How my games begin

[greenday_234]

Usually my early game goes like this for tech:

Mysticism->Polytheism(lose the religion 50% of the time)->Priesthood(build oracle)->while oracle is building Mining/tech that gives you Pyrimads(can't remember which one does that)->pop bronzeworking with oracle->chop rush pyrimads. Get early advantage on civics.

What do you guys think of this strategy? I ask because I'm thinking of bumping up the difficulty, and I'm wondering if this strategy is viable on higher difficulties.

[DirtyMartini]

I think you point out an obvious flaw yourself based on that research path -- you miss polytheism 1/2 the time so you've wasted a bunch of turns there. I'd have two additional points:

1) with that strat you have absolutely no expansion, you've built two wonders, but I don't see room in there for even one settler. It's great to have Representation early, but if you don't have cities in which to use the happy/specialists, you haven't gained much. Also, you have no defense whatsoever.

2) If you're going to build the oracle, you can usually get it a little later than that and get a more expensive tech without so competely crippling your exansion/defense. Regarding the Pyramids, I usually find them to be cost prohibitive. I only build them as part of a specific strat and if I'm industious or have access to stone (or better yet have both).

See multiple other threads regarding rapid expansion vs early vertical growth for more. It may seem boring to build settlers, axes and workers for a few thousand years, but it works.

Dirty

[greenday_234]

Thanks for your quick response dirty!

I guess I did leave out a few important pieces when explaining what I'm doing in the initial first 100 or so turns.

my build queue during my tech research period usually consists of the following:

during polytheism research I'm usually building a workboat(if applicable)->Warrior->Worker->settler (settler usually completed 1/2 way through Priesthood). The second city then takes over expansion/defense construction while my capital/gp farm constructs wonders to get those gp points going.

I always play as the Americans usually as Lincoln as of late.

Also I hear a lot about specialists, I usually don't end up putting those down until I have no more useful tiles to work? Is this wrong? If so how do I know when to place specialists? It always seemed to be more worthwhile to have a worked tile for growth/hammers/commerce than a specialist.

One more question I hear a lot about happiness/sickness caps...How do I know when I've reached the cap?? I almost always allow my cities continuous growth, and then try and fix the sickness later. Is that really that bad?

All help so I can move beyond Noble would be appreciated.

P.S. I usually get polytheism to reach priesthood I view recieving the religion first as a bonus...not a requirement.

[jbp26]

this strategy won't work at higher difficulty levels, its just too inefficient. like the other guy said, only scoring a religion 1/2 the time is a huge waste of time. its not worth stifling your expansion for wonders. in general i never build wonders unless i have the resource to make it faster and the opprotunity, or if its one of the few thats really beneficial like the great library.

[Shrapnel12]

Isn't building Oracle worth it?

[DirtyMartini]

I'm far from expert as far as using specialists (or anything for that matter). But I'm good at taking what I've learned here and repeating it as if I made it up: let me illustrate...

I usually assign specialists in the early game for specific purposes (generate great scientist for academy or prophet for a shrine) or when I'm up against the happy cap. Later, usually try to convert a captured capitol into a GP pump.

Happy/health caps -- just look at the city screen. Compare number of mr yucks vs. red crosses and number of happy faces vs number of angry faces. As you get close to those caps (particularly the happy) each additional pop will add to the bad side of the ledger. It makes sense to shift away from max food and toward production or specialists as you approach those caps since any population you would generate at that point is going to be angry and won't work. It also makes sense to think about where you're going to get more happy/health at that point. (You probably should have thought about it even before then, but whatever). It's not a huge deal on lower difficulties to just deal with health and happy when you see the actual indicators on the macro level on the main screen, it's just not maximally efficient and won't work well on higher difficulties.

About your strat/build order -- you do manage to build a worker, but what is he doing as you work toward priesthood. Depending on the civ you start with/your spawn position, he may have little/nothing to do due to your lack of research into worker techs.

Like a lot of people will tell you the most reliable/generalizable strat is to focus on essential worker/expansion techs early while pumping out military, settlers, and workers. Early wonders/religion can work, but aren't as reliable. This has been particularly true ever since the CS sling got nerfed. Don't get me wrong, I love wonders, I just don't think they're a strong basis for core early strategy.

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12
Isn't building Oracle worth it?

Usually...No. I don't think so. The best I can usually pop is Metal Casting or Monarchy. Not usually worth the cost in expansion and military security.

[joncnunn]

Re: How my games begin

I don't see what level your at, but even at Noble I wouldn't pick such a tech start (on a normal size map). If you start with Mysticsm, then by all means try to found Hinduism or Budism. But without it first you should open up the workers actions for your nearby resources (roads, agr, mines, usually A.D., sometimes Hunting) and try for Judism instead (especally with nearby Stone or Marble). Monotheism is much easier to get since the AIs that get Hinduism and Budism normally won't rush to get it, reducing your competion. Under this path the Oracle can be used to additionaly found Christanity, and still works in BTS.

I also note there is another theory (Blake and others) that say found Confucism instead. I found that works as well; when that happened (that was Warlords and not BTS) I founded Taoism as well with the Oracle.

Originally posted by greenday_234
Usually my early game goes like this for tech:

Mysticism->Polytheism(lose the religion 50% of the time)->Priesthood(build oracle)->while oracle is building Mining/tech that gives you Pyrimads(can't remember which one does that)->pop bronzeworking with oracle->chop rush pyrimads. Get early advantage on civics.

What do you guys think of this strategy? I ask because I'm thinking of bumping up the difficulty, and I'm wondering if this strategy is viable on higher difficulties.

[joncnunn]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12
Isn't building Oracle worth it?

That heavily depends upon the timing and what you get.
Even without Marble, if you found a 2nd religion with it right after founding the first one (either via normal reserach or lightblub) then yes. I'd also count as yes if you manage to get Civil Service with it, but I'm not sure if that is even possible under the tech tree anymore under a normal size map.

With Marble connected then Oracle is effectively at half cost, so any tech costing more than about 300 beakers would then be worth it.

[Lord Avalon]

With Civil Service requiring Mathematics, it's too hard to get with Oracle (i.e., someone else will build it first). If I were building Oracle, I'd probably be trying for Code of Laws.

[Robert]

1. At higher levels you won't get a religion through mysticism/polytheism. (unless you play with only a few civs)

the only certain way to hinduism is if you have mysticism as a starting tech AND a special resource within your cap fat cross that boosts your research

2. Bronze working is a bad choise for the free oracle tech. IMHO only Code of Laws is worth it, if you're the first to discover it, to get Confucianism.

3. Make a 2nd city early in the game! Make sure that your 2nd city has both good production and food income.

4. Build workers early in the game. One for both key cities.

[Blaupanzer]

If you wait that long to build military, expect the barbarians/agressive neighbors to eat you for breakfast. Need to get horses and copper exposed and settled before the barbs or your neighbors seal up any ability to travel freely. I go for CoL with Oracle, if after a religion (I turn on "choose religion.") However, only with a live second and preferrably third city already built. I go to archery, then AH, then BW, then religion unless on coast or lots of agriculture specials or flood plains --> fishing and lighthouse, agriculture and granaries, or pottery workers/cottages respectively. A neighbor's religion is just as useful and avoids early tension. Once the neighbor builds the shrine, kill him, take shrine -- money's good and I avoid time wasting chase for techs I can trade for or steal later.

[Saygame]

I like a lot of the comments here that I read. I play Prince, Huge, Panagea pretty excludively (and round the clock) and am bumping up to Monarch on BTS lately and achieving high marks.

I think that some pieces of Vel's early manual here on Apolyton on vanilla Civ IV still applies. Openings are truly variable based on three things:

1. your preferred style of play, wonders and techs...you can't ignore yourself

2. Your starting terrain and resources....ya can't build an army in floodplains (at least initially). One of your two first cities usually needs to be hill heavy to build a defense or attack of some degree. And you always need to be thinking ahead. Is a distant resouce bonanza worth the early maintainence costs if you can hold it when the mid game comes and you need to raise your happy or health caps with those three gems or six fur? Is stone or marble close by? Did you get horses? Are you jungle bound (poor for openers but great for GP and gold pumps later)? Your opening will vary with the cards (terrain) you draw.

3. What country are you playing? Inexperienced players trip upon their UUs and UBs by chance. Experienced players weave them into their tech tree choices and game strategy. These traits can really change your approach. IF you are creative, the cultural victory can invite a different approach than say Montezuma havin to conquer early and use his Jaguar warriors while they are still somewhat effective early.

Meld all three of these approaches to approach each game differently.

I found two concepts of Vel's to be very useful.

1. Decide early on a horizontal (many cities) or a vertical strategy (fewer cities with larger populations). With the vertical strategy you must be careful not to be hemmed in early by neighbors too powerful to overcome early. It can be a disaster to approach the Middle Ages with too few meaningful cities to build Oxford and Wall Street. Too many cities will drown you with maintainence costs. Timing of city building is critical and its not always of your choosing but rather the expansion of others that dictates it.

2. There comes a point in the game where you have (or eek, have not) achieved "critical mass". It is the point where you hardly notice one more city build. You want to reach that point as quickly as possible. You reach that point by maximizing the number of your "mature cities" to a point where production, gold and culture are flowing well and you have given yourself the ability to expand any one out of proportion to the others.
And usually that entails streching your early city builds (usually cities 4-6, beyond your comfort level in terms of distance from capitol to ensure a large land area to expand into. Or moving your capitol. Or both.

The beauty of the Civ system is that there are always Newtonian equal tradeoffs you must deal with. Too much gold means not enough production and vice versa. You must find what Vel calls "turn advantages" where going out of balance for a short while gives you a longer term competitive advantage across the board. A great example is an early library. Build one early and manually set a specialst or two (what you can afford in that timeframe) to get yourself an early academy and get into the tech lead. But if you leave that city with those same science specialist(s) after you pop your GS, you are stunting a key cities growth. That's "turn advantage". This example being slowing pop growth (for a while) for tech boost. And of course, you can't do that in a game with barbarians chewing up your villages that you spent so much time cultivating. So each choice is conditional. And yet, not to have a longterm plan is to doom yourself to the lower levels of difficulty (Noble) I think.

A coupa ideas for you to play around with.

1. The Great Wall is cheap and gives you a great spy (from GP points) early enough to use when stealing techs is cheap. It gives you a whole 'nother strategy to pursue (having two sources of tech research is lots better than just the gold dependent one). Can keep you at the top of the science heap into the Renaissance. And I have found human Spy Masters tough to beat.

2. Anytime you have stone or marble you can essentially turn your hammers into double gold if you don't get the wonder (each hammer is doubled with a stone or gold
wonder and then converted to gold when you miss getting the wonder---if you do get the wonder it sometimes is ashame). I live to shoot for the pyramids anytime I can access stone.

3. I agree with those who like to shoot for Code of Laws early either with or without the Oracle. If not Oracle I travel Mathematics---->Currency----->
COL--->Civil Sevice while I expand horizontally with my cities.

Caste System at COL allows for an artist specialist to expand each of my new cities in three turns and potentially gives me the religion I missed earlier(----and I do miss em alot now to aggressive AIs in BTS), and it opens the door to early Bureaucracy capitol hammers and farm expansion inland from water sources when other civs are still squabblig over Feudalism. Early Bureaucracy, like Pyramid's Early Representation, are Huge early turn advantages.

4. Long term, shoot for bein at Liberalism first. It confirms your tech lead and sets up the next target in my research, Assembly Line (Factory and Infantry). Those are techs that are critical to me.

5. As a rule I like to have 3-5 cities by 0 BC and 10-12 by 1000AD and 20-24 by 1600. Not always possible but I integrate it into my plans to keep me focused on not forgetting to build mass when my window is still early and open.

6. My first tech is almost always hunting if I don't start with it. Building and Sending out 3-4 scouts is essential to find the lay of the land and determine if my strategy fits the terrain and resources. Animal Husbandry (horses) and Bronze (Axs) (and IronWorking if I get no copper) are critical to have the tools to defend and eventually attack lesser Civs who try to tie me up on the border. When I build scouts I sacrifice growth for fast scout building by using two and three hammer squares. Debateable I suppose but I want my second city as fast as I can get there most times.

The whole subject of Great People placement, timing and pursuit is complex and lengthy and I haven't mastered it. It is both an exciting and advanced section of the game I am working on. I can't claim any special knowledge but if you are interested in what I have uncovered I'll share it.

See ya,

Saygame

[couerdelion]

Your strategy is too fixed. It needs to vary according to the leader.

And as people have mentioned, Mysticism is not a usually a good choice to research first. You either have Mysticism - and can make a play for an early religion - or you do not and need to look at other options such as things for workers to do. I guess Charismatic civs might try it though even here, the +1 happy is of little immediate use.

[Thrak]

I got two or three starts I have been using, very situationally dependant - flexibility of strategy is the key to Civ 4!

I either play a Phi leader (Victoria most recentley, Phi/Fin) but I have also dabbled in the Greeks (Pericles, Phi/Cre).
More recentley Darius I of Persia (Fin/Org).

I love great people so if I am not Phi I always try and snaggle the Parthenon.

Example start - I r alone!

If I start off alone (or far enough away) I have the following priorities in order of importance: Expansion, wonders.
Lets assume I have some chop available (at my capital, it ALL goes 'timber!' pretty much).

Tech: Mining -> Bronze Working
then my next tech is:

- do I have stone nearby?
If yes its Masonry for the great wall - no barbs is awesome for easy expansion.

- do I have copper nearby?
If yes I continue as normal, if not I make either animal husbandry or iron working my next priority

- do I need animal husbandry
if I have at least a few animal tiles I will be making use of I hit animal husbandry - it is also useful for building the persian UU but thats not so important as I am alone.

If I have copper, and do not need animal husbandry, I look to shooting up the religion -> priesthood -> oracle tree and slingshot to either metal casting or code of laws depending on my research rate.

Production:
Nice thing about having agri and mining early is that a worker will always have something to do (unless you are surrounded by forests). To this end I go

worker->
warrior/scout (while going to size 2)->
worker(chop for this!)->
settler(dbl chop!)->
settler(dbl chop!)->

Then I look at popping the great wall and later maybe oracle. I do sometimes take stonehenge but I must have stone and lotsa chop.

After this start I make maths a priority and keep expanding - with stone I chop for pyramids after maths.

----

If I am NOT alone (nearby neighbours) I expand to 2 or 3 cities. I hit animal husbandry and then either rush immortals or axemen. Failing copper or horses, I go all out for ironworking. Rushes > all.

Edit: forgot to mention, if possible (and if I have a choice) I will alway smack the neighbour with a religion. Free religious stuff is great, and they quite often even build the shrine.