Trouble during early game :(

[Withouthatred]

I have more trouble in the classical and pre-history parts of the game than any other.

I always start off the game with mysticism, assuming I didn't start with it, and then go for polytheism, if I miss Hinduism (usually do) then I go with masonry and then monotheism. On Noble and prince I'll get Judaism every time. After that I'll get mining (assuming I didn't start with it), and than bronze working so I can adopt slavery.

At that time, my original city will have 4 or 5 population, and I'll whip out a settler, place him next to some resorces, let the city grow to 4 and then whip out another settler, and place him next to some resorsces, my second city will be at two by now, as well as the first, and I whip out a worker at both cities connecting the cities and resorces. Following that I build barracks and an army of about 20 axemen, swordsmen, and chariots, and rush the nearest civ to mine.

The year is usually about 0 or a few hundred years before at this point.

I'll usually be able to capture the non capital cities pretty quickly and destroy their access to key war resorces, which allows me to continue to build my army until I can capture their capital. The biggest problem I have arises here. My economy always crashes, especially bad on prince and monarch levels (I don't play on difficulties higher than Mon, but I imagine it's worse) and this more often than not puts me far behind the other civs in development, and it can take me a while to catch back up. I understand that early wars are the only way to win on higher difficulties, so what can I do to avoid this?

Is my general strategy sound? and if it can be improved, how so? thx

 

[JujuLautre]

random thoughts:
- using the same strategy every time is not good. You should try to adapt to your surroundings and the exploit your leader's strengths.
- build workers earlier. Having early developped capital and cities is always much much better than having backward cities.
- don't invade opponents just for the sake of it. have a reason, a plan, and do this at maximum (if you plan to rush, why bother with a religion?)
- about economy: get currency and Code of Law if you want to expand to more than 4, sometimes 5, cities. Also, raze cities if you capture them but can't afford the maintenance.

 

[MrCynical]

My thoughts:

While at low level you can afford to waste time on an early religion, you are seriously slowing the growth of your city by delaying the ability to chop rush, and improve food resources. The delay from waiting for religion is substantial. Particularly given you seem to be going for an early rush strategy, is a religion really worth that much? In a lot of games wouldn't it be simpler just to capture a holy city?

As to your economy crashing, this is a product of over rapid expansion. The cities you are capturing simply aren't paying their own maintenance costs (at least for a while). It your science rate is heading down below about 60% and still falling, take it as an alarm bell that you're expanding too fast. You need to get courthouses up and running in your new cities to cut maintenance costs, and boost your economy (whether by using cottages or specialists this is necessary. You make no mention of either, which may indicate your problem).

 

[AnaNg]

The biggest problem I have arises here. My economy always crashes, especially bad on prince and monarch levels (I don't play on difficulties higher than Mon, but I imagine it's worse) and this more often than not puts me far behind the other civs in development, and it can take me a while to catch back up.

That just happened to me, I took someone's advice on here to start on Prince to see where some game weaknesses are. Started an early-ish war and sent out a stack of 3 cats, 4 sword and an axe - by the time it got to the second city it was... an axeman.

I lost one sword on the first city, the rest disbanded due to lack of funds.

I can just imagine the look on that axeman's face when he got to the enemy city walls... alone.

Clearly my initial expansion strat needs some work.

 

[slobberinbear]

It's hard to snag an early religion without Mysticism. At Noble and higher difficulty, you're better off going for Confucianism or Theology if you didn't start with Mysticism. Shooting for and missing the early religion can set you back.

Researching the religious stuff heavily in the early game means you didn't take the worker techs (agriculture, wheel, pottery, animal husbandry, mining, fishing, masonry, hunting, bronze working, iron working). Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Polytheism, and Monotheism are all good techs but don't do a darn thing to help your workers improve your land. So if you do snag an early religion, you will want to grab Priesthood at some point so you can build temples, but you need to go back to get your worker techs going first.

I agree with the previous posters about you not having enough workers.

Bronze working is great for military reasons (axes and spears), slavery (great for rushing production and dealing with unhappy citizens) and chopping (for rushing production and working the tile underneath). Bronze working should be one of the first three or four techs you research.

You need a way to get food production up for growth. Agriculture, animal husbandry, and fishing all allow you to access food resources and will improve your cities' growth rates.

As a rule of thumb, I like to have at least one worker per city. Workers power your cities to higher production, whether for building or warmongering.

 

[GenocideBringer]

With the BetterAI mod and the BTS improved AI, "simply capturing" a holy city is not always easy, as the AI can defend itself pretty damn well.

 

[Harbourboy]

As mentioned above, it is not really optimal to always go for a religion every time. You should only go for religions if it is a key element of a specific strategy you have (e.g. because you are isolated on an island going for cultural victory).

 

[Polycrates]

My two-birds-with-one-stone suggestion: try beelining Code of Laws

As an avowed expansionism tragic, I think it's great. You get your courthouses ASAP, plus it's fairly easy to get there first and thus found Confucianism. Confucianism might come a bit late for your liking (it very much depends on the particulars of the world), but you get a free missionary which can be immediately sent into the capital of an unaligned neighbour and get you an instant friend. I also have found that if I really go nuts with my expansion (by axe or otherwise), hurrying CoL generally lets me get my courthouses just as my economy starts to really plummet. If you delay, things can often go into freefall, CoL suddenly goes from 15 turns to 150 and then you're really in the poo.

Of course, you still want to grab other important techs on the way - bronze working being the big one, the relevant food techs, and archery if you're running raging barbs. But if you get to CoL before about 500BC, you're a shoe-in for Confucianism. You can only really miss if the AI uses the Oracle for it first, which is only an occasional occurence (and you can of course do the same thing if you're so inclined). Even then, you're still well-placed to bulb Philosophy and nab Taoism.

 

[PurpleTurtle]

If you are playing BTS try using the Sumerians(courthouses that you only need priesthood for). As far as financing expansion, I like to use the Great Lighthouse + Temple of Artemis combo. Then just try to make a lot of coastal cities and they somewhat pay for themselves(they ease the burden of their own maintenance cost with trade routes). I play on emperor and can tell you without a doubt, religion is overrated. It is quite easy to just take a holy city later in the game(as someone said I think). Another factor to consider is this: while adding cities drives down your science rate(you lower it to stay in the green) it is likely still increasing your science output. In the game my wife and I were playing tonight, my size 3 empty cities(only a barracks and a warrior) were costing me about 3g per turn(it was my fifth city and furthest away) but was producing like 2g per turn and around 7 science. It was having a net drain on my coffers, but still helping with the science. I once had an emperor game using Genghis Khan when warlords first came out where I keshik rushed Ragnar and Wang and hadn't learned to burn cities yet. My economy crashed hardcore of course, but I stuck with it and cottage spammed like 12 cities, my science slider was around 40% but eventually I caught up in tech due to the sheer bulk of my economy.

 

[Withouthatred]

Thank you everybody who gave me advice, my early games are going much more smoothly now.