The awkward Chinese start is the bane of many an inexperienced player playing random civilisations. The lack of starting food and random sheep generation can make landing the Chinese villager bonus a liability rather than an asset. The Chinese start however, can be quite a boon, and it's worth a lead of up to one-and-a-half villagers from the dark age onwards. This bonus can be sustained by taking the sheep as immediately as possible, but sending the villagers straight onto berries before sheep is also viable. There is still an element of luck in having one of these food sources at hand, but despite how it may seem, a bad start is less punishing for the Chinese than for other civilisations.
The problem for the Chinese is that they can't sustain constant villager production at the start, so their villager advantage declines immediately. The principle for all other civilisations is that their initial food can sustain them long enough to gather the food for the next villager. By then, you have seven villagers, which is enough to sustain villager production. The Chinese, however, need to gather food as soon as possible to start villager production. It takes 75 seconds of town centre idle time for a non-Chinese civilisation to catch up with a Chinese player, so we use that as our benchmark; but also, the Chinese are able to research loom during the town centre idle time at the start, so when other civilisations research loom (normally at the end of the dark age), that's where the Chinese gain a villager over their opponents. I did some testing in single player (without lag, but lag affects players of all civilisations in multiplayer), so the next two paragraphs should serve to give an idea of how fast you can get villager production going when you start well.
Suppose you spot your starting sheep immediately. The average .rms script will set your sheep to spawn 10-12 tiles from your town centre. Sheep move at a speed of 0.7 tiles per second, so depending on whether or not you have to send a unit to retrieve the sheep, you can expect to have your first sheep under your town centre after 15-30 seconds. Your six villagers on the first sheep gather food at a rate of 0.33 per second. This means they take 30 seconds to gather ten food (I'll deal with forced drop-offs later). This means you can have your first villager queued after 50-65 seconds.
On the other hand, if you spot your berries immediately, you can send your villagers straight to them. Once again, these are 10-12 tiles from your town centre. However, your villagers spawn 6 tiles from your town centre, so depending on what angle at which they spawn, you can have your villagers gathering berries after 5-15 seconds. Villagers gather berries at a rate of 0.31 per second, so each villager requires 33 seconds to gather ten food. Villagers move at a speed of 0.8 tiles per second, so they then travel back to the town centre in 10-12 seconds. Once again, we are looking at around 50-65 seconds.
What about sustaining villager production? Unlike other civilisations, the Chinese food stock runs by a very tight measure. This means that some town centre idle time is inevitable. In particular, forced drop-offs must be used sparingly, as each drop-off forces idle time. To demonstrate: If you force a drop-off when your sheep villagers have 50 food, then you can queue a villager marginally earlier, but then your first sheep will run out and your villagers will waste a bit of time transitioning to the next sheep (despite your best efforts). As a result, you have town centre idle time because the food income is so tight. Here you're better off allowing your six villagers to deposit their load naturally and then force drop-off as and when you need it thereafter. However, the point is it's impossible to cut out town centre idle time entirely (not counting loom). On a good day, you can get 60-65 seconds only (though less idle time is also possible)
You can minimise town centre idle time by placing eight villagers on sheep, but the eighth villager has the habit of getting stuck when trying to gather. One technique I have experimented with is sending a villager onto berries and building a mill with the next villager. The thinking here is that you spend a bit of transit time between the berries and the town centre for one drop-off, but you can secure that little bit extra food to keep villager production going while you lure your first boar. It's easy to underestimate how much time your villagers spend not gathering food when they are firing at the boar (and that's presuming they don't finish the last sheep early).
Sometimes you won't spot your sheep or berries immediately and they're not in the first places you scout. This is annoying, and will cost you your villager lead. However, this sometimes happens when you're playing as other civilisations, and is part of the game. The result of this when playing as other civilisations is having to get loom early. The Chinese will still be a villager better off relative to this situation, so in a sense, a bad start as the Chinese is not as bad as it seems. Early loom as other civilisations is equivalent to 1 minutes and 40 seconds of town centre idle time as Chinese.
How well do the Chinese (the civilisation, not players from China) take advantage of this in competitive play? I have watched how high rated players handle playing the Chinese, and surprisingly, they are inconsistent in handling the six villager start. Sometimes they're a villager ahead in the feudal age, sometimes they're behind by one. However, specialist Chinese players have a consistent villager lead, which means a Chinese economy can compete with an Aztec or Maya economy (you really begin to notice the effect of cheaper upgrades when researching expensive economic technologies such as hand cart or gold shaft mining). In AoK, the Chinese were the dominant civilisation because they started with 50 food (which translated into an advantage of two to two-and-a-half villagers). The Chinese with six villagers and 0 food can still be very strong. One final thought to note is that the Chinese retain their three villager start on regicide, as they start with enough food to sustain villager production. The Chinese-Maya debate on regicide fortress is another story for another day.
The problem for the Chinese is that they can't sustain constant villager production at the start, so their villager advantage declines immediately. The principle for all other civilisations is that their initial food can sustain them long enough to gather the food for the next villager. By then, you have seven villagers, which is enough to sustain villager production. The Chinese, however, need to gather food as soon as possible to start villager production. It takes 75 seconds of town centre idle time for a non-Chinese civilisation to catch up with a Chinese player, so we use that as our benchmark; but also, the Chinese are able to research loom during the town centre idle time at the start, so when other civilisations research loom (normally at the end of the dark age), that's where the Chinese gain a villager over their opponents. I did some testing in single player (without lag, but lag affects players of all civilisations in multiplayer), so the next two paragraphs should serve to give an idea of how fast you can get villager production going when you start well.
Suppose you spot your starting sheep immediately. The average .rms script will set your sheep to spawn 10-12 tiles from your town centre. Sheep move at a speed of 0.7 tiles per second, so depending on whether or not you have to send a unit to retrieve the sheep, you can expect to have your first sheep under your town centre after 15-30 seconds. Your six villagers on the first sheep gather food at a rate of 0.33 per second. This means they take 30 seconds to gather ten food (I'll deal with forced drop-offs later). This means you can have your first villager queued after 50-65 seconds.
On the other hand, if you spot your berries immediately, you can send your villagers straight to them. Once again, these are 10-12 tiles from your town centre. However, your villagers spawn 6 tiles from your town centre, so depending on what angle at which they spawn, you can have your villagers gathering berries after 5-15 seconds. Villagers gather berries at a rate of 0.31 per second, so each villager requires 33 seconds to gather ten food. Villagers move at a speed of 0.8 tiles per second, so they then travel back to the town centre in 10-12 seconds. Once again, we are looking at around 50-65 seconds.
What about sustaining villager production? Unlike other civilisations, the Chinese food stock runs by a very tight measure. This means that some town centre idle time is inevitable. In particular, forced drop-offs must be used sparingly, as each drop-off forces idle time. To demonstrate: If you force a drop-off when your sheep villagers have 50 food, then you can queue a villager marginally earlier, but then your first sheep will run out and your villagers will waste a bit of time transitioning to the next sheep (despite your best efforts). As a result, you have town centre idle time because the food income is so tight. Here you're better off allowing your six villagers to deposit their load naturally and then force drop-off as and when you need it thereafter. However, the point is it's impossible to cut out town centre idle time entirely (not counting loom). On a good day, you can get 60-65 seconds only (though less idle time is also possible)
You can minimise town centre idle time by placing eight villagers on sheep, but the eighth villager has the habit of getting stuck when trying to gather. One technique I have experimented with is sending a villager onto berries and building a mill with the next villager. The thinking here is that you spend a bit of transit time between the berries and the town centre for one drop-off, but you can secure that little bit extra food to keep villager production going while you lure your first boar. It's easy to underestimate how much time your villagers spend not gathering food when they are firing at the boar (and that's presuming they don't finish the last sheep early).
Sometimes you won't spot your sheep or berries immediately and they're not in the first places you scout. This is annoying, and will cost you your villager lead. However, this sometimes happens when you're playing as other civilisations, and is part of the game. The result of this when playing as other civilisations is having to get loom early. The Chinese will still be a villager better off relative to this situation, so in a sense, a bad start as the Chinese is not as bad as it seems. Early loom as other civilisations is equivalent to 1 minutes and 40 seconds of town centre idle time as Chinese.
How well do the Chinese (the civilisation, not players from China) take advantage of this in competitive play? I have watched how high rated players handle playing the Chinese, and surprisingly, they are inconsistent in handling the six villager start. Sometimes they're a villager ahead in the feudal age, sometimes they're behind by one. However, specialist Chinese players have a consistent villager lead, which means a Chinese economy can compete with an Aztec or Maya economy (you really begin to notice the effect of cheaper upgrades when researching expensive economic technologies such as hand cart or gold shaft mining). In AoK, the Chinese were the dominant civilisation because they started with 50 food (which translated into an advantage of two to two-and-a-half villagers). The Chinese with six villagers and 0 food can still be very strong. One final thought to note is that the Chinese retain their three villager start on regicide, as they start with enough food to sustain villager production. The Chinese-Maya debate on regicide fortress is another story for another day.