I have recently become a major fan of the iriquois because of the opening you can utilize due to their combination of religious/expansionist traits.
I believe that one of the most valuable and definately most underappreciated aspect of the civ-specific traits are the techs that civs start out with. Expansionist civs begin the game with pottery allowing you to biuld granaries right out of the gate. When combined with the religious trait and its cheap temples, this combo allows the iriquois to rush a granary and temple earlier than is feasible with other civs. The extra scout unit that expansionist civs obtain also gives you a unit to explore with while allowing your first warrior to garrison in the capitol to quell unhappiness created by rush building. The combination of these factors can give a huge boost to your early expansion,especially on higher difficulty levels where rushing a granary first is not very viable due to the unhappiness beginning at pop 2 or 3.
Here is an example of how this start could work in a city with access to a grassland cow square to begin the game(I realize this is above average but many players appear to "accidentally restart" until they obtain a good initial spot anyway). With 3 extra food, you are growing in pop after 7 turns(turn 8) and producing 2 shields per turn. If you start a granary on turn 1 it can be rushbuilt on turn 11(w/ 38 shields remaining). At this point you will be back down to 1 pop but have 13 food stored and will grow again in only 3 turns. Build a warrior in 5 turns, and then rush a temple in 1 turn(the religious bonus!). At turn 18 you have a temple, granary, garrisoned warrior, are at 2 population and can build a settler in no more than 7 turns(depending on which tile you work with your 2nd pop. point).
Contrast this with a non-expansionist civ who must either research, find in a hut, or trade for pottery - all of which take between 10-32 turns(assuming normal encounters with other civs occur around turn 10 - although I admit pottery is usually one of the first techs you can trade for becuase the other expansionist civs have it and you usually find them first if they are near you). If you start building a settler on turn 1 you will build it in 15 turns provided you can reach pop 3 by then. Most people seem to build a warrior first for exploration purposes and then settler allowing you to complete both by turn 17(assuming you have a 3 food producing square).
What im curious about is how much of advantage is 1 settler on turn 17 with the second not coming until at least turn 31 as opposed to a settler at turn 25 with the infrastructure to crank out an additional settler every 5-6 turns. I have generally ignored the impact of workers improving tiles on this analysis but I know it will have an impact(I tend to mine cow squares rather than irrigate if Im building a granary in order to achieve 5-6 turn settler production) and will try to address the issue in a subsequent post if this topic generates any interest
Feedback is very much appreciated and as you can tell this analysis is far from complete(doing this on a computer w/o Civ III installed so my numbers could be slightly off) so flames are appreciated(I dont want to waste my valuable gaming time if this is a worthless strart/opening). And if you cant tell, I ultimately have multiplayer in mind with this analysis, where I feel the opening will be much more critical and fast starting civs(read expansionist) will have an advantage.
I believe that one of the most valuable and definately most underappreciated aspect of the civ-specific traits are the techs that civs start out with. Expansionist civs begin the game with pottery allowing you to biuld granaries right out of the gate. When combined with the religious trait and its cheap temples, this combo allows the iriquois to rush a granary and temple earlier than is feasible with other civs. The extra scout unit that expansionist civs obtain also gives you a unit to explore with while allowing your first warrior to garrison in the capitol to quell unhappiness created by rush building. The combination of these factors can give a huge boost to your early expansion,especially on higher difficulty levels where rushing a granary first is not very viable due to the unhappiness beginning at pop 2 or 3.
Here is an example of how this start could work in a city with access to a grassland cow square to begin the game(I realize this is above average but many players appear to "accidentally restart" until they obtain a good initial spot anyway). With 3 extra food, you are growing in pop after 7 turns(turn 8) and producing 2 shields per turn. If you start a granary on turn 1 it can be rushbuilt on turn 11(w/ 38 shields remaining). At this point you will be back down to 1 pop but have 13 food stored and will grow again in only 3 turns. Build a warrior in 5 turns, and then rush a temple in 1 turn(the religious bonus!). At turn 18 you have a temple, granary, garrisoned warrior, are at 2 population and can build a settler in no more than 7 turns(depending on which tile you work with your 2nd pop. point).
Contrast this with a non-expansionist civ who must either research, find in a hut, or trade for pottery - all of which take between 10-32 turns(assuming normal encounters with other civs occur around turn 10 - although I admit pottery is usually one of the first techs you can trade for becuase the other expansionist civs have it and you usually find them first if they are near you). If you start building a settler on turn 1 you will build it in 15 turns provided you can reach pop 3 by then. Most people seem to build a warrior first for exploration purposes and then settler allowing you to complete both by turn 17(assuming you have a 3 food producing square).
What im curious about is how much of advantage is 1 settler on turn 17 with the second not coming until at least turn 31 as opposed to a settler at turn 25 with the infrastructure to crank out an additional settler every 5-6 turns. I have generally ignored the impact of workers improving tiles on this analysis but I know it will have an impact(I tend to mine cow squares rather than irrigate if Im building a granary in order to achieve 5-6 turn settler production) and will try to address the issue in a subsequent post if this topic generates any interest
Feedback is very much appreciated and as you can tell this analysis is far from complete(doing this on a computer w/o Civ III installed so my numbers could be slightly off) so flames are appreciated(I dont want to waste my valuable gaming time if this is a worthless strart/opening). And if you cant tell, I ultimately have multiplayer in mind with this analysis, where I feel the opening will be much more critical and fast starting civs(read expansionist) will have an advantage.
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