The beginning phase - expansion tactic

[Jesp]

When starting up a new CIV III game., and you need to expand as fast as possible and grab all that nice land before your neigbours, what is your strategy?

I personaly do this:

If I build a new city which has 1 food resource within its city borders I let the city grow to size 4 before building the settler. (After the settler is buildt the city will be size 2 and will still be able to have a citizen working the food resource square.)

If the new city has access to 2 food resources I let the city grow to size 5 before building the settler. (After the settler is buildt the city will be size 3 and will still be able to have 2 citizens working the food resource squares.)

...an so and so forth.

As far as I understand teach individual city will have an optimal growth rate this way, and that would be the fastest way to build settlers.

Am I correct, or does anyone use a different tactic which could be more efficient? Building early grannaries or the great pyramids maybe would boost expansion even further?

[Jesp]

Ups!

I of course mean that the city should be size 3 before building settler if 1 food source is available, and size 4 if 2 food sources are available.

My bad... It's early here.

[Datajack Franit]

I think that waiting so long for the city to grow denies you any chance of building early wonders- I'd build in this sequence: warrior, warrior, settler, warrior, barracks (only if civ is military, otherwise something else), settler, archer, archer, settler and great library/pyramids

[Nor Me]

Jesp, that sounds fine to me.
The most important thing I missed for a long time is to use the luxury slider early. I normally send all units produced in my capital before the first settler exploring so I would normally need to use it. Certainly, you shold look at this every time one of your first 3 cities grow and not be afraid of 40%.

As an expansionist civ, I'd start with scout, scout, scout, granary and settler as this increases my chance of getting a settler from a hut.
If I'm non-expansionist and want to build a wonder, I'll build a granary inbetween two settlers as early as I can get pottery.
Generally, I don't build granaries outside of my capital early as later cities have more waste and are less well worked.

The pyramids is only worth it if you have a lot of room to settle and hope to do so peacefully. You'd normally need a granary, a dedicated worker and to use the luxury slider just for that 1 city if you build a wonder.
You have to start early to get the pyramids on a higher level and if your capital can only contribute 2 (or even 1) settler, they're going to have less benefit.

If you think that war is on the horizon early, don't bother with granaries or wonders. I suppose I'd better qualify this. I mean early i.e. you attack with archers or are likely to be rushed with archers & warriors. The colossus is sometimes helpful for a horseman rush/

One thing I would never do:

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
I'd build in this sequence: warrior, warrior, settler, warrior, barracks (only if civ is military, otherwise something else), settler, archer, archer, settler and great library/pyramids

Why mix archers and wonders? If you are going to fight early, surely more archers would be better than those wonders?
And why build a barracks for the benefit of 2 archers? Wouldn't 3 or 4 regular archers be better than 2 veteran ones?

[Datajack Franit]

I build those archers to scare off and eventually backstab the AI workers/settlers- I never play long wars in the ancient times as I have no time of building an army if I want the GL
If I don't build an early barrack those shields will be wasted on another archer/spearman, and in case the war turns in a bad way, I'd have to waste 3 turns in order of building a brand new one. Those veteran ones will never have to fight a strong opponent as they will fight in the first 10-15 turns, so an archer is the hardest foe they can expect

[nbarclay]

A barracks is a permanent 1gpt drain on the economy. That's hard to justify for a city that's going to build two units and then spend eons working on a wonder.

[Datajack Franit]

So EVERY single improvement of the game is a 1gpt drait, so are we supposed to build cities with no barracks, walls and libraries just because they are expensive?

[statusperfect]

Walls don't cost any gpt.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
So EVERY single improvement of the game is a 1gpt drait, so are we supposed to build cities with no barracks, walls and libraries just because they are expensive?

I build barracks all over the place myself, as time and priorities permit. It's the timing in this particular build queue that I call into question, building a barracks for just two units and then paying upkeep the whole time working on a wonder as expensive as the Great Library or Pyramids. Purely in terms of value per shield, it makes perfect sense. But by the time the Pyramids or Great Library is completed (with two settlers and two archers in between the barracks and wonder), the barracks will have cost far more gold than it takes to upgrade a warrior to a swordsman. That warrior-to-swordsman upgrade gets back the 20 shields you lose having to build the barracks later if you wait (remember, the queue is specifically for a militaristic civ), and the left-over gold is icing on the cake. Of course if you'd rather put all the gold into science instead of doing a warrior upgrade, you have that option too.

Nathan

[Datajack Franit]

Why wasting money on upgrades if you can just slaughter them and build new ones

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
Why wasting money on upgrades if you can just slaughter them and build new ones

Because shields is much more of a limiting factor than cash.