good strategy for begin

[flbknight]

what's a good strategy to follow in the beginning?
i mean what do you build and in what order. IMO if you have a good "que" (warrior-settler-spearman-settler-...) you will lickely end up in the top civs.
any good que's?
when i play huge maps i always seem to fall behind pretty quickly, not in nr of cities but in everything else going from productivity to science.

Thanks

[Kolyana]

You may want to post this in the HELP forum and also read through the STRATEGY forum. I did and it helped me alot.

Then I got bored and bought Etherlords

[Libertarian]

God go with you, young knight. I would not deign to ruin your expectations, despite however naive they may be.

Build settlers and workers first. Then a temple. Then build a library. If your city is growing fast, build a marketplace. Get luxury resources by building roads to them within your cultural border. Build roads on every tile for the bonuses. Pop rush improvements whenever possible, and build a wonder geared toward your civ's special attributes.

All the best.

[C Chulainn]

I've given up building the warrior in my first city at all since it delays the production of settlers. Usually your chances of being attacked by barbarians so early in the game are very remote, and it's the only way to speed up the settler frenzy - the AI, remember, cheats by giving itself free units, which is why it will always outpace you for growth.

[Purple]

Explore and settle.

Build explorer units (scouts if you can, warriors otherwise) to find good places to found new cities, and follow them up with settlers. Be very aggressive about settling wherever there are vital resources or choke points. Otherwise the AI will beat you to them.

You can fill in the gaps with later cities. Build a temple in your outpost cities as soon as you can in order to expand their cultural borders from the initial nine tiles to the 21 tiles you can improve.

[Jaundice]

Good idea about expanding to choke points and filling in later. Although, in a few games I ran into the problem of the other civs filling in between my cities. Even though my culture swallowed them up later, it was still annoying to have them there in the first place. Not to mention I was stuck with a few cities I didn't want because they were just an attempt for the AI to fill EVERY single empty spot. Oh well.

-JD

[GodSpawn]

the AI, remember, cheats by giving itself free units, which is why it will always outpace you for growth.

This is not true.

[Ecthy]

I would suppose it is. Just look how quickly they expand in the early game. And look how quickly they discover technologies. It's worth a laugh!

[flbknight]

what i find most annoying (and IMO this is incorrect) is that the AI builds cities 1 space away from real borders (city scope). They shouldn't do this and it should be the same as an act of war IMO.
Anyway, i read something from Vel that's quite good: 2 settler producing cities, 1 worker producing city, 1 wonder city and 1 unit city. I follow this now at least in the beginning and it works. Also the tip from C Chulainn is quite valid. I have given up on this too otherwise i'm simply unable to follow the AI in expansion. Now i have more cities that most AI players (huge map) butthey are quite underdeveloped compared to ai. Eventually i wil catch up. I can never seem to build any wonders early on.

[GodSpawn]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
I would suppose it is. Just look how quickly they expand in the early game. And look how quickly they discover technologies. It's worth a laugh!

I can keep up with them on Regent. It needs careful timing and extreme micromanagement.

[Chronus]

what i find most annoying (and IMO this is incorrect) is that the AI builds cities 1 space away from real borders (city scope). They shouldn't do this and it should be the same as an act of war IMO.

Ugh, no!

I sometimes build my cities right on the border of another civ in the hopes of abosorbing them culturally or making a surprise attack.

Besides, I should be able to do what I want in my own territory.

[C Chulainn]

Originally posted by GodSpawn


This is not true.

Yes it is; you can even go into the Editor and change the number of free units the AI gives itself at the start.