Barraks First!?!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Heresson
My strategy for a city is: settler-phalanx-temple-wonder-settler-some other unit.

Thrid city or fourth may produce a horseman before building a wonder.

Why Temple? Martial law is much cheaper. Sure, you may need a temple later, but not until you have many, many cities, or your city gets to size 4. Which is a while off!

I usually go Warrior-Settler-Settler-Caravan in most of my very early cities, trying to keep to size 2. If I can't keep to size 2, or unhappiness becomes an issue, I'll build more Warriors or Horsemen (if available).

One city, usually the capital, will start a Wonder.

Another will build an exploring unit or two, prior to building Settlers, if I haven't had any hut luck. As soon as I discover Trade, the cities closest to the Wonder city switch to Caravans.

Expand, expand, expand is my theme. All the foregoing is subject to terrain and AI presence considerations.

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by Heresson
My strategy for a city is: settler-phalanx-temple-wonder-settler-some other unit.

Thrid city or fourth may produce a horseman before building a wonder.

This is an expansion on the excellent response by STYOM. The key to our thinking is timeliness and efficiency in action, and a good model is the "just in time" inventory method. A Temple costs money for upkeep. Especially because you plan on building another settler later (reducing city size), it is more efficient to build a warrior (or two even) for now and wait until after settler spawning is complete to build a Temple.

Monk

[rah]

In my cap, and sometimes my second city I will usually build the temple a little early than I will need it.

It's usually after the city has already kicked out a warrior to search (hut units may diminish this need) a defensive unit (or horseman) and a couple of settlers. Kicking out a third settler is done if there are still good locations CLOSE or ships are ready to take to the sea.

At this point I may not have trade yet, so I I'm running out of things to build, so I usually build the temple regardless of current need knowing I'll need it later and I'd rather be building caravans later.

In my border cities, they're still cranking settlers until the distance one has to travel to settle starts to make that impractical, then they build one more settler to build the road back to the core cities and then they switch to temples prior to caravans. Of course by then, there's a new wave of border cities to continue the expansion craze.

[Heresson]

I guess You guys are right... But I never really cared about the final score, except for my Spanish Pride two games.
I'm just expanding... and trying to get all the grassland I can.
Once I've had a funny game, it was a classic game for me, I liked the map so much I played one more game on it and a sequence game with Hendrik the Great.

You see, my empire was locked on a big triangle in the northern part of the map. Quite late in the game, I noticed greeeeaaaat grassland area, of size of my empire almost, on the other part of the map. It was next to the Viking empire, but there was a narrow (?) part of the land, which ment that my colony there didn't let Vikings go there; I was sending there as many settlers as I could, attempting to colonise it all before anyone else will. And I did. Entire area was covered with my tiny cities. However, vikings were very hostile, and my new-borned cities were not quite able to defend themselves. Also, the Vikings nuked my capital, proud Eupatria, before I built a SDI defence there. It was a very interesting game, and a difficult one too. It was like a real colony of mine, like Spain for Carthago or something.

[rah]

Just so we're clear, all my comments are based on MP since I only play SP rarely and when it's a challange type game.

SO score is never an issue. But expansion is. More cities means more resources to out research and build more/better units to send against your equally skilled opponents.

It's a totally different game when you play someone that attacks and plans as well as you do.

[Heresson]

Will You play with me someday? I probably be able to play my first PBEM or whatever it is called in a months time or so

Again, I love your ferret or whatever nice creature it is!

[Godsmistake]

is it better to develop your civilization in all areas in the early game, or is it better to gear your civ to conquest right from the start?

[rah]

It depends on whether you're playing SP/MP, and if MP, who your opponents are.

In SP it depends on your style and what you enjoy more. You should be able to cream the AI using either stlye. It's a matter of preference.

[Heresson]

I play on largest maps possible 100x100, so early conquests are not possible sometimes

[rah]

In MP with four players we usually play 39x49.
This usually guarentees early and frequent conflict.
You have to fight for territory.

[Heresson]

nah, I like to big build cities with pompous names.

[rah]

We build big cities too.
With some pompous names like Ferretown, Ming and BITE ME.

[Heresson]

I like inventing names. Martymera, Ferenpol or Rusykada (Rusicade if You like) are my classics...

[rah]

Yep, some of the names we make up can't be posted here.

[Heresson]

You're RAH. You can do everything