Neolithic loitering - delaying ancient age to cover more ground?

[EscapedGoat]

After playing my first few games going straight to ancient around turn 7-8, I tried a few games with a delayed ancient going rather turn 12-13 and I had a much better start, because I had 10+ units and 2 territories settled (far apart for cities) rather than the usual 5 units and one territory I had under the other attempts.

Here are some thoughts:

1. Going Ancient ASAP will land you the culture you want. Harappans seem to be picked early every time for example. This is a clear risk by delaying - but if you want a less "contested" culture, this is a non-issue.
2. Getting the first city up is nice, but it's not that productive for the first turns. delaying it a few turns is no big deal, esp. since you are gaining resources in Neolithic also (albeit differently)
3. Having tribes going around the map and picking up 20 food to "self-replicate" themselves snowballs extremely quickly, especially since the next unit gets it's full movement upon spawning. This can lead to covering a huge amount of ground quickly, also leading to more food, more discovery sites, and more hunts.
4. Hunts also give better yields in neolithic era, yielding food and culture vs just plain gold later (useless resource in the beginning)

When you do transition to ancient, you should have a much stronger "base" to work from given your huge neolithic population which can be used for exploration, war, hunts or whatever you see fit. It's even possible to disband 4-5 units to join the city to make it essentially catch up or surpass where your city would have been in just 5-6 turns of development, but given the real cost of new units (production AND food via. the pop used to train them) you are looking at a huge advantage by keeping your units in the field.

By no means saying this is an optimal play, but seems strong to me so far.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm only on my first game, but I had the same thought. I regretted settling my first city almost immediately, because I shortly discovered that I was on a peninsula.

 

[Buktu]

Also staying in neolithic a little bit longer gives you a higher chance at getting the legacy trade. An extra yield per pop sounds not like too much but it adds up over the course of the game.

 

[Aristos]

Not only ground...

Population, population, population.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Lounging about in the Neolithic was. I think, one of the first 'tricks' discovered in playtesting the game. The Bonuses in potential population and exploration are obvious, but there are a few other things to consider:

1. The bigger the map and the more opponent factions in the game, the more your choices disappear as you remain in the Neolithic: on a Huge Map with 10 Factions, you could conceivably wind up with exactly one choice for you first Faction. Playing Phoenicians in the middle of a desert is not an optimal choice. Playing a 'standard' map with 6 Factions, you are pretty certain to have some reasonable choices left no matter how late you make them.

2. Having a mass of Scouts when you start the Ancient Age does not mean you have to keep the Scouts wandering around. One great use for them is to disband them to add population to your Cities and Outposts. Why add population to an Outpost? Well, if you wait until you enter the Classical, and then take Huns, any Outpost with a population of 4 can 'build' a Horde of 4 Horse Archers. You can, basically, start the Classical with the Wrath of God stomping on your neighboring Factions.

3. No matter how long you stay in the Neolithic, don't forget to nail down the best territory you find long before you transition to Ancient. At the very least, any territories with Strategic Resources (Horses and Copper) should get any Outpost you can place as soon as you can place them.

 

[Victoria]

You can struggle with tenets on empire and above and you miss out on influence, however someone pointed out the auto-explore trick yesterday and it was crazy good. I went into ancient with 10, banged them onto auto explore and before I knew it I had a warrior army and tonnes of gold and influence. Now I know the AI cheats and the ‘Auto Explore’ toggle should really read ‘I want to cheat too’
At least I now know how the AI gets to ancient so fast.

 

[Siptah]

You can struggle with tenets on empire and above and you miss out on influence, however someone pointed out the auto-explore trick yesterday and it was crazy good. I went into ancient with 10, banged them onto auto explore and before I knew it I had a warrior army and tonnes of gold and influence. Now I know the AI cheats and the ‘Auto Explore’ toggle should really read ‘I want to cheat too’
At least I now know how the AI gets to ancient so fast.

I think the optimal is to put your first scout on auto-explore while manually handling the rest to scout/place good locations for your first outposts, and hunt those mammoths. Just auto-explore doesn't seem to unveil more than 2 territories, and I seem to miss out on hunting as I can't cancel the movement fast enough ;-)

But really, isn't the scouting one of the most fun aspects of the game? I don''t want the AI to do that for me...

 

[Victoria]

But really, isn't the scouting one of the most fun aspects of the game?

nope, I am playing on HK level, coming 5th and loving it. screw the scouting, there is so much more to be involved with than a luckfest.
The early game is so much about influence and loving the independant tribes.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

nope, I am playing on HK level, coming 5th and loving it. screw the scouting, there is so much more to be involved with than a luckfest.
The early game is so much about influence and loving the independant tribes.

If you manage to hire a couple of Mercenary Armies or better yet, Assimilate a Minor Faction early, that's a better Jump Start than almost any Faction can get on its own. Note also that Aesthete Factions not only get more Influence as a rule, they also pay less Influence to Assimilate a Minor: a "Stealth" way of becoming an Expansionist in fact if not title . . .

 

[looorg]

If you manage to hire a couple of Mercenary Armies or better yet, Assimilate a Minor Faction early, that's a better Jump Start than almost any Faction can get on its own. Note also that Aesthete Factions not only get more Influence as a rule, they also pay less Influence to Assimilate a Minor: a "Stealth" way of becoming an Expansionist in fact is not title . . .

This has become my preferred method of building up. I don't even bother building to many units, I'll just wait for the independents to pop up and then put some yields into get the ball rolling and then just assimilate them and get a few full armies out of it.

 

[Victoria]

Note also that Aesthete Factions not only get more Influence as a rule,

Yup, sure am doing that, damn cheap with them too. You need em on the higher levels. have you played much up there?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yup, sure am doing that, damn cheap with them too. You need em on the higher levels. have you played much up there?

I have not, because I played virtually all of my games as a Beta Tester on a 'standard' map size and difficulty to keep a baseline for noticing anything that didn't work. I generally (both in Humankind and Civ) prefer to play at the standard difficulty, because I'm less interested in Winning Achievements than in the in-game processes. For instance, one of the two games I finished since Launch had the sole purpose of seeing if I could finish the entire Tech Tree in a normal-length game, something I never managed in any of the test games (but other Beta testers did), and tomorrow I'm going to start a game in which my main purpose is to finish a railroad from one side of a single-continent Large Map to the other - the same Trans-Continental Railroad 'achievement' I used on Civ VI Pangaea maps.

And Aesthete are not the only Faction with a Stealth/Sneaky capability: the Celtic/English Agrarians in my first game after Launch 'stole' over 20 points of Population from my cities by, presumably, bribing them with Food. I'm not sure that is entirely a Good Thing for them, because managing sudden bursts of extra population unless you immediately turn them into Units can be tricky, and of course it gave me a batch of Grievances that I used to hammer them.

 

[Taefin]

My last game at HK difficulty I entered ancient at T17. I generally play another turn at Neolithic if I see that I have more pops/curiosities readily available.

I still never think to build an outpost before switching to Ancient, which costs me 2 extra turns before founding my capital as well as any pop the outpost could have grown (it does grow in Neolithic right?). But I ask don’t know if I will end up playing Zhou where those outposts need perfect selection and positioning for the EQ or biased toward the coast for Phoenicia. Not saying it’s optimal but I think a variety of choice work well here, which is a very impressive result.

I find I struggle to plop more that 2 extra pop into a new city, since the food consumption is so high, but I always disband at lead one, and another when I add attach an outpost with good food output.

And a little disheartening to hear that devs encouraged beta players to always play at default difficulty. Certainly a customer’s first impression is very influential on a product’s success, and very damaging when bad first impressions lead to bad reviews, so I guess I cannot fault them too much. But I don’t think you learn as much about the game or how to balance it when you only play snowball sessions.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

And a little disheartening to hear that devs encouraged beta players to always play at default difficulty. Certainly a customer’s first impression is very influential on a product’s success, and very damaging when bad first impressions lead to bad reviews, so I guess I cannot fault them too much. But I don’t think you learn as much about the game or how to balance it when you only play snowball sessions.

That wasn't anything the Amplitude team encouraged, it was my decision entirely - many of the Beta testers played at top or near-top difficulty levels throughout the test period, but I wanted to be able to compare changes in systems at a standard 'base' level (it's very difficult to test the effects of changes when you are making many unrelated changes all at once) so I played almost all of my games on a standard map: Large, 3 continents, 6 Factions, and a standard, 'default' Difficulty Level so that any changes in the general play of the games could be fairly safely attributed to the changes we were trying to test.

What I find, frankly, laughable about some of the First Impression 'reviews' is that it is obvious that they are not reviewing the game as released, but the game that they wanted to be released. Too many of the reviews say far more about the reviewer than they do about the game and how it plays.

 

[Victoria]

I was playing normal and just snowballing like crazy, I played a game in empire and it felt still easy, even Civ level is a big jump from there and my game speed has quadrupled and I am not complaining… I recommend it is you think you are snowballing too hard.

Too many of the reviews say far more about the reviewer than they do about the game and how it plays.

To be fair, how muck knowledge do you get in a week. I tried to be careful with my review but my knowledge now is so much more than then. For example I avoided large battles but now I have to fight them and they are a little off-putting with what the select as the playing area.

 

[fortydayweekend]

Just started a new game on HK level. I spent 21 turns in Neolithic and had 19 pop. I had 3 outposts, 2 of which became the first city immediately and the other became 2nd city a few turns later.

Switching late is great as long as you're still finding food and mammoths because you get higher pop growth than you would get with cities.

All those scouts can be used for
- finding curiosities (especially turning auto on/off)
- chopping every tree that won't get Industry exploitation
- settling in cities (though this is pretty limited value when food is poor at the start)
- settling in border city with barracks to be turned into better units just before the first war/conquering Indys
- finding all the resources and planting outposts
- scouts can be upgraded to horsemen later for an instant cavalry force if needed

The downside is last pick of culture but that's not always terrible. I got Babylon which might have been lucky, but finding a 3-mountain tile for Zhou isn't too difficult and a single Zhou district will let you focus on everything other than research for a long time.

By having a strong start you can race through the Ancient Era and have a good pick for Classical, which I think might be more important - you actually have a few territories to build districts in, and you're fighting a lot more.

In my game, at the start of Medieval around turn 70, I've got 4 cities in 15 territories plus a couple of outposts, I'm tech leader and only slightly behind the 2 top AI in terms of pop and FI. Persia just attacked me with Ferocious (+7CS!) Immortals which won every skirmish but lost the pitched battle when I could defend a chokepoint and whittle them down with cliff-top javelins.

I'm not sure how long would be "too long" to stay in Neolithic - has anyone pushed it too far and regretted it?

 

[Taefin]

That wasn't anything the Amplitude team encouraged, it was my decision entirely

Ah my mistake, thanks for clarifying that’s good to hear

Awesome to hear what people are doing with the Neolithic > Ancient transition! I need to try chopping trees. And getting a second city that early is impressive, I think I get too greedy wanting to add the third territory to my capital for 110 instead of waiting for 160 to get the second city that then gets the cheap second territory. Also replacing the pops immediately as you train the unit is a great idea, let the scouts eat off the land and cut trees rather than sit in the city as a farmer.

Regarding upgrading to horsemen, very powerful and this seems to be the most consistent reliable strategy for fielding a large army, bumping out a bunch of X before unlocking Y. Especially when Y takes 3 pops and X only take 1 this is almost the only way I can stomach/afford some mid-late game units. I’d actually like to see some greater parity here. I like that production and gold are interchangeable when buying out, being able to pay only for the remaining production on something. I wish buyout and upgrading has a similar parity. That the game needs to lock easier units to prevent abuse later indicated to me that a more consistent cost would be better If nothing else, if you lack the gold, you could then still drop those swordsmen into your city and “produce” them up to great swordsmen. Perhaps the upgrade to a unit that requires more/less pops should also take the pop from the city it is done in.

 

[fortydayweekend]

Regarding upgrading to horsemen, very powerful and this seems to be the most consistent reliable strategy for fielding a large army, bumping out a bunch of X before unlocking Y. Especially when Y takes 3 pops and X only take 1 this is almost the only way I can stomach/afford some mid-late game units. I’d actually like to see some greater parity here. I like that production and gold are interchangeable when buying out, being able to pay only for the remaining production on something. I wish buyout and upgrading has a similar parity. That the game needs to lock easier units to prevent abuse later indicated to me that a more consistent cost would be better If nothing else, if you lack the gold, you could then still drop those swordsmen into your city and “produce” them up to great swordsmen. Perhaps the upgrade to a unit that requires more/less pops should also take the pop from the city it is done in.

I hadn't even thought about the pop savings later on.

There is a maintenance cost to holding units so it's not completely free if they're not being used. I assume the AI uses comparable strength in deciding whether to declare war though so presumably there's deterrent value if nothing else?

I like that holding onto and upgrading units is better than building new ones - less micro - but yeah maybe there needs to be a significant extra cost attached if upgrading to a higher-pop unit.

 

[EscapedGoat]

So I played some more starts, and I think neolithic loitering / "late" classical is THE dominant strategy, with one exception which I will detail below. Because the unit growth is somewhat exponential, a few more turns of neolithic can literally double your army size. And let's face it, you're not going to want to "hard build" a lot of units once you transition to classical, so the units you get in neolithic are the units you are going to have for a while.

Staying in neolithic long enough for the knowledge star to unlock the legacy trait is also nothing to scoff at. +1 per pop essentially makes the upkeep per citizen less, a great boon all game long.

So you get a huge army (of scouts admittedly), get the legacy trait, get to secure 2 good city locations with outposts, get better map knowledge. When you transition to ancient, you keep 6-7 scouts on autoexplore in the terrotories you left behind (curiousities respawn), and you use the rest of the scouts to scout forward manually, disband a few into the city and or keep them around for defense. The scouts will give you so much influence together with the first city (you build the pottery thing first) that you will get your second city really early (best to get 2nd city first, as attaching a territory does nothing for your influence generation, and influence is the most important resource in the very early game IMO for territory, cities, and luxuries)

So the exception to the above is that quite frankly you really want to pick the Harappans as your civ, because they are OP. In most games, they go early! in most city cites, it's +2 food for many tiles, and the runners are just so good an upgrade to scouts. The population steal is also a really good ability. Transition into Celts, and by turn 40-50, your cities are hitting max pop, get a new pop every 1-2 turns, have maxed out influence gain (2 per pop) and can produce a unit per turn should you wish. Food is the best yield, because it gives you all other yields inc. influence.

 

[fortydayweekend]

Being able to build your first army without tanking population (by settling scouts to replace them) is huge. Also as soon as you increase food (irrigation, first FQ etc) you can settle extra scouts as workers and researchers, no need to wait for city growth.

Even HK level is pretty easy to get ahead on if you have 20 scouts at the start. It should probably get nerfed, probably by stopping the respawning food bonuses.