!!!Could use some advise from the pros!!!

[deadlyconqueror]

Hey guys can anyone give me some advise on a good civ start. Like what should I do when I build my first city. I have an idea but I have herd that you should always build a grainary first. Is this what I should do for all the cities or what. Please help!!! Thanx

 

[MTheil3508]

When I start out, my build order is as follows:

In Capital:
Warrior, settler*5, granary, temple, barracks, etc.

Other Cities:
warrior, settler, warrior, settler, temple, settler, granary, settler, etc.

The most important thing to do first in the game is to expand. Your second priority is to build up your military. Third, get as many resources as possible. These may vary in importance due to varing conditions, but you can get the idea.

Always have one worker per city. Many times people only have five workers for 20 cities. This is bad. It will be much faster to complete any jobs if you have more workers.

At the beginning of the game, don't irrigate. When you start the game you are in Despotism. this gov't (and anarchy) limit the number of food you can get per tile. It is better if you mine the tiles instead.

Also with your workers, build up your trade network (connect all of your cities with roads). This helps you by moving your units faster, allowing you to have any resources (that your workers build a road on), and gives you more commerce.

Hope this helps. And good luck.

 

[Thoth]

Step 1: Follow this link: Cracker's Opening Stragies Page

Step 2: Study the material well, and use it in your next few games


Step 3: Bow down and worship Cracker's strategic wisom.

 

[deadlyconqueror]

Hey Thanks guys. Hey MTheil3508 this really help alot. But this is what I usually do. When I first build a city: worker, barraks, warrior, settler. For the worker I put them on automate so they do what is best for the civ. I read this in the strat. book. Well I will go with yours because it sound pretty good. Thanks I hope we can help each other out in the future.

 

[MTheil3508]

Don't always trust the automate function. You can do it, but watch the workers. The best thing to do is combine automate(don't change) and manual workers.

 

[deadlyconqueror]

Hey what is the best way to conquer or attack nearby civs

 

[zagnut]

MTheil's advice is good. You may wonder why he doesn't emphasize building city improvements. You can't get too bogged down in city improvements if you are expanding fast with settlers and building up your military. However, it is better to sacrifice building the city improvements for the expansion/military.

Here is a recent post from Moonsinger that I thought was great advice on how to start the game:

"Regent, Monarch, Emperor, or Deity, the starting method is really the same for all levels.

1. Start your first city at 4000BC and tell it to build 2 warriors. If you don't have Pottery, research it now and set your science slider to 100%. You will discover Pottery within 22 turns or less (22 turns at Deity level, much less at lower level).

2. After building the first 2 warriors, set it to build a great wonder, barracks, temple, or whatever that takes the longest time to build. Note: we just want to store the shields at this point. Once we discover Pottery, we will immediately switch it to build a granary. In the mean time, road and irrigate the food bonus tiles within the city. After the granary is built, set it to continuously produce settlers. That's it. We now have a settler production structure in place.

3. Find a good spot to build your second city (make sure it get good shield production and not too far from your palace) and immediately build a barracks. After the barracks is done, set this cities to continuously produce military units. That's it. We now have a war production structure in place.

4. Depend on your playing style, do what you will with the rest of your cities. You could build more settler production city or more military production city or even great wonders (culture production city)."

The best way to attack is to mass your forces. In the early game if you can get iron, the best attack units are the Horseman and the Swordsman. These give you both strength and mobility. But there is no one way to go about it. Read the articles in the War Academy - follow Thoth's link above.

 

[MTheil3508]

In addition to massing your forces, send a few horsemen to pillage their resources before you attack.

Also try sending a few units in the opposite direction you will attack, this will catch the AI off guard and you will have less units to battle.

 

[wilbill]

Originally posted by deadlyconqueror
For the worker I put them on automate so they do what is best for the civ. I read this in the strat. book.

Wellll... not necessarily. Automated workers don't always do what's best - in fact they can do some pretty stupid things. Hunt around the forums and you'll find some very good threads on how to use your workers to get the most out of your cities, especially in the early game. Also, you'll probably get better advice here than in the strategy book.
Good Luck.

 

[Bamspeedy]

What your opening build order is depends on many things, like how much room you have to expand, terrain, opponents, etc. On tiny maps, granaries are nearly useless to build because you'll run out of room too quickly to expand properly if waiting to build a granary. If there is a great city site (lots of bonus resources) close to your capital, it is usually better to build a settler and get that city set up quickly before building a granary in your capital. Pangea maps and larger maps, you will want more explorers out quicker. But for the most part, you should focus mostly on workers, settlers (maybe a granary or two), and scouts/military units. When you run out of room to expand, then switch to either improvements, or more military to conquer your neighbors.

don't automate at all while you are in despotism. It irrigates grassland which is useless (except for on bonus resources or if you need to get the irrigation to reach your plains) while you are in despotism. The longer you manually control workers, the better you will be. When you do get too many workers where it is a pain to move them all, use Shift-A, not just 'A' or the automate button. This way, the workers won't change mines to irrigation, or irrigation to mines.

 

[SanPellegrino]

don't build a worker first, they coat one pop point, which slows your expansion dramatically.

 

[anarres]

Hmm. Some of my key points would be:

Never automate workers
They are not intelligent human beings with complex brains, instead they are as stupid or as clever as the AI is. Since you are trying to beat the AI (and I can assure you that you are cleverer than the AI), you should control the workers yourself.

Have a flexible build order
As Bamspeedy says, the build order should depend on many things. One thing it should never be is unchangable. I often change my mind halfway through building something because more informaition has come to light since I started.

Granaries can be your friend
However, having said that, on standard size maps and above I nearly always produce a warrior or two first to explore, then a granary to support quicker expansion. If the tiles are poor for production I will produce a settler first, and try to get that to a good spot where the production is better, then I can build a granary in that one.

If possible, try to only produce workers and settlers from cioties with granaries. Remember this is just a guideline, and I have already given an example of not following it, but it is an amazingly good one. Also try to keep these settler and worker producing cities under size 7 while they are producing them, as you will lose less food. The moral of this rule is efficiency.

Expansion is key
Expand to fill the land as quickly as possible. Do this at the cost of everything else. I don't mean let the AI invade you, or don't build any defensive units, instead make sure you are producing settlers as fast a possible.

You can take risks in the early game. The AI is very rarely agressive immediately, and will normally ignore your cities without any defenders in. This rule only applies during the land grabbing phase, because after that comes the

I'm gonna fight anyone I can phase
This may seem a strange phase to have, but the AI started it (or at lease the AI will start it if you don't). Once the AI can not expand they will quickly build a few units and march off to war. There is a definate shift in AI behaviour at this point, and you need to be aware of when this is.

The soloution is to now build barrcaks in all your cities. With the full compliment of civs, I would expect to have somewhere between 6 and 10 cities, although this has been as low as 2 and as high as 20 before. You should be missing pretty much all other improvements, apart from maybe a temple or two built to grab border lands, or a barracks built to pass the time between settlers.

With barracks everywhere you can build the latest units (I choose horsemen if I have horses, swords if no horses, and archers if no iron either). I won't go in to how I wage war, suffice to say get a stack of about 10 units to be sure of not getting wiped.

Hmm. That for me is a good basic strategy for the early game, but I can't emphasise enough that you should use the principals of playing, and not any hard set rules. Every game is unique, so flexibility is key.

 

[Dr. Dr. Doktor]

Originally posted by deadlyconqueror
Hey what is the best way to conquer or attack nearby civs

Practice attack strategies on a tiny pangea map on deity and restart if you don't get a starting position in the centre.

Choose Germans which have archers and spearmen from the beginning. The Chinese will do as well.

Build three or, if possible four cities and use your worker to build mines and roads towards enemy territory

Produce mutiple strike groups of four archers and one spearman.

The objective is now to surprise attack enemy settlers transgressing your territory and thus gain free workers.

Next, use your strike groups to attack enemy cities. On average your casualities will be two archers per city. Make sure you get next to the cities in one turn, otherwise the enemy civ will often waste citizens to rush spearman defenders.

Use the luxury slider to your advantage and minimise research - except maybe if you research swordsmen - which you should since preventing the enemy from having acces to iron is key to succes.

Following this strategy will gain you plenty of free workers which you can use to build up your internal road network. This is basicly the prime objective. the secondary objective is to gain free technology through peace negotiations.

The third objective - territorial expansion - can wait for the time being when your cities are up and running. This means your capital city is capable of producing an archer every second turn, and the surrounding cities maybe one every fourth or fifth turn. (corruption is greater on tiny maps)

When you have maybe ten archers and a couple of spearman attack again this time to expand your territory. If one of the enemy civs have built the great library this is the one civ you should seek to destroy first - since then all your money can be spent on upgrading and luxururies until education is discovered.

In terms of infrastructure you should focus on barracks and walls.

Barracks will give you an edge in combat and will make leader apperance more likely. Walls are important in that the enemy civs will inevitably make some counterattacks against your cities. laugh at the enemy warriors as they try to attack your spearmen in your cities.

The greater your territory gets the less importance internal communications is. With one enemy civ destroyed it is best if you through careful diplomacy can get the weaker of the two remaining civs to join you - or you can join it - in an attack on the stronger civ. You should have acces to iron by now. If you have accumulated a large treasury, consider whether producing warriors before hooking up to an iron resource is a feasible option in terms of saving time. And time is crucial on deity.

You will then dicover that your victory is foregone conclusion. Of course things might go horribly wrong,

 

[Matt P]

Sounds pretty simple Doc.

I usually try an aggressive strategy early on, but (as you eluded to) things usually go horribly wrong and I soon change tactics.