Starting Strategies

[MadDjinn]

About scouting - A lot of you seem too pre-occupied with grabbing every last goodie hut. Thats not strategy, it dice rolling. And I dont think its really that wise. I like to keep my starting units close to home so thet can fog bust and kill barbs. There is nothing worse than getting a tile pillaged or having to stop a worker to dodge a barb.

I will many times wait until between 650BC- 1AD before I send out a scout. I will build it from my military city and it usually gets a promo or two, extra visibility, extra movement. Then I send it out on auto explore and it will travel all over the map and reveal all the AI cities. I sign open borders so it can move freely. This is a much safer method, no need to worry about barbs.

Scouting helps with Goodie huts sure, but finding 4 CSs before the AI nets you 120g vs. 60g. Finding 5 AIs before turn 20 and selling some open borders to the quick Writing ones for 50g and then being able to get lux sales going with AIs that aren't your neighbour is great. They will spend their gold early game, you just need them to spend it with you. and as stated, faster tech speed. (if the formula holds up...)

Knowing where you can and cannot settle is also very very important. Knowing if an AI is settling *towards* you vs. *away* from you is important. And so forth.

 

[RealHuhn]

Scouting helps with Goodie huts sure, but finding 4 CSs before the AI nets you 120g vs. 60g. Finding 5 AIs before turn 20 and selling some open borders to the quick Writing ones for 50g and then being able to get lux sales going with AIs that aren't your neighbour is great. They will spend their gold early game, you just need them to spend it with you. and as stated, faster tech speed. (if the formula holds up...)

Knowing where you can and cannot settle is also very very important. Knowing if an AI is settling *towards* you vs. *away* from you is important. And so forth.

Very true.

Although I prefer Tradition -> Landed Elite with NC after 3-4 cities. Landed Elite is just too powerful to pass (for fast growth or early production focus). Quicker border pops + free monuments isn't bad either.

You gain culture a lot faster this way, too, so you don't have to build an early monument.

 

[Deau]

Very true.

Although I prefer Tradition -> Landed Elite with NC after 3-4 cities. Landed Elite is just too powerful to pass (for fast growth or early production focus). Quicker border pops + free monuments isn't bad either.

You gain culture a lot faster this way, too, so you don't have to build an early monument.

I like LE quite a bit as well but more often than not lately, I do a one city opener with a somewhat early rush and pick my victory goals based on the net results of the first one or two rushes (playing on Deity) and I find to prefer free worker to free monument in my capital since I get luxuries out faster...and am also always a little scared at LE making my puppets outgrow my happiness.

Puppets overgrowing I believe is the biggest reason why LE is very underused in comparison to meritocracy as far as a 3-SP opener goes.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

I would still use the same build order whether I have ruins in a game or not. What changes is that I might explore a little more methodically, but I'm still building a scout first and as fast as I can.

 

[Deau]

I would still use the same build order whether I have ruins in a game or not. What changes is that I might explore a little more methodically, but I'm still building a scout first and as fast as I can.

Petition signed.

On a serious note though, same here. The only exception to a scout opener are small land masses based maps like archipelago but then I will build a tireme probably as soon as I tech it so it's somewhat similar.

Meeting Civs early is really underestimated. It significantly increases research rate.

 

[roguepro92]

@deau
replacing every tile with trade post eats up worker turns but can easily stop a puppet from growing out of your happiness even with LE problem solved. but yeah. LE is hard if you dont have a hard and well set happiness buffer when you start ICS or REX or puppet

 

[Rittmeyer]

I highly doubt I would get another 200g "more often than not" even at Emperor, and less likely still when I try Immortal.

Agreed. I still go with scout first, but his "200g more often than not" thing is the kind of dangerous and highly unlikely argument that, when repeated too many times by a good player or two, end up confusing other users and making them really believe that you have no choice but going scout first.

 

[Deau]

I had originally stated 200g or equivalent...or at least something that meant that. as far as I'm concerned anything I get from a hut that isn't barbs discovery or partial map, I usually consider this roughly equivalent to a 90g bump. Ofc it depends on your game plans and whatnot but 30 culture, gold, a scout upgrade, a free citizen, a free tech. They are definitely not all of equal value but if I can get 2 extra "bonuses" huts by using a scout, I consider it to be work complete to "pay off" for an extra warrior. That's not even considering the various other benefits mentionned regarding civ meeting and their impact on reducing tech costs. It's strictly considering net gain from goody huts and meeting more/first extra CSs.

For all I care, the reduction in tech costs on emperor+ would make it worthwhile to build a scout first for any map that has a decent land mass start EVEN if goody huts were disabled.

 

[odin_toelust]

About scouting - A lot of you seem too pre-occupied with grabbing every last goodie hut. Thats not strategy, it dice rolling. And I dont think its really that wise.

Its like dice rolling with weigthed die, you can't lose. There is literally no bad outcome from a goodie hut in civ5, just less good.

Also, if you get an archer upgrade from your scout that unit can turn into one of, if not the, most powerful units in your army. A military unit with no terrain movement cost is huge, especially a ranged unit. If you are careful your scout/archer should only take damage when you allow it to, or get owned by a horseman from teh fog.

The benifits of scouts are many:
1. $$$$$$$$
2. Situational awareness (imho the game skill with the higest ratio of importance to attention paid)
3. Earlier Diplomacy
4. super unit possibility
5. Science rate

Besides #4 all of those a gaurenteed.

Also, if you don't scout at all you will be displeased when you get nuked, LSed, etc when you didn't even know the AI could make that unit.

Also Also, if you know where an enemies strat resource is you can pillage it and laugh at their weakened army. Doing this has allowed me to win wars that should not have been won.

IMHO it is much more of a dice roll to play a game blind than to invest in scouts. What if you take over arabia because they have WMD's, only to find out they had no uranium? Not to mention the possibility that you don't have [insert useful resource here] in your territory, but it is 2 tiles into the fog, along with a great city location.

Does anyone know which units are weakened when you lose part of your resource pool? Ex. you have 8 LS and your 6 Iron gets pillaged. Which units lose effectivness?

 

[MadDjinn]

Does anyone know which units are weakened when you lose part of your resource pool? Ex. you have 8 LS and your 6 Iron gets pillaged. Which units lose effectivness?

all 8 LSs. + any frigates or cats/trebs. If you're negative on a strat resource, every unit that uses it gets the penalty. It's a nice simple solution so that you don't have to get mad at the front lines losing the resource vs. the ones in back.

 

[Tabarnak]

I've played with Tradition through Landed Elite a few times as well, but I don't have as good a feel for the timing.

LE first is good for newly settled cities. When LE is online other cities can grow and expand culturally immediately. Cities before NC is more optimal than the opposite. The ''goal'' is to make an empire so much productive that you can use money for other things than upgrading and rush buying. I can trade 1 for 1 luxuries to keep happiness in green and keep cities growing instead of gold. When universities are online, it's much easier to run GPs and still grow, without losing much production. Reduce dependance of RAs. Good synergy when semi-isolated, emperor level or below, or against humans. Much slower to get through medieval era.

The problem come from high level(imm-deity). AIs have so much money. Liberty tree is almost always better(NC first). At high level it's usually better to stay small(2 cities, except puppets). Sell luxuries for RAs while going for Ren era at lighting speed.

This strat doesn't work against humans. Only the fast Steel rush is attractive, but you only have one chance(around turn 55 to 75 quick speed) until opponent(with successful LE approach) can outproduce you.

Both paths have pros and cons. If a player use same settings over and over, it's normal to stick at 1 particular opening.

 

[Aestis25]

I know this is minor, but it does happen often enough: I prefer the "ruins weapons upgrade" of a Scout-->Archer more than an extra Spearman. An archer with no terrain cost can support your army of swords/longswords very well, upgrade to Crossbowman, etc. and it's probably good to have a "free" unit from a tech you most likely won't be getting until much later.

 

[MadDjinn]

I know this is minor, but it does happen often enough: I prefer the "ruins weapons upgrade" of a Scout-->Archer more than an extra Spearman. An archer with no terrain cost can support your army of swords/longswords very well, upgrade to Crossbowman, etc. and it's probably good to have a "free" unit from a tech you most likely won't be getting until much later.

I agree...

losing that warrior when it becomes a spearman is annoying. Now I have to make another warrior.

 

[Colonel Bogey]

Generally I build Monument > Scout > Worker > Library

Sending the warrior you begin with out to explore can be a huge mistake if you suddenly find yourself harassed by barbs or other players in multi-player.

Ideally, I would build the library before or straight after the monument* but not developing your land immediately can have hampering affects on your early growth.

A question for people who build granary early on. I tend to only build granary when a city demands it. I find building early leads to two things: An obvious reduction of gold available to cover maintenance costs and cities growing too quickly leading to happiness problems at a time you're needing to expand. Am I missing an obvious benefit that outweighs these problematic factors?

The other early game thing is rivers. I just played a game where there was no rivers anywhere close to my starting position. There's no point wasting loads of moves going right across the map searching with a settler and a warrior but it really hampers the amount of available gold in the earlier game which makes things frustrating/interesting.

*obviously not before, ideally not necessarily possibly.

 

[Tabarnak]

A question for people who build granary early on. I tend to only build granary when a city demands it. I find building early leads to two things: An obvious reduction of gold available to cover maintenance costs and cities growing too quickly leading to happiness problems at a time you're needing to expand. Am I missing an obvious benefit that outweighs these problematic factors?

Granary can be used for extra production. I can work an extra mine and keep same growth rate. Or hire 1 extra gp. For only 1 gold per turn and few hammers, the granary is one of the best early building. I usually build them in all cities.

 

[Colonel Bogey]

Granary can be used for extra production. I can work an extra mine and keep same growth rate. Or hire 1 extra gp. For only 1 gold per turn and few hammers, the granary is one of the best early building. I usually build them in all cities.

But what about the unhappiness that growing individual cities too quickly brings?

Although it sounds an interesting strategy so I'll look into it. Shields are important but it's like a balancing act trying to not let gold or happiness dip into the red early game.

 

[Lyoncet]

But what about the unhappiness that growing individual cities too quickly brings?

Well, that's just the point; either you're in an ideal situation where you can support the extra growth, or you can't support the extra growth, in which case you can shift a worker from that riverside plains farm to the riverside hill lumbermill or mine or what have you. You don't get the same hammer return that way you'd get from a workshop, but it's more flexible, and it's a much smaller hammer investment.

 

[Colonel Bogey]

Ah I see. Maybe thats where Im going wrong. I hadnt really bothered micromanaging my citizens until its time to turn all the surplus food into specialists mid game. But yeah, probably better controlling growth that way than just not building granaries.

 

[MarVee]

I also almost always settle the first city on a hill for the extra hammer

Writing is the second or third tech, depending on the capital luxury resources.

My start build preference has recently been scout-scout-monument-warrior. This is followed by NC if I happen to get sufficient funds for rush-buying a library.
If there is no clear good second city site close to the capital I may also hard build the library -> NC.

If a clearly good city site is close then an immediate REX with scout-scout-monument-settler may be the way I go. The double scouts provide the map knowledge to make the decision NC vs. quick REX after the monument.

Tradition and Liberty trees are in the lead for opening policies, depending on the civ.
Really tempted by Honor, but usually a pass. The free worker from liberty is generally the first one I get in play.

Reading this thread has made trying a worker as the second or third build (after scout) tempting... ...I may have been too slow on initial tile builds.

 

[Kerosene31]

I always start out with a scout on any difficulty above prince. I don't bother with a warrior as I'm not going to bother fighting barbarians until archery (which is one of my first techs).

Research I go for anything I need to get a resource early and archery.

Depending on what is around me, my 2nd build will be an archer or worker.

I always want an early archer now since the patch which made barbs more aggressive. There's nothing worse than having your first worker get taken.

From there it is usually expansion time. Either I build a monument or a settler (depending on how much culture I got from huts).