Strategy Discussion - Opening Moves

[Swiss Pauli]

The game's down til Tuesday, and it's still a bit too early for extensive dotmapping, but our immediate lands seems good for half a dozen decent cities:



What do we think for city 2? The coastal site for cows, clams, and a floodplain still seems to be the obvious choice to me. I think it will connect with the capital on its border pop, but I'm not 100% on this.

[mostly-harmless]

Yes, it will connect to the capital for +1gpt each. Probably from the border pop of the capital, though.

However, I would like to see the land to our south.
As Sullla said, if there is contested land there we should grab that asap. Since we are not dealing with an AI here, I guess the risk of other teams filling our backyard is small.

mh

[sooooo]

OK boys and girls, the time has come to choose a new technology to research! Our options are:



Oh, actually I've just thought that it would be nice to know if we have horses before we choose. I'll let you know that next turn.

[mostly-harmless]

Well, our worker can pasture the cows and then mine the unforested plains hill in the SE. That takes what? 8-9 turns altogether?
So by then we should make sure we have another worker tech available. If the horses are in the BFC that buys us another few turns. But we might want to know The Wheel for connecting them up, if they are not on the river.
Chariots for quick and secure scouting?
Hmmm....
BW straight away, to chop the settler?
Going for Writing straight away, for an early Lib and the chance for the GLib?
Archery to be on the safe side and have something meaningful to build in the capital while growing?

HMMM.....

At the moment I tend towards Archery and then depending on the availability of horses, either The Wheel or BW. But I am happy to be convinced by better arguments.

mh

[darrelljs]

At Prince, I would go Bronze Working next whether we have Horse or not.

Darrell

[sunrise089]

Originally posted by darrelljs
At Prince, I would go Bronze Working next whether we have Horse or not.

Darrell

[Sullla]

Bronze Working is the incredibly cliched move in this situation.

I also think it's the best option.

[Zeviz]

If we have horses that require a road, I'd vote for The Wheel. (Chariots make exellent scouts and barbarian defense, and should look intimidating to opponents.)

Otherwise, BW.

PS Next build at the capital should obviously be a Warrior.

[mostly-harmless]

Turn 26 will be a nice one, as we finally get BW, we pop our third ring and get closer to yellow civ.

What are the plans for research?
Agriculture->Pottery for cottages?
Beelining Writing to get a library up and running and get Mathematics asap, to make use of the abundant forests?

Or should we mess around in the religious branch of the tree. Is the Stele (our UB) worth building?

mh

[sunrise089]

I'm tempted to say we wait to see if we have copper accessible, and if not head to Iron Working.

[sooooo]

OK guys, what's our general plan? Where are we going to settle, how many warriors should we build before the settler, where should we sent our warriors?

[Sullla]

I will continue to make the case for the southern spot, as seen in this picture:



Yes, using a Sirian-esque Pink Dot for good luck. It's the best location I see anywhere within reasonable distance. Two food resources, lots of hills for production, on a plains hill for defense, and mostly seals off the southern area for our later settlement. (I sketched in the level 3 borders in yellow to demonstrate.) The white dots are some doodles that could possibly become cities much later on, if the Templars decide not to contest our control of this region. It's a bold move, but where else are we going to go? Much of our surroundings are desert and plains tiles. If we just retreat back into our starting penninsula, we're giving up on the game before it even begins.

I would move our two current warriors down into this southern region, and use the one in production, our third, to guard the capital. We can discuss what to build in the second city when/if we found it, but should we get the pink spot, I would consider opening with worker -> barracks -> military pump, focusing on commerce at the capital and shields at the second city. That usually seems to be a good combo in Civ4...

Obviously open for team discussion on this.

[Zeviz]

I agree with this plan. My only suggestion is to send the warriors to the city site as late as possible, to avoid giving away our intentions until the facts are on the ground.

[mostly-harmless]

I agree with pink dot.
The two warriors should guard fog busting waypoints for the settler to reach the site undisturbed. It will take the settler 6 turns to found the city.
Question: Is it really advisable to stun city growth at pink dot with going worker first there?
Would it not be more efficient to build/chop a second worker at the capital?

mh