My opening of the game - comments?

[Mylady]

Hello!

New to this forum, I have never actually discussed Civ2 with anyone before. I have therefore made up my own strategy and kept following it, with few alterations. However, Now I see that this strategy is different from most of yours. I therefore ask for something as simple as your opinions of my way of doing things. I would greatly appreciate any tips and suggestions.

I play at King level and am, I think, doing fairly well there. I am now for the first time about to win the space race on this level.

1) Build the Capital on the spot where I start - always. If I get a NONE-settler, I NEVER disband it - settlers become so expensive to keep as I switch to republic that I closely guard those I do not pay upkeep for. Settler #2 usually goes on to build roads from my capital, so that the first settler built in the capital only may use 1 or 2 turns to find a proper site and build a new city.

2) Unlike most of you, I always start building a settler in my first cities, then a phalanx. I never bother building warriors, as they are so weak, so I wait until I discover bronze working - which I research while I am building the settler. I have never, never been attacked during those first few turns anyway. As I build cities closer to the other players' territories I naturally start with a military unit.

3) My next civilization advance is always masonry. That way, I can order my two next cities to build the Pyramids and the Great Wall (I have always found the wall efficient, especially in the beginning when I am small and weak. I am surprised that it is not valued higher among the participants of this forum). These two cities have by then usually produced two settler units and one defense unit each.

4) I have my settlers explore the brown huts as they stumble upon them. That way, I usually get a unit that I can send exploring.

5) I then proceed as fast as I can towards literacy and then engineering, researching monarcy as quickly as I can and switching immediatly. I absolutely depend on Leonardo's Workshop and consider it the best Wonder along with Adam Smith. After those I pursue Monotheism, Industrialisation, Explosives and Economics.

6) I avoid war at all costs during the first half of the game - I pay any tribute after the Wall has expired and buy revolts in the cities they have built annoyingly close to my own. The wars emerging from such situations are usually short-lived and quite manageable as long as I can defend myself properly. I rarely incite wars before the discovery of mobile warfare, as the armour is my favourite unit.

So, this is me. The fact that no one else seem to start that way makes me wonder if I am doing anything horribly wrong. Any comments will be most welcome!

Thanks to you all for an interesting forum!

 

[la fayette]

Welcome Mylady,

I'll try to sum up what experienced players do and why they do it.

1) If the starting spot is wonderful (4 'special' squares, for example), please build your capital at once. Otherwise, it is generally advisable to wander a few turns in order to find a better spot than the starting one (and perhaps tip a hut or two in the meantime).

If you start with 2 settlers, Settler#2 should build a city ASAP after you have built your capital. Your main objective in the early game is 'GROWTH'. Building roads is fine, but building your first 4 or 5 cities first is much better.

If you wish to keep your NONE settler, you must know that no new nomad can be discovered on the continent before your civ has more than 8 cities.

2) Warriors are weak,but they are cheap and no tech is required to build them. If you build no warrior, it means than no one goes scouting (or that a settler goes scouting, which is a waste).
IMO there is no general optimal solution, because all depends upon the terrain and the output of your cities, but building no warriors at all is no good.
Besides, when you come to play at deity level , you will notice that warriors are good to have for martial law (keeping your city happy).

3) Despotism has so many drawbacks that the highest priority should be given to researching Monarchy (you can read my thread named '3 arrows strategy' in Apolyton's GL if you wish to optimize that).
Many players don't research Masonry at all, because they know they will almost certainly get it from the AI, but if you feel like it...
What is a bad idea IMO is to 'always build Masonry'. If you always play the same, you will improve your gameplay much more slowly than if you experiment other paths.

4) Please, don't explore with settlers. It is not their job. Warriors are four times cheaper and do it just as well.

5) Researching Monarchy quickly is generally considered a wise idea. I (and many others) would choose Trade as next goal in almost any game (except very small island = MapMaking, and very aggressive neighbour = Horseback, then Wheel or Polytheism)

6) Learning how to wage early wars is very good training (and you may even come to love that ). Keep in mind that vet elephants can 'easily' conquer the world if they attack before the AI has built too many walls.

 

[funxus]

Mylady, I wouldn't say your strategy is wrong, I too used to play like that before I came to this place. However, I do think that strategy works much better on the easier levels than on King and Deity. I think la fayette covered most of it. He didn't mention two valuable strategies though called super growth and SSC (Super Science City). If you check the War Academy, there will be some info about it.

In general, a Super Science City has a good city spot (trade specials, rivers and not much mountains, jungles etc), has all science and trade wonders (Copernicus', Isaac's College and Colossus), and all science improvements library and university. This city will produce a lot of trade and science, and should also have trade routes. At some points, the SSC stands for more than half of all the science produced in your empire, and will help you get a technological advantage over the other civs. You have to be quick though to be able to get the wonders you need, which might mean you'll have to reprioritize the techs you aim for.

You can also read about Supergrowth, which allows your cities to grow one pop per turn. This happens if a certain amount of your citizens are happy, and many therefore chose to build Hanging Gardens instead of pyramids.

About warriors: In deity, your citizens get unhappy when your cities grow to size 2 (when you've built many cities, they are unhappy from start, which also another reason to build Hanging Gardens). This means that before your city grows to size 2 (which is needed before your settler is done), you will have to deal with the unhappiness with a temple or martial unit, or you'll have to turn a worker into an entertainer. Therefore, to be able to use all the production you can, many chose to build a warrior first and then settlers. This is not as bad on King level though.

 

[SlowThinker]

1) La Fayette is right about that 2nd Settler. Perceive if your 2nd Settler will build a city and that city will build other Settlers and those Settlers will build cities again ... then that NONE Settler will be converted into 10 or 20 cities when you will switch to republic. Those 2 food and 1 shield of support saved are nothing in comparison with the total production of these cities.

2) Yes, warriors are built for scouting: to find good spots for your cities and to detect a possible danger ( or a target of your attack).
If you want to build a unit that is supposed to fight (Phalanx) then build it always in a city that has barracks to get veteran status.

3) Great Wall is not bad but it is costly and expires soon - many players play deity level and wonders that help to manage happiness are more important.

5) Monarchy can (and should) be researched as the 5th tech if you have no starting techs.
Adam Smith is not very useful wonder IMHO. Compare its cost and how much it brings you every turn - 10, 20 gold. Now compare it with cost/benefit of a Settler that is transformed in a city.

7) A most strong weapon are caravans. Read threads in "Great Library Index #2" if you want to know how they work in detail.

 

[atawa]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
5) Monarchy can (and should) be researched as the 5th tech if you have no starting techs.
Adam Smith is not very useful wonder IMHO. Compare its cost and how much it brings you every turn - 10, 20 gold. Now compare it with cost/benefit of a Settler that is transformed in a city.B]

Not on King, you can just cruise to Rep, only 1 tech more.

Adams is one of the most powerfull wonders on king, lets say you have about 30-40 city's when building it, by this time it will save you 75-100 gold a turn and rising to 200+ gold in the endgame.

 

[Terrapin]

Gotta agree with Atawa on Adams. I figure an average of 2+ one gold improvements per city. Even non-expansionists tend to have 30+ cities by mid-game. That makes 60+ gold per turn. By late game most players will have 50+cities, making it 100+ gold per turn.

These are pretty conservative numbers. Even with Mikes and Bachs, most people will builda temple in every city. Any city that produces more than four or five trade arrows should have a Marketplace (since it will pay for itself even without ASTC) and usually a library. Every city with more than four or five water squares is going to need a harbor at some point. Granneries can be displaced by the Pyramids, barracks (temporarily) by Sun Tzu's, but without these wonders, certain cities will benefit from one or both improvements.

ASTC is, IMHO, one of the best wonders. The only clearly superior ones are Mikes, Hoover and Leo's (Bachs is #1 overall if most or all of your cities are on one continent).

I am curious, Slow, what style do you play that causes ASTC to be so weak? Do you build only a handful of cities? Do you eschew most or all city improvements? Do you play a small city startegy, making the various improvements superfluous or at least too expensive?

 

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by atawa
Not on King, you can just cruise to Rep, only 1 tech more.

Do you want to say king has simpler celebrating? Good idea.

Originally posted by Terrapin
Any city that produces more than four or five trade arrows should have a Marketplace (since it will pay for itself even without ASTC) and usually a library.

It depends how taxes-science-lux are set. But suppose 100% gold.
5 trade arrows = 5 gold = 4 neat gold = 2 shield (usually you use gold for rushbuys). 80/2=40. So marketplace will pay for itself in 40 turns.
A Settler transformed in a city will pay for itself in approx. 15 turns.
A caravan that is delivered in 10 turns and gives 100gold+100beakers 'pays for itself' in those 10 turns.
A caravan that is delivered immediately via a shipchain 'pays for itself' in 1 or 2 turns.

I might go for Adam Smith if it pays for itself in 10 turns - so it must save 80 gold per turn.
I build harbors and libraries only. In Apolyton-Strategy forum there is a thread 'About Xinning', it isabout 1 or 2 months old. (I cannot get to Apolyton now...) It explains why I don't need more improvements.
If I go for early landing or early conquest then 30 cities is sufficient for me. I don't play for big score because I would play such a game at least 2 years .

A note: Bach works in any city on any continent.

 

[Terrapin]

When comparing markets and caravans, remember that the market: 1. continues to pay off until the end of the game. 2. pays more as the game goes along, assuming the city grows. 3. helps attitude in addition to $$. Caravans, of course, provide beakers, so I would give them the net advantage there.

I will look for the Apolyton thread on Xinning (if the site ever works again!).

Caravans also continue to pay off with trade routes, but if trade routes are already established, the continuing value of a new delivery is equal to the difference in the size of the new route from the old route. Also, you can spin the value of trade routes and markets both ways: If your goal is to establish some mighty big trade routes, that makes a market in the trading city even more valuable.

 

[Old n Slow]

AS is a good wonder, but not a great one. Cases -- say for example you have a reasonable sized civ with 50 cities and have an average of four qualifying buildings (temple, harbor, market & library in each.) AS eases 200 coins per turn -- not too bad.

On the other hand, say you have a reasonable ship chain in place to foreign markets such that those camels could yield 1000 coins each (in my current GOTM, my three space moving triremes are delivering Silk for 800 coins each to a city three spaces offshore from my starting rock. When I get around to discovering Navigation, I’ll set up a longer ship chain to a more distant set of markets for more profit.) Hmmm eight camels, $8K -- and what could that do? First off, it could rush buy another eight camels at $235 each (worst case -- $160 for a barracks = 2 rows, then $25 per row after) = $1880 for an eight camel wonder (like AS.) then it could rush buy another 24 camels which in turn…

Not to mention that if the camels were delivered over the next four turns, the spacing could generate another four advances…

Moral of the story -- send the high value camels to distant markets, use left over camels for wonders, then spend some cash for infrastructure to help grow the cities.

 

[SlowThinker]

Link: About Xinning

Originally posted by Terrapin
When comparing markets and caravans, remember that the market: 1. continues to pay off until the end of the game

I counted with this point:
I said market will paid for itself for 40 turns - in other words after 40 turns that 80 shield that you invested in market is doubled: you have market + new 80 shield (or 160 gold).
Similarly you invest about 100 gold in a caravan and when you deliver it that 100 gold is doubled: you have 100 gold + 100 beakers.
(I suppose 1gold=1beaker (you can 'change' them using the tax rate))

3. helps attitude in addition to $$

In my example I supposed 100% gold from trade.
In general case you have doubled trade that goes into taxes + luxuries, but not science. Anyway max. 100% trade is doubled (if 0% science).