I am, sometimes, Cherub Nineveh. Most of the time I am just Nineveh and busy making an idiot of myself. However, for the moment I am Cherub Nineveh and I want someone to respond to my "dock first guide". It is not finished because I basically have mad homework and my job, but I will finish next week. Here is what I have so far...
Dock First
With the advent of Rise of Rome fishing and booming have become much more important aspects of the game. The major downfall of huge booms is tool rushing (by this I mean booms over 40 vills/boats and bronzing in 15 min or more). Using a dock first strategy when it fits has lowered my “huge boom bronze” (51 vills/boats, 14:10 bronze). I have read elsewhere that dock first requires a large set of requirements like close berries, straggler trees, etc. With no berries and no stragglers it works just fine for me. All you need is:
? Substantial wood within 6-8 tiles
? A watery map (islands, narrows, coastal, mediterranean, continental) that you can find water fast on.
Civs:
Some civs work better with this strategy than others, although it is feasible with all civs.
- Shang (wow, a strat Shang is good at!)
- Phoenician (wow, a water strat Phoenician is good at!)
- Minoan
- Rome. With 212 wood a roman can drop a dock, house and storage pit. Thus a Roman dock first is the easiest on wood (2 trips = pit) but often slow (no wood surplus for first boats). Also booming to bronze with Rome is like Mark McGwire playing baseball with a stick : no matter how hard you swing you aren't swinging much. A conventional boom/iron jump is better IMO.
All other civs are relatively equal in that they chop normally, vills cost 50 food and boats cost 50 wood. Some, like Yamato, are a lot more likely to hold the sea and thus are better to boom with than something like Babylonian.
The Start
Within the first 5 second you have to commit to this strategy. If you see a forest or 6+ stragglers right away (before exploring) then you have everything you need to pull this off. Have 1 villager make a house while the other two go exploring near each other. This is important because as soon as you find suitable water you want a dock up as fast as possible, and you don’t want to lose anybody to lions. There will be a minor delay as the house finishes while your first of four queued vills pop out. Start your 2 vills back home chopping if it’s a med map (so your 2 other guys are going to the middle) otherwise you might send 1 guy in the opposite direction in case your 2 explorers can’t find suitable water.
As your next vills pop out (to a max of 7 unless you are Shang, then 8) do not build a 2nd house! At first your boat production will be very slow, so you don’t need any more than a pop of 8. By now you should be making a dock somewhere where you can see at least 2 fish jumping. If you find water in a spot where there shouldn’t be water (i.e. the corner on med) for heavens sake don’t dock on what will turn out to be a puddle!
Making Boats
Once your dock is up it’s time to make boats. This is where Minoan really shines. After a dock (100W) and a house (30 W) you have 70W left , which is enough for another house and a boat (you will have chopped at least 10 W by now). Keeping making boats while your 7 guys chop the nearest wood. After a significant pause, your boats will start bringing in enough food for vills. You first new villager should go exploring for a gold/wood pit location. After that each new vill goes on wood and they build houses when necessary (remember that with two buildings producing vills you will need to make house sooner than you think.
When your wood reserve allows (always keep 1 boat queued) make a pit at gold/wood if possible and start chopping at the pit (by now you have cut enough forest you are probably walking 8-10 tiles each trip) From here on it’s a fairly straightforward boom.
Applications
The major difference between dock first and a boom is that dock first seems to have earlier bronze times. I regularly get bronze times reminiscent of AoE with vill counts of RoR docking first, something I can never do with a boom. Maybe it’s just me, but dock first tools sooner (~11 mins) and bronzes sooner (~14 mins) than my booms.
This start is really cool, for obvious reasons: speed and power. I often use it to buy time for compy mayhem instead of trying to utilize my faster bronze time for a quick strike. If you reach bronze untouched you should have huge wood reserves (about 18 guys chopping) for a major boat war or chariots, fishing ships cleaning the seas for food and 6-7 guys on gold for iron.
Here is a list of times I got when playing a fairly crappy med map with Shang, Phoenician and Minoan (with Egypt for comparison):
This is in the form real villagers/boats
Vill count: Shang Minoan Phonician Egyptian
4:00 10/6 8/5
6:30 17/11 12/12
9:00 19/16 17/17
14:00 21/24 18/27
Tool 11:08 11:14
Bronze 14:05 14:13
Iron* 21:21 21:04
Since this strategy focuses on a bronze attack and I stink at iron jumping these times are pretty bad. They are just here because I ironed while whomping the computer.
One of the key points I forgot to mention is that you do not build a granary at anytime. If you pit by SF by all means put some guys on food but don't worry about vills gathering food.
This means that you can't make a market in tool (!) If you forget or can't spare the 120 wood to make a granary near your berries for later make a range/stable and say "doh".
Wow only 1 edit
This is my first attempt at cut-an-paste from Word 97, I bet the formatting sucks so expect to see "message edited" a couple times
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-Nineveh, "Minister for Compy Equality"
ICQ 16407576