Unorthodox Opening, many workers

[jahooma]

First off I would like to say hello to the civ4 community. I have been a lurker for quite a while, since a little before civ4 came out, and I have just recently come up with what I think is both an interesting and strong opening.

Opening Stategies are key to good play, because the outcome of the opening is multiplied many times i.e. an extra worker might have been able to improve the corn at that new city faster, which then later let you beat the ai to the GL.

Summary of my opening strategy: With expansionist leader do: Worker first, improve food resource, grow, chop many workers.
For example, in the game I did(see attachments) I managed to chop 5 workers.

Since it is done with an Expansionist leader, the workers get a 50% production bonus, making chopping a very effective way to create them. So you can create many very fast with very little loss because of expansionist also adds 2 health to replace the health lost from most of the forests.
So what is the value of have so many workers so early? Well, you can use them to improve your first several cities very quickly, build roads everywhere for added efficiency when moving units and connecting trade routes, for chopping buildings like obelisks, and units like axemen, settlers, and maybe even more workers later.

You'll be able to chop all the forests in all of your cities(well... you may not want to chop all of them) from the begining. IMO, I think that is a major advantage because the sheilds from those forests are worth much more earlier in the game than later. An extra settler early on is arguably worth 3-4 settlers in the middle ages.

Another big deal is that you will be able to grow your cities faster, since you can chop obelisks and improve resources very fast. Your cities will then be able to contribute to your civilization earlier.

I would like to hear your opinions on this and maybe any suggestions or comments you might have. You can tear apart my whole strategy if you like .
Attached are some screenshots, the starting save, and another one after I implemented my strategy. Feel free to play them out to compare openings.

BTW, these saves are from a monarch warloards game with blake's ai mod, but still should be able to be played without it. Also there are no barbs, I find them kind of annoying.
Jahooma

 

[Galileo44]

Not to be overcritical, as this is an interesting strat that deserves examination, but it seems that infrastructure and 2nd city are held up quite a while. You won't have another city until around 1800BC and that is pretty late IMHO. Unless you are doing a Hydra grab, a Quecha rush, or a similar strat that focuses heavily on the capital, this seems to set you back quite a bit.

 

[jahooma]

My thinking was that it would be worth that setback, because you'd be able to just start cranking settlers out since you do not need to make more workers for a while.
But it is very possible that I could be very wrong about this whole thing.

 

[notagoodname]

Absolutely, chopping workers is a must. 5 workers is a bit excessive though, most of the multiplayer ladder players tend to go for 2 or 3 workers at the start before the second city. Unless you have a ton of forest you won't have anyhting for the 5 workers to do (except improve terrain that wont be used for a while anyway).

True about the expansive trait, it is widely regarded as the most powerful ancient trait, the shear number of workers you can easily build will get you the most improved land of any civ. Cheap granaries for fast growth is also insane.

On the issue of building worker right from the start, it is often just as quick to go warrior first, grow to 2 and then slave the worker to finish it off, asumming you have 1 lot of 3 food and can go for early bronze.

 

[shyuhe]

If you're on a higher difficulty level, you will probably get hemmed in way too fast while producing 5 workers. 2 or 3 may work better for chopping out settlers first, but I think it holds up land grabbing a little too much.

 

[cabert]

the nobarb option makes this strat a lot better,
but under usual conditions, you're very likely to be harassed by barbs, which make your workers not so great.

One minor thing : you should have improved one more tile, since you're size 4

 

[pukii]

i also found your strategy very interesting but nevertheless the no barbarian option is a lame one if i ever played without barbs i would also have clinical gr8 tactics at my hand. so in the end i found it quite lame

 

[jahooma]

Thanks for all your replies.
I guess I'm pretty lame for playing with no barbs .
I do have three warriors to fight them, but I guess that's not that good enough for defense.

I know 5 workers is a little excessive, I was just trying to make a point. Anyway, It's interesting that people playing multiplayer use a minor version of this strat. I'm thinking that the optimal # of workers to build at the start is based on what terrain you get, especially the # of forests.
Maybe I'll try it again with barbs

 

[carl corey]

The problem with playing with barbs is that you'll need something better than warriors to keep them away. With only warriors it's very risky, and when you meet barb archers you're doomed. That means you have to locate a strategic resource (copper or horses) pretty early and settle a city there to take it. If you're lucky and find one in the capital you might be able to continue with building workers and pre-chop some forests to have a chariot or an axeman one turn away from being built. But if not I don't see this working. What you can do is try to settle your second city in a hammer/forest heavy zone to take advantage of the trait.

Also, I see you're starting with a Scout. I find it a shame in that case not to build 1-2 more scouts in this case. You're easily going to be paid back for that when they pop some money/techs. Scout -> Worker -> Scout -> Settler seems a better way to go. Or Worker -> Scout -> Settler. I'm not going to do the math, just share my "feeling".