangea at least - 4 early Eurekas/Inspirations depend on them, CS first envoy bonuses are huge, tribal villages are powerful, and you unlock CS quests much earlier (and can focus on ones you find most important).
And again, I am pretty sure that you need to extract as much as you can from policy cards, so Settler, x, x, Settler, x, x, Settler is really unlikely to be optimal production line.

 

[vladstrutzu]

Hmm... No early warmonger penalty?! Cut forest for bonus production?! The good ol' days of civ 4 are back upon us!! Clear cut your continent of trees and opponents

Seriously! With proper civics bonuses, promotions from barbarians and prior aggression even scouts can become very powerful. And cities can only provide an opposition if they have walls. And now the cities can be encircled so they don't regenerate health(from what I can see in streams)...

With over 4000h in civ 4 I will feel as home with civ 6

 

[Promethian]

Hmm... No early warmonger penalty?! Cut forest for bonus production?! The good ol' days of civ 4 are back upon us!! Clear cut your continent of trees and opponents

Seriously! With proper civics bonuses, promotions from barbarians and prior aggression even scouts can become very powerful. And cities can only provide an opposition if they have walls. And now the cities can be encircled so they don't regenerate health(from what I can see in streams)...

With over 4000h in civ 4 I will feel as home with civ 6

Chopping forest uses a builder charge. So it gives you however much production, that is effectively penalized by 1/3 the production cost of a builder and removing a source of production.

 

[pholtz]

Chopping forest uses a builder charge. So it gives you however much production, that is effectively penalized by 1/3 the production cost of a builder and removing a source of production.

Also, for some districts or civ abilities, forests give a bonus. Forests by a river are good sources of production.

 

[God of Kings]

Planting forests on tundra makes the tile more productive.