Strats after a couple weeks

[Napalmeon]

Hey everyone. Longtime lurker first time poster. I've been playing on immortal since release and wanted to share my thoughts.

From the games I've played there seems to be 3 basic starting strategies. All three have two similarities though. A reasonable early military is critical, as are as many early cities as you can get. It's not as important for your cities to be amazing as it was in Civ 5 so even if one of those cities is 100% for a specific luxury, strategic resource, or it has an amazing spot for a specific district that's completely fine as long as you prevent it from growing past 3 or 4 pop. The early military is important because the AI and barbarians will absolutely rush you and you need to fight them off. Ontop of that you can use your early military to capture a city or two which is important, because on emperor and above you will not be able to match the AI in expanding unless you pump out nothing but settlers which gimps you in every other department. Completely peaceful victories don't seem very possible. If anyone has pulled off a peaceful victory please let me know how you did it, because I would love to pull it off. But onto my starting strategies.

Expand and conquer: This works with every victory type except religious. It is the most reliable and the simplest strategy imo, and I've won every game I've used this in. Start slinger > builder upgrade three tiles with both production and food if possible. Time your settlers to pop out 1 or 2 turns after you'd hit 4 pop, until there's no more decent places to settle. When you're not building settlers you're building warriors and slingers. For techs go for the one or two techs needed to upgrade your three best tiles. Then rush archery. Upgrade slingers to archers, and go capture a capital or two. From that point forward you have such a big lead victory is almost guaranteed.

Religious rush: This is obviously necessary if you are going for a religious victory, but works for all victory types because religion is pretty darn strong. This is my favourite way to play, just because ignoring religion feels like it makes the game shallower to me. Again go slinger > builder but save the builder for cutting forests. Your first two techs are mining and astrology. Use your Warrior to explore and find a natural wonder. If you can't find one it's not the end of the world, but it is nice. The second you get astrology start building a holy site. You'll usually have time to get out another slinger between the builder and astrology finishing. Use the builder charges to speed up the holy site, build another builder after the holy site to upgrade tiles, followed by a shrine. At this point you should almost always get one of the prophets. After this settlers and military are your goals. Settle what you can and conquer what you can't.

A few notes on religious starts. DO NOT try for Stonehenge. It won't happen, and isn't that good anyway. Also this strategy is a lot riskier, because you will have weaker early military and economy. Religion makes up for that later in the game but the start is rough barbarian raids are scarier, AI rushes are scarier, you expand slower. I'm not sure if this consistently works on Deity. If anyone has tried it on Deity or has ideas to make this safer but just as consistent in getting a prophet please tell me how.

Wonder rush: Almost identical to religious rush, but trade the religious district for pyramids or Oracle. This is good for culture victory but as with religious rush it has been much riskier in my games. More so because there's the added risk you can get beaten to the wonder.

For all 3 I haven't been rushing districts, because science district and culture district are more of a detriment than a help. Because faster research and civics means slower build times on districts. First district I put down is always commercial, and second is always industry.

If anyone has advice or something to add please do. These have all worked for me, but I'd love to make improvements, and move up to Deity.

 

[MyOtherName]

Start slinger > builder upgrade three tiles with both production and food if possible. Time your settlers to pop out 1 or 2 turns after you'd hit 4 pop, until there's no more decent places to settle.

If you're going to do this, better to time your settlers before you grow to 4 pop -- growing from 3 to 4 costs 35 food, but growing from 2 to 3 costs 25 food. Ideally you'd finish your settler with 25-34 food in the food bar, and you'll still be at size 3 when you produce the settler.

Religious rush: This is obviously necessary if you are going for a religious victory, but works for all victory types because religion is pretty darn strong. This is my favourite way to play, just because ignoring religion feels like it makes the game shallower to me. Again go slinger > builder but save the builder for cutting forests. Your first two techs are mining and astrology. Use your Warrior to explore and find a natural wonder. If you can't find one it's not the end of the world, but it is nice. The second you get astrology start building a holy site. You'll usually have time to get out another slinger between the builder and astrology finishing. Use the builder charges to speed up the holy site, build another builder after the holy site to upgrade tiles, followed by a shrine. At this point you should almost always get one of the prophets. After this settlers and military are your goals. Settle what you can and conquer what you can't.

100% of the time (albeit with a small sample size) I've tried something like this on Deity, if I'm not overrun by a nearby barb camp, I'm overrun by the AI. I can't tell if it's bad luck, or the AI sniffs out when you gimp yourself.

On the other hand, 100% of the time (again with a small sample size) I build a quick settler and then the holy site next, I've been able to snag a prophet. (especially using the project and faith patronage).

 

[Napalmeon]

If you're going to do this, better to time your settlers before you grow to 4 pop -- growing from 3 to 4 costs 35 food, but growing from 2 to 3 costs 25 food. Ideally you'd finish your settler with 25-34 food in the food bar, and you'll still be at size 3 when you produce the settler.

My thought on that is if I time it for right after 4 pop the settler will knock me back down to three pop. That way there isn't any time where the three upgraded tiles aren't being worked and I'm not wasting any food or production. Although the first settler popping faster would let my new city grow faster, I'm not sure military would be able to keep up with the cities that need protection. What is your usual timing for the first settler?

On the other hand, 100% of the time (again with a small sample size) I build a quick settler and then the holy site next, I've been able to snag a prophet. (especially using the project and faith patronage).

I'll definitely try that out. I like the early settler for another place to pump out military. I'm always wary of usuing the projects too early, because it feels like a waste while the shrine seems like a permanent bonus.

 

[Xenotitan]

100% of the time (albeit with a small sample size) I've tried something like this on Deity, if I'm not overrun by a nearby barb camp, I'm overrun by the AI. I can't tell if it's bad luck, or the AI sniffs out when you gimp yourself.

The AI definitely knows when you have a weak military. You can also check on the AI's military strength by hovering over a civ's icon in the domination victory row of the victory progress panel.

 

[MyOtherName]

What is your usual timing for the first settler?

I have no real science for it; but as I said I try to aim for just before growth, so I'm spending less food to regrow. Sometimes I actually build the settler before the builder, depending on how good the second city site is and what I can improve in the capital's borders.

I'll definitely try that out. I like the early settler for another place to pump out military. I'm always wary of usuing the projects too early, because it feels like a waste while the shrine seems like a permanent bonus.

I definitely do the shrine too -- the early projects gives 14 GPP (Deity/standard/continents/small), and the great prophet race goes on long enough that building a shrine instead of the first project will pay off.

 

[Frank327]

There's a few specialized strategies that work kinda well.

Arabia:
Get the desert folklore pantheon, get theology early and evangelize your belief as quickly as possible for stronger missionaries and apostles. Then missionary/apostle spam your way to victory with your powerful desert holy sites. If you manage to get mosques that makes it easier as well. Get hagia sophia if possible.

England:
Build the terracotta army relatively early in the game and work towards getting Mary Leaky the great scientist in the atomic era. Build archeology museums, spam archeologists, build some sea resorts in what should be a lot of coastal cities (you're england after all) and you should be able to get an easy cultural victory while mostly ignoring great writers, artists and musicians.

Russia:
Get a quick Lavra in your first and second city. Pick up Reliquaries with your religion and then beeline for Mont St. Michel. You'll probably want dance of the aurora to get the faith production going. Build Lavra + temple everywhere, stack relics and win cultural victory. Maybe you need to build Christo Rendentor.

Generally the core of the game is a solid early military with as many new cities as possible, and after that building commerce districts and getting the Industrial districts with factories clustered. And of course civs like Germany, Greece, Rome and Japan are just strong in general.