Earth Map Strategy

[ManUnited4Ever]

I have an excellent starting strategy for the Earth Map that I would like to share. Choose Russian, and restart until you start with two settlers. Move one of the settlers a few tiles down and establish Moscow, while you move the other settler westwards until you reach Berlin. Chances are that Berlin will be at population 2 and unprotected. Conquer the city. Then move your settler southeast and establish another city. You now have three cities while everyone else have 1. Congratulations.

 

[XDrake]

The same also works with Romans/Greeks/French. You can raid your neighbor's city and then have another. Make sure you found your capital before conquering the other. I made the mistake of not founding my capital, took Rome, and ended up with no Palace when I founded the capital.

 

[Tristan_C]

A zero-maintenance settler, you'd want to keep in the beginning for improving tiles throughout the game. What do most people do if they get a second?

 

[Valen]

For my two cents worth there is a time for zero maintenance settlers, but it is later. In the first millennium, all you need is cities.

 

[Whelkman]

I'm not a fan of Russia due to the massive forestation and arctic proximity. Picking someone closer to the center of the "civilization cluster" allows for better deployment of this strategy, so more optimal choices are Babylonians, Germans, Greeks, and Romans.

Personally, I keep the second settler and use it to build infrastructure. The lack of early second city is (possibly) made up by quick transport to new city sites and instant production enhancement upon founding.

 

[Theov]

Man Russia has so much space to work with. You can pop like 6 cities without a problem. And those tiles are all grass/forrest/plains.
Yes, like the OP says, go to europe or South East and get some other cities.

 

[muscularmatt]

I've always prefered either Babylon or India so you generally have lots of room to your east to build, and you can still move into Europe quickly to attack everyone

 

[zapp999]

I personally play as Aztecs. The start of the game is very important so with bad luck early on anyone can lose. Just think barbarians and losing your chariots attacking their legions, there is no way to avoid losing with bad luck.

So, when I play Civ i instead try to play it safe and think "how can i play so that my victory % gets as high as possible". I think I win about 85% of the games on Emperor level playing as Aztecs.

This because North and South America allows you to build like 15 Cities and with good land

 

[zapp999]

I also recently tried a new crazy but safe strategy as

Earth
Aztecs
4 civs
Emperor level

I also restart game until Russia is in game since this is a bit more challenger than AI Romans.

Mainly my idea is, I wanna expand quickly but I also want to be safe enough so that I can win about 8 or 9 times out of ten and not rely on early luck against Barbarians.

You know, starting of the game building a settler is just a coin toss, if you get barbarians when you have 2 empty cities you can easily get busted. So, I instead do this to get quickly out of the starting blocks. Firstly the best spot for the Aztecs Capital for this strategy is one hex east of starting location. City no.2 is placed 2 hexes east of Capital, yes on the mexican peninsular for easy defence.

Do this when you start...
1) Move one hex east. Build Capital. Build settler, found extra City 2 tiles east of Capital. The new city is used as breeding cattle i.e. i only make settlers form that new city keeping it small so it does not cannibalise on my capital good hexes.

2) sell Palace for 200 cash!

3) build baracks and use some cash to speed it up!

4) Capital now only produces veteran chariots for a while and use them to safe up your new cities. To get a good guarantee you need at leist 2 chariots close to your capital so that a barbarian raid cannot with luck wipe out your Capital out. Most new cities produce settlers and since you do not have a palace it makes even more sense. A city can get maximum 1 trade when you have no Palace sop try to get a lot of cities early.

5) Use settlers to build cities, NOT roads. Roads wont give you any trade since you do not have Palace.

6) Build Pyramid once you have around 4 cities and 4 chariots.

7) Switch to Democrazy, now you do not need any Palace anymore

8) Build roads like crazy now and if u planned ahead you should also have built irrigation so that when you get Democrazy you can get ultra speed tech.

9) Get Religion and build Bachs Cathedral

10) Get Railroad

11) Make sure you have as many settlers as cities roughly so that you can build railroads quickly and get economy exploding.

12) When you build your first railroads prioritise and build links between cities first to get your defence system better. This allows you to call units far away for fighting off barbarians. After cities are linked prioritise building railroad on production hexes first instead of food hexes

13) Once you get industrialisation switch all cities to building factory except for those that do not have a temple yet.

14) Set taxes to 100% for a while to speed up factory building by buying them off! They will pay off enormously giving you faster completion of all other improvements

15) Get hoover dam

16) When building wonders, make use of caravans to speed it up

17) Some cities have very low production due to mostly grassland and few shields. Pick some poor grasslands (those without shields) and build forest on them. This works very well with the railroad bonus.

 

[Walt]

Wow! Thorough strategy, well thought out, zapp999! There is much food for thought here.

 

[LordOfTheGeeks]

If you don't change tax rate & let the city's tiles automate with the English, you'll end up stuck on the island until everybody else can destroy you. I always lost as them when I was beginning to play... but then later I managed to conquer Europe and much of Asia.

 

[ianwelch]

I always play American or Zulu. I love being away from everyone else so I can develop tech's.

 

[Theov]

Either aztecs or americans so I can go my own business far away from everyone or the Russians, that's a good mix of having enough space and have some 'slave' countries next door.

Now i'm on a random map. Room for about 6 cities on my island. No idea what's around me.