First to 3 cities (and maybe a religion) strategy

[EricJames]

I'm not arguing that it's not a good idea, but waiting the few turns it may take for your city to grow might result in the same production time of the worker. Which means you'll have your worker, an extra size on your city, and production started on either a wonder, warrior, or granary.

 

[oddroot]

I never find workers or settlers in huts, only gold and maps but I think thats tied to the difficulty level of the game.

Yeah the manual states that you will only find workers or settlers on difficulty of warlord (one easier than noble) or lower. So if you start on the default difficulty, you will never see a worker/settler out of a goody hut.

 

[bayareastank]

I like the strategy. Being an old Starcraft player, i remember the shortcuts of getting your Reever (one of the heaviest units in the game) out fast so yo ucould go plunder your enemy before it had any hope in heck of defending against it.

I'm all for the quicker more aggressive approach. Get 2 cities up and running, get the religion growing the continue on from there. That 1 city that you plunder the forest around may suffer later in the game but it stands to reason that your first city would probably be in the middle of your civ. So there's lots more cities / guards the enemy's got to get through before they reach your capital.

I like it, i'm definitly going to try it.

 

[Blkbird]

Unimproved only. They don't seem to grow back over territory that even just has a road on it, either. In my experience, this makes roads a useful tactic to keep jungle from overgrowing plains and grasssland with no fresh water, especially early on when you can't spare enough workers to build cottages on every jungle-adjacent tile. But it also means that I don't build roads outside of my city radius, if there are forests nearby. Much better to let them grow wild and then cut them back for production rush when you need it.

I can confirm that forests do grow on terrain with a road. It just happend in my game.

 

[DrWu]

Hi

Long time lurker, first post - this strategy has intrigued me, so I tried it. I can see why people are saying that the lack of forests around your capital is a hassle in the late game, but If you decide your capital is going to be your science city right at the start, why not chop down the forest and build cottages on the tiles right away? You get the shields from the chopping and you get to build cottages early, ensuring a lot of £££.

Obviously it depends on resources and city position, but I had early access to stone and my capital became an uber science producer quite early, whilst having produced a couple of workers and settlers.

 

[Astax]

When you hover over the chop, it will tell you by name which city it will go to.

 

[EridanMan]

UberCiverr- good thread, I should have read it before posting in your last...

First off, I don't know why everyone says 30 shields... its 45 in every game (on noble) I've played (at least in the closest ring).

For anyone interested in this subject, I've put together a little 'guide' to early-game chopping-

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138682

when it comes to 'where to chop', my basic thinking is - Hills are almost always a must, early in the game... A lumber/Hill/Forest and a mine/Hill produce the EXACT SAME PRODUCTION, even though the mine is available hundreds of turns earlier... Get those mines out there early - and you'll have an extra production per turn for thousands of years, not to mention the 45 initial shields... well worth it IMHO.

After hills, I always chop river-side forests because those tiles are more flexible (in terms of farming/good trade from towns)... land-locked flatlands are my last choice to chop - a land-locked grasslands/forest is an amazingly versitile tile (2F 1P naturally, 2F 2P with lumber, 2F 3P with RR)... don't chop those lightly...

FWIW, usually I'll chop my plains forests for Towns, but leaves the grassland forests for lumbermills.