Our Starting Location!!

[OzzyKP]

Could you post those saves?

[mzprox]

p BC-22002Nb.CivBeyondSwordSavep BC-2200warrstart.CivBeyondSwordSave

status for t45 2N and warrior start 8the latter has a half finished granary in the cap, might had been two extra warriors instead). The other cities might not be there where they are now, after exploring the area we can find better spots. they are hevily overlapping with the capital, but in early game this is big advantage: easier to connect them=trade income, easier to defend them, and they share imporved resources so we can switch them when needed.

[DNK]

2N would work pretty well with a second 1SW also. The ocean and river access definitely make it a stronger midgame city than the warrior. I agree that for the capital, the defense bonus shouldn't be a big concern. I still like being able to hook up 3 solid food/prod resources right away for the capital, though. My general approach is to get the most of both of those in the first two cities to fuel expansion or military as needed, but then I do usually suck economically early, especially compared to the TPs ime.

[mzprox]

some more toughts:
settling next to the deer and then claiming the floodplains by the 2nd and third cities is a very fast start both in production and in science.. comes with a price ofc. we give up lots of things when leeves, harbors, oxford etc comes in play, with our 2nd and 3rd cities we give up land and resource grabbing (we really need at least one luxury or we need to divert our tech path to monarchy which I usually skip)
Our starting techs are great for this start, nothing would work better. I hope AH will reveal horses, so instead of warriors we can start building chariots.

[DNK]

Well, we're very likely to prioritize Feudalism, which means Monarchy can't be put off so late. Using units to boost our happiness cap is going to be useful also for deterring invasions, and ultimately war is a lot costlier than some missed tiles or any other micro issues we're discussing presently.

I usually prioritize Monarchy, though

[Dinner]

I vote move the settler to where the warrior currently is, move the warrior due north, next turn plant the city where the warrior currently is. As for what to build and what tech to research... I'll let other people decide what is best.

[Robert]

If we're not settling on a hill, then I would move 1 north myself and settle on the plains north of the river.
We then have 4 floodplains, 1 banana, 1 corn and 1 cow.
We also have 3 plain hills which is not that bad production wise for a capital. The cows give additional hammers. Unfortunately not too much forests for chopping.

I see no advantages in moving to the other (warrior) hill. And if there aren't much advantages then wasting time by moving is not a good idea.

[Dinner]

Up sides to moving on warrior hill:

We'd get the deer which produces a lot of food.
We'd have lots of trees to chop.
We'd get all the special resources in our city zone.

Downsides:

We'd lose a turn.
We wouldn't be on a river.
We wouldn't get to the flood plains to build cottages on.
We wouldn't have access to the ocean.

[DNK]

I do kind of like having a location that benefits from that deer for the reason it lets us get Hunting early, which keeps Archery on tap for quick rush response around T50. We can't count on axes for that, especially against chariots, not only because they're weak vs chariots but also because the copper can be pillaged quite easily vs chariots.

[mzprox]

warrior start is a bit sucky when it comes to cottages, so our academy won't be as good (nor Oxford or whatever) but it will be a production powerhouse. Also it's the safest spot to start. For example we would have a new warrior at t17 while in the 2N start we would have it in t27 (so we couldnt really scout until then because we can1t risk to lose our capital to a gambler who sends his fist warrior out in one direction). I think the best way to go is to produce many workers and settlers and rex while spamming cottages. I know this is not what we wanted and I usually don't follow this road, but -until we don't know more about the land-this seems to be the best way to go. We don't know if we have access to any luxury, we don't go for religion so happyness is a problem.. unfortunately until things change i don't think we should revolt into slavery at all. I run it a bit fuirther btw and got a GS in t68, so we can expect it around that time.

[Robert]

4 floodplains > 1 deer
the forrests are indeed interesting, but we can found our 2nd city there and take advantage of the chopping anyway.

[Dinner]

When are we supposed to submit our turn?

[mzprox]

I thought I'd give some tips for best early development. Many of these are well known others not so much, so if you want to play the start and practice you can take these into consideration:

-A turn lost in the beginning by wandering the settlers is like (almost) being behind in one turn in the entire game, but moving the settlers might worth it if it means better production.

-First build is almost always should be a worker. Exception: starting near sea resources and having fishing: workboat. w/o fishing but better sea resources than land resources: warrior and growing to pop2 while researching fishing, then switch workboat. Not gona prove it here, this is just fact.

-Tech-path: First food techs, or in some cases bronzeworking (if you plan chopping early).

-Tech bonuses: there are two types:
-Research bonus for having multiple alternativ prerequisites. If one tech requires A or B tech you get 20% research bonus if you have both. (example: you get 20% research bonus for animal husbandry if you have both agriculture and hunting)
-Research bonus for technologies known by other civs. we get research bonus if we research a tech that others already have-only if we met those civs. Unmodded this is 30% max bonus if evry civ have the tech (If there are 9 players then we get 30% if the other 8 have it, 7/8*30% if 7 have it etc.)

-Altering the research between 100% and 0%. Suprisingly very few know this: For whatever reason once you can't keep your research at 100% you get better result altering it between 0 and 100%. Especially in early game it matters a lot, later I don't care about it.

-Optimizing worker turns: example you want to chop a foirest 3 step away: you don't just move 2, then move on the forest, then start chopping But: move one and build something (road for example) for the second half movement, and cancel it to not lose turns. Next turn move onto the forest. In short try not to waste worker turns.

-Building the first city fast-this is what I do quite often. This first city is very close to the capital, share its resources and it must be connected (note that rivers and even seashores are connecting cities w/o any technology if the tiles are within cultural borders. The trade bonus itself gives 2 extra commerce, the second city's tile is a free bonus comared if we had just grow our capital once more and by constantly optimizing which city works on which common improved tile we can get great results.


One more thing, I haven't really played trully competitive pitboss games yet. Our demogames are quite relaxed, no one would really want to cripple the other.. no one would choose an obviously rusher civ like some other teams did in this game. So I use this description of a multi game as "reference-benchmark" to know about what to expect (it's very detailed, good stuff)

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ4/RBPB2-1.html

There is a big war in it which ends about turns 100, by then the defenders lost about 600 worth of shields.. and that's just their losses (They won). Compare this my 3 warriors army in the Lizzy of Aztecs testgame

That's why I think fast start is much more important than having a nice science city later.. a cottage capital is like a magnet.. for the zulu and their friends..

[Calanthian]

Good stuff Mzprox!

( Knew virtually all of it, but it is good to be reminded )

[DNK]

BW is an absolute necessity here. We need whips and chops ready to go should we fall victim to a rush. If we get some real nasty neighbors, prechops might be necessary. If we get rushed, we have the production on tap, and if we don't we can finish a Classical wonder in a heartbeat. It will require an extra worker and all that lost growth, but in a pinch we'll be quite thankful...

But if we have happy techers, it's less of an issue (even then, we might want to be prepared to send help to a neighbor in case of a rush - a weak friend is a better neighbor than an expansions militarist overgrown from 2 civs' worth of land)

Yeah, that 100-0 thing is too much of a PITA for me to do anymore in our diplogames, but it's something. Even in the later game, it can help to disguise our real tech rate/GNP from teams that aren't paying as close attention to details, though I doubt CFC or RB are going to be thrown by it.

All the Sulla writeups are worthwhile, I suggest everyone take a look at them, especially any without much truly competitive MP play.



I think the most important thing to remember is this (and I'm stealing this from Game of Thrones, k):

"Wars are won with quills not swords."

That must be our ultimate defense, and it requires very active and early scouting. Let's not forget our scouts, and we will need plenty since we have some barbs to deal with. If we get rushed, it helps to know who's on the borders of the rushing civ, and it helps more to have set up relations with them beforehand.