please critique my opening

[stuttrboy]

I realized that maybe this is a better place for this thread. I have linked the original thread with the saves and my first 100+ turn log.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=255599

 

[Kev]

I am by no means a great expert, but some of the things I would have done differently:

With Ag and wheel as start techs, and getting hunting from a hut pretty early, I would have gone to AH very quickly. If no horses in my capital's BFC, plunk an early second city near them and get war chariots up. Great for barb defense and for extra exploration - very much needed in your case with your given warrior getting killed early.

If horses are nearby, I likely would have skipped archery at that point and gone to BW (for whipping and chopping mostly) and then perhaps some religious techs looking at possibly founding one, building a wonder within that group (Oracle), and opening up some different civics.

With Boudica close, I would have been tempted to chariot rush to at least hamstring her if I could.

Looks like in Thebes you went worker, settler, worker, worker. Good to have the workers, but I like to intersperse some additional units in there to give the city time to grow. Since you went BW so early, might as well take advantage of slavery more and perhaps chopping (not sure how much you did).

As it stands, you are not in a horrible place even with the DoW by Boudica. Did not look at the save, but you need not fear an early war if you are able to do some damage and hopefully take some land. Yes, it hurts the economy in the short term, but your expansion and the curtailing of your nearest (currently only) neighbor is good in the long term. I'd check to see if she has iron units, though, as that could be a pain and you'd need to locate the source and pillage it forthwith. You still should be able to defend quite well with war chariots and axemen (and archers in the cities).

 

[stuttrboy]

I went with archery because I don't really trust warriors to defend cities and help take out barbs. I built about 5-6 archers while growing to happy cap before building the workers and settlers, so i didn't really want the cap growing at that point. AH instead of BW early was probably a good idea but I wanted to be able to chop if needed, as it stands I didn't need to. Thank you for your input.

 

[suspendinlight]

Chariots are better than archers to take out barbs. Chariots can even defeat Axemen quite easily and are able to go on the offensive against the barbs, plus they have two movement points. With archers you are stuck holed up in your cities while the barbs pillage your land. If I can get chariots early I would much prefer them to archers.

 

[Kev]

Chariots are better than archers to take out barbs. Chariots can even defeat Axemen quite easily and are able to go on the offensive against the barbs, plus they have two movement points. With archers you are stuck holed up in your cities while the barbs pillage your land. If I can get chariots early I would much prefer them to archers.

Agreed. Plus you needed some extra exploration with your first warrior going down early. You can defend early with warriors fine assuming you move quickly enough to get horses. Having chariots allows you to go out and GET the barbs as they enter your lands or before - nice to do so so they cannot pillage improvements.

 

[stuttrboy]

Chariots are better than archers to take out barbs. Chariots can even defeat Axemen quite easily and are able to go on the offensive against the barbs, plus they have two movement points. With archers you are stuck holed up in your cities while the barbs pillage your land. If I can get chariots early I would much prefer them to archers.

I didn't know I had horses so close and I don't like taking chances that early, I know archery is probably a wasted 10 turns of research but I feel that playing it safe and going for them to secure new city sights and the hardier explorers is worth it in the long run even if I only make a total of 6 for the entire game. one was killed while exploring and my archer was attacked twice while settling my third city, a warrior would never have stood up to that.

Thank you for the input but I don't think going for archery after popping hunting from a hut was a mistake. Going for BW befiore AH I believe was and a number of people have pointed that out to me here and in the original thread.

I agree with you 100% that chariots are much more versatile than archers, especially war chariots, but if there were no horses I would have been stuck with warriors for fog busting/defending/securing city sites.

 

[Orion071]

If you didn't have Horses, then you could have gone for Archery guilt-free. But if there are Horses around, you come out so much better with War Chariots and now you don't need Archery any more.

Going for AH earlier doesn't mean you're stuck with Warriors. You can still get Archery later.

 

[stuttrboy]

What I meant was I would be stuck with warriors until I researched Archery. I guess I just don't like building warriors. my only real problem with this is that I don't usually build settlers/workers until I'm at happy cap and I use that time to mass produce a group of archers to use as fog busters. It seems to take too long to get the settler out early to connect a strategic resource, before reaching happy cap. So since I am hitting happy cap and producing defensive units during a period before I would have any strategic resources hooked up I research archery. I also find this gives me enough time to get the basics researched without cutting into my research funds too early. What method do you use to produce settlers and workers?

Oh and suggestions on where to go from my save point are welcome.

 

[stuttrboy]

If I could get a few more comments and possibly some direction I'll continue this game. This part is usually where I have the most problems. Thank you for your time.

 

[Jet]

For now, Walls and units. Mixed units, including of plenty of War Chariots with flanking promotions to attack her stacks and hopefully withdraw. Fight her off in your own territory.

You could try to pillage her. I don't know. It seems like you only have so much production, so you have to be selective in what you build.

If you can get Alphabet or Currency, you can after killing some units make peace on terms favorable to her (giving her 100 gold or Polytheism or something), which will make it easier to get the peace deal. Alphabet would also make taking her cities easier with Spies, if you want to try that. Again, not sure whether you have the production for that. Maybe.

Then try to grab all the land south of the jungle. Take the barb cities first.

It will be hard to do this and build your Aesthetics and Literature wonders, but what can you do.