my opening strategy for a starting position with 7+ green food rich tiles (plains, grassland), at least 6 of which are plains, and 3+ forests:
research pottery, the wheel, warrior code, horseback riding, 0/4/400 horsemen, bronze working, 18/6/150 horsemen, 0/12/150 defensive unit.
build 1 militia by making food surplus 3, production 4 first turn, followed by 2 turns of food surplus 2, production 5. you complete your militia the turn when you research pottery. then set production to granary and set food surplus to 0 production 6 for 4 turns and switch to food surplus 4 production 4 when you get 28 material for your granary. this is right before you discover the wheel. it is important that you use forests before the wheel since forests remain forests but plains that you build road on gains trade production after you discover the wheel. you will finish your granary with no production spillage at food 39. then maximize food until you get to population 7, when you may want to use an non-irrigated plains for 2 turns or forest for 1 turn.
meanwhile, build either 2 town guards and scouting horsemen, or 1 town guard, militia and scouting horsemen, if you choose the latter, then use luxury to keep your 7th citizen happy. It is more than worth it. after building your scouts, build settlers and 1 bronze age horsemen to guard your capital and 1 defender to guard your new city. you need to kill possible pillagers that come near your capital, but your new cities only need a defender. use your second settler to build one irrigation for your new city and add it to your new city. make sure your new city maximizes production. build military and at some point barracks in your new city, while your capital continues to churn out settlers. once your new cities appear, build aqueduct and switch to monarchy.
you don't want to build too many new cities before building aqueduct in your capital and passing the job of settler building to your other cities. building 4 settlers with your capital is a good limit.
tech trading is very important in this game because one traded tech will decrease the cost of all further techs. don't get too advanced or too backward. instead of going for massive tech leads, which is no longer a viable strategy, build up military or new cities to expand your empire.
Posted 13-Feb-08 02:06 by worlddomination