What is youre favorite opening play?

[make]

Originally posted by Yosho
Besides, if you're smart and careful (and a little lucky), you can hold off barbarians for a long time with just a few warriors; a warrior fortified on a forested hill has good odds against an attacking barbarian archer, especally if he has combat 1 or woodland 1 (usually from early barbarian/animal fighting).

Luck is the keyword here. If you survive with warriors, great, but If you dont want to be living on luck, build archers.

[make]

Originally posted by Velociryx
With Cathy, my general opening play is Scout, Worker, with Bronze being my first tech.

This gives me rapid exploration, lots of huts, lots of early contacts/deep understanding of continental geography, and advance knowledge of "where the copper is."

If it turns out I don't have any, then Husbandary is my next tech.

-=Vel=-

About the scout first. I have tried this a few times and in my experience, by the time the second scout is out there, all huts are gone, due to the AI scouts swarming all over the place. Perhaps I was just unlucky. This was on standard map size. Perhaps on lager maps the second scout will have a better chance of finding some huts.
The geographical knowledge he can give you is very valuable though , but I prefer having my fourth archer going out mapping the the rest of the continent, my initial scout didnt get mapped (if he died). He will also survive much more than a second scout.

I thought I got BW fast, but it seems theres a general agreement that you get it before agriculture, husbandry and pottery.
I shall note this and have a go at that strat in my next game.

[make]

rjmatsleepers, I think you are neglecting defence bigtime.
What difficulty is this on?

I love flood plains to, and the first tile I work will also be the one with most food and hopefully some commerce to.

I used to go down the religious arm ASAP to found hinduism and swith to organized religion, but I dont anymore.
I find that its a stronger play to focus on war an development techs.
Founding a religion must be done with care. You dont want to provoke a neighbor that could overrun you if he wished. Better to swith to hes religion, atleast until Free Religion or you can conquer him.

I never had any succes with the slingshots on emperor. I just dont think it fits in my playstyle.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Tsar_of_Cows
After many, many opening plays as I play hotseat against a friend of mine, (and we both hate loseing, so restarts are many) we've both come to the conclusion that the best opening move is to build a worker.

The worst, ever, is to build warrior.

Yes, no, maybe.

Building a worker or settler at this point stunts the growth of your first city, when the effects of this has the most impact throughout the game. I haven't done any nitty gritty calculations, but it does seem like costly.

Furthermore, consider this scenario.

You build your a worker, I build a warrior. When your worker is merrily doing his job my warrior comes along and nabs him. Now you are a worker down and totally borked.

[Nacht]

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers
I usually play with Lizzie - philosophical for those GP points and financial for the extra commerce.

1. Start building a warrior, but arrange my city workers for growth and commerce rather than production - I love flood plains.

2. Research mysticism. Once it is discovered, maximise production until the warrior is finished then switch to Stonehenge. Maximise growth (food) until size 3 or 4 depending on circumstances.

3. Research meditation, but switch to polytheism if budhism is discovered elsewhere. Carry on through priesthood, writing and finish meditation or research polytheism.

4. Fairly standard slingshot. First GP gives me CoL. Oracle gives me philosophy - I may have to delay completion of the Oracle to make it after 1st GP. Adopt a religion and switch to pacifism...

Where did you get those pyramids? You don't even have the prereq yet.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Nacht
Where did you get those pyramids? You don't even have the prereq yet.

You don't need the Pyramids to get Pacifism. What you need is philosophy.

[couerdelion]

I would follow Vel’s options here 80-90% of the time. For me BW is the pivotal early tech given opening up many avenues for future development.

Cathy’s traits and starting techs make here the ideal leader to combat any early health and happiness because all four of the early happiness resources are available from the go. If the situation is right, those first cities can grow very big, very early.

The scout would be pumped out as quickly as possible to maximise the exploration and bonuses from huts.

Exceptions:
1) In those rare occasions where you are placed next to another civ, you’re going to have to kill those AI scouts if you are going to have a chance with the huts. It’s risky business so you might skip on the scout.
2) For coastal starts, with seafood resources, I’d be very tempted to go for fishing first.

After the scout, I might sometimes allow growth to size two while building something other than a worker. At a suitable time, I would switch to worker so that BW arrives at just the right time to pop-rush the worker and get some bonus hammers for the other build. In this case, I guess the other build would be barracks.

I would suggest that Archery is a big diversion and for real insurance against both AI and barbarians, copper is 2 to 3 times more effective. I only use archery to allow me to defend my cities with cheap units and allow my strong units to go on an early world tour. Of course, there are those rare occasions where all your copper or horses are controlled by barbs in which case I think there is a case for Archery but without BW, you don't know that.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

Only time I would ever think about trying to build the pyramids, is if I get an Island start and I have stone. If you have AI neighbors, it is much safer to build units instead and try to dominate youre continent.

I agree with this and I almost never shoot for early wonders. However, I do not place much emphasis at all on early defense. For me, 2-3 warriors has always been adequate to stall barbarians until I get my second city up and running (preferably with copper). I have never lost a city to barbarian attacks, but have had some uncomfortable close calls. I think bronze is more useful to counter barb threat as they are almost invulnerable to barbs.

I never had any succes with the slingshots on emperor. I just dont think it fits in my playstyle.

Me either (I would venture to say that I haven't had any success period on emperor). I am not a big fan of the slingshot on higher levels as it pretty much kills your ability to adapt to game situations and leaves you extremely vulnerable in the early game. I think you have to get very lucky to pull a CS slingshot off on emperor.

My opening play definitely needs some work on emp level. I am usually able to take a few cities and weaken my nearest neighbor, but everyone else just rockets ahead of me and gives me bad deals for the few techs I have to trade. I find it really difficult to catch up after this. I would like to see some succesful non slingshot opening plays that work well on emperor level.

[uberfish]

Originally posted by make


Luck is the keyword here. If you survive with warriors, great, but If you dont want to be living on luck, build archers.

I play emperor/immortal and I don't build archers unless raging barbs are on, or I get the tech for free from a hut. On standard settings the barbarians don't actively go after your cities or anything else inside your cultural borders until 2000 BC or so, which is enough time to get chariots, axemen, or a well positioned warrior defence.

Researching archery wastes a lot of time for units that go obsolete very soon, I do recommend learning how to defend with warriors as every edge you can get against the AI at high levels helps.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by make
This is exactly why I build a worker first. Nothing seems to beat buÃlding worker first. Developing tiles ASAP really helps keeping pace with the AI.

Well, that assumes that there is something useful for the worker to do to increase the power of the city. If you don't have agriculture or mining, (or if you have hunting but nothing to hunt) just building roads may not be as valuable as city growth while researching something better to do.

There's good discussion of this topic in the pinned Vel's Strat Thread II.

[Fallenhero]

I agree. I play mostly on Mon and I only think about archers when I can't get copper or horses within my first two cities. A warrior parked on a forrested hill will likely beat a barb archer and get a promotion.

I build/chop 2-3 warriors per settler produced and spread them out to keep the shadows at bay. If I have to build Chariots I send them out in aggressive patrols to try and catch barbs in the open.

When the barbs start sending out axemen this won't work anymore but I'd rather research Iron W than archery even then.

[unamablebuiler]

i was alone i this particular game ended up grabimg a few other wonders as i had trouble with my happycap cause of lack of resurces ended up using herditary rule cause it was /is the only ways till you get theatres notredame

if i am alone i try for any early wonder if possible depending on resources.

the reason i go for archer is simple about 80 percent of the time when i get BW the copper is miles away as is the iron i really don't want to be facing swords with warriors. Archers can deal with any ancient era threat if the city has walls or cultral defense. on forrested hills they are better than any contemporaries in defense. IMO archers are a safe and dependable path to security in the early game, they might even be essential as archery results in longbows with feudalism. Axes are the best for the open terrain but if you can't have them you make do.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by uberfish

I play emperor/immortal and I don't build archers unless raging barbs are on, or I get the tech for free from a hut. On standard settings the barbarians don't actively go after your cities or anything else inside your cultural borders until 2000 BC or so, which is enough time to get chariots, axemen, or a well positioned warrior defence.

Researching archery wastes a lot of time for units that go obsolete very soon, I do recommend learning how to defend with warriors as every edge you can get against the AI at high levels helps.

This is what I do, on emperor. But if I don't have copper or horses, I have a decision, whether to go for archery or iron working. If I have hunting as a starting tech, then I'll go for archery, if not, I'll probably go for IW, but not before getting wheel, pottery, and writing. I like to get my library in the capital quickly and cottages down to fuel science.

It's rare that you don't have both copper and iron, and even rarer that you don't have copper, iron, and horses. Archery is great for defense, but I usually trade for it, once I get alphabet and start back filling.

I generally go down the BW path even if I don't start with mining. Mining is necessary, and the chop is needed to get other cities going ASAP. The sooner you find out if there is copper nearby, the better.

So I build warrior first, then worker, then chop in the settler, timing BW discovery to be at the same time as the worker is built. Allowing the capital to grow to size two ASAP is better than capping the pop at one that early in the game.

Also, what is a worker going to do at the beginning, twiddle his thumbs?

On a standard pangea, you're lucky to get 4 well placed cities, often only 3, sometimes as many as 5 or 6, but the last two are usually barb cities that you capture.

It may be true that the goody huts are gone by the time the second scout or warrior is out, but you still need to scout the area well, and there's a very good chance that wild animals will kill your first scout/warrior. So two are required in my opinion, but also to not stunt the capital at size=1.

This is all map dependent. If you're playing a highlands map, especially a huge highlands map on emperor, then I wouldn't wait to discover iron working, if there's no copper. You have no alternative but to go for archery, because the velocity that the barbs come at you is incredible. Animal husbandry may still come before archery, but chariots in the city won't save you from barbarian axmen once they start coming. Archers will.

[Cadarn]

In the minority of non-worker first players......

I like to play as Lizzie on Epic - nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with traits that fit my playing style. So I don't have the tech for Scouts or anything much for any early workers to do except mine hills. (Gems? I should be so lucky!) I also play on large maps. Terra or Continents.

So, I grow my capital up to size 3. In that time I've built 2 or 3 Warriors and researched BW. I then go Worker/Worker/Settler/Settler. The first worker chops in the 2nd, they both chop in the settlers. The settlers can travel to good sites uncovered by my warriors and those same warriors can act as city defence in the (very) early years. I can also use my existing workers to chop in a worker-first build in each new city.

I'm then set up to go for The Oracle in whichever new city is best suited whilst looking to grow the other new city generally. The Capital can focus on either units or slave-rushed infrastructure. Research is aimed at Pottery as a priority for cottages and then archery or Writing. I only go for the CS slingshot if I have commerce on tap, otherwise it's COL and more production/expansion/terraforming rather than huge research.

I have no experience beyond Monarch, but this opening usually nets me the production base from which I establish a dominant position by 0 AD.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by uberfish
Researching archery wastes a lot of time for units that go obsolete very soon, I do recommend learning how to defend with warriors as every edge you can get against the AI at high levels helps.

Archers do have a well defined upgrade path and they do hold up against barbarians - even axemen as they aren't melee units - very well.