Opening moves

[Pastorius]

Montezuma attacks you with 5 chariots and 2 warriors every time on emperor?

If your observations hold Kemal, then is it more logical to go for a religion by force (capturing a holy city)? Like letting the AI build wonders for you was a reasonable strategy in civIII.

Summary of observations so far seem to indicate:

-grow a bit before either settler or worker
-worker first, rather than settler
-defense!
-combat uhappiness
-trading, if any, requires heavy effort

[Kingreno]

I am curious how people who build a worker first use that worker? You need (as said by others) the right techs like aggriculture, animal domestication, hunting and the wheel IMO. It makes no sence to irrigate your single floodplain and then not being able to do anything with your worker but wait.
Has anyone tried going for an early worker to get some forrest down with it? That would mean a very cheap and quick setler or is that not possible?

[Mistfit]

You need bronze working to be able to chop forests so an ultra early chop is not feasible. I do however like using chops for my 2nd and later settlers to lessen the time my city is not growing

[Kemal]

I usually go for animal husbandry or agriculture first depending on start, if not starting with a spiritual civ. I also build warriors/scouts first until the city grows in size a bit. The evil part is that defense is via an economicaly useless part of the tech tree early on, where almost any other option would benefit the growth of the empire. Again, strategic choices and finding the perfect balance are what seems to be the key to power.

@Paal: , well sometimes it can be 6 chariots and 1 warrior too...

[Mistfit]

I have found that I have to really consentrate on producing Mil. Units. I try to have at least one being built in my empire at all times. Otherwise it seems as if I will get clobbered by an envious neighbor

[akots]

Indeed, these are completely different games. What I was trying to understand is the mechanics of city growth and limiting factors as well as optimal sequence of build to get the things going in the beginning. A Pangea Emperor game with barbarians on everything random is sometimes brutal even in Civ3. Although I would beleive it is possible to win 95% of the time. On Demigod or Deity that might be less likely in Civ3. No wonder it plays extremely uncomfortably. IMHO, trying it one step at a time might help. Kemal is playing the game for a long time, is much better at that game than probably any other player and has a strong analytical approach and still is having major problems just surviving only on Emperor. Most others are playing for a week or may be two.

Well, barbarians and diplomacy are two very tricky factors both poorly understood. It does not seem that barbarian behavior is somehow organized, not C3C with noaipatrol certainly. They seem to actively appear out of nowhere and very early and seek targets rather rationally. IMHO, Sid level game of Civ3 is not playable with barbarians unless it is a very specific map. I'd say higher difficulty in civ4 is also unplayable with barbarians.

Regarding trading with AI there are still no good articles except those which describe various bugs. It seems that AI will always trade open borders with you regardless of difficulty. It might be that having open borders really might discourage AI against early attack. It also seems that AI will never trade a monopoly tech to a human. Sometimes, not only a monopoly but some strategically important techs like Gunpowder or Nationhood are not tradeable. Resource trading is somewhat more flexible imho but it all depends on the situation. All these points should certainly be taken with .

Now the question of what to do with the worker. Must say it all depends on map size and the price of researching Alphabet. I've tried it on Small map and I can beat 3 Deity AI to Alphabet 100% of the time on Archipelago map with barbarians. This basically allows you to catch up, may be stay a level behind. The techs tree is very branched, so little problem with chosing something which AI might consider low priority. It also seems that for Alpha race or gambit, starting techs better be prerequisite for Pottery/Writing. Alpha gambit will not certainly work on a large map or probably even on Standard map it can fail, have not tried that. But most critical improvements like pasture/farm on cow or farm on wheat/rice/corn still can be built as well as camp on ivory or mine on gems. The only second level tech required to build these improvements is Animal Husbandry which is not that expensive and apparently can be researched without substantial delay of alphabet discover.

Also, don't forget that Palace gives 8 gold and aiming at other gold-making improvements early is nice bot usually not critical imho. Might be you will be able to make 10 gold, it is only 20% increase. Forest is a versatile terrain and chopping it down requires bronze working which better be researched later in most cases. But it all of course depends on situation in the game. Besides, chopping forest can be dangerous because it deteriorates health around the city. Also, on grassland it is quite good to build a cottage but on plains cottages are rather useless and farms are useless as well. Plains is not a good terrain imho. Hills/grassland combo with good chunk of forest is apparently optimal terrain combination. Plains can be adequately improved only much later in the game. It is a game killer imho.

[ERIKK]

quote:Originally posted by Kingreno

I am curious how people who build a worker first use that worker? You need (as said by others) the right techs like aggriculture, animal domestication, hunting and the wheel IMO. It makes no sence to irrigate your single floodplain and then not being able to do anything with your worker but wait.
Has anyone tried going for an early worker to get some forrest down with it? That would mean a very cheap and quick setler or is that not possible?

I did that and it worked. I got BW out of a goody hut. I chopped like 10 woods (I build Stonehenge first for culture expansion).

I build a worker, Stonehenge, settler, settler, settler, settler with the capitol. At the fifth city I suddenly had unhappy people in my 3th city which was near jungles. I could not explain why they were unhappy and other cities werent.

The worker: chopped woord, hooked up health, chopped like 10 woods (it was a woody area) and then roaded the area.

This tactic worked very well, I expanded faster then the AI.

[killercane]

With only 10 or so games under my belt, my opinion is worker at size 2 is often the best bet. The terrain improvements the guy can make are simply very powerful and boost growth considerably. I am finding it difficult to give up the old habit of roading every tile, but Im working on that addiction.

Ive seen a lot of people say that exploration is much more important in Civ 4, to find city sites and such, but my thinking is exactly the opposite. I would rather explore the immediate surroundings (perhaps grabbing a goody hut in the process) and return that warrior/scout back home. The AI will meet you anyway, and the barbs are horribly tough. Can anyone make an argument for exploration above Prince?

Ive never had animals wander into my cultural boundary, and Im under the impression that they cannot. Is this true?

[Pastorius]

Never had animals in my cultural boundry/territory-thingie either.

[Tubby Rower]

I've been getting a farming or animal husbandry then running for Alpha fore tech trading. But this only works if you have more than one or two contacts. By the time that you know if you are relatively alone or not, you haven't dedicated too much towards Alpha. After you get Alpha (again assuming you have > 2 contacts), broker the techs around and you'll stay at the top of the tech race. Just make sure that you don't trade Alpha until a good bit later. This does increase the speed of the tech pace but I see that as a good thing.

And btw, animals shy away from cities. Only barb people come and attack your cities.