Design a starting strategy for 2x production

[Xin Yu]

Basics:

In 2x production, three types of terrain are more useful than others. They are: grass with shield (for food), ocean (for trade), and forest (for production).

Also, specials make a huge difference. Food specials (Oasis, Wheat, Pheasant, Game, Fish, Fruit, Spice) give at least 3x2 food, shield specials (Buffalo, peat, oil, iron) give at least 3x2 shields, and trade specials (spice, gems, wine, gold, furs, ivory, silk, ivory, whales) give at least 3x2 trade icons.

Food is more useful for small cities (requires less food to grow), shield is more useful for large cities (build things faster), and trade is evenly useful for small and large cities.

Food and shield terrains are more important than trade terrains. You cannot grow if you don't have food terrain, cannot build settlers, caravans and wonders fast if you don't have shield terrain, but you can hire specialists for trade. An area with balanced food and shield terrains will be perfect for cities. That said, trade terrains are still very important, especially at the beginning when your cities are too small and cannot hire specialists.

River squares give an extra trade. (I'll not mention river in the strategy part but the trade bonus of river should always be in one's mind).

Specials can be shared by two or more cities.

Example: Three grass with shield terrain (hereafter called grass 1, 2, 3, respectively), an iron special (7 shields under despotism).

Build one city on grass 1, Work on grass 2 to grow to size 2 (4 turns). Then put 1 worker on the iron (the other worker will be put on any square with some shield production) and build a settler in 4 turns. Meanwhile the second settler build a road on grass 2, and build another city on grass 3. The second city will work on grass 2 till grow to size 2, then the second city will use the iron square while the first city will use grass 2 to grow back to size 2. Build a third city nearby and rehome the settlers to the new city. Then build more cities close to trade specials and ocean squares for faster science.

[rah]

This strat is probably worthwhile if you don't have a trade special.

The miminum goal should be to get 5 beakers from your first two ciites. 4 from your cap and 1 from city2. With this you will get to monarchy faster than 3 beakers total (2 and 1) and any new city (unless it's in reach of a trade special will only contribute 1 additional beaker. While the first few turns your food and shields will be better, I will get the monarchy bonus quicker. I don't need iron to kick out settlers in 4 turns in monarchy, just a couple of forest squares besides the orignal square 2+4+4. And any production special, 3 turns.

If you can get 8 or 10 or 12 beakers, you can be in monarchy by 3250 or 3050. The extra 12 to 16 turns in monarchy will easily make up the difference of what was sacrificed earlier.

Let me lay my capital right on gold and the second city in a settler spitting site, and I'm a happy camper.

RAH

[Xin Yu]

Rah, you are right. If there is a trade special then usually it is better to put down a city to it first. Suppose we have one gold and one iron, plus some grass with shield land squares. Assuming it takes 4 turns for a settler to get to a good point and build a new city. The starting point is close to the iron.

Approach 1:
turn#:1234567890123456 Total 16 turns
City 1:1111222211112222 Working on Iron for 8 turns
City 2:0000111111111122 Working on Gold for 12 turns
City 3:XXXXXXXX00001111 New city build next to iron and will start working on Iron after size 2.

Approach 2:
turn#:1234567890123456 Total 16 turns
City 1:1111222211112222 Working on Iron for 8 turns
City 2:0000111122221111 Working on Iron for 4 turns
City 3:XXXXXXXX00001111 Working on Gold for 4 turns
City 4:XXXXXXXXXXXX0000

(X-- settler not built yet, 0-settler built, no city yet, 1- city size 1, 2 - city size 2)

By turn 16 both approaches have 3 cities. Approach 1 has 12 turns working on gold compare to 4 for approach 2, while only losing 4 turns working on iron (8 vs 12); plus, the gold city is bigger for approach 1 by turn 16. Perhaps by now approach 1 has monarchy already.

On the other hand, approach 2 will have another city put down the next turn.

[rah]

I agree, and i even used the iron thing last week when my terrain sucked and i didn't feel like being the wandering jew again. I still got into monarchy by 2650 which was slightly better than expected considering the lack of trade specials.

The only problem with the analysis is sometimes the assumptions. You always don't get that grassland shield square near the gold. And the time to travel to the second city site varies. Every game is slightly different, thank god

But as always, I always listen when you post strategies, because it helps me improve mine.

RAH
taken under advisement, but i still love seeing a trade special on the opening.

[SmartFart]

I shall always go to spit out 1 settler from each of my cities 1st,regardless of surrounding terrain,double or single production.
Next step is 4 warriors for exploring,4 for keep my cities content,then 3 settlers again (my capital builds only one).
Tech path depends alot of map size,number of players and barbarian level.
Bronze should be 1st tech when playing on a small map with 4-5 players and crappy terrain (horse isn't much useful on hills,mountains,forest maps and you can't start a wonder with it).
My capital usually build one settler,2 phalanx and a warrior then I go for wonder w/o temple in most cases.
Of course,specials could change everything. Like RAH,I would also build on gold,but you cannot build settler 1st in that case.

[Xin Yu]

Smart: Building sequence hasn't been considered yet in my posts (that's why I used 'design a strategy' for the topic). So far I focus on the use of terrain, especially specials. In my opinion, food specials can be shared by two cities, with the smaller of the two working on the special; shield specials can be shared as well, but with the larger of the two cities working on it; trade specials should not be shared since there is no advantage.

[Caesar the Great]

I was actually thinking about this today...... the strategy for 1x and 2x has to be very different b/c first off, if you build on a food special your city will grow FAST, and after about 10 or 12 turns you 1 warrior or phalanx won't keep it out of disorder.... not to mention the extreme usefullness of forests towards wonders, a city built on a grassland with lots of forests is more effective for building wonders than a city built on iron surrounded by grasslands.... also cities with fishes and lots of ocean spaces become trade centers quite quickly, generally I like to have 2 high production cities, 1 high trade ocean city, 1 high trade special city and 1 big city, but of course situations are different, if I start in the sahara desert I'd probably go for oils/oasis and oceans if I can find any rather than waste my time looking for trade specials or forests. In 1x it is definitely worth spending a few turns looking for a good starting location because it is a huge disadvantage if you don't have something to begin with, but in 2x time is most important, if you spend several turns looking for that 4 whale site, you're going to be screwed... unless you actually find it, but how often does that happen?

[KrazyHorse]

If I understand the lingo correctly, 2x production implies that the rules.txt file has been altered to double the output of food, shields and trade from every square. In this type of setting, everything except unit moves happens twice as fast. Therefore, you can regard this as a regular game in which you only get to move once every two turns. Therefore, as Caesar has pointed out, you can't waste a lot of time looking for the ideal city site; every move that settler makes is like two moves in a regular game. Other than this, it is probably best to adapt your strategy from a regular game, simply seeing every distance multiplied by two, and every improvement costing you twice as much.

[KrazyHorse]

Also: the relative importance of caravans will be diminished given their long transport times.

[KrazyHorse]

Sorry to post a third time in so short a period, but it's just occured to me that, continuing the idea that units only have half as many movement points, it becomes vital to gather a large number of settlers in order to develop your land. Also, once you've developed your land, unhappiness is less of an issue, due to the large amount of trade being produced (which can then be put toward luxuries). So, temples, HG, Shakespeare's Theater, etc. are less important. Early expansion is also less important (remember how much you need those settlers) and more difficult, due to the longer "relative" time it takes to move those settlers to their new city site. All of this adds together to result in games where smaller empires of larger cities dominate. Of course, once you've developed your cities to a certain point, it makes sense to slowly (but continuously) build city after city.

[War4ever]

Depending on the group i play with, i will build on specials to keep the others from doing so. However when i play with other groups i use the patterns more often for my cites and allow them to grow to larger sizes.

i look for decent terrain to build that first city on....... if my cap isn't likely to ever be a target.... ie in the top of the middle of the map and i can protect her with other cities i dont' worry about the terrain. I love specials like anyone and have no qualms about building on iron....

you can move the cap later if you like

[Caesar the Great]

To expand your point furthar war4ever, moving your capital becomes even more important if your capital is isolated from the rest of your empire, if you have say 10 cities and only 2 are close to your capital, in the pre commy/fundy/demo days corruption and waste will kill you, so moving your capital to a more central location can drastically increase your trade and production, and is definitely worthwhile when in single production it may remain questionable.

[Smash]

Every square is not exactly doubled.Any 2x strategy will have to revolve heavily around terrain specials.IE-a grass river will give a city 2 beakers at 60% science in despo at 1x or 2x.Where as a whale gives a city 2 on 1x and 4+1 for 5 on 2x.
I always figured in 2x games if I don't find a whale(s) fairly quick I was screwed.This isn't neccessarily the case but the more players in a game you can bet someone will get 2-4 of them in their 1st 4 cities.

imo-terrain is everything in 2x since everything is magnified.
..well its not EVERYTHING,but, all things being equal, terrain is the biggest factor.

[SmartFart]

Xin: I was trying to say that I switch workers in my capital from grassland to forest to get settlers when my food box is full and city is size 1. I didn't want to consider specials because there are so many. Hut (and what's in it) in my initial position also makes huge influence on my next few decisions on very opening.

Whenever is possible,I am trying to build my 2nd city inland so I can spit out 3 settlers from it; one for each side (4th side is where my capital is).

[rah]

KrazyHorse, just for clarification. I assume you don't play much MP.

1. 2x production is a simple MP option, no files are changed.

2. In most 2x games it's very seldom that you see any tile improvements (except roads) till much later in the game.

3. Caravans are very important, with 2x production the trade bonuses can be quite impressive, and if you've been reading about the super trade stratagies, if you don't build caravans, you will fall behind quite quickly.

RAH

And like everyone else has said, in 2x forrests are much more valuable. During those very rare times that I play 1x, I sometimes space out and build on forests and then go Doh.