Three city start

Do many ppl do a three city start? Obviously with Russians it would be a good idea because of the good border push and the already researched Civic 1.

I find if you do a three city start you are stuck for resources in the short term - so you're vulnerable to attack.

Is a three city start too dangerous for most nations?

No & Yes.

As all things in Ron it depends on nations, rares and map (size & type) ). Having dye, russians, nubians, a small map (vs. arena), good map outlay (good rivers outlay + mountains + forest + rocks to help defend you), etc. lends itself to 3 cities. The prob. is you usually get raided to hell (cause you spend 270 food more than your opponent pre-classical & are therefore much later to II), or he comes w/ a despot rush which you're not prepped for.

I wrote an article about a russian 3-city start that's in the strat library here. It works pretty well against some nations, but typically falls over against the better early aggressive nations (french, rome, etc.) unless the opponent makes a big mistake.

Koreans 3 city start works - 8 free civs = lots of food saved. Still in classic at 330. For this you have to manipulate ruins and villager spots once u know how it's easy no I'm not telling how figure it out the math is easy.

[quotec2ec37759b="AU_tl"]The prob. is you usually get raided to hell (cause you spend 270 food more than your opponent pre-classical & are therefore much later to II), or he comes w/ a despot rush which you're not prepped for.[/quotec2ec37759b]
Of course a three-city start slows down your classical, but let's not exadurate.... The 10/10 from a third city saves you a farm and a woodcutter, so that's 200 food we're talking about (and you're only using like 40 extra wood). If you have at least a five-slot wood camp then you can go classical before building a second, since your wood income will already be 50+30=80. That slows down your rax, second mine, etc. a little, but it saves around 150 more food. Now we're talking 50 food. If the other guy gets classical first then it becomes a 27 food difference. If you do this with a fast nation like Germans or Russians or Bantu or Persians or Koreans, you can often make up the 50 food and get classical before your opponent (depending on the speed of the other guy's nation). So like, if you have Russians and the other guy has Inca on Amazon, you get third city early, you take control of some rares (gems would pwn), you limit him to one mountain or even no whole mountains, and you still can get classical before (or slightly after) the other guy. Good stuff.

Better plan to just go to II fast with russians and raid the shit out of your oponent, after that you can still push him if you like cause if your aggresion is going well then you will be able to get up ur 3d city before his =)

It's hard to raid the shit out of someone with Russians, though.... They are fast to classic but it is hard to get a good raiding party out once you are there, not like Inca or Germans which have good eco bonuses. The only nation ability that really helps you in classical is that the extra push gives you slightly more tax, but with only civ1 and two cities this really isn't a big difference. Of course it is advantageous to get classical and a stable early, but what are you gonna do, kill him with one HA and hope he can't muster a LC to counter? It takes at least two HC to protect a HA....

The HA is sent in on its own. With a knowledge rare in classic u can get that com2 quick and sell off food/wood to get gold for HA/HC attack. With the quick classic it is perfectly possible to raid them to death.

Russians are still shit but Jups is right on the fast raid. Use market a lot, so many civs need it it's good practise.

I spend that initial 100 extra food saved and spam villies out everywhere scouting then bring em back in to fill in my second city. That way scout can check for raid spots/enemy while 4-5 villies get ruins at home. This is Russians I'm still talkin bout.

Russians are still shit.

who cares what u think rambo noob? P Go play with RU! twisted Again...you know me well enough to know i am kidding right?

I do plenty of 3 city starts, but of course it's still 70% 2 cities...you kind of have to judge on the situation, mostly based on whether you can get away with it (are you a fast nation vs slow nation? good rares? lots of ruins? can you get to classic by around 450? etc.) and whether the 3rd city location has any strategic value.