Unit selling and the opening build

What do you guys think of this start?:

1) Builder first.
2) make 2 improvements.
3) Delete the builder, then buy a slinger with the money from deleting the builder, plus leftover money

its basically paying 40g & 15 production for potentially +2 production a turn... and the first slinger comes about 6 turns late.

Obviously not worth doing if you can't make two useful production improvements with the builder.
 
Targetting city-states or AI depends on whether I want to settle down for a more peaceful VC after the initial aggressive expansion. I've not found anyway to use a CB on a city-state so I prefer to smash those in the ancient era. Then use formal wars against civs in the classic.
 
I had bad experience both with warrior and horseman rushes due to terrain. I always go for archers+spears. Spears seem like the safer choice because if the AI has access to cavalry resources, it is going to spam the crap out of those units, at least on deity.

What do you guys think of this start?:

1) Builder first.
2) make 2 improvements.
3) Delete the builder, then buy a slinger with the money from deleting the builder, plus leftover money

I don't like this opening because you miss on the inspiration for 3 tile improvements, and slingers train so damn fast with Agoge. I did this though once, selling a builder to buy an archer, but I was forced because both Germany and Kongo declared war in turn 25.
 
I don't like this opening because you miss on the inspiration for 3 tile improvements, and slingers train so damn fast with Agoge. I did this though once, selling a builder to buy an archer, but I was forced because both Germany and Kongo declared war in turn 25.
Well, going slinger first doesn't get you the inspiration for 3 tile improvements either. (which, I presume, is what the build order was meant to be a substitute for)
 
You can't upgrade your starting warrior into spear so we are talking about something like mining->animal->archery->bronze + the entire production time of a spearman before your first attack ? No wonder the AI already has a million chariots. If you go for the very straight forward archer/warrior the AI won't have much more than his starting 5 warriors.

Well, going slinger first doesn't get you the inspiration for 3 tile improvements either. (which, I presume, is what the build order was meant to be a substitute for)

You can get it with slinger->builder so I guess you would go builder->builder and sell both after 2 improvement to still get the eureka.

I tried both in a test game with gandhi(same save), just playing up to 3 archers/1 warrior.

slinger->builder->slinger was done on turn 23
builder->builder->slinger was done on turn 24

Both have an advantage and disadvantage.

The first one has a lot more free time to hit the archer eureka. In fact with the builder strategy, even knowing exactly where the closest barb camp was and going straight to a spearman pre-damaged by my warrior, I came back to town just in time for the upgrade. Had I not known where the camp was, I would have to wait quite a few more turns either to get archery or to get my slinger back for upgrade.

The second one ended with more money to spare and an extra improvement(which my town couldn't actually use yet).

I think if they both get the eureka or both don't get it, the builder strategy is better but the odds of actually getting that eureka in time is higher for the slinger strategy.
 
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What do you guys think of this start?:

1) Builder first.
2) make 2 improvements.
3) Delete the builder, then buy a slinger with the money from deleting the builder, plus leftover money

its basically paying 40g & 15 production for potentially +2 production a turn... and the first slinger comes about 6 turns late.

Obviously not worth doing if you can't make two useful production improvements with the builder.

Man you need 3 improvements for Craftsmanship eureka 50% unit production, which in turn makes all your units cheaper as hell (2-3 turns for archer when it's on), so this approach kinda defeats itself.

My current build order have changed btw based on religion.
The plan is to go for Divine right and spam additional units for faith in renaissance.
I just feel like ignoring religion completely is wasteful since you will have hundreds of it with nothing to spend on.

1) Build Warrior - really need a second warrior going.
Early turns scouting is crucial, need to find city-state victims, need to kill 3 barbs+get a barb camp for eurekas, need to catch AI settlers trying to settle in your face - it is just too much for 1 starting warrior to handle, tbh.
Research - Animal Husbandry -> Archery
Culture - Code of Laws

2) Build Builder - by the time this boy is built, you have done code of laws and started on craftsman. you research roughly half of craftsmanship, and this boy builds 3 improvements and finishes it
Researching Archery still
Culture - Code of Laws -> Craftsmaship.
Soon as Code of Laws done, activate +5 for barbs and +1 faith/gold to get your pantheon (if you don't care about religion, +1 production then).

3) Build 3-4 Slingers/Archers
Research - Astrology if u wanna religion, Mining and so on if not
Somewhere here Craftsmanship is done and you activate Agoge to keep spamming those archers faster and send them after your warriors, who already on the way to make someone's day worse.

4) So, if you wanna get bothered with religion here you should start building a Temple district as soon as Astrology is finished and you have 3 archers ready to go with your initial 2 warriors to capture some city-states. More often than not, I have to race AI in capturing because they have no shame whatsoever and hit any city-states they can get to if you don't.

Especially important to capture religious city-states as soon as they finish building temple district (wait for it to complete, otherwise it's build progress is just gone if you capture the city).
If some AI yahoos are already nuking the city-state, join the party, but make sure to put a unit on top of the temple district, so those idiots don't pillage it.

If you don't care about religion - just ignore astrology/temple and keep spamming units for second army (some warriors and archers) and send them to rape and plunder, or, more likely, to defend what little you have.

In general, while your bunch of yahoos is assaulting some city states or a neighbor - make sure to patrol around with 1-2 warriors and catch AI settlers coming your way.
Even if you didn't plan to invade that civ - declare war, expropriate the settler, stuff their warriors with arrows and they will quickly flop and ask for peace, take all their cash and relics. I do the same if they send missionaries my way as well. Basically you run a racket here.
 
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