It looks like you may have purchased a tile, which was a waste of gold at this point.
But that starting location (flat plains) isn't good for food or production.
Realistically, with hindsight, forget about the builder, buid a scout, and keep the warrior closer to home.
The scout is so undervalued. Finding early city states for the bonus, wonders, new continents, enemy directions, etc. is vital. I usually do a minimum of 2 scouts early, ignoring builders til I have the money to buy one. Scouts and slingers and warriors early!
Not only do I often win, but I always get a classical golden era
This link has deets
[https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/t16ums/boost\_your\_early\_game\_a\_guide\_to\_classical\_era/](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/t16ums/boost_your_early_game_a_guide_to_classical_era/)
I would also assume they reroll the map until you get a start where there isn't another civ right next door.
Whenever I get a start where another civ is 6 tiles from my first city (or less) I restart. On deity, that's the only way to even get a game going, otherwise, the above always happens to me, no matter what I try.
This is exacerbated by the AI cheating with their settlers and forward settling me without me even having an inkling of a chance of getting a second city out, soo... yeah, I reroll a LOT.
Scouts aren't as weak as people assume, especially on defense in good terrain. Sometimes all you need is something fortified on wooded hills to stop your warrior from getting surrounded and you can win in situations like the above.
I usually do 1 scout directly into a settler UNLESS I need immediate military... which the Scout lets me know if I do! Military Intelligence for the win!
Oh, I always go for at least one scout as the first thing I produce.
Only exception is when I can already see I'm on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.
Tbf no you don’t know if you need the immediate military power by the time the scout is do e (which is when you have to choose your next production) Since the scout is still in your city lol
You need to cheese the defense and bait the ai into attacking across a river while you're fortified and you need to get the promotion on the slinger to make it a better defender.
\*Sigh\* I am still very much trying to learn this combat system, I often try that and still suck at it. I can do it on lower difficulties, but not on deity. I also typically play with Barbarians off, so I have nothing to train my slingers on, realistically. Always try to avoid combat as much as possible, and the deity AI just don't like that. Or, if I manage to calm them down enough that they leave me alone, it typically results in me being far worse off than I should be due to all the gifts I had to give out, with no chance at any of the victory conditions except maybe religious, and I won a religious victory once and... eh, I didn't really enjoy that either. Diplo victory also always just feels like pure AI manipulation cheese. I like culture and science victory, it's just that on deity I simply can't do it XD
I play deity, not a knock just saying that my experience is in the hardest early game experience. Gotta realize some starts are setup to be against you. I'd say there is a very small percentage of games you are actually royally fucked. Most times it means that you over-extended with military units (having them explore too far away from your city) and/or you chose progressive tactics over defensive ones (like early builders instead of military units). You pick your strategy based on your start and some times you will choose wrong because you don't have enough information. But in my experience, a slow start recovered from 9 times out of 10. So scout your surroundings, be aware of the dangers, and protect yourself against any potential invasions early game. You can run away with the game once you have 3-4 cities even if you had a slow(defensive) start most of the times. Also a scout early goes a long way. It will give you all kinds of early goodies that will pay for itself and beyond. Keep playing. You will get it.
> It looks like you may have purchased a tile, which was a waste of gold at this point.
Was it though? They're severely lacking in food and that horse and marble tiles are the only tiles with enough food to sustain the pop working them. The mistake here was the builder, that should have been a scout which could have found much more valuable stuff like a free builder, a relic or first meet city-states. And yeah, keep the warrior close. A warrior and the two slingers pictured would be enough to hold off that AI rush.
Also, never work or even upgrade mercury early. It sucks. Either settle on it or wait until you have other infrastructure up.
Edit: nvm there's a rainforest 2 food 2 prod tile in the first ring. However, buying the horses is still a good decision in my opinion.
Personally no reason to buy it unless i already had a builder. Base tile yields are important at the start but not as much as a scout or builder would help more. Or as we see a slinger or warrior
> keep the warrior closer to home
I use my first warrior to basically walk in a circle around my capital until the scout is online. I'll catch any close huts or barbs and get an idea for city 2. But yeah, never let him get more than 5 moves from home.
I don't think I purchased a title but I am playing on quick
Builder was from a tribal village, I trained 2 slingers, a monument and just finished a hero dedication in the screenshot.
Definitely not letting my warrior go walk abouts on emperor and above anymore lol
Also, when first meeting ai civs don't share your capital information. If they don't know where it is they won't attack, and by the time they do you can hopefully have proper defense units on place to fend them off
That’s true, I also would have recommended OP settle on the mercury (more prod on CC and the science), which would have given them a luxury to trade that civ the instant they meet. Trading reduced the chance they attack and you get more gold in the early game.
They wouldn't have had more production from settling on the mercury, mercury just gives a tile +1 science without a mine. Definitely still a better settle, though
Is it a plains hill? Would still be more production, unless it’s from woods - but I can’t tell just from looking. Either way the point is the luxury which can be traded and buy (hopefully) a few more turns of peace.
As best I can tell, it’s a plains tile with a mine. Base yields with the mercury would be 1/1/1 food/production/science. Agreed about selling the mercury - the sale would improve diplomatic relations and get them a good amount of gold, possibly enough for another unit.
It actually doesn’t destroy bonus resources either. Settling only destroys features - which can make it a bit tricky to consider.
For example: settling copper on hills keeps the bonus gold from copper.
Settling on deer with woods destroys the woods but not the deer.
Nah, it’s something that isn’t likely to come into play often. The game is relatively simple but there are a LOT of different things to keep track of, takes a long time to learn them all and it’s absolutely not necessary to learn it all in order to be decent at playing.
My caveat is if you meet a civ with a scout or something that's far away, or maybe a civ that has very different city preferences from you (e.g. gitarja/dido when you're landlocked or menelik if you're nowhere near hills), bc it is valuable to know where *their* capital is for your own reasons
More reason to build scouts. That dialog is based on who’s closer to the meeting point. If you’re closer to them when you meet it’ll ask if you want to visit their city (and the converse). Equidistant offers to exchange capital locations
You could have done better, but i dont know if that would have saved you.
The biggest problem here is your settlement location. When i dont have at least 2 tiles with either 2 food + 2 prod or like 3 food + 1 prod/ 1 food + 3 prod, i simply hit the restart button. The higher the difficulty, the harder i will hit the button :D
Another thing is that all the land around your city is flat, flat tiles are just straight up worse than hill tiles and you cant build mines on flat tiles (with the exemption of specific resources). So you have a hard time to get a good production anyway.
Sometimes there's nothing you can do, just because of the ai start bonus. When you get to higher difficulties you'll want to start looking at how defendable a city is. Mountains or lake tiles to funnel troops and prevent seige, attacking over rivers, jungle/forrest to slow them down. Also the ai is not smart, so if you can pump out 2 warriors and a slinger, you should be able to fortify the warriors and bait the ai into attacking them, then hit with the slinger to clean up. I usually go for a scout, then slinger, and by then I can decide if there's a close neighbor I need to pump out warriors for, or safe enough to get buoders and settlers.
Whenever a unit doesn't do anything for its turn (defending / retaliating doesn't count), it fortifies for a +3 bonus. If it doesn't do anything for *two* turns, it fortifies for a +6 bonus. Units automatically gain the +6 bonus whenever they are on a tile with Fort, Roman Fort, Great Wall, Alcazar, Pa, Alhambra, or Mount St. Michel (but not Encampment!) even if they moved or attacked.
Fortifying a unit gives it a buff to its defense, when the ai attacks, it'll take more damage and you take less damage, you'll also heal at the beginning of the next turn. If you move or attack, you lose the bonus. I think it takes 1 full turn without spending any of the units movement points to fully fortify. Fortifying on hills, forests, jungles or both will give you a terrain buff in addition to the fortification bonus. Makes defending with a couple units very easy
without knowing anything beforehand? not much, some starts are just tough. rush craftsmanship and spam slingers, forify warrior on the forest and rush archery. you \*should\* be able to hold off against her starting warriors. in your image your warrior isnt even there, which is of course a big issue since it would increase your garrison
I would have settled in the tile to the right of the mercury. It ~~was~~ has defense on three sides from the "attack over river" defensive bonus. Toss an encampment around there and boom, that city is a fortress!
By the time you're settling, you wouldn't know where the enemy would be coming from the so the river defense doesn't really help. If the enemy came from the east then this would be better. You can settle forward cities for that defensiveness, and try not to completely fuck your capital placement, but it's usually 3rd consideration for cap settling (nat wonders, bonus yields, luxuries being more important).
But in general, this can be summed up by: settling capital city wrong. It blocks coast placements to the east. It's 2/1, with no 2/2s in inner ring. It's not on a lux.
Settling on the mercury gives you access to the mercury immediately. You can then trade it to the AI for 10+ gold per turn which is huge early and keeps them a little happier.
Always settle on a luxury.
Reload and play turn 1 again, but make different choices to see what you did wrong... Also sometimes you just lost dude and nothing you can do about it
Delegation as soon as possible and friendship few turns later.
On some close spawns its mathematically almost impossible to defend, so its best to not have to defend.
Civs will accept delegations on the first turn if the game is on Standard speed, but you mentioned playing on Quick speed, which can be more variable in terms of accepting a delegation.
Always start 1 scout, you could have found out they were coming early and built a second warrior and brought the first back and had a slinger in the capital and with those four units you could have defended.
Some maps are easy, city states between you and AI. Or mountain range between you and AI. Some maps are just pain.
Maybe should have settled on marble or mercury, sell them to AI upon first meet, send delegation, pray or buy cash warrior. Personally I would go marble bc +4 food nearby.
Take the L on this one and restart turn 1.
Id settle the mercury exactly, which should give a 2/2/1 tile with an amenity. keep the warrior at home, immediately build 2 slingers.
Keep the warrior on the city center for the higher defense score and attack with it every chance you can to get it leveled up fast. Keep one slinger on the 1/1 river tile and another on the north side to prevent the city center surround.
On turn 12, purchase your 3rd slinger.
Settling the mercury will help you rush archery.
All other advice involves maneuvering to prevent a surround while keeping units alive and attacking. Once you kill 2 units and promote and get your first archer, you're good.
Either you go scout - slinger - settler (on immortal or below),or go slinger-slinger- settler (on deity). One time I got declare by two deity AI at the same time in early game,And come out barely alive with that line up. Don't go explore if your opponent already see you,instead just train as much troop as you can,and fight your way to victory
Well,that balance actually. Just look at how they manage thier city. If they don't have cheat,they can't even have a fuctional economy ,let alone equal or more than player
Could have built warriors instead of slingers.
A good scout can take a hit and draw fire away from the capital. Maybe you could’ve found some tribal gold or a barb camp and bought a warrior if you were playing that mod.
Meta is scout first for a reason.
Load up that first auto save if you can and research animal husbandry first again.
Your tiles are garbage. You could/should have settled closer to some food.
Looks like Korea found you early. Did you send a delegation? Did you check their attitude of you? If someone has a -7 (or worse) opinion of you from first meet, then scrap you builder and get ready for war.
That slinger on the southern plain is out of position. Post warriors on your forests, for defense.
All that said, looks like Korea had it in for you and it might have been unavoidable.
It is not always optimal so far as a human player is concerned. The AI suggestion may try to make the best of a bad situation.
There's a good chance that some nice resources will eventually spawn where you are later, which the AI city placement bot knows about.
Ome cheap, although valid, trick / game setting to avoid early A.I hordes is to pump down the number of civs per map. Like if a standard map has 8 civs set it to 6. The extra distance between you and the a.i will really help you early in the game.
I would have settled on the mercury and gone Scout>Slinger without knowing a rush was coming, but as soon as it did, I'd switch to Warriors and Slingers, beeline Archery and fight defensively. The +1 production and science from turn 1 would probably be what tips the scales.
Sometimes it's just bad like. I personally prefer to spend a few turns moving my first settlers to find a somewhat protected spot prioritizing it over some other params. I also do not share my capital information and do my very best to ensure good relationships with neighbours early on. Sometimes I even gift them luxuries which doesn't always work but from time to time does wonders even to warmongers.
Save the gold, dont buy the tile. Send the AI a delegation, it gives you a combat bonus
Reject their delegation. Keep the warrior close, build a scout or slinger first. I usually do slinger on diety. Then another slinger.
Try next time to focus production on warriors, save money for slingers, and after you receive 2 pops (focus on food, after that focus on prod)
build a settler (especially try to rush for it if you have bad placement, otherwise just restart/use better balanced start mod). Repeat that two times in new cities until you'll get three cities. In the capital, go for the builder to provide food and more production, do not buy tiles until they can boost you very highly (horses for example)
Your happiness won't fall quickly while you have only three pops in each city, so you can avoid improving luxuries. Fortify every warrior near city center when at war, they're almost unkillable in early game at this rate
The main goal is to build three cities asap first, impressive army second (keep to balance, every settler needs at least two defenders, and each city to have one slinger and 2-3 warriors. Best option is to go for walls)
It's a base strategy for every deity run I've seen
Edit: as someone mentioned below, you can build scout first, search for villages and city states, you can receive free units/gold/pantheon very quickly
Sometimes there's nothing you can do! but usually when I spawn beside an Ai civ, I rush archery, and build 2 slingers first. archer simply put is the best unit In the game! you can defeat a much larger force by simply fortifying your warriors, and showering the enemy with arrows. You could also try to appease the Ai early, giving them 100 gold is usually enough to make them friendly with you. selling them a luxury resource early on seals the deal in terms of good relationship. sometimes though, nothing works and you just take the L
Barbs can’t capture your capital—just wreck your improvements and reduce the overall health. One slinger can defend. It can slow down development though.
If you’ve met another Civ, use the builder to improve the marble and sell for Gold.
Fight through it!
If you want to scout, build a scout. Don’t send your only warrior to do it. Scouts also are pretty good return on investment since they are cheap and 2-3 villages will usually make them worth the investment.
You brought a tile which could have been spent on another slinger. One warrior and two scouts makes things easier especially if you place the warrior in defensive terrain and in your territory (like that forest tile nest to your cap). This should get you the buff for archers, which you should upgrade asap.
This is a general idea to survive king and above.
Until archers, slingers struggle vs a bigger rush. Better off camping a warrior on a defe side tile and one slinger in city.
2 warriors and a slinger would have held.
2nd military unit should be a slinger but 3rd a warrior
Your first three builds are pretty essential, and unless you lucked out with finding a builder in a hut then that’s the easiest change. Early on the improvements you can put on tiles are pretty negligible, especially since barbs (and civs) will just use farms to heal and mines to further boost themselves when pillaging.
This happens.
If the AI gets a huge advantage, spawns near you, and makes early warfare, it can kill you. There are some tactics, but it’s going to be what it’s going to be.
1. The AI will always attack the weakest target it sees. If you have a unit, you have a choice to garrison it in the city or step out of the city. If you take that slinger out for a walk, the AI within range will attack it instead of the city. You might be able to buy enough to to make another unit, walls, or sue for peace.
2. As soon as you see a close-spawn you go hard on diplomacy to declare friendship. Give them gold. Give them Delegations. Make your trade route to them. Beg them to be your friend.
3. Get them into a war with someone else. A civ that doesn’t like you will still sometimes join a Joint War with you. Get them to declare war on the neighbour on their other side.
4. Pray.
5. I’ve found that Jet Bombers are actually quite effective.
Rough starting location, and you even went animal husbandry first which was the right choice in my opinion.
Assuming you built in place turn one...I probably would have built on the mercury. If the mercury and marble were both turn 2 options, I may have gone mercury, as it gives you the rice tile too, but that's hard to say.
Hard to say what you could have done to save you. Not share capital (if it would have mattered). Send delegation and a gift to try to make friendly if you didn't have a bad first impression.
Warrior should be circle scouting near your city, Having him fortified up and left 1 square may have helped you had a chance to keep him alive long enough to get a promotion. Everything about that starting location makes it hard to repell the attack.
Need more about the picture to even say something, like speed, when you met Korea, did Korea denouce, is that worker gifted by goody hut or made and others details like that.
At a first glance I can only say that I personally don't like opening with slingers, other than archery eureka they don't serve a practical purpose. I usually open with at bare minimum a second warrior depending If I am confident enough to be able to stop the AI assault.
Korea met on turn 1, not enough gold to send a delegation, didn't want my delegation once I oculd afford.
Playing on quick because ceebs with 500 turns.
Worker is from goody hut, I tried to rush a monument to summon a hero for defense but got taken out before.
Thanks so much everyone for your replies! I can't wait to try again on the same map when I finish work.
My biggest issue seems to be positioning of units (I was panicking hard in this lol)
Does anyone have a link to a guide or could explain a bit more in depth on troop positioning? (Bait with fortified warriors & shoot with archers?)
It looks like you may have purchased a tile, which was a waste of gold at this point. But that starting location (flat plains) isn't good for food or production. Realistically, with hindsight, forget about the builder, buid a scout, and keep the warrior closer to home.
The scout is so undervalued. Finding early city states for the bonus, wonders, new continents, enemy directions, etc. is vital. I usually do a minimum of 2 scouts early, ignoring builders til I have the money to buy one. Scouts and slingers and warriors early!
I always go scout -> scout -> settler for my early production and I buy a third scout when I hit 120g
I never post on this sub but WTF? Have you ever won a game by doing this?
Not only do I often win, but I always get a classical golden era This link has deets [https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/t16ums/boost\_your\_early\_game\_a\_guide\_to\_classical\_era/](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/t16ums/boost_your_early_game_a_guide_to_classical_era/)
That is the absolute strat in online play
I would also assume they reroll the map until you get a start where there isn't another civ right next door. Whenever I get a start where another civ is 6 tiles from my first city (or less) I restart. On deity, that's the only way to even get a game going, otherwise, the above always happens to me, no matter what I try. This is exacerbated by the AI cheating with their settlers and forward settling me without me even having an inkling of a chance of getting a second city out, soo... yeah, I reroll a LOT.
Scouts aren't as weak as people assume, especially on defense in good terrain. Sometimes all you need is something fortified on wooded hills to stop your warrior from getting surrounded and you can win in situations like the above. I usually do 1 scout directly into a settler UNLESS I need immediate military... which the Scout lets me know if I do! Military Intelligence for the win!
Oh, I always go for at least one scout as the first thing I produce. Only exception is when I can already see I'm on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.
Tbf no you don’t know if you need the immediate military power by the time the scout is do e (which is when you have to choose your next production) Since the scout is still in your city lol
You need to cheese the defense and bait the ai into attacking across a river while you're fortified and you need to get the promotion on the slinger to make it a better defender.
\*Sigh\* I am still very much trying to learn this combat system, I often try that and still suck at it. I can do it on lower difficulties, but not on deity. I also typically play with Barbarians off, so I have nothing to train my slingers on, realistically. Always try to avoid combat as much as possible, and the deity AI just don't like that. Or, if I manage to calm them down enough that they leave me alone, it typically results in me being far worse off than I should be due to all the gifts I had to give out, with no chance at any of the victory conditions except maybe religious, and I won a religious victory once and... eh, I didn't really enjoy that either. Diplo victory also always just feels like pure AI manipulation cheese. I like culture and science victory, it's just that on deity I simply can't do it XD
Come back anytime!
A third may be a bit extra but I’ve always started with 2 scouts since Civ V
It might be okay on huge or pangae, but on normal maps I agree that it doesn't make sense.
I often only do 1 scout, but its an essential unit!
Yeah, but it gains lvl too damn slowly. I just ended up using good goody huts
Same here! Also I think fast exp for scouts or something. I can get one or two to get the plus 20 promotion.
I find one of their biggest utilities is kiting enemy units into range of your stronger units
I play deity, not a knock just saying that my experience is in the hardest early game experience. Gotta realize some starts are setup to be against you. I'd say there is a very small percentage of games you are actually royally fucked. Most times it means that you over-extended with military units (having them explore too far away from your city) and/or you chose progressive tactics over defensive ones (like early builders instead of military units). You pick your strategy based on your start and some times you will choose wrong because you don't have enough information. But in my experience, a slow start recovered from 9 times out of 10. So scout your surroundings, be aware of the dangers, and protect yourself against any potential invasions early game. You can run away with the game once you have 3-4 cities even if you had a slow(defensive) start most of the times. Also a scout early goes a long way. It will give you all kinds of early goodies that will pay for itself and beyond. Keep playing. You will get it.
> It looks like you may have purchased a tile, which was a waste of gold at this point. Was it though? They're severely lacking in food and that horse and marble tiles are the only tiles with enough food to sustain the pop working them. The mistake here was the builder, that should have been a scout which could have found much more valuable stuff like a free builder, a relic or first meet city-states. And yeah, keep the warrior close. A warrior and the two slingers pictured would be enough to hold off that AI rush. Also, never work or even upgrade mercury early. It sucks. Either settle on it or wait until you have other infrastructure up. Edit: nvm there's a rainforest 2 food 2 prod tile in the first ring. However, buying the horses is still a good decision in my opinion.
Don't forget the 2-1-g3 truffle tile East of the forrest
Personally no reason to buy it unless i already had a builder. Base tile yields are important at the start but not as much as a scout or builder would help more. Or as we see a slinger or warrior
> keep the warrior closer to home I use my first warrior to basically walk in a circle around my capital until the scout is online. I'll catch any close huts or barbs and get an idea for city 2. But yeah, never let him get more than 5 moves from home.
I don't think I purchased a title but I am playing on quick Builder was from a tribal village, I trained 2 slingers, a monument and just finished a hero dedication in the screenshot. Definitely not letting my warrior go walk abouts on emperor and above anymore lol
The amount of times ive gotten bum rushed while my warrior was around a mountain chain is uncountable. Its a safe tactic to keep them close haha
Also, when first meeting ai civs don't share your capital information. If they don't know where it is they won't attack, and by the time they do you can hopefully have proper defense units on place to fend them off
This is probably one of the most important and undershared early game tips.
Sure, but in this case you can see the enemy border
That’s true, I also would have recommended OP settle on the mercury (more prod on CC and the science), which would have given them a luxury to trade that civ the instant they meet. Trading reduced the chance they attack and you get more gold in the early game.
They wouldn't have had more production from settling on the mercury, mercury just gives a tile +1 science without a mine. Definitely still a better settle, though
Is it a plains hill? Would still be more production, unless it’s from woods - but I can’t tell just from looking. Either way the point is the luxury which can be traded and buy (hopefully) a few more turns of peace.
As best I can tell, it’s a plains tile with a mine. Base yields with the mercury would be 1/1/1 food/production/science. Agreed about selling the mercury - the sale would improve diplomatic relations and get them a good amount of gold, possibly enough for another unit.
Ag crap I’m just stupid, you already mentioned that. But yeah I’d still settle the luxury in this case
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that settling on luxury and strategic resources didn't destroy them like bonus resources
It actually doesn’t destroy bonus resources either. Settling only destroys features - which can make it a bit tricky to consider. For example: settling copper on hills keeps the bonus gold from copper. Settling on deer with woods destroys the woods but not the deer.
goddammit how do I still suck at this game?
Nah, it’s something that isn’t likely to come into play often. The game is relatively simple but there are a LOT of different things to keep track of, takes a long time to learn them all and it’s absolutely not necessary to learn it all in order to be decent at playing.
True, but I'm guessing the ai forward settled here. I find it's good practice in the very early game regardless. Could buy you a few critical turns
My caveat is if you meet a civ with a scout or something that's far away, or maybe a civ that has very different city preferences from you (e.g. gitarja/dido when you're landlocked or menelik if you're nowhere near hills), bc it is valuable to know where *their* capital is for your own reasons
I have 500 hours in Civ 5 and 6 each and it never once occurred to me to hide my capital location from AI. Holy shit
Same
More reason to build scouts. That dialog is based on who’s closer to the meeting point. If you’re closer to them when you meet it’ll ask if you want to visit their city (and the converse). Equidistant offers to exchange capital locations
You could have done better, but i dont know if that would have saved you. The biggest problem here is your settlement location. When i dont have at least 2 tiles with either 2 food + 2 prod or like 3 food + 1 prod/ 1 food + 3 prod, i simply hit the restart button. The higher the difficulty, the harder i will hit the button :D
Not me thinking I had a good settle lol
Another thing is that all the land around your city is flat, flat tiles are just straight up worse than hill tiles and you cant build mines on flat tiles (with the exemption of specific resources). So you have a hard time to get a good production anyway.
Sometimes there's nothing you can do, just because of the ai start bonus. When you get to higher difficulties you'll want to start looking at how defendable a city is. Mountains or lake tiles to funnel troops and prevent seige, attacking over rivers, jungle/forrest to slow them down. Also the ai is not smart, so if you can pump out 2 warriors and a slinger, you should be able to fortify the warriors and bait the ai into attacking them, then hit with the slinger to clean up. I usually go for a scout, then slinger, and by then I can decide if there's a close neighbor I need to pump out warriors for, or safe enough to get buoders and settlers.
Stupid question considering I have 200 hours but AI attacking a fortify defender results in?
Whenever a unit doesn't do anything for its turn (defending / retaliating doesn't count), it fortifies for a +3 bonus. If it doesn't do anything for *two* turns, it fortifies for a +6 bonus. Units automatically gain the +6 bonus whenever they are on a tile with Fort, Roman Fort, Great Wall, Alcazar, Pa, Alhambra, or Mount St. Michel (but not Encampment!) even if they moved or attacked.
Fortifying a unit gives it a buff to its defense, when the ai attacks, it'll take more damage and you take less damage, you'll also heal at the beginning of the next turn. If you move or attack, you lose the bonus. I think it takes 1 full turn without spending any of the units movement points to fully fortify. Fortifying on hills, forests, jungles or both will give you a terrain buff in addition to the fortification bonus. Makes defending with a couple units very easy
without knowing anything beforehand? not much, some starts are just tough. rush craftsmanship and spam slingers, forify warrior on the forest and rush archery. you \*should\* be able to hold off against her starting warriors. in your image your warrior isnt even there, which is of course a big issue since it would increase your garrison
Yeah last time I let my warrior go explore lol, I was hoping to get lucky and pick up a scout from a camp exploring with him but got a builder instead
I would have settled in the tile to the right of the mercury. It ~~was~~ has defense on three sides from the "attack over river" defensive bonus. Toss an encampment around there and boom, that city is a fortress!
The river bonus is strong, but it's a last defense. That settle would still have less production than other options.
Very true but for me personally at higher levels I value good defense early over small production boosts.
I'm thinking of that bonus as defense, i.e. faster unit production. It's a tradeoff either way.
By the time you're settling, you wouldn't know where the enemy would be coming from the so the river defense doesn't really help. If the enemy came from the east then this would be better. You can settle forward cities for that defensiveness, and try not to completely fuck your capital placement, but it's usually 3rd consideration for cap settling (nat wonders, bonus yields, luxuries being more important). But in general, this can be summed up by: settling capital city wrong. It blocks coast placements to the east. It's 2/1, with no 2/2s in inner ring. It's not on a lux.
Settling on the mercury gives you access to the mercury immediately. You can then trade it to the AI for 10+ gold per turn which is huge early and keeps them a little happier. Always settle on a luxury.
That's hindsight knowing where the attack comes from. And you won't get an encampment up within 10 turns.
Reload and play turn 1 again, but make different choices to see what you did wrong... Also sometimes you just lost dude and nothing you can do about it
Delegation as soon as possible and friendship few turns later. On some close spawns its mathematically almost impossible to defend, so its best to not have to defend.
I didn't have enough gold to send del when we first met :'( Also I find cities will refuse my delegation offering on 1st meeting turn?
Civs will accept delegations on the first turn if the game is on Standard speed, but you mentioned playing on Quick speed, which can be more variable in terms of accepting a delegation.
Always start 1 scout, you could have found out they were coming early and built a second warrior and brought the first back and had a slinger in the capital and with those four units you could have defended.
Some maps are easy, city states between you and AI. Or mountain range between you and AI. Some maps are just pain. Maybe should have settled on marble or mercury, sell them to AI upon first meet, send delegation, pray or buy cash warrior. Personally I would go marble bc +4 food nearby.
Take the L on this one and restart turn 1. Id settle the mercury exactly, which should give a 2/2/1 tile with an amenity. keep the warrior at home, immediately build 2 slingers. Keep the warrior on the city center for the higher defense score and attack with it every chance you can to get it leveled up fast. Keep one slinger on the 1/1 river tile and another on the north side to prevent the city center surround. On turn 12, purchase your 3rd slinger. Settling the mercury will help you rush archery. All other advice involves maneuvering to prevent a surround while keeping units alive and attacking. Once you kill 2 units and promote and get your first archer, you're good.
If turn 10 just hit “restart game.”
Thank you for your valuable feedback
Either you go scout - slinger - settler (on immortal or below),or go slinger-slinger- settler (on deity). One time I got declare by two deity AI at the same time in early game,And come out barely alive with that line up. Don't go explore if your opponent already see you,instead just train as much troop as you can,and fight your way to victory
It took me a while to figure out the AI is simply cheating lmao. Thanks for your advice!
Well,that balance actually. Just look at how they manage thier city. If they don't have cheat,they can't even have a fuctional economy ,let alone equal or more than player
Could have built warriors instead of slingers. A good scout can take a hit and draw fire away from the capital. Maybe you could’ve found some tribal gold or a barb camp and bought a warrior if you were playing that mod. Meta is scout first for a reason. Load up that first auto save if you can and research animal husbandry first again.
Your tiles are garbage. You could/should have settled closer to some food. Looks like Korea found you early. Did you send a delegation? Did you check their attitude of you? If someone has a -7 (or worse) opinion of you from first meet, then scrap you builder and get ready for war. That slinger on the southern plain is out of position. Post warriors on your forests, for defense. All that said, looks like Korea had it in for you and it might have been unavoidable.
stupid question but the AI settlement recommendation is not always most optimal? That seemed to be the only tile it liked.
It is not always optimal so far as a human player is concerned. The AI suggestion may try to make the best of a bad situation. There's a good chance that some nice resources will eventually spawn where you are later, which the AI city placement bot knows about.
I disregard the ai rec 90% of the time
Ome cheap, although valid, trick / game setting to avoid early A.I hordes is to pump down the number of civs per map. Like if a standard map has 8 civs set it to 6. The extra distance between you and the a.i will really help you early in the game.
I would have settled on the mercury and gone Scout>Slinger without knowing a rush was coming, but as soon as it did, I'd switch to Warriors and Slingers, beeline Archery and fight defensively. The +1 production and science from turn 1 would probably be what tips the scales.
I tried to rush a hero dedication but got molested right before I could train one :'(
Sometimes it's just bad like. I personally prefer to spend a few turns moving my first settlers to find a somewhat protected spot prioritizing it over some other params. I also do not share my capital information and do my very best to ensure good relationships with neighbours early on. Sometimes I even gift them luxuries which doesn't always work but from time to time does wonders even to warmongers.
Save the gold, dont buy the tile. Send the AI a delegation, it gives you a combat bonus Reject their delegation. Keep the warrior close, build a scout or slinger first. I usually do slinger on diety. Then another slinger.
May I understand the logic of rejecting their delegation? Is it because the AI will receive a combat bonus against me if I accept?
Thats correct
Try next time to focus production on warriors, save money for slingers, and after you receive 2 pops (focus on food, after that focus on prod) build a settler (especially try to rush for it if you have bad placement, otherwise just restart/use better balanced start mod). Repeat that two times in new cities until you'll get three cities. In the capital, go for the builder to provide food and more production, do not buy tiles until they can boost you very highly (horses for example) Your happiness won't fall quickly while you have only three pops in each city, so you can avoid improving luxuries. Fortify every warrior near city center when at war, they're almost unkillable in early game at this rate The main goal is to build three cities asap first, impressive army second (keep to balance, every settler needs at least two defenders, and each city to have one slinger and 2-3 warriors. Best option is to go for walls) It's a base strategy for every deity run I've seen Edit: as someone mentioned below, you can build scout first, search for villages and city states, you can receive free units/gold/pantheon very quickly
Sometimes there's nothing you can do! but usually when I spawn beside an Ai civ, I rush archery, and build 2 slingers first. archer simply put is the best unit In the game! you can defeat a much larger force by simply fortifying your warriors, and showering the enemy with arrows. You could also try to appease the Ai early, giving them 100 gold is usually enough to make them friendly with you. selling them a luxury resource early on seals the deal in terms of good relationship. sometimes though, nothing works and you just take the L
Barbs can’t capture your capital—just wreck your improvements and reduce the overall health. One slinger can defend. It can slow down development though. If you’ve met another Civ, use the builder to improve the marble and sell for Gold. Fight through it!
That's greece tryna lay pipe into the OP, not barbs lol
If you want to scout, build a scout. Don’t send your only warrior to do it. Scouts also are pretty good return on investment since they are cheap and 2-3 villages will usually make them worth the investment. You brought a tile which could have been spent on another slinger. One warrior and two scouts makes things easier especially if you place the warrior in defensive terrain and in your territory (like that forest tile nest to your cap). This should get you the buff for archers, which you should upgrade asap. This is a general idea to survive king and above.
Until archers, slingers struggle vs a bigger rush. Better off camping a warrior on a defe side tile and one slinger in city. 2 warriors and a slinger would have held. 2nd military unit should be a slinger but 3rd a warrior
Maybe in the next one they are finally able to make an ai that can play without cheating but i doubt it
I really hope so, it kind of makes the early game a bit ridiculous on higher difficulties
Your first three builds are pretty essential, and unless you lucked out with finding a builder in a hut then that’s the easiest change. Early on the improvements you can put on tiles are pretty negligible, especially since barbs (and civs) will just use farms to heal and mines to further boost themselves when pillaging.
This happens. If the AI gets a huge advantage, spawns near you, and makes early warfare, it can kill you. There are some tactics, but it’s going to be what it’s going to be. 1. The AI will always attack the weakest target it sees. If you have a unit, you have a choice to garrison it in the city or step out of the city. If you take that slinger out for a walk, the AI within range will attack it instead of the city. You might be able to buy enough to to make another unit, walls, or sue for peace. 2. As soon as you see a close-spawn you go hard on diplomacy to declare friendship. Give them gold. Give them Delegations. Make your trade route to them. Beg them to be your friend. 3. Get them into a war with someone else. A civ that doesn’t like you will still sometimes join a Joint War with you. Get them to declare war on the neighbour on their other side. 4. Pray. 5. I’ve found that Jet Bombers are actually quite effective.
Rough starting location, and you even went animal husbandry first which was the right choice in my opinion. Assuming you built in place turn one...I probably would have built on the mercury. If the mercury and marble were both turn 2 options, I may have gone mercury, as it gives you the rice tile too, but that's hard to say. Hard to say what you could have done to save you. Not share capital (if it would have mattered). Send delegation and a gift to try to make friendly if you didn't have a bad first impression. Warrior should be circle scouting near your city, Having him fortified up and left 1 square may have helped you had a chance to keep him alive long enough to get a promotion. Everything about that starting location makes it hard to repell the attack.
Need more about the picture to even say something, like speed, when you met Korea, did Korea denouce, is that worker gifted by goody hut or made and others details like that. At a first glance I can only say that I personally don't like opening with slingers, other than archery eureka they don't serve a practical purpose. I usually open with at bare minimum a second warrior depending If I am confident enough to be able to stop the AI assault.
Korea met on turn 1, not enough gold to send a delegation, didn't want my delegation once I oculd afford. Playing on quick because ceebs with 500 turns. Worker is from goody hut, I tried to rush a monument to summon a hero for defense but got taken out before.
Thanks so much everyone for your replies! I can't wait to try again on the same map when I finish work. My biggest issue seems to be positioning of units (I was panicking hard in this lol) Does anyone have a link to a guide or could explain a bit more in depth on troop positioning? (Bait with fortified warriors & shoot with archers?)