The early game: How-to

[georgjorge]

All this early to mid game strategy makes me wonder...do any of you ever lose to Deity barbs at all? Because right now I'm probably losing something like 1 out of 3 Deity games I start to barb flood from a camp I couldn't get to early enough (and I do start with something like Warrior - Slinger/Warrior - Warrior a lot of the time). Not being able to sell wounded units for gold and buy healthy ones complicates things. Just wondering if I'm the only one sometimes getting stuck before any thought of conquest is possible.

 

[elitetroops]

All this early to mid game strategy makes me wonder...do any of you ever lose to Deity barbs at all? Because right now I'm probably losing something like 1 out of 3 Deity games I start to barb flood from a camp I couldn't get to early enough (and I do start with something like Warrior - Slinger/Warrior - Warrior a lot of the time). Not being able to sell wounded units for gold and buy healthy ones complicates things. Just wondering if I'm the only one sometimes getting stuck before any thought of conquest is possible.

What map type/size do you usually play?

I usually don't build early warriors. Slingers are out faster and can be very effective. Once you upgrade them to archers they can handle whatever the barbs are throwing at you.

 

[georgjorge]

Pangea / Standard. Upgrading to archers is nice, but I'm talking more about getting flooded by turn 20-25, a bit tight for archers taking into account they actually have to travel to the camp as well. I'm going to try Slingers instead of Warriors.

 

[elitetroops]

Maybe it's tougher on pangaea. So far I've mainly played continents and haven't had any crazy barb trouble.

You don't always have to make it to the camp immediately. If you can succeed in killing the scout, this is also enough. Or sometimes you might not be able to kill the scout, but you can chase it away before it can see your city and report back to the camp.

My very first builds in a deity game are often 3 slingers and a builder. The order of these builds depend on the lands. If there's coast to the west, a city state close to the north and a mountain range in the east, then I'm quite likely to grab the builder immediately after first slinger. If there's lots of open land around me I prefer more slingers first.

 

[stormtrooper412]

a good way to deal with a barb invasion is to fortify a warrior on a choke point.

I'm going to assume that the post-patch will just have you spam slingers and eat as many cities as you can.

I'd like to see more deity LPs though

 

[Roxlimn]

The barbs can be more or less of a problem. It depends. In my current game, I JUST had vision short of the coast and before I posted a Scout on it, the FOW just kept spawning Barbs. It was complicated because I had two points that were just out of reach of my vision, so the Barb camps would spawn and the Scouts would automatically have sight of my Civ, so you'd have insta-spawning hordes of Horsemen, sometimes from two points at a time. It got pretty hairy. I don't care what you say. Two Archers died defending against the Horsemen hordes. It's not trivial.

 

[Mario HTTR]

thanks for these tips

 

[oklibrarian]

Excellent Primer--I just used this general opening strategy to great effect in a culture win with China (a Civ that lends itself well to this opening IMHO). Chopping more and a greater emphasis on commercial districts (I had been doing industrial first) were very helpful. I would add that as you have time, try to get your religion up and spreading as early as other events allow--I learned this the hard way recently when I had a brief scare with a religious civ converting me while I was going for a science victory, because I hadn't even bothered with religion at all. Fortunately there was another large civ with like three active religions and none could get a majority. So this time I built and fully developed one holy site, and captured another when I took Washington DC. that was more than enough to entrench my religion for defensive purposes. I think I built three missionaries and a couple of apostles the whole game, and the rest was natural spread.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Maybe it's tougher on pangaea. So far I've mainly played continents and haven't had any crazy barb trouble.

You don't always have to make it to the camp immediately. If you can succeed in killing the scout, this is also enough. Or sometimes you might not be able to kill the scout, but you can chase it away before it can see your city and report back to the camp.

My very first builds in a deity game are often 3 slingers and a builder. The order of these builds depend on the lands. If there's coast to the west, a city state close to the north and a mountain range in the east, then I'm quite likely to grab the builder immediately after first slinger. If there's lots of open land around me I prefer more slingers first.

Pangea type maps can be annoying if you're near a pole, because you'll get a steady stream of barbs there and don't want to fogbust that territory with cities.

Triple slinger + builder in some order is how I open too, the resulting archers can usually get you cities (AI or city state) not too long after so it's a solid enough investment.

Later on you can build freebie scouts to bust the land but early on there are way more important builds.

 

[Victoria]

Great guide, very much aimed at the harder levels where you must take out,
Its the finer points that gain the extra turns and there are plenty in there.

The game often progresses so fast and with so many surprises that it is a best suggestion approach. But not always best.

On immortal I had my starting scout get me so many key eureka I was a lot more flexible. 2 eureka from one camp and the right eureka just makes a big diff. I am not saying by any means get a scout first on deity, that would be suicide. But as the difficulty drops the flexibility increases.

Additionally 10 central cities is a Pangaea game to me suited to some civs and victories more than others.

The game is still young and there is still possibilities to be explored. I certainly do not end up doing the same thing 50 times with each civ in each game. Would rather shoot myself with slow acting poison. But the guide is good and great for noobs.

Edit: About 80% of my games are England on Continent with no fixed gameplan. I have noticed that when I go for more than about 5 centrals I screw over the wide game that suits England very much

 

[ExodusMe]

Thanks for the info OP. I will apply these tips in my next game. Looking to up my skillz, so I was happy to find this post.

 

[teks]

This helped. I had to get accustomed to slamming cities close together, something I'm not used to from previous titles.

Playing Greece on immortal. I went scout builder slinger slinger slinger. Got archery early and managed to take a Roman city before legions showed up.

From there my main city just spammed settlers. Until I had 8 cities. I've found builders are a good first unit for cities to build. I try to buy watermills and I queue up districts to stop their insane cost hikes.

Still, my production feels real slow, even chopping and harvesting. Turn 100 and my cities are finally coming out with districts and traders. I guess from here it's easy Street, but turn 100 feels real slow. When do you all get your cities up?

 

[Francis Xavier]

Typically I try to have at least 7-8 cities by turn 100, whether by conquest or self-settling. Generally speaking, I've found that if you can get to turn 100 with 7-8 cities up, you're in the clear to be good on Deity. I have a let's play going on (can be found in the stories / lets play subforum) that actually has a very good overview of this process through the first three videos (video three is turn 100). What's good about that particular video is that the start is isolated so it required building a certain way to not fall behind. Kind of a "pure" building up infrastructure at that point.

 

[gatorsurgeon]

My first couple games on higher level, playing as Rome and Germany, I spawned next to Sumeria and got whipped because I wasn't focused enough on military from the start. Now I start every game the same way: research animal husbandry/archery, build 4 slingers/archers and a second warrior, and go kill the nearest neighbor. Four archers will lay the lumber to even Sumeria's war carts. If you're lucky, you can even knock over a second neighbor with this early army. But even killing your closest opponent should give you a good space of tiles to set up a proper grid of cities ~5 tiles apart which will let you optimize placement of your IZs. Do this, beeline industrialization, get all those factories online, and then decide what victory you want to go for as your production laps the field.

 

[godeater]

I echo the above. My first Deity win (Scythia, small inland sea map, standard) I simply built four slingers and two warriors to handle my closest neighbour, France. Had eight cities by turn 70-ish (half of them formerly French), along with the usual group of early cavalry, and by turn 100 the districts and tiles were done, I was up to a dozen cities and the next wave of conquest began.

I find it troubling that such a simple opening seems to be the optimal strategy. Very little reason to deviate from this build queue.

 

[ansa]

Pangea / Standard. Upgrading to archers is nice, but I'm talking more about getting flooded by turn 20-25, a bit tight for archers taking into account they actually have to travel to the camp as well. I'm going to try Slingers instead of Warriors.

Thats why my build order is Warrior->Builder (need 3 improvements for Agoge) -> Slinger/Archerx3
AI on Deity is known to be a major ass, and come nuke your capital as early as turn 8, even if he is freakin' 15 tiles away. Never again.

So my initial warrior is exploring (need to clear barb camp+kill 3 barbs), my second warrior is sticking close to capital, and if I see a bunch of yahoos coming my way, I stick him into city for +10 defense, and the archers are coming out right on time to join the fray.
Then I go kill nearby city-states or AI, whichever is closest, that gives me a bunch of ready-to-go improved cities.
Ofc if I play Tomyris and have 2 horses next to me, I skip archers entirely and bring up 6 horses instead who rape and plunder my closest neighbor.

After that I spam settlers to close the gaps and bring up around 10 cities online.
After that I go for domination if I am in the middle of map and can reach all capitals easily, or if I am in the butthole of the world, I go defensive and push science victory.

 

[WillowBrook]

Thanks for this post, as well as the additional advice from other stronger players.

Question on culture in the very early game: when do you try to increase your rate above the initial palace + pop rate? I feel like the early civics take forever compared with techs, even with inspirations.

And how do you do it? Any options beyond cultural city state or monument? (Theater squares are later than the time I'm asking about.)

Asked a different way, how fast do you get political philosophy? And do you do anything other than get as many of the inspirations leading to it as possible?

 

[godeater]

God of the Open Sky pantheon, if available, speeds up early civics. Or Oral Tradition, depending on the map.

 

[Yzman]

Really useful topic. I myself am guilty of quite a few of these things and need to adjust my play style.

1. I don't expand enough, either through war or settlers.
2. I always do monument first, as habit most likely. Seems I need to change that. You didn't mention scouts, I like building one usually second. Should I just be building units instead of scouts?
3. Also sounds like I need to prioritize commerce districts more, though I don't play on deity and rarely have trouble with money.

 

[teks]

Really useful topic. I myself am guilty of quite a few of these things and need to adjust my play style.

1. I don't expand enough, either through war or settlers.
2. I always do monument first, as habit most likely. Seems I need to change that. You didn't mention scouts, I like building one usually second. Should I just be building units instead of scouts?
3. Also sounds like I need to prioritize commerce districts more, though I don't play on deity and rarely have trouble with money.

Commercial centers arent about money. They are about trade which yields food, production, and roads. Even Production centers can't beat that until factories. Research centers are riddled with irony in that the faster research makes it harder to produce, which is an awkward mechanic.

On the monuments. They are in a weird place for me now that I'm playing a civ that actually builds them (no use bothering with those as the Greek). I'm building them in cities with surrounding jungle and forest, so I can get more of those tiles to speed up commerce districts.

Thats why my build order is Warrior->Builder (need 3 improvements for Agoge) -> Slinger/Archerx3
AI on Deity is known to be a major ass, and come nuke your capital as early as turn 8, even if he is freakin' 15 tiles away. Never again.

So my initial warrior is exploring (need to clear barb camp+kill 3 barbs), my second warrior is sticking close to capital, and if I see a bunch of yahoos coming my way, I stick him into city for +10 defense, and the archers are coming out right on time to join the fray.
Then I go kill nearby city-states or AI, whichever is closest, that gives me a bunch of ready-to-go improved cities.
Ofc if I play Tomyris and have 2 horses next to me, I skip archers entirely and bring up 6 horses instead who rape and plunder my closest neighbor.

After that I spam settlers to close the gaps and bring up around 10 cities online.
After that I go for domination if I am in the middle of map and can reach all capitals easily, or if I am in the butthole of the world, I go defensive and push science victory.

Go culture victory. It's like science except with seaside resorts. Much easier to make pictures of spaceships then actually building spaceships .