What do you do during the first 20 minutes?

[Jethro83]

I build four warriors out of the capital, two scout and two fortify (though I'll only build the two to fortify if I'm expansionist. Then I'll build an extra scout). Then I get settlers when they will be complete by the time the city is size 3. I repeat this until I have about four or five cities. At the same time, I set my research towards Iron Working/Horseback Riding, locate horses and iron, settle there, get my road network connecting all productive cities to them (only two or three cities meet this criteria at this stage).

If I've located an enemy, I'll then start cranking out swordsmen/horsemen to prepare to wipe them out.

[Mkinser]

First 20 minutes

The first move I always make is to move my worker...hopefully to a mountain. This gives me a little look around to see if maybe there would be a more optimal location for my initial city. If there isn't something that is completely obvious (like a whole bunch of resources being 1 or 2 moves away), I plop my first city tight there.

Then I crank out a couple of warriors for exploration. Next I build settlers...at least one, but if my city is growing fast enough I moight put out a couple of them.

Each time I settle a new city, I first build warriors again and then settlers.

In the meantime, I use my worker to mine and irrigate to maximize my capital city.

Hopefully, by the time I have 3 or 4 cities and I have 6-10 military units I will come across another civilization...and then crush it.

I also set my science to the max. I don't really worry about money early on...it will come eventually. I would rather jump out to a lead in the science race so that I can get bigger/better military units quicker to kick the butts of all of the other civs that have had the poor luck of being placed on MY continent.

Start the process all over again with each new city that I conquer.