Vel's Strategy Thread

[gentle]

The Indians start with Mysticism and Mining ( they also have the fast worker - movement: 3)
This would save one tech to research, though their abilities are not that good. Spiritual might be ok, but i dislike both industrious and organized.

But interesting anyway, i came up with the thought that religious player must find another way to expand some posts earlier. chopping is not a viable strat for them i think.

edit:
for players focusing on religions it might even be a better idea to let the city grow a bit (usually 3 i think) and have the first 3 religions be founded in the starting capital.
Former games with the indians showed me - that at least timing wise - it is ok.
grow to 3 - build settler - before you found 2nd city you have researched and found the first 3 relgions. this usually doesnt even need a delay of founding the 2nd city (meaning: hitting the end of turn button although the settler is ready to found city).
Why one would like to have that ? 3 shrines in a city should be fun^^

edit2:
still referring to games where i didnt chop

edit3:
we are a "sticky" thread

[Theseus]

Grrrr... this thread is driving me crazy.

Let me 'splain: I decided to work through all the strat threads since the game was released, and I keep getting stuck at the bottom of the first page!!

And I won;t read this one till I get to it in order!!

[jones]

as the free tech granted i usually pick philosophy (founding a taoism and getting pacifism for 100% GL production)

yes, add republic from pyramids for the uber early govt situation

pyramids plus religions (at least to oracle) plus industrious.. have to tie it all together somehow, to succeed on immortal i think. so far things aren't going that great. i'm looking into the settler first and various chopping techniques

Qin would be ideal (ind+fin) but he doesn't start with roads which the second biggest thing an early worker can do after food improvements


edit: republic = representation

[Alexfrog]

Qin would be ideal (ind+fin) but he doesn't start with roads which the second biggest thing an early worker can do after food improvements

Yeah, but his techs are things you are going to need for the strat. And his traits are both awesome. I'm playing him and he is very strong.

[Alexfrog]

[SIZE=1] Spiritual might be ok, but i dislike both industrious and organized.

Industrious rules.

Building the pyramids with stone and industrious. Chopped forests for 75 production. It finished FAST.

[Harovan]

Vel's strategy thread is back. Sweet memories of late 2001, when his Civ3 threads made me register at Apolyton (not before having lurked for about 2 weeks; I am usually quite shy). We had three of them in 2001/2002, let's see how many we get this time around.

Great thoughts here so far. Until now, I was in the "grow to 3 then worker/settler" camp, but I can certainly see, that other approaches like instant worker or even instant settler can also work good.

As for leaders, I had a great time with Gandhi. Early hinduism (how fitting!), no anarchy and a strong wonder builder. And in the light of chopping settlers: his fast workers would make move+chop 1 turn instead of 2 for the most cases.

[Martinus]

My strategy is quite different.

I start by building some early unit or building that will allow my city to grow to level 2. Then I start building a worker. All this time I am trying to get to Bronze Working (tree chopping AND slavery as soon as possible).

When I get there, I build another building or unit, so that the city can grow to level 3 and cut down trees to speed up production. When I hit level 3, I turn to settler, continue cutting down trees and use pop-rush as soon as possible.

By the end of this, I have a settler roughly at the same time you would have had it if you started to building it from day one, I have a 1 pop city like you, but I also have a worker and some buildings completed already.

[Thrak]

Well theres a couple of points here really.

1) Trees

I don't go mad on chop, the order of exectution basically goes like this
a) trees on resources
b) trees on grassland w/fresh water

Anything else I normally don't touch, especially trees on plains and tundra (icky!). I do take into account the amont of trees when placing that second city, as one of the many factors.

2) Growth and stuff

In my example I let my city goto 3 before building, this isn't always the case - if there is only one good growth square I leave it at 2 depeding.

Also, in my example where I state 13 turns for the capital and 10 for the second city - if you used those turns to grow, assuming more or less optimal squares (3 food) yeah, the capital would be at 2 pop for 2 turns and the second city about to get to pop 2.
I just left the turns there, as production might have been for settlers or workers.

As far as I can see, if you have no trees, but have a nice place to expand to settler first is a good option.

I'm going to have a quick play with getting a worker out fast as possible see how that goes.

[EscapedGoat]

I still think everyone here is being way to conservative.

You gotta think of workers chopping as SMAC crawlers, crawling 7.5 minerals a turn. If that isn't enough to convince you, I don't know what will!

City size is irrelevant if you can't work improved squares. Going up one pop nets you 1 surpluss resource in most cases, maybe 2 if you have a river tile to work(remember that the new pop eats 2 food) Growing your city is a VASTLY inefficient strategy if you ask me.

2 workers do NOT become redundant, in fact I am thinking about making 3 at first now...there is plenty to chop and improve, trust me. Mines, roads, farms, pastures, chops for the new city.... your new cities need improvements too.

I nearly allways start with a +1 health resource in my capital borders, and there's usually many nearby. There are so many different ones and they are not scarce. Health is not a problem for me, since I am not really growing my cities much in the start anyway, and for now only playing prince level. I concentrate on workers and settlers early then I start growing the cities when I have improved the pastures and farms and such. Like I said, early growth is pretty meaningless, add one pop in around 10 turns and get +1 or +2 resource income? no thanks, that's not a good investment to me.

[Dactyl]

I've tried Vel's original strategy and the chop-settler strategy on Prince level. Both worked quite well. I got to six cities rather quickly but it was at that point that maintenance costs began to hurt me and my civilization stagnated. So, the question becomes, does it matter what the most optimal strategy for expanding is if you're going to end up stagnating anyway, and what are the optimal number of cities? From my experience so far, if you just keep spawning settlers and creating many cities, it's going to be at the cost of falling behind in the tech race.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Dactyl
I've tried Vel's original strategy and the chop-settler strategy on Prince level. Both worked quite well. I got to six cities rather quickly but it was at that point that maintenance costs began to hurt me and my civilization stagnated. So, the question becomes, does it matter what the most optimal strategy for expanding is if you're going to end up stagnating anyway, and what are the optimal number of cities? From my experience so far, if you just keep spawning settlers and creating many cities, it's going to be at the cost of falling behind in the tech race.

That's a given. REX, not to mention ICS, is dead. I have found out that generally 5 cities is a good time to stop and build up for a while.

Incidentally, is the maintenance cost dependant on the map size or are you going to hit the same kind of ceiling with 5-6 cities whether on small or large maps?

[Martinus]

Chose the Arabians, cos one of my two stated goals (below) is to found a religion WHILE growing, and this civ gives me a great shot at it, in the early game.

Probably Spanish (Expansive and Spiritual) would be the best for it - Arabians with their Philosophical trait are not very good in early game.

[Thrak]

Ok did some more quick testing:

All the scenarios comparison at 2480 BC.
(I managed for all scenarios to get hinduism and bronze working by 2480 BC). See my above post for race, settings etc.

Vel's Settler Rush @ 2480 BC

1 Settler
1 City @ 1

City @ 3 then worker then settler @ 2480 BC

worker 3 turns from completion
1 City @ 3

City @ 2 then worker then settler @ 2480 BC

Settler 4 turns from competion
1 worker
1 City @ 2
2 chops

Worker rush then settler @ 2480 BC

1 worker
1 settler
3 chops

Important: next settler pops in <5 turns with an extra chop.

So essentially, worker rush rules. If you only have 2 forests you want to chop, I might be tempted to grow to 2. No forest? Vels settler rush.

To give a quick forecast of what happens next, by 1975 worker rush is about to found his third city while Vel and City @ 3/2 are only on thier second.

[Velociryx]

Mmmm...maybe. Vel's Settler Chaining is beginning to turn hybrid tho....after the first city builds its settler, it builds a worker, and there's nothing that says the worker can't chop...

So essentially, if we have the EXACT SAME start, then I've got my settler just as quickly as you do, and I now have three additional forest tiles to make use of later on (for resources, chop, or whathaveyou).

The argument can't be made that you'll necessarily have better land to work, since your worker isn't farming and such (tho he will have an extra window of opportunity to do so, which will create some turn advantage).

Conclusion: The worker rush is better IF you have forests to spare...which is not always the case, in my experience (see the screenshot above).

-=Vel=-

[Thrak]

But just looking at my example, manually building a settler, then worker and then 10 turns later say a settler (chopped) - you're going to be at least a settler and a worker behind pure worker. If you have the trees to chop, surely the earlier its done, the better?

Edit for your edit:
Settler pops exact same turn but...
The 3 chops leaves enough production that 1 more chop will throw another settler out - the hammers all store up so the next settler from a pure worker strat comes out as soon as I can chop. And if I can't chop, I can start on improvments and then I'm ahead one worker.

I can't see any downside to using 2 (or 3/4) forest to be at least one city ahead. Always my plan is if there was only say, 2-3 forest at the first, city the second will have plenty, and become a mini settler factory. In that case I would normally use the spare prod from the third chop to get another worker done at the first city to babysit it while it builds garrisons or whatever.

Like I said, if you have no forest then pure settler rocks, but with forest...