What's your starting line here?

[Forrester]

You're playing, let's say, Gandhi, and you start in a coastal location with a wheat field nearby, as well as a fish off the coast. 4 or 5 forests nearby. Couple of hills.

Plan #1:

Worker | Agriculture, then Fishing, grow your city to size 3, and actually *build* two settlers (after you fish/farm, you can build each in 9 turns from scratch). After you build the two settlers (maybe get some help from the worker on the last one), chop out a worker and then the pyramids or oracle (whatever suits you best).

--or--

Plan #2:

Worker | Bronzeworking, chop those settler puppies out ASAP. As far as the Wonder goes, either just grow it naturally or chop it out in a nearby settlement.

Plan #1 postpones Settler #1 by 10-12 turns, I'd guess, and Settler #2 by 15-17 turns. But you're still generating them fairly quick, and have all those tasty forests left for chopping out whatever suits you! Stuff that actually requires *shields*.


Haven't done the math or tried it out both ways but I was thinking about it. Thought I'd ask you folks what you thought, though.

[Jerh9e1k5]

Do you have a save game with this start? If you do upload it onto the forum. Let people play it out in different ways and then compare the results afterwards.

My first inclination would be to build the work boat, and research agriculture at the same time. Then go for bronze working. By doing this you can vamp up your starting city very quickly, and it will be able to pump out settlers and workers due to its massive food resources. Then you can save all of the forests for wonders, or military (for an early conquest).

[Dominae]

I would try: Bronze Working, Fishing, Agriculture. Start with a Worker for the chops, hurrying a quick Work Boat before proceeding to some Warriors before a Settler. Since you have no Happiness resources you should hit that cap pretty quickly (especially with Wheat and Fish).

By going for a Settler right away after the Worker (or Work Boat) you run the risk of running into animal or Barb problems. At least on the difficulties I play on this is always a real concern.

Difficulty level also makes a differnence with respect to tech costs. On Monarch I believe you can research Fishing by the time the Worker is done the first Forest chop; on Emperor I'm not so sure and on Immortal I know this will not work.

Could you post a screenshot and save?

[xxFlukexx]

Hmmm, what difficulty is this on? Map type?

Well, since you have only 4-5 forests, I would favor approach #1and use the forests to help with the wonders(that way you get more hammers per forest using your indy trait)

I don't know if you actually need the workboat, depends on your happiness cap(aka difficulty level) the lower the difficulty the higher you can grow so you want that work boat out asap, on high difficulties, you can probably only grow to size 4 on Emperor+ so just the wheat tile should be fine, you'll be at size 4 in no time, no need for the workboat.

Both plans sound good though. #2 is good as well and don't forget to throw in a few warriors before all the settlers like Dominae says.

[LDiCesare]

For me, definitely none of your options. Warriors until fishing is found. Then work boat first. Fish means lots of food, and the workboat doesn't stop the growth of your city. So you will be able to build a settler much faster, probably not even have to churn out a worker first because the work boat acted as a worker on a farm with growth of the city meanwhile. Of course, it'd be even better with a financial civ. Settler, settle. Then more warriors, bronze working, grow your city more, worker, then settler.
I would skip agriculture altogether in this case until later. Wheat is much less interesting than fish, because of the lack of trade income.