Leucarum
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2018
- Messages
- 1,485
As always your advice is awesome @Victoria, thank you for taking the time to write it I hope other people are finding it as useful as I am!
I guess a scout as your very first build can be thought of as a bit of a luxury if you have the kind of start conducive to it whereas getting that builder up and running is much more important if you need to counteract a less optimal start.
So, if you're (relatively) safe, with high production tiles that you can't really improve for a while, pushing early culture will help shave off extra time. Jungle certainly seems like the main situation in which that comes up. I guess this has a lot of implications for Mvemba and Pedro in particular. Previously in this sort of situation I'd gone for an early slinger to try and push the archery eureka a monument would definitely have been more efficient.
I'd always tend to go for a slinger before a warrior just for the archery eureka, but when an early slinger dies (usually due to stupidity on my part) it does slow you down so I can see how a warrior is safer.
Since you never know exactly what you're going to get from a scout I find that an early scout plays a big part in shaping how I'm going to play. It can add a lot of variance to a game though. Getting the era score and foreign trade eureka feel like almost guaranteed bonuses, getting lucky with your goodie huts and CS meets though can dramatically change how good a start you have. While it says nothing about efficiency of play, I like that random element from building a scout.
I take your point about knowing your civ... The era score was a huge deal when playing as Canada, but in my last game as Cree it was total overkill.
This is extremely helpful, and also well timed. I've set myself a (long) challenge to win with each leader on GS deity (Wilfrid, Poundmaker and Curtin down, Engleanor next), and it was becoming apparent that I'm gonna need to mix up my openings a lot more. I really do love me some early scouting but that's probably a legacy of playing too much starcraft back in the day and I need to shake things up.
You can always name a city after them as a memorial. Preferably one you captured thanks to their help.
A builder gives up to +3 production early in your capital. A great city starts with 8 prod and a poor city starts with 5 prod so the difference of 3 here at the early stage is big but not double. A builder gives eurekas, make you extra money (very important early) and most importantly gives you craftsmanship if you take that route. So builder is vital early. However when you make a builder first you will often have it wait a few turns before you can get animal husbandry or mining. So if you have low production (4-5) then getting that builder going is important to help speed up your poor production. If you have higher production (and often this is the case) then there is room in there for a scout before your builder. Yes you loose 4-5 turns of builder prod but you can often wait around for both mining and AH.
I guess a scout as your very first build can be thought of as a bit of a luxury if you have the kind of start conducive to it whereas getting that builder up and running is much more important if you need to counteract a less optimal start.
Naturally starting on Jungle makes an early builder a problem. So what approach to take then? . Culture is important early and all of the early civics have their uses but craftsmanship is a popular choice unless pushing fast peaceful culture. You are also in jungle with bad visibility and vulnerable to attacks a bit. Getting a warrior out may seem like a good idea but the advantage of jungle is attack’s are slower. As long as you have a few jungle hills you you are 2/2 I would push a monument first. As early culture and inspirations become harder to get, monuments become more important early. Try a jungle start with and without a monument and you really notice the difference in getting to craftsmanship and the Agoge card.
So, if you're (relatively) safe, with high production tiles that you can't really improve for a while, pushing early culture will help shave off extra time. Jungle certainly seems like the main situation in which that comes up. I guess this has a lot of implications for Mvemba and Pedro in particular. Previously in this sort of situation I'd gone for an early slinger to try and push the archery eureka a monument would definitely have been more efficient.
A 3 hill mine / lux start is great, just mining needed and so getting a builder first is more efficient than other builder openings. Naturally many do not use a builder or scout opening but a warrior or sling opening. The slinger is weak early but has 2 advantages. You can get any barb spearman to leave camp to attack a slinger every time. This removes the speamans double entrenchment making him easy meat for your warrior and your warrior or scout can take an empty camp. The slinger also can get an early archery eureka which is great for the early archer rush. The slinger is inherently weak though so unless you have a lot of open ground for a good fast shoot manoeuvre game you archer rush may have issues. A warrior is therefore agreed as the safest start, barbs will attack it to death even entrenched over a river and often when defending you are much better off healing entrenched than attacking.
I'd always tend to go for a slinger before a warrior just for the archery eureka, but when an early slinger dies (usually due to stupidity on my part) it does slow you down so I can see how a warrior is safer.
A scout opening has some different advantages, it is faster to build than a slinger so has a better chance at catching a barb scout before it sees your city but you must send it in the opposite direction to your warrior for best effect. A scout moves 3 so warrior should move over hilly ground and scout over clear or half hilly ground to take advantage of its speed. A scouts first job should be to stop enemy scouts, and also help defending if attacked early, it can lead enemy away and can even defend well entrenched. The scout is also important for the foreign trade inspiration, this alone can make it worth the investment so find some snow and go the opposite way once initial barb risk is mostly nullified. Finding CS early is a huge advantage of scouts, if you can get that first free envoy it is a massive difference for any CS you find. Find a brown one and your monument, granary water mill will be faster in your capital, a red one for faster builders, settlers and units, find 2 red ones and you may be better off pumping out early settlers as you are at +4 which will be nearly as good as the 50% card. Early faith = harvest goddess, one of the most OP features of the game, even in vanilla before golden ages it was. Gold CS +4 gold is a lot early. Science... hmm can I rush knights.... and culture is just great for getting that culture. As important is when you get your first governor, choosing Amani could give you early suze of a CS that can help a lot. Goody huts are great but lucky, you should get a few but less on deity so the scout on deity has less value. The scout will hopefully find a natural wonder and this is great for the age points, you can then also settle the wonder for more age points as well as the bonus. Meeting each civ also gives an age point so if pushing for a golden, using a scout is a huge benefit. Scouting helps so much in being able to plan the rest of your game, it gives you that intelligence and also meeting other civs early helps with CV and DipV as well as increasing your trading. The down side is each civ that knows you or your enemy will know the evil deeds you have done and this alone stops the use of them in many situations. Era points are key though and a scout is great. If you have a civ like Gilga that has 2 ancient uniques so gets +8 era points maybe you do not need the scout. Knowing your era points helps a lot, iron working, building your first sword, first horse.... first ship. Getting the earliest ship is +3 era, the same as a close camp. Killing camps alone can be enough if you are overrun but this is rare...regardless you do not know how many will spawn but do not fog bust to stop them spawning unless you do not want a classic golden.
Since you never know exactly what you're going to get from a scout I find that an early scout plays a big part in shaping how I'm going to play. It can add a lot of variance to a game though. Getting the era score and foreign trade eureka feel like almost guaranteed bonuses, getting lucky with your goodie huts and CS meets though can dramatically change how good a start you have. While it says nothing about efficiency of play, I like that random element from building a scout.
I take your point about knowing your civ... The era score was a huge deal when playing as Canada, but in my last game as Cree it was total overkill.
I thought I would do this post to show that the choice of opening is not simple and depends on what civ you okay, where you are located, what your cities terrain is, what you want to do with the game and how safe you want to play it. I will have missed stuff, people may disagree... it is just my view but welcome all comments and questions.
This is extremely helpful, and also well timed. I've set myself a (long) challenge to win with each leader on GS deity (Wilfrid, Poundmaker and Curtin down, Engleanor next), and it was becoming apparent that I'm gonna need to mix up my openings a lot more. I really do love me some early scouting but that's probably a legacy of playing too much starcraft back in the day and I need to shake things up.
So @Leucarum .. when your scout dropped off that hill at T50 the right thing to think is thank you, you have been a great help... and most of my scouts die around then, if they are still alive I use them in my army for a large variety of useful jobs. Especially sacrificial.
You can always name a city after them as a memorial. Preferably one you captured thanks to their help.