Early game strategy

[MikeUK]

On most of my games the computer always powers ahead of me early on and I can't understand why! I assume that it follows the same laws as human players yet at the moment in my game it is way ahead early on. It feels to me like there is only a limited strategy early in the game with regards to producing things and expanding. Yet I can't understand why the computer is so quick.

The main points of my early game strategy are:

Building my first city.
Building a warrior to defend it.
Building a scout to search for villages.
Building a monumet.
Building a workers and firstly using them to chop trees to speed up production.
Aiming to get Masonry and build the Great Wall to prevent barbarian attacks.
Having specialised cities. My first being one to produce commerce. I have cottages built on flood plains and these are growing. My next city is one where I will build farms and produce great people. I pretty much repeat this unless I see some great resources that provide happiness or health.
I look to build libraries early as well as monastries to speed up research.
When I have a city size above 3 I start to produce a new settler.
I aim to have around 10 cities altogether.

Am I going wrong somewhere?

 

[Rusty Edge]

Civ is situational. Settings matter ( difficulty level, game speed, map size, etc.) So does the leader for that matter. Are you Inca?

Generally, if you're playing against an A.I. rather than a human, your top priority isn't a defender for your city. It was in civ I, but you don't need a defender before barb people appear, because animals won't enter your borders.

If you have seafood and fishing I recommend a workboat as a first build, and that you scout with the warrior or scout you started with. I won't build a worker unless I expect him to be able to improve something as soon as he's built. Not early on a forest start.

 

[Joesocwork]

And being situational, one of the classic strategies I've read and used is that if you got a tiny map and you have military designs, a possibility is to start out creating warriors one right after the other, beeline in tech to build swordsmen, and conquer your closest neighbors to get your edge/lead.

The higher up you play in difficulty, the more time it will take to build up your founding city before you can get the resources going to branch out. I personally think that scouting for resources to develop with your workers, goody huts, and potential allies is a priority right off the bat. But how much you devote to it might be in relationship to how much risk you feel you can handle in city protection.

 

[MrCynical]

1)There is no point in building a monument in your capital city unless you're playing a Charismatic civ (and even then you don't need it until your city has grown a few points). For most civs all monuments do is provide a bit of culture to get the first border expansion - your capital already has the palace which will do this.

2)Generally you want workers as fast as possible. Beginning building a worker on turn 1 is a good strategy on the majority of maps. Starts with seafood, and where you start with fishing are the only common exception (a workboat is better there). Improved resources are just so much better than unimproved ones that the slowing of your city growth is well worth it.

3)In single player games defending your city is not immediately necessary. The AI won't attack immediately, and there's a grace period before barbarians (not animals) appear.

Otherwise you seem to be on roughly the right lines for a fairly peaceful game.

 

[Joshua368]

Time to be blunt and help you. While its true that your exact strategy varies based on your situation, your starting order is pretty poor.

Building a warrior to defend it.

This can wait. You do not need defense right away as other civs won't war when they first meet you and barbs take a few thousand years to show up (varies based on difficulty level)

Building a scout to search for villages.

Your first scout/warrior should be enough at the beginning. Once you're more established you can make more scouting units, but there are more important things to build first.

Also remember to have your first explorer do a large circle around your city, and not just beeline far off in a random direction. You want to find the best nearby city sites!

Building a monumet.

This is your capital, right? It already begins with +2 culture from the palace, why the heck would you waste time building a momument?

Building a workers and firstly using them to chop trees to speed up production.

Note that you say "finally". Even you should be able to tell that following this build path you get your first worker way too late, and will put you at a disadvantage. In most situations, the worker will be the very first thing you build, so you can work whatever food is nearby ASAP. Yes growth will be halted at size 1, but this will catch up once you have a worked food tile.

Pretty much the only times you don't build a worker first is if you have fishing and seafood (build a workboat instead) or the circumstances mean the worker won't have anything to do as soon as he's built.

How many cities do you typically have by 1 AD?

 

[CLST]

Typically worker for first build, as long as when you get it out it will have something to do. You want to get those workers and you want to start chopping trees ASAP, because this gets you online in a hurry.

 

[MikeUK]

Thanks guys for the advice! I suppose I've always tried to increase the size of my cities before producing workers. I'll try some of your tips the next time I play!

 

[Pir Lan Tota]

One piece of advise, turn off Goody Huts. They make no sence and unbalance the game to much imho. Also, turn on Tech Brokering, prevent the AI to spread each tech over the entire world in 1 turn, unless they research it themselves first.

 

[Jerrymander]

One piece of advise, turn off Goody Huts. They make no sence and unbalance the game to much imho.

oh yeah, you better strip all leaders of their traits and make all the civs have the same UU and UB, because those unbalance the game to much imho

 

[Rusty Edge]

One piece of advise, turn off Goody Huts. They make no sence and unbalance the game to much imho. Also, turn on Tech Brokering, prevent the AI to spread each tech over the entire world in 1 turn, unless they research it themselves first.

One person's "unbalanced " is another's "Interesting and Unpredictable".


Don't you mean turn on the "No Technology Brokering" option?

( tech Brokering and Trading are the defaults)

 

[LegionSteve]

One piece of advise, turn off Goody Huts.

Personally I like them, they are just one of the many random things you have to deal with in Civ. But I guess that's why they made it an option. In my current game I got hunting and animal husbandry from huts (with sheep right next to my capital and a worker already on the way). Not earth shattering, but very nice. Then I got the herbal random event, took the and fatalities throughout my land, and failed the 90% chance for a health bonus. Sid giveth, and Sid taketh away...

 

[Pitman]

Whether or not you build a worker first may depend on your starting techs and starting place. Sometimes (the too-wooded starts, for example), I may not have the right techs to use the worker for anything when it appears. That's wasted time. In those situations, you want another warrior or scout, because they you can always use them--and in fact the goody huts they find may give you one of those techs you need.

As people have said, no reason to build a monument at all. This is the one city you will have which you are unlikely to ever have to worry about its cultural growth.

 

[agentsmith952]

This can wait. You do not need defense right away as other civs won't war when they first meet you and barbs take a few thousand years to show up (varies based on difficulty level)

I don't know, I think starting with a Warrior can be a good thing, but maybe not for city defense.

Of course it's situational, but depending on starting techs you can build a warrior and then a worker before you can even reach Bronze Working to chop those trees.

If your civ starts with a Warrior and you pop another Warrior out first, a two Warrior team can early rush a close by opposing capital on easier difficulty levels (I play on Noble at the moment). I've taken an easy second city or wiped out an opposing civ very early this way many a time.

 

[The Doodler]

oh yeah, you better strip all leaders of their traits and make all the civs have the same UU and UB, because those unbalance the game to much imho

You seem to constantly reply with some sarcastic and/or elitist comment. Please stop it.

 

[CLST]

You seem to constantly reply with some sarcastic and/or elitist comment. Please stop it.

You know, this is elitist.

 

[CLST]

I don't know, I think starting with a Warrior can be a good thing, but maybe not for city defense.

Of course it's situational, but depending on starting techs you can build a warrior and then a worker before you can even reach Bronze Working to chop those trees.

If your civ starts with a Warrior and you pop another Warrior out first, a two Warrior team can early rush a close by opposing capital on easier difficulty levels (I play on Noble at the moment). I've taken an easy second city or wiped out an opposing civ very early this way many a time.

Also you can start work on a warrior, and then change it to a worker after your pop goes up, or to time with finishing a tech so that your worker doesn't sit around idle.

 

[Gumbolt]

erm beeline bronze working.

Worker, (chop) worker, chop settler. Somewhere in between a warrior to protect your settler. if you do this right second city by 3000bc -2800bc with 2 workers. By 2000-1700bc 4 cities. A lot of forest will vanish so make sure to payback your carbon footprint.

Bears, wolves, panther and lions (animals) dont enter your cultural area. I dont see the great wall as an urgent wonder. Build cities near coasts and dont leave gaps for barbs to appears.


The one exception to the above strategy is to steal a worker from a nearby civ.
1. build warrior.
2. Use starting warrior / scout to find AI.
3. Locate worker near AI cultural borders
4. Attack and steal worker.

This will really slow down the AI. If your playing below prince the AI will only have warriors defending anyway. Thats why an early rush is easier on lower levels.

If I am playing an imperialist leader I go settler, warrior, worker, worker or settler.

I think i gave you this advice in another post.

 

[Gumbolt]

As for second part of your planning. Dont plan too early. Your second city may not always be your great people farm. As for monastries I build very few of these early on unless i want to spread a religion or want to improve a growing science city. 10% of 3-4 science beakers is not much early on.

Focus on building up to 7-8 cities before 1ad. When your past 3-4 cities concentrate on roads, cottages, farms and building axemen for defences and an early war. If your science rate is affordable over 30- 50% there no reason why you should be sticking with 3-4 cities.

To win on civ 4 I have to constantly expand be it through claiming empty land or attacking my neighbours.

If you only have 1-2 cities and your building a wonder this will cripple your early growth and the Ai will happily eat up land you could of built cities on.