Game Saves
Turn 0 - 4000BC
Turn 0 - Settler moved
Turn 7 - 3650BC
Turn 9 - 3550BC
Turn 10 - 3500BC
4000 BC - I start off by a river, with the coast in view. If I were to settle in the spot I'm in, I would never be able to use the coast. Why? Because you need a harbor to increase the food in the coast and sea by 1. Since I'm inland, I can't build a harbor, so it would be wasted. I also notice 2 bonus tiles, and 1 cattle. Remember, cattles take priority, as they're 3 food.
I move the worker onto the cattle first, which is a good way to see surrounding terrain at the start - AND, it gives you a head start if you move. Look at what we just found! another cattle! Now, there's 2 possible places to move our settler - NW (northwest), or E (east). I choose east, as it gives us 2 cattle, a river, and a coastline! What more could you ask for? (maybe more hills or bonus tiles... but this is a desginated settler factory).
Now, let's see how this city would grow:
Note: f = food, s = shield
Cattle tile: 3f/1s/1g (by river)
Cattle tile: 3f/1s/0g (not by river)
Note how one cattle tile is missing 1 gold. That is becuse rivers add 1 commerce. Commerce is essential to science output and income.
Natural Growth - This is the accumulated food and shield if we do not manage the tiles using the first cattle by the river.
Turn 1 3f/2s
Turn 2 6f/4s
Turn 3 9f/6s
Turn 4 12f/8s
Turn 5 15f/10s
Turn 6 18f/12s
Turn 7 0f/14s
Note that the food is back to 0, and not 1. This is because the city size grew. If your food exceeds the needed amount for growth, it's wasted. The same goes for shields, and science (which is harder to micromanage)
The city now uses the 2nd cattle, and gets 4fpt (fpt = food per turn. spt = shields per turn.)
Turn 8 4f/17s
Turn 9 8f/20s
Turn 10 12f/23s
Turn 11 16f/26s
Turn 12 20f/29s (city grows, food is reset to 0)
Note that the city grows when it hits 20 food. This doesn't take into account what the city is building. A unit could be 10 shields, and 2 shields would be wasted on turn 10.
Turn 1 - 3950BC
Now back to the game. I start off with irragation. Normally, you wouldn't want to irragate grassland, however, this is a bonus food (cattle), which you can irragate. This will give us 4fpt from that tile.
Since I have a city, I can actually adjust my science slider and choose a tech. I press F6, and select pottery, as this phase is known as the
Expansion Phase. (This is a common strategy used in most games where you claim as much good land as you can, building only settlers, workers and warriors (or spears). Warriors are quicker to build, and provide a deterant to the AI. Now I press F1 to move the science slider to 100%. This gets me pottery in 8 turns! (Had I been commercial, it might be even earlier).
Demographics Screen - F11. This is where you can see things like your productivity, land area, and other stats. Right now, I am first in productivity and manufactured goods. (There's more information on this in the Strategies & Tips forum) There's nothing more for me to do, so I press enter.
Turn 2 - 3900BC - Nothing of interest
Turn 3 - 3850BC
My worker is done, and builds a road.
Turn 4 - 3800BC - Nothing of interest
Turn 5 - 3750BC
My worker has completed the road. Instead of pottery being researched in 4 turns, it's now researched in 3. I move the worker 1 E to the cattle tile. My warrior is done in 1 turn, and requires 2 shields to be completed. I'm making 2spt, so there's no waste.
Turn 6 - 3700BC
Persepolis builds a warrior. Growth is in 1 turn. Now, if you were to go to the city screen, you'll see that it has 4fpt, and needs only 1. I move the citizen (or laborer) from the irragated cattle to the forest 1 south of the city. I still get growth in one, and I get an extra 1spt. However, I lose 1 turn on science. The city grows next turn, so it may make up for the lost turn in science. This is called micromanagement.
I also start the worker on a mine on the cattle tile. The warrior is moved 1 south of the city.
Turn 7 - 3650BC
My guess was correct. I will get pottery in 1 turn. Going to the F1 screen, I see if I can lower science. At 90%, I get pottery in 2, so I just barely have enough research to get it in 1 turn. I have no need for pottery right now, as I'm building my 2nd warrior.
So... I switch the tile onto the forest to the next cattle. Notice how one laborer is already working the irragated tile. This is how the game works (and why you should turn governors off), and why you need to micromanage.
Notice how I haven't touched the luxury slider yet. This is because in chieftain level, unhappiness doesn't strike early on. On higher levels, you'll need to watch this.
Now it's time to move the warrior again. I see hills to the south, so that's where I'll move my warrior. Why? So he can see more of the area. After moving the warrior, I see some smoke (the yellowish color). That's incense (one of the few resources that appear out of the fog). There are more hills, a mountain, and another river. Our river heads down that way. That's where our primary expansion will be - east and south.
Turn 8 - 3600BC
I continue the warrior south. To his SW, it looks like there might be desert, but all is not lost! There's a river. Rivers + desert = floodplains = more food. Floodplains are GREAT if it's surrounded by mountains. Infact, 2 irragated and railed floodplains with wheat can give you 7fpt! 2 is 14 total food, 12 of which are extra, and can support 6 mountains, or 12 hills.
Looks like our next warrior is done in 1 turn, and needs only 3 shields. Normally, this would be the end of the turn.
However, there's still work to be done. This is why you must turn on "always wait at the end of the turn" in your preferences (shift-p). Now to check our city. We have 3spt, so we timed it perfectly. Our fpt is 5, and needs 15 to grow. Another perfectly timed growth which requires no micromanagement.
Now for pottery. We get it in 1 turn. I can lower my lux slider down to 10%. Note how Science stays the same.
Before
After
So, we now have 2 things - pottery and a warrior due next turn.
Turn 9 - 3550BC
Our warrior is built, and we now have pottery. What's next? We could research iron, but the AI generally researchs that first, anyway, so we'll go up the Alphabet --> Writing --> Literature path. Why Lit? Because having the
scientific attribute, we get cheaper libraries (and science improvements). If we were religous, we'd get cheaper temples (and other religous improvements). Also, notice our science is back at 40 turns. This is the minimum time of research. On emperor and above (maybe even monarch in some cases - i.e., bad terrain), 0% is the way to go. For more on that strategy, read the Strategy Articles. We go back to F1 (Domestic), and raise the science slider to full speed (100%). 90% and 100% both get us research in 16 turns. This means that we have enough commerce to start funding science at a lower percentage, which means more gpt.
In other words, say this were an emperor game. We might get the Alphabet in 32 turns at 100% and 3gpt. At 90%, it's still 32 turns, but maybe 7gpt. At 80%, 32 turns, but maybe 11gpt. This is part of science micromanagement.
Now, for that southern warrior. He's next to a mountain, so we move him west onto the mountain. As I thought, there's floodplains, and wheat! However, theres what looks like a jungle tile to the south. Still, it's a potential area for a future city. We'll keep this one in mind. Our worker also finishes a mine and starts a road. We'll move the warrior that was finished to the east. In higher levels, we might want to build another warrior, as the AI gets more units to start off with.
It's the end of the turn, but let's see what we can build in the city. Our granary is in 15 turns. A settler is in 8. Normally, we would build a granary, but with 2 cattles, one isn't needed. So, we start on a settler. Notice: At this rate, our expansion may outrun our ability to build roads, even though we're industrious (faster workers).
Turn 10 - 3500BC
We move our eastern warrior east, and see a yellow border. Remember, this is chieftain level, so we may have a shot at eliminating a civ early. We send our southern warrior NW along the hills for extra sight. He will need to scout our immediate area to our west before the settler is built.
Below is how we should explore.
