JBossch
King
I whip in my size 4 capital.
Opening theory
- Thread starter Ultimocrat
- Start date
JBossch
King
Yeah it depends on the situation. I don't like to whip away improved tiles either and I usually don't. Sometimes you really need that settler though. I also have a hard time resisting when I am imperialistic.
brianb1974
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2007
- Messages
- 157
I think that stealing workers from and choking nearby neighbors is one of the most important facets of the early game (on difficulty levels where the AI starts with a worker).
The #1 mission of my first warrior is to find a nearby neighbor and relieve him of his worker (and pick up any goody huts on the way). If I start with hunting (and a scout), my first build is usually a warrior. I max out production to get it quickly and hopefully send it directly to my nearest neighbor.
Unless I am isolated, I only occasionally have to build ANY of my own workers. A couple of stolen workers really really boost your start faster than almost any other strategy. If things go well, you'll steal so many you have to execute them because you don't need them enough to be worth their maintenance cost.
Eventually, you should seek to get a warrior or two up to woodsman2 and exploit the AIs failure to understand that workers are vulnerable to a woodsman2 unit two forest tiles away. You can often bottle up an AI so that his second city comes late or never and he is easy to wipe out once you produce real units and want his capital city or keep around as a perpetual source of confiscated workers. Of course this is a double-edged sword since other AIs will benefit from the vacuum as well as you. Your settling strategy has to take that into account (and you have to be careful of settling too close to your choke victim until you have a real military if you don't want to deal with him attacking you with archers).
The #1 mission of my first warrior is to find a nearby neighbor and relieve him of his worker (and pick up any goody huts on the way). If I start with hunting (and a scout), my first build is usually a warrior. I max out production to get it quickly and hopefully send it directly to my nearest neighbor.
Unless I am isolated, I only occasionally have to build ANY of my own workers. A couple of stolen workers really really boost your start faster than almost any other strategy. If things go well, you'll steal so many you have to execute them because you don't need them enough to be worth their maintenance cost.
Eventually, you should seek to get a warrior or two up to woodsman2 and exploit the AIs failure to understand that workers are vulnerable to a woodsman2 unit two forest tiles away. You can often bottle up an AI so that his second city comes late or never and he is easy to wipe out once you produce real units and want his capital city or keep around as a perpetual source of confiscated workers. Of course this is a double-edged sword since other AIs will benefit from the vacuum as well as you. Your settling strategy has to take that into account (and you have to be careful of settling too close to your choke victim until you have a real military if you don't want to deal with him attacking you with archers).
TheFastCat
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2009
- Messages
- 11
What I have been doing to practice, learn my opening dog rush:
1.) Save the game at 4000 BC
2.) experiment with build order to see the fastest way to get a dog soldier to an enemy town
On my current game I really lucked out and had a goody hut 3 tiles from my capital city give a worker (pretty cheezy but nice for the sake of experimenting). I had this worker farm two tiles (since Bronze working was ready yet) as I built a second worker. The city had about 10 forest tiles around it. After the second worker popped I built a barracks (giving the city time to grow) and had both workers chop the same forest square over and over. I found that I only needed two farmed squares since I ended up spamming whip. During this time I had my warrior searching for the nearest civ (two were found-north east and south east).
After the barracks were done I double chopped dogs.
The next interesting thing that turned up that I was not expecting (after multiple attempts at maximizing this start up rush efficiency). Was that it was detrimental to wait for a stack of attackers to be built. Because it happened that the time between waiting for a second dog to join my first, the targeted enemy had learned spearmen.
suprisingly it was more advantageous to attack with 1 dog than wait for more to create a stack. Furthermore it was better to attack both adjoining civs at the same time (each with only 1 city) with a single dog than waiting for more to be produced. So after I prefected this start - I had killed two civilizations and taken two new capital cities by 2700ish BC.
it was very helpful strategy for improving my opener because I could very easily replay the opening and see for myself how much difference one move can make when rushing.
one thing that I learned that wasn't readily obvious at the time: initally I was irrigating over forests instead of just chopping them. Chopping them goes much faster and the irrigation is not used by a whipped city (beyond the two I had already done while researching for bronze working).
anyway - thought someone might find that interesting. I can attach the 4000 BC save if anyone would find helpful
1.) Save the game at 4000 BC
2.) experiment with build order to see the fastest way to get a dog soldier to an enemy town
On my current game I really lucked out and had a goody hut 3 tiles from my capital city give a worker (pretty cheezy but nice for the sake of experimenting). I had this worker farm two tiles (since Bronze working was ready yet) as I built a second worker. The city had about 10 forest tiles around it. After the second worker popped I built a barracks (giving the city time to grow) and had both workers chop the same forest square over and over. I found that I only needed two farmed squares since I ended up spamming whip. During this time I had my warrior searching for the nearest civ (two were found-north east and south east).
After the barracks were done I double chopped dogs.
The next interesting thing that turned up that I was not expecting (after multiple attempts at maximizing this start up rush efficiency). Was that it was detrimental to wait for a stack of attackers to be built. Because it happened that the time between waiting for a second dog to join my first, the targeted enemy had learned spearmen.
suprisingly it was more advantageous to attack with 1 dog than wait for more to create a stack. Furthermore it was better to attack both adjoining civs at the same time (each with only 1 city) with a single dog than waiting for more to be produced. So after I prefected this start - I had killed two civilizations and taken two new capital cities by 2700ish BC.
it was very helpful strategy for improving my opener because I could very easily replay the opening and see for myself how much difference one move can make when rushing.
one thing that I learned that wasn't readily obvious at the time: initally I was irrigating over forests instead of just chopping them. Chopping them goes much faster and the irrigation is not used by a whipped city (beyond the two I had already done while researching for bronze working).
anyway - thought someone might find that interesting. I can attach the 4000 BC save if anyone would find helpful
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2005
- Messages
- 3,663
One concern that I have is that there are likely to be at least two very different sorts of participants - those that will leverage the opportunities of war in the first 50-75 turns or so, and those who won't.
It's not clear to me how you organize this sled trip when the dogs are pulling in different directions.
Dirk1302
Deity
There are no general rules only guidelines. Sometimes it's just down to calculation the first 30 turns to see what turns out best.
What i can see here is that many favor growing to 2 or even 4 working unimproved tiles too much. It's sometimes better to just queue a second worker after the first so your food gets converted to hammers for a useful second worker instead of getting eaten with one spare hammer directed to a warrior that takes 15 turns. If you're expansive and have a 3H tile it's almost always better to put on the second worker immediately. And if you're imperialistic and have access to a 3H tile at least consider beginning with a settler immediately or after your first worker is finished according to circumstances.
In all cases, time growing to 2 with completion of improving your second resource. No problem being at size 1 when there's nothing to work but you don't want to be at 1 for a single turn when you have 2 tiles with resources improved.
Some MM but better openings.
What i can see here is that many favor growing to 2 or even 4 working unimproved tiles too much. It's sometimes better to just queue a second worker after the first so your food gets converted to hammers for a useful second worker instead of getting eaten with one spare hammer directed to a warrior that takes 15 turns. If you're expansive and have a 3H tile it's almost always better to put on the second worker immediately. And if you're imperialistic and have access to a 3H tile at least consider beginning with a settler immediately or after your first worker is finished according to circumstances.
In all cases, time growing to 2 with completion of improving your second resource. No problem being at size 1 when there's nothing to work but you don't want to be at 1 for a single turn when you have 2 tiles with resources improved.
Some MM but better openings.
Well, I'll start off by saying I'm not nearly as skilled as you guys. I play on Prince, So take my advice with a grain of salt.
I typically build up a warrior or scout first, simply because it allows my city to grow a bit, and I don't want to handicap it by pouring all of my food for 18 turns to build one undefended worker. So I'll build a warrior or 2, and a scout, send 2 out to go explore, hopefully collecting some techs from huts, but gold is good too.
As far as technology goes, I look for the resources closest to the capital, and decide on a key factor: How will I use it? If your strategy is to peacefully expand as much you can before running into neighbors, I'd shoot for Agriculture, hunting, or fishing, then animal husbandry. That early boost of health, plus a grade 3 or 4 food source is a miracle worker. Especially when you've only got 2 people to work the fields.
To make it even better, play as an imperialist, and you can crank out settlers like no tommorow.
As far as religious techs, there is no real advantage to starting a religion. Unless you some how get a religion that becomes nearly global (which seems almost impossible, because the AI almost always favors religions not invented by you), all it will do is cause holy war, not just because of the "-4 You are under the sway of a heathen religion". But now they want to control your holy city, and nothing is more fun when you've only got 3 cities, than a land invasion by 2 neighboring countries, who seem to have found Iron & copper as easily as it is difficult for you.
As far as military, and assuming your neighbors aren't kill crazy, you can get away with just a warrior per city, and eventually just an archer per city. It's enough to avoid the frowny face from lack of a garrison, and to hold off barbs.
I typically build up a warrior or scout first, simply because it allows my city to grow a bit, and I don't want to handicap it by pouring all of my food for 18 turns to build one undefended worker. So I'll build a warrior or 2, and a scout, send 2 out to go explore, hopefully collecting some techs from huts, but gold is good too.
As far as technology goes, I look for the resources closest to the capital, and decide on a key factor: How will I use it? If your strategy is to peacefully expand as much you can before running into neighbors, I'd shoot for Agriculture, hunting, or fishing, then animal husbandry. That early boost of health, plus a grade 3 or 4 food source is a miracle worker. Especially when you've only got 2 people to work the fields.
To make it even better, play as an imperialist, and you can crank out settlers like no tommorow.
As far as religious techs, there is no real advantage to starting a religion. Unless you some how get a religion that becomes nearly global (which seems almost impossible, because the AI almost always favors religions not invented by you), all it will do is cause holy war, not just because of the "-4 You are under the sway of a heathen religion". But now they want to control your holy city, and nothing is more fun when you've only got 3 cities, than a land invasion by 2 neighboring countries, who seem to have found Iron & copper as easily as it is difficult for you.
As far as military, and assuming your neighbors aren't kill crazy, you can get away with just a warrior per city, and eventually just an archer per city. It's enough to avoid the frowny face from lack of a garrison, and to hold off barbs.
FlyinJohnnyL
You need more workers....
Mathew-just a few tips if ya don't mind
As far as the AI always going against your religion, that's all based on how many of his/her cities have which religion. The most dominant religiona is usually the state religion. You can also try to bribe them to change, or use spies. They'll usually change back though.
Besides that though, the shrine still gives you 1 gold/per city with that religion, whether they are running the religion or not. So that can make some good income. Capturing shrines can be pretty nice since you didn't have to spend the hammers spreading the religion.
In most cases, a worker first is the better bet. Your concern about an "undefended worker" isn't necessary. Barb animals can't enter your borders, and regular barbs won't enter until after 2000 BC. Also, the AI will not attack you until around 1000 BC at the earliest. It's just coded that way. Also consider that by "growing your capital a bit", you are growing onto unimproved tiles that are only adding a single hammer or a single food, at most, to your build. Much better to get a worker ASAP so you are working an improved tile that much sooner.
Unless you start in a flood-plain filled city, health shouldn't become an issue in most cases until you start raising your happy cap.
You are correct in that there it's not really wise to go for one of the 3 early religions. However, there's usually get side benefits to founding the others. You're gonna bulb philo for lib anyhow...you want courthouses so may as well get confucianism....Maybe wanna control the AP so you bulb/oracle Theology.
As far as the AI always going against your religion, that's all based on how many of his/her cities have which religion. The most dominant religiona is usually the state religion. You can also try to bribe them to change, or use spies. They'll usually change back though.
Besides that though, the shrine still gives you 1 gold/per city with that religion, whether they are running the religion or not. So that can make some good income. Capturing shrines can be pretty nice since you didn't have to spend the hammers spreading the religion.
Dirk1302
Deity
@Mathew,welcome 
.
Grain of salt taken
, your general take on the opening is sound but,
-Improving the food resources asap let's you grow much faster. It's more or less generally agreed on the forum that starting with a worker is usually best unless there's lots of seafood in which case growing building workboats is often better. in my post i was arguing in favor of beginning with 2 workers which is a more controversial idea.
-Undefended doesn't mean anything until barbs enter city borders, that's 2520 bc earliest date iirc on deity or 37 turns since 4000 bc, enough time to start with a worker , then build up defense. On prince it's much later. Animals can't enter borders.
-Growth without working improved tiles doesn't mean that much. Take a rather common start where the best you can work is grass forests, 2F/1H. Once you have grown to 2 you can work 2 grass forests, the 2F go to the city to sustain 2 pop, you can keep the one hammer. Early worker(s) that can improve resources/mines far outshine this one hammer. Of course growing's better if you're near floodplains, now you get 1F/1C netto with every tile you work, even then worker first is usually best.
.Grain of salt taken
, your general take on the opening is sound but,-Improving the food resources asap let's you grow much faster. It's more or less generally agreed on the forum that starting with a worker is usually best unless there's lots of seafood in which case growing building workboats is often better. in my post i was arguing in favor of beginning with 2 workers which is a more controversial idea.
-Undefended doesn't mean anything until barbs enter city borders, that's 2520 bc earliest date iirc on deity or 37 turns since 4000 bc, enough time to start with a worker , then build up defense. On prince it's much later. Animals can't enter borders.
-Growth without working improved tiles doesn't mean that much. Take a rather common start where the best you can work is grass forests, 2F/1H. Once you have grown to 2 you can work 2 grass forests, the 2F go to the city to sustain 2 pop, you can keep the one hammer. Early worker(s) that can improve resources/mines far outshine this one hammer. Of course growing's better if you're near floodplains, now you get 1F/1C netto with every tile you work, even then worker first is usually best.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,989
If you want to warrior spawn-lock, you need to get them out early (the longer they fortify in the forest before barb archers show up in force, the better), so that warrior 2nd isn't always a bad call, and sometimes worth minor concessions early on in order to attain.
Monsterzuma
the sly one
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2008
- Messages
- 2,984
VoiceOfUnreason said:
That's a simple matter of adding a "no DoWing before date [x]" rule. That way we'd at least get some interesting results for the situations in which no early warring takes place.
There also is that "always peace" game feature...
Dirk1302
Deity
@TMIT, you mean worker warrior? That's how most players would play it anyway. I don't fogbust that much early game since i don't like warriors (do fogbust a bit otherwise i get hit too hard).Instead i tend to road a lot in the vicinity of my capital taking out barbs when they step on the resources, a bit iffy at first with archers but one they have cover that tends to solve the problem. Works very good if you have better units than archers and helps getting HE unlocked sometimes which is very difficult with warriors.
6K Man
Bureaucrat
QFT. In Civ2 I could usually have half a dozen cities before the AIs had built their third cities.
StrategeryBush
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2007
- Messages
- 205
The "standard" start involves a build order along the lines of: Worker, Warrior, Several more warriors with-an-extra-worker-thrown-in-if-there-is-something-useful-for-him-to-do, grow to size 4 (or to happy cap), Settler. Meanwhile research worker techs, Bronze, Writing, and Pottery. After that you scramble to build settlers, workers, enough military to defend the settlers, workers, and new cities, build a library so that you can run a couple of GS as your economy tanks. From there you either build defensive units and settlers to fill in the area that you have managed to cut off for yourself, or you build offensive units to take land from the guy who prevented you from doing cutting that land off, all the while trying to drag your economy back from the brink of collapse.
What I would like to see come out of this thread is some notion of when, why, and how you break from that basic pattern. What are the decision points? What are the keys to the situation that make you alter your strategy. How do those decisions translate into different tech or build paths?
For example, you start with a bunch of seafood, but are not a fishing culture. The sideline into teching fishing and building fishing boats changes things a lot. What doesn't get teched? What doesn't get built? Much of the early game is a tightrope walk, you can't do everything. Going for X means you have to give up Y.
In other words, we all know that "it depends," what we need to know is what it depends on.
What I would like to see come out of this thread is some notion of when, why, and how you break from that basic pattern. What are the decision points? What are the keys to the situation that make you alter your strategy. How do those decisions translate into different tech or build paths?
For example, you start with a bunch of seafood, but are not a fishing culture. The sideline into teching fishing and building fishing boats changes things a lot. What doesn't get teched? What doesn't get built? Much of the early game is a tightrope walk, you can't do everything. Going for X means you have to give up Y.
In other words, we all know that "it depends," what we need to know is what it depends on.
Worker - Warrior
Warrior - Worker
Workboat - Worker
Workboat - Workboat
Warrior - Workbot
Done it all, all possible if you know what you are doing.
Lately however I feel like shooting myself in my own foot by trying to maximise my early-game economic advantage over my tactical and safe position.
This especially concerns barbarians. Fogbusting only helps so much, and if you are unlucky in a game, where you do not have access to early metal or horses you are in a world of hurt when you can not fogbust 100%.
The thing is you want to research your needed techs 99% of the time, mining AH, Irri, BW, roads, pottery, writing, mysticism (in random order).
However the moment you started to research BW and AH, and figure you do not have key resources you need to go for hunting/archery. Else you are gambling on barbs not running you over.
If you go for hunting/archery you risk not getting writing on time, or dropping far behind in tech lead.
Warrior - Worker
Workboat - Worker
Workboat - Workboat
Warrior - Workbot
Done it all, all possible if you know what you are doing.
Lately however I feel like shooting myself in my own foot by trying to maximise my early-game economic advantage over my tactical and safe position.
This especially concerns barbarians. Fogbusting only helps so much, and if you are unlucky in a game, where you do not have access to early metal or horses you are in a world of hurt when you can not fogbust 100%.
The thing is you want to research your needed techs 99% of the time, mining AH, Irri, BW, roads, pottery, writing, mysticism (in random order).
However the moment you started to research BW and AH, and figure you do not have key resources you need to go for hunting/archery. Else you are gambling on barbs not running you over.
If you go for hunting/archery you risk not getting writing on time, or dropping far behind in tech lead.
Unconquered Sun
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2006
- Messages
- 1,462
Out of the last three times this happened to me (that I recall), twice I build Stonehenge while researching Fishing, and once a warrior I needed ASAP to scout a direction. All three times I switched to workboat when available, but I kept working high food yield unimproved tiles till pop 2, and only then maxed hammers for workboat.
Fishing makes BW next priority. Depending on the number of seafood, the first worker may be whipped.
Dirk1302
Deity
@Strategerybush, it depends on calculation. If it's not totally clear what to do the first 30 turns it's not too difficult to write down what different openings achieve in those turns. If you do this often you also get more feel for what's right in a given situation.
I don't find your pattern that basic, worker first sure but several warriors,i don't do that anymore unless the situation specifically calls for it. If i don't go bw early or i don't want to whip anyway i also don't grow to 4 or happy cap, i queue a worker/settler when i work all the improved tiles sometimes taking it off for some turns if a new improved tile will become available. I try always to time the moment of growth with completion of improvement.
As i mentioned in some previous posts i tend to deviate more from the standard if am expansive/imperialistic and have a forested plain hill (3H) in bfc. This tile works as an improved tile in those cases so i try to build a worker/settler if i have access to it.
Finally with seafood workboats are often superior but i've seen starts with seafood (but no fish iirc) but also an irrigated corn in bfc in open challenges where some of the strongest players here chose to go for worker first instead of boats.
I don't find your pattern that basic, worker first sure but several warriors,i don't do that anymore unless the situation specifically calls for it. If i don't go bw early or i don't want to whip anyway i also don't grow to 4 or happy cap, i queue a worker/settler when i work all the improved tiles sometimes taking it off for some turns if a new improved tile will become available. I try always to time the moment of growth with completion of improvement.
As i mentioned in some previous posts i tend to deviate more from the standard if am expansive/imperialistic and have a forested plain hill (3H) in bfc. This tile works as an improved tile in those cases so i try to build a worker/settler if i have access to it.
Finally with seafood workboats are often superior but i've seen starts with seafood (but no fish iirc) but also an irrigated corn in bfc in open challenges where some of the strongest players here chose to go for worker first instead of boats.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,989
Yes, I meant worker 1st. The only time I'd go warrior first is something like 430968709 forest tokugawa start where opening worker would have nothing to improve. That's far from an ideal situation but AFAIK the warrior (s) is/are better than fortifying the worker on top of a forest hill for 15 turns or more.
It's almost impossible to unlock HE with warriors if you spawn-lock...you only get in like 5 battles on a lot of maps (sometimes less - in my 3rd youtube game @ immortal I literally never fought a barb, and they were on and gave some people at least a little trouble) and half of those are animals
. The exceptions are probably isolation or completely surrounded by land, otherwise 4-5 warriors is usually enough to push the barb spawns closer to AI cities ----> they'll head there based on code. In that sense, spawn-locking can be compared somewhat with the great wall. It requires a minor early investment, the warriors "push" the barb spawns out such that they head for AI borders, and it becomes a lot harder to unlock HE unless you get a barb city nearby.
wioneo
King
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2006
- Messages
- 752
What
capitals usually get a good food source to regrow pretty quickly...Am I the only one who doesn't research archery until horseback riding? Just wondering...
