Guide: How to get CS ready

Please Note This is a guide written by Nickossa for the .EN forums. You should note that this is not a city building guide, you will have to do other things as well as what this guide tells you to do in order to progress in the game. This guide was originally written as one of 3, aimed at helping you to conquer your first few cities quickly and effectively. However one of the others is now slightly out of date due to the introduction of new features such as the Reservation Tool. However, click here to read the guide on How to Conquer as a Team

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Introduction:

This is just some guidance that I picked up over time, but is something that has helped me get to the top end of every server which I have played in.
Most experienced players know how to build and will be always above the curve in any new world because they will get CS ready fast, but i would like to let you in how I build up in new worlds (farming and all that) to bring less experience players in to the loop so you actually have a chance.
If you follow what I do when starting a new world you should be able to get that 2nd and 3rd city a lot faster than most in the server will do.

It is very basic and very important that you don't spend any resource on builds that are not going to get you CS ready.

Step 1

Get 7 farms as soon as possible, these troops should get you what you want.

1. 1 Swordsmen
2. 6 Swordsmen
3. 10 Swordsmen
4. 10 Slinger (Build Swordsmen until you have the 40 units needed)
5. 32 Hoplites (Build Swordsmen until you have the 100 units needed)
6. 15 Horsemen (Build Swordsmen and Slingersuntil you have the 300 units needed)
7. 140 Slinger (Build Swordsmen, Slingers and Horsemen until you have the 600 units needed)

Step 2

Farming every 5 minutes during 17 hours a day to get the maximum limit everyday and 5 minutes before you take the maximum limit at day, you can do the last demand of 4 hours, then you get MORE than the limit, about 1000 resources per FV more. (If you've got that time available of course)

Step 3

Only make the buildings needed to get horsemen, level up farm and warehouse, a bit later, you can level up senate to level 9 and level up the cave to spend the silver left over.

Step 4

Get a harbour and trade with the Phoenician Merchant to get a Catapult as soon as possible, get 1 or 2, two is much better for a trick (optional).

Step 5

Attack everybody on your island in order to steal resources and gain BP.

Step 6

Make some boats and attack people on other islands and destroy them quickly in order to get their resources as soon as possible. If possible try get some Light Ships first. but if they are under 1.5k points, it is unlikely that they will have any biremes.
Destroy their walls with catapults, but never send the catapult with horsemen, coordinate these two attacks:

1. Send 10 slingers + 2 catapult + 2 Transport Boats
2. Your power attack to clean the city, for example 50 horsemen or 200 slinger.
3. You have to coordinate both attacks to arrive first the power attack and then the catapult.
   1. If you do that, you'll never lose any catapult and you will destroy all the walls that you want to. (optional with cats)

Please Note It may be a good idea to spy before you start attacking. This will give you an idea of the level of resistance that you will encounter.

Step 7

Never level up the timber, silver or wood past level 20. You can get the resources that you need from farms and other players' cities.

Step 8

Then spend all your resources to level up the Academy, Harbour, Farm and Warehouse. You want your academy on level 28, harbour on level 20, farm on level 22 and warehouse on level 20 (if you have Ceramics researched).
I hope this gives you a little more direction, i know it helps me. This is just my own guide and its just a little guidance, but we have a lot of experienced guys who also know what they are doing i am sure they do it slightly different as well, hope it helps all those who are new to this Game.