How fast do you expand?

[Xevion]

You read the question.

In Civ 1, I took my time, I usually kept less then ten cities and could easily keep up in techs, I normally played on Prince and won maybe 1/3 of the games I played. I usually got to 3 or 4 cities as quick as possible then dug in and made my cities really nice.

In Civ 3, I now expand as fast as I possibly can. On a good start, I can outexpand the other countries on Regent untill my borders run against theirs, in my latest game I had 5 cities when most had 3/4. Of course finding settlers in goody huts helps a LOT, particularly if you get one on the third turn. In my latest game, I quickly became the #1 civ and have stayed there, and will now wait untill I build Sun Tzus before building a large offensive military and wiping the floor with the Indians. Everyone is on par in the tech race, but I have a slight lead along with the Russians (A few turns, enough so everyone else buys most of their tech from me, and I have been making loads of money as a result). If I hadn't accidentaly blown a settler by promptly readding it to my capital I would have grown even faster and probably had a bit more land area.

While I do try to expand fast, the first thing I always do is get a warrior in the city. I tend to not escort my settlers, because it takes too long, and I prefer to have defended cities. I lose em occasionally, but it is better then having all of my gold stolen from me. One time a barbarian attacked, and I kept getting messages saying they ransacked the city, the total was over a thousand gold .

I haven't played Civ 3 at King yet, I beat Civ 1 on it once, and I am sure I can ebat Civ 3 on it, but I just don't feel comfortable using my military very early on, probably because I am so focused on expansion at the beginning. I usually don't start warring at all untill the industrial age, and I often don't really start kicking ass untill the end of the game, when I usually wipe out entire civs in a decade or so, using scores of modern tanks (Attacking most any city outright with 30+ tanks will demolish it unless they defend their cities like I defend my main offensive point city before an attack )

So basically my normal build order at the expansion part of the game is scout (Only in capital city, outer ones don't make scouts, and I generally only use 2-3 of them), warrior, settler, spearmen, settler, worker, temple, settler, or something like that, it keeps most of my cities defended and lets me grow fairly quickly. In border cities early in the game I usually do warrior, settler, warrior, settler, pikemen, worker, settler or something like that again. This basic build pattern works good for me, and if I get a nice starting place I can outexpand the uninhibited computer fairly easily.

But still, I just love that settler in a hut in the first 20 turns or so, I usually just start the city within 1-2 spaces of the place I get the settler and immeadeatly build warrior->settler out of it too, it can really give you a huge advantage to have nearly twice the production power of everyone else in the game so early on.

 

[Moulton]

Wait until you run across a civ that has two defended cities already on turn 5.
It has happened to me twice.
Basically, I build cities as fast as I can in order to get a solid core, or get known resources and luxuries. then I worry about building infrastructure and army, and hope I will have the time to do it.

 

[MustardStew]

Interesting... I haven't quite figured out the best way...
I usually hold ou (if left alone) until I get my Granary built, and Bronze Working, and then ramp out settlers/spearmen combos until the Advisor suggests the Forbidden Palace... then fortify, build, etc... except for colonies later in the game
Seems to work well for me, but then nothing works against the AI half the time anyway...

 

[smallstepforman]

I let the AI quickly build my distant cities. The AI expands fast, builds almost all tile improvements, and all I have to do is bring my troops in to guard the cities

 

[klr]

pyramids rule!!

 

[atari2000]

Something that's been working pretty well for me:

First, make sure first few cities have decent food sources, if not.. new game.

Then it's all about 2 military, settler .. miltary .. settler .. temple perhaps .. military.. settler ..

newer cities after the first 4 or 5 build temple first thing (if tech exist) , spearman, then settler.

I expand as fast as possible, at all cost, until I have every inch of land hogged up that I can. Sometimes I'll even flake off doing some of the start wonders to abtain this objective. Seems to be working good so far.. for me anyway. Of course, I'm no master (playing 3 and 4th level with good results).

The ai is like a virus. They expand quickly, very hard to keep up with (no, ai doesn't cheat, not at <cough> all).

Jay

 

[zebomba]

I'm terribly lazy and perfectionist, bc managing more than 12 huge cities is a big pain. So I don't expand so fast even on emperor level, and still can beat the AI. Time to try deity . Usually, I get 6 cities, make a bunch of horsemen and start whooping my poor neighbour. Set science to 10 or 0, and get all his techs . Some workers and cities too. BTW, have you ever noticed captured workers require no maintenance? Must be a bug.
The trick is kick their asses early. As early as horsemen are available.
Besides, more battles mean more wonders. As I can never seem to build a wonder w/o a leader, no matter how perfect my cities are, unless I'm leading on tech big time, leaders are sweet.

 

[atari2000]

Kind of like zemombas idea. I'm always trying to play crazy peaceful guy (and get stabbed in the back later in the game).

True story about getting them wonders.

Going to try that. Been reading a lot of strategys here tonight (great way to spend Christmas!) that are pretty much along the same line. I feel edumacated now..

My whole way of civ3 thinking is now changed .. I will attempt to be more of a butthead for now (I have no problem with that concept, sounds fun!).

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

I play as Babylon. I ALWAYS start next to the Germans or Zulus, with the English between me and the Persians or Greeks. After building two cities, conquer the Germans/Zulus with Bowmen, and go to peace with the English. The English are always more technologically advanced than me, so I build up mine and the conquered cities, give each a temple and a Bowman for defense, build a few settlers and cities, and build workers to build roads (and possibly irrigation) to connect the empire. Then build up culture early on. Then later on, all their cities defect to me...

 

[Camelo]

I was extreme expansionitic in CIV I n II, at year 2000 BC I had a must of 10 cities at CIV II, played surely over 200 deity games with 80% win. Then I got some day bored (and nut) of maintaining over 200 Cities turn by turn (never automated) at the end of every game I played so I started to make a continental strategy instead. Though Civ2 doesnt fit to this thread, to keep short, enemy has to be whiped out from the continent till the year of 1000 BC, at 0 the whole continent has to be completely civilized. Usually this were 20-25 cities at a normal terrain. If it was more archipel I had to develope cartographics and civilize another isle, delaying republic for sure for about 200 years. With this strategy and about 15 core cities I could win (though not with 80% at deity but for sure 60%) with a go-to-republic-after-depotism strategy at the year of 400 BC and keeping complete peace (only defese, what is pretty easy when you have the whole continent) and the spaceship did it at the ca. 1850 This was civ2

but - CIV III is quite different to keep on the world conquer strategy I believe. Somehow I cannot manage it to make more than 6 cities till the year of 2000 BC... Though I tried different strategies, like adding the worker to the 2nd city at the beginning etc., my 2nd city is build at 3400, 3rd at 2800 and 4th at 2800, 5th and 6th at 2000. This changes everything and it seemes to my nose that this game should be played pretty military at the beginning, since although you may drive a perfect expansionistic strategy, the AI will always stay at the best case short behind you, making a win at deity pretty random. Perfectionism is not anymore the deal in it. Therefore I suggest all advanced players to drive a complete military till the year of 1000 BC and then finish the rest of the expansion (since cities can be also captured at the size of 1, the use of this advantage is enourmous...).

This idea is for huge maps though... (never played a smaller map in my life hehe)

 

[Furry Spatula]

I used to just pump out settlers as fast as i could, but now i build a granary as soon as possible b/c i found if I get 5 cities then wait till i have about 5 population in them all with a granary before i pump out the settlers its faster expansion and i have some backup if an early attack comes. Mind you this is on huge maps so super quick expansion isn't as important as on normal maps.

but still i get a first few out fast, then i slow down for a few turns, and then i pump out the setlers again, when the second batch of cities has its granaries up i switch the first batch into infrastructure, workers, and military, all this while the second batch pumps settlers out, i keep the process going untill i have filled up most of the useful land around me, i usualy stop right when i hit a natural boarder such as a huge patch of jungle or desert, unless i realy want something behind them, in which case i go right to the resource i want and fill the boarder vacuum after.

It seems to work well, mind you i'm still on warlord difficulty, its hard to unlearn civ 1 and 2 tacticts.

 

[Bamspeedy]

This always works for me, but then I haven't tried the real hard levels so.....
I have my capital (try to make sure it can support at least a size 6 city or 12 if on a river while still having a lot of production) build a warrior (to protect from barbarians) then settlers. Those cities then build one warrior, then settler (depending on how fast it will reach a population of 3). After I have 4 or 5 cities placed, those cities will be my settler (or worker) factories, occasionally building units or temples if the population is back down to one and it will be awhile before reaching 3. While the other cities are producing my settlers, etc, my capital is working on building wonders (maybe build a temple first to allow one more person to work on a tile) I build the pyramids first, then colossus or oracle, making sure my workers had maximized my tiles on the capital for production purposes. Most of the time I don't need a large military early on, just enough to defend myself. I expand until I reach my opponents territory, then start working on improvements and building my military.
I almost always end up building all of the wonders, but towards the end of the ancient time and beginning of the medievil time, there are alot of wonders, so the AI might end up building one of them.