Vel's Strategy Thread

[Quurgoth]

One variable for consideration with the settler vs. warrior development battle: getting to Meditation first. I believe a larger city generates more science, yes? I build warriors until size 2 or 3, in hopes of hitting both Meditation and Polytheism. I generally try for each of the religion-founding technologies before anything else.

My game strategy is to win culturally as much as possible (King Louis XIV, Industrious/Creative), and to build up huge cash reserves using the Great Prophet religious buildings.

I don't enjoy race-to-develop-cities games, so I'm unlikely to test settler racing myself, but I thought I'd toss out the scientific development variable and see if anyone else wants to address it.

Thanks for your work Vel, your contributions to the Civ3 forum were invaluable.

[Dactyl]

Here is a detail that can turn out to be important. If it's already been mentioned somewhere, my apologies. When you using one of the opening strategies where you build settlers and workers first before warriors, take care not to mine your copper too early or, if you mine it, don't connect it. I had the nasty experience of mining copper and connecting to my cities too soon. I had a city that was unprotected but was building a warrior. That warrior build automatically changed to a spearman build, which I failed to take note of. The spearman build takes a lot longer than that of a warrior, especially when the city size is one. and a few turns later up walks a barb and takes the city.

[Velociryx]

Thanks man! Jus' doin' what I love!

You bring up a topic that's certainly relevant to the debate, and it's one that I've considered myself as well.

Here's my take on it:

Let's assume that you're a guy who enjoys playing the early religious gambit. As such, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that you'll be taking a civ that starts with Mysticism, since it's right up your proverbial alley (giving you a headstart on the tech branch you prefer to explore first).

Given that, if you make your first tech "Mysticism," and assuming an average start, you'll have that tech in ~8 turns on a standard sized map (could be 9-10, if you land nowhere near water).

So the question becomes: Will your city *grow* to size 2 before that timeframe?

Odds are, no.

If it does, will you have a commerce producing tile for the extra worker to work?

Maybe (assuming a start near water, which is not unreasonable).

So...If you're out for founding one religion early, you're still better off not worrying about growth, cos you'll have your first tech under your belt before the city grows.

But that doesn't completely mesh with your style of play, cos you said you prefer to found as many of the early religions as possible.

That being the case, then it becomes a question of comparing the other city site to the commerce gains to be found close to home.

If you can found the second city on a tile adjacent to fresh water, the city tile itself will generate +1 commerce, and if the worker *in* that city works a commerce tile, you'll get more (how much more depends on how quickly you can improve the land, and if you're terraforming cottages). Compare that to what you get by staying home, and the stay at-home methodology becomes more comparable.

In my head then, it breaks out like this:

* If you're shooting for just one religion - the argument won't make or break you in either case (growth vs. fast settler)

* If you're aiming for a deeper drink from the religious branch of the tree, then depending on how you structure your research *around that goal* (ie - make pottery a priority), you can make it viable.



-=Vel=-

[vmxa1]

Quurgoth I think that is not going to be very viable above Prince. You would probably have to hand pick the civs so none started with Myst.

In fact much of what is talked about is gong to be non applicable as you move up the levels. So it is really a good idea to mention the game settings when offering concepts.

I see a lot of players talking about always getting this or that wonders, but it is not going to be a given in all games.

Same with religions, they will get very hard to get at the high end. Going without little or no defense becomes much more dangerous as well.

[garetjaxusmc]

I've learned a lot from this thread; a great many thanks to everyone for posting back!

I think that at the beginning of the game I've got a good idea now as to what I think I'll want to accomplish, but then I also end up turning around with non-specialized cities, and end up just building anything and everything. I think I'm going to try my next game with this kind of strategy:

Capitol- Great Person factory, Wonders
City 2- War machine (barracks/walls/military)
City 3- Science
City 4- Expansion (produce settlers/workers)
City 5- War Machine

Cities after 5 are determined by location and resources.

I guess now that I've got my ideas as to what I'd like my first main cities to be, now I just have to figure out what the best buildings/wonders would be in order to make sure I stay specialized.

[QuestGAV]

Keep in mind that what a specific city should be focused on is going to depend on terrain as much as anything. You can't make much of production center out of floodplains and your commerce center is going to be lame if it's all hills. Let the land dictate which cities go in which direction. In the very early game the cities are fairly generalized regardless so setting up a strict hierarchy before you see the city sites is going to handcuff you.

[Alexfrog]

Originally posted by Philotas


Forests should give .5 health if next to city, which I believe rounds up, so three forests should give 2 extra health.

I'm debating on doing an entire posts on nothing but health and all the factors that affect it.

Perhaps it should, but it doesnt. They are +.4, and it rounds down.

[Alexfrog]

Well, I found the worker/chop strategy to be much superior to others on monarch difficulty, but I am having trouble with it on Immortal.

Reasons:

1) City maintenance costs ar higher. I'm getting city# and distance costs for the second city, only 4 squares from the first, and the third is worse. This reduces the gain of additional cities very early, before you get cottages up.

2) Animal barbarians give way to human ones EARLIER. This is critical because animals wont enter your borders, but humans will. On monarch, I wasnt seeing the humans until around 2000 BC, and by then I had several cities already up and defended, and there werent safety issues. But on immortal, its in the 2800 BC area, and thus there are barbarians that can attack my new cities before they can build defense.


Of course, other strategies like going for religions are much shakier as well.

So I think the early safety and maintenance issues of the worker/chop settlers opening are significant ON HIGH DIFFICULTY LEVELS (above monarch).

The health loss of lack of forests still doesnt seem relevant, as there are many ways to increase health later in the game, and in the middle, and early on you probably wont be hitting those caps yet.


Anyone else trying to get things started well on Immortal difficulty? What are you finding?

I'd still certainly advocate teh worker chop strategy for civs with mining, and who dont have a ton of floodplains, but at least at the very high difficulties, it doesnt seem like its a clear best strategy, because those extra cities hurt your research a lot more than they do at lower difficulties.

[gentle]

Originally posted by Alexfrog

So I think the early safety and maintenance issues of the worker/chop settlers opening are significant ON HIGH DIFFICULTY LEVELS (above monarch).

it doesnt seem like its a clear best strategy, because those extra cities hurt your research a lot more than they do at lower difficulties.

I usually go for 4 cities in the beginning (deity)
Indeed research slows down as the tech rate is adjusted to cope with the rising maintenace costs.To counter this I aim for Writing pretty much as one of the first techs.
(Bronze-Masonry -> Writing).
Which path to writing I take depends on the map situation.
Every City tries to build a library so that it is finished around the time the pyramids are built, so I can have 8 scientists in a representative gov.
This does speed up research significantly.
Timing wise, Pyramids are often done before the libraries are set up and there is a short period where the cities have to grow fast in order to maintain 2 scientists (size 5 -maybe 4).
Putting it short, using Scientist provided by Libraries (supported by Representative gov if all goes well) are one way to counter the research loss of high maintenance costs.

edit:
on page 11 i have also posted sth on that problem with some other ponderings.

[Philotas]

Originally posted by Alexfrog


Perhaps it should, but it doesnt. They are +.4, and it rounds down.

hmmm...Manual has +.5, but found it in the XML, it's +.4 there.

[khumak]

Originally posted by Velociryx
total agreement! Under the right circumstances, it can pay early. I wonder if a civ that starts with fishing is pre-disposed to land near the coast? Something I've not experimented much with.

Not that I've noticed. I'm a big fan of fishing + workboats before doing workers in my first city if I have at least 2 available but I find that I frequently start far away from any coast line even if I pick a civ that starts with fishing. It's a nice start but you definitely can't count on it.

[Dimension]

I haven't played much Civ 4 yet and haven't done much studying of other people's strategy... so why doesn't everybody build a worker first? Chopping is great.

For example, I did some tests with Gandhi:

Worker First
Turn 1 (4000 BC): Delhi founded, start Fast Worker (15)
Turn 2 (3960 BC): start researching Bronze Working (13)
Turn 15 (3440 BC): discover Bronze Working, start researching The Wheel (7)
Turn 16 (3400 BC): finish worker, start chopping, start Settler (25)
Turn 19 (3280 BC): start chopping 2nd forest
Turn 22 (3160 BC): discover The Wheel, start a road adjacent to Delhi
Turn 24 (3080 BC): start 2nd road
Turn 26 (3000 BC): finish Settler, found Bombay (or just move off end of road and found Bombay 4 squares away next turn)

Worker First with Buddhism
Turn 1 (4000 BC): Delhi founded, start Fast Worker (15)
Turn 2 (3960 BC): start researching Meditation (8)
Turn 10 (3640 BC): found Buddhism, research Bronze Working (13)
Turn 16 (3400 BC): finish worker, start Settler (25)
Turn 23 (3120 BC): discover Bronze Working, start chopping
Turn 26 (3000 BC): start chopping 2nd forest (you can use a farther-out 20-hammer forest)
Turn 29 (2880 BC): finish Settler, move
Turn 30 (2840 BC): found Bombay 3 squares away

Settler First
Turn 1 (4000 BC): Delhi founded, start Settler (25)
Turn 2 (3960 BC): research Polytheism (10)
Turn 12 (3560 BC): founded Hinduism
Turn 26 (3000 BC): finish Settler, move
Turn 27 (2960 BC): found Bombay 3 squares away

I'm assuming things would go a little better as far as building the settler first if you were building in the middle of a bunch of flood plains and your city grew fast... I can't see how chopping down 2 forests is very bad, though. I don't know whether founding a religion is worth waiting another 4 turns, but I definitely think building the settler first is the worst option.

Of course, maybe I'm missing something totally, because I just installed the game and haven't played past the first 100 turns yet.

Edit: Oops... For some reason I thought the 1st page was the end of this thread. Looks like plenty other people have discussed chopping at this point.

[Generaldoktor]

Early settler: Have played "noble" and simpler; animals circle, but I haven't seen them attack until you get something to defend. This may be a game device to prevent restarts on single-player games, which most players find to have wasted their time. Human barbs show up later. I think this is safe; haven't started one on turn 1, but after reading this discussion I might begin. I have started them early on, after worker or barracks (yes, I like barracks; a Woodsman II warrior is better than a scout.)

Which brings us to 2) Produce scouts? At least at the levels I have played, you can get scouts off goodie huts. Once as Mongols I had three (they start with one) and a Woodsman II warrior, all scouting at the same time; that's probably how the guy got 60 hits on goodie huts.

Which brings us to 3) Goodie Huts. I think your difficulty level matters a lot as far as what you get off them. I agree the maps are pretty useless, more so than in Civ 3 because they cover a very limited area. I'm belatedly looking now at Aeson's 11/3 post and I agree with all of it, including about the Woodman II warriors. Remember, skill levels are another potential benefit of the huts.

I did get techs off them, these are low-level techs and I think the system gives you something else once you've discovered all the permissable low-level techs as I don't see techs coming off huts as we progress into the early-mid game. Gold is darn useful and you can get a lot of it from huts if you got a couple guys working like I mention above. Before your cities and improvements are up to produce wealth, where else are you going to get it? Even the other civs can't trade gold right away, if I'm not mistaken. It (hut gold) allows you to maintain a high science effort, if nothing else.

4) I don't like to neglect the fishing/sailing forever. But I am the great-grandson of a whaler and have whopped many more civs with my navies than I have on land. Oh, did I mention I like to play with lots of islands?? I think the AI's have trouble with naval strategy and tactics. A world map and strategy that emphasizes those, in the single-player mode, sounds like a winner to me most of the time.

[Generaldoktor]

Oops, last post kind of irrelevant, thread has moved on. Advice to newcomers, make sure you are on last page before you try to reply to something.

[garetjaxusmc]

It's all good, I learn from these no matter when they come up.