Early Game Strategies

[amirsan]

Some people (used to be myself) still wonder how the AI expands so quickly in Monarch and Diety levels. Some of you know some strats. and some of you don't, so post your suggestions on early game start outs(building ques and military notes).

 

[Chieftess]

Well, in the higher levels, the AI outproduces you, so they expand quicker. If you doubled every 10 turns it would be like this:

If you had 1 settler:

City: 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32 - 64
Turn: 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 70

If you had 2 settlers:

City: 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32 - 64 - 128
Turn: 10 - 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 70


Granted, numbers aren't going to turn out like that, since it depends on the terrain, and your infrastructure. (2 roads to the next city gets 1 settler there faster. 3 roads wastes turns, and that's 1 less road for settler #2, thus slowing down expansion).

 

[col]

Have a look at Cracker's work on the early game in the Strategy articles. Its the nearest thing to the definitive guide and gives you a lot of information about the kind of decisions you need to make and why.