Vel's Strategy Thread, Volume III

[khumak]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I remember reading a remarkable essay about Civ III in which the player began in isolation on an island near a large grouping of AI Civs...he built nothing but Warriors and Galleys for the entire game, and ultimately conquered the world....

Not sure how that approach would have succeeded even in Civ 3. Unless he conquered the entire world before anyone discovered archery... A small number of archers can stop a large number of warriors, especially if they're behind walls on a hill/mountain.

This brings to mind an interesting tradeoff though, especially for the momentum player.



Thus, even if this is all the attention that is paid to the economy and Empire, it is compelling, because it underscores the point that the idea of being a singlemindedly focused conquerer is pretty much out the window in this game. All I can see it leading to is a steadily declining research rate, and the eventual disbanding of a healthy chunk of one's standing army, to be immediately followed by conquest.

Yeah just about any strategy taken to the ultimate extreme won't work. Any "builder" strategy that totally ignores it's military will fail. Any conquest strategy where absolutely nothing but military units is ever built will run out of money and grind to a halt, etc.

[Footie Mad]

Surely a rudimentary description of what to expect from the different AI leaders should be in there somewhere, in terms of what logic they use and what their tender spots are. They may change somewhat between patches but not that much really, so it wont become inaccurate.

[uberfish]

Originally posted by khumak
Yeah just about any strategy taken to the ultimate extreme won't work. Any "builder" strategy that totally ignores it's military will fail. Any conquest strategy where absolutely nothing but military units is ever built will run out of money and grind to a halt, etc.

Not really true; I've won warrior-only spaceship and culture games. Given a small map, low difficulty level, or slow game speed it is also possible to rush with nothing but Iron units until conquest (you had better be razing the cities though)

[khumak]

Originally posted by uberfish


Not really true; I've won warrior-only spaceship and culture games. Given a small map, low difficulty level, or slow game speed it is also possible to rush with nothing but Iron units until conquest (you had better be razing the cities though)

I don't see how you even survive the barbarians with just warriors unless you turn off barbs. If I don't have at least archers and preferably axemen by the time the barbs get axemen it's game over. And what's the point of even building warriors when the AI has archers or better other than just to garrison your cities for happiness purposes?

[uberfish]

If you expose all the fog of war between you and the AI with warrior pickets, barbarians can't spawn.

[redazncommieDXP]

I know it's off topic and I know it'll make me sound like a fanboy, but Vel, I have tremendous respect for you and I wish you the best. Your guide on SMACX was flat-out superb, and you're one of the driving forces behind this community. When I first saw you as a member on this site, I knew this was THE site for the tbs community.

Sorry again for derailing the topic, I dont have apolyton plus and I can't pm. Don't mind me. -scoots back to lurker lair-

[Velociryx]

Sorry for not seeing this sooner and responding!

It's funny, you know....when people say such nice things about me and the writing I've been able to do here, I always feel as though I should think of something wonderfully profound to say, but usually what happens is that I end up blushing several flattering shades of crimson and mumbling out something altogether generic.

So...in an attempt to break that cycle, I'll just say a heartfelt "Thank You" for those kind words, and tell you that the reason I didn't see this right away is that I've been lost in the writing of the next piece of the new Strat Guide, which I'll be posting here in a few days.

-=Vel=-

[Verrucosus]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Game Start
... The moment you start getting complacent, you start “glossing over” important decisions because they don’t seem all that important at the moment you’re making them.

This is false. Take your time and make sure that you’re making the right decisions for the right reasons. If it means saving off and getting up to take a break, then do that, and come back to the situation with a clear head.

I bring up the issue of complacency now because it (and specifically, guarding against it) will be a common theme that runs throughout this work, and also because it is very easy to breeze past the opening menu screens without much thought.

The problem with that, of course, is that the game’s strategic choices begin (or can begin) before the game officially starts. That is to say, Civ Selection can have a tremendous and immediately apparent impact on your game. ..."

This is a most important topic, not just in terms of strategy, but of properly enjoying the game. I agree with most of Vel's comments, but I have a different approach to the choices in the opening menu.

In almost every game I play, there is a moment when I find myself glossing over decisions because they don't seem to be important anymore. Very often, this coincides with the time where I commit myself to pursuing a specific victory condition and all those decisions that are not directly relevant to victory start to fade into the background.

When this moment comes, I know instinctively that I should take a break, but often enough, I keep playing anyway, driven by the one-more-turn-syndrome. Although the game moves more swiftly as a result of my complacency (and in most cases, it doesn't come back to haunt me), I don't enjoy it as much as I feel I should. After all, my empire has stood the test of time and I should revel in the beauty and efficiency of my creation rather than watch the time pass until the victory screen comes up.

By contrast, when I do take a break and pick up the game a day or two later, I'm much more involved during the last stages of the game. The decisions that come up rarely offer me an opportunity to make a mistake that could still lose me the game, but I still enjoy making them. After all, it's what Civilization is all about.

Of course, complacency during the early stages of the game is a threat not just to your enjoyment, but also to your survival, and I support Vel's words of caution in that regard.

With that kind of approach to the game, you would expect me to spend a long time thinking carefully about my setup choices and that's exactly what I did during the first few months after I bought the game. I suppose there were cases when "Baba Yetu" played half a dozen times while I fiddled with my map setup - Sirian's map guide within easy reach, before the tunes of the fanfare came as a sweet relief. As suggested by Vel, I considered the game setup as the first (and as such really important) strategic decision to make.

In recent months, I have moved away from that position. If you have a strategy in mind before the main map comes up, you have to make a conscious effort of adapting that strategy to the world that you are tossed into (see Vel's seafood example). I've found that usually very little was left from my pre-4000-BC strategy, once the game really began. Nowadays, I don't consider the game setup as a strategic decision. It's still important to me, but it only depends in what kind of game I'm in the mood for. I know the general effects of the settings on my game experience, so I won't start a game on a huge Terra map on Marathon when I want to finish it the same weekend, but I'm very much willing to accept "Shuffle" or "Random" settings. In terms of strategy, that's like raising the white flag.

However, as soon as I'm tossed into the game, I'm once again on the same page as Vel. Learning which Civilization I'm about to lead, analysing the map and visiting the F8 screen to find out the rest of the setup, that's indeed the cradle of strategy and in that sense 4000 BC is the most precious moment in the game.

Verrucosus

[kbarrett]

I've been playing with your guide for a few days in Archipelago map games , and noted a few things ...

Fishing smacks have been fixed in 1.61 ... they cannot leave your cultural boundaries, so they can't now be used as cheap explorer units.

As for basic Archipelago strat;

Galley at least one settler into each galley reachable island ... even small coastal island ... you don't want an AI parasite there later.

The ( blindingly obvious ) thing is the beeline to optics ... two caravels going in opposite directions until they meet is an immediate need ... as well as at least a half dozen more ( or even a full dozen ) set on autoexplore. Don't load scouts or explorers ... wait until you know where you need to go.

Then beeline to Galeons.

Having all the Caravels on autoexplore is an enormous advantage ... with a good map, seeding small islands near the AIs to screw with ( choke ) AI galley colonization attempts will lock up the map for you ... if they can't get around your colonies to get to the big islands without starting a war, you can colonize them yourself at your leasure.

Do not ever sell your map.

Then you can pick off the Barbarian kingdoms that have sprouted up on a few islands at random ...

Anyway ... that's just my $0.02.

[Tony]

Vel,

I'm a long time fan of your SMAC guide. Your enthusiasm is infectious and increases my enjoyment of the game. Whenever I want to revisit SMAC I always reread your guide first to get me psyched up again (and the short fiction story that was released on the SMAC web site also gets me in the SMAC mood). Its the clarity and enthusiasm of your writing that I like so much.

Anyway heres my input on the CIV guide so far. I have attempted your "Imperial Approach" to conquest, and it was great fun. By you didn't mention in your guide how this is a race against time to get your invasion force up to strength before your enemies culture gets too high (necessitating catapults and spoiling the "early rush" concept). Also creative civs are deadly hard to rush for this reason. Anyway I'd like to see this race against time aspect mentioned, maybe in a section about actually executing the rush attack (including notes on rushing creative, aggressive and protective civs), especially if your going for the Iron based 'late' rush.

The above stuff might seem a bit obvious to you. But until I read your guide I was a die hard peaceful builder following the "found religion/rush build settlers/make friends/trade" approach. I didn't attack anyone till the Riflemen era.

Tony

[Velociryx]

Hey guys, and thank you for the continuing support!

Verrucosus, I'll definitely add in some more notes about those "pre-game" strategic decisions....your statement that you pick your civ etc. based on what kind of game you're looking for is *exactly* what I was getting at, so IMO, we're very much on the same page there!

kbarrett, do you mean workboats? Cos I just played a game where (Warlords) where I circumnavigated the globe WITH a workboat!

Tony, hey man, and thank you! I'm gonna be re-working all those sections (including radical expansions) to address some of the shortcomings and omissions in the texts...good catch!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Okay, so I'm going out of town this weekend (the wife's ten year class reunion...we're leaving Friday morning), but before I departed, I wanted to post another update here.

If I have forgotten an update you mentioned PLEASE hit me over the head with it again--sometimes I can be a scatterbrain, so don't take it personally if I left something out...just remind me again and I'll try to get it into the next update...

OoO

Prolog ~ Introductions All Around

Introduction
To be penned later….

OoO

Glossary of Terms
There are all manner of terms and abbreviations used when talking about Civ. I’m not even going to try to provide a comprehensive list of every term you may run across here. Instead, I’m going to give you the ones relevant to understanding strategy, including all the ones I use myself (and some of the terms I use here I coined myself, so you may or may not see them elsewhere). Primarily, the purpose of this list is to keep you from scratching your head in confusion when you read a term or an abbreviation I use to explain some game concept, strategy, or tactic.

OoO

As the guide develops, and new terms are needed in the writing, they’ll be added to this list…this marker to eventually be removed!

AI – Artificial Intelligence. The AI Civs are your opponents in SP (Single-Player Mode).

Builder, Hybrid, Momentum - These are terms coined in the days of Sid's "Alpha Centauri" game (which is still installed on my hard drive, btw). They describe the three basic "states of being" that players tend to fall into.

Builders exist at the "peaceful end" of the playing spectrum, and don't care much for warring. They are drawn to Civ because of their endless fascination with the process of growing and nurturing the "perfect" empire. Warfare is typically seen as a distraction from the business of building and running the Empire (or, in the best case, they'll see it as a necessary evil).

Momentum players are all about conquest (and obviously, they occupy the extreme opposite end of the spectrum from Builders). The Empire is secondary for them, and only exists to serve as the platform from which to launch the next campaign, and they're happiest when mired in the mud of some war or another.

Hybrid players exist somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, and in truth, probably define the greater bulk of players. Still, players who tend to prefer building over warring tend to identify themselves as "Builders" while players who prefer warring will tend to refer to themselves as "Momentum" players, even when the vast majority are more than willing to do a bit of both. The Hybrid player seeks to strike a balance, understanding that warfare is a necessary (and fun!) component of the game, but is only a means to a greater end. In my opinion, Civ 4 has done an excellent job at bringing the two extremes together.

Choke - A battle tactic, involving parking a unit in enemy terrain to deny him use of that tile. This puts your enemy in the less-than-enviable position of having to decide whether or not he values the tile sufficiently to try and roust you from it, or if he'd rather hole up and hide in his city. Most frequently used as a prelude to a general invasion, to keep your opponent weak (and less productive) while you're building the army that will spell his doom.

Chop - The worker action of cutting down a forest, removing it from the tile and giving you a hammer boost.

COM - Commerce

CP – Culture Point

CPT – Culture Per Turn

CS Slingshot – Civil Service Slingshot. An Oracle trick involving timing the Oracle’s completion with the research of Code of Laws, such that you can take Civil Service as your free tech.

FoW – Fog of War

G-Man - Term used in this book for a Great Person

GA – Golden Age

GP – Great Person (also called a G-Man within the confines of this book)

GPP – Great Person Point

GPPT – Great Person Points Per Turn

GPT – Gold Per Turn

GW – Great Wonder

HP – Hit Point

HPT – Hammers Per Turn

Hut (also called a “Goody Hut”) small “village” graphics randomly scattered across the map that can give boons (gold, maps, experience, technology, or free units) or unleash one or more barbarians.

Lockdown (or simply "Lock") - The point in the game at which your victory is assured. The more quickly you can achieve this state the better, and typically, the game is won or lost in the Ancient Era. Your performance here will be more important than all the other ages combined.

Locust – Clear-cutting all forests you can reach, in order to reap the short-term hammer benefits

MM – Micro-Management

MP – Multi-Player

NW – National Wonder

OB – Open Borders

OCC – One City Challenge

Oscillating War – The notion of fighting a series of limited engagements with each of your neighbors in turn, rather than fighting a single, long and decisive engagement with a one neighbor.

Pop-N-Chop - Available at Bronze Working, this is the key to unlocking ancient era productivity, and it involves a powerful one-two punch that Slavery's population sacrifice and the worker action of forest chopping represent. These two alternate means of production completely change the character of the game.

Pop-Rush (also abbreviated simply ‘Pop) - Sacrificing city population and several turns of unhappiness, in exchange for a boost to hammers.

Seafood Specials – Catchall term for crabs, fish, and whales…basically, any oceanic special resource.

Seminal Techs - The Seminal Techs are the ones that unlock all the basic terrain improvement actions for you, and for this reason, their power cannot be understated. They are:

Agriculture
Mining
Hunting
The Wheel
Fishing
Pottery
Animal Husbandry

These techs represent the very foundation of the game, and are the keys to unlocking the productivity of your lands. With these few, simple tools, you will see the productive capacity of your Empire explode.

The Window - Beginning at turn one, and running some unknown number of turns into the future, there is a "window" of time available to you, during which, you may develop in almost complete safety. This book treats "The Window" as the most important part of the whole game.

Turn Advantage - Doing stuff faster than your rivals are doing stuff. As a simple example, if you can build an Axeman in 5 turns, and it takes your opponent ten turns, then you are gaining five turns over your opponent with every Axe you build...that is to say, while your opponent is still struggling to get his Axeman out of the production queue, you've already finished yours and are on to something else (maybe a Library, or maybe another Axeman)...the point is that you have what amounts to "free turns" of production....or Turn Advantage over your rival. Turn Advantage is the mechanism that will invariably win you games, no matter what the prevailing conditions in the world, and like interest, its power has a compounding effect. Since you cannot earn "interest" in Civ, Turn Advantage takes its place as the most powerful force in the Civ-Universe. Of all the concepts in the game, creating Turn Advantage is the most important one for you to learn. You simply cannot win the game consistently without creating Turn Advantage (in fact, the lower levels of the game are made easier by creating it for you...that is the mechanism at work when you get production and research bonuses over the AI).

UB – Unique Building

UU – Unique Unit

OoO

Notes and Provisos
1) I am basing my observations off of a standard speed game, Monarch level of difficulty. Please understand that the numbers I throw out originate from here, and that if you are playing at some other speed and/or difficulty level, those numbers will change slightly (but the gist of what I'm saying will remain the same).

2) There are essentially two schools of thought where formulating strategy is concerned. One is to build your strategy around the maximization of your strengths, paying secondary attention to covering your weaknesses, and the other is to be primarily concerned with covering those weaknesses, letting your natural strengths more-or-less take care of themselves. In my opinion, the former approach is the superior approach, and so, these writings are geared that direction. If your play-style favors the latter, , then some adjustment will need to be made to make these writings apply well to you. I will attempt to at least broadly outline how the latter could be made to work, but my primary focus will be on what I feel is the superior "maximize your strengths" methodology. Thus, there is a certain bias built into these writings, and you should be aware of it.

3) There is another bias built into my work. One that you may or may not agree with. In my opinion, food is the resource of primary importance in this game. Then commerce, and finally production. Note that I said "production" and specifically not "hammers." This is because there are many alternatives to boost a city’s hammer counts, and tile production (illustrated via the hammer graphic), is but the most common. I like building things fast (as you will see), but I'm not willing to sacrifice my ability to research and/or the money in my pocket to shave a couple turns off of something I'm building unless I have to. If there's another way (and there usually is), then I'll take it. So note the bias in your reading. If you favor hammers over commerce, then again, these writings will need some adjustment to make them fully applicable to you.

OoO

Anatomy of a Civ Game
I’m going to approach the subject of this book in the same way I’d teach a class…that is to say, somewhat unorthodoxly. Yeah yeah, we’re going to take a structured approach, begin with a series of broad overviews and slowly drill down to the particulars that will serve you well during the course of a game, but we’re also going to have some fun doing it. This isn’t the kind of “class work” you remember from school, so hang onto your hat, and let’s get started!

The first thing that needs to happen is, we need to spell out, at least in broad terms, the natural flow and progression of a “typical” game of Civ. Important, because it serves to frame the rest of the discussion that comes later.

Will every game be exactly like I’ve defined it below? Of course not. Some phases, under some conditions might be skipped entirely, others might be incredibly long (or short) in their duration…who knows? But as a generalized guide, this basic roadmap will serve you well, and help to facilitate planning, because the long and the short of it is that most games of Civ tend to have a fairly predictable development pattern.

All of that comes later though…for the moment, it is enough to introduce the various phases of a typical game of Civ to get your brain turning on that particular subject, so here they are:

Phase I - The Window
This begins at 4000 BC, and runs some unknown number of turns into the future. It is the period of time in the very early game when the biggest concern you have is the local wildlife (lions, panthers, wolves, bears), and your primary goal is to get out there, gobble up huts, meet your neighbors, and learn the lay of the land. Of course, while you are doing all of this, you're also laying the foundation for the whole rest of your game. If you do well before the window closes, you'll likely to well for the entire game. If you stumble here, or act indecisively, you'll likely spend at least the next two ages just trying to catch up. This is by far the most important part of the game. If the Ancient Era is more important, in game terms, than all the other eras combined (and in my opinion, it certainly is), then this window is the most important part of the ancient age...easily more important than all the turns that make up the rest of the age, combined. This is the era when those crucial first few techs are discovered, when early religions are founded, and when whatever strategy you have decided to pursue begins taking shape.

Phase II - The Peaceful Land Grab
The window closes as soon as the first barbarians begin to appear. That's it. Party's over. You are now in at least some danger (and perhaps quite a lot of danger, if you selected "Raging Barbarians" or somesuch). If you haven't used the Window to get yourself set up and prepared, then this next phase will likely leave you feeling flustered and vulnerable. There's no set time limit on how long this phase can last, but it begins with the appearance of the first barbarians and ends (for you) when there's no place left for you to expand unless it's at someone else's expense (i.e., no more expansion without declaring war on someone). This is the phase during which Rushes occur...everybody is scrambling about for "their share" of the continental pie, and defenses are usually minimal. A rush at this stage in the game can absolutely devastate a neighboring Civ. Even if it doesn't kill him outright (which it usually does), the Civ will be totally marginalized in all future eras of play, and can be polished off at your (or anyone else's) leisure.

Phase III - Regional Consolidation
Once humanity has spread out like a cancer across the continent, it's only a matter of time before violence erupts (if it hasn't already...see Phase II and the note about Rushing). The particulars and reasons for the wars may vary, but they will come...they always do. If you have done well for yourself during the early phases of the game, then you'll be well-positioned to build on those gains now, and it is a winner-take-all proposition. This stage doesn't end until a clear regional power emerges from the pack of Civs sharing your "portion" of the continent (if you find yourself sharing a smallish landmass with one or more Civs, this phase might get skipped entirely). As the human player, your mission is to see that you wind up winning the top spot in your region. Fail here, and you either die outright, or are relegated to a fringe position that will be increasingly hard to recover from, and may well lead to a slow decline, and eventual death.

Phase IV – Pan-Regional Domination
Once the regional dominance issue has been settled, the top dogs from each region on the continent (or adjoining regions if playing on an islands map) will invariably have a go at each other. In some (rare) cases, those surviving Civs who have been relegated to lesser positions on the continent may regain their former strength, and even become top regional players themselves, but in practice, this is unlikely. Once a Civ is down, they generally stay down, especially with the increased likelihood of dog-piling that we see in Warlords. This phase begins for you the moment that you, or some other Civ in your region becomes clearly dominant, and ends only when there's a clear leader on the whole of the continent. Make sure that it's you!

Phase V - The Race
Often, the exploration of the rest of the planet is occurring while regional and pan-regional dominance dramas are playing out, and so, by the time we reach “The Race,” a great deal more is known about the world. If you're playing "continents" or some derivative of them, then you've no doubt by now found "the other" continent(s), and discerned who the dominant Civs are there (or, if you're playing Terra maps, then you've no doubt discovered the New World, and may have already taken steps to begin taming it). In any case, the biggest surviving Civs, wherever they might be...these are your rivals from now until the game's end. These are the guys to beat. Whatever victory condition you are pursuing, whatever goals you set for yourself, the largest surviving Civs will be your primary opposition, and they may well try to form coalitions against you. Even if you are the strongest, if enough smaller Civs decide to hit you all at once, you could be in for some trouble. Or, if your position is not as secure as that, then you may find yourself in a tooth-and-nail race to the finish line with one or more robust rivals, fully capable of matching you militarily and in research. By and large, it is your performance throughout the other phases of the game that will determine how easy, or how difficult this portion of the game is, and of all the game segments that have come before, the one that has the most bearing, pound-for-pound, on this part of the game is...the Window. Whatever success or tribulations you face in this part of the game can, in all likelihood, be traced back to what you did, or did not do before the Window closed. This will not always be true...sometimes, you can have a brush with disaster in some later era that will echo quite loudly, but more often than not, it'll all go back to the Window. That fragile, wonderful first "leg" of the game....

OoO

Broadly Defined Types of Games
The overall flow of a “typical” game as outlined above was gleaned by studying the broad trends in a large number of games, and that same methodology can be used to identify common themes and features in an individual game as well. When we do that, we discover that (again, speaking in broad terms) there are a number of different types of games that you can choose to run. These exist at all points along the Builder – Momentum spectrum, and all of them can be used, in some form or fashion, no matter where you “are” on that spectrum. Some more than others, of course, but what it essentially means is that when you take into account the full range of possibilities (everything from your starting location to Civ traits and abilities, to various specific openings we’ll cover later, what it means is that you have a truly staggering number of options and variations open to you. Almost limitless replayability. And just as the overall flow of a game can be broken out into various steps by studying a large number of games, so too can those individual types of games be identified.

In my experience, any given game of Civ will invariably fall into one of the following categories:

Classic Rush Game
Achieve quick regional superiority in troops, and use them to smash one or more of your near neighbors.

Early Religious Gambit
Be the first on your block to found a Religion, and use it to drive your economy and your diplomacy for the rest of the game.

G-Man Game
Focuses on the early and constant use of Specialists (usually supported by selective wonder-grabbing) to generate an inordinate number of Great People

Later Religious Gambit
Usually this is not so much a strategy in and of itself, but is a nice side effect to some other strategic play (for example, the Civil Service Slingshot).

Resource Game
A general catchall category for games that do not appear to follow any particular plan. In truth, most of these games are likely following a strategy, just not one with as much focus as the ones listed below. Instead, these types of games tend to focus on terrain assets...building cities to capture this or that resource, expanding borders or participating in limited wars to deny a rival a particular resource, etc. Games that don't fall into this or any other category may well fall into....

Selective Wonder Grab
This is actually an umbrella of gambits, each tied to a particular wonder, and each with its own aims, and they deserve a brief mention here:

* Pyramids Gambit - Typically used in conjunction with a specialist style game because it allows for the running of "Representation" which gives your specialists a bonus to research beakers. It also has the effect of generating points toward a Great Engineer, which makes snagging future wonders a snap.

* Great Wall Gambit - Usually used as a "helper" Gambit for something else, it does carry some goodish advantages on its own (the end of barbarian troubles, to name but one). But its real importance is in the ability to generate those rare Great Engineer points, and again (like the Pyramids) help you snag additional wonders, later in the game.

* FarSeer - An Oracle trick, whereby you time the completion of the Oracle with the completion of research on Pottery and Bronze Working, which then allows you to take Metal Casting as your free tech, and unlock the power of Forges, very early in the game.

* CS (Civil Service) Slingshot - Another Oracle trick, whereby you time the completion of the Oracle with the completion of your research on Code of Laws, which allows you to select "Civil Service" as your free tech, and thus, make the switch to Bureaucracy. This, combined with an Academy built in your Capitol can dramatically speed your research.

WAS
"Wandering Aimlessly Strategy"
I can't take credit for the name, but I also cannot find the thread where this term was born...still, it stuck in my mind, and I thought it a fantastic way to describe those games that just...amble. They have no particular grand plan in mind. They simply....unfold. In terms of strategy, I can't say I recommend it, but it is a fascinating way to play now and again...

Now, it is quite natural that some of these different types of games will grab your interest and imagination more than others. This is simply an indication of where your preferences lie…sort of an internal barometer, and quite useful in its way, as it will help guide you into the sort of gaming experience you’re really looking for.

Again, we’ll talk about each of these basic “types” of games in more detail in later sections. For the time being, think on them, and see if you can come to some reckoning of which type(s) of games seem of most interest to you.

OoO

[Velociryx]

Game Start
There is an ever-present danger of complacency in Civ…If I could only caution you against one thing in all the game…if I could offer up but one tiny sliver of advice, it would be to guard against this.

Do not become complacent. Count this as being true even before the game starts. Civ is won or lost on the basis of the aggregate effect of a thousand small moves. The moment you start getting complacent, you start “glossing over” important decisions because they don’t seem all that important at the moment you’re making them.

This (the notion that your turn-to-turn decisions are unimportant) is false. Take your time and make sure that you’re making the right decisions for the right reasons. If it means saving off and getting up to take a break, then do that, and come back to the situation with a clear head.

I bring up the issue of complacency now because it (and specifically, guarding against it) will be a common theme that runs throughout this work, and also because it is very easy to breeze past the opening menu screens without much thought.

The problem with that, of course, is that the game’s strategic choices begin (or can begin) before the game officially starts. That is to say, Civ Selection can have a tremendous and immediately apparent impact on your game. Do you start with a Warrior or a Scout as your exploratory unit? Do you start in a position on the tech tree that lends itself well to the acquisition of one of the earliest religions, or not so much? Are your troops a cut above the rest? Depending on what Civ you select, the answers to these questions, and a great many others, will vary. Perhaps you’re one of those people who want to maximize as much as you possibly can in pursuit of a “purer” game experience. It’s a fine way to play, but that two, is a matter of conscious choice. I’ll not say much more about the matter here and now…there’s an appendix at the back of this book which goes into detail about the various map types and other game settings you can fiddle with, but for the most part, these are straightforward and self-explanatory.

The main purpose for mentioning it here is two-fold. First, to make you mindful of the fact that important elements of strategic choice are yours for the making before you actually begin the game, and second, to begin demonstrating how the
Builder – Momentum spectrum and your place on it can influence your decisions, even before you make your first move.

Fire up the game and take a quick stroll through your various choices. Look at some of the faces…the great Khans of Mongolia, the stern, piercing stare of Stalin, the leaders of Egypt, Rome, the United States….each of these has a certain “flavor.” Each has a unique personality and, it should come as no great surprise that some Civs are inherently better at certain things than others. For example, Civs that have an ancient era UU (unique unit) might be considered to have a combat advantage in the early part of the game. Civs that start with Mysticism have a better chance at snagging one of the early religions, and so forth.

This isn’t rocket science of course…it’s fairly obvious to say that if the Egyptians are only one tech away from a strength FIVE chariot, then hey…it just might make them an early military threat, and you’d be right. No, it’s not rocket science, but this…these early choices…they are fundamental building blocks that you can base the whole rest of your game around (and it should be noted that after a time, these choices will become second nature, such that you’ll really not spend a lot of time thinking about them….you’ll just naturally gravitate to whatever Civ will give you the kind of game you’re “looking for”).

What if you don’t want to found an early religion (for whatever reason)? What if you’re most interested in getting down in the mud and knocking some of your rivals’ heads together? In that case, your Civ selection (and map settings, etc), could help or hinder you in whatever pursuit you’re about. We’ll be going into a great deal more discussion about the pros and cons of the various Civs later, and how to make best use of each of them. For the moment, it is enough to acknowledge that based on what sort of game you have in your mind to play (which is itself based, in large part around where you “are” on the Builder – Momentum spectrum), there are a number of pre-game choices that can and will have important impacts on your game.

An important thing to note here, however, is that terrain is certainly not left out of the equation! Of course, this will be highly variable, and there’s no way that I, or anyone else could write a guide that will give you detailed information on the “best play” you could make, given the unique mix of terrain tiles, starting techs and Civ abilities you’ll have available to you at the outset, so I’m not even going to try. It is enough to note that despite what your own desires might be, they are somewhat subject to the whims of the terrain. For example…let us say that when the game screen comes up, you quickly realize that you have a coastal start, with several “seafood specials” nearby, but you didn’t start with the Fishing tech. Now, maybe before you started the game, you had this nice, involved tech path worked out that didn’t include researching Fishing right away. Unfortunately, the game handed you a bunch of tiles that are crying out for it. You could go ahead with your plan of course, and avoid Fishing, but it would be a waste, given all the potential sitting just off your shores…you would essentially be working against yourself…never a good thing.

In this way, we identify the three pillars that will primarily serve in the crafting of your game strategy.

Your own Desires
Your chosen Civ
The Local Terrain

It is from the subtle interaction of these three elements that all else will spring. When the game truly begins and you’re sitting there with your desires burning at the forefront of your mind, your Civ-of-Choice at your command, and a dozen or so terrain tiles visible, understand that in addition to looking at the smallest slice of a strange and unexplored new world, you are also looking into the cradle of your strategy. It will be born right here…right now, on turn one, and I will do my best in the pages that follow to teach you how to craft it. To shape and mold it until it is exactly what you wanted.

Welcome to “The Window.”

OoO

Part One ~ The Window

Or, “As long as we’re all Barbarians….”

Basic Civonomics
It’s not too early, at this point, to begin a discussion of the factors that drive the economic engine in Civ, and make no mistake about it, your economy is of vital importance, no matter how you play, or where you “are” on the Builder – Momentum spectrum. There have been previous games, iterations and spin-offs of Civ where it was possible to largely ignore matters of economic development, but this is definitely not that game. Ignore your economy here, and you’ll suffer a meltdown that will see your units disbanding at an alarming rate, research drying up, and barbarians at the gates, destroying all that you have built.

No, in Civ Four, it is impossible to understate the importance of the Economy, so here, in the earliest part of our exploration of the game, we’ll cover the basics. Learn the basics well…we’ll be building significantly on these concepts in the chapters ahead.

The Cardinal Resources of the Civ-Economy
There are three primary factors that drive the engine of your economy in Civ Four, and all three, in one way or another, stem directly from the land itself. I refer to these as the “Cardinal Resources.”

Your land is your life in this game. Use it well and wisely, and it will catapult you to amazing heights. Mismanage it, and your Empire will come crashing down around you.

Now, land in the world of Civ is broken down into terrain tiles, and as you may have noticed, not all terrain tiles are created equally. Some of them (mountains, ice and desert) are completely useless to you. Others (tundra) are of only marginal value, while others still (flood plains, and tiles containing special resources) can be of enormous benefit.

To start, let us begin by saying that workable terrain tiles share a thing in common. That is, even unimproved, they allow for the harvesting of at least one of three types of resources, in various quantities. (Parenthetically, we’ll note that some terrain tiles also provide other valuable benefits, but these are not attributes they share in common with all other workable tiles, and so, we will cover them later on). The commonly shared outputs then, are these:

a) Food (represented by a sheaf of wheat/loaf of bread), which provides the means for a city to survive, and thereby, allow population points to be assigned to work tiles to generate resources for you.

b) Production (represented by a hammer/anvil) which is generated by population points as assigned above, and allow a given city to build things (units or structures)

c) Commerce (represented by a gold coin/bag of money), also generated by assigning population points as above, and is used to fuel either expansion (gold) or research (beakers).

Note that there are alternate means to gain all three of these resources. Food may be gained by “settling” (permanently adding to a given city) a Great Merchant. Additional production may be had by chopping down trees, sacrificing population points, or assigning one or more Engineer (or general) specialists. Additional commerce may be generated via Trade Routes, so as you can see, the terrain tile itself does not have a monopoly on the generation of any of these resources, but it is true that the outputs from tiles are the most common way that these outputs are produced.

In looking at these Cardinal Resources then, a number of things become immediately obvious:

• There are few “alternate” sources of food. That is to say, aside from the token +1 food that a Great Merchant generates, there is really only one “source” for food, and that is the land itself. Also important to note here is that there is only one building (Granary) that in any way modifies your food inputs, and it is unique in the way that it delivers the bonus (forges, libraries, markets and the like take the resource they modify and add a % bonus to the baseline number, whereas a granary simply “stores” half of the stockpiled food when you grow from one size to the next).

• This stands in stark contrast to production, which can be generated a number of different ways (Specialists, Terrain Tiles, Pop-N-Chop), and there are a number of buildings, civic choices, and traits/attributes that can favorably modify hammer outputs (Forges, the Organized Religion Civic, the Industrious Trait when building Wonders, etc.)

• While there are some alternate sources of commerce (primarily in the form of trade routes), there are not nearly as many alternatives available as exist for production.

But this is not the end of the story…not by any means. Each of these Cardinal Resources have children. We’ll call these the secondary factors of production. These are:

Population – Stems directly from the availability of surplus food. Each “population point” requires 2 Food to sustain itself. Anything above and beyond this is “stored” in the city, and when that city’s “storage bin” is filled, growth will occur and the “storage bin” will be emptied (or reduced by half, if you have a granary in the city). A size one city needs 20 surplus food to grow to size two. This value increases by +2, each time the city grows (such that 22 surplus food would be needed to grow from size 2 to size 3).

Units & Structures – These stem directly from the availability of Production (hammers from tiles worked, or from any other source), and accomplish two goals. Units allow you to interact with the game world (explore, defend, attack), while Structures modify the city itself (and sometimes, provide Empire Wide bonuses, as is the case with the Great Wall and Pyramids).

Gold & Beakers – Arise from the strategic allocation of Commerce, and allow for technological innovation and expansion.

And still, this is not the end of the story. There’s yet another layer to consider. A tertiary layer of factors of production. These are essentially overlays that blanket the system as a whole and define the overall conditions under which you are operating (note, for example, that on a Settler Level game, you may not even think about your Health level, while on Deity, it suddenly becomes vastly more important).

Health & Happiness – Generated primarily from player difficulty level, terrain tiles containing special resources, and modified by certain structural improvements in a city.

Culture – Generated primarily by structures, but also via assigned specialists, slider adjustments (with tech), and the presence of one or more Religions in a given city.

In looking at the list, you are undoubtedly seeing connections already. Understanding the way these various economic factors work together to form a cohesive whole, and that’s good. As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be using these building blocks for more advanced studies later on. For the time being, it is enough to point them out so you know they exist, and begin to break down the game into its various economic factors.

Summary
The economy of Civ Four is comprised of a number of elements, that are all interrelated, and built one atop the other in layers (from most accessible to the player to least). These factors are:

Cardinal Resources
Food
Production
Commerce

Secondary Layer
Population
Units & Structures
Gold & Beakers

Tertiary Layer
Health & Happiness
Culture

Giving us a total of eight economic factors to contend with.


OoO

[Velociryx]

That Crucial First Turn
Earlier, I made the comment that “The Window” is easily the most important part of the whole game. If that is true, then the most important turn of “The Window” is this one. The very first turn of the game.

When the game opens and you find yourself looking at those few tiles you can see…your settler and your starting explorer (scout or warrior, depending on the Civ), the whole of the world is a blank slate.

Unknown and mysterious.

Not dangerous in those first few turns, but it will fairly quickly become so, and…here you are. Suddenly thrust into the game world with almost no information and scant resources. This is your beginning….what will you do with it?

Well, before you give into the temptation to push that button and settle your first city, I’d strongly advise sitting on your hands, or otherwise keeping them away from the keyboard and mouse. Just…sit there for a moment and study the map. Take in the terrain.

Study it.

How many hills can you see? Floodplains? Forest tiles?

How many special resources are currently visible to your eye?

Are you one tile from the coast?

Is there a plains hill nearby that you could settle on?

These are important questions and considerations, no matter what Civ you are playing.

Earlier, I made mention of the "Three Pillars" that collectively serve as the basis for your strategy. Again, those pillars are:

Your own desires
Prevailing Terrain
Your chosen Civ

Of these three, we'll focus on the prevailing terrain first, and in time, we'll incorporate the rest. The reason for this is pure pragmatism. On turn one, matters of survival must, by definition, take precedent over your desires, and while the native strengths of your chosen Civ can influence this to a degree (in terms of execution), those abilities certainly do not trump your need to survive in the near term, so it comes down to the land itself.

The nature and quality of the land you're on is enormously influential in terms of making those earliest decisions.

When the game begins, you can see perhaps a dozen terrain tiles, and you have two units you can make use of. A settler, and an explorer, who will either take the form of a Scout (two moves, better hut results, but ineffective once the barbarians begin appearing at the closing of "The Window"), or a Warrior (only one move, but more durable, and useful for a longer period of time). At this point in the game, information is at such a premium that the Scout is nearly always considered to be the superior unit to start with, but if you get a warrior on the opener (and unless you start with the tech "Hunting," you will), don't count yourself out of the game...you'll just be a bit slower on the opener.

The very first question that needs to be answered is: "Where do I put my first city?"

Oftentimes, players will simply build their first city on whatever tile the settler begins on, and this is not a bad play in the least! You starting location is "advantaged," in that it contains more than the normal amount of terrain specials and the like, making it, by default, a pretty solid place to found that first city, but for a variety of reasons, you may want to give the matter some thought before automatically accepting whatever the computer has generated for you.

If you opt to build your city at the settler's starting location, then found the city first (before you move your explorer)! I say this because when the city is founded, additional tiles are revealed, and this additional intelligence might alter your plans for where you want to move your explorer unit (for example, if settling the city reveals a "goody hut," then your explorer would serve you better by heading toward it than nearly anything else you had planned for that unit).

If you elect not to accept your starting position for your first city, then always move your exploratory unit before moving the settler. He may not reveal terribly many new tiles, but this early in the game, each tile represents crucial information, and if your explorer happened to uncover a nearby gold mine, then this would almost certainly color your thinking where possible city sites were concerned, so get in the habit early on. If you're happy with your starting spot, build first, then move the explorer. If not, move the explorer and then move your settler.

There are probably as many reasons for not wanting to accept your starting position as there are players in the game, so I'm not even going to attempt to go over all the possible reasons you may want to refuse your game starting position, but I'll tell you a few of the reasons I consider moving my starting settler, and from those notes, you can draw your own conclusions:

* The starting terrain does not contain at least one food special, I'm inclined to look for greener pastures. This is because of the supreme importance of early food sources.

* I'm one tile from the coast, I'm inclined to make a move coastally, even if it means moving onto a forested tile and costing me an entire turn.

* I can move in such a way so as to capture a greater total number of specials inside my Capital's "Fat Cross," I'll definitely move.

* There is a plains hill in sight, and sitting upon it would yield me at least one food special, I'll move.

* There's an opportunity to incorporate gold, silver, or gems into the Capital site.

* If by moving, I "free up" a productive tile (for example, if my settler begins on a flood plain, and I can move to a nearby plains tile and still have a good city spot, I'll generally do so, preferring to work the flood plain, rather than settle atop it--which turns it into a desert tile...you can see this by examining the tile if the city is later destroyed.

For any of the reasons mentioned above, I'll consider moving my starting settler, and typically, if the decision is made to move, I'll give myself no more than three turns to find a good alternate location and settle it. Any longer, and you begin to run the risk of falling behind.

Once you have answered this pressing first question, we can begin to turn our attention to the rest.

[Velociryx]

After the Founding
So let's take a closer look at the Capital, and see what we can learn about the overall mechanics of the game, and how to begin applying everything else that has been hinted at to this point.

The city tile itself (on normal terrain) produces a total of four resource points per turn, broken down thusly: 2 Food, 1 Hammer, and 1 Commerce. Note that in certain instances, the city tile can produce additional resources (example: Founding your city on a plains hill will give you +1 hammer, in addition to the tile's normal outputs, while founding on a resource (wines, for example) that are located on a river will give you +1 commerce per turn, and predictably, founding on a food resource will give you +1 food in the city tile. These types of settlement options represent about the only options you have in terms of boosting the productivity of the city tile. I would say that if you see an opportunity to gain an extra hammer or commerce in your city tile, then by all means, take it, but food resources are typically too valuable to use in this manner...that is to say, the gains to be had via an improved food resource tile far outweigh the +1 food for the city tile, so in these cases, I would heartily recommend against it.

The city tile itself is relatively unremarkable, even with bonus resources here and there. Its main strength lies in the fact that by itself, it generates 2 Food, which means that the city tile can feed your one population point, so whatever tile you choose to work is, from the perspective of city productivity on the whole, "pure profit." That is to say, since you already know that your one pop point is being fed from the city, you can work ANY tile in your workable radius, and make a play, and that's hugely important.

Before we get into why it's important though, let's take a look at the engine that really powers the Capital...the Palace.

The first city you build comes with a free building, and it's a doozy. The Palace increases the happy cap of the city it resides in by +1 (not so important at the lower levels of play, but increasingly important as you move up the difficulty scale). It generates 2 culture per turn (essentially giving your Civ the "Creative Trait" so long as you stick with just this one city), and gives you a whopping 8 commerce per turn. It's this last bit that makes the Palace so incredibly good, and it all but guarantees that your Capital will be your most important city through much of the game--even if you found your second city near a couple gold mines, that city would need time to grow so it could work the mines before it began to eclipse your Capital, and for all those tens and scores of turns leading up to that point, your Capital would be the driving force behind your success. All that to say "choose the site of your Capital well." After all, it will be the instrument through which the entire groundwork of your game is laid.

So...one way or another, you built it. You either accepted your starting location, or you explored a bit, and now, you've got a city. You have a beginning.

How can you parlay this beginning...this single city-state, into the beginnings of an Empire?

It begins with a trio of vitally important decisions.

The first of these is what to build first from your newly made city, and make no mistake, this is a huge decision! Just as your first city is, and will be the most important part of your fledgling Empire for quite some time, so too is this first build of surpassing importance.

What you decide to do with your build queue here and now, just after the founding of your Capital, will resonate loudly through a good portion of the rest of the game.

No matter what techs you start with, you'll always have the following choices available to you, as opening plays:

Worker
Warrior
Settler
Barracks

If you start with Fishing, and your Capital is on the coast, you'll also have access to a Workboat.

If you start with Hunting, you'll also have access to a Scout.

In all then, depending on your starting techs, you have six choices. Let's take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of each build option to see which one is best for you.

Worker
A very common opening play, and with good reason. The lowly Worker is among the most powerful units in the game for its ability to take mundane terrain tiles and make them ferociously productive. This...the worker ability to unlock the productivity of your land, is truly the lifeblood of the game. Workers, then, are the very essence of Empire, and the worker first play is a strong one, provided that you have jobs for said worker to perform, once he is completed. To a large degree, your prevailing terrain will inform you if this is a good play for you or no. If you have numerous crop specials, and you start with Agriculture, then obviously, there's plenty to keep your worker busy. If you have lots of hills and you start with mining, again, your worker will not be idle, but there's more to it than that. The first tech you choose to research will also have bearing. The section on game-start tech selection is coming up next, so we won't get into this in much detail here and now, except to say that if you have lots of crop specials and you don't start with Agriculture, then that tech might be relatively more important to you sooner, rather than later, because it will make those all-important food tiles more productive, more quickly. So, if you start with worker actions unlocked, and/or your first tech will unlock some more, especially if those worker actions revolve around increasing your food production, then worker first is an exceedingly strong opener.

The downside to the Worker First opening play is that, until your worker completes, your city will be stalled at size one. If you have commerce rich sites in your workable radius, this will mean slightly slower tech progression, so if you are racing to be first to a key early tech (say, to found one of the earliest religions), then a worker first start could slow you down, and cause you to get beaten to your goal.

Warrior
Another common opening play, and one with a number of advantages. The Warrior is the weakest combat unit you'll ever have, it's true, but they're not without their uses. Building a Warrior on the opener allows your city to grow, even as you beef up your defenses and/or your exploratory capabilities (you could either use this newly built unit as an additional 1-move explorer, or you could keep him in the city as a token garrison to keep the local citizenry in line). Further, if you pick your battles carefully, you stand a good chance of getting your early warriors promoted to Medic units. Then, when you get better combat units, these cheap medics can be pulled away from garrison duty and placed with your attack force, and of course, the earlier you get started on such things, the more promotion opportunities you'll have. This is an especially good opening play if you need every bit of early commerce you can squeeze out of your Capital, in order to be the first to discover a key tech (again, early religion comes to mind), and/or if your starting techs and tech path are such that a Worker would have very little to do in the short run.

The downside to the Warrior first play is that is ties the overall productivity of your Capital to the unimproved terrain tiles you'll be working for longer than if you'd gone Worker first. If your starting location is particularly rich, however, this need not be such a bad thing....

Settler
A provocative opening play that raised lots of eyebrows when first proposed, settler first is, hands down the riskiest opening play you can make, but also promises rich rewards. Let’s talk about the downside first. Like a Worker-First opening play, this play delays the growth of your city until the settler completes, and it does so for a slightly longer time than that opener. It also carries the not-inconsiderable risk that you could easily get ambushed before you can build the new city, and lose your (considerable) investment entirely. So you might be thinking…why on earth would I ever want to do this?

It’s a good question with a good answer. Exponential growth and Production flexibility.

Thanks to the value of the city tile itself, an early second city will reap the benefits of being able to work one tile in its workable radius that is “pure profit” (that is to say, since the food generated by the city tile is enough to feed the worker, ANY resources collected from the worked tile will be a bonus). Add this to the fact that you now have two cities on the same (linear) growth curve, and you grow twice as fast as you otherwise would have (in the same time it takes one city to grow from size 1 to size 2, you now have two cities doing that, giving you 4 pop points where you would have only had 2). That alone is often reason enough to consider it, but there’s more. Two build queues means greater flexibility in what to build in the early game, and that can be huge all by itself, but that’s still not all. Other reasons to consider it might be:

• If you’re interested in reaching your “no maintenance cap” (due to number of cities) in as few turns as possible, then a fast settler can do that for you (Monarch level of play is a unique case here because the “no maint cap” IS two cities, making a Settler first opening stronger on Monarch than any other level of difficulty).
• If you’re in marginal terrain but want to settle anyway (for speed) and make your second city a gem.
• If you’re playing Raging Barbarians, it could be the only chance you’ll have to found a city in the early game, because the barbarians will come calling soon….
• If there are Flood Plains and/or Precious Metals in the vicinity to feed a second city site
• Your opening research techs are not time dependent (no particular reward for getting there first), and you don’t have any immediate worker actions to take, making a worker first start a relatively weaker play

And others, besides. Then, there are things and conditions that make it easier and less risky to make this kind of opening play (if you’re playing an Imperialistic or Creative Civ, for example, and/or if your first city was founded on a Plains Hill for the extra hammer), and of course, you can mitigate the risks to your vulnerable settler by either a) curtailing the exploration activities of your starting unit or b) founding the city one tile out from your capital’s borders, such that the settler moves once, to a tile just outside the capital’s borders, and then uses his second move to settle immediately (giving you a second city four tiles from your first, in most cases). All that to say that the Settler First opening gives you a staggering range of choices very early on, and depending on where you settle that second city, it can set you up for the whole rest of the game!

Barracks
Perhaps a shade weaker in many instances, than the other options, a Barracks first play can be a good choice, in the right situations. Consider:

You don’t know enough yet about the surrounding terrain to want to risk a settler first. You don’t have any good worker actions you need to get started on, and you want to grow your city a bit first. Given the lack of barbarians during this phase of the game (and by extension, the complete lack of risk to your Capital), why not? Why not build a Barracks first, such that when you do build a garrison and other troops later on, they’ll all come equipped with a free promotion? And of course, there are certain instances when this argument becomes more compelling (specifically, if you’re playing an Aggressive Civ anyway, since the Barracks is essentially half price). Of course, the conditions outlined above are fairly specific, and if your particular situation deviates even marginally from that which is described above, then there’s probably a better opening out there for you, but it’s always something to consider, even if it tends to be among the least used opening plays. It still has its uses!

Work Boat
Another opener with a fairly specific application. In this instance, you need to start with the fishing tech, and be coastal and have a “Seafood Special” (crab or fish) in your Capital’s workable radius. If all of these conditions are true, then the Work Boat is probably your best friend, because it represents the best of all worlds. Your Capital gets to grow from turn one, and when the Work Boat is done, you get an improved tile with both good food and good commerce, and can then set about doing something else with a significantly improved city. It’s hard to find a downside with this opener…again, IF the three conditions are met. If not, then this opener is either impossible (you do not start coastally, and thus, cannot build a Work Boat), or non optimal (you are coastal, but have no “Seafood Specials” to work.

True, the little boat makes a half decent explorer, but his main strength is tile improvement while allowing growth. As explorers go, you’re better off with a unit that can go grab goody huts!

Scout
The value of a Scout First start is almost entirely dependent on what type of map you’re playing on. If you’re playing an islands game, then Scout First is a nigh on useless start, since the Scout you already have will, in all probability, be able to explore the whole of your island by himself.

On the other hand, if you’re playing a Pangea map on a huge world, Scout First can double your exploration speed (from two tiles per turn to four) and quadruple your exploration speed, relative to those poor simps who are plodding along with warriors! This can mean more goody huts for you, and better information about the world around you…both of which are good things!

The only downside that a Scout First on the opener has is that Scouts tend to have relatively short useful lives on any speed but Marathon. As soon as “The Window” closes and the barbarians begin appearing, your Scout’s days are probably numbered unless you bring him home. Still, this short useful lifespan can be offset entirely with one good hut discovery, so if you start with Hunting, and again, depending on the type of map you’re on, this can be a hugely potent beginning.

OoO

And that’s it.

Those are your six choices for that pivotal opening play. In looking at them as a group, it almost gives me chills to think that from these six basic choices, made possible by founding your first city, and acting in concert with the third in the trio of major, game-defining decisions, will very quickly lead to an infinite realm of possibilities. That’s exciting stuff, so what are we waiting for, let’s go talk about that third decision!