Settlers at the start

[joony]

At the very start of a game, what strategy do you use for expansion

[FrustratedPoet]

Large doesn't have to mean poorly defended. I always expand like crazy, but on medium to high difficulty levels you need a few defenders in each city just to stop it from going into anarchy so there will always be lots of spearmen around.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Large doesn't have to mean poorly defended. I always expand like crazy, but on medium to high difficulty levels you need a few defenders in each city just to stop it from going into anarchy so there will always be lots of spearmen around.

Or crank up your luxury rate a few notches as needed. I've played on Emperor with most of my cities not having garrison troops in them for quite a while. Of course that starts running into problems past a certain distance, at which time I have to decide whether I want to use MPs or do something else with the cities (e.g. build workers to limit population growth or use an entertainer).

Most of the time, I like building a granary in my first city or two to get them really pumping out settlers. In a world without barbarians, that can be done at the very beginning. (On a standard map, I can prebuild something else while researching pottery at 100% if I don't start with it.) With barbarians around, trying a settler pump right off the bat is a lot riskier, although I've been known to do it anyhow. And I build few if any more military units than I consider necessary to provide some semblance of defense for my borders.

Another starting strategy I've been known to use is almost diametrically opposite to that one: the Archers Explore opening. That one is specific to civs that start with Warrior Code. The idea is to build a barracks first thing and then turn out archers in between settlers, using veteran archers instead of warriors for exploration. When the archers find a target, a group of them converge. (I usually try for about four to play it safe.) If all goes well, the rival capital is suddenly mine and I have a huge edge for the rest of the land grab. The down side to that strategy is that it only works if a suitable target is available; otherwise, a lot of early energy is wasted. By the way, in this opening, the ONLY goal is to capture the enemy capital (or maybe more than one enemy's capital if I have multiple targets in range). I don't count on having enough survivors to finish the rival off, and I want to settle into builder mode fairly quickly if the terrain allows for it. And besides, a weakened civ is really just building cities for me, whether it knows it or not.

Either way, my city build pattern is based on building lots of cities quickly, with the side effect that the cities stay relatively small until I start running out of room to expand. That (1) gives my eventual empire a large core to work from, (2) creates an illusion of power due to my size, (3) avoids "wasting" production on MPs, and (4) keeps me from having to push the luxury rate so high I don't have enough gold left for science. (On Monarch, where I've played most of my games, I'm generally quite willing to compete with the AIs as an active researcher even in the early game. On Emperor, a lot more depends on the game situation.)

Nathan

[DaveV]

I disagree with your assumption in the first poll choice. My ideal early city site will have a couple 2 food/2 shield squares to work, and will take 20 turns to grow to size 3. With 3 shields/turn at size 1 and 5 shields/turn at size 2, that's 80 shields, only 30 of which are needed for a settler. The other shields are spent on military units, to supress unrest and gain the respect of the AI civs (and eventually beat them up and take their lunch money). So it's entirely possible to expand at max speed while having a decent army, although it requires some scrimping on infrastructure.

[Colonial Impact]

I prefer a small well defended civilization at the beginning. I try to settle on or near luxuries and gold. but also incorperate nbarclays strategy of vetran archers and such. I usually play with a militaristic civilization so that strategy comes to my advantage when I set out to conquer AI capitital cities. If there close I go for it if not fagedaboutit. My Empire quite small in the beginning but I plan my city placement for max shield and food production, buy technolgy from the AI, and produce a decent army to defend and fight the fatherland. By the Middle Ages I turn my hungry eyes to a nearby civilization that breathed the wrong way and "assimilate" them into my empire by any means and cost possible thus expanding by late game. I took control of a whole continental landmass of a huge map on monarch with a tank blitzcrieg from a small isolated and well defended pennisula similar to that of Florida. Being small and well defended in the beginning pays off in the end if you plan correctly.

[Cort Haus]

Peacemongers have to expand rapidly in the landgrab to race for what they won't be taking later (except by culture) - so settlers are a high priority.

With Egypt, a cheap, early temple between settler builds is a possibility, esp with favourable terrain (shielded grassland) which can be quickly developed with the industrious worker.

I balance this with spearmen to defend and warriors to explore, deal with barbs and bump the unit count to keep the AIs off my back. I check the F3 advisor regularly to see relative strengths.

The early culture pushes out your borders & allows profitable ROPs, reduces infiltration, improves the negotiating position, sets up culture bombing potential and can eliminate later flipping if warmongering.

After 4-5 cities I try to have a barracks city pumping out veteran defenders, and a wonder city is nice, but early wonders are tough on monarch and stunt growth.

I also try to buy workers from rivals to save crimping city growth - it's great to build roads out to distant sites, but every two workers costs a city.

[Papa Chubby]

My preferred strategy is to pump out settlers and spread like the plague. It can mean that somebody catches you unaware, but you can usually stop them pretty quickly and then gain some land back. Also I usually go after and get the Pyramids, so the cities I´m building ain´t that small.

[W4r_Machine]

On lower level, I go for the setler pump if the land is productive enough, if not, I just mine like there's no tommorow and pump out archers to go slave hunting while uncovering the fog of war.

At higher levels I'll take a much defensive approach since the AI will slap you arround into giving up your tech, map or cash(which ever comes first). I don't go exploring especially on prince cause if you have weak army the AI will go to war with you if you don't give them what they want, at least on my experience.(I figure, the less CIV I now, the less civ will bully me) I go for the pyramid in the capital while the rest of my city churn out archer or spearman.( I only have 4 or five city at this point) If I know I'm at par with the AI CIV I produce a few setlers so I can support more units.