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Small Is Beautiful Strat
Things are kind of dull around here. So, I thought you would be interested in what I did on my summer vacation. While staring at the Atlantic and the storm clouds scudding across it, I mixed explaining to my wife why this was fun with developing a simplifying Civ III start idea. I wouldn't call it new, but it does speak to the mindset of someone who plays the game a lot.
In short, I tested the idea that on higher difficulty levels a block of 9 cities -- the capital and a city three squares away at all 8 major directions forming a rectangle -- is all you need to win most every time. This ideal pattern never survives contact with a real map, but you get the principal.
This strat was tested on a standard map, pangea or large continents -- plenty of land. If the AI is close, even fewer cities can be built.
You are looking for three squares per city that are productive. Actually, two good ones will do. So, don't avoid that jungle. Just plan to have a couple of squares outside the jungle in the 9 square city and put the city itself on a jungle square.
There is usually a lot of buildable land left free all around my civ, which is typically Egypt. Barracks get built as they can be fit in the schedule without slowing down the arrival of the settlers materially. Nothing but barracks, settlers, workers, & units are usually built in the early game. Workers are built in quantity sufficient to keep just AHEAD of the cities.
On occasions when there is neither iron nor horses in the nine city rectangle, the eighth or ninth city may have to wander off the block a bit. Surprisingly, getting neither is rather unusual.
This scheme forms nine-tile cities. A nine-tile city with good tiles fully developed is more than enough to build units rapidly, at least up to knights, and even at that point it's usually ok. With a small civ, they don't have far to go to get to the battlefield.
The key to the strat is AI behavior. They will focus on settlers/spearmen as long as they can expand. They will be buzzing around to your rear using galleys and crossing your land to get to open spaces. Takes them forever and their cities must be completely corrupt. In short, they come to you in a radically overextended manner.
A very high percentage of the time, you will be able to build a veteran army of horses or swords and deliver it to a virtually unprotected battlefield. I like the early Egyptian UU for cheapness and speed best, but it works for all civs and is a gruesome with Persia or Iroquois, given the right resources. This actually also usually works with a vet archer rush.
(In the later game, I build the FP in an efficient city near the capital while building settlers/workers in the capital. I then abandon the capital. The "hole" created allows all the remaining core cities to get truly large and this also permits a palace jump to a river city that has been taken from an AI civ. That city's pop has been built out of the capital's settlers/workers. So, FP is available efficiently without a leader.)
In summary, give the AI plenty of room to expand and they will fail to focus enough on their military. Don't worry about the land grab yourself. Instead, focus on fully developing a smallish space into an ancient era unit factory. Don't get distracted by lux or unneeded strategic resources. It's all going to be yours soon.
The critical unit in this strat that really makes things rock and is much more important than the UU is the INDUSTRIOUS WORKER. From generating those shields to building roads to the neighboring civs to deliver your attackers, the industrious workers grind out an early lead for your civ with a very high batting average. Keeping the civ compact and simultaneously having workers who are twice as fast produces great results.
I usually research the bottom line toward Monarchy at one science. There is no big hurry to get the wheel or iron working while you are building settlers, barracks, and some spears/archers. Buy tech cheap to make nice with your neighbors. The bottom line direction lets you trade later for tons of tech, particularly writing. Writing will enable embassies and they make you safe from double-teaming by the AI. Writing is often the timeline trigger for your first war.
So, next time you see the neighbors expanding all over the map taking ground you would like to have and frustrating your gameplan, just thank them for the free settlers services and focus on tooling up the homeland unit factory. Simplify your start. A small ancient era civ is a beautiful thing. The AI will give you the cities you need for later fun and games soon enough.
Things are kind of dull around here. So, I thought you would be interested in what I did on my summer vacation. While staring at the Atlantic and the storm clouds scudding across it, I mixed explaining to my wife why this was fun with developing a simplifying Civ III start idea. I wouldn't call it new, but it does speak to the mindset of someone who plays the game a lot.
In short, I tested the idea that on higher difficulty levels a block of 9 cities -- the capital and a city three squares away at all 8 major directions forming a rectangle -- is all you need to win most every time. This ideal pattern never survives contact with a real map, but you get the principal.
This strat was tested on a standard map, pangea or large continents -- plenty of land. If the AI is close, even fewer cities can be built.
You are looking for three squares per city that are productive. Actually, two good ones will do. So, don't avoid that jungle. Just plan to have a couple of squares outside the jungle in the 9 square city and put the city itself on a jungle square.
There is usually a lot of buildable land left free all around my civ, which is typically Egypt. Barracks get built as they can be fit in the schedule without slowing down the arrival of the settlers materially. Nothing but barracks, settlers, workers, & units are usually built in the early game. Workers are built in quantity sufficient to keep just AHEAD of the cities.
On occasions when there is neither iron nor horses in the nine city rectangle, the eighth or ninth city may have to wander off the block a bit. Surprisingly, getting neither is rather unusual.
This scheme forms nine-tile cities. A nine-tile city with good tiles fully developed is more than enough to build units rapidly, at least up to knights, and even at that point it's usually ok. With a small civ, they don't have far to go to get to the battlefield.
The key to the strat is AI behavior. They will focus on settlers/spearmen as long as they can expand. They will be buzzing around to your rear using galleys and crossing your land to get to open spaces. Takes them forever and their cities must be completely corrupt. In short, they come to you in a radically overextended manner.
A very high percentage of the time, you will be able to build a veteran army of horses or swords and deliver it to a virtually unprotected battlefield. I like the early Egyptian UU for cheapness and speed best, but it works for all civs and is a gruesome with Persia or Iroquois, given the right resources. This actually also usually works with a vet archer rush.
(In the later game, I build the FP in an efficient city near the capital while building settlers/workers in the capital. I then abandon the capital. The "hole" created allows all the remaining core cities to get truly large and this also permits a palace jump to a river city that has been taken from an AI civ. That city's pop has been built out of the capital's settlers/workers. So, FP is available efficiently without a leader.)
In summary, give the AI plenty of room to expand and they will fail to focus enough on their military. Don't worry about the land grab yourself. Instead, focus on fully developing a smallish space into an ancient era unit factory. Don't get distracted by lux or unneeded strategic resources. It's all going to be yours soon.
The critical unit in this strat that really makes things rock and is much more important than the UU is the INDUSTRIOUS WORKER. From generating those shields to building roads to the neighboring civs to deliver your attackers, the industrious workers grind out an early lead for your civ with a very high batting average. Keeping the civ compact and simultaneously having workers who are twice as fast produces great results.
I usually research the bottom line toward Monarchy at one science. There is no big hurry to get the wheel or iron working while you are building settlers, barracks, and some spears/archers. Buy tech cheap to make nice with your neighbors. The bottom line direction lets you trade later for tons of tech, particularly writing. Writing will enable embassies and they make you safe from double-teaming by the AI. Writing is often the timeline trigger for your first war.
So, next time you see the neighbors expanding all over the map taking ground you would like to have and frustrating your gameplan, just thank them for the free settlers services and focus on tooling up the homeland unit factory. Simplify your start. A small ancient era civ is a beautiful thing. The AI will give you the cities you need for later fun and games soon enough.
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