Optimal first build in capital?

[Indiansmoke]

I am looking forward to your strategy article on this tactic for sure. I've noticed my game isn't optimal as of late. I still wait a few turns before I end up popping bronzeworking.

Why? Ignorance is bliss

 

[michmbk]

I am looking forward to your strategy article on this tactic for sure. I've noticed my game isn't optimal as of late. I still wait a few turns before I end up popping bronzeworking.

Some secrets are far too precious to share!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Some secrets are far too precious to share!

You better actually finish faster than me now . At least in the finish date sense.

And going for a warrior is often justified in MP, ESPECIALLY if you start with only a scout. What exactly stops you from dying before turn 10? Warrior first.

But the AI doesn't do that, and with most starts worker wins.

 

[AveiMil]

I'm going to a LAN tomorrow where we play with 8 players with teams of 2 (2v2v2v2). Always War, No Huts, Not Events, Multiple Production (PIG Mod).

We enforce a 30-50 turns no culture penetration rule. Meaning you can kill and attack anything outside your opponents culture but not enter it until 30 or 50 turns have passed (depends on what we want). This is simply because everyone agree that an early rush like that is just not any fun and if one team dies very early we're going to have to start over anyway.

(We'll be playing the Blood Diamond map in my signature tomorrow, should be fun!)

 

[michmbk]

You better actually finish faster than me now . At least in the finish date sense.

I posted my final result in that colony game - think it dropped off the first page too quick since no one else is playing it. Shame because it was a fun game. Ironic that I moved my warrior to the hill to scout the terrain a bit instead of claiming the hut right after settling - that difference in the RNG made a massive difference in the game, which is why I don't like huts either.

Obviously, I leveraged that advantage, opting for an early rush, which was permitted in the rules. I finished a lot faster (not in time played, of course!), but didn't have nearly as cool a quantity of unit production as you.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ Playing with made-up rules can be fun, but don't forget the implications outside the obvious, like someone using attack-immunity to whore wonders or chop-rush a settler or 2 with cathy and plant them RIGHT NEXT to your capitol while his team techs archery. Doing either is perfectly acceptable within your rules and you have no right to complain if you get "settler rushed" .

Game balance is very difficult and house rules can greatly distort it. Then again, you could settler rush somebody instead .

 

[DigitalBoy]

I used to think that building a worker while your city was still size 1 was a mistake, and would build warriors 'till the pop grew, but from reading various threads here I see that many better players than I start with a worker straight off the bat. I always thought that the worker would be built quicker if I let the city grow first - more food/hammers to build it with - but am I grossly mistaken?

TIA

Worker first is important because improved tiles are just that much more powerful than unimproved tiles. Unimproved tiles only produce 3 food + production, but when you subtract the 2 food required to sustain the population working the tile, you only really have a net productivity of one. Compare to that to something like an improved cattle tile, a combined 6 food + production minus 2 food for a net productivity of four, essentially making the tile four times as productive as working an unimproved tile.

Letting your city grow out before building a worker lets you work crummy unimproved tiles. Building a worker first lets you work improved tiles ASAP. It pays off for itself really quickly.

Occasionally, work boat first is a stronger option than worker first (emphasizing production to get the boat out fast, normally), but it usually requires you to actually start off with Fishing as a starting tech, and then preferably for the seafood in question to be fish (the difference between 4 food and 5 food is actually pretty substantial).

 

[AveiMil]

^ Playing with made-up rules can be fun, but don't forget the implications outside the obvious, like someone using attack-immunity to whore wonders or chop-rush a settler or 2 with cathy and plant them RIGHT NEXT to your capitol while his team techs archery. Doing either is perfectly acceptable within your rules and you have no right to complain if you get "settler rushed" .

Game balance is very difficult and house rules can greatly distort it. Then again, you could settler rush somebody instead .

That's true, but that kind of rush should be easy to counter by just scouting with the initial Warrior and if spotted grind out 2-3 Archers (or Warriors) and kill his Settlers before they can get in range. Besides it's risky since both all teams have two teams next to eachother. And by gimping your self and your opponent you indrectly give a boost to the team on the other side :O

 

[vicawoo]

How many wonders can you whore in 30-50 turns?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How many wonders can you whore in 30-50 turns?

It's more a question of going to those techs with impunity while neglecting ones that would ordinarily help you against a choke or other early gambit.

Settler rush is a lot more of a threat in that variant ---> you could literally dance around the archers, settle a defenseless city, and say "can't touch me now now", with enough time to get archers in that city.

If it's a good site or two, it isn't hurting your team and is probably recommended actually since these sites could easily claim copper and are not necessarily easy to dislodge.

 

[mirthadir]

There are several possible options, but worker first is the general best case. Exceptions include:
1. WB, if you have fishing and a fish resource(s) with no other food, then get the WB out ASAP (work a forested plains hill if you can); I know this was excluded by the OP, but I'm just being complete.
2. Settler, this can be a decent shot for IMP civs if they can get the hammer counts up (normally you want to be settled on a plains hill for this to be an option). Getting two cities with two workers faster is a good thing; getting a blocking city in place to chop the Oracle next to an AI is priceless.
3. Warrior/scout (partial). For this to be valid you need to lack easily improveable tiles (e.g. your only food resources are sheep and sugar without Ag or Hunting); no hills to mine. This is more common with expansive civs than anything else.
4. SH (partial) pretty much the same thing as above, an idle worker is a waste so if you have some dead time before you can build anything more useful, getting some failure cash in hand can be good.

Most of the exceptions are trait/tech/situation specific and some of them are heavy gambles (e.g. settler first). I'd say that in least 70% of my games its worker first with another 20% being WB first.

 

[BurnEmDown]

TheMeInTeam and AveiMil, I think I have the solution to your settler rush problem: no attacking inside cultural borders, only if they are connected to the capitals culture! So if someone builds a faraway city, maybe next to your own borders, it's OK to attack but only that faraway city, and if their second city touches their capital's borders it's untouchable for the duration.

 

[batavier]

Another case where I start with a warrior, is if I have an expansive civ and no 3 hammer tile.
In this case the worker is only delayed for 3 turns with epic speed. getting a worker 3 turns earlier
doesn't beat being size 2 21 turns earlier.

 

[vicawoo]

Another case where I start with a warrior, is if I have an expansive civ and no 3 hammer tile.
In this case the worker is only delayed for 3 turns with epic speed. getting a worker 3 turns earlier
doesn't beat being size 2 21 turns earlier.

Very nice, I haven't seen this one before. On normal, it would be a 10 turn worker after 8 turns of growth, so 3 turns later. On epic, it's 15 after 11, thanks to exact growth value, instead of 23.

It's worth estimating how much you lose from those 3 worker turns. It could be 3 to 9 food/hammers from the first improvement. But then considering growth, for normal speed building a farm, you get 12 food in the first 4 turns, possibly 22 in 6 turns, so worker after growth sounds 3 turns better. But since you're size 2, the 2nd improvement is important, and it finishes around 10 turns after the worker is built... I'll have to finish this later.

 

[DMOC]

Why does everyone keep saying the worker and nothing else? I have gone warrior first, Stonehenge first, and workboat first many times. True, a worker is first for me most of the time, but not "almost always" like 95%.

Edit: Didn't read topic post correctly, disregard workboat.

 

[raxid]

Why does everyone keep saying the worker and nothing else? I have gone warrior first, Stonehenge first, and workboat first many times. True, a worker is first for me most of the time, but not "almost always" like 95%.

OP says your not next to a seafood resource, so is this WB just for exploration? also a lot of people do say there are certain situations where its not optimal (lots of idle worker turns), but they state even in those situations its not that much worse.

in my opinion in a single player game with no seafood resource, until you get to deity just take the worker first without thinking about it.

 

[Rittmeyer]

worker first, almost always. I'm editing my post because I said something stupid and I really don't know where this came from. Must be because I'm drunk.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

TheMeInTeam and AveiMil, I think I have the solution to your settler rush problem: no attacking inside cultural borders, only if they are connected to the capitals culture! So if someone builds a faraway city, maybe next to your own borders, it's OK to attack but only that faraway city, and if their second city touches their capital's borders it's untouchable for the duration.

Great, now some people can settle their 2nd city without garrison, while others who have land that merits settling it a little further away have to defend it arbitrarily. Nothing like ADDING a tremendous amount of luck to play for no reason! Note that this rule also directly influences trait balance (creative gets a huge lift as they can settle further away and chain settle un-touched while others have to mind wandering units more)

Or maybe people should just learn to defend attacks in the first 30-50 turns, since defending them is easily (and consistently) possible. If they don't want to do that, one player choosing to take full abuse of the made-up rules is valid. I honestly think he *should* just chop settlers and settle in someone's face, only stopping in time to get some defenders in there.

 

[DMOC]

OP says your not next to a seafood resource, so is this WB just for exploration? also a lot of people do say there are certain situations where its not optimal (lots of idle worker turns), but they state even in those situations its not that much worse.

in my opinion in a single player game with no seafood resource, until you get to deity just take the worker first without thinking about it.

Ah, I must have misread the post. So, yeah, worker first always. However, I do think it is appropriate to build warriors (case 1: when you're filled with forest-covered capital or a seafood capital and you need to research fishing and workers have nothing to do) or stonehenge (when a warrior is not necessay and similar conditions apply in case 1).

 

[martin026]

I usually go worker first. I play random leaders, and if i get a civ with an early UU (Persia, Mongols, etc...) I may build another scouting unit first just so I can get a good lay of the land so I can plan a dotmap accordingly.

The game I just started, I pulled Shaka. My scout parked in the jungle just south of my capital a few turns in and died to a panther I never saw. Had he lived a bit longer, he would have revealed an excellent city location just south that would have blocked Jao and provided irrigated wheat, pigs and copper on a river connected to my cap. But since I had corn in my BFC, I started worker first, then felt like I was trying to catch up on scouting.

So worker first might be the "best" play for the most part, it has set me back many times when I get unlucky with my first unit.