Just lost two multiplayer games in a row: How do you play food-heavy starts?

[GenericKen]

I just lost two multiplayer games in a row, badly. The start positions were rather similar.


What's the best opening build pattern on floodplain-heavy, forest-light starts that contain neither horses, iron, or copper within first/second-ring distance on small maps? I can't seem to get spears up in time to fend off horse archers.

Should I go 3rd city gambit? In retrospect, I'm sure I should have gone towns instead of irrigation on the flood plains, and second worker early to keep the capital's population low as I chopped the few forests. I'm not sure how much good towns would do me, though, as there aren't any really significant military techs to foil an early rush other than cats & elephants waay up the tech tree, and having a suitable early defense depends ENTIRELY on getting copper or iron hooked up.

Should I have tried hiding and not sent scouts out, praying other players don't find me before feudalism? Or did my start positions just suck too badly in an always war game to ever be redeemed by good play?

 

[Quantum7]

(note: no 'realtime' multiplayer experience yet)

Some observations from single player (and some ideas):
- I often place a city outside of the first/second-ring if there's a good reason to (crucial resource like stone / iron i.e. or for blocking of a strategic point). The extra maintenance is not *that* bad.
- Slavery? I had one food heavy start in which I had cities that needed 40-50 turns not to be mad at me anymore (experimenting that, it's not effective)
- Move your initial settler further before settling? This is probably a non-solution as it pretty much admits the start position is inferior.

Aside from that, not scouting doesn't sound smart.

 

[Ozyman8]

Montezuma gets Jaguars even if there are no metals to hook up, a good choice if you don't want hit or miss warmongering.

 

[zafyro]

slavery sounds fine but if in MP you don´t have cooper nor iron nor horses at reach you´re dead. There´s nothing more agresive than a human player.

I´d go mad for feudalism but still i´ll only be able to have long bows and that would be far too late.

There should be some units better than the archers to compensate that posibility somethng like Warrior II with power 4 or so if not there´s not so much time to get cats or longbows...

I feel MP is too much about warmongering [or i ´ve had so many bad experiences XD]

 

[XavTheOne]

In my experience if you end up without copper/iron/horse anywhere close to your cities (which you shoulden't unless your really unlucky, keep 3rd settler until you find a good spot usually) your best bet is to mass archers with CG and play defensively.

If you do get attacked, your infrastructure will probably be destroyed but your cities should survive and if he stays to long with too big an army in your territory it is gonna hurt is economy really bad.

Another tip is allways (unless you loose valuable resources cause of it) to build your forward cities on hills, the 25% bonus helps, especially with archers.

 

[eiseike]

Pick a civ with a early UU that doesnt need a specific resource > Inca , or even Mali for Skirmishers. Jaguars are not that good though.

I think what you did wrong was basicaly didn't have enough soldiers. (remember to make roads , so you can out-move the enemy in your territory)

 

[eiseike]

Also , forgot to mention ~ you need to scout with anything ! , even a warrior. That way you know where he is , if he attacks you > you attack him (pillage his copper or iron ) and the focus should be quickly off you and onto his own land.

 

[Crdnl Richelieu]

Another good tip is to look about for Plains/Hills when placing cities (even your first city), it gives you +2 hammers instead of the usual +1, which will double your production (although could hamper you later on since you won't be able to get your 3 hammers from working the tile). You also still get your +25% defence bonus.

If you do have a food heavy city, you can just set them to churn out settlers / workers, so that they don't get any bigger.

You can also kill off a couple of your population to rush something (with Slavery), thus killing off the surplus guys and getting a nice building or something to show for it. Your citizens might dislike you a bit, but that's what Hereditary Rule was invented for.

 

[zafyro]

hey that´s good, no fear of lack of iron if you use Incas and can cope his dreadfull axemen with Jaguars [rofl] That was a bad joke but malinese should work better

still if the enemy army invades you and destroy all your improvements [unable to conquer your cities] with an early rush, the damae you are sufering is by far greater that the economy hit he gets for having units in your territory...

 

[eiseike]

Jaguars are Aztec , not Inca. Jaguars are rubbish. Even if Quechua are weak , anything in massed numbers works. But Malinese Skirmers would definitely work best in this situation. If you did have horses , chariots are cheap and work fine given withdraw bonus.

 

[DangerousMonkey]

That's crappy luck man. If you don't have at least one of horses/copper/iron within range of your first settler you are going to loose against any skilled human opponent. You might be able to stay alive by massing archers, but your enemies will be able to raid your countryside with impunity and block your expansion. Then when he gets catapults you're done.

 

[tora911]

Another good tip is to look about for Plains/Hills when placing cities (even your first city), it gives you +2 hammers instead of the usual +1, which will double your production (although could hamper you later on since you won't be able to get your 3 hammers from working the tile). You also still get your +25% defence bonus.

Are you sure?

I need to do more testing on Hills then, but I've found that no matter where you put your Cities, you always get 2 Hammers, 1 Food (or was that 2 Food, I forget), 1 Coin (but it's always the same). I usually go build on Desert Tiles with my City to turn a usless tile into a productive one.

I'm pretty sure you still recieve Resources and +Defenseive Bounses though.

 

[Crdnl Richelieu]

Absolutely certain... it's the only tile (except resources) that does this.. and it makes a huge difference at the start of the game.

The tactic you mention of building your city on a rubbish tile is also a good one, especially if you're putting your city out in the Arctic / Desert when you're only there for one resource..

It's not very realistic though, is it?

 

[GenericKen]

Also , forgot to mention ~ you need to scout with anything ! , even a warrior. That way you know where he is , if he attacks you > you attack him (pillage his copper or iron ) and the focus should be quickly off you and onto his own land.

Of course I know where he is, but I can't exactly pilliage his iron if I have a food heavy start with no iron/copper/horses in range and he has many lush forests to chop.



To all of you suggesting choosing different leaders, I remind you that I don't KNOW when I'm going to get screwed out of strategic resources/hills =OP.


Forest/plains also gives 1 food 2 hammers.

While hanging out in my territory is bad for their economy, getting all my lands pilliaged and staying at 1 expansion is also bad for my economy. Worseso, I think.



I've been playing around with the idea of agressive slavery. With two irrigated flood plains worked and a granary, a city can grow every 2 turns, letting me whip a 32 cost unit every 2 turns. Unhappiness only lasts 6 turns in short games, so a low pop city can easily live at 2 or 3 while getting constantly whipped. At pop 3 in the capital or in a colony with a lux, it can actually work 1 irrigated and two plain floodplains, or 2 irrigated and one city floodplains. The problem with this overall is the overhead, as it requires a turn of anarchy, a barracks, AND a granary.

I'm definately going to keep an eye out for this as a potential strategy, though.

 

[Ozyman8]

Jaguars (Combat I/II) fresh from the barracks have strength 6.0 when attacking Horse Archers. Skirmishers (Combat I) have only strength 4.4. Quechuas (Combat I/II) have only strength 2.4.

Skirmishers are good, but Jaguars come out on top. After fighting horse archers he'll likely get one more promotion (cover/formation) and can then take out enemy cities and improvements with strength=7.75.

@tora911: He's right, plains/hills are da bomb.

 

[Zombie69]

Unhappiness only lasts 6 turns in short games, so a low pop city can easily live at 2 or 3 while getting constantly whipped.

Actually, you could whip for all eternity if you wanted, since the unhappiness from consecutive whips don't add to -2 and more, but rather add turns of unhappiness.

Even if you whipped something every second turn for 100 turns, you'd still only be at -1 unhappiness, although you'd be stuck at that -1 for centuries after that point.

 

[Zombie69]

Jaguars (Combat I/II) fresh from the barracks have strength 6.0 when attacking Horse Archers. Skirmishers (Combat I) have only strength 4.4. Quechuas (Combat I/II) have only strength 2.4.

Skirmishers are good, but Jaguars come out on top. After fighting horse archers he'll likely get one more promotion (cover/formation) and can then take out enemy cities and improvements with strength=7.75.

@tora911: He's right, plains/hills are da bomb.

But skirmishers are better when defending cities, when defending ressources on hills, when fighting axemen... Also, they cost a lot less so you can make more of them.

I find jaguars totally useless personally. I'd rather have no UU at all than have that one.

 

[hairylegs]

i go random so i use general strategies that aren't tied to being a specific civ...

in short, go slavery with so many flood plains it's no brainer. next, if you really don't find any copper near you have you explored enough? i don't think ive had one game single or MP where i could not find one copper resource. even if its a bit far away, just chop + slave a settler and plop it down directly on the copper and connect it (hopefully there might be a river thatll help u with that). in the mean time pop archers and hold out till u connect the copper up and before he hits iron working or horse archery.

 

[Ozyman8]

If the enemy finds metals, hooks them up, and masses axemen before he can send a jaguar pillaging force, find metals himself, or tech-up... he's back on defense. At least he has attacking chances. Anyway, I guess he's not playing the Aztecs, Malinese, or Incans.

There are many winning strategies. That's part of what makes the game fun.

 

[CiverDan]

No one uses Aztec in MP, Jaguars cant been Horse Archers, Swords or Axes. Whats worse is you cant build Swords either because thats what they replace.

As for food heavy starts: Dont chop your remaining forests on flat land. they are a source of shields if sufficient hills are not available and give u health. Mine your Hills. Cottage instead of farm your floodplains for gold. If you have very few shield producing tiles oftern there it little you can do. Same goes for no metal.