Early strategy question

[bluejay]

After playing quite a few games of Civ 3 in recent months, I've managed to get to Quartermaster, but am not one of the top players by any means. Partly it may be my opening strategy.

Suppose that I've used MapFinder to find a starting position that will yield a 4-turn settler factory. Has anyone done a careful analysis of what's the proper build order in this situation? I've been choosing tribes that have Pottery to start, so a granary is possible.

I've been building warrior (used for exploration), granary, then settler after settler. I use the luxury slider to avoid needing entertainers. Eventually a warrior from another town comes to the capital as MP.

And how does the optimal strategy vary with the difficulty level?

Should the worker initially just irrigate and mine, then later worry about roads?

 

[killercane]

It depends entirely on the terrain. If your food bonus is a deer, I like to build warrior, chop another warrior next turn, and irrigate- go from there. You could have your food bonus off the river/lake, meaning you would need to chain irrigation there and waste some turns. Its entirely different every time, and depending on if you are maxing science or whatever you might want to do different things.

 

[bluejay]

In these cases, I've got at least 1 cow on a river.

If I'm Celts going for early domination, I need to research to Iron Working quickly, then perhaps to Monarchy. At least to Poly in order to build ToA.

What do you mean, "chop a warrior"?

 

[sanabas]

Chop down the forest that the game bonus is in for 10 shields and a 1-turn warrior, then irrigate the game and off you go. I tend to prefer to build warrior-worker-granary-settlers, lets me get the terrain improved twice as quickly. It's always subject to change though depending on what I need.

 

[Tone]

What do you mean, "chop a warrior"?

Have a forest chop timed so that 10 shields go in the bin the turn after the previous warrior was built, giving you two warriors in two turns.

I don't have a single strategy-it depends upon what type of VC I'm playing for. If I'm playing for fast research, I'll try my best to ensure that all the tiles being worked are roaded and I'll try to ensure that military is kept to a minimum to ensure that the switch to Republic does not lead to a massive unit cost increase. If I'm playing a military game, then production is more important to me and so I'll be making sure that high production tiles are mined. However sometimes it is more important to me that I have a strategic road to my next victim extended than to road and mine a bg (if I cannot do both). In short I do not have any hard and fast rules but I do try to prioritise science or production as appropriate.

High volume settler production is important and so I do like to have at least one settler factory up and running. On the highest levels this is all I can get but at lower levels it is possible to get a couple and swamp the surrounding territory before the AI can get going. A worker factory is nice to have too but failing that I just get the towns creaming off a pop point every so often to keep my worker numbers up. These factories take first priority for development and get all the worker help whilst the satellite towns manage by themselves at first.

If I am fortunate to get a town with a couple of cows and three bgs, then a settler/warrior factory is possible. On a military game this enables the other towns to develop more quickly as settler escorts are taken care of. For military games this means barracks as a first build in all other towns; for fast research games, I build additional workers, settlers, granaries (and sometimes even temples if luxes are rare!!!) with library and market prebuilds when I'm getting close to Lit and Curr.

As killercane says, it is difficult to do the same thing every time because the game is never the same. For example, if I can afford to get a couple of workers early on, I will. (The extra cash could come from huts or an early trade or I may have zero/min research.) However if it is going to be a drain on research, I won't bother until I've got my first settler out to help with unit support. worker actions depend upon whether the cows are plains or grass, if there are luxes in the capital radius for higher levels, how many spare forests I have, etc. Use of lux slider is normal but I will often use a scientist or two in high food starts as long as I can maintain production and food supply in my settler factories if it means that science is improved.

I'll stop there as I'm going on a bit but I can supply turn by turn production on my recent games as I've archived the civassist saves. Let me know if there is a particular game of my that you're interested in if it would help you.

 

[bluejay]

Tone: Thanks for the offer. I'd like to see what you did turn by turn for your large regent domination victory in 150AD. That was done with territory that wasn't terrribly promising. Second choice would be your standard deity SS win in 160AD.

 

[killercane]

Has anyone done a careful analysis of what's the proper build order in this situation? I've been choosing tribes that have Pottery to start, so a granary is possible.

I frequently find myself doing some weedy moves, but COTM 15 was pretty optimal for me, and at the end of the spoiler there is good advice from Jove and some others with references to the "Sir Pleb rule" (if there is an equally good food bonus site nearby, build settler before granary). That spoiler is here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=125510. Theres a bazillion other good threads on worker moves, but if you go back through gotm and cotm games you'll see a lot of good tips. I cant remember specific settler factory starts in gotm besides the Maya in one of the first conquests games and the korea one, but there are a few.

 

[Tone]

Tone: Thanks for the offer. I'd like to see what you did turn by turn for your large regent domination victory in 150AD. That was done with territory that wasn't terrribly promising.

When I made the offer I didn't think about how big the saves are. I've zipped them but it's a 12 meg file so I've used YouSendIt to host it for a week. If you don't want such a large file, let me know what section of saves you want and I'll do some pruning first a very big file

The other problem is that the saves only start at 3700BC. Perhaps I never had CA running for the first six turns? Nothing much happened in those turns so it's probably not too bad. BTW I was surprised at your #1 choice as I'm no domination expert by a long way.

Second choice would be your standard deity SS win in 160AD.

I think that you mean 1260AD. I don't think that even Sir Pleb or DaveMcW could manage that date! If the above was any use, let me know and I'll post them later. Perhaps I should just post the saves up to 1000BC? Alternatively PM me and I'll e-mail them direct.

 

[Moonsinger]

I'm not sure about the optimal strategy, but I usually build a worker before anything else (warrior or granary). Worker can help chop down tree to rush the granary or build road outward to cut down the time other units have to travel.

 

[DaveMcW]

With a great starting position, you will gain 1 population every 4 turns. Your worker can't improve tiles that fast, so you need a second worker to help. And yes, you should build roads on all tiles (especially in C3C where you want a Republic slingshot).

In general, if you have 2 citizens working unimproved tiles, turn one into a worker and improve the other tile!

 

[Marsden]

This is a good thread! Thanks bluejay for starting it and thanks everyone else for responding.

 

[boogaboo]

My 2 cents..

On milking games, all sizes, even on tiny -
I do 3 (!) warriors, and let the capital grow a bit.
Then, in a HoF game, I must have the pyramids .
Then settlers, who many in turn produce workers.
The warriors scout and pop huts, which is very important IMHO.

I hate having to build granary, but I think the SirPleb rule rules!