Starting build order?

[gettingfat]

Hard to say, really depends. My preference:

• Standard: worker=>warrior (city grows to pop 2 or 3)=> (should have got BW at that point) settler=>chop another worker
  
• Fish + fishing: work boat & let pop grow to 3/worker (discover BW before it pops up)/ settler. Make sure your lone warrior or scout don't go too far.
  
• With fish but no fishing tech, with workable tiles: worker to work on the tiles(research fishing) => work boat (city grows) => settler => worker
  
• With a close neighbour, you see a copper and good tiles right between you and your neighbour: worker (research BW) => chop the settler
  
• Monarch or below, for early religion race, especially playing Isabel: warrior (and use a 2-gold tile), then worker (research a tech you can improve food) then settler.

 

[gettingfat]

Oh, in addition. May I want to say this? Civ4 is, after all, just a game. Don't stick to one single "optimal strategy" and repeat it 1000 times like a robot. Play for fun

I strongly recommend at least once in a while, use the gut feeling and go for some "low odd" strategies. One time playing monarch level I didn't have mysticism, but my warrior popped it in turn 2. For some reason I thought I had a lucky day and I went for polytheism, won the race, saw nobody had buddhism, went for it, won it. My scout popped masonry later, so I went for judaism, and got it. Finally I won all religions except Islam, which I never cared. I won a cultural victory, of course.

 

[polypheus]

I play on huge maps marathon speed and nowadays play on Emperor level. In the past I would build a worker quickly (maybe second or even first unit).

HOWEVER, in Emperor, the AIs build settlers and spread their empires too quickly and barbs start appearing as early as 2500BC, mostly archers and by 1500BC you see bard axemen! Therefore, the following set strategy and build order I find is what generally works:

1. Scout around for a few turns then determine optimal spot to build first city
2. Build warrior or scout and wait for city to grow to at least size 2 then use unit for scouting. Usually you do not want to wait for size3 unless food situation is so good you can grow to size3 very fast.
3. Get archery ASAP then beeline to bronze working. (Defending with warriors against barb archers and especially barb axeman is obvious suicide and there is a high probability that either bronze is out of reach or cannot build up roads and mine in time to build up axeman defenses. Its just much easier to rely on archery defense than hoping to be able to build up axeman defense which most times cannot be done quicly enough in marathon!)
4. Build Settler and use warrior as escort (naked settling will result in being food for animals!)
5. Found second city, have it build archer then probably a second archer or perhaps scout.
6. Build archer in first city (which allows it hopefully to grow to size 3)
7. At some point second city has two archers, first city has one archer and about to finish its settler, you can use that second archer in city#2 to escort and defend city#3 you are about to found.
8. At this point with three cities, it is possible to start to consider work boats, workers, monuments or anything else or even have city#2 start generating settlers (as it should now be at size2 or 3). And by now with BW and slavery civic you have whipping ability and to can pump out addtional settlers more quickly to keep pace with the AIs rapid settling itself. With three cities now you have many more options depending on the game situation.

In levels lower than Emperor or even Monarchy, I have in the past built workers or work boats as the first or second unit in the capital city itself. But that just doesn't work in Emperor because workers or work boats cost you big in the race for cities. The AI spreads out really fast and this set strategy is the only way to claim lands fast enough.