Good start or bad?

[padillah]

OK, quiz time again, is this a great food start or a bad isolated start?

Tom P.

EDIT: HA! I forgot the actual screenshot! Sorry.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Unless this is a very small map, I think it's a bad start. You're hemmed in - unless you can conquer Cyrus fast.

[padillah]

No such luck - Huge Pangea.

Tom P.

[Jaybe]

Once you make it with a settler up the isthmus (if you are lucky enough to beat Cyrus there) AND get a galley, it's a good start.

[fani]

Saladin is a good occ guy so i would start this game trying to get as much wonders(possibly chop the pyramids) and religions possible...nest a few great specialists to make mecca a super city...flip a few cities that cyrus might build around your capital and maybe expand accordingly after you have explored the area around you...Take care of your seafood resources though(i hate them barbarian galleys)...As far as i can see you have a land route to cyrus so you might as well try to beat him early on especially if he lacks horses to build immortals...

[Nugog]

It's an okay start, but has the potential to become hideous fast.

As already stated you face being hemmed in very soon by Cyrus.

So IMO you have a few options:

a) build a settler FAST and secure a route up the isthmus (sp?).
b) Churn out a mass of early units and go get Cyrus!
c) As (b) but instead of attacking Cyrus' city, blockade his borders and take out any sttlers he produces.
d) Focus on wonders, embed the GP in the city and try and secure the isthmus with culture.
e) Turtle up until you get galleys (never can remember which can carry settlers), then expand by sea.

Option (a) has possibilities as you may in turn be able to block Cyrus in, but is risky because if Cyrus gets there first, then you have wasted both hammers and population growth.

Option (b) would be my preference.

Option (c) may buy you enough time to get a settler up there, but does seem a wishy washy option.

Option (d) and (e) are doable, but just seem boring really. Also in 3800BC would be "unusual" choices. And if you take out Cyrus early, then there is a chance no other civ will have met him, so you won't get any diplomacy negatives from "You attacked our friend".

So in my opinion shoot for archery, spawn warriors while doing so, mass a mighty rabble, and "go git 'im".

[Blake]

It's an awesome start .

What you want to do is generate an OH MY GOD! quantity of great people and settle them in the city. Focus on great prophets and great scientists (like run 2-3 priests and 2 scientists).

I assume the difficulty is pretty low given that there's a worker out at 3800BC (popped from hut?).

You could probably tech straight to guilds without even expanding (much) and kill your neighbors with camel archers. You would want to pick up Civil Service and Philosophy first though, definitely get Angkor Wat so priests produce 2 hammers. Add a Buddhist shrine and you could run like... 7+ priests, that's a base of 14 hammers from priests alone, then add the settled prophets and the Bureaucracy +50% hammer bonus and forge +25%. You could pop out a camel archer every turn.

Post the 4000BC save if you will/can.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Blake
It's an awesome start .

What you want to do is generate an OH MY GOD! quantity of great people and settle them in the city. Focus on great prophets and great scientists (like run 2-3 priests and 2 scientists).

I assume the difficulty is pretty low given that there's a worker out at 3800BC (popped from hut?).

You could probably tech straight to guilds without even expanding (much) and kill your neighbours with camel archers. You would want to pick up Civil Service and Philosophy first though,

But, but, but - wheres the army, the killing, the burning........

[Blake]

That comes AFTER you've capitalized on the start .

One other thing: DO NOT CHOP THOSE FORESTS. Don't even think about it. Just improve the pigs and rice and leave the forests in peace.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Blake
That comes AFTER you've capitalized on the start .

Hmmm........

Personally my instinct says attack first, build later.

Pallidah - could you post the savegame so that I/we could try out Blake's advice?

[Addled Platypus]

good start mate

build an obelisk to get you border farther out


keep us informed on how things go

[padillah]

Well, I ditched that game and restarted but I found the QuickSave so you can start over. You can even up the difficulty or change from Saladin to someone else I guess.

Tom P.

[samspock]

I would call that a good city to capture as #2 but not so good as your first city. I like to have my first city be able to get commerce and production running as fast as possible so building a bunch of work boats would be a drag. Once the boats are in place this city would rock.

I have captured similar ones before and did just as Blake said: Prophets + Ankor Wat and you have an awsome combo city that can do it all. With a harbor and great lighthouse you could have a monster commerce city. It would just take to long from 4000 bc to get there. Every civ I have attacked that had a city like that as their capital was much weaker than others on the map.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by padillah
Well, I ditched that game and restarted but I found the QuickSave so you can start over. You can even up the difficulty or change from Saladin to someone else I guess.

Tom P.

Thanks!

[Mr Justice]

i dont like the start, too confined.

if it was meh id resart that one.

im not so hot with any GP strategy , so i dont have the same blinking light going off in my head that blake has in his.