First City Strategy

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by rah
hahaha, I remember one game where I was pinned in and figured I should go for MAPMAKING early. Maxed every city in terms of science ignoring food and production. When I got it, it was time to switch to tiremes and rush them, only to discover that I didn't have any coastal cities. hahahahaha so it took me a few extra turns to crank a settler and make one. I felt quite foolish.

Rich

I'm sure everyone has stories of blindspots.......you are just more honest.

[Ming]

While I've made my own share of silly mistakes, my favorite was made by somebody else.

I had just marched 18 vet crusaders at one of my opponent's (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) cities that had infringed on my territory. It was on a mountain square next to a river that lead right to my capital. While I lost over half of the units in the attack, I finally had killed the last defending unit so all I had to do was move a unit into the city to take it. However... my army had started three squares down the river so any unit I could bring to bear only had one movement left. 5 times I tried to move a unit into the city, and none of them were able to move into the city to take it. While this was going on, my opponent was rush building a new unit for the city... My turn ended, and I pushed enter so it moved to his turn, leaving many poorly defended crusaders next to his city... I was so pissed at my poor luck of not being able to move a unit into the empty city... I waited during his turn for the expected catapult to take out my stack... and nothing happened. On my next turn, I attacked the city, and low and behold, he had rushed a phalanx and not a cat.
I took the city... When I moved into the city, he sent a wonderful message saying how stupid he was... how he was so worried about defending the city, he didn't even think of building an offensive unit instead to take out the stack...

[War4ever]

at all of you...........we have all made blunders...

just last game with a nameless Mod i beat him to Philo and was two turns from rushing hg in a duel....which i could have bought anyways, instead i take some other tech, he builds hg the turn i steal pottery from him....and all i see on kings chat is


too late

man was i pissed.....

[rah]

I promised bloody monk that I would search for MP strat threads. SO I'm bumping this one.

Amazing how few titles had the word stratagy in them.

I guess it shows that against humans there is no one uber stratagy. You must keep changing.

Except build (settlers and caravans)

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by rah
I promised bloody monk that I would search for MP strat threads. SO I'm bumping this one.

Amazing how few titles had the word stratagy in them.

I guess it shows that against humans there is no one uber stratagy. You must keep changing.

Except build (settlers and caravans)

Yep the boring bit of MP, all tohse damn Caravans !!!!!!!

[rah]

If you don't get anal with caravans you can move a lot of them without slowing the game down. There are many times where I don't get the MAXIMUM out them, just because i'm not willing to slow the game down as much. Generally I'll just march them towards my cap and if i get lucky along the way so be it. (or whatever trade city you've set up or location for wonders) Then during others turns you can check the demands near that city to see if you can make a few extra bucks or get them up to three apeice. If you know where every caravan is going prior to your move, it need not be abnoxiously slow.

If you have an island city, or one on another continent, i'm not as concerned about demand as just delivering. It need not take that long.

[Bloody Monk]

For your Capital do you build in the center of a four special?? I have seen discussion that leans toward building ON one of the specials instead, especially Gold.

After the Capital is down, how does your site choices change??

How much growth do you plan to achieve for your cities??

Monk

[rah]

It depends on the situation. In 2x a four pattern can be overkill. And it's possible for someone to sneak in and build on that gold you've been using. If you're along a coast, you have to think about it. If you think you can surround your cap fast enough. .......... It depends. Is you neighbor close? is he a perfectionist or warmonger? A cap on gold is good for defense also. If I start on gold I'll only kick out one or two settlers at the most from there. That's fewer than I usually kick out from my cap.

Or berz, who usually doesn't kick one out of his cap and let's it go so he can try to get an early HG.

Everyone does it differently and it depends on what else is happening in a game.

If I get a free city or nomad from a hut early, I may kick out one less settler from my cap. But if you play on a small world, you'd better claim what land you can quickly, before it's all gone.

[deity]

We've limited external trade routes to eight only in our latest diplo and that does speed up the game (especially with seven players!)

[Rasputin]

i think on of the areas civ 3 improved on civ2 was removal of thee damn caravans, no more storing caravans t obuild a wonder and slowign down mp games

[rah]

by for all practical purposes removing it. I don't see that as an improvement.

[trev]

I would build my first city in my starting location 80% of the time, if next to river, I will spend 1 turn to move onto river, or if next to wine, I will move and build on the wine, making sure my other settler begins mining the wine first so I get great production and commerce in the early years from that city. In x2 prod though building on or near silk and wine is sufficient, I would not waste the time with the mine in the early game

[Caesar Jon]

Mings mountain story brings me to another point....I was playing a game and I tried to take a mountain city (no walls) and after wasting 6 catpults and 3 crusaders i gave up. My question is are mountain cities worth the cost? And is there an easier way to take these cities down?

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by rah
by for all practical purposes removing it. I don't see that as an improvement.

it is when the thing i hate about civ2 is the mundane process of moving all them carvans.

And besides it not removed, now you have to actualy trade what you have in resources directly with another civ that wants it for a negotiable fee, yes yuo no longer get those 1000+ gold deals like deity always seems to get, but i think it more real to have to negotiate a price rather than simply getting a formulae.

can it be imrpoved yes i think so, but never go back to caravans..

anyway back to the topic.

first city to me is jsut where i get to churn out my first settler from. wanddering around too far is usually IMHO a period of time where you are going to fall behind and if on a small world you may find enemy units coming your wasy before you get a chance to expand and build yor own .

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by rah
Amazing how few titles had the word stratagy in them.

With that spelling, not amazing at all...