On a water map, it's been shown pretty conclusively, by people with way more free time than me, that Sci 1 -> Com 1 is the way to go. Get 8 woodies, 5 farms and 3 fishing ships to go to 100/100 (last 10/10 comes from 2nd city).

Assuming land maps, after Sci 1, Civ 1, Com 1, I generally do Sci 2. 2nd most common is prolly Com 2. I've tried Classical right away, but it hasn't worked out for me because of pop limits. As soon as you go to classical, you're building a ton of new miners and scholars and I always hit pop cap before long and have a long delay while researching Mil 1 before really taking advantage of being in Classical. I'll occasionally do Civ 2 first if I have no wood or something, but that's pretty rare.

I've tried Sci 2, Com 2, Civ 2 then Classic and Mil 1 at the same time w/a 2nd library, but it takes me too long to get Civ 2 up and I either feel too vulnerable not having at least Mil 1 or I run into the pop cap again. I think in the majority of my booms, I go Sci 2, Com 2 then Mil 1, Classical.

Was kinda taught by CP to go for the delayed classic and later I found it to be probably the most dependable and allow faster booming.

that is.. Sci II, Civic II, Commerce II, mil I (sometimes not needed)..

Different situations and based on nation.... for incan I'd say go fast classic, greek after 3rd city, british delayed, and so on..

I agree with Davepy on this one...

I do the same thing, although for me Con1 vs Civ1 isn't all that important, since I am still making peeps to max out my first city anyway.

Mysty is right for an effiecent boom, I would still like to see you get rushed tho

You got to build that second city before you go Com2, otherwise you won't be able to to take advantage of increased production cap space.

So I would agree with Myst on most maps ( at least lasnd based maps) SCI1 and then CIV1 is the most optimal start.

Com 2 if I have fishies Civ 2 if I don't. Also sometimes I'm forced to go Civ 2 due to a severe lack of trees.

sure the buildup myst described ist best boom for most civs. there some civs which make better use of other builds, germans for example.

i know you dont wanna talk about real games (no rush you mentioned), but i say something about them.
when you play chinese or mayans forget the rush danger.
but in competitive 1vs1 games you will face heavy raiding after minute 5, all rated games i played lately vs better players (all 1950+, of course there are some 2k noob bashers out there, i dont talk about them) where heavy raiding games. these players have very good micro, so some archers or a tower wont help you much most time.
on water maps the story is different, but i dont play water that much.
so i say go fast classic too, and go raiding too.
when youre micro sucks you can trie defense tower boom, without towers or archers youre dead against heavy raiding when youre in first age.
maya is a good thing against raiding but youre not raiding save with them! at least not early in game.
scouting is important, if you get a pure boomer a raiding defense build will kill you.

I see most comments are CIV2 before COM2, which I wonder about. In general, you'll be at +100 with 2 cities and only 8 farms and 8 woodies. Bottom line is: you can get to +120 food and usually +150 wood without investing in a 3rd city, and then only drop the city to get food up to +150 (occasionally you can find rares to get to +150). Dropping a 3rd city costs at least 250 food which then makes it take even longer to get enough for COM2 - meanwhile, you really can't make use of it, except for border pushing and extra caravans.

My best success so far has come with two economic strategies (insert MIL1 somewhere as required based on scouting):

1. Variation on what Myst described: SCI2 -> COM2 -> CIV2 -> CLASSICAL -> COM3. This puts you at +180-200 food, based on rares, and it enables military expansion as well as continued booming.

2. CLASSICAL -> SCI2 -> COM2 -> CIV2. The early classical enables me to continue pumping continuous villagers and gathering other resources (metal and knowledge) without regard for cap. Subsequent techs are also cheaper in the other resources - timber & knowledge for COM2 seems better than spending tons of food. Food that can be beter spent making villagers and getting CIV2.

Of course, what I usually do is just rush a MIL1 and hit both of their towns. I either win outright or keep their econ down at +20 for 3-4 minutes. Despite the discussion on this board most players I have seen cannot handle a well-executed ancient rush at all.

Best way to expand economy is Comerce/science, science for upgrading lumber/food/iron production. I usualy have 2 cities supporting foog (10 farms), 2-3 wood choping things, 1-2 iron mine. Each city contains, university, market, church, and some resource collecting mines.

Blood, there are cases when you want that 3rd city asap, like if you're playing Koreans (for the free vils) or on a water map and want to claim a key island. E.g., it's pretty crucial to get that 3rd city ASAP on Warring States.

Well duh - but you're talking very specific cases. There are always going to be exceptions, and I think I'm smart enough to figure some of those out. However, I am discussing the general case (assuming there is one).

Well, I don't wanna split hairs too much, but considering about half the maps are water, and even among land maps, more likely than not you want to control key areas early, I think it's a valid *general* strat to go civ 2 before com 2. I guess my point is that the choice bet. civ & com 2 is too situational to predict with any regularity. I doubt we actually disagree very much on our opening strats.

No sorry I meant commerce before civic

EXCEPT IF YOUR BANTEWWWWWWW!

I was just listing the techs i'd have.. not the order of upgrade..

But yeah.. hf

Some of you might laugh at my saying this. There is NO answer to your question at all. The methods vary. In RON, it varies even at a greater scale compared to other RTS games.

But your starting is correct, I mean

SCI
CIV
COM

After that, you play ad-hoc really. Unless you are playing against the AI, you can more or less predict what is coming. If you play online, you never know.

One golden rule is : keep your resources low at all time. Either consume them by booming your econ or building up an army. You have to use your army though, don't just keep them for defense. Once you have attacked someone for the first time, you may go defensive with smaller troops and put all your resources to econ booming. That way, you may get up faster. But you also need to use the right nation. Bantu is fast, so is Mayan.

That's all I can say.

Yeah no real one way. Start Sci,Civ,Com Find rares, who's your nation? strengths/weaknesses? What's the best wonder perhaps to boom that nation/what's the best wonder to combine with the rares you have? Many options unless you play AI on the same settings... Why?

You can only get fishies with com2, right? If you do, then what's the point of researching com1 before civ 1?

You can build a dock (and fisherman) w/com 1. You can't build a city on another continet til com 2.

COM2 and onwards can be delayed if you want to. If you would care to watch how AI plays, they set a very low priority to COM2+.

Matter of fact is you dont care about COM2+ until you max the cap out. Or you need 1 more research to kick the Age adavancement button.

I have forgotton to mention in my last thread. If you want to boost your econ fast, make granary, lumber mills, smelters everywhere you have the corresponding resources. They soar. Also, don't get it wrongly that RoN requires less citizens than Ao*. In fact, the more citizen you have, the faster your econ goes up. Keep generating citizen or else keep them for advancing or generating armies.

Commerce 1 cap is reached in like 2 minutes, I dont think delaying commerce 2+ is a good idea. A strong economy is your biggest asset.

Also you want to build as few villagers as possible because of ramping costs. The more diversity your economy has the more effcient it will be.

You will max out on food/wood for com 1 very quickly.

Quote:

This is just the opposite of reality. The AI makes COM research a priority and will often be 1-2 levels ahead of other research. However, the AI almost always does an early Classical. You were playing on toughest, right?

And there IS an answer to this question. We're talking about what gets you a good econ the most quickly. Sure, there are many options, but not all of them are good. And if you say it depends on the map or the nation, then I'd agree, but there is STILL a best option under those conditions.

Another note for those would-be flamers. Obviously, this is not the path you'd take EVERY game, otherwise, you'll just get rushed. But it's useful to know how to drive your economy most efficiently - so you can outboom your opponent.

I play Moderate most of the time.

I am not sure Out_4_Blood actually. In the first 90 seconds, looks like everyone is doing the same. SCI then CIV. Then 2nd city or 3rd city is you play Bantu.

Maybe the variables come out after the first 120 seconds. For AI at moderate, they always do this for a start:

Generate 2 citizens,
Build Library,
Build a lumper camp,
build 3 farms.

It then waits for the 120 wood threshold and hit SCI. Later, as it food reaches 300+, it starts CIV.

it depends on your rares,civ, and strategy imo. ill give you a quick example ...

lets say you get silk and a bunch of iron/knowledge rares ... it would be better to go quick classical under this order sci/civ/com/sci2/mil/clasical/comm2/civ2 (or mil2 instead of comm2/civ2 for raiding)

cuz the cost of the 2nd comm upgrade will be immediately gotten at classical (and even if you didn't have silk you can just build a uni and have enuff knowledge to get 2nd comm .. the different is like 45 secs ... not a big deal) and you will be getting all those other resources ...

but if you get a lot of food/wood rares it would be better to stay in ancient a lil longer.

on a general note it seems better to go to classical faster (more for military purposes) ... but the good thing about RoN is that every game may have a different initial build order ...

also ... i almost always get 2nd sci and 2nd comm before anything else in the 2nd tier upgrades. when is really based on the map/civ/strategy.

[This message has been edited by Arch_Apollyon (edited 09-20-2003 @ 04:23 PM).]