Barraks First!?!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by solo
Compared to building a barracks, warriors are a real bargain, since they have several uses for expediting early expansion, although fighting may not be one of them.

Building lots of them is the quickest way to become supreme, the rating allowing the most respect and tribute.

If they all hang around long enough for Leonardo's, they even become useful for waging war, eventually justifying the curious name chosen for them by the game's designers.

Solo makes great points (as usual!)

A mildly useful trick with Warriors is to build a lot of them just before getting Gunpowder (with Leo), and then disband the resulting Musketeers for the shields. 5 net shields/unit isn't much, but it helps.

Shark Fin - what size maps do you play on? On small maps, early conquest of the AI is possible, but you probably won't want to waste time building barracks - you'll want to be tipping huts and gathering units ASAP. On a big map, where you don't meet the AI for a while, your only enemies are barbarians, and nonvet Horsemen and Diplomats do just fine against those.

[Heresson]

Sometimes You get bronze tech from the start, then I build phalanx.
Or I'm starting building settler and change it to phalanx when I reach this tech.
But most often I build a settler - and very rarely the city is 1 size when about to finish it. Very rarely.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Heresson
Sometimes You get bronze tech from the start, then I build phalanx.
Or I'm starting building settler and change it to phalanx when I reach this tech.
But most often I build a settler - and very rarely the city is 1 size when about to finish it. Very rarely.

Someone - I think SG[1] - gave me the idea to build Horsemen instead of Phalanx. Horsemen are pretty good against all early Barbarian units, while Phalanxes generally lose to Chariots and Archers...

[Heresson]

hm, I rarely build horsemen, which I always treat as a mistake, because exploration is important, but I just think other techs and other units are more important.
My strategy most usually is build cities, buid cities, build cities
(in civ1 my strategy was build chariots and smash the heathens )

[debeest]

As STYOM said, horses are vastly more useful than phalanxes. In this game, the best defense usually is a good offense. Phalanxes lose, horsemen win.

The bulk of my military builds are warriors. Cheap martial law. Eventual musketeer/riflemen upgrade. Supremacy and tribute. And two warriors can explore much faster than one horseman, because they can go in two different directions and because the horsemen spend half their time in slow terrain.

Other than defense, the other place where horsemen can be more valuable than warriors is in popping huts. But dips are much better yet, because one dip can use its second move to bribe one barb horse, which can kill two more.

[Grigor]

If I have a city on a river, a phalanx will nearly always defend successfully against Barbs, allowing a 2-move unit nearby to capture the barb leader for a quick 150g.

If I am garrisoning a chokepoint against an AI which I don't want to take out yet, a vet phalanx in a fort on a mountain will last against almost anything up to the modern age.

Otherwise I agree that a phalanx is the third-best option to either a warrior (cheaper martial law) or a horseman (offense is better than defence).

[Shark Fin 101]

Originally posted by Grigor
DaveV's ICS strategy is the proven best at early wipeouts. His strategy is to overrun your territory with cities. Most conquest games of that type are over by 500AD.

The faster you produce settlers the earlier total war can begin.

Overrun territory with cities!?! I can crush giant empires with 7-8 cities! Then again maybe thats just me

Six Thousand Year Old Man,

I usually play on large worlds.

Shark Fin 101

[Peaster]

Speaking of opening strategies.... has anyone looked at the map for CivFanatics gotm45, which started a few days ago? At the risk of slightly spoiling it - - this is your chance to stop reading - - - you start on a small swampy island with no grass or forests (just a few jungly-rivers, hills, huts, and specials). I found this map extremely frustrating and still am not sure of a good opening strategy.

If you just make cities near specials, they reproduce extremely slowly, because either the food or shields will be low. So, irrigation and/or planting forests (before or after making cities?) may be a better idea, but that's pretty slow too.

[Godsmistake]

capital city + expansions city

I always build my capital immediately, the build a second city. I use this city in the early game, solely to provide settlers, to allow quick expansion, while at the same time, using my capital to build an army and exploration units. Later, if my empire is lop-sided, I move my capital to the centre of the empire, to limit corruption and waste.

[rah]

In MP it's expand expand expand. A barracks first costs expansion at an exponential rate.

And since we play on small rocks, the horseman exploring and defending with options while not eliminated is somewhat minimized.

While I too sometimes I'm erroring by not going horsemen, when another human players shows up, it's nice to have a phalanx ready.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by rah
In MP it's expand expand expand. A barracks first costs expansion at an exponential rate.

And since we play on small rocks, the horseman exploring and defending with options while not eliminated is somewhat minimized.

While I too sometimes I'm erroring by not going horsemen, when another human players shows up, it's nice to have a phalanx ready.

It's all about terrain, and not just building the same defender in every city. No question, a horse is less useful when your city is in a forest, or in the hills. And when your first city is on a rivered forest tile, Phalanx is best. Goes for MP as well, I'm sure.

[rah]

But you have to look at your civ as a whole, you only get one off path tech on your way to monarchy. If you don't burn it from a hut, it's either horseman or bronze, you can't do both, or you're going to be in despot for a lot longer.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by rah
But you have to look at your civ as a whole, you only get one off path tech on your way to monarchy. If you don't burn it from a hut, it's either horseman or bronze, you can't do both, or you're going to be in despot for a lot longer.

True - and the terrain you've uncovered by the time you have to choose an off-path tech will probably influence the choice. Unless you want an early start on a WoW... in which case, BW is probably the choice.

[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.

[rah]

That strat would be death in MP. (or at least on the worlds we play)
But I guess it still works against the AI