What do u build first?

[Neonanocyborgasm]

In the early part of the game, you should be concentrating on settling as much land as possible, with perhaps the side-effect of claiming luxury or strategic resources as well. The other civs have little advantage over you and will probably be doing the same thing, so if you don't keep up with them, you'll find yourself high and dry in short order, especially if you are on a small map.

I will set my first city to build warriors or spearmen (if I have bronze working), until I see that I'm approaching a population of 3, and then set to settler. I'll try to time it so that the settler is finished just as soon as my pop reaches 3. I try to build a settler factory as early as possible to accelerate this process, which means looking for a source of bonus food (ex. cattle, wheat). Meanwhile, I'll research pottery (unless I have it already), so that I can build a granary in that settler factory city. I just keep this up until my borders reach the other civ's or I run out of land.

Some people advocate building a worker factory but I find that in the early game, where populations are low, it's not as useful, and I'll tend to build them ad hoc.

Once you've got a set of cities established, you can set each one to specific tasks. You could set one with barracks and crank out military units, another to build wonders, another to build a navy, etc.

 

[Tomoyo]

I find it best not to build a settler right as your capital hits size three; you get less shields and gold that way. I prefer a size 4-6 capital.

 

[danz]

Hmm, I don't think building a lot of warriors in the early game is such a good idea. First fo all, it's time and energy spent that could be directed toward granaries and settlers. Secondly, warriors are a terrible defense. It's much better to wait until you can build spearmen, because those will at least protect your cities with some amount of certainty. Thirdly, warriors upgrade to swordsmen, which are a dead end. It's much better to invest the bulk of your military into spearmen and catapults, which can be upgraded all the way into the modern age. The worst thing about having a lot of obsolete units is they give you a false sense of security without being able to fight a real war, not to mention the steady drain on your treasury that large numbers of weak units will exact.

Small point: even if you don't plan on winning a cultural victory, it's important to have cities expand in culture so they can work more quality tiles and so they form a beefer border. Therefore, all cities will need at least a temple, or more if they are in danger of flipping to your neighbor.

For all these reasons, I will never build more than one or two warriors for exploration, focusing my energies on settlers, workers, and temples. With the exception of the Aztecs (I play vanilla C3, but there may be more warrior-class UU's that are the exception) no other civ should invest any effort into warrior-class units. You'll never win a war with them, and they are easy prey to barbarians (veteran or not). In fact, building barracks just to give a warrior one extra hit point seems completely futile. A handful of barbarians will kill him no matter what, so there's no point to even have a barracks until you plan on training spears, archers, and other units wort building.

- danz

 

[Tomoyo]

Warriors are cheap and provide good MPs. Even though swordsmen are a dead end (they aren't in C3C) they are a good unit in the Ancient Age and have the best attack then bar UUs. Having lots of obselete units is not giving me a false sense of security; I disband them when they become obselete.

I find that a veteran warrior can actually kill a barbarian before dying, and they upgrade to veteran swordsmen.

If you are playing Rome, Persia, or Celts you should like to upgrade those warriors to them.

Also, the AI fears two warriors more than a spearman.

I understand that culture is important, but I am generally too wrapped up in trying to compete with the AI in terms of tech and shields to be worrying about that.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

You do fine with temples only on your border cities for increasing your boundaries. And even those are usually only needed when your cities are growing a bit larger.

For city flip risks, just try and have your cultural border expansion in time so that the area wont be ocupied by your opponents culural influence. If you dont have foriegn citizens in your city (and we are now talking about building cities, so there are none) and you have none of the city squares within enemy cultural borders, there is no chance it will flip.

So it is not so much the amount of culture you have, it is about WHEN you have the culture. you just need to be the first to ocupy that area between your cities so they won't claim land in your city radius.

You can try fighting culture vs culture when they do have some of your city tiles under control, but i think it is beter to prevent that (until you are at wartime and the city flips are nothing more than slowing down your unit's progress as they need to retake a city behind them)
Therefore, i advise to stop your expansion in time rather than settling right next to your opponents border. It is better to have a city less than investing in culture in it and still having it flip to your opponent. Usually if there are only 2 or 3 unocupied tiles between me and my opponent, i do not take that area. Instead, i either prepare for war (then no culture is needed) or i will build a temple in the border city and be sure to be ahead on culture with whatever city is found near it. In the end war is needed anyway since it simply is impossible to compete with deity/sid AI culture.

 

[Tomoyo]

In the end war is needed anyway since it simply is impossible to compete with deity/sid AI culture.

What does war have to do with culture? I can play an entire Deity game without war and win. Don't know about Sid.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

It only has something to do if you have your borders next to an opponent and it threathens you culturally. I mean to say that you wont succeed in winning a cultural war with a high level AI (if at least you want to build anything else than just culture buildings) so you can just as well not try and counter the cultural threath with a militairy one.

 

[Tomoyo]

You could also just deal with the culture threat by not placing cities near their's.

Or hope to start on an island.

 

[Vilati Timmadar]

I developed a pretty successful "colonizing strategy" and my building system in new cities works pretty good.

1.) Build city
2.) 1st defense unit
3.) Worker
4.) 2nd defense unit
5.) Settler
6.) City improvement (Temple or walls)
7.) Settler
8.) City improvement (...)
9.) Settler
...

This keeps going until the Settler production isn't useful anymore (no land, too far away etc.). That system gives me a defended city with useful city improvements and a rising culture value.

 

[Sneakysnaga]

Its very interesting reading all these different strategies. Can I just say you are all absolutely right. And all way wrong too!!

THERE IS NO SINGLE CORRECT STRATEGY!!!!!

Saying you must build temples vs you shouldn't waste your time with temples is not a debate but a choice of strategies. Temples benefit some civs more, and some strategies more. Warriors or swordsmen benefit some situations more, and other times spearmen might be more useful.

For the record, anyone who disdains warriors has probably never got one to elite vs barbarians, and then warrior-rushed their nearest rival, stolen their techs and got a Great Leader from the experience. Let me tell you, that really helps out quite a bit!

Nonetheless if you have a lot of space to fill, on a large/huge map then a settler pump churning settlers in 4 turns, and a worker pump producing workers in 2 is fantastically powerful in the land grab phase. But anyone who says you must ALWAYS do this, is in my view mistaken.

The only strategy that is wholly convincing is to be flexible, and play based on the circumstances you are given!

 

[Vilati Timmadar]

Correct.

But that doesn't mean that you can't develop a standard strategy which has proven well.
If you are a "professionel" player with many strategies you clearly have a wide range of start-up strategies.
If you are an "amateur" like me who plays a few hours a week, then you (or at least I) have only one strategy.

I just wanted to present mine which has proven well (except against Rush-AI's). I didn't want to say mine is the best (if that was the case, I wouldn't loose on Monarch all the time).

 

[Sneakysnaga]

Hehe. I wouldn't call myself a professional! That would be Ision or someone like that!

I just think that if you have found a good strategy, that's good. Put it in the bank, and then next game, see if you can find something else to do.

 

[RFHolloway]

THERE IS NO SINGLE CORRECT STRATEGY!!!!!

I've got to disagree - there are a number of workable strategies (which are in my view "correct") but no single set of correct tactics.

The strategies are the objectives and priorities that you have. Initially these will be expand and explore. Quite how these objectives are put into practice depends on all the other factors.

In my view many players who strugle with Monarch fall into either
- expanding without exploring too much (usually by not realising the value of contacts for tech trading)
- by prioritising protection (e.g. defensive units, walls) or infrastructure (especially temples) too high relative to expansion and exploration.
- thinking that one tactic will work whatever the situation (always build ...., always play X civ)

At higher levels other skills need to be mastered- micromanagement of cities, long term planning, maximising worker effectiveness, diplomacy and politics, Managing combined arms are some that spring to mind.

 

[Sneakysnaga]

"There is no single".... "There are a number"... Aren't we agreeing?

Unless the number is 1!

 

[Vilati Timmadar]

In my view many players who strugle with Monarch fall into either ... by prioritising protection (e.g. defensive units, walls)

Everytime I don't build protection first, hordes of barbarians pillage my cities or another civ thinks: "Yeah, a rush would be nice." and overruns my country...so I may struggle on Monarch but at least I live on Monarch to see the 20th century...

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Everytime I don't build protection first, hordes of barbarians pillage my cities or another civ thinks: "Yeah, a rush would be nice." and overruns my country...so I may struggle on Monarch but at least I live on Monarch to see the 20th century...

I never see the 20th century, just take a look at my GOTM victory that will be made public end of this month

 

[Tomoyo]

I never see the 20th century, even if I tried.

The best defenses are good offenses, lots of money, and good friends.

 

[Vilati Timmadar]

I guess, I have to read more of the stories...sometimes I can't believe, what I read there...dozens of units fighting an enemy much stronger, more advanced and much larger - winning!!

Maybe it's a nation-thing. Germans are not known for their flexibility...