Qin it is (Chinese)

[Kataphraktoi]

Ok, early religions are great. Still bronze working is better imho

[PJayTycy]

We are on continents, and religions don't spread across the sea by themselves.

In our first city, we'll probably build a second warrior first, to let the city grow for a while, and start a worker when the city hits size 2... Once the worker is finished, we can have him chop down a forest to hurry *something* in the city. We can hurry a settler immediately, or hurry something else... So, how long does it take for a city to grow to size 2 and build a worker afterwards? If that's time enough to research 2 things, we can research something else first, if not, I too think we should go for bronze working immediately.

[-SafaN-]

what i like about civ 4 is that a starting location has much influence on the strategy. If we have stone in our fat cross, or if we have 2 gold makes a whole lot of difference ...

i don't think we can really make a strategy before we have seen it.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by -SafaN-
i don't think we can really make a strategy before we have seen it.

Indeed. But we can write up starting strategies on a "what if" base. Then at least we have a blueprint that doesn't need to be discussed from the start according to what we see.

[binTravkin]

We should have 2-3 viable and preferred starting strategies discussed before we see what we've got for starting location.

As I already said, we could use our mining tech to get bronze and choprush something ASAP.
Regarding religions - there are 2 early religion branches and 4 later-on-the-tree religions.
Can't we pick up one of the later ones as a part or little sidestep of some b-line to crucial wonder (as wonders should be our priority given our x2 wonder build rate)?

[Senethro]

I'm going to plug again my Oracle --> metal casting suggestion. An early forge would also let us start accumulating Great Engineer points.

[GeoModder]

Oracle is feasable if we can hook up marble fast. An early forge also means a good shot at the Colossus (if we have a long shoreline).

[Senethro]

4 gold per sea tile on a continent map. The trick would be to enable sea trade routes fast as well...

[N35t0r]

And get the GL

Seriously, with a lot of coastal cities that wonder rocks.

[Lacero]

ok so the basic overall plan is:
* research a wonder
* chop rush it

I'd add:
* spam cottages when we run out of forests
this way we use our two traits and starting techs to the maximum.


That seems simple enough, I think our best bets for wonder building given different starting locations are:

Coast:
Rush for Oracle (maybe we'll get lucky and grab a religion too). Build it while researching bronze working, and then build the colossus. Research fishing while building it so it's useful, then go for pottery to get cottages.
Variants: If we have marble we could get masonry before priesthood to speed up the oracle.

Stone:
Get masonry immediately, set up the quarry, research bronze working and meditation to chop rush stone henge. Then concentrate on getting monotheism so we can use our coming prophet to slingshot to theology (or code of laws?). Normal development otherwise, although we have many options with stone.

Bonus fun option: Get pyramids, go police state, and BURNINATE everyone! We will need a lot of cottages to pay the upkeep on police state.

Nothing:
Bronze working immediately to chop rush settlers and war units, then research to oracle and chop rush that to get code of laws. After hunting / archery get pottery then expand like crazy using financial and cottages to pay for it all.

Are they reasonable options?
I haven't gone into too much detail, we'd need archery fairly early or we'll be crushed. I'm glad no one took the inca at least

[PJayTycy]

So, if we have the right resources, our wonders will be built at 300% speed. Now, anybody know which hammers are included in the value *before* the x3 ? More explicit: are forest-chop hammers multiplied by 3 too or not ?

[Lacero]

not 300%

+100% for resouce and +50% for industrious is +150%.
So if we'd make 1 hammer normally we'll make 2.5 hammers with our bonuses. Forest chops are multiplied by this value.

[PJayTycy]

sorry, it's 250% then... (I thought our bonus gave +100%)

Good to know forest chops are multiplied

[Lacero]

I always think of it as 50% build cost too, I had to look it up on google to check and found it was +50% hammers :O

[binTravkin]

Are they reasonable options?

You've set a very good tendency - deciding in steps
Now, let's get a bit more organised.
Here's two things to discuss right at the moment, we will touch the others after that:

1.It is most possible that we won't know what our location have (coast, stone, marble, anything) at the first turns, therefore we must develop a strategy for first 1-2 techs and first 10-15 turns which works well in any or most cases.
In short: please propose a starting gambit.

Example (my opinion):
The choprush is first what comes to mind for me and it can be a start of a couple later strategies, right?


2.We should develop a list of possible standard starting conditions as Pjay had already noted:
- has stone (close enough to be used early)
- has marble (same here)
- has coast in reasonable amount
- has river
- has flood plains

Please propose more starting conditions which could and/or would alleviate our starting strategy (gold does not fit here, it boosts most strategies to a similar extent).

And please do bear in mind we are aiming for wonders and cottages as those are our primary strenghts.

Awaiting your input.