How do you typically open the game?

[Victoria]

Horses or iron or niter sure, they will pay diamonds for those.
3 GPT for 100 gold is what you do before you declare on them isn't it?

 

[BlackWizard]

I usually start with two scouts,monument and then i pump out 4 settlers

 

[agonistes]

Horses or iron or niter sure, they will pay diamonds for those.
3 GPT for 100 gold is what you do before you declare on them isn't it?

I often don't dow, remember. I have honor.

Regardless, 100 gp now is worth much more than 90gp later.

 

[stinkubus]

I think it's safe to consider that trade an exploit.

 

[agonistes]

I think it's safe to consider that trade an exploit.

Why?

Its a 10 gold difference that, while allowing me to make immediate purchases, allows the ai to field a larger army. Both sides benefit.

 

[stinkubus]

The AI is essentially providing you a loan at negative interest.

 

[agonistes]

The AI is essentially providing you a loan at negative interest.

For 10 gold they are able to field a larger army.

 

[stinkubus]

3 GPT will support 1-2 units for 30 turns, and if they had just kept their gold and let the maintenance eat away at their balance they'd still be ahead after those turns.

 

[agonistes]

Does the ai continue to make units when it has negative income?

 

[kb27787]

I just recently discovered that builder first is OK if you have camp or mining luxury.... Preferably two such tiles. Gifting the lux to your neighbor makes your delegate much more likely to be accepted. If you get that far usually you'll get a DoF and hence save yourself a ton of pain. You can then flood the map with settlers. I'm of course talking about very early game. This won't work if you have too many neighbors and/or you get ais that are predisposed to hate you early game (Peter, Jadwica, Gorgo, Alex etc.) just archer rush those jerks... (you are screwed if Alex has his horses up though)

 

[stinkubus]

I also like builder first, especially if I have three tiles to improve which will get me an extra point of housing and an amenity.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

In most situations I open with a builder, then a settler, then archers. Typically before T30 you can get 5 archers. This is a typical starting.

Adjustment: If you have iron and a neighbor nearby, go for a T30~35 Swordman rush!

 

[JustifierNA]

Too many openings to list them.

For me it's completely determined by the land. If my land has decent base yields (3 to 4 2+-2+ tiles) then I'll simply build 5 scouts because I can mass expand but if my land has really bad base yields (1-2 / 1-1 / 2/-1) I'm going to be getting at least 2 builders out to supplement that so that I can be at least slightly competitive.

I like to get out at least 2 warriors to upgrade into swords and at least 3 slingers with Agoge (+50% production for ranged/melee units) also you can use these early units to harvest barbarians/grab early boosts but other than that it's going to be determined by the start.

What resources do I have? Do I have double horses in my capital or first expand? Are there 0 horses? Do I have locations that look like they're going to have iron?

 

[stinkubus]

What sorts of things do you look for in determining if a patch of land might have iron? I haven't noticed any patterns.

 

[JustifierNA]

What sorts of things do you look for in determining if a patch of land might have iron? I haven't noticed any patterns.

There's no guarantee but there's going to be some indicators for sure: for one Iron is only going to spawn on hills so that's the #1 but when you look around after you load in it has to be OPEN hills (no trees/jungles) granted it can spawn on any type of hill (snow/desert/tundra/grasslands/plains) but if you spawn in and you look at the land and you can see that every hill has something on it then you know your capital will have no iron. If there's just a single hill around with no resources on it chances are that's going to be your iron.

 

[JustifierNA]

What sorts of things do you look for in determining if a patch of land might have iron? I haven't noticed any patterns.

So, here's an example.

Picture 1: my spawn:

http://imgur.com/erz4M1P

Each red arrow represents a POSSIBLE iron source in my capital (note the iron will not spawn on the hill that my settler spawned on so I disregard that)
as you can see there's nothing in the southeast/ east of my city that has the potential to be an iron source but there are tons of possibilities in the NW so I send my settler 1 tile NW to get both the river's fresh water and to decrease the gold cost of purchasing the tiles there

Picture 2: the turn before Bronze Working

http://imgur.com/4r5qejN

As you can see I'm betting (Hoping) that my iron resource will be on the tile on the S side of the city and so have my builder there ready to upgrade it.

http://imgur.com/EvO4ltK

Here you can see that I was unfortunately wrong on where the iron would spawn BUT did have one in range of my Capital which means I can immediately upgrade it to get to swordsmen on turn 21-22 for defense from horsemen barbarians (which were already spawning in the SW)
Had I not moved for the fresh water and the better chance of iron then I'd be a sitting duck until I got out another settler.

(Had I been really lucky it'd have been either in range of the first of the city's borders or just 1 tile out so that I could upgrade 3 warriors to swords not just 1)

 

[Jarhead60]

After reading this entire thread I see a big factor missing on the decision of building an early monument. Being first to find a culture CS (or two) makes my decision of whether or not to build an early monument. Two culture from each Culture CS met is equivalent to building a monument. If I don't snag an early Culture CS I am much more likely to build a monument after getting my slingers and builder out.

 

[stinkubus]

Play as Rome and the monument question will be moot

 

[rrhal]

On a standard size continents map I like to make a scout first (not the most popular I know). They are quite useful for key inspirations (discover a second continent, meet three city states) and Eurekas (Second Continent, three City States, natural wonder). Additionally they are helpful for clear a barbarian outpost, kill a unit with a slinger, and kill three barbarians. I just find them useful for following the barb scout back to the camp. Once you have the Discipline policy you can do some damage to a barb scout and keep him from reporting in.

It's possible to do all these things without a scout but you will be more consistent with one.

I like to build a slinger next. Usually by the time he's built my warrior has put the hurt on a barb spearman in a camp and I jut need to walk over and finish him off - you can check those two Eurekas off the list.

 

[mckinney156]

I've been doing scout/slinger - slinger - slinger - slinger, but I'm going to try the opener Lily mentioned. It looks good on paper but I'm wondering how it translates in practice on diety. Leaves you somewhat exposed to barbs or more fatally an aggressive neighbor.