Starting Strategy - screw workers, build work boats

[hirsh39]

This is a starting strategy I have not really seen posted anywhere else.
It works for any scenario where your settler is posted on the coast near seafood bonuses, and if one of the starting techs is fishing (Vikings, Americans, Carthaginians, Dutch, English, Greeks, Japanese, Native Americans, Portuguese, Romans, Spanish), and works best if you pick one of these civs with a financial trait.
I usually play Vikings, and I like to go for an early religion, Hinduism or Judaism if I'm second to polytheism.

Basically the way the strategy works is that in your starting city, the first thing you should build is a fishing boats, and you should be working the tile with clams/crabs while researching mysticism>polytheism(>masonry>monotheism(if you don't get Hinduism.))
Fishing boat will take 45 turns initially, as only production comes from city tile, but the tile you're working is 2 food, 3 commerce (if you picked a financial trait), meaning that population growth is pretty quick and mysticism takes about 10 turns, polytheism taking about 13 once you have pop growth. If there is a second coastal resource, work that with your second citizen, and early techs come quickly. If you get Hinduism, then you can switch which tiles you work on to make the fishing boat come more quickly. By the time your fishing boat is completed, you can already be at 3 pop, and you now have a tile that produces (if I'm remembering correctly) 4 food and 3 commerce. At this point, I go for settler>warrior>worker, assuming that by this point you've researched a few worker techs.

The benefits of this strategy is it allows you to get a settler very quickly without sacrificing your forests by chop rushing, which is a fine strategy but involves losses which I don't care for. Moreover, your city grows while building a fishing boat, so you can work towards increasing your adjacent terrain without sacrificing the population growth necessary in the early game for making settlers and workers. Also, if you get to poly first than you can research bronze working (vikings have mining as initial tech) and get your first settler to a copper resource before the AI has made their first settler. Also, if religion is unimportant to you, you can go straight for IW and assure yourself an iron resource with your first settler.

Anyways, looking for some feedback if anyone has any thoughts on this or has used a similar strategy in the early game.
Try it out! Works best with vikings and allows for really quick expansion. Probably also works well with the Dutch, but I've never played with them.

 

[budweiser]

Here is something similar for a seafood start.

Build the workboat like you say, then to mining>BW, switch to slavery and whip a worker. This will save you valuable growth turns and get that worker out fast. The pop will come back fast when the work boat gets finished or if you then chop out the boat.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I often favor a workboat first, especially if the seafood is fish (more food). I recommend modifying the tiles worked so that you use hammer tiles part of the time to get the workboat out when the city reaches size 2. Don't want to work too many unimproved tiles. As soon as you've done a workboat or two, build a worker.

I don't think too many people would recommend religious first. Most want worker techs and BW fast. Also sailing for lighthouses if you've got the seafood being worked. Although you want cities fast, don't be too quick on early settlers. Let the city grow a bit so it can produce the second, third, etc. settler faster.

I never found a religion before Judaism and often don't even get that. Especially if you start next to Isabella and she converts your cities for you (missionary spam) and becomes your best friend. Game is a lot easier if your next-door neighbor is the same religion and they prefer their home-grown religion.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Welcome to CivFanatics....

This is a starting strategy I have not really seen posted anywhere else.

There might be a reason for that....

Basically the way the strategy works is that in your starting city, the first thing you should build is a fishing boats, and you should be working the tile with clams/crabs while researching mysticism>polytheism(>masonry>monotheism(if you don't get Hinduism.))

First problem - Religion first tech routes currently lack widespread support when applied to levels that actually challenge the human player.

Fishing boat will take 45 turns initially, as only production comes from city tile, but the tile you're working is 2 food, 3 commerce (if you picked a financial trait), meaning that population growth is pretty quick and mysticism takes about 10 turns, polytheism taking about 13 once you have pop growth.

45 turns... so you are calculating in Epic speed, I suppose.

OK - first, I strongly doubt that you are better off with a slow workboat build than a fast one. A more typical approach (admittedly, not always available) would be to concentrating on getting the workboat done, either by working a 3 tile out of the gate (15 turns), or by working a 3 tile immediately to grow (11 turns) and then switching to a hammer configuration (7 more turns with some overflow and or extra food). At this point, your growth is going to explode in comparison (you're basically doubling, or better, the surplus food vs your strategy).

There are some threads discussing timing and optimization of workboat first here and there

Somebody else can do the math, but a betting man would guess that this approach is going to get to Monotheism faster than your route.

Second question is whether or not you are getting enough extra research to matter. In single player, the human plays first in any given turn. Consequently, he will win the religion race unless the AI is a full turn faster.

slobberinbear and I discussed this in some detail here and there.

If there is a second coastal resource, work that with your second citizen, and early techs come quickly. If you get Hinduism, then you can switch which tiles you work on to make the fishing boat come more quickly. By the time your fishing boat is completed, you can already be at 3 pop, and you now have a tile that produces (if I'm remembering correctly) 4 food and 3 commerce. At this point, I go for settler>warrior>worker, assuming that by this point you've researched a few worker techs.

You should really be more specific here about when things happen - what turn is the boat finished? what turn is the settler finished? how much research is complete at the point when you are deciding on the worker. Is there a reason to prefer settler>warrior to warrior>settler?

Also, if you get to poly first than you can research bronze working (vikings have mining as initial tech) and get your first settler to a copper resource before the AI has made their first settler.

That sounds very level dependent.

 

[kossin]

If you're going WB first, at least one of these needs to be true:
-only seafood in BFC
-better seafood than worker improvables
-you're relying on coast seafood for early commerce (forest spam/no rivers)

When building WB it is recommended to work a 3 tile or a 3 tile, this gets it out the fastest.

Unless playing on Monarch or less, I wouldn't try to grab the early religions.

Of course if you're playing 'just for fun' or with certain conditions, you don't have to try to play optimally.

 

[hirsh39]

Thanks for pointing me towards those other threads Voiceofunreason, i tried searching but couldn't seem to find anything about this.

I'm surprised there's such significant apathy towards founding an early religion. I find the culture boost pretty significant in the early game and founding Hinduism to be a great strategy, maybe I should reconsider things.

I generally play Monarch but will probably move up soon.
Maybe this strategy is just one that works well with the Vikings, who I play with most, but not really for other civs so well.

 

[budweiser]

Thanks for pointing me towards those other threads Voiceofunreason, i tried searching but couldn't seem to find anything about this.

I'm surprised there's such significant apathy towards founding an early religion. I find the culture boost pretty significant in the early game and founding Hinduism to be a great strategy, maybe I should reconsider things.

I generally play Monarch but will probably move up soon.
Maybe this strategy is just one that works well with the Vikings, who I play with most, but not really for other civs so well.

Mathematically it doesnt look that bad. I play emperor and could use this and probably still be OK. But there is a big chance that you will lose out on getting the religion, then you dont have much to show for it.
On immortal plus, I dont know...

I like the Vikings too, a very good civ.

 

[m4gill4]

There have been disagreements for years about the merits of pursuing an early religion. If you look around you'll see it can be even a bit contentious. I think it's fun on easy difficulty settings, but I agree with others who say its actual value is dubious at best.

First of all, 45 turns on an opening workboat is WAY too slow. If I don't have a 3 hammer tile in my BFC to crank it out fast, I often forgo the work boat opening for a worker. The idea is that you want to hurry up and work that coastal tile for the commerce as fast as you can (IMO the main benefit of WB first strategy). That way you have a better early tile to work while you build your initial worker and you're not stuck at 9 beaker's per turn.

As far as the recommended tech path, I agree that it is fun and enjoyable but when you start analyzing the output (and people have done so ad-nauseum) it quickly becomes difficult to justify spending so many turns researching things that don't help your workers improve your economy. If you have your worker standing around not improving things while you research your religion, that's a terrible waste that's really bad for you in the long run.

If you want an early religion that badly I recommend researching worker techs first and then with your improved economy try to race to Judaism (difficult) or Confucianism (somewhat easier, especially if you can land Code of Laws with the oracle). The benefit of these religions is that the techs leading to them are actually useful for other things besides founding a religion.

 

[DampRain]

Reasons not for early religion
You increase the chance that AI's will form a religious block (due to reduced competing religions) where they are extremely friendly. This leads to them trading alot with each other, peacevassaling, and warring with one results in war with all of them. This also means, if you don't have the religion, then they are more likely to gang up on you. Also instead of founding a religion, you could have researched the techs you need to quickly expand your empire. If you do found a religion, the cost of producing lots of enough missionaries to make people take your religion and be friendly, is considerable.

 

[lymond]

Workboat first on coastal start has often been recommended depending on resources in the cap.

 

[mariogreymist]

I like to go monument first.

Spoiler :

When I go for early religion anyway.

Spoiler :

which is never

 

[Grashopa]

Y'all gotta stop knocking the religion first. Didn't I just post another 3 religion deity game that I never finished recently?

 

[vicawoo]

Settler first on epic takes fewer turns (38) and nets more production than an improved fish.

One of the things that annoys me most about fishing boats they are very expensive pure hammer unit. Each overbuilt fishing boats means 2 less warriors, which means worse scouting, no fogbusting, and potentially dead workers/settlers/cities.