How to start best

[KAuss]

I almost never build that thing until later on... If you sit on a tile with food, the worker making the right improvement will out weigh the granary...

Only when your city goes to about 8ish, does the pop slow growth by a lot... So if you're not building "survival" buildings to begin with, you're risking a lot of your "survival" on "expanding..."

The difference in 3 or 5 pop is next to nill without tile improvement... Either way you're gaining either a hammer or another food... They only provide 3 in any combination...

 

[The Apple]

I have found that the biggest boost to my early economy is the chop trees with my worker(s) outside of the large cross radius. You don't hurt future production/health benifits but you sure can pump out settlers or whatever you need quickly. That combined with slavery for early forges will really get you ahead. Last game I played on Noble I got a bit behind in tech early because of the amount of land I grabbed quickly with the 8 cities I started. At one point the slider was only at 60% research. The cities just were not supporting themselves early. But I quickly overcame this by the Middle ages because I had 3 more cities than any AI and all the land was gone at that point.

This is exactly how I've been starting the past few games, and I have to say I perfer it greatly over the generaly accepted way to start out your game. It's true that it makes you much weaker during the ancient age, but because of your land/resource advantage you quickly catch up in the middle age, and from then on you're good to go.

 

[Bezhukov]

Worker first takes 15 turns, unless you settle on a plains hill, which takes 12. I predict worker first will be the standard opening within a month, and chasing early relgions will be much less popular (unless you start with myst).

 

[tirnaog]

Usually play on:
EPIC scale, Huge map, 6 Continents, Raging Barbarians, 18 civs

build city
Use scout to Auto explore
Build warrior
Build worker set to auto for nearest city
Build Warrior
Build warrior
Build Warrior
Build Settler
Build a Culture item
Two warriors and Settler go to build city

rinse and repeat.
Have 15 cities and a on going Barbarian battle. Found their city, size 5, hehe
The end begins for them.

Deasun {Awaiting the Coming of the Celts mod! hint hint nudge nudge!}
www.tirnaog.com

 

[Paradigne]

I normally play on Noble, with raging barbarians. I'll build:

Warrior
worker
Barracks
archer
archer...

I'll use the worker to clear forest NEAR the city, and roads around the city (not across rivers). If barbarians come on a non-river side, I'll attack with any unit that can still get xp (max 10). The road lets you move back the same turn, no forest means no defense bonus. I'll group a few archers with the worker, and will have ONE group of workers/archers for all cities until I beat back the barbarian hordes...

 

[Ktulu]

If you have a lot of land to cover, build warriors or scouts first two items to get your pop up to shape... Then you should have plenty of reason to build settlers from all the land you've uncovered... Avoid making contact with any animals or such to save your explorers as defense when your first settler is built...

Actually if you have a lot of land to cover, and especially if there is a lot of forest/jungle, I find it very useful to place my scouts in "animal danger". If they're successful in defending the experience allows you to upgrade so that they can move twice in forest/jungle. What I usually do, when I see an animal, is put my scout on a tile with a defensive bonus and wait for the animal to attack.

 

[oljb007]

Tirnaog hit on the point I will make. Which is, the style of play depends greately on the map for which you are playing. small map with quick contact of other civs, vs large map with few civs would dictate completely different play styles. not to mention the pref's you choose for barbarians.

Why put focus on military if your playing a huge map with few civs and limited barbarians? focus on expansion and growth!

 

[Willem de III]

I noticed in multiplayer that it's very important to explore early on in the game, some civ's begin with a scout = advantage over starting with a warrior because they are able to walk two squares instead of one (warrior). Why it is important? Because you've got to find those goody huts they'll give you gold, techs, experience and so on. They will also give you sometimes even setlers or other scouts. And ofcourse this early advatage of getting a second setler wil give you they headstart.

I don't know if you get setlers at every difficulty multiplayer but even if you don't it'll give you advatages.

I notice scores rocket skywards early on in the game of other multiplayers, I think this is because they explore a lot and get a lot of goody huts, this'll give them some techs for free and that's why their scores get bigger every time.

A Industrious civ has also a big advantage over others, he will be able to construct wonders very fast, this'll give him a lot of benefits later on in the game (Great ppl points, more culture and so on).

Building the pyramid is also nice. You'll be able to change your civics to Representation, this'll give you a lot of happyness in your five biggest cities.