Early Game Strategy

[Afforess]

Normally, Civilization penalizes players for expanding empires too fast in the early game. Unit support costs and city maintenance are real killers. Then, if you're playing with the Revolutions mod on, poor finances can kill you.

Fortunately, with the addition of new techs and units, particularly, the trade caravan unit; one can literally ignore their gold per turn. When you start a game, either in advanced start or regular, build a few workers quick and research bronze working. Once you can chop trees, build all the early wonders, particularly Stonehenge for it's culture bonus, quickly, using the tree bonuses to "1 turn" many of them. Now, find a rival civilization near you, and build a road to their border and donate some techs to allow "Open Borders." Now, once your capital is size 5 or so, with a some farms or cottages around it, begin building cities, many cities. Just churn out as many settlers and protective units as possible. Start settling them. You should keep your science slider at about 70%, so you still research; ignore the fact that you may be losing 20 or 30 gold per turn. Now, when your reserves run low, build a trade caravan; hopefully you researched trade by now. Send it to your friendly AI to receive a nice cash bonus. Build more cities whilst ignoring your mounting gold deficit.

See, just like the real US Gov, you can ignore your deficit as long as you have cash to burn. This way, you can have 10-15 cities very fast, using up all the available slots on the map. The AI's will expand much slower with maybe only 3-4 cities each. Now, with your massive production abilities, it should be easy to build up armies and crush the AI before the industrial era; just don't forget to leave one until the end as capturing cities and those trade caravans power your finances. Who would have though those weak caravan's were useful after all?

 

[CivEikka]

And while building those caravans it will be pretty nice to tech mathematics to get Patrician (Unlimited merchants +1gold/specialist).

 

[Gudinsdiv]

I have been bee-lining to Monotheism lately as an early strategy and gunning for the GP to build Solomon's Temple.
This strategy really a) pumps up the cash as Judaism explodes across the map, and b) creates a great foundation for expanded gold and health through temples and Masada.

My impression, however, is that crimping on your science so much creates unrest in your population, increasing the risk for revolution.
Then again, I NEVER adopt slavery, either, so maybe I get a little too progressive as far as game mechanics go.

 

[generalstaff]

I mainly research techs which reveal resources; the goal of that is for city planning. I also run deficits early on in exchange for science, being the right two techs ahead early on turns out to be ten to twenty later on. I play Revolutions, which means this is risky, however, this problem can be dealt with by gaining Monarchy early and running Charity; a few times I temporarily ran Democracy for stability.

As for military, I tend to be defensive early on, unless its the difference between me being denied Stone or Iron. I like Stone due to its importance in early wonders and Iron is necessary to wage Medieval Age wars, which gain should put you in a good position to be powerful enough to conquer any strategic resource you need, and should provide a good base for resource trading for any luxury/health resource needed.

 

[Bezhukov]

Um, chopping down all your forests early is what gets the AI in so much trouble. Lumbermills are the strongest mid-game flatland improvement (especially with Caste and, later, railroads) and you'll need that health in the industrial age. Caravans are a nice expedient for medieval financial troubles, but on higher difficulty levels, you'll need those hammers to build adequate defenses to keep the AI from coming to call.

Better to beeline Monarchy to turn off the maintenance penalty from new cities once you hit 3/4 - this also lets you build roads to get +1 hammer off of mines. Reminds me a little of getting out of of the Despotism penalty in early Civ.

Once you hit Monarchy, new cities should sit on one pop working a mined/roaded hill until key infra is built (culture source, granary, forge, fish hut/butchery if you have the resources) before growing out. Use your core cities for military while new cities get up to speed (another thing the AI butchers).

 

[Carwyn]

Better to beeline Monarchy to turn off the maintenance penalty from new cities once you hit 3/4 - this also lets you build roads to get +1 hammer off of mines. Reminds me a little of getting out of of the Despotism penalty in early Civ.

Once you hit Monarchy, new cities should sit on one pop working a mined/roaded hill until key infra is built (culture source, granary, forge, fish hut/butchery if you have the resources) before growing out. Use your core cities for military while new cities get up to speed (another thing the AI butchers).

Why would it be best to stop them at one pop, don't they build faster overall if they grow and get more population? Now I have to try this and see how it works...

 

[Bezhukov]

Why would it be best to stop them at one pop, don't they build faster overall if they grow and get more population? Now I have to try this and see how it works...

Not if it takes them 30-40 turns of no/little production to get that first pop. During those turns you could be getting your infra up. Post-Monarchy, forested-mined-roaded hills are the powerhouse tile. Can't afford to spend so many turns not working them, plus smaller cities cost less maintenance.