04-01-2004 08:59									#1
	What to build at the beggining. Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Is it good to build like 2 workers, 1 scout, 2 settlers, 1 warrior, 2 spearman, barracks, and then one other random thing for your first ten things. Thats the order I normally use for my capital at the beginning.


And is it best to put your capital by a river, by an ocean, on a resource, or right beside a resource. I normally get my capital right by a river or a good resouce.

	04-01-2004 10:10									#2
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Somewhat dependant on the level and the position. If you have a scout you may not want another. You do not need a barracks or a spearman. Most common start sequence is warrior, warrior, settler. Use the first warrior to scout and the second for happiness.

In placing your first city do not move far. Never found one square away from the ocean. Use a scout or your worker to move first to reveal terrain and if you are going to move a square or two you should consider food. Food is the most important early resource.

	04-01-2004 11:10									#3
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I geneally build warriors and settlers

with the occasional worker if it looks like it would be advatagious

jon Miller

	04-01-2004 11:53									#4
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It is best to found next to a river, because that will allow your city to go to size 12 without an aqueduct. Rivers provide extra commerce to adjacent tiles and of course are a source of water for irrigation.

I basically agree with what JT said. You could consider a move to a granary for the city before the first settler, but after is viable as well.

Making workers first is best left for a very specific game and a very skilled player. Make two pump cities and use them to make workers.

	05-01-2004 00:04									#5
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Whenever you can, found on a hill. Hills make your city easier to defend, and all city squares produce the same resources. That said, avoid wasting a grassland shield or resource square on the city square.

	05-01-2004 03:36									#6
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I think using a hill for a capitol is again a special case, if you have to move to do it.
The defense bonus is rarely going to be needed for the capitol. It will not come under attack all that often. Later cities can benefit form the bonus, especially if close to another civ.

	05-01-2004 06:18									#7
	Increase the size of your Attachments

now, if that hill contained gold, then it'll definitely be worth it to move there since your city can take advantage of the extra commerce right away

	06-01-2004 15:11									#8
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Keep in mind that if you found on the only hill in your radius, you had better be sure there are other sources of shields around, as founding on any terrain will only give you a single shield for the city square. The only bonuses that are kept when founding a city on them are trade ones.

If you are going to build workers early on, then you will need to be sure that you can do something worthwhile with them, otherwise they are just potential barbarian fodder. Since food is regarded by many as King in the early game (including me!), using your starting worker and any new ones you build to get any wheat or floodplains in your radius irrigated is an excellent idea, as is using a worker(s) to clear a forest around to speed up the construction of a Granary. Gaining an extra food per turn for a city or two does not seem like much but it can have a profound effect.

A strategy expert known as Velociryx once wrote of 'turn advantage'. He wrote about it in relation to a different game, but the idea still applies. If you gain a slight turn advantage early on and KEEP it, that 1 extra food per city for a few turns ahead of your opponents can lead into an enormous benefit later on.

	07-01-2004 00:15									#9
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NEVER settle on Bonus Resources (unless it's just a commerce bonus) because you will lose any extra food/shields that that bonus would give.

That being said, once you get out of the REX phase, and on into later Ages, you can settle a city on a resource, but do it only to secure said resource, not to benefit your city.

Resources that only produce Commerce (OK to found a city upon):
Horses
Saltpeter
Rubber
Dyes
Incense
Spices
Ivory
Silks
Gems
Gold
Tobacco

As for an early-game build queue, check-out the Strat Forum.
Here's a good thread by Theseus (it's' actually in the General not Strat Forum.) And my new personal favorite early strategy by Ducki that is especially useful--if somewhat confusing)

Edit: added links /edit

Steven

Last edited by steven8r on 07-01-2004 at 00:35

	07-01-2004 05:45									#10
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All good suggestions, and I think you'll find the Winning Early... thread a useful tool.

More important for a great early game though, I think, is to focus on what you want to accomplish... and the one thing I can tell you is that no matter WHAT strategy you are pursuing, you want ROADS. Check out some the screen shots from the best of the AU games in the Strat forum, and you'll see that all of the best players road their early terrain like crazy.

Sorry for taking this a bit OT, but the thought jumped out at me.

	07-01-2004 06:14									#11
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Here is a rough build order for my Capital at the begining of the game.

1. City Defender, usually a Spearman if avalible
2. Warrior, to scout new city sites
3. Spearman, to protect my Settler
4. Settler
5. Worker, to improve my new city and Capital
6. Temple, keep my citizens happy
7. Granary, if near fresh water

At this point I look at the state of my world. Do I have a fresh water source at my capital? If so, I generally shoot for the Pyramids or at this point. If I do not have fresh water in my Capital I use it as a settler factory, alternating production between settlers and spearmen.

In my other cities I generally build as follows.

1. Worker
2. Temple
3. Barracks
4. Settler
5. Spearman

This gives me a solid base from which I can expand from. These lists are not set in stone, and often the most influential factors include fresh water, coast line, as well as how near I am to my enemy(ies).

The wonders that I generaly concentrate on are:

1. The Pyramids
2. Sun Tzu's Art of War
3. Adam Smith's Trading Company
4. The Sistine Chaple

Often I find that I am able to get one or two of these wonders. I recently played severaly games in which I was unable to get ANY wonders completed at all. These games are often the most difficult.

	07-01-2004 07:59									#12
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No insult intended, but I am hereby taking a new, general, warmongerish stance:

Spearman suck.



I might even put that in my signature.

	07-01-2004 08:23									#13
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spear first? zounds!!!!

depending of course on the terrain (and always if ag), I might go-worker-warrior (scout) warrior (garrison) grainary, settler. (fiddling with the WF until growth=unit build) (using lux slider if growth outpaces the first garrison build)

If expansionist, I always build a scout first. Otherwise you are wasting the trait, IMHO. Need to get the huts faster than the AI.

	07-01-2004 09:17									#14
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First to build a spear you need the tech. Second they cost too much and take to long to start with them. Warriors are just fine.

	07-01-2004 11:41									#15
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I build spears because they can be upgraded thru the eras, so therefore when I upgrade my units I have at least one modern defender in each city I build.

often i build a warrior then a spear, all depending on how many food and shields I have in my begining city.

and yes spearmen do suck, but not against horsemen. no barbs cutting into my treasury early game

	07-01-2004 12:25									#16
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When was the last time a barb came into your capitol? Typically it may be 4 or 5 turns at the start for a warrior and at least 7 turns for a spear. You just can't afford that at most levels. This is if you have the tech to even build spears on day 1.

If barbs are coming around, they are not going to attack a spear forted in the city. What they may do is pillage a road or a mine and the spear may or may not be able to stop them. I want an archer for that job until I can get a sword.

If you are getting them form huts, don't pop huts near a city until it has defenders with some attack value.

You are not going to see any horsemen for quite a while and they won't be coming to the capitol anyway. If they are you have a much bigger problem.

Combat is resolved by att value on def value, so an attack of 1 (spear) is not going to be very prosperous against many units on attack.

	07-01-2004 12:27									#17
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I build settlers and workers as fast as I can, but soon as I encounter another civ I start making spearmen also. This has worked well so far because the AI has never lauched a full scale attack on me right from the start.

	07-01-2004 13:42									#18
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MrMismatch - an interesting start there, with a Temple being built before a Granary. With 2 warriors you should manage to keep your people content in Despotism until size 4, and if you have a lux around getting that connected will give you until 5. After that if you put just 10% luxury rate on you will get another happy citizen - maybe two depending on the trade in that city. This should be enough to keep your city happy without a Temple until you build Aqueducts, unless you are next to a river and WANT your city to grow.

For the early going, I find I always build workers or settlers whenever the happiness becomes a problem so as to eliminate the need for a Temple until there is nowhere close left to settle. A Temple for me in the early goings is reserved for cities that will grow exclusively to build Wonders, ones that are where they can no longer aid the expansion of my civ and have enough workers, or where I need culture to take/consloidate some land.

I would like to hear why you go for the Temple instead of measures such as the ones I tend to default to.

	08-01-2004 22:52									#19
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first ,play with expans. civ.it gives you a scout.just built another scout.then depending on your diffucuty and your starting posion , for the first 4 level nothing important.yuo can built spearman or warrior.and a settler and barracs and another setller and a spearman and so on so on....
but if you play emperor or deity it is different.the first born is unhappy so you must built a warrior.and settler and oanother worrior and a worker.and you must build your cities very close to each other.and ther is no need to build a Temple at the beginning.it is waste of time and money.
if you have a horse close to you.after second settler begin with horseman.(take 15 turns)and another settler after that.and and and and....:

	09-01-2004 04:39									#20
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If you found a city on a luxury or startegic resource (spices, horses, rubber, dyes, etc...) does that provide the resource to your civilization as if a road or colony had been built to it?

I have not tested it under the impression that the resource would be lost, the commerce gain would remain but the rubber or dyes would go away and not count as a luxury/strategic resoucre for your empire. Is this wrong? Do you also gain the resource?

	09-01-2004 05:57									#21
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Yes, you get the resource, but will lose its shield, food, or gold benefit.

	09-01-2004 06:10									#22
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MrWhereItsAt - First of all I normaly play an industrious civ, genrally as The Ottomans or The Carthagenians. I am having a great success in my current game playing as Egypt. Most cities did in fact build temples, and I was able to build the Pyrimids, saving quite a bit of time.

I realize that when my city is small, the temple will not help. I am hoping that I can get a start location next to a river allowing me to by-pass an aquduct. I then use my few workers to improve the city, mining each cattle or wheat tile. After building at least a settler or two to concentrate on land-grabbing, i build a few a defenders to maintain happiness and begin work on the pyrimids. This stratagy is dependent on your start and immidate area because the two cities that have been founded act to raise a millitary and expand your empire.

Of course luxuries help to keep the citizens happy, but at times I have had many cities cease to grow, due to happiness concerns. At that point I begin to stock long term defenders in each city, adding offensive troops as are needed.