What do you build first

[East Street Trader]

La Fayette

I think I saw more stuff from John Barbarossa when I first started visiting Apolyton in the middle of last year than recently. In fact I can't readily remember seeing anything at all from him lately. But I do recall that his contributions were always well received and it was easy to see why.

I think the thread you quote represents current received wisdom. So get two cities down early in deity may well be good general advice.

I can add one additional benefit. If you reckon that your starting location is on a sizeable landmass and you are going to get a good share of the huts, by getting the second city down you preserve the chance of a wandering nomads outcome from a hut. If you retain a "none" settler that outcome simply won't occur with any hut you tip on your home continent. As those happy wanderers are my all time favourite outcome, that is a consideration with me.

Departing from mere generalisation, the site on which you would put a second city and proximity (known or guessed at) to an aggressive neighbour or a probable barb spawning point might influence matters.

If the second city will not, by reason of terrain features, produce many resources that may militate against being in a rush to found it. Again, the number of arrows you produce from your capital may be a consideration. I like to go for a settler or two from the capital when I can found on a river and work a trade special (or even a rivered trade special!). With those advantages my early reserch is humming even without the contribution of a second city. OK maybe a second city gets it humming even louder but I kinda think that the long term benefit of that "none" settler should count for something in the equation.

Even the received wisdom allows that some early work with that settler pays. A road in the square to be worked from the second city is a clear example, in my view a road on any special being worked from the first city is another.

More controversially I, not being a sleazer, would require cogent evidence that a little early irrigation is a losing option in cases where prompt arrival at Monarchy is assured (places note in milk bottle saying "no ICS response required to-day, thanks").

I reckon all this is amenable to testing. Might even contribute a little to the work on this issue. (Don't hold your breathe waiting for that though).

And some features, like where the two settlers end up after the initial exploration pre-founding the capital, seem to me less capable of working into a test.

[La Fayette]

rixxe
If you wish to know how specialists are doing, remember this: a few months ago John Barbarossa stated that he remained unbeaten in MP (IMO this means that he is a very strong player). He also stated that he used settler #2 as a NONE settler during the whole game.
Then someone told him to try and build a city ASAP with settler #2, and John came back a few days later and wrote: "OK. I have tested. I was wrong. Building city #2 ASAP is better".
I say:"Thank you John for the lesson. The specialist is the one who is able to listen to good advice".

(my advice would be: read "the 3 arrows strategy" (I have just given it a bump so that you find it easily), then play the way you like).



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aux bords mystérieux du monde occidental

[La Fayette]

EST
You give me 2 huge subjects to discuss on the same day. Thank you very much! I suppose you wouldn't do that if you thought I was talking nonsense all the time.
But I must be some kind of "slowthinker" (hello, dude!)
I'm not even able to answer one to day (I started though: look at "shields vs arrows").
To morrow is another day. I'll try hard.

[debeest]

It's generally held that in strategy games such as chess or go, the opening moves are the most important. I think that's equally true in Civ, and this discussion actually gets at the very fundamentals. So *bump*.

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by debeest on 02-13-2001 11:25 PM It's generally held that in strategy games such as chess or go, the opening moves are the most important.

Not quite. Making the "best" move is always important when the position is about balanced (not counting positions in which nothing can happen anymore). When you are already clearly winning (or losing!!) you can afford to make suboptimal moves, only not too many (or too "sub")



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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Roman]

I usually build a marketplace first, then library, etc. I do build quite a lot of settlers in between. Pyramids are always a priority, so I never build granaries.

I am not a very good player, though, so don't use my strategy if you want to be successful.