Whats your best early game strategy?

[UGABulldawg98]

I play on King mostly against the AI and I've been trying different strategies lately.

I fail at early rush strategies because I get behind in tech and get run over by some other civ mid to late game.

The only strategy that seems to work for me (in general) is spamming out cities about 4-5 basically as quickly as possible and concentrating on science (buying/producing settler then worker). I also tend to go with Tradition to start. When I'm successful at doing this the late game gets really boring because its just me steam rolling over the AI.

What strategy works for you and why?

 

[HappyBuilder]

Playing at Emperor level, I typically send out a scout first to get the lay of the land and grab as many goodies as possible. Next comes a monument. I typically take the Liberty tree, but depending on the situation, I'll open Tradition for the cultural boost to the capitol before switching to Liberty.

Unless I'm under duress, I'll take the settler first, then the worker via Liberty. The capital will build a few troops to discourage anyone from blitzing me. The new town builds a monument and the capital goes for a 3rd city, unless the capital's in a position to quickly slam out a wonder.

Those are the opening moves. I do not start a war until I have iron and catapults, nor do I engage in a counteroffensive. If someone DOWs me, I hold them off and then continue with my own game plan. Beyond that, every game is different.

HB

 

[Montov]

The Great Library -> National College. Then fight a war with Longswordsman and ranged units.

 

[peddroelm]

Settle first city satisfying the "5-4" rule

(5 production you get by settling on a hill or working a tile with at least 1 production with the first citizen -> shaves 2 turns from scout/worker/monument production and 4 from worker production) (you can get more than 5 but will usually mean slower population growth)
(4 food - the first citizen should work a tile with a least 2 food - this insures you get your second citizen in 8 turns if +3 food(cattle,grassland wheat) 5 turns )
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Failing to satisfy the 5-4 rule will make for a sluggish start.

Research mining - pottery

get 2 farms up with the first worker(s) (2 tiles with at least 3 food each) (preferably by a river in anticipation for Civil Service) (this will help your city grow to 4 citizens pretty fast)

after that acquire and improve 2 hills (mining resources would be better)

So when you have 4 pop you can work 2 farms and 2 mines .

Build granary to continue growth. Research a tech for an accessible luxury (if you have mining luxuries(gold, silver, gems) you can skip ahead to writing )

From this point strategies diverge ... at least 3 mines will be required to get the NC up reasonably fast without choppage (syncing the NC with the liberty GA is always nice) . Working 4 mines should also give decent build time on the Hagia Sophia ...

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Should you chose to start with Liberty policies the monument, worker, granary , scout build order will net you 2 workers in the early 20 turns without a culture ruin or a culture bonus-ed civ (France) ...

 

[Babri]

Try playing a game as Mongols. Get honour, capture a CS which is on wanted list to get 1 free allied CS. Now try to beeline chivalry & start building up some defences as many AIs may start attacking you. Once you hit chivalry create some Keshliks backed up by Trebuchets & Khan. Now steam roll the most powerful neighbour & enjoy destroying his army without loosing a single unit.

 

[Tabarnak]

2 cities NC start, then :

---> Straight to education followed by any victory types
--->close neighbors, not much place to breath, beeline machinery, Steel or Chivalry for maximum impact, followed by any victory types

 

[MadDjinn]

early aggression helps when you get DoWd first. (higher levels)

kill their units, then march over and take them out with archers/UU or swords.

on King, go Honour->Warrior Code->Discipline/etc and use archers + a few melee units. You should be able to knock off a few civs with that army. If you went with warriors, then get to Ironworking and get some Iron for upgrades. If you went spears, then go for Civil Service and upgrade.

then to math to add a few catapults, then machinery to upgrade the archers.

Don't forget to get a library/NC in your capital along the way to help with the science side. Going for the Heroic Epic helps, but isn't needed most times.

 

[apocalypse105]

Horseman!!!!!!!! Or iron

 

[TPQ]

Whats your best early game strategy?

There's really only one approach for consistent success and that is aggression.

Be aggressive from as early as you can be sure your aggression will result in net gains and then build on that.

Obviously, by aggression, I mean ostensibly war, but also go after the best city locations aggressively, and aggressively get as many goody huts as you can. If you try to play nice, the AIs will use their bonuses to beat you.

I usually start like this on large pangaea or large/huge continents:

• Settle in place, unless there's an excellent spot worth delaying your start for.
• Micro the city's tiles to get maximum production whilst still growing.
• Scout, scout, monument, warrior, warrior, worker, warrior
• Use your initial warrior to scout the surrounding area for goody huts, 2nd and 3rd city locations and 1st and 2nd victim AI.
• Bring home your initial warrior to help defend against barbs once he's done his job.
• Use scouts to scout the rest of your landmass out, finding the other civs, city states and goody huts.
• Once they've finished scouting, bring your scouts back home to help protect workers.
• Go liberty and get the free settler and free worker, then start working down honour.
• Research whatever you need to improve lux tiles, then head straight to iron working.
• Sell your developed lux/s to the highest bidder/s.
• Sell OB to everybody.
• Keep all your cash to upgrade your warriors to swords.
• Pump out some more warriors.
• Hold off placing your third city until you know where the local 6 iron deposit is.
• Research iron working.
• Settle on the six iron.
• Upgrade your warriors to swords.
• Take the best cities from your nearest neighbour/s.
• Continue...

Sometimes there's not a local 6 iron, but usually you will find at least a 2 iron deposit and then you just have to use a couple of swords to do most of the heavy lifting and use warriors to back them up. You'll probably take more losses, but you'll just have to build/buy more replacements.

If you have no iron at all, you'll have a harder time of it, but you can still take a few cities before your losses slow you down. In these circumstances it might be better to hold off taking on your 2nd victim until you can get iron from somewhere.

If you don't have any iron at all, but your neighbour does and has actually mined it and built swords, your best shot at early aggression towards him is probably to send every fighting unit you've got at his iron deposit, pillage it and then try to use the terrain and flanking to take out as many of his swords as you can. If he's settled on the iron, you need to take somebody else on first and get your own iron ASAP.

This approach to early game dominance works for me because the tactical AI is a bit thick and is only really any good when it has a large tech lead, or late game if it has tech parity and can use lots of siege/bombers etc. Otherwise it will happily suicide it's units until it has none left and then beg for mercy, which it wont get until you have all it's good cities and then only in exchange for giving you everything its got.

 

[MasterWoland]

I play on Emperor difficulty on large maps and my strategy is:

1. Settle your first city and build a monument first to get your policies unlock faster (unless you're French then no really need for it)
2. Based on the luxury resources you have nearby I select research accordingly be it mining or calendar to squeeze some extra happiness
3. Build a warrior and send it to explore. (I don't like scouts cos they constantly get ganked by barbarians)
4. I go for Liberty policies to get first worker and settler for free
5. Research archery and build few archers for city defense
6. Settle your second city (I select a spot with another luxury nearby, don't bother about horses at all cos they are useless)
6. Do research all the way to reveal iron and in mean time build more warriors and archers to defend (ideally one archer per city and the rest warriors) build another worker or wait till you get one from the policies.
7. I usually time the production of my second settler so it is ready right in time when I finish researching iron. Then settle your 3d city near iron vein.
By that time you should have at least 3 archers for defense in every city, 3-4 warriors and 2 workers. Set one worker to get your luxury resources and another one to build a mine to get that iron.
Don't waste money on buying tiles and building too many improvements, you'll need them to upgrade your warriors into swordsmen as soon as you get your iron.
Now you should be all settled for defense.

Now just continue building swordsmen and archers. With 3 of each you should be able to attack your first city if you wish so, usually it can be done somewhere in between 1000BC - 500BC regardless of the game speed, by the year 500BC I usually have my first Civ conquered.

The idea here is to have the most military units among all Civs then nobody would want to attack you, and you can try and go for what every victory you want.

And the last but not least by the year 300AD or so I would try to launch an attack on the civ with the highest score (or the civ with the highest score on my continent) - take it as a puppet then your score would suddenly jump to the highest ranks.

 

[CYZ]

If you're a good player your early strategy should highly depend on circumstances (maptype, size, immediate surroundsings, nearby civs and resources, which civ you are). That being said, I like to expand to a 3 cities, if good sites are nearby. And then go tall for culture. I'm a turtle.

 

[timtofly]

I (not taking the aggressive path) have found that Liberty is useful for growth and policies faster. After that tree then go for Tradition. This will help in speeding up culture, building wonders, and protecting your cities with a free garrison. My first great person would be a scientist unless you have gained enough gold to ally with your first CS and then a merchant would be my choice.

Taking out the babarians is an excellent way to "upgrade" early units, gain money, and if done properly gain influence with CS states you want to ally with. It seems that the original "hut" needs to be cleared and it is the second or third hut that has the barbarians that suceed in capturing that worker that will allow you to gain that influence.

The only way to stay ahead technology wise is get a scientist and the great library before any one else. Not that you need to play as Babylon every game, though it does make it easier. You still have that free great person from Liberty. BTW pick carefully how you use the scientist if you pick a technology. Do not pick what you think you need. Pick the one that cost the most, and try to work it so an expensive one becomes available. You probably will "need" it but don't settle for a needed one that cost less. You will find (a needed technology) can wait until it is researched because the great sride you gain in getting a (much longer to obtain) technology that you (may not need) allows you to get through the technology tree faster.

It is probably just me. but it does not matter which direction I start out in, the AI seem to always "locate" the CS's closest to me before I do. That could "mean" as much as 45-60 gold less at the start. I need to work on how I widen the known circle around my starting point. It is not that big of issue, but it has hampered getting up to speed sooner. It is also the reason I am still on King and not Emperor yet.

 

[Sc4Freak]

If you're playing on King, then you can try some silly stuff and still have it work out pretty well. For example, this gives you a pretty absurd head start:

1) Start as Ramesses
2) Go to tech screen, click on Philosophy, then shift-click on Trapping, then Mathematics. This will beeline you to Philosophy, then to Trapping, then to Mathematics.
3) Settle your first city and start building a warrior
4) Once your warrior is done, Pottery should be done, so start building a granary
5) By the time the granary is done, Writing should be complete. Start work on the Great Library
6) Put all your social policies into Tradition (get the +15% wonder bonus first)
7) When GL is done, Trapping should be completed. Pop Civil Service (which catapults you into the Medieval age). Start National College.
8) As soon as you can afford to, rush buy a worker for 310g and start improving tiles.
9) As soon as NC is done, Mathematics should be complete and you should start work on the Hanging Gardens

If you start as Ramesses on King, you should be able to get both Great Library and Hanging Gardens with no problems. By the end of it, you'll have a super-science, super-growth city and you'll be in the Medieval age. It won't work on higher difficulties, though, because you can't reliably get wonders before the AI does.

 

[Becomedeath]

I generally follow the strategy laid out in the below linked thread, using it and variations on it you can get Chivalry by turn 70-85 or if you're going down a science route you can reliably get Education by turn 90. You can practice with it to find what works for you as those first 100 turns go pretty fast anyway.

Using Babylon and with the GL I've had Education by turn 70 but that was heavily luck dependant as I found a fair number of city ruins which gifted culture and a couple of techs, significantly speeding up the process.

Works for pretty much most levels upto Immortal and also works with any Civ, not just the Mongols as detailed. Knights are just as good to have as Keshiks while everyone else is ambling about with spearmen and archers!


http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=433159

 

[Xichael]

Am I the only one who goes Tradition ---> Artistocracy and Stonehenge start?

Found Capital
Produce Worker, Tech research Pottery
Produce Scout, Tech Research Calendar
Produce Stonehenge

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

This strategy tends to be my most successful overall. Of course all depends on your start, map, and any unexpected foe issues...but here 'tis:

1) Open Tradition Policy...expand your borders
2) Open Liberty Policy...expand your borders more! Improve away constantly.
3) Take Tradition (You won't revisit this policy again-via legalism-until you get your city(s) set for a free Opera House cultural buidling)
4) Take Citizenship
5) Take Collective Rule (Use your Free Settler to expand only after you've gotten Great Library/Natioal College and any and all "single building" bonus'-like barracks/Heroic Epic done)
6) Take Republic.

At this point you have set the table and can venture as you see fit or as nessasary.

But note: Pursuing a winning route via the use of Culture (even if a Culture victory isn't clicked) is favorable to opening the door to all other style victorys. I've won domination victories easily without taking one "Honor" policy this way.

Tactically, you're number one goal should be to aquire either Iron or Horses and follow that path dealt to you militarily.

Best THREE tips off the top of my head:
1) Sell your open borders constantly to friendlies
2) Sell your Luxuries off if you don't need the pop to a Golden Age anytime soon or do not have Wonders in place to exploit the Golden Age
3) Buy & Produce production buildings first whenever you can.