I am a Civ player in your mold. Expand ... keep up the pressure ... get to the next city site before the AI does ... it's faster and easier and cheaper to found that new city that to take it later by war ... expaaaaaaand!
FfH broke me of that habit. I just started playing without reading all the new rules, so of course my original empires sputtered. But that taught me how it was possible to play the "back game", to borrow a term from backgammon. I basicaly mean, it is possible to let the AI civs get larger than you and advanced in tech and then make the big comeback move in the end. So don't backburner everything just to produce Settlers fast.
Here's the mini outline to Barb suppression (due for revision after a few 0.16 game have been played.)
1) Look at your starting map and find the tiles you want to build your first 4-6 cities. THEN pick a centralish city site for your capitol. (Rule of thumb ... every map is different and tis isn the
mini outline.)
2) Build a couple-few Warriors while R&Ding up to Education.
3) Consider nearby hilltops/sentry towers. If you can post a Warrior in those tiles you will extend your sighting range. This does two things. It
reduces the number of barb units which spawn in your region. It gives you more warning when such units do spawn.
4) Many times it is good to go for Mysticism next. This is because a) Mysticism is needed for a religion, and b) God King increases hammer production. Settler builds are often fast under GK because of this. Food helps build settlers, but Food is not multiplied by GK. God King is not always that helpful, it all depends upon what your capitol cit produces.
5) Or go for Exploration next, as the +Movement promotion is critical. If you give +Move to all your Warriors, you will need half as many Warriors or even less in order to defend your realm. I mount an active defense. Barbs are engaged and destroyed before they reach a city. Then the wounded unit moves back into a city to heal. The unit sitting in town is probably just recovering from its last battle. A few units rotating into the 'front lines' like that can hold off quite a few Ragers.
At this point it is a matter of shooting out cities and pushing back the fog of war. A centralized capitol will help. It helps if you can speed up settler builds by GK. A handful of Move 2, Combat 2-3 (or Orcslaying) Warriors seals the deal.
[DISCLAIMER: Runis and Dirges and Barrows, Holy Crap! All the above advice has to be confirmed / altered in 0.16.
I've played only one 0.16a start so far, and I got a ice secure starting location. Plus I was playing the champ of early Orc skull cracking, the Elohim. I was able to rush to cottages, but perhaps that just won't be possible in every game. I hope it will not be possible in every game. The vaue of rushing Exploration might go up in 0.16 ... and these are all signs that 0.16 is Working As Intended.
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